Effortless Swimming

Join me in this engaging episode as I chat with Sandra Schenkel, an elite duathlete from Spain who overcame swimming frustrations during the pandemic. We’ll dive into her journey of making incredible progress through focused training and coaching. Discover how Sandra regained her swimming skills and achieved her best level ever. We’ll also explore the significance of relaxation, breathing exercises, and technique in swimming. Get ready for valuable tips on mobility work, rest intervals, and maintaining a healthy diet.

01:56 Overcoming swim frustrations and developing skills
03:32 The Impact of breathing exercises on stroke improvement

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Welcome to the Effortless Swimming podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford.

Welcome to the Effortless Swimming podcast. I’d like to welcome my guest today, Sandra Schenkel. Welcome to the podcast. Hi, thanks for having me. So Sandra, we’ve been working together over the last 12 months or so. And I was just looking back at what you wrote when you first joined our membership and it was something along the lines of you’re basically frustrated with your swimming because it was letting you down in your races. And you needed to take only a little bit of time off to really make it with the pack to be able to be competitive on the bike and run because that’s really your strength. And so you just need to be able to take a little bit of time off. And in those 12 months, what you’ve achieved is you’ve gone from struggling to really get under that 130 pace per hundred to now pretty comfortably getting getting under that and being in the low to mid 120s. And that’s just been a game changer for

your races. Is that right? Have I missed anything there so far? No, yeah, that’s what it is. So I used to get out of the water like with 10 lost girls at elite level. So I had basically no race. I was just alone on the bike and alone running. And it was no fun for me. So I wanted to improve a little bit so I could in fact play with the other girls and have a nice race. And now I achieved it. I get out of the pack with the other girls. Not in front but that actually doesn’t matter because once you once you are out of the water with a lot of girls, you can really play your game on the bike. That’s what I did this year was nice. Yeah, I loved hearing the results that you were getting in your races because you sound so you sounded so excited that it’s like I finally I’ve made this breakthrough with my my swimming and you’re enjoying it a lot more by the sounds of it. Talk to me a bit about the frustration you’re experiencing a couple of years ago because in our

communications, you said you stopped doing triathlons because you’re a bit fed up with the swim and then you just decided to get back into it and and just work on your swimming. So what was the frustration that you’re experiencing over the last couple of years with your swimming? Yeah, so I started I started triathlon five years ago. And of course, at the beginning, you improve a lot. But then I got stuck at 130 135. And I just didn’t improve. I was getting to the pool five times a week and there was no improvement, nothing. And I I got to the triathlons at the league level. And yeah, I had no race. So I was putting all this effort into the swimming and showing up at the pool and I wasn’t getting better. And I was seeing that other girls who I thought were less fit than I was, were swimming so much faster. And then at a certain point, I think after three years, I just said, you know what, I love cycling and running a lot more than I love

swimming. So let’s go and do some do it one. And then I will do some triathlons during the summer because there are no do it once during summer. But then yeah, the triathlons, I just picked some little triathlons out where I still could have a race. But then I started again, because my team asked me to do some triathlons. And then I started working with you. And actually, over the last couple of months, I made finally the improvements I was waiting for five years ago. And I know you’ve gone through the eight week course and the catch challenge. And you’ve also sent through video for the monthly members calls. Is there anything in particular that stands out for you that you changed in your stroke that actually that made the biggest difference? Was there any anything there? Yes, the breeding exercises that was like the most important part of everything. Once I started doing breeding exercises, and implementing them in each

workout I did, I feel more relaxed in the water. And I was starting not to fight with the water but to actually flow flow with it. And it went a lot better. And then I moved on on working on my catch. And I still have to work a lot on my catch because I’m not so flexible. And that made there I made a big improvement too. But that the catch is still for me working progress. I’m especially due to the lack of flexibility in my shoulders. And what what braiding exercises in particular helped you? Yes, like all these kind of exercises where you breathe every three, every five, every seven. It really teach me to relax into the water because if you’re if you have too much tension in the water, you just can’t breathe every five. So instead of focusing on my times and on swimming fast, I was more focusing on swimming relaxed. Yeah, as simple as that sounds, it can make a huge difference because one of the very first thing we

want to work on is being able to relax in the water. And I’ve coached a lot of people who think they’re relaxed and they’re okay. But they’re holding their breath too much. And they’re taking these shallower breaths. And that they’re holding their head quite high in the water, not necessarily looking forwards. But they’re holding their head up. So it’s just their face in. And they’ve got about two thirds of their head just sitting up in the water, which really drops their their body position. You weren’t you weren’t like that based on your video, but people are carrying this this tension that they sometimes don’t think that they’re carrying. So by doing those exercises to encourage you to just be able to relax and just it’s kind of switch off a little bit in the water and also exercises like the sink down drills where take a breath and just slowly exhale. And some people think some people don’t depending on their their buoyancy

profile. But just that just being comfortable having say no air while you’re in the water. It makes a huge difference if you’re carrying that unnecessary tension. So it sounds like by going through those those exercises, you had to learn how to relax in order to be able to breathe every seven strokes. Yes, and it’s indeed what you said because I thought, yeah, I’m relaxed in the water. I have no tension. But then when I started to do these exercises, I thought, yeah, I think I can relax a lot more. Because otherwise I just don’t get there to the five or the seven strokes. And yeah, this is really these exercises helped help me a lot to to yeah, at the end swim faster. I think I used to be that my focus was too much on swimming fast and having nice, yes, swimming yeah, swimming fast intervals. But when I changed my focus from swimming fast to swimming relaxed, I had the results I actually was waiting for five years ago. So

yeah, that that was a discovery effect. I really like what you said there because swimming is so many things in life are actually like that. The more you try and force it, the less it comes. But if you just let go of the results a little bit, things come to you and swimming so much like that where yeah, where if you just just relax into it, you generally can keep your heart rate down, you can keep your ethic down and you hold the water and you feel the water a whole lot better when you just just relax into it. And the world championships are on at the moment of swimming. And I was watching some of the races, the races last night. And I know even those elite level sprinters who are doing 50 and 100 freestyle, their focus is trying to relax as much as possible in those events because as soon as they get overly tense, they slip in the water. So even for those high powered, high speed, high turnover events, they’re trying to to relax. And

I think it’s even more so for those those faster events. And it doesn’t mean you just it doesn’t mean you just switch off. But yeah, because you got to keep your tempo up, but it’s just being able to have that nice balance of relaxation and tension in the body and finding that that sweet spot. As your mindset changed with you’re swimming now in training and in racing. Is that different now that you’ve seen those results? Yes, it’s very different. So yeah, during training, I’m really focused on what I said, swimming relaxed, and also my technique. And during the races, I start swimming like I have to go straight on. I have to relax. I have to focus on my breathing. I’m not thinking about the place or the result of my swimming. I’m just focused. I really have to be able to breathe every three strokes. I have to focus on looking forward and so on. I think the focus is now more on the process than it is on on the result.

And while I’m focusing on the process, I feel more comfortable in open water too. And I just don’t get beaten that often as other girls, I think, because I’m really focused on my line where I’m swimming and where I am going to breathe. So I think that that’s really important to get more comfortable also out of the water. Yeah, on our last podcast episode, I had another swimmer who been working with Josh. And he was saying a very similar thing where as soon as he just went, I’m going to control what I can control. And I’m going to focus on my stroke, my pacing, my siting and my race strategy. Then he wasn’t overwhelmed when it came to racing. So he was able to relax a lot more. Whereas in a race where he was worried about what place am I going to get? What are all the other swimmers doing? He actually found himself getting quite worked up and quite tense and almost panicked in a way. So I think by being able to just focus on what

you’re doing, then you can control what you can control. And you’re going to have much, much better results as well there. This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, Form Smart Swim Goggles. They’re more than a pair of goggles. Meet the world’s most powerful swim platform. See yourself improve with Form Smart Swim Goggles, including a free one year membership when you purchase your goggles for only $249 US dollars. They’ve currently changed up their offer where you can now get the goggles and you have one year membership included for free. And if you’d like to continue with the membership going forwards, it’s only $15 a month, where you get access to their workouts, training plans and custom workout builder. But you’ll always have access to the real-time data in the goggles. So you never lose access to that. My favorite thing about the Form Goggles is having the instant feedback of what times you’re doing, what stroke rate

you’re doing, and also the ability to see what your heart rate is. Because never before have we been able to have these immediate feedback heads up display where it’s actually telling you what your intervals are. So when I wear the goggles in training, I like that I know my split for the first 50 and the 100 and the 150. So every single lap I’m getting that feedback on what my pace is. And I find it’s such an important tool for being able to not only have different gears where you can switch between the different speeds that you want to swim, but it helps you develop those gears and it helps you intuitively know how fast you need to go before you’re going to blow up or before you’re going to go a little bit too hard. So it helps you just get really good at judging your pace for when you do go to a race. And even if you’re not wearing the goggles in a race, it’s that intuition and that ability to develop your pacing that these goggles can really

help with. To get your pair of form goggles and say 15% off, use our link form swim dot com forward slash effortless or use the coupon effortless at checkout and that will get you 15% off your pair of goggles using our special link form swim dot com forward slash effortless or the code effortless at checkout. Is there anything else in terms of technically that you’ve worked on that you felt or noticed a difference with? Technically, well, no, actually those two things like the catch and the breeding, there were these two things were crucial. And then the other little things were like putting my legs together so I don’t get a gap in between my legs. That was one of the last things you told me to work on. So that’s something I focus on. And then also my head position was a bit too high and I corrected it. So I’m looking a bit more downwards in like the 45 degree, how do you call it? Yeah, the 45 degree angle. Yeah. Yeah. So these were like

a little tin. These were the little things I was working on. And now I’m still focusing on the lack of gap. Yeah, gotcha. Because I looked back at the very first video you sent for the the member’s call. And I saw your head position was, I think maybe the first thing where the chin and the eyes are a long way forward. So your hips and legs were dropping a bit dropping. And that’s that’s an easy fix which is always always great. Just got to remember to do it. And then often people their legs are out too wide just trying to keep themselves balanced and feeling more stable but it creates more more drag. So we want to try and just bring everything into the middle to make you more streamlined. And you can overall get much better connection through the through the stroke. And you mentioned the catch. That’s obviously a more long term thing. But over time, you can certainly make some good good improvements to it. In terms of your range of

motion and mobility, how can you feel that impacting your ability to get those positions? Just because if you feel tight through them or is it harder to do some drills? Where’s that awareness of your mobility come in? Well, I feel it when I when I do the catch like it’s hurting already like here. So and really hurts in my shoulders. I of course my boyfriend is also very flexible so I can compare with what he’s able to do in his catch and what I’m able to do in my catch. And that’s so different. I have also I really have to stretch every day my shoulders to to to make the movements I want to make in my stroke. No, but I really feel it because I think now I’m really I’m swimming for five times a week over the last year. I have like a chronic shoulder pain that’s there. It’s not that hard. But yeah, it’s there. It’s there. I always feel my shoulders effect. So I have to continue working on my flexibility and and stretch every day.

But it’s under control. So no panic, no panic. Yeah, yeah, that’s good. I mean, it can make such a huge difference over time. And what I’ve encouraged a lot of the swimmers that I’ve that I’ve coached recently and in the past as well is just doing five to ten minutes of some sort of mobility work each each day or most days because in the long term that is going to help you become a much better swimmer and in the other triathlon course inside the membership there, we’ve got there’s a mobility test. So we go through these seven tests where you can basically compare your range of motion through some different areas to what they want the elites swimmers to achieve. Now, if you’re doing triathlon, you don’t have to be in those ranges necessarily because you’ll be tighter from the bike in the running. However, it’s good just to see what are the elites swimmers able to do in terms of their thoracic rotation, their overhead range,

ankle flexibility and then just kind of compare yourself to that. And in that course, there’s also some some ways to just improve improve upon it. And I think for most people, the best one to improve your range of motion for your catch is typically if you get a foam roller and just put it behind you on your back, go in streamline position and just sort of rolling back and forth through there to start with. So you’re almost in a streamline and just just working on that. And then what I’ve been doing a little bit myself as well is with an exercise bench, I’ll get a weight. I can’t remember how heavy it is. Let’s say it’s like let’s say it’s six kilos for now. So I’ll get I’ll go on an exercise bench. I’ll have the exercise bench across my back and I’ll have the weight above my head and I’ll do these overhead like raises. So basically the same movement as the stretch, but with a weight. So I’m just slowly moving moving through that.

And so I think if you can build strength through range of motion with something like that, and I wouldn’t start with six kilos, especially if you’re tight, you might start with one kilo and just building that strength through range of motion can really help open up through the movement that’s required to get that catch. Because it’s directly directly related and that have you seen the test the test the overhead test? We did a test. Oh, did you? OK. Yeah, how’d you go? Horrible.

Not many people do well with that one. No, no, no, I didn’t. It wasn’t really good. It’s like this is my my big handicap in swimming, my lack of flexibility. And it’s it’s something that I work on every day to improve. I really think if I would get like five percent more flexible. Yeah, I would swim a lot faster. But what your range was in that overhead I don’t know. I don’t know anymore. I did it. Yeah, a lot of months ago, I think often, yeah, time ago. So I don’t know anymore. I just remember that I was comparing myself with these two elite athletes. I think there were two triathletes, weren’t they, a girl and a boy and was like, no, no, this is really not good. But I don’t remember what I exactly what my results were. They were not good. Yeah. Also, so for those that are listening, the the test is if you lie on your front, have your arms out in front of your head, have your chin on the ground and have your arms straight

and you link your thumbs together. And so in that position, while keeping your chin on the ground, lift your arms up as high as you can above your head. Now, the range that we’re looking for, the optimum range is more than 20 degrees above zero. Not many people get there. Only elites, elites from Israel get there are really flexible people and not many people are in there. I’d say like 5% of people I’ve seen are in that range. And then I’d say majority of people can’t get above zero. So if you can’t get your arms off the ground and you might listen to this and go, of course I’m going to get my arms off the ground, do the test and find out because it’s people are pretty tight. So that we call that minus five and then zero is directly in line and then anything above that obviously. And it’s a great way just to check your range of motion. And if you’re, I say for triathletes, anything less than 10, we want to try and improve upon it.

So I don’t think you need to go to 20, but 10 is kind of an ideal, ideal number to strive for. And I’ve seen a direct correlation with that test and your ability to comfortably get a good catch. And you don’t need to get extreme positions with your catch, especially if you’re doing triathlon, but we want to try and make it as easy as possible and having decent range of motion through the shoulders is a big one that can help. So yeah, that’s what we want to work towards. And as you said, it’s long-term and if you just keep on top of it each day, it can really start to improve. And for those that are listening or if you’ve had friends who’ve gone, wow, I can’t believe you’ve had such good improvements with your swimming. What advice have you given to those people? What have you suggested they personally do to be able to improve their swimming? I think it’s very important to not get too frustrated. Well, if you run and you cycle,

you put in the work and you get the results, but I think in swimming, it’s a bit different. You have to be really, really, really patient and focus, yes, really focus on a process and don’t focus too much on the results because I did one of my best swims in a triathlon in a week where I thought, yeah, now I didn’t improve, but I even got worse swimming. And then at the weekend, I did my best swim ever and I got out of the water with girls who were one minute and a half before me last year. So just keep showing up, do your drills, do your work, and you will get there eventually. Yeah, that’s like the biggest step I can give. Just show up. Yeah, it’s such great advice because I had a swimmer last week who I’ve been working with in the stroke analysis coaching with for a while and he sent me a message last week and he said, he’s basically like, oh, I did, I’ve been swimming and my times have been a lot slower and I’m not feeling good.

And so I’m like, I’m quite frustrated. And then I didn’t get to see that message until like the next day or two days after. And he said, sorry, don’t need to panic. I just had my best workout ever. I was hitting these times and it’s like his best one ever and it happens so much. And even for me, two weeks ago, I was swimming, on the last week, I was swimming so poorly and then today came back and have had my best session in a couple of months. Like it just ebbs and flows like that and just expect it and just keep showing up. Keep going to the pool, keep training. It’s just, it’s one of those things where you just, you’re not going to avoid those days. And I even think of Ariane Titmus who’s the Australian 400 meter freestyle. She just broke the world record in the 400 free last night and she had an average world championship trials. She qualified but wasn’t happy with it. She’d had a pretty average year from what she’d said

but she was able to keep showing up, keep working on it and she just broke the world record last night. So it doesn’t matter what level of athlete you are, you’re going to go through those ups and downs and so if you just keep turning up, then the results will come. Yeah, indeed. You just don’t know one. So be patient, be patient. Exactly. And before the call, you’re saying your next target, what you’d love to be able to do is be able to consistently get under 120 essentially. What do you see being the things that will help you get there? I really have to improve my speed, my maximum speed is just not that fast. So I can swim at 123, 124 easily. But getting under 120 is like a super big step for me and I think that the biggest problem is that I’m not capable of not able to swim really fast 50 meters.

I can’t get under 37 seconds, I’m just not able to do it. So I think I should work on my speed. I should do more speed work and that’s something I haven’t done too much because what my goal was showing up five times a week, swimming my two to two and a half K every time, focusing on my technique, focusing on my endurance. So the next step is focusing a little bit more on my speed.

Yeah, that’s a real K one. And what I’ve seen a lot of swimmers, a lot of athletes in general, not being comfortable doing is taking enough time between intervals to get sufficient rest to be able to swim fast. So let’s say they’re doing 25s or 50s fast and they’re resting for 20 seconds or even 30 seconds and then they’re going again. So sometimes they just don’t give themselves enough, enough rest to be able to really hit that top end speed. So what I’ve really tried to encourage a few of my swimmers to do is just, if you’re doing speed work, make sure it’s all out 25 or 50 and have sufficient rest. So you might end up doing, you might do a set of say 10, 50s maximum effort on one minute, 30. And if you’re coming in at say 37 seconds or 35 seconds, most people would go, I’m wasting my time at the pool. I’m sitting at the wall for a minute each time. Like I’m just not getting a proper workout in. But if you actually give yourself that rest,

you’re going to hit those top speeds. You’re going to be working at that maximum capacity. And it’s actually going to be much more beneficial than doing 10, 50s on one minute where you might be getting 20 seconds rest, but you’re never really sort of going fast enough. So that’s what I, that’s a mistake I see made quite often is people just not comfortable resting a lot when they’re doing those high intensity, high intensity workouts. And same thing for like on a Friday morning in the squad that I coach and swim with, we do, we call it a heart rate set, but it’s kind of like VO2 max. So we’ll often do repeat hundreds at what we call best average. So as fast as we can sustain across the whole set. And those fast hundreds typically on two minutes. So I might be getting 50 seconds rest, which is a decent amount. And that’s like, it’s really hard. And it is a fair bit of rest, but it allows us to just get the heart rate back down

and go again. And for the swimmers in that squad, I’ve seen really good results with them over summer as we’ve got racing because that’s been a part of their training sessions. So I think that’s a real key thing just to get comfortable with. And doing triathlon, if you’re doing hard bike workouts or running sprints, like you kind of get used to just taking that rest. But I think swimming people just think they’re wasting their time by sitting at the wall. So it takes a bit to get your head around that. Yeah, just because it gets cold in the water Brandon. Yeah, it’s really, yeah, it does. It does, it gets cold in the water. So, but yeah, that’s really a really good suggestion about getting enough rest. I will certainly do that. And would you start with 50 meters or with 25? Sets of 25 or sets of 50? I mean, you could mix it up, you could do both. I think maybe to start with just go some fast 25s. So you could go an example set that you may do

is like 425s on, that’s like where you come in. So 425s on 40 seconds, and then you go 100 easy. And you could do that, do the sets 200, depending on your session. Like you might do that five times, six times. So again, it’s not a huge set, might be a thousand meters, 1200 meters, but just maybe starting with something like that and making sure those 25s are fast. And you might even find towards the end of that workout, the 25s are starting to feel it. You haven’t quite got the energy there to swim as well as you did at the start. But yeah, just something along those lines is what I do. Or even if it was just a 1050 set on the one minute 30,

you’ll probably find that that’s more than enough to just really get your firing. Because yeah, 1050s max effort is actually quite hard. I remember Brett Hawke, when he was coaching some college swimmers, they had this set called the, what was it, the Auburn spew set or something like that. And they’d be doing maximum effort 100s with about five minutes rest or seven minutes rest or something, a lot of rest. Now in between that is going a bottle of Gatorade. So it was basically like, you gotta keep swimming until you throw up. I wouldn’t recommend doing that. But some of the elite guys will do these maximum effort 100s with five, six, seven minutes rest. And they’ll do, I don’t know, four of those, five of those, six of those. And even though it’s not far, the amount of lactic acid that you build up with those sorts of things is a lot and it is hard. So you can still get a great work adding. Yeah, that’s really hard because I compare it

at that level with running for 400 meters. It’s like the same time. Yeah, yeah. So that’s just. Not fun. That’s no fun. No, no. No, that’s right. So I think for now I’d start with 25s and some 50s. And yeah, as best you can, just try and hold your form and hold your technique at speed and use the rate of your kick to set your arms speed. So you gotta kick. And I want you to kick reasonably hard as well. And so I’ve had a swim that I’ve been coaching for a while and it’s taken a long time. It’s taken probably a year plus of working on it, but her kick was just a bit too inactive in her sprints. And for longer distance, she had a, I think a four-beck kick and that works really well. But for a sprint, I wanted her to develop this six-beat constant kick. And it’s finally clicked for her where it’s just become automatic in her sprints. But I think it’s a really good thing to develop in case you need to use it. If you need to make a break

or at the start you need to get out there. So use that, use a strong six-beat kick to set your stroke rate for those sprints because sometimes people are just, they might still be doing their two-beck kick in their sprints, which is fine, but. Yeah, that’s me. I do a two-beat kick. I do a two-beat kick for everything because I’ve already timed the difference and I lose speed when I am using the six-beat kick. So I’m doing something wrong there. So I really have to work on that. So I sprint with a two-beat kick. Yeah, gotcha. See how you go with this six-beat and it’ll probably be more tiring initially. But it really just, it gives you that extra gear when you need it and you probably, you don’t wanna have to pull it out in a race, but it’s good just to have it and it’s good just to work your legs and work yourself that little bit harder in the sprints and training. So yeah, be good to see how you go with that. Yeah, okay, I will certainly do that.

That’d be great. Yeah, and I think like next time when you get a chance to cord yourself again, it’d be great just to see where the stroke’s at and just see what to work on next as well, because yeah, to come from, can’t get under 130 to now mid to low 120 is a big jump and it’s just major competitive. So yeah, I’d love to see you get under that 120 mark. And if you could do that in the next 12 months, that’d be a huge achievement. And there’s no reason why you can’t, there’s, you’re doing the training, you fit, you eat well, you’re doing all those things. And so it’s probably more coming from technique and maybe a slight change to some of those sessions so you can get the sprint times down. So I’m looking forward to seeing what the next 12 months holds for you. Yeah, it would be great. I’m really looking forward to it. So any advice for someone listening to this who is maybe frustrated with their swing and that they’re going through those thoughts

and those feelings that you had over the last couple of years, what advice would you have for them? Get rid of your watch, keep showing up, do the trainings, focus on your technique, on your breathing, on the things you can control because when you’re frustrated, I think you also have the impression you can’t control your speed and the times you’re swimming. So get rid of all that and go back to your basics. And focus on those things you can control, that’s it. And then it will go better, but you have to be really patient. And another thing is I see a lot of triathletes that work out like too hard on swimming. Like every session is a hard session and I don’t think that’s necessary to improve. I think that the recovery sessions and the light endurance sessions are also key to seeing improvements. To get faster, you don’t have to suffer each workout. Yeah, yeah, just to be able to go at that general aerobic pace is beneficial, isn’t it?

And do you think it’s because, do you think it’s because they’re like, all right, I’ve got two swims or three swims a week? That’s all I can do, so I’m just gonna hammer it. Is that why you think they might be doing that? Yeah, maybe, but I also see triathletes who train six times a week on their swimming and I have the impression that every session they do is hard, it’s really hard. Yeah, I understand that people who have only time for two or three sessions a week feel that it’s necessary to go very, very hard. But if you’re a triathlete, you also have the running and the cycling and you just can’t go all out every training you do. The aerobic basis is the most important part of your workout. I work with 80-20 principle, or how is it called? Where you work 80% of your workouts on your aerobic basis and then 20% of what’s left over, you put in the more specific effort. Like the intervals and speed work and those stuff.

Yeah, and I think that’s a really good way to approach it. I know when I was a teenager, I was guilty and I didn’t know I was doing this at the time, but looking back, I trained all of my sessions way too hard. So I was never, I was definitely in the aerobic zone, but not enough when it needed to be. So I was just sitting above it and just not getting that aerobic benefit from the sessions that should have had that aerobic benefit because I just thought the harder I train, the better I’m gonna get. Yeah, we all made that mistake. Well, I did exactly the same when I was young. We all did that and when you get over, you see, yeah, well, actually I’m getting better if I do less or not as hard as I used to and I’m improving, so. Hindsight’s wonderful, isn’t it? And look, I probably wouldn’t have listened either when I was that age. It’s just like, no, no, I know what I’m doing. Like I’ll just train hard and I’m gonna

bet the people next to me. But yeah, that’s one of the beauties of getting older. You get hopefully a little bit wiser and you adapt for the knowledge that you take on. So Sandra, I appreciate you being on the podcast and sharing your story of how you’ve made a really great improvement with your swimming. And I just, I love getting those Instagram messages where saying I had a great race and I had this result, I love to hear that. So thanks so much for trusting in, I guess, in the process and being willing to commit to it. And yeah, looking forward to continuing with you. Thank you for inviting me, Brandon. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.

The post How 10 Seconds Faster A 100m Changed The Triathlon Game for Sandra Schenkel appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

Joining me today is Gerard Donnelly from Trivelo Coaching, an Australian champion and podcast host. His podcast is a go-to for triathletes seeking insights from his seasoned journey in the sport. We’ll dive into life lessons from triathlon, smart training with technology, race focus, and the balance between short intense sessions and longer technique-focused ones. And, of course, get advice for those training for half or full Ironman events.

Check out TriVelo Coaching on Instagram!

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Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Hi and welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. My guest today is someone who I’ve had the pleasure of being a guest on their podcast a couple of times. But the first time you’ve been on our podcast, I’d like to welcome Gerard Donnelly from TriVallo coaching. How are you? Great, Brenton. I’m really happy to be here and privileged to be on your podcast and it is funny sitting on the other side not asking the question. So forgive me if I don’t answer the way that you expect, but I’m not, you’re really used to being interviewed, so I’m really a wrap to be on your program. We’ve known each other for you and your son, Jordan, who run TriVallo, who have both been to clinics, but I’ve been lucky enough to have a lot of your athletes that you

coach through TriVallo come to the clinics and work with them and help me improve their stroke, which we’ll talk a little bit about later in the podcast. But you have a very popular, very successful podcast where you have a lot of triathletes listening to you, looking for advice and tips and sharing your knowledge because you’ve been in the game for a very long time. You were an Australian Joathlon champion in 1988, the Australian Ironman runner-up in 1989, as well as being on the Commonwealth Games team as well. So you’ve had a lot of success as a pro in your career and now transitioning to coaching and working with a lot of different people, a lot of different abilities and things like that, so you’ve sort of very well versed in all different levels of triathlon. And one of the things I’d like to get stuck into to start with is how’s the sport changed over that time because there’s no way in 30 odd years that you’ve been

in the sport that it’s stayed the same. What are some of the evolutions that you’ve seen over the last 30 to 40 years? That’s a great question to start with. The sport has changed incredibly. And I think technology is the main reason, knowledge, people’s ability to understand a bit more about training and racing through technological advances of heart rate meters, power meters, bike computers, indoor trainers, medical testing with VO2 testing and seeing where your numbers are actually at for your ability and being able to train to those numbers. Bike technology, you would laugh at the bikes we rode back in the 80s compared to what we’re riding now. They’re just incredibly different. Shoe technology, skill and stroke analysis of swimming has really gone way ahead of, and you’re a great example of that. So I think in every facet of triathlon, it is just not recognizable. And I look at some of the great athletes of the 80s and 90s when I

competed and they would do very well these days if they had the same technological advances because they were still performing some outstanding times in the run, for example, that the running time really hasn’t come down a great deal, although it has in the last two or three years, which is amazing. But before that, the guys in the 80s are running similar times to what they were running in the 2010, 2015 period. But the bike is where the biggest change and the faster speeds have evolved from because the time trial bike is just such a game changer. And it also allows you to get off the bike and run better because you’re not as fatigued from riding a road bike with clip-on bars as we did in the 80s. So it’s come a long way. It’s unrecognizable in my opinion. And the times are reflecting that, you know, a time that I competed in when I won the Australian Ironman would rarely win my age group, let alone win the race outright.

So and I put that down to, you know, so many advances in so many different areas and the bike is probably the biggest thing. I think the bike I rode was a road bike that steel frame probably weighed twice as much as what the bike I ride now. And I think I could ride the same speed now as a 64 year old as I could as a pro when I was when I was 30 because of the bike. And that’s a big statement, I know, but to be able to, you know, I think I rode four hours, 40 or something, four hours, 50 at my best in Kona on a road bike, I could ride probably that time now on a time trial bike. It’s not because I’m a better athlete’s because I’ve got a better piece of equipment underneath me. It reminds me so much of competitive pools. I mean, with the blocks that you’ve got now there, you’ve got the kick step. You’ve they used to just die off the end of the pool a while ago. They’ve obviously got they’ve got the grip there.

And then they’ve got the the suits as well. Sometimes the walls are grippier with the touch pads. Like there’s technological advancements with a lot of those things where we have seen times come down. But in swimming there, well, they’re now being the supersuit times in nearly every event, which is amazing. The supersuits from 2009. So I think similar sort of thing where it’s like better training methods because we’ve got the data and we’re able to use it where we understand a lot more, but also the the technique side of things. I’d be curious to hear about your the change in the way that you’ve had to coach over that time. Has there been things come up, let’s say like VO2 max testing or using the Garmin watch to record your sessions? Have any of these things come up and you went like, I’m just going to sit back and see how this this plays out before I start incorporating this into my coaching or do you feel like you’ve been at the forefront of these these new technologies?

Where do you sort of sit in that in that timeline? Another really good question and look, if I put my coaching hat on, I would want to be known as a person who is really at the front of the queue for lining up to whatever is going to help our athletes. That’s that’s what I’m I’m invested in. And and I don’t mind if I don’t know anything about it, such as obviously my background is exercise physiology. So, you know, I was in a lab back in nineteen seventy seven when I left uni, left school to go to uni. So I’ve already always had that interest in in like the human guinea pig and what things could we do to make that person as a runner, improve or as a swimmer or as a bike rider or or gymnast or whatever sport they chose. And I just think that that interest in in my wanting people to improve has been the thing that’s driven me as a coach is is I will embrace any new technology as long as I see it’s got value

and and works for the athlete to get them to be faster in some capacity to to be a PB as an age group or a pointy end of the races to get on the top podium. But but that’s a key aspect of what I really embrace is if someone knows something that I could be doing in my program, I want to know about it. Yeah, I’d love to hear that. And just saying what you have put out in your podcast with yourself and Jordan, you are at the forefront there. You’re looking at recent races or recent technology training methods really diving deep into it, which I think is is really interesting. And I’d also love to know with with some of this stuff is there. Well, how do you rank them? What should people be doing? And what more secondary things that they could be using? If they’re a triathlete, let’s say they’ve been training for one, two years, then they’re not brand new, but they’ve been in the sport for a little while. What do you see as some of those key things

that can actually make a difference with someone’s results over time, whether it’s testing, technology, better bike, those sorts of things? Yeah, I definitely think there are lots of whenever someone asks me a question, I say there is never one answer to give as the reply. So there could be 15 things that could be ranked in order of what would be the most important. And and I can’t shy away from the fact that if you’ve got a really decent program, yeah, definitely ranking the priority of the importance of what people should be concentrating on is is I’m a big believer in. And I just think getting your getting your training program right first, I think is what people should be really concentrating on. People often ask me, can I do extra this? Can I do extra that? And I’m forever saying, look, just do the program to start with. And then as you get a customer and adapted to the program and your body’s coping with the training load, then we can add

some some other important aspects to the actual program. And at the end of the day, that that I think is is going to get you more bang for your buck if that’s what you’re after. And at the end, I suppose the technological side of things is really important. But if we just get the training right, then we can add the technical things to that program. And what do I mean by that? Probably the testing side of things in your program is key. We really are firm believers in if you don’t know where you are in a given month or week or or block of training, then it’s hard to train accurately in the right zones. And that that is a little bit less significant in swimming because the margins are so small. We’re talking seconds per hundred. Whereas on a bike, you could have 10 or 15 or 20 watts difference, which means you will be training too low. If you don’t adjust your power up as you’re improving or you’re training to too hard and failing all the sessions

if you have had a period of three or four weeks of sickness and you haven’t trained well on the bike and you resume trying to push the power that you were pushing literally four weeks ago, but you can’t do now because you haven’t been training and you will fail all of those sessions because you haven’t adjusted your power number in in your in your settings. And that has a catastrophic effect on people’s mental health almost because you start to feel like a failure and it’s actually got nothing to do with that. It’s you’re actually training to the wrong numbers according to the current level of fitness that you’ve got right now. And I think once people understand that there will be periods where you need to keep adjusting your your zones because you are having periods of improvement and you need to train to those better, better speeds, better power, better pace. And then you’ll have periods where you’re maybe in a

downtime where you’re just trying to maintain fitness and you’re not trying to improve. You’re just trying to keep your fitness going. So, you know, don’t oh, we have example of that would be someone’s got their A race. So they went to the Australian 70.3 titles and they had a four week period afterwards where they wanted to recover and reset for the next day race. They would go into that A race with the peak pace on the pool, power on the bike and running pace as a runner. And then four weeks later, for some reason, their expectation would be that that’s where they their fitness is still at. And in my opinion, in my experience, that’s just not true. You need to actually retest yourself after a two or three week period to find out is your power number down 15 watts or is it down two watts? And if it’s down to what’s great, we can resume training. If your running pace is down from four minute K pace to four, four twenty,

then we have to adjust the running pace. If your swimming pace is lost two seconds, we need to adjust it back a bit. So so you’re always going to be training at the level you’re at. And I think once people understand that aspect of their training and that’s something we didn’t do and had no capabilities of doing in the 80s and 90s, because the technology wasn’t there. So we’re at such a great advantage now, not only understanding how to train better, but but to actually test ourselves over periods, whereas we used to use racing as our testing to say, you know, well, I ran the half marathon in one eleven or one thirty or two hours. And next race, I did it in two minutes slower or two minutes faster. Then I get perspective. Same in the in the water, even though, you know, a swimming race in a triathlon, the distances could be two or three hundred meters out or a kilometer out. Sometimes in, you know, if you’re swimming downstream in a river

or something like that, you can’t really compare times that well. So so so really trying to do a science lab type of testing where you’re doing a pool swim over a thousand metres in a pool is really great to to re-measure time and time and time again. The swimming pool doesn’t change its length. There’s no wind. There’s it is you’re comparing apples with apples as a runner, 10 K, 5 K. They’re really great ways to measure your improvement or or loss of performance. And same on the bike, we do an FTP test over 20 minutes. We should be doing 60, but it’s hard work convincing people to do a 60 minute or one hour P test. So we do 20 minutes and take 95 percent of that. And and that gives us our training zones so that we are really training accurately at the current level where we’re where we’re at, whether it’s in the, as I said, in the phase where you’re recovering from a race or whether you’re in a building race period

or you’re in the middle of winter, where you’re trying to, you know, in a base period or whether you’re at the pointy end of the race ready phase. We have so much technology that will allow us to test ourselves so that we are training in the right zones and be improving so that we get to the race at our peak performance. And and they’re the things that I think the most important things that if people get right, they will continually put layer and layer upon layer of fitness to get themselves to continually improve. And whether that’s a really sharp curve or whether it’s a long, slow drawn out one is dependent on how consistent you are. And it’s also dependent on the amount of time you have to put into the sport. And and we have so many variations of that. We have people who can put six hours a week in and we have people who can put 20 hours a week in. So the rate of improvement is very reflective of the hours

you can spend in in preparation. And that doesn’t mean just doing throwing thousands of hours at something. It has to be doing the hours the right way. And I suppose that’s really the number one thing that I’ll be pushing to any athlete, whether they’re new elite or someone who’s been doing for two or three seasons. There’s a lot of great points there. The first one being it’s hard to steer a parked car. If you’re not doing the training, well, yeah, there’s nothing that we should really add in. It’s like, all right, let’s just see how you’re going. When you’re doing the training, OK, let’s get that sorted first. Get the foundation there. Then we can look to add or or remove things. So you’ve got to be be going, first of all. The other point that you made there is you’ve got to know where you’re at and you’ve got to know where you want to get to. So that that regular testing is key. And, you know, for training zones, for example,

with with swimming, I did an episode recently on on CSS pace, which is a similar thing to like the thousand meter swim test. It’s essentially going to give you a very similar number there. And that can allow you to set those those training zones that that we want to use to build that that aerobic base and that that fitness there. And if you know roughly where you should be, then you can make sure you stick to that in those in those key sessions. And I know with with swimming, in particular, we have some average sessions. We have some great sessions. So that does fluctuate and it might change if it’s a really hot pool as well. I was training in a indoor 25 the other day when I’d normally be an outdoor 50, which is same temperature, clean air. And I go to this indoor 25 and my pace was right. I know it’s probably four seconds slower per 100 in a short course pool compared to a long course because it was just so hot and I just couldn’t push above about 75 percent.

So you sometimes got the variables there with with pool temp and air quality and that sort of thing. You’ve got how you’re feeling that day. But we just need to get those those numbers to be able to to use them. One question I’ve got is how have you seen things change from having that perceived effort? You know, when we didn’t have watches, we couldn’t track that stuff.

There’s a lot more perceived effort, you know, how you’re feeling and being in tune with that. Do you think that that’s gone away with now people are just so involved with the technology or do you try and encourage them to to find the happy balance between the two? What are your thoughts around that? And how do you like to coach your athletes when it comes to perceived effort and keeping in mind you’ve got the garment as well? I love that question because it’s it’s one of the things that we’re really adamant in trying to get across in our podcast is we are very driven by data. There is, you know, we are known as people who are just, you know, entrenched in in understanding the data. But but the thing that people forget is we are also trying to get the athlete to understand what the data feels like so that if for some reason your swimming watch isn’t working and you’re using form goggles or whatever the, you know, you’ve got some some data coming into your eye on your bike.

You’ve got your power meter and your heart rate and your cadence and your average speed as a running. You’ve got your running pace, your heart rate. So all of these pieces of data coming back at you as you’re competing, helping you make really good decisions about what you should be doing at any given time during that actual race and in training, of course. But but what about how you feel and and that is so it’s almost 50 percent of of the answer. So you need to be really thinking about what does one 30 pace feel like without me looking at my watch? What does four minute pace as a runner look feel like without looking at my watch? What does 200 watts feel like without looking at the power meter? And, you know, I’ve done this to myself plenty of times. I’ve an example would be if I did five by five minute efforts at 200 watts. I would cover my garment over with a towel and try and ride one of the five minutes, not looking at it and just trying to to get as close

to 200 watts as I can. And then the next effort, opening it up and having a look. And and really, that’s a way to to to get your body to to think about what that feeling is, because you have to force it, train it to understand what is the feeling of this? Of course, there will be days where the temperature in the room or outside changes. And the example I give, I’ve done so many zone two bike sessions and you’ve just given one with the with the pool temperature indoor temperature outdoor and on a bike. The same thing happens riding your bike in Melbourne in zone two. My heart rate for 200 watts might be 125 beats. Doing the same session in the Sunshine Coast or cans. My heart rate could be 525 beats. It could be to 200 watts down in Melbourne. It would be probably 160 watts in cans. So I would lose 40 watts for the same heart rate just because the body is responding differently to the conditions of the day.

So they’re really important things that will affect

the actual race. If you’re in a race in a hot climate, you haven’t been like a classic example is going from Melbourne winter to Kona World Championships. So we trained all basically major in July, August, September. And then we arrived at Kona in October and having not spent one day and a temperature of pretty much above 15 degrees and we get to Kona and it’s and it’s 30 plus degrees with humidity at 90 percent. And there’s the lava fields are reflecting the sun back in your face. So you’re now experiencing a heart rate response that’s different to what you’ve been training in. And so 200 watts in Melbourne, 200 watts in Kona will give a completely different outcome physiologically to your body. And therefore, if you don’t recognise that and adapt to it, if you try to ride to the same power, you will probably end up having a horrible day. So you’ve got to adjust or climatize before you get there. So there are examples of understanding how important racing and training

to feel is a part of your training learned process. And and you should be trying everything you can to make sure that you are continually checking or how does this feel? And some days you’re going to feel like if you’re in a three week block and you’re in the third week and you’ve got a massive amount of fatigue building up, you’re going to you’re going to feel like 200 watts. It was like 400 on week three. So you should adjust down and don’t just follow blindly that you should be doing 200 watts adjusted down to 180 if you have to so that you get the same feeling of the outcome of the session. And and people are really scared to do that because the session says do this and and we’re one of the things we do is we give people a range all the time in swim, bike and run a range of time in the pool. If you’re if you’re trying to swim some threshold stuff and your threshold pace is 135, we would give you between

133 and 138 pace or 140 pace just so that you’ve got a top and a bottom. And you can you can go by how you feel on that day. And if you woken up tired and didn’t sleep all night and the kids were keeping you awake or or you didn’t eat well or whatever the reason you can adjust according to how you feel. And so that’s where that feel comes in in training. And and on race day, if you arrive on race day, you want to be at the peak of your performance. That’s you’ve tapered for this main race and you don’t feel it for some reason. You’ve got something wrong. You can’t blindly follow the plan that you’re supposed to do because you will end up going worse on the day. But if you’re in tune with 200, I keep using the one example of 200 watts. 200 watts is what I’m supposed to be racing at. I can’t do that today. So don’t spend the next 90 K trying to get to that number. Spend five minutes saying, well, that’s too high for me today.

I need to reassess and I need to actually drop my power by five or 10 watts and see how I go with that. And keep reassessing how I feel throughout that experience. And you you will still get some good training and racing results because you’re in tune with how your body’s coping with the task that you’re setting it. And do you have any athletes racing that don’t use any data when they’re racing, they prefer to just go by feel. What’s what’s that look like for for most of your athletes? Yeah, look, a lot of the athletes who come to us have actually been racing like that. And and it’s my job to to to bring them around to to use the technology to their advantage. And if I can’t convince them to do that, then I’m not actually coaching them very well. I would try to point out that that’s great what you’re doing. It’s actually fantastic. You can actually be that close to what your current level of racing should be at.

But let’s just check it. There’s no harm in checking to see, you know, what power or what pace or what pace per hundred you’re able to swim at. Let’s just check to see because I would I would hazard a guess. And I’ve actually done this many times where I’ve said to people and Jordan’s done this in many of his sessions where we’ve experimented on just making him try to do two minute. He’ll repeats where he’s not allowed to look at his watch and and he’s he’s tried to run at a pace like 310 pace up the hill and then do that for the whole session. And, you know, he’s felt like he’s done every session, every effort the same. And when he’s gone and downloaded the session, it’s gone 310 pace, 311, 315, 317, 320 because he felt like he was pushing as hard as he could. But had he been able to check after the end of that one one effort, he would know that, well, that’s my pace is dropping. I need to actually reassess and try and put more into it,

even though it feels like I’m giving the same effort as the first effort. But of course, you’re fresh on your first effort and you’re not as fresh as you are on the sixth effort as you are on the first effort. So that’s where the perceived exertion formula has some flaws because you feel like you’re putting the same effort in. And the power meter on the bike is great for showing that you bust in your guts for five minutes times five efforts. And you could look back at your data if you just use perceived effort and the power numbers would be just dropping the whole way. But every time you keep glancing down, you see that it’s dropping and you put more effort in and you feel like, boy, this is getting harder. But that’s what the power meter is telling me that I’m dropping. So they’re the things that the technology can really help us with. And once athletes hear that and see it in their own experience, when we show them a session where they’ve they’ve actually faded

and they think they they didn’t fade because of the perceived exertion experience was I did my best over the five efforts that you’re asking me to. And I’ll show them while you fade it. And then that’s kind of a moment of, well, I thought I knew what I was doing. But the technology is actually proving that I’m a little bit off. So we do have that experience. Yes, definitely.

When I did a half wine, man, what I spoke to friends, they said in the run you’ll you’ll probably feel like you’re going really easy, but you’ll be going way too too fast. So just be be mindful of that. And I remember coming off the bike, you know, legs are feeling good. I’m like, oh, this is really easy. And I look at and the first K comes up on the watch and I can’t I can’t remember exactly what time it was either three thirty or four minute pace. And I was trying to run either either four or four thirty pace. I can’t remember exactly. But thirty seconds faster than what it should have been. And I was just like, oh, my God, I’m glad I looked at my watch here because I just pushed way too hard. And I couldn’t have kept that up if I if I’d just gone by gone by feel. So it’s it’s great to be able to marry the two together. It’s just such an advantage that makes makes a lot of sense. And the other thing I really like with.

Using data to especially in swimming is using the form goggles to be able to make a change to your stroke and see if that’s made a difference to your times. An example of that was I did a set on Friday last week. It was twenty fifties on the minute and it was best average. It was kind of as fast as I could hold across all all twenty because I didn’t have long and I thought I just want to get a good session in. But I’ve only got twenty five minutes. So it was warm up and then twenty fifties on the minute. And for the first twelve of those, I was holding about thirty three roughly. And then I made one change to my stroke for the next eight where I was working on going a little bit deeper with my cats because I have a tendency to just to not go deep enough through the first part of my catch. And it just means that I’m just sort of pulling pulling a bit short, not getting as much power as I could and not holding the water as well as I could.

So by going that little bit deeper with my catch, it came down a second and a half as like thirty one mids for the for the rest of them. And that was a massive change over the course of just a fifty for me. And so I was like, OK, this is this is really good. I’ll keep working on it and to have that that immediate feedback when the the number pops up in your eyes. It’s like, wow, OK, this is so tangible and it’s a direct cause of the change that I’ve made. So that’s one of the real benefits I think you’ve got with with the form goggles. When you’re working by yourself, you haven’t got a coach on deck giving you times and giving you splits. So you can use that to your advantage as well. And I mean, you can use it to if you’re just looking at it on your your watch. It’s not quite as accurate sometimes because you’re having to stop the watch and all that sort of stuff. But you can use that for your for feedback.

Have you sort of you have you experienced that sort of thing with yourself or with your athletes where you can make a change and see the result there?

Absolutely, mate. And the swimming example is a great one. And I’m forever trying to do that, having grown up as a squad swimmer, as a five year old, six year old, you know, in the local country club down in Warrigal, just up the road from where you grew up. And and, you know, certainly I had some sort of technique that I had in those days and I don’t even know how it evolved. But but now as a swimmer, you know, 60 years later, I have felt like I don’t have a stroke that’s resembling what I used to do. And so I’m forever looking at my form goggles, even in the middle of a swim where we’re in an actual so I’m doing four 100s. I’m I’m absolutely trying to adjust my stroke to see whether I can do something better in that hundred. So I’m I’m absolutely looking at that the whole time. And on the bike, I’m forever telling people they’re just so determined to push the power. And when that happens, they forget about pedaling in 360 degree circles.

They just push down harder. So we’ve got three muscle groups. We’ve got the glutes, the hamstrings and the quads, the major muscle groups that drive the pedals. And if you’re just pushing down for that half a stroke, instead of actually engaging your glutes and your hamstrings for the up pull, instantly the power goes from what it was five or six watts within two pedal strokes. The power goes up and they’re great examples of minor adjustments. And I’m forever telling people if I’m actually watching them on a hill climb or I’m saying, you know, don’t forget to engage, engage your glutes, you know, pull up, pull up on the stroke. And and you’re assisting your push down by pulling up. So you’re recruiting, recruiting all the three major muscle groups to help you improve your, your power number, which is going to make you ride faster. And that’s a classic example. As a runner, you would, you know, people, I know Tom, Tom runs with a very upright action.

And, and we know from biomechanics that, that if you actually lean forward slightly, you’re going to land your foot underneath the view from if you look down and run a string line from your forehead to the ground, that’s where your foot should strike the ground. And the further back you lean, your foot’s going to be, you know, half a foot in front of your eye. And so therefore you’re breaking every time you land with your foot and putting more force through your body. And a little tip of just lean forward a little bit more is going to actually accelerate the pace and make the running action easier and less load on your body. So there, there are things that you should be thinking about as you are competing as a swimmer and as a bike rider and as a runner, when it counts the most in a race. And, and I’m always asking people, what are they thinking about when they’re racing? And, and when I, you know, when I ask them that they’re sometimes they’re just drifting along

and, and not until they come to a corner, they have to actually concentrate again. And I’m in my, my chats to my athletes before a race, I will talk to them about what should you be doing in the swim? What key things should you be concentrating on when you get in the water? And I ask that question to them. And some people are great. They fire back at me with, yep, I’ve got to actually try and get some feet. I should be looking for the, the marker boys. And I should be really concentrating on my technique. And I’m going brilliant. That’s fantastic. That’s exactly what should be happening. And if you’re not thinking about that over and over and repeating that, then you will be have periods of drift where it’s a, not a pun intended there, but you will drift off to sleep almost if you’re not concentrating on what you should be doing and your times will drop off. If you’re, you know, on the bike, the classic example is what power am I pushing?

What cadence am I on? What’s my heart rate? What’s my average speed? And you should be asking those questions every four or five minutes. How’s my power? Am I on a hilly section of the course? Is it a headwind? Is it a tailwind? And you’re making these micro adjustments as you ride that ride. If it’s a 90 K or a 40 K or 180 K, you should be doing that the whole time. And the same with the run. You should actually be asking yourself, what pace am I running? How does it feel? What’s my heart rate doing? Am I coping with this pace? Do I need to slow down? Can I, can I start to speed up? And, and by the end of that event, after you’ve concentrated on the swim, the bike and the run for those things that I just mentioned, you should be extremely tired mentally as you are going to be tired very physically, of course. But, but your mental fatigue should be right up there because you’ve concentrated on not, not letting things just drift along.

And, and those micro adjustments you can make so many advanced, so much advantage into your overall result. I just think that’s, that’s an area where people aren’t really utilizing enough. And, and if I was going to give some advice on how to improve your racing strategies, and if you, if people looked at the example of the Tour de France recently, and if you, if you haven’t seen the time trial where Vinegar beat Pogachar by the biggest margin for two guys who are both very close in ability. And he was doing a lot of the little things well, such as cornering well. And, and people say, well, so what? You know, you’re cornering better than someone else. How much advantage is that going to give you? But if you get around 10 or 20 corners, one second faster, that’s 10 or 20 seconds ahead of the, your opposition. And sometimes in time trialing, that’s the difference between winning and losing. And that’s how, that’s how important these micro adjustments should be,

be happening, not only in training, but, but when you’re racing more importantly. This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, Form Smart Swim Goggles. They’re more than a pair of goggles. Meet the world’s most powerful swim platform. See yourself improve with Form Smart Swim Goggles, including a free one year membership when you purchase your goggles for only 249 US dollars. They’ve currently changed up their offer where you can now get the goggles and you have one year membership included for free. And if you’d like to continue with the membership going forwards, it’s only 15 US dollars a month where you get access to the workouts, training plans and custom workout builder. But you’ll always have access to the real time data in the goggles. So you never lose access to that. My favorite thing about the Form Goggles is having the instant feedback of what times you’re doing, what stroke rate you’re doing,

and also the ability to see what your heart rate is. Because never before have we been able to have these immediate feedback heads up display where it’s actually telling you what your intervals are. So when I wear the goggles in training, I like that I know my split for the first 50 and the 100 and the 150. So every single lap I’m getting that feedback on what my pace is. And I find it’s such an important tool for being able to not only have different gears where you can switch between the different speeds that you want to swim, but it helps you develop those gears and it helps you intuitively know how fast you need to go before you’re going to blow up or before you’re going to go a little bit too hard. So it helps you just get really good at judging your pace for when you do go to a race. And even if you’re not wearing the goggles in a race, it’s that intuition and that ability to develop your pacing that these goggles can really help with.

To get your pair of form goggles and say 15% off, use our link formswim.com forward slash effortless or use the coupon effortless at checkout. And that will get you 15% off your pair of goggles using our special link formswim.com forward slash effortless or the code effortless at checkout. But the swimming world champs run at the moment. And one of the things that Thorpey, Ian Thorpey is commentating, he keeps talking about in the 1500 or the 800, but specifically the 1500 is they often break it up into three, five hundreds. And it’s that middle 500 where the swimmers that drift off mentally, their time slowed down just a little bit and then they can’t get back. So it’s about staying switched on that entire time. And in the course of a 15 minute race, it’s a five minute window there where that’s where people tend to tend to lose it. So it happens there. And it reminds me of this one race I had. So there’s a swim called the Lorne Peter pub,

which is the biggest open water swim here in Victoria or near Melbourne. And I did it this one year where I drifted off mentally for about 10 seconds. I just wasn’t paying attention. I don’t know what I was thinking about, but mentally I just lost it for 10 seconds. And in that 10 seconds, I ended up drifting left and the currents is sort of pushing you left in towards the rocks and the boys there. And that’s all it took was 10 seconds of not concentrating where I lost the pack. I was too far in and you can’t really sort of swim wider and get back with the pack because the current sort of pushing you into the left. And that was it. That was the end of my race where it’s just like, all right, I’ve just got to sort of stay on the right side of the boys because on the left of that is the rocks and I just can’t make the pack anymore. And my race was done because it’s a short race. It’s over in about 12 minutes,

but it can happen so quickly in that situation. And then with an Iron Man, you’ve got all these little opportunities to be able to just switch back on and be aware of it. And it’s a lot of concentration. Yeah, it might be 10 hours, 15 hours of concentrating, but all those little micro decisions to be aware of what’s happening could make you several minutes and perhaps, and how fast it can really make a difference over the course of a race that’s that long. I couldn’t agree more. And there are examples of people who really are in tune with what’s happening around them. And I’ve seen examples of passing people who are in a zone of almost a zombie-like zone where if they’re swimming, they just got their head down. They’re just rolling their arms over. If they’re riding, they’re not even, you could say something to them and they would almost like you’ve woken them up out of a sleep. And that’s a state you don’t want to get into.

And it happens a lot more on the run in the Iron Man as an example because people are just, they are past concentrating and wanting all they’re thinking about is the next step. And it’s a long walk when you’re like that. And had you concentrated a bit more and not maybe pushed yourself so hard too earlier in the race, you may not be in this position. So not only is it going to help you improve your time, it’s actually going to help you from stopping from executing your plan poorly and going too hard too soon. I want to shift to swimming technique. And as we mentioned at the start of the podcast, I’ve had a lot of your athletes come to our clinics, which has been fantastic. And enjoyed working with them and working with a few athletes on a fairly regular basis who have seen great improvements with their swimming. I’d love to get your perspective on that. And what you see would be the key things that someone could do to take 5, 10,

20 seconds off their swimming pace for a triathlon. What are some of those key habits that they’ve gotten into? What are some of the things that you’ve noticed with those athletes who have improved? Because I sort of get to see it on the technical side where I’ll video them or analyze them and that sort of thing. But from your perspective where you’re setting the programs, I think at the start of your sessions, you might say do 400 meters of effortless swimming drills or branching drills. I’d just sort of, I’d love to get your perspective on that because, yeah, what do you see as being the consistencies among those that are getting those improvements? I definitely think for swimming, the two areas that the triathletes need the most help in, and that’s just not triathletes, I suppose in general swimmers, if you can get your fitness to a point, that’s your number one goal, bring your fitness up so that you can actually hold the technique that the effortless swimming

course is asking you to hold. And if you don’t have fitness, everybody knows when they jump in the pool, their first 25 or 50 meters without even trying is their fastest. Because you’re holding really good form because you’ve got no fatigue. And so we really want to get our athletes fit first. And at the same time, we want them to be concentrating on, this is why we send our athletes to you. So you do a great job of identifying probably the three biggest weaknesses that they might have at the moment. And you’re asking them to concentrate on improving one of those each time they swim. And it might be a four week period where you’re saying, look, these are the three things that will enable you to swim faster. Can you work on those three things over this next four week period? And so we’re really drumming that into our athletes is, and that’s why we actually put it in our program, Brent and Ford effortless swimming drills.

You know, do your research, check the actual drill that you’ve made a video of the night before you swim, understand exactly how that drill is done, and execute that drill in that section of your swimming program so that you can actually concentrate on that. And then when you’re doing your swim session after that, you can think about one of those things and try to concentrate on that. But the rest of the session is really thinking about you really working hard on your fitness. So the two things go together in my opinion, and I’d love to hear your expert advice on this as well. But I definitely think from my example, where I’ve got no swimming fitness whatsoever, because I’m only swimming once a week. And at times, there might be four or five weeks where I’m not swimming at all. So I’m probably swimming, you know, in six months, I’m not even getting 30 or 40 swims in, which is a really small amount of swimming.

And here I am entering half Ironman Aquabike races, where it’s a 2K swim nearly. And I can clearly see my fitness fade as I’m swimming in these races. And luckily, I’ve got good technique from your effortless swimming analysis and from my history of being a swimmer for, you know, 50 years, even though I’ve had a 40 year break from swimming. So I can feel myself getting tired in these races. And when I analyze it post-event, I’m starting at 132 pace and I’m finishing at 145 pace. And that’s totally down to fitness. And I know the answer to that is train more. Don’t do one swim every fourth week, or but time doesn’t allow me to do that for whatever the reason is. But the fitness component is the key to holding the form. And if you aren’t fit enough, you can’t hold the technique you want to. And so we’re drumming into the people, you know, because triathlon is such an enduring sport with three sports and swimming, you know, not downgrading the swim part of the actual race,

but it is the least time involved in the event. And it is got the, for the work you put into it, you get the least reward back. And what do I mean by that? If I had a swimmer who swam once or twice a week and they were able to swim 30 minutes for 1900 meters, which is a pretty adequate result for the everyday swimmer, if they swam three or four times, they would improve incredibly. And that might look like two minutes over a year of training, double the training sessions, that would be a possibility. And if we looked at a cyclist who spent another session instead of swimming, he could possibly improve 10 minutes by adding one more bike session. And then as a runner, if he added another run session, he could possibly improve five minutes. So I look at the breakdown of times for the effort put in, and then we push the bikers to be the one where they should be doing more time because you’ll get more value back for your efforts.

So, you know, we’re not downgrading this swim, we’re just saying that you need to get fit first, then concentrate on your stroke and how do you get fitter? Well, you swim more, but it’s got to be a point where you can’t swim too much because it’s going to affect the other part of your race, which is the run and the bike. So there’s a fine line between what we’re advising to our athletes, and I’m wanting them to do a minimum of two. And that’s really under your guidance from the podcast we’ve done with you to say, well, two’s the minimum. If you can do three, that would be brilliant. If you can do four, great. And then we would come in and say, well, is four going to affect dramatically your ability to improve 10 minutes on the bike? And if it does, then we have to drop that fourth swim to make it three swims. And in those three swims, if they can only do two, we really want to concentrate on getting your fitness up

in all those swims that we’re doing and having a small period for your stroke because that’s what’s going to make your swim faster. Improve your technique, you’ll swim faster. Improve your fitness, you’ll swim faster to a point. And when you get to a maximum fitness level and then unless your technique changes, you’re going to swim the same. And we’ve got examples of that. We’ve got examples of people swimming 20K in the pool where they’ve got to a level where they’re not improving and they could probably get that same speed if they swam 10K. So we’re really adamant that that person needs to improve that technique so that they can actually take the next step. So there’s a good example of someone who’s doing a lot of volume is as fit as you could possibly get in the water but just needs to work on their technique more now. So build the fitness up to a point and then really work on the technique so when you feel your fitness is where you can hold the form.

And I’m the example of not that person. That’s not what’s happening in mine. And I know that but the one thing that I would love to do is spend more time doing that so I could improve my fitness so I could hold the form better. And it’s such a great feeling when you’re swimming on top of the water and everything feels good and it’s effortless to use your title. But yeah, it is important that we push the fitness for two minimum swims. And if they can do a third, we’re really trying to do that third one with a bit more technique. So we do two blocks in that session where there’s Brenton’s drills. So we might do four warm-up drills, a main set, then some more drills, then a cool down. Whereas the other two sessions, we would have one session for drills and the rest of it’s building that fitness. So that’s how we would, and I would be interested in your opinion on whether that’s the way you would do it, knowing what triathlon’s requirements are.

And I’m talking only triathlon. I’m not talking open water swimming races here. So yeah, what’s your thoughts on that? Yeah, I very much agree. And I think it comes back to you can’t steer a parked car. Like you have to have some sort of fitness to be able to change a stroke really because they’re also going to be lasting 25 or 50 meters at a time. So you want to get that fitness first of all. And sometimes I find people are afraid to train the wrong habits. But it’s like you’re so early in your swimming journey that just get that fitness up. Get that blood flow to your upper body, to your arms, build those swimming muscles because they’re very different than any other muscles that you’re probably using. So you’ve just got to get moving first of all. And then we’ll start to tweak and adjust your stroke as you go. And I also find people are sometimes afraid to go too fast in swimming. So when they’re heavily focused on their technique,

they’re just thinking, I just want to have long and beautiful strokes and I’m just going to swim at 40% effort. Just very slow and very perfect. And then over time I’ll build up from there. But yeah, I think you’re missing a big part of it. You don’t need to go at 90% for your whole session and nor should you. But it’s okay to swim that little bit quicker. Maybe do some sprints as well. Maybe some, you know, 25s and 50s. Fire things up a little bit. And you’ll feel what’s slowing you down when you’re going at a fast 25 pace. You’ll feel what’s happening. Those faults in your stroke will be exacerbated at the speed. And so, yeah, we don’t want to just do everything slow and perfect. We need to change the pace. You need to not be afraid to, yeah, to go at slightly faster efforts. And you generally develop, I find you sort of develop your technique a little bit faster. Your fitness has got to increase a lot quicker as well when you do that.

So, yeah, we don’t want to hold back. Hold back too much. The story comes to mind of the guy we just had on the podcast recently. His name’s Josh and he was quite new to swimming. So he originally had a lot of time in his hands and he had a pool close to him. So he was doing in the early days once he sort of got his fitness up there. He was doing four or five sessions a week but they were only 20 or 30 minutes. It’s because he had a pool at his apartment complex. So it was really easy. And he just worked on his stroke, built up his fitness that way. And then as he got better and more proficient in the water, he got better feel for the water, he’s now dialed back his swimming to be able to focus on his bike and his run. And so now I think he might be doing two sessions a week, maybe three, but he’s able to swim at a really good pace now that he’s got his swimming to a certain point. But yeah, if he just kept swimming five times a week

and not focusing on the bike and the run, he’s missing out on the biggest portion of where that extra speed could come from in his races. So you’ve got to be smart about how often you’re swimming. And I know we spoke about this on your podcast recently where when I was training for Ironman, I was swimming four to five times a week because I enjoyed it and I loved it. And I was doing maybe three bikes a week and it just was not enough. I could have found, I’d say an extra half an hour in my bike had I just done two swims and five bike sessions or just really ramped up the bike. And I sort of knew it at the time, but I enjoyed swimming. So that’s what it was. That’s a great story. And it reminds me of the question that I actually would love your answer on. And when you can only do two swims and you’re training for either 70.3 or Ironman as a 1,900 meter or 3.8K event, would you be doing those, if you were only doing two swims,

would your goal to be staying in the water longer, even though you may not be swimming? So you’re doing your main set. And I asked this question because we use this philosophy in our bike and running. The main set, we don’t adjust at all on the bike. So if someone wants to do extra work on the bike and they’ve got say the sessions an hour 10 and they’ve got an hour 50, I would say to them, yeah, go for it. You can do whatever you like in the warm up and the cool down, but don’t extend the main set because the main set is the hard section of the session. And that will give you your zone two aerobic fitness component and that will give you a head start on everybody else. Would you be doing the same thing in the water in those two sessions a week if I’ve set down a 30 to 40 minute swim and you’ve got time to do 50 to 60 minutes or an hour 10, would be that something that’s going to help them, even though they’re only swimming twice a week?

Do you think that would be a better than swimming four times 30 minutes a week as compared to two times an hour? What’s your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think it depends on the person. So the frequency certainly helps, but you’ve got the time that it takes to get to the pool to get changed. Like it adds a lot of extra time. So if you’re doing two one hour sessions a week and time wise, that’s going to be a better thing for you to do. I’d probably go with that. And it depends on the session. So I like to have certainly want like a pretty reasonable workout that’s like a threshold session, a key main set there that I know, let’s say it’s two kilometers or two and a half K, whatever it might be for that, that main set. And you’ve probably only got a certain amount of quality in you for that session as well. And I think to like personally, with some of the threshold sessions that we do, it’s like if this was longer,

I wouldn’t be hitting my times. I wouldn’t be hitting my paces. Like I’ve kind of just got that limit of what I can do. Where I think you can do the longer sessions is if it’s more like that pure aerobic, that sort of zone two stuff where you can stretch it out a little bit, you’re not going as hard and you’re just building up that swim fitness and strength. I think that you can push a bit longer. But if you’ve got say a 30 or 40 minute main set and you’ve got additional time at the starter at the end, I’d probably just a bit like you could do perhaps a bit more technique, focus, swimming where it might be, say you add 20, 50s onto the back of it where it might just be 15 seconds rest and you’re just looking to swim strong. So you’re looking to hold good technique, swim strong and maybe just hit a certain stroke count for each 50 that you’re doing. So still technically focus and you’ve got to switch on but it’s not physically, it’s not hard.

It’s just mentally you’ve got to switch on and hold good form and just do that by hitting the same amount of stroke count or you could do some breath control as well or maybe some more skills. You may be doing a bit of kicking or a bit of pull. So yeah, I think that’s how I’d probably look to add additional stuff on that’s still beneficial for you rather than spreading it out across four, 30 minutes, swims a week. Awesome. And so just to wrap things up because we’ve been running for an hour here. We can chat all day and I know with the knowledge that you’ve got in triathlon and doing the amount of podcasts that you guys have done, you’ve had a lot of different guests, talked about a lot of different topics. So we could draw from that well for a very long time. But just to wrap things up, what advice would you have for someone who’s training for half or full distance Ironman? They want to improve their times overall.

What are some of the key things that you’ve seen with all the athletes that you’ve coached? What are some of those key habits or things that you’ve noticed from a coaching perspective on what can help those athletes going forwards? Yeah, good way to finish. Preparation I think is a really undervalued aspect of any athlete’s toolbox, I think. And you want to fill your toolbox up with as many tools as you can. And preparation is one of those things. And whether that’s knowing the course, so you’re going to your local half Ironman and you haven’t seen the swim course, you don’t know that it’s two laps, you don’t know that it’s one lap, you don’t know that it goes left or right. Preparation about understanding the course, the tides, preparation in practicing open water swimming, preparation and swimming with other people around you. All those things, understanding what pace you’re planning to do, that’s part of preparation, your race strategy,

preparation for the morning of the night before your equipment, getting everything box tick so that you don’t land at the race without your goggles. So, so many things that you could be doing that’s not part of training, but it is an essential part of training, that you prepare properly for a training session and erase the same way. And the people who are flippant with their training, they are going to be found out on race day because you just can’t switch on and off. As an athlete, you need to be the same in training and the same as a race. And it doesn’t mean you have to be serious. That’s not what I’m really advocating. I want you to have fun on race day and I want you to have fun on training and make it enjoyable, make it something you’re looking forward to. And part of the preparation is knowing what is the session that I’m going to do? Is it a high intensity session? Is it a zone two session? Is it an hour and a half?

Is it 50 minutes? I have examples of people getting to the pool, not having any clue about what the session is until it comes up on their watch. And they don’t even know what’s next. And on the bike, the same thing. They’re just waiting for their bike computer to tell them what the next set is. And I find that is a really poor way to train. And you will do that on race day. You won’t think about what your race strategy is and be prepared. And we really drum that into everybody we coach is being prepared both physically and mentally for the task at hand. Get practiced in that. Get practiced in that in training. And that will run over into your… You always hear the elite sports of the world just take the footballers. What are the things you think are good about this footballer? Oh, his attention to detail and his preparation is second to none. He’s the first at the training track. He knows what he’s doing. He’s practicing his skills.

And we have an example in our squad of an Olympian. He won’t mind me naming his name. But Julian Painter is… He epitomizes professionalism and that preparedness as an Olympian, he still does as an age group. And he is great at that. And he has shown a lot of our other athletes when they go to races what preparedness is. And it’s great that they see him rocking up, going over to the bike course before the race, doing extra warm-up, getting there really and setting up his trainer so that he can warm up before… I’m using the example as a time trial. Understanding what the time trial course requirements are and having done it many times and looked at the course and written the course and understanding where the hard parts are. And he knows all that. And all of our athletes want to emulate what he does. And of course, our standards going up because they’re all copying the best. And so that preparation, I think, is a really undervalued aspect of anybody’s athletic pursuits.

And if you can really improve that, you will be amazed how much you will start to improve without training any harder, just by being better prepared and understanding what the goal and emphasis of the session that you’re going to do or the race you’re going to about to attack. And I think obviously consistency in your training is a key to anybody’s improvement. You can have the best program in the world and if you do two or three sessions a week really well and miss the others, the person who just trains day in, day out will probably get a better outcome after 12 weeks than the person who’s haphazard in their approach. So consistency in training and consistency in actually understanding that you have a race plan and you want to actually race to that plan consistently all the time. Understanding the field we did talk about, how do I feel on any given day? It will determine how I perform. So getting in tune with your body,

I think that would be a third thing that I would definitely be pushing people to think more about that is undersold and undervalued. I think the recommended perceived exertion, RPE, is something we only ever had in the olden days and I think that’s something that that should still be a part of your program, erasing and training. And of course the key and the one that we talked about already is, you know, you need to do the work. It’s great to say at the coffee table with all your mates that I’m going to do the next Ironman that’s coming up and everybody’s on board but understand what that statement entails. It entails a lot of work, a lot of preparation, a lot of consistency, a lot of determination, a lot of sacrifice. So don’t make these decisions flippantly. If you want to do well, you need to be able to understand that it takes effort and organization to get to these Ironman races. You and I talked a bit about our fare,

about, you know, the cost involved to go and do one of these big races is the entry fee, the airfare, the accommodation, the training, the equipment purchases. You know, you don’t want to do all those things and then spoil the day, you know. It’s like getting ready for a party and turning up drunk. You know, you’re just going to not enjoy the day because you’ve missed it. You want to actually get to race day and enjoy the fact that you’ve prepared well, you’ve got the right equipment, your mind is totally in tune with the race plan and you actually have a great day and a great outcome and can’t wait for the next one. And they’re the things that are, that are going to keep you in the sport and, you know, at the end of the day, we do this because we love doing it but at the, you know, I’m sure and everybody in the back of everybody’s mind, is we want to be as healthy and as fit for as long as we can in our life journey.

There’s going to be a point, I’m looking after my mum at the moment and she’s 90 and she’s frustrated with her body at the moment because it’s not functioning but she’s mentally totally in tune with the world and what’s happening. And, you know, you want to live that 40 to 70 to 80 years of age where you’re still functioning really well and I think, you know, using the sport that we do to keep ourselves healthy, both in mind and body, will make us have a better journey in our life. So I think that aspect of, if people can think about that and when they’re waking up and saying, oh, I’ve got to train again, it’s going to be a hard day. You know, it’s all on this journey to get you to be as healthy and as fit as you can and we know that people are more alert because they’re fitter. We know that they function better and have clearer thinking minds when they’ve actually got their body and mind to a really good level of fitness.

Sure, you’re tired and you’ve got fatigue, but you’ve got such clarity because your body is actually thriving on the level of fitness that you’ve got it at. So I think they’re probably the four things that I would be, in summary, really advocating. You know, we are all about trying to get each person to be the best version of themselves and whether that’s a beginner getting to the end, I was just talking to one of our guys who’s put himself down for NusaTry 10 minutes before the podcast and this is a big thing for him. He’s done sprint races, but to do an Olympic race is really stretching him and I love that he’s challenging himself and he’s now got an absolute determination to get himself to be able to run 10K. He hasn’t run over 30, 40 minutes for 20 years. So for him, 10K is probably going to take him an hour 20. So we’ve got a really big task ahead of ourselves to get him to that finish line where he can smile and say, I did that.

And he, you know, it’s going to take some work for him but that’s what this is all about is setting challenges and achieving them and he’s just all in for this and I love that when people ring up with a new challenge and it’s one that’s really going to test them. So there are the summaries that I would try to get everybody to really think about when they’re on this journey whether it’s as an open water swimmer or a triathlete or a marathon runner or a bike rider you’ve just really got to think about those things that are going to help you be the best version that you can be and if you’re spending all this time and energy and money why wouldn’t you do all the things well and not just do one of those five things well? What a great way to end the podcast there and the sport emulates life and if you can change yourself in your sporting life or career and whatever that challenge is to you whether it’s to go from a sprint distance to an Olympic distance

and run a 10k that’s probably the same as someone going from a half iron man to a full iron man it’s just whatever that challenge is for you just keep pushing it, keep pushing it and that will have flow and effects to the other parts of your life with work, with family, mentally how you’re feeling the confidence that you’ve got and when you’re at that point with your fitness when you’re not training you’re going I don’t feel good here like I need to get back out there and get back in the pool I need to get back on the bike when you’re really uncomfortable with the fact that you’re not training or you’re losing fitness that’s a great place to be rather than someone who’s been on the catch for the last five years and they’re going oh I can’t believe I have to go for a walk or I have to go for a run no we want to get to that point where we miss the training and we can’t live without it and I mean so many triathletes, swimmers there at that point

where they just don’t want to take a day away from it they don’t want to take a week off which is great to get to that point and I just think sometimes we don’t understand that on the other side of that there’s people who think it’s an effort to actually have to go out and train they don’t seek after it like we do so that’s what I love being around swimmers and triathletes is it’s that sort of mentality they’re the people I want to be around because they want to push themselves they want to grow they want to get better and that is so much better than those people who are just sitting on the sidelines not doing anything or pulling other people down so it’s just a great culture that is around sport and that’s why I think swimming is a big part of my life is because you’re surrounded by great people who love to push themselves Yeah look the one thing I probably didn’t mention was the balance and you reminded me when you were just speaking there about

if you’re feeling bad about missing a session and you’ve been training your backside off for a good year and all of a sudden you miss a session or two you know that’s not the end of the world and sometimes we are too extreme and I always say anything that is extreme that’s unsustainable and we know the examples of that if you wanted to lose 10 kilo when you managed to do that but the only way you got there was because you didn’t eat for two weeks well that’s an unsustainable way to lose weight you know it needs to be a balanced way where it would take maybe 16 weeks or 25 weeks to lose that weight so that you can keep doing that for the rest of your life and so as an athlete you know there are small percentage of us at the elite level the rest of us are all trying to be the best version of ourselves and wanting to improve even at my age at 64 I can’t wait to improve my swim times and my bike times even at this age it drives me to train

so you want to have that balance so that you’ve got it in check in terms of perspective of everything else and the example I give you know injury is a classic and you asked me off air how’s my training going well basically I’ve had eight weeks of no training from a back injury and I missed the sport that badly I could not wait to get back on to do some sort of exercise it was it was just foreign to me to have this much time away from exercise and it was almost get to a point where you’re a little bit depressed so you get good perspective when something’s taken away from you but you still need to have balance that in the scheme of things and if I look back at this this phase of my life in this period of May, June, July next May, June, July this will be insignificant period and in the scheme of five years of training or 10 years of training those six weeks are very insignificant and you have to have that balance to understand that

and don’t get too down on yourself when things aren’t going your way just keep coming back to the person who’s more even and not high and then way low is going to succeed just like training hard and training soft so I think one of the key things I missed was the balance and you know whether it’s balance with your family balance with work or balance with training they are all things that if you don’t get right you will come a cropper and it will be to the detriment of your health and well-being fantastic. Well thanks so much for being on the podcast go check out the Trivallo podcast go check out the Trivallo website as well if you’re looking for triathlon coaching and Jad, thank you so much for being on and thanks for having me on your podcast as well and I look forward to working with you and your athletes in the future because as I mentioned on your podcast like it’s a great group of athletes that come in really like working with them

because they’ve got the right mindset and the patience to be able to do what they need to do to see those improvements thank you very much and this has been a great podcast we’ve gone on here because we love it and hopefully that comes through in the podcast so I appreciate your time cheers mate I’m very appreciative of you having me on so thanks very much thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming podcast if you’d like us to help you become a faster more efficient swimmer go to www.effortlessswimming.com

The post Wisdom Beyond the Race: Life Lessons Through A Lifetime Of Triathlon with Trivelo’s Gerard Donnelly appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

Today, we’re thrilled to have triathlete Josh Salley sharing exciting updates on his technique and swimming breakthroughs. You can learn from his journey and find out the secret to his success. Get ready for an inspiring conversation!

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Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford.

Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. I’ve got a guest on today who I had on last year in November. It’s Josh Sally. Welcome back to the podcast. Hi, Brenton. Thanks for having me again. Absolute pleasure. So I was looking at the date when I had you on last and like, oh, yeah, I’m curious as to when that was and I can’t believe it was nearly seven or eight months ago. That time is absolutely flown. And on the previous podcast that we recorded in November, we had you on to talk about your story of starting triathlon, essentially almost starting from scratch with your swimming and going from hardly able to finish 25, 50 meters to being able to swim around a 135 pace for your half Ironman swim, which is a huge achievement in the space of about 18 months from going from scratch to that. And I want to get you back on the podcast just to talk about what you’ve been working on a bit of an update because you’ve had some, I think breakthroughs

with your technique and your swimming, which we’ll talk about. And I think there’ll be a lot of other athletes who are listening to this podcast who will be able to relate because I know so many swimmers who get to a point where they’re not comfortable in the water or they’re not comfortable in a race. And they maybe struggle with that side of things. And you’ve had a bit of a breakthrough there, which I’d love to talk about. So just to kind of kick things off, do you want to talk a bit about a bit of an update on what’s happened over the last seven, eight months since you’ve been on? Yeah, sure. So yeah, going back to last season, yeah, it did have a couple of good swims. So kicking off this season, I just wanted to get more consistent really, feel more confident in the water, and just get the fitness and just progress it that way. So the races I’ve had so far, the swims have been pretty consistent across the board. So I

just put that down to the consistency I’ve put in, in the open water, in just getting the wetsuit on, just spending time in the water. And just it’ll go from feeling daunting in the beginning, the swim to you’re turning up on race morning, you’re looking at the course. And yeah, it’s surprising how comfortable it can feel quite quickly, just with the consistency. Talk to me about the race you just had on Sunday. So you had the Swansea Half Ironman. You’re talking off the off the podcast that you first time you’re able to follow feet, and how relaxed and how calm you were out there, which hadn’t really been the case in any of the previous races where I think the race before was another Half Ironman where you said you felt quite tight in the chest and you’re just worried about the time and what was coming up. And so a radical difference between those between the last race and the one that you’ve just had. So I’d love for you to talk about what

that experience was like and what a difference it was for you and how it came to to be because I think that’s what a lot of people are probably wondering, it’s like, how do I get comfortable? How do I follow feet? How does that happen for you? Yeah, sure. So leading up to the race, I was doing a lot of open water swimming. It was it was most of my most of my swimming volume, especially in the last two weeks. I was in there maybe three times a week. There were other people in there with me. So the more you do that, the more comfortable you get with having people around you, you can practice, you know, just swimming behind someone and just being more spatially aware really. So yeah, going back to the ratio referred to, it was a pretty hectic start, which, you know, it is pretty common. But yeah, as I was going around, I just had kind of the wrong, the wrong headspace at the time I was thinking, time, what I had next, who was behind me, who

was in front of me, and that can just throw you off your swim, throw you off your rhythm. So for this swim, I just did Swansea 70.3. And yeah, it was a rolling start. So a bit less hectic. But as I went in straightaway, I felt more relaxed, more spatially aware. I felt like I kind of knew what was going on. I remained calm. It wasn’t really the plan to find feet. It just kind of happened. So I just kind of took off from the swim start and just saw someone in front. So I was going, I was going to slightly faster pace than them. But I just figured I’ll just swim directly behind them really, whether it was like perfect swim etiquette, I don’t know because as I was swimming, I was kind of tickling his feet as he was going. So he probably wasn’t my biggest fan. But yeah, gave it a go and felt the benefit straightaway. So gaps appeared, and I would kind of move off. I’d sight and then I’d see someone else kind of bridge up to them, swim alongside them or

swim behind them. And it was just a completely different headspace, just felt calm, relaxed. Heart rate felt relatively low, just kept a solid consistent tempo. And yeah, there was there was no kind of no kind of panic, or anything like that. Even felt a jellyfish in there, which which was interesting. But even that to some extent, you know, just as coming from a background of being a non swimmer and like generally having a fear of the open water, to be honest, like that a few years ago, I’d be straight out the side, I wouldn’t care about the triathlon, I’d be hanging on to a kayak or something. But yeah, felt it. And I was just like, Oh, that’s a jellyfish carried on swimming and just kept a solid tempo, solid rhythm. And yeah, it got me a decent time in the end.

If you ever want to have your heart rate go from 100 to 180, put your hands through a jellyfish. I threw a jellyfish. Yeah, when I was surfing, I was just I was out there and I put my hand through one. And it’s not the only time it’s happened. And it scared the crap out of me. And it’s like, you pretty realize, okay, it’s a jellyfish, it’s cool, you know, that’s fine. But man, my heart rate just goes straight up whenever they have one of the jellyfish like out there compared to the Swansea jellyfish about there a bit different. Oh, no, there’s these ones are fine. They’re not not stingers or anything. It’s not like I’m up in with blue bottles or anything. We’re at the moment down here in Victoria. But if it was a blue bottle or something else, it would be a different story. In terms of following feet, I think everyone sort of gets the concept, sit behind someone, you can save almost 30% of your energy if you’re

drafting correctly behind someone. And in terms of the etiquette, we don’t want to touch their feet. But sometimes that that happens. So I’ll often try and just stay a little bit wide with the hands if or just hang it slightly, slightly back. But for the first time following feet, do what you want. You know, that’s a win in itself being able to get on someone’s on someone’s feet. And you did a lot of open water swimming in the lead up to this latest race. What do you feel like the impact of that was, let’s say, rather than going to the open water three times a week, you’d bring to the pool instead. Do you think there would have been a difference there with your awareness in the open water with how you felt? Talk to me about that. So the main difference for me is the comfort factor, having your head in the water and just feeling comfortable. So there were there were a few participants around me who, as I was getting

in, they were getting out and they were like, I can’t do it. You know, I’m panicking. I’m putting my head in. I just don’t like it. And that was me, you know, like it’s it’s not nice in the beginning, but like, trust me, like I have had like a genuine fear of open water. The more you do it, you just you get comfortable in the environment you’re in. So yeah, that was that was a big factor. And then also being comfortable in your wetsuit, being confident in your equipment, the swim itself. I me personally, I was swimming nonstop. So I do like 45 minutes to an hour of nonstop swimming at just like different, different paces, different tempos, practicing different turnovers with the arms. And I felt like that helped me a lot. Like the more I was doing that session by session, the less fatigue I was getting, I was able to swim 45 minutes at a decent pace without feeling fatigue. Whereas like last season, probably

talking about half an hour at a pretty steady pace. I just I’m just not I felt like I was getting different, different benefits than pool swimming. Because at the end of the day, it is different. If there’s been a chop, you know, being comfortable with breathing a bit higher, for example, it’s all stuff you kind of have to learn. So when it comes to race day, that stuff isn’t new. You can kind of adapt. Like in the race, it did get I did get in a bit of a group, and it got really choppy. You’re kind of taken on saltwater and stuff like that. You I was able to adapt straight away to how I was breathing where I was breathing. And it just kept me calm. And another thing with a nonstop breathing that the nonstop swimming is it just gave me more time to think. So it where I swim is a simple up and back. So you just loop on yourself. So I’d go easier. And then I’d go harder on the way down, easier, harder on the way down. So

the easy laps, I’m swimming with as good a technique as possible. And then on the harder laps, I’m trying to maintain the good technique, but at a faster tempo, which is difficult. But the more I was doing it, the more I felt like, God, like, this works, that works, the body connects better like this better like that. And I think that is just that just progressed my swimming and my open water swimming. It just pushed it on even more leading up to this race. Yeah, I like what you said there at the end about figuring out kind of what works because I think you have this we all have this innate sense of how how we’re moving through the water. And generally, we kind of know how we’re how we’re going and our body has a way of figuring out the usually the most efficient movement to go through there. So especially if you’re doing those those long consistent nonstop swims and just going easy on the way down, you’re going

fast on the way back, you sort of figure out what you need to do to be able to swim fast and do that efficiently, where you can sustain it. And that kind of thing, I think helps a lot, especially in the open water. So I really like that you’re able to get there so often. And so many people have that fear of open water and they’re like, Oh, where do I start? But I think it’s like anything that you are afraid of, it’s like just start small. If you’re afraid of the open water, go to waist depth, just hang out there or swim 20 meters along the along the side, just where you can still stand up and just progressively build into it. Because there’s no point trying to overcome your fear by going and doing a 2k swim on your own in a choppy ocean straight away, just progressively build up like you have. And you can get to that point where you’re calm, you’re swimming well. It is possible. It’s just a matter of being patient

with it and being willing to put in there in the time. And one of the things that you mentioned before we started this podcast was your just sort of wrote down a few notes about your progression and how you saw that evolve. And I’d love for you to to go through that because I think I see this with a lot of the athletes that I coach. It’s a very similar progression. And I think knowing of knowing about what that progression is, it sets people up on what to expect going forward. So if you’d be happy to share that, I think that’d be great for the listener. Yeah, sure. So yeah, I did a bit of just reflecting really on my own swim journey. And for me, it was it started with the basics. So quickly I learned that it was a technique heavy sport. Everyone said, you know, technique is the most important thing focus on your technique, efficiency. So I thought, right, I need to make my technique better. So purely focused on the basics. To be

honest, I wasn’t I was I was sort of like coaching myself at the time, just kind of learning how to swim. So I wasn’t really wasn’t necessarily doing swim workouts. I was just going up, down, up, down, trying to get my technique filming myself. And doing a bit of self analysis. And alongside your videos, and just taking the cues that you were teaching and just practicing really, just just trying to nail it. I then obviously went on to do the catch challenge that you offer, which I highly recommend just isolating the catch on its own really helped my swim really, really helped my swim at the time. So yeah, for me, basics, then consistency. So at one point I was in there every day, you probably know, so I was probably sending you a video maybe every day. But I was literally in there like six, seven times a week. It may not be for like a really long time, but just I’d, I’d go back, watch a video, not be happy with something or pick up

something else. And then I’d be back in to try and to try and get it really when I felt like my stroke was at a decent place. Obviously with your help as well. I focused more on my fitness. So consistency and fitness, I started up in the sets, dropped the swim into maybe three days a week, but just doing solid workouts. Then I started focusing a bit more on pace, which was important at this stage, because in the beginning I was very hung up on pace, which it can be good and it can be quite bad. Because if you’re always chasing that pace, you’re not really focusing on your technique or what I find you might be doing something technically well. But if you’re focusing on the pace too much, you’re going to be swimming with poor technique and just chasing the pace, which isn’t really helpful. For me, it was kind of like I was in like the 150s, then it goes to the 140s, then it goes to the 130s and you’re thinking, oh, this is going well, and then

you might start knocking on like the 120s and you’re thinking, you know, you’re thinking, wow, but don’t get too hung up on the pace because like for me now, I obviously know in the beginning I was in the 25 meter pool. Obviously your pace drops with the longer pool kind of generally. So I was training in 15 meter. Felt like I was absolutely flying when in a 25 meter. And then I’m just I’ve dropped like five seconds per 100. I’m thinking, oh, this this is terrible. Like it was going on. Then you get a bit faster in the 25, then you go to the 50 and then the 50 smacks you in the face and you’re thinking, I’m literally back to square one. So yeah, don’t focus too much on the pace. Just use it as more of use it as a tool of measurement and a motivator, but it’s not to be all an end all. There’s people with amazing technique that I see who are getting out swarmed by people with poorer technique that just they’re just fit or more efficient.

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we been able to have these immediate feedback heads up display where it’s actually telling you what your intervals are. So when I wear the goggles in training, I like that I know my split for the first 50 and the 100 and the 150. So every single lap I’m getting that feedback on what my pace is. And I find it’s such an important tool for being able to not only have different gears where you can switch between the different speeds that you want to swim, but it helps you develop those gears. And it helps you intuitively know how fast you need to go to before you’re going to blow up or before you’re going to go a little bit too hard. So it helps you just get really good at judging your pace for when you do go to a race. And even if you’re not wearing the goggles in a race, it’s that intuition and that ability to develop your pacing that these goggles can really help with. To get your pair of form goggles and say 15% off, use our

link formswim.com forward slash effortless or use the coupon effortless at checkout. And that will get you 15% off your pair of goggles using our special link formswim.com forward slash effortless or the code effortless at checkout. So for me personally now, I feel like I’m at the place where I’m happy with my technique. My swims have been consistent across the board this season. And to my last race where I feel like I’m starting to develop more of that race awareness and the comfort in the water and not letting it be a factor in the race that I’m dreading. So yeah, for me, for me, that was my that was my progression. But I say all the time, I can’t emphasize enough. It starts with the basics and people who are it’s hard with Strava where you’re watching your friends and, you know, you can see their average pace and I was exactly I was exactly the same. And it can get you down and you can’t let that hold you back. You need to be

realistic, focus on the basics and keep keep working on the basics. Like, you know, that there’s plenty of my stroke that I can I can work on. And I even go back to some of your videos where you will talk about the catch, for example, or the kick, like even now, and then I watch it and I’ll be like, that makes more sense to me now. Whereas in the beginning, I’d watch it in the beginning and it’d be like, I got to do that. I go to swim, I couldn’t do it and I forget about it. But now I’m like revisiting the videos and I’m thinking, yeah, that really resonates for me and I’ll practice it and I’ll be able to do a lot better than the beginning. I think obviously the basics, you’ve got to have those technical basics and foundations in place first. If you can be patient and just practice that for several weeks with some consistency, that’s going to set you up to be able to improve your times just like, like you’ve done. I think people often want to

just get the, get the fitness up first, which yes, you certainly need some sort of fitness there, but they just want to do the training side of it first and go, yeah, like technical. I might just think about something and I’ll keep it in mind, but I most people don’t really know what they’re doing unless they see themselves on video. And I think that’s like, when I look at it as from a coach’s perspective at your progression, I think, well, there was that consistency how like how often you were swimming. That’s a huge factor. You video yourself very regularly. You got someone to, to give you feedback. So you had that outsider looking in as well and you were patient and it’s like you look, you talk about those couple of things. It’s like, well, someone does that. There’s got a pretty good shot of having some good improvement and progression there. So, you know, it’s no it’s no secret as to as to why you’ve come as far as you’ve come. It’s just

the willingness and commitment to be able to do it. And I think it is easy to, you know, to look at Strava with people and but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Like I had a swim a few weeks ago and I think I was late. So I just I did like 400 warm up and I had fins on. So I was going pretty quick with it. And then we’re just doing fast, like repeat 50s and 100s. So my average pace for the set was like a 113. And I’m like, I’ve never done that before. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. So I was wearing fins. It was just short repeats and going fast. And yeah, and if I look for someone else doing that, I’m like, oh, Jesus, I’m not like I’m not doing enough here. Yeah, I need to do better. But yeah, like it’s easy to get sucked into into that and try and run someone else’s race. Yeah, I was just thinking an important thing as well is there is a lot of information out there on swimming. Obviously, I’ve like solely relied on or put my

trust in you and being coached by you. So I’ve kind of got one voice. But there’s so much information on YouTube. And it’s easy to go around in circles, which I did get stuck doing that at one point, you can go for a swim like you can watch a video and someone may say something and then someone will literally say something else. And you look at this guy’s credentials and they’re they’re pretty good credentials. So you’re like, I, how can I not, how can I not trust this guy? But I suppose another place where I am in my own personal development is figuring out what works for you. So even recently, where we were doing a bit of analysis, and I was filming, and I said to you, like I felt like I was crossing over on my on my entry. And I said to you, I think I should go like extra wide. It feels pretty good. And I was doing that for a while. My times didn’t really change too much. But in my head, it felt more comfortable. And then the

next week, I saw another video funny enough, and it was just like too much too many videos out there. And someone was swimming completely different where they did have their entry was kind of in the midline of their body. And I thought, well, that’s how I naturally swim. So I thought, well, maybe I should just keep giving that ago. And I did. And it just it just clicked. It just felt it just felt better. It just felt way better. But my point is I was going around in circles overthinking. And I think the overthinking can especially as a beginner, it can hold you back a lot. So I think the benefit of doing the the open water swims, where I had a bit more time to think on the slower laps, was I was just solely focusing on how I felt in the water, like, am I getting good purchase on the war? Am I pulling myself through? How does it feel? And yeah, I think that that really really helped me. And now that I’ve got that, I’m going to

cling on to that. As long as I don’t change my mind again and send you a video that asks me your advice.

Well, looking at the latest videos, you you’ve got such strong foundations now. We look at like your catch is very consistent, very consistently good. The path that your hands are following there, for the most part, they’re following your body line. So just like the outside line of your body. Whereas in the past, you were going quite wide on a lot of strokes and just missing out on a lot of connection with your strokes. And so that’s just become a habit from what I can see in the videos. And and just the rhythms good, your head positions consistently in a better spot because you have that tendency to look forwards. So a lot of these things are becoming a habit now. And I think with the with the training that you’re doing and the experience that you’re getting, you’ve got another maybe is it one race this season left to do? Yeah, so I’ve got my first full distance. So yeah, so giving it a big one on this podcast about feeling

comfortable in the swim.

It might come back to haunt me. So we’ll see.

So that like that’ll be and for that for that swim, I’d say just same strategy as what you had at Swansea is yeah, go out it just times it by two. Yeah, just times it by two easy.

And then thinking like, you know, next next season, when you have a chance to do another half iron man, when you go out there and you your sight, well, maybe a fine feat, but you are pushing that the pace that little bit higher, like I think you can have a quite a breakthrough with your time there when you when everything comes together and you’re pushing the pace a bit because it sounds like the race that you just had was everything was pretty much pretty much they just were able to keep the heart rate quite low. And when you’ve got the confidence, I guess, just to know that you can go that little bit harder, like that’s that’s just easily a sub a sub 30 from what I can see from what you’ve been been doing. What are your thoughts around that? Does that sound like where you feel like you’d be? Definitely. Yeah. So yeah, my swims have been consistent across the board really. So I did one of the 70.3 swim, but it was a lake swim.

And what was my time there? I was I think it’s about like 30 minute, maybe like bang on 30 something. So yeah, the the consistency is definitely there. But I think the progression for me now is being even more confident at that distance in the swim and maybe just being more assertive and just having confidence in my because I’m still fairly new to it. So in my head in the last race, I was thinking if I do at the pace, is it going to is it going to bite me on on the on the way back? You know, so I was just kind of in like a comfortable kind of pace. But yeah, I think I’m definitely going to kind of take more risks in the swim and yeah, just see how it goes. But in the open water, just maybe increase the laps where I’m doing more threshold and tempo work and just get in the shoulders and the arms and the body used to it. So I think that would be the next the next step really for next season.

And one of the things that you mentioned prior to the call as well was when you seeded yourself up at the start of the race. So, you know, going would say about maybe 50th in the in the water out of everyone there and you think oh, do I belong here? Kind of should should be. And I was on another podcast earlier this week on the Tri-Vallet podcast. And I’ll tell the story here because I think it’s relevant. So in in surfing, if there’s a couple of people out, let’s say there’s five or six people out and there’s sort of one peak, people are generally pretty considerate. So you’ll take turns and you’ll just kind of make your way along to the peak. And as a wave comes, you’ll take off and then the next person will go and I was surfing last week and that was a situation. There was just waves coming breaking in one spot. And there was about six of us out and there was this one guy who was a bit more of a beginner. He could surf, but he was a

bit more of a beginner and he lacked the confidence to sit with everyone and just make his way along. So he was sitting wide of the peak and catching no waves because he didn’t have the confidence to to move up. But if he just had the confidence to say, look, you know what, I belong there. He would have got waves. No one would have minded, even if he fell off taking off the wave, but he just lacked the confidence to get himself up there. I think that the reason I tell that story is because it’s the same thing in triathlon, just seeding yourself up there and thinking, look, I actually belong here. I can mix it with the with these guys. Look, maybe they obviously there’s people who are faster than me. But if I just put myself in the mix, I’m going to be able to get such a better result because I’m just I’m up there and I’m in there rather than maybe hanging off to the side in the swim and staying five meters clear of everyone, just being

comfortable being in amongst everyone. So yeah, I thought that was I thought that was interesting because it happens in a lot of different areas. Yeah, 100 percent, 100 percent. I was actually stood in the queue for the swim with two friends and both like really good age group triathletes, both solid swimmers and I stood there and the one turned around to me and then she was like, oh, go on, Josh, get ahead of me because you’re going to be way faster than me. And I was just like, I looked at I was like, I’m not sure about that. But I thought, OK, I’ll give it a go. So it’s just kind of like a shot in the dark. But I think once when you’re in those towards the front, it’s a lot less hectic. So I remember in the way much swim, I put myself. I didn’t put myself. I think they do like sub 25 and then back. So I wasn’t in like the sub 25. I was like further back. But when you get in, it’s a lot harder to overtake loads of slow switch like

slower swimmers than it is just to kind of stay at your own pace. So I generally find like the faster swimmers find their way around you anyway, if that makes sense. Because, yes, it’s hard work because I think people do see themselves quite confidently. And when you get to that first turn or second turn and they all of a sudden stop and that their pace completely drops off, it does disturb your stroke and your swim. So yeah, I actually had an experience in the 70.3. Yeah, the 70.3. The first one I did this season and we were doing the swim warmer in the lake. The race organizer called us over. I swam over to the edge. I thought he’s going to give us like a little safety briefing or something before we go. Soon as I get back to the edge, he’s like, right, three, two, one, and then I’m literally at the front of this race on this swim. Everyone takes off. And I was like, oh my god, just have to like turn around and just absolutely full gas

the other way. And that was carnage. But it’s it’s all good experience at the end of the day is it’s all good racing experience. And the more you do it, the more situations you find yourself in. Like in that race, I was in a bit of a like a wrestle with someone. Someone was like really like pulling me back and stuff like that. And like if if the, you know, the triathlon is your game and the swimming and the triathlon is just experience and getting used to all of that. And it can only be a good thing really. Yeah. And that’s something you’ve you’ve collected a lot of that experience over the last 18 plus plus months. And you mentioned that some friends and people have asked you for advice, you know, what how have you gotten so quick with your swimming? How have you had good success with it? What what are some things that you’ve told them? What advice would you give to someone who’s been doing triathlon for 12 months, 24 months? And they’re just not really

getting anywhere with their swim. So a major one I kind of see is they will think that their technique is enough. I don’t want to say good, but well, yeah, good. They’ll say I don’t understand why I’m not doing these times or, you know, I feel like my technique is really good. And I’m like, you know, do you know that it’s good? Like what sort of analysis are you doing? You know, how’s your catch looking? You know, how’s it all looking? And they’re like, you know, it’s good. It feels good. And I’m just like, you need whether it’s a coach on deck or video analysis or, you know, you need analysis. In my opinion, you know, there’s pools you can go to where you can film. There’s places you can go for like one to one coaching. You need to do those foundational efforts. And I think like the people I’m speaking to, they’re doing swim workouts, whatever they may be. And they’re thinking, well, why aren’t I getting faster? But if you’re doing the workouts

and you’re not really, you know, you can go out and run and run and run and run and run and you’re going to progressively get better at running. But swimming is not necessarily like that because you can go and swim and swim and swim. But you’re going to get stuck if you’re not really focusing on your technique, your efficiency. So for me, straight away, I was obsessed with the skill of swimming. I’ve always been like a little bit obsessed with like skill-based sports. I love seeing like people who are like masters of their crafts, so to speak. Like when you see like a really good swimmer, it’s just I just think it’s like really good on the eye. I just love watching it. It looks amazing. And when I see that, I’m like, how can I get like that? How can I be like that? That was my first thought. Not how can I get faster? How can I get fair? I was like, I need to swim like this person. Like it just looks absolutely amazing. And I think people need to go in

there with that kind of mindset where, yes, you can spend a full season doing these, you know, tough swim workouts. But if you’re getting out absolutely, absolutely gassed, you have no idea how you swam, what it looked like. All you know is your pace started off OK, it gradually got slower and you’re absolutely knackered. Then I just don’t think that’s very productive. Actually, sort of the thing I find interesting as well is you see like top, top swimmers say that they focus on their technique like the podcast you did with Josh Lewis, for example. And he said he still watches your videos and is obsessed with technique and focuses on technique. And I saw one with Lucy Charles Barkley, like the best female swimmer in triathlon, said that she does sets of 50 meters focused on technique. I’m thinking, well, why do these people need to focus on technique? You know, they’re like some of the best swimmers in the sport. But yeah, what I was doing

is allowing myself time to think. So I’d go to the pool to do the shorter laps. Even if you’ve got to stop on the side and just think, how did that feel? And just just go back that way really. So yeah, that’s the main thing I see with beginners. And they’re too hung up on pace and it’s a slow burner. Like people progress at different rates, like that’s for sure. Like some things just click better with some people. But you need to become it depends how quickly you want to progress. But me personally, you need to be obsessed with it. And the more obsessed you are, the quicker your your progress really. Yeah, yeah, I love it. That’s that’s great advice. You know, maybe think of this analogy. It’s like when someone thinks how they swim and then they actually see themselves swim, it’s like I’ve never had to do this before. But think of maybe my wife or some some women out there. It’s like putting makeup on. If you had to do that without a mirror and go out

in public, you probably wouldn’t do it.

You need that you need to actually see yourself doing it. So yeah, it’s like if you if you think you know how you swim, it’s it’s like putting makeup on without a mirror. So I had them. Yeah, that was a really good analogy. But I had one like right at the beginning, really, when I was coming up to my first race and I watched your video and it was the the smoothest hundred meter freestyle that we do. You’ve got on YouTube of the Olympic, the actual Olympic swimmer. Yeah, yeah. And I just thought, wow, that is like one of the most majestic things I’ve ever seen the way he’s like moving through the water. And I thought, well, that needs to be me. Like, I need to do this. So I go in the water, set my camera and I’m thinking, right, well, like, what’s he doing? And he’s got like that amazing. Maybe I’ll send you the video like he’s got that amazing. He’s got like a two beat kick, isn’t he? It’s like a really like just yeah, yeah. It’s just a really smooth

and it’s just gliding in and he just gliding. It looks completely effortless. And I thought, right, that’s what I need to do. Two beat kick. I just need to like glide through the water. And oh, my God, I did it. I watched the video back. I think my feet are like dragging along the floor. It was just really bad. But in my head, I’m thinking I’ve absolutely nailed this like I’m swimming like this dude. But yeah, that’s why I was saying I quickly realized like that isn’t going to work for me. That doesn’t work for me. That guy is the elite of the elite. What he can do, I can’t do. I need to figure out how I can be the best that I can be whatever that is. And when you do it and do it consistently, your body has a good way of learning what worked, I find. So in the open water swimming now, I’m finding and that’s how I think my swims will become pretty consistent across the board is because I’ve done it consistently now for just over

a year. And it’s just picked it up. Like, for example, when I think I went like two or three weeks without any analysis and I was doing purely open water swimming. Then I went back in the pool. It was videoing myself in the pool and I watched it back and I was just like, well, that’s really good. I can’t believe I swam like that. Whereas before it was kind of reversed, whereas I thought I was swimming good, but I wasn’t swimming good. Whereas now it’s more consistent in my head. I’m thinking I haven’t swum in a while. This isn’t going to look this isn’t going to look pretty where I’ll come back and watch it. And there’s just a lot more a lot more consistency with it. Yeah. Yeah. And we’ve seen we’ve seen that with the last couple of videos. Just the straight looks consistently good and there’s not many changes. Like things aren’t falling apart with it. You’re not going reverting to old old ways, which is which is great to see.

So, Josh, I really appreciate you jumping back on the on the podcast and appreciate you like I love working with you and and to see someone who’s had such huge progress in over the last year and a half plus and and someone who’s committed to it and you said you love to see like the mastery of something and get obsessed with with things that say and all this all this work that you’ve done in that time and not going to go to waste either. This is this is a life skill that you’re going to have forever and you’ve got yourself up to this point where like you now you’ve now got it. You can now swim comfortably. You can now swim strong with good technique. It’s like you just people have to you have to get yourself up to that up to that point and you’re putting the the work and the hours to do that, which is which is great to see. So I’m really looking forward to the full distance Iron Man and then what you do after that. So I appreciate you being on the podcast

and being willing to share because I know it can be a lot to put yourself out there as well, you know, because people might look up look at your results and all this sort of stuff and we’ll break it to them. This one said that you got it. You got a flat on the bike so didn’t get to finish that that race. Don’t remind me. Don’t remind me.

I know you’re written all over it that day.

Yeah, that’s right. I think you were in top of the podium otherwise. So yeah, but no, thanks so much, Josh. I appreciate it. Many last words before we finish up. Yeah, so yeah, likewise, it’s been an absolute pleasure working with you. I know you like keep on the praise for me, but truthfully and honestly, my rate of progression just kicked on when we started working together. Obviously, I’m fortunate enough to have like the one on one analysis with you, but any resource people can get, like I’m triathlon is an expensive sport. So, you know, I’m sure there are areas where you can maybe like not by the fancy tires or something and just invest a little bit in your swimming. And yeah, I want to point people in your direction. And even if they progress a little bit, like not as fast as I did, it will just make a huge difference. And like I know where I am now, but like I just want to say like I’ve been there, you know,

like I went to the local Olympic pool with all the incredible swimmers, you know, you rock up in your Speedos and your swim cap and you feel like you look a bit too pro than you feel. You try going up and down and it’s not as easy as it looks. And then the person next to you is absolutely flying and it’s a tough sport. It’s easy to get discouraged, but just you’ve got to fall in love with it. You know, you’ve got to fall in love with it. And for me personally, people saying you’re a good swimmer is like the best feeling is better than saying you’re a good runner, good cyclist. And I think that’s the mindset you need to go in there with. You know, you need to kind of adopt the lifestyle, like, you know, get it on your Instagram feed, get it on your YouTube and just, just absorb it all and just always, always, always, always keep learning and just look out for those cues. You know, there’s plenty of videos on Instagram, YouTube

and people even now that they’ll mention something and they’ll just click and it’ll just resonate. And that’s the way it works. But when that stuff is in front of you all the time, like I said, on your Instagram feed, on your YouTube, there’s a lot of really good information out there. And it’s just a constant, constant development. And yeah, you will keep, you will keep learning, you will keep developing, but just love it. You know, it’s a great sport, it’s great for your health, great for your mental health as well. And yeah, just go at your own pace and just, yeah, just love the sport and you’ll get there. Great way to end it. Thanks so much, Josh. I’ll talk to you soon. Thanks, Brandon. See you man. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.

The post The Four Steps To Triathlon Swimming Success with Josh Salley appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

I’m excited to welcome Brent Hayden, a true legend, back to the podcast after nearly five years since our last conversation in 2018. A lot has changed since then, including his return to swimming and competing in the Tokyo Olympics. We’ll also explore how he stays in shape during retirement, his coaching approach, and his thoughts on coaching through Skillest. Tune in now!

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Welcome to the Effortless Swimming podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of the Effortless Swimming podcast. Before I jump into this special episode with Olympian Brent Hayden, I want to let you know about some things that we’ve got coming up where you can join myself and our other coaches to help you improve your swimming and really just change the way that you think about your swimming and how you go about it. We have a Hell Week camp in Thailand. It’s currently fully booked so you can join the waiting list there. I’ll put the links in the description. We have had two spots become available for our Mell Dives camp at the start of September this year. So if you’d like to join me and three other Effortless Swimming coaches to spend five days in the Mell Dives working together with a bunch of other like-minded people,

I would love to see you there. So I’ll put the links there in the description as well. And then we’ve also added some new clinic dates in Australia in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. So if you are in those areas or you’re nearby, then you can join us at one of those clinics to do underwater filming and analysis. And I’ll work with you or other coaches as well to help you become a better swimmer and just really change the way that you are going about your time in the water, whether you’re a triathlete or a swimmer. So you want to swim smarter and swim faster? Then you need EO Swim Better, the only swimming device that lets you see the previously unseen. Because the first time, you can understand exactly what your hand is doing on every stroke, analyse and adapt your technique, see the effect of every single adjustment and all with the device that you won’t even know that you’re wearing. Swim faster, fast with EO Swim Better, a stroke of genius.

Dive into the swimming evolution at eolab.com forward slash swim better. Use the code Effortless at checkout to receive your first 12 months free on an annual gold membership. Hello and welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. I’ve got a very special guest today. I’ve got the one and only, Brent Hayden. Welcome back to the podcast. Hey Brent, thanks for having me bud. So I was looking back when you were on the podcast last, it was almost five years ago, it was 2018. And a lot has happened since then, not only with your comeback to swimming competing at the Tokyo Olympics, but a whole bunch of other stuff which we’ll cover today. So I’m excited to chat to you and cover some of these things. I think a great place to start would be that comeback for the Tokyo Olympics. Because, you know, 2018, I’m sure that wasn’t anywhere in your horizon you weren’t thinking about a comeback. Where did it all start? How did that comeback originate?

Yeah, it’s funny because like, yeah, looking back at 2018, you know, people had been asking me, you know, whether like in person or on social media, if I would ever actually think about doing a comeback. I had once contemplated it back in 2014. I went for breakfast with my old coach and we talked about it, but I just decided that it wasn’t really right to do it. I wouldn’t have been doing it for the right reasons. I would have been coming back because I felt like a little bit lost, so to speak. And I think a lot of athletes go through that when they retire. You know, that’s whole like loss of identity thing. I decided that I didn’t want that to be the reason why I went back to swimming to essentially, you know, go back to my safe space. So yeah, in 2018, I was still not thinking of it. I was looking forward to, you know, just building my life forward with my wife. We had a bunch of ideas. You know, we were doing a lot of coaching here and kind of like we’re doing a lot of private lessons.

And then strangely enough, I think because some of our swimmers that were working with started improving so much that their coach actually started to get upset at us. People were talking and they actually, the coach actually pressured the pool to stop allowing us to use lane space at the pool. So we ended up ending up in a situation where we weren’t able to supplement our income because it was doing so well and we’re able to pay our bills doing that. So we came into this situation where we had to figure out, well, what can we do? So that’s why we decided that, okay, well, let’s just take the curriculum that we’ve been doing for 10 years. And you know, we’ve been doing it in our private lessons, doing it in our clinics. Let’s just make it available online. So in 2019, my wife and I went to Lebanon. She was originally from there. So we were staying in this small town. It’s not really small, but it was like just outside of Beirut.

And we were mostly for family reasons. But we decided that while we’re here, why don’t we look into actually filming the course? So I hopped onto Google Maps. Now, 2019, summer 2019, I’m still not thinking about coming out of retirement. So this is kind of how everything kind of led to that. So I hop onto Google Maps on satellite view. I’m looking for little tiny blue rectangles that are near me and I’m zooming in. I’m checking out all these pools. And I found this pool that was not too far away at this country club called the Jaita Country Club. And I reached out to the owner there asking if we could check out the pool, perhaps film there. But when I met him, we basically got free reign of the pool until nude every single day. And getting in the water and filming our curriculum, I started to, one, I surprised myself with how good I felt in the water. And I think all the memories or all the good feelings that I used to associate with swimming

that I had lost because I retired in 2012, not just because of my back spasms, but also I was suffering from chronic depression. All those good memories and good feelings started to kind of come flooding back. And I actually was doing a clinic in Beirut and the kids really wanted to see me swim fast. So I got on the blocks, I sprinted to the 25 for them. I had my wife film it. So later that evening, I timed it, like timed the video. And then it’s like, okay, it wasn’t so, it wasn’t, wasn’t horrible. It was better than I thought it’d be. It was like, it was like 10 points, something. And I sent it to my buddy, Brett Hawk, and to, to get his opinion. And he’s like, he’s like, dude, you could totally, you could totally do it. And then I was even talking to Anthony Irvin and Bruno Fratis as well, getting there, having them kind of pump me up a little bit and kind of egging me on to actually do it. So yeah, sure enough, sent an email to swimming Canada to see if they would support the journey.

And I’ll be honest, I put every, I came with every reason why they could say no. All right, whether I’m too old, I’ve been out of the water for too long. You know, they want to focus on the younger swimmers. You know, there’s no, so there’s perhaps no space in the trading centers anymore. You know, they don’t want to fund it. You know, literally came up with every single reason why they could say no. So kind of like, I guess, sort of mentally preparing myself for, for that rejection. But he’s like, you know what, I’m not going to say no for them. I’m going to let them say no. So I’m just going to send that email off anyways. And I’ll just accept whatever answer they give me. And like, I think it was like maybe the next day they emailed back and they were just super enthusiastic. So like, it was a big yes. So had to come, come home right away and start my, start my journey towards Tokyo. Were you doing any sort of strength training?

How are you keeping fit during your retirement? So you obviously didn’t let yourself go over that time. You still had some sort of fitness to be able to still feel good. What was that, that training like that you were, you were doing outside the pool? Yeah, this is often a pretty, pretty interesting topic because I was not swimming like at all. The only time I really got in the water was when we were doing clinics and had to just get in and just do like a quick, like, you know, one length or two length demonstration swim. If I actually went to the pool to, you know, swim on my own to get some laps in, I can count on both hands how many times I actually did that over seven years. It’s probably like six or seven times I actually did it. And most of the times I ended up cutting that swim off early because, again, because of the reason like why I retired with, with, sorry, with depression. I have had a very, I’ve had developed a very negative relationship with the water.

And I would just start to get emotional when I’m swimming and I didn’t want to be there. And so I just get out, you know, after like 1500 meters or whatever I just go sit in the hot tub, you know, because when you don’t have to coach, you can go sit in the hot tub and no one’s going to yell at you to get back in. Right. So it was super easy for me to do that. So the only thing that was really keeping me in shape was just strength training. Right. I was just in the gym for five times a week. And I found that I really, I really loved lifting weights because when you’re an athlete training for, you know, your competition or, you know, whatever your goals are, every single day you go to the pool, you get a, you get that kind of like micro sense of accomplishment. Right. Whether or not you had a bad practice, you still went and you still got the meters and you still kind of, you still accomplish something that day.

So when I retired and I was no longer swimming, I found that I was missing that micro dose of accomplishment every single day. There was a little brief period of time where actually I became very irritable. I felt like my, my personality kind of started to change. So getting back into that routine, right? The routine that kind of like that sort of that discipline that you used to when you’re swimming. Like whether you feel like going to swimming or not, you still went, right? Because you had that accountability to still be there. So making myself go to the gym, even on the days when I didn’t feel like going to the gym, I got me back into that same sort of mindset. And, you know, I could create little micro goals or like, you know, hitting a new, you know, bench press, you know, personal record on the bench press or just, even just a sense of like, you know, that was a really good work on going home.

Like, you know, cause I got like super sweaty and just, you know, just feeling good about myself. That was that kind of, I don’t want to say you saved me, but it was, it was a very important part of, of healing my mental health aspect, as well as keeping my body fit and healthy. Yeah. Well, it obviously kept you in the right sort of shape to be able to make that comeback. And it reminds me of like Cam McAvoy, the Australian sprinter who’s big sort of gym program, big focus on the strength side of things. And he’s hitting some unbelievable times at the moment. And I know he’s swimming probably a little bit more than you were during your retirement, but just a big focus on that strength component. Yeah. I actually put on like, so I put on over 20 pounds of muscle during that time. Cause when I, when I raced in London, my race weight was 183. And when I was racing in Tokyo, I was 207. So that was one of the things that got me really excited about this comeback was, well, how, what is it going to be like actually applying all that new strength I had?

Like, yes, there’s more muscle mass, your, your body displaces more water to push through. But what’s, what’s the trade off going to be? And we found that, you know, in that 50 free, I almost beat my Canadian record, which was, which was set in a body suit. So like, so like, I feel, feeling pretty good. And I wasn’t even training for the hundred. I still got under 40 a second. So like, you know, like what, what do you do? But it was awesome to see Cam McAvoy though do that because it was maybe six or eight months ago. We, he, he and I had a call. So he, who’s came to me to ask me a bunch of my advice of like what I was doing and how I was training, especially as a, as an older athlete and that. So I don’t know which parts of, of my experience he took. Because honestly, you know, he’s Karen McAvoy. He like, he knows what he’s doing, but it was really cool just to have him actually reach out and ask me for, you know, or ask me just to share my experience.

So when someone did that, like, I was like, I was like, amazing. I was like, that was really cool to see. Yeah. Well, I was, I’m trying to think when it was, I think late, maybe late last year I was in Brisbane and I was doing some filming of one of the Australians from his team. And when we were going to the pool, Cam was coming out of the same pool and Cam and Kia were just having a chat. And he was talking about his training. He said, like, I’m doing a little bit of swimming, but I’m just hitting the gym. But I’m feeling really strong and my times aren’t quite there yet, but I’m feeling really strong. And I thought in the back of my mind, this is going to be really interesting to see what happens over the next six months as he’s working towards, you know, world champs and then ultimately Olympic games. And just seeing amazing returns on that strength training. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I think this world, this world champs is going to be super excited for many reasons, but definitely eyes will definitely be on Cameron to see what he does there.

Yeah, absolutely. And with that Canadian swimming. So what do you think? Why do you think they were so supportive to get you back? Like I’m thinking having someone who’s been there and done that, people look up to having that sort of leadership there can be great for directing the culture of a group. Do you think that that was some of the reasons? Why do you think they were so supportive to get you back? Yeah, I think that’s probably the biggest reason was just having me around the deck and just kind of sharing that experience and just kind of taking on a little bit of that leadership role. Because, you know, the women’s side have, you know, tons of like amazing swimmers on the women’s side, but the men’s side was relatively still young. You know, we had, you know, obviously Yuri Kissel is probably the most senior swimmer on the team. So I really think that was probably the biggest reason coming in and just kind of pushing them, especially in that relay to help those guys kind of find that extra level.

Also, like, I don’t want to say it’s like, I think also just kind of like having like an old guy kind of come in and kind of, you know, have these young guys that were kind of like maybe used to winning and have kind of like me come in and like, no, no, no, this is how you swim, right? And kind of like just like kind of push them and kind of show them a little bit of what’s what’s possible. So definitely was pushing those guys. Well, talk me through that that relay. So you’re on the Canadian team, obviously you let out. Well, you guys made the final. First of all, you let out the team and you’re the ended up going 47 9 9. So you’re 37 at the time, 37 years of age. Yeah, 37. Yeah. So oldest, oldest person to swim under 48 by like five years, which is unbelievable. Yeah. Jason Lezak, I remember when he did that and that was a Beijing, but I’ll still remember that that anchor swim. He did. Right. We were over there and like lane one or lane two or something like that when he when he did that.

And so to be able to to like have his name there and now like seeing seeing my name above his there. It’s, you know, like, we still like I just want to say that we kind of like, you know, we all stand on the shoulders of giants, right? So the fact that Lezak did that, you know, showed us that we can keep being competitive as we get older. Now that I’ve done it, I think we’re going to be seeing like I don’t expect my name to be at the top of that list for for much longer. I think we’re going to have swimmers that are now opening up their eyes to the longevity of what’s possible. And, you know, probably like maybe even after World Champs, we might already have another older, older swimmer ever under 40 seconds or after Paris, right? So, but it’s cool to be able to see my name at the top of that for the time being. Was it like hitting the wall and looking at a Tom and going, wow, that was unexpected. How was that?

I mean, I think everything kind of leading up to that moment. It wasn’t necessarily just just the 47 99 like at our Olympic trials. We were at risk of not even having a team to qualify for the Olympics games because we were ranked 15th and only top 16 actually get to go. So we came together to do a time trial to hopefully just get us a better out of time to or sorry, just to get a better time so we can, you know, feel a little bit safer in case other teams behind us did a trial and knock us out. And I think we moved up to 12th, I think with that time trial. And one thing that I was telling this, the guys was the story of watching the South Africans at the 2004 Olympics, right? Was that I think Darien Townsend, Lyndon Ferns, Ray Knethling and Roland Schumann. Nobody expected them to win a medal and they came out, they believed in themselves when no one else would and they won the gold medal. So I wanted to kind of share that experience with them.

So I use that as an example. And just like we went out there, you know, I also told them like there’s still a chance that this could be it. So swim this race like it’s a final in the heats. And so we did every guy stepped up. You know, we had Ruslan Gazi of who was who swam as our alternate in the in the heats and he really stepped up big time as well. So they got us that lane. So that gave us the opportunity. And still people still didn’t believe in us. Or like, you know what guys, like we have a chance to metal, right? And I guess we leading off that that relay. I knew it was going to hurt coming back. And because I didn’t train necessarily focusing on the hundred. I was training for the 50 because I felt that was probably the most realistic place or realistic event for me to be doing a comeback at my age in such a short amount of time. Right. But I guess my coach I guess was secretly training me for a hundred without telling me.

Right. I just show up and just do what my coach tells me to do. So I just I just wanted to not put any limits on how on what my body was capable of on the second length. I wasn’t going to save anything for the swim back. That’s why I was just thinking about that movie got to cut. There’s a there’s a scene in that movie where the guys are swimming out and the one guy he just wanted to turn around swim back. But he doesn’t want to get beaten. And finally he asked the guy, you know, how are you doing this? And he says, I never saved anything for the swim back. So I’ve always thought of that that line. And so in that moment, that’s kind of the way I decided to approach that race is don’t save anything for the swim back. Because I don’t know what my body is capable in in this moment or what it’s capable of. So I just went out as fast as I could. And I came back and you know, when that pains taken over your body, there’s something about being on a relay.

When you’ve got three other guys they’re swimming with that kind of helps elevate you and push through that pain just a little bit more sometimes. And I touched that wall and it turned around and you know, I see Josh’s feet enter that water. And in that moment, it was the first thing that went through my mind was that I feel like this was kind of like a passing of a torch this moment. Because here I am at 30, 37 years old. Josh was born after I made my first national team at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester. So I kind of feel like that moment is kind of like a passing of the torch. And then I noticed that time and seeing that 47, 9, 9 and you know, the last time I saw a 47 up there was the 2012 Olympics 10 years earlier. I’m sorry, nine years earlier. I felt really proud of what I did and I knew that I did what I needed to do to give ourselves a chance. And we almost won a medal. We were so close.

Yeah, I remember watching that because the Aussies got third and just just picked you out, which is great for the Aussies. But I mean, what a I mean, an amazing story. I mean, Kyle Chalmers, man. I mean, I mean, he’s Kyle Chalmers for a reason, right? He had a tremendous anchor swim to get us on the end. But I mean, even though we missed the medal, I think my one of my favorite swimming moments in my career was actually after that moment. And I just grabbed the other three guys and we just like went for like a group huddle like a group hug. And I showed them, you know, I pointed at the board and said, you know, nobody believed that we that we would be there. I know we didn’t get a medal, but we achieved way more than anybody else believed that we were capable of achieving. Absolutely. And it was really cool. I mean, those guys will carry that that forever like those relay swims when it’s when it’s you and some other guys.

Like it’s just it’s such a different feeling than the individuals, you know, the and I mean, you probably got a very strong bond with those guys as well. After going through that, that build up and then the event and almost meddling like what a what a great way to to build those tight knit bonds. Yeah, I mean, I kind of wish I could have stuck around for for Paris because, you know, I like to say like I really bonded with those guys. It would be really great to to be there. But then I know my time there was over and I did what I needed to do and I passed that on. And so just it’s it’s really cool just watching them carry carrying that forward. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, now you’re you’re doing obviously some coaching during your retirement, but you’ve been doing a lot of just passing on your knowledge. Specifically technique, you’re running clinics, you’ve got the online course as well. I’d love to I’d love to dig into some of the details about what’s the process you like to go through when you’re working with people or you’re running these clinics.

What are some of those core things that you like to pass on to the groups that you’re coaching. This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor form smart swim goggles. They’re more than a pair of goggles. Meet the world’s most powerful swim platform. See yourself improve with form smart swim goggles, including a free one year membership when you purchase your goggles for only 249 US dollars. They’ve currently changed up their offer where you can now get the goggles and you have one year membership included for free. And if you’d like to continue with the membership going forwards, it’s only 15 US dollars a month where you get access to the workouts, training plans and custom workout builder. But you’ll always have access to the real time data in the goggles. So you never lose access to that. My favorite thing about the form goggles is having the instant feedback of what times you’re doing, what stroke rate you’re doing, and also the ability to see what your heart rate is.

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And that will get you 15% off your pair of goggles using our special link formswim.com forward slash effortless or the code effortless at checkout. And so we always take a step-by-step approach. The way I kind of describe it is kind of like putting IKEA furniture together, right? Because if you skip one step, the whole thing has to come apart and you’ve got to start from the foundation. Because if you’re trying to fix one thing in the technique, a lot of times you can’t fix that until you fix other things in the technique because that might be a result of something that’s happening three, four, five steps back in the chain, right? Your recovery might be doing that because your hips are in a poor position or you don’t have good alignment or you’re not rotating enough or you’re holding your breath in your rib cage incorrectly, right? Or you’re breathing into your chest rather than your lungs. So no matter the skill level of the swimmer, we always run them through the same progression.

So we always start with breathing and buoyancy before going on to alignment, rotation, the kick. I’m sorry, the kick then, the rotation before we even get to the recovery and the pull. So it’s always super cool though when you even take like a really advanced swimmer who doesn’t think they really have that much room to improve and we always do a stroke count at the start of the clinics for 50 meters. We have a rule, three dolphin kicks off every wall. So if you’ve seen my Instagram post, I do a lot of those stroke count videos where I say you got to do three dolphin kicks off each wall because underwater kick is still part of pool swimming. So I still want them to still practice that with the breakout. And then they run through the whole clinic and then we do the stroke counts again at the end and like 90, like over like 95% of the swimmers always knock off strokes, which is obviously, I guess like the overall philosophy is if you can become a more efficient swimmer,

you can become a faster swimmer because it’s always technique and it’s always about minimizing the resistance you need to overcome. And then you add the speed and the power on top of it if you’re a sprinter. Yeah, I love that approach and it’s something that I had to learn as a coach. It’s like early days, it’s just like, I’ll just change this, but it’s like, oh, okay, that’s not really working because we haven’t started early enough down there in the order of steps there. And I think you probably, sorry, you probably also experienced this too, is like a lot of swimmers too, especially when they are experienced. Actually, they tend to, sometimes it’s like, it’s a little bit hard to get them to actually go back to the basics. Sometimes they’re like, they almost feel like sometimes it’s a little bit too beginner sometimes, but if you’re actually able to get them through and get them through that, they always are going to be able to improve or be able to fix that thing

that they’ve been struggling to fix for so long. So one thing that I always try to communicate to the advanced swimmers, because a younger swimmer who are not necessarily a younger swimmer, but like a less experienced swimmer, they’re a bit more like a blank slate. But an older or more experienced swimmer who has developed that muscle memory and that mechanical patterning in their technique, it’s really hard to undo a lot of those things. So being able to actually get them to be willing to go back to the basics and build it back up is really key sometimes. Yeah, it’s such a great point. I had a running coach on the podcast last year, an Aussie guy, Paul McKinnon, called the balance runners, his brand. And he was invited to go over to Oregon to coach some of the elite Nike runners, so work with some of their athletes. And I asked him, like, what are you sharing with these guys? Like, you’re working with the top 0.1% of runners.

What are you going over and teaching them? And he shared that’s like, I’m just kind of teaching. I’m going through the same stuff that I’d go through with a beginner or intermediate runner. We’re just going through the basics. We’re going through the fundamentals because quite often when you’re an athlete, you just do what you do and it becomes intuitive. But you don’t really think about how it’s broken down. And it can be hard for a lot of athletes to pass on the knowledge of how they’re swimming so well. They can do it well, but they can’t pass it on. They haven’t really thought about it that way. So when you get a coach, is that something that you experienced in the early days? Oh, yeah. I feel like I’ve always been a little bit intuitive with how to communicate things because I was not a good swimmer when I was growing up. I failed swimming lessons twice. That’s one of those key points. Badge of honor.

Fail swimming lessons. So I had to learn how to break things down into the simplest terms that I could understand. And a lot of it came down to things that I could visually see. Because I actually have an auditory. I don’t want to call it a disability. It’s just something that I kind of struggle with. It’s called a central auditory processing disorder. So a lot of times what a coach will say something to me, even if I’m paying full attention, it’s just in the ear and out the other side. And I can’t recall because it doesn’t actually go into my short-term memory. So a lot of times things have to be repeated, repeated, repeated. But if a coach could explain something to me visually, and I can actually see in my head what they’re saying rather than just the words, actually have an image, that became a lot easier. So when I started teaching other swimmers how to do it, I really tried to kind of paint a picture of it.

But also I also have to credit my wife big time. My wife Nadina, because she was a competitor swimmer, but she broke her back in her teens. And she still went on to compete at nationals for like a couple of years, like after she broke her back, but eventually living in a back brace and stuff and losing the feeling in her legs like she had to stop. But her sister actually owned one of the top private swim schools in western Canada. So she actually developed their entire, or redeveloped their entire like upper level curriculum for the school. So we took like my high performance with her sort of learn to swim methodology and kind of like found a sort of like little marrying of the two to kind of like create that system. So as much as like, you know, I think I’m pretty good at communicating that to the swimmers. Really, she is a huge credit to why the system works. Like I have to give it to her. Yeah, it makes me think of the amount of different coaches

and people that I’ve taken any information from. And like, I know where a lot of it comes from. Like I could know the coach to credit, but like over the last 15, 16 years that I’ve been coaching and then swimming for the last like 25 years. It’s like, you just get all these little things and you tend to sort of pick one out, maybe a cue that seems to work or a drill, whatever it might be. And you become this amalgamation of all the knowledge that’s been passed on. And then you sort of spin it into your own way of communicating things. And I think that’s what makes coaching so fun because you can learn from so many different people. And it’s a challenge to want to have all these different things to be able to pull out when you need it for different swimmers. Because not everyone’s going to learn the same that they need different cues. They need different ways to think about it. So just trying to have as many tools in your tool belt

that you can pull out when needed is the challenge. And it’s a never-ending game when it comes to that. Oh yeah, absolutely. Because like you could say like one way to one swim and they’ll get right away, but then that swim over there is not going to get it. You say it like three different ways. They still won’t get it. So if you show them how to do it, then they get it. But then that swim over there, you have to pull them out of the water and go through the motions and then they get it right. So try to hit on like all three different teaching ways so that way everybody is able to actually be able to move forward. Everybody learns differently, right? But I think no matter the kind of swimmer you are, the fundamentals of say over time freestyle, the fundamentals of freestyle are the same. You can personalize it according to the distance you’re racing, if you’re short distance speed or long distance endurance.

But still the core fundamentals are the same. And so that’s where we really try to focus in on that and get everybody mastering those fundamentals. Because as you said earlier, it really is about mastering the simple, becoming masters of like the simple parts. Because I think people honestly, they make swimming way more complicated, right? So the more you’re able to break the swimming down into their individual pieces and realize how simple each individual piece of the stroke is, then it’s only becomes complicated with just trying to add them all together, right? Just the sheer number of simple things you need to do is really where the complication is. So don’t complicate each individual part because it’s already a lot of information. Yeah, that’s so true. Because when you break it down in the simple format of, okay, let’s get the breathing right, then we go ahead, body, kick, rotation, recovery, and then pull.

It’s quite a few steps, but in each element it’s pretty simple to be able to just kind of know what you need to do there. And especially with, like there’s obviously so much information out there, podcasts, got all of our videos, and people can consume so much, and then there’s just so many things in their head where they just get, I think, confused when they go to the pool. So I think it’s just, if you can just pick one thing to focus on, start early in that chain, whether it’s breathing or head and body, and just take time, spend some weeks just focusing on it, and just kind of shut off all the other noise, and that way you’re going to see some improvement. Because if today you’re working on your head position, tomorrow you’re working on your catch, the next day you’re working on your kick, nothing’s going to stick. So it’s just best to have that patience and just go, all right, I’m going to choose one thing,

I’m going to shut off the noise, and I’m just going to practice that. Yeah, absolutely 100%. And so you’ve been coaching on skillists a bit as well over the last couple of weeks, the last couple of months. So the platform that we use at our clinics, and people sort of send videos through for analysis. I’d love to hear your thoughts on like what you’re seeing from those swimmers that are sending their videos through, and how you’re finding that online communication. Because when I first started coaching online, I thought it might work. I don’t know, I’ll see if it does. But it can actually be better for many people because they’ve got the time to go and practice these things on their own time. There’s no pressure of a coach standing there. It’s like, I better get this right in the next half hour, or it’s like, that’s kind of a waste of a lesson. It’s much more relaxed, and they can actually see some changes as a result of it.

So I’d be curious just to get your thoughts on how you’re finding that online coaching through skillist. Yeah, I absolutely love it. We did like online video analysis for me when I was training for Tokyo. Because back in the day, we didn’t have access to platforms like this. So what we actually used to do was we would actually fly to Tallinn, Estonia to work with this machinist there in Greenhallean. I don’t know if you’ve heard that name. So he’s a legend going way back to working with the swimmers back in the USSR. And he really was like a pioneer for doing video analysis. Like he’d break the stroke down into ways that still don’t even know how he was able to break some things down. But now with the power of the internet, when I was training for Tokyo, we didn’t need to go to Estonia, which I mean, especially with COVID, we also couldn’t. I mean, I love Tallinn. We would go there like after the World Cup, the European League, so we’re already over there.

But we would do the analysis, or we did an analysis sitting down with him and he broke my stroke down on the screen because he would film it and send it to him. So even at that level, we were already kind of used to what first in person. And then we sit down afterwards, go over everything. And now we got the power of the internet, we can do it remotely. But I had already been, I guess I’ve been doing it for the last few years through my swimming secrets program because swimmers can, they can make a lot of improvements following the program, granted that they actually start the program with the attention of actually following the program and not just watching it to get some tips and tricks and just trying to go and just apply to the regular stroke and not actually taking the time to go through the drills. But the ones that do, they always do find improvement. But there are still personal details that are going to differ from person to person to person

that you can look at and actually be able to communicate that to the swimmer. So luckily now with Skillus, because I was using another app before and the workflow was just so tedious because I have to download it into like iMovie, create a movie, upload it into the app, download it to the app, upload it to the Google Drive, send it to the email and half the time it would, something would break with the Google Drive link or something like that. The whole workflow was really tedious. But now with Skillus, everything is just all done in one app. So they just go in there, they just upload that video and I could just download it quickly, start playing it, go frame by frame, put all the analytical tools there all the angles, draw little arrows, say your hand should be like this or your shoulder should be here, you’re pulling outside your body line here, you’re lifting your head up too much here and then just basically submit that to them

and then even film an explanation video of myself. So now I’m on camera showing the hand positions or the head position and further explaining the things that I was explaining in there. And then I can just chat directly with the swimmers all inside that app. So now the turnaround time for when a swimmer submits their video and gets that feedback is way faster. And so, you know, the faster they can get the feedback, the faster and also more excited they are to jump back in the pool and start working on it right away as well. I know you’ve been on the platform for a number of years. So also really interesting here, what are your thoughts since you’ve been on it for so much longer? Yeah, so I, so Baden who started skillist, I had coached him a little bit in the master squad that I was coaching quite a few years back. And so that’s kind of how we got introduced to each other. But prior to that, when we were running clinics,

we were using coach’s eye. I think most coaches are pretty familiar with coach’s eye. That’s the one I was using. Yeah. And the analysis tools were good, but we had to have to hire someone for two days, so Monday, Tuesday after our weekend clinics. And this person, their sole job was to download the videos, export them, rename them, upload them, send them out. It’s like that’s two full days of work after doing a clinic. And it was very tedious, and there’d often be some issues with the exporting of videos and all this sort of stuff. And it was just very hard work. I had to get out about it, which was about seven years ago. So it was quite early days. And it just literally made our coaching, our clinics just so much easier to run. So it was just, the tech side didn’t have to be, it didn’t have to be difficult. It was just very easy, hit upload, and then everyone’s got their videos. And you’ve got that communication as well.

So after I run clinics, like I say to people at the end, I’d love to hear how you’re going in a few, three, four weeks time. If you’re improving and it’s all feeling good, great, like I want to know. If you’re like, ah, it’s not quite clicking, let me know as well, because maybe we need to exaggerate a change. Maybe we need to take a slightly different approach. So to be able to just do that really easily in the app, it makes a huge difference for the athlete and for myself just to be able to have that constant communication, so that people can get the results that they’re after. It can be challenging enough to get that footage and then to upload it and all of that. So to kind of take away one of those steps that can maybe hinder their ability to do it or just go, ah, it’s a bit too much work. I don’t really want to do it. I think it’s really good for the sport itself because we’ve got access to underwater footage from Olympic Games and World Chance.

We can see pretty much any swimmer from any angle with the the footage that we’ve got. So to be able to use that as an example and to show people what we want to do and people can record themselves and compare it. When someone sees themselves compared to someone like yourself, they go, ah, I can say why I’m not swimming 22 or 21 for my 50 freestyle. It really becomes clear when you’ve got that visual comparison, which I like with skills because you can just pull up those videos and compare them frame by frame. Yeah, no, it’s super cool and it’s so easy to do it all in the app too. And what I also love too is after you submit the videos, it’s not only you just submit the videos and say, here’s your analysis, good luck. They can literally, if they have any questions about it, they can ask you and then you can even just write there quickly on the app whether you’re on the bus somewhere and just sit there and be answering

people on the go. So it’s really great that you’re able to support them on the back end or leave anybody with any questions or if they just didn’t understand something, leaving them confused. So it’s really cool. Even last night at a student, Mike, who had a bunch of questions after my last analysis, so right after this meeting, I’m going to be filming myself and submitting those back themselves. The ability for me to share my knowledge, whether it’s through the swimming secrets program or through the skillless app, it’s going to be the most rewarding aspect of it because I feel like if I just competed as a swimmer, made it to the Olympics and retired and never did anything with swimming again, it’s not just for me, but I think for a lot of athletes, it’s such a huge loss for the swimming community. So the more access athletes have to be able to share their knowledge and be able to work directly with other swimmers, it’s going to elevate the sport

so much more and the other thing that’s really cool too, like I’ve got so many thoughts running through my head, is that you don’t need to be an elite swimmer to get access to this program. You don’t need to be training for the Olympics. You could be a casual swimmer that just picked up swimming a few weeks ago and just no idea where to start and we can help. We’ll look at you and give you guidance about this type of expertise or like coaching never would have been available to the general public before because like I said, I was working with Rain Halion for so many years, but we were elite levels like the average swimmer wouldn’t be able to to walk in and be able to to get that from him back then. So I think it’s just, it’s really cool and I just, I get a lot of I don’t want to say self-worth but it makes me feel really good when I get to impacts or like that and seeing them improve the messages back when they get that

you’ll re-care with that sort of clicking moment. Yeah. Well, it comes to mind there for me is like whenever if I meet someone new like you’re at a don’t go to parties anymore I’m too old for that sort of stuff but if you go to like a barbecue or something and someone asks about what you do I tell them I’m swim coach and they’re like, oh, I see coach kids and I’m like, no, like we do underwater filming and analysis and I work with elite swimmers. It’s like, no, I’d like I work with everyday people people who might be swimming a couple times a week. It’s probably someone like you, you know, it’s just, yeah, so I think the, yeah there’s no one sort of thinks that there’s that yeah, that there’s people who are just adults and they’re swimming a few times a week or doing triathlon they don’t think about that ability to have that kind of underwater filming and analysis and yeah, there’s not much of that around. So that’s what I really

like about being able to do what we’re we’re doing is pass that on to to people who are really hungry to learn and get better and when you attract the right people and you work with the right people who fit with your message and your style of coaching and they want to learn from you it’s very rewarding from a coach’s perspective and I think even like for me, I think I’m not that competitive anymore like I don’t really care about winning races and stuff like once I’m in there yeah, I’m competitive but to me that’s not a big draw card right now. It’s like I’d prefer to be the very best coach that I can and I get a lot more out of seeing other people achieve success in the water. So yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know how you feel about that like where your head’s at in terms that competitive. I mean, I think you’re you seem like a born competitor. So you’ll probably be 80 years old and racing masters and record records

I don’t know it’s funny because like I even just posted it on threads I made a joke yesterday on that new threads app I was like therapist, tell me where do you think your competitive nature came from and the picture as a screenshot of my TV because my old neighbor was over playing GoldenEye on my N64 and I won it’s like if I’m playing GoldenEye I’m like Uber, Uber competitive but I don’t know like what’s swimming I feel like yes there obviously is that competitive nature too but I think deep down I’ve always just kind of had the instinct or the desire to just see how fast I could go. Especially I struggled with swimming in my early years I was not winning races by any stretch. Got a lot of runner up medals or ribbons but I think I just learned to look at the clock more like the time more than the actual result so I think for me I was always just about pushing my own limits and then if I can do that let the results take care of themselves. I actually remember

this moment when I was a summer club swimmer because I was a summer club swimmer until I was almost 15 years old and I did summer club for 10 years I was doing a lot of other sports too I did karate, I did a little bit of water polo I played piano probably missing some other ones baseball, soccer but I remember in my last year of summer club what ended up being my last year of summer club I remember telling this other summer that I wanted to go winter which was the term that we use in summer club for summers who trained year round the higher level swimmers and I remember he looked at me and said well if you’re going to do that you can forget about winning because this was like the my last year of summer club was kind of like the first time that I was now like the one that was winning all the races in summer club and breaking the record so it took 10 years of I don’t want to say like of sucking but 10 years of yeah, of development

to get to the point where I was actually a pretty good swimmer but he said that if you’re going to do that you can forget about winning and I looked at him and I remember saying that’s not the point I just want to see how fast I could go right and I think when I had my best races yes there’s always that voids in the back of your head I don’t want to win but I think if the thought that was in the forefront was just if I can just take care of my performance so I can control all the things I can control my lane so that’s you know my start my dive, my underwater my breakout, how I’m holding the water my stroke rate, my breathing pattern like that’s my space between those two lane robes I can’t control what everybody else is doing in their lane robes so when I was when I had that thought process at the forefront and then having the motivation of winning kind of in the background that’s when I swam my best but I think when

the result became my forefront thought and so I’m thinking about that medal that’s when I struggled and so case in point that’s what happened at the Beijing Olympics a lot of people ask me like well how do you go for a world champion in 2007 to not even making the final in the Olympics because I was so focused on winning the medal that I forgot to swim fast in the semi-final because in my mind because in my mind I didn’t need to win the semi-final right that race would be tomorrow so I only needed to just go fast enough to make the final like there was a bit of other thing I was kind of struggling with was that I was the number one reason like a wire team it didn’t medal in the 4-way 200 relay in Athens so I felt like I had a horrible leg in that relay because my alarm went off at 3.30 in the morning and I said it was 7 and I had gone up and everything and then when I realized what happened I spent the whole day until the race from like 3.30

on where it’s like panicking so I was like literally in the ready room feeling like I was about to fall asleep my coach like handed me like a Coke to try to give me some sugar to sort of like wake up and it was just a disaster so there’s a part of me that wanted to make up for that relay and the 4-way 2 relay final was the same night as the 100 freestyle semi-final so like I told myself I don’t need to win today that medal will be tomorrow and I’ll save some energy for this 4-by-2 well ended up 12 I missed the final by just under I think just under two tenths of a second and so I channeled all that rage all that energy into the relay and I dove in on the third leg when I dove into the water we were seventh when I touched the wall we were second so I mean I think I touched my feet on the wall at the 100 meter split in 49 seconds so like clearly I had energy to swim faster in that semi-final so that’s what I mean like sometimes

like just stop thinking about that result and in the moment just see how fast like you can go and the results will take care of themselves don’t try to strategize things so much I mean obviously there’s some strategizing in certain situations but yeah that’s a really I really like the point you made there just about when it’s competing with yourself it’s everything’s in your control and that’s much more motivating than trying to beat someone else trying to win the gold medal you’ve got no control over that and so when you’re thinking about that to me that’s kind of produces a bit of anxiety it’s like oh well what’s going to happen on race day and like that’s where a lot of that doubt can creep in and it just takes everything out of your control so yeah it’s just always wanting to try and beat your own PB’s beat your own times and it keeps it in your locus of control so it’s also remembering your why I think that’s a big big point

people get up on the blocks and they think they’re just swimming for times and medals and honestly like if that’s all you’re swimming for you’re not going to go very far I think people need a deeper burning reason why they compete and I think when I got to the Beijing Olympics and I just started focusing on this little gold shiny thing I saw hanging around my neck I became so fixated on that that I really lost my purpose and my reason of why I was always doing this do you think that with your results did you win in 2012 in the hundred free bronze bronze do you think with that success and that brought a lot of media a lot of attention and like I just really sort of put you in the spotlight after that do you feel like that that attention afterwards is kind of why you may have been so focused on the result come 2016 was that part of it you think or what are your thoughts I was retired in 2016 so I was done right like 2012 I was

totally totally done with the sport and I didn’t I got a lot of it I definitely got a lot of media attention while I was in London you know back home but I didn’t get any real media attention when I actually got home because after after London because I announced my retirement actually before the closing ceremonies I was just like that’s it this is just a really great way for me to because I mean I was spiraling into depression before the Olympic Games I couldn’t walk for four days so like that was the worst year of my life training and trying to keep my body moving forward like I actually almost had a moment where I almost quit before the Olympic Games when we were at staging camp in Obia Italy and I remember my coach asked me what was wrong and I looked at him and said I don’t want to retire before the Olympics now like I was like all hunched over and like I was in so much pain like I couldn’t use my legs get into bed like I remember

having the bed sheets to pull myself onto the bed just so I could go to sleep that’s how bad it was so I didn’t think I was even going to get to compete and I had all these thoughts in my head like well I’ve already failed at the Athens Olympics I failed again at the Beijing Olympics what are people going to think of me when I go to my third probably my final Olympics and I fail again like is that going to be how people remember me right succeed at everything except the Olympics so I had that thought in my head well what if I just retire before the Olympics then I’ll kind of be able to avoid all that so I kind of told my coach that and he kind of threw my thoughts back in my face and I just remember just getting like incredibly upset at that and I blew up like my whole top like like a pop like popped off and I just started like yelling I was like you know picture a guy in like a back spasm trying to like be angry probably didn’t look very good but

but I let out all my emotion and the next day I noticed I felt better so sometimes I feel like sometimes when we’re struggling we bottle it up so much inside that it we’re not able to heal because you know your thoughts like you manifest your own thoughts sometimes and I think sometimes my thoughts are preventing me from actually healing because as soon as I let it all out I was much better the next day and then one day after that I was back in the water swimming as if nothing had ever happened and then yeah my rib was out the day of my free final but I was like my goggle straps were all messed up so if you watch the video on the last person putting my goggles on because I literally looked at my goggles like oh my goggles are messed up so I had a moment where I was like I think my goggles might fall off but I always swim outside without goggles so I just reminded myself that if my goggles fall off I know I can still see

you’re like I think in that moment I had gone through so many so many struggles and challenges because they were preparing me for the moment when I needed to perform when everything seemed to be going wrong right because you hear all the time athletes often succeed when things aren’t going well it’s very rare an athlete can get to the Olympics and have a perfect day you know like there’s always something that wants to throw them off so a lot of times like those struggles are actually preparing them to be able to perform in those environments so I thought back to all those struggles I went through whether it was Athens, whether it was Beijing whether it was getting Delhi Belly at the 2010 Commonwealth Games I was so sick there but that’s when I went on my first summer ever under 40 seconds without a body suit I was so sick that day vomiting and actually in that moment I reminded myself when I was like a little kid in a pup tent at the

Summer Club Provincials I was vomiting but I did all the best times in the meet because I just didn’t want to throw up in front of everybody so I swam even faster just like get out of the pool faster so I reminded myself if that kid can do that then I can do it do that here so it’s something that I try to tell to other consumers too like you might be going through these challenges but there’s going to be a reason in the future when you’re going to be faced with another challenge that you’re going to be better prepared to handle it because so all those struggles are just going into your experience bank because you’re going to be able to lean back on them at some later point I can’t remember how I got into this topic

I totally forgot where that was supposed to go but I was putting Beijing at 2016 which was Rio 2016 so in my head I’m like okay that’s that’s why I was connecting the dots the wrong way but it makes so much in hindsight things make so much sense doesn’t it and you can see all those terrible things that happen all those challenges you go through looking back it’s like god I learnt a good lesson there and I probably couldn’t have learnt it any other way and I’m so glad that happened but at the time it’s very challenging to be able to accept it and you’ve got to go through the emotions of dealing with it but looking back the best lessons are learnt with the hard lessons so yeah but it is hard to accept that at some point it simulates life in like the most extreme way sometimes yeah it’s like in a way very safe way in a way to emulate life it’s a forced way where you can put these challenges on yourself and go through them

and develop your ability to push through them in other areas of your life and that’s why I think so many of my good friends my swimming friends because you go through those challenges together and you want to be working with people who have been through challenges they’re more interesting, they’re more resilient and you want people who have had some tough things happening in their life and especially when you get out of competition you get out of elite level sport you kind of need to introduce some things so that you’re still going through some challenges whether it’s a hard session at the gym those physical challenges or maybe you’re stretching yourself with your business and all these different things like I think we need to introduce these challenges ourselves so we’re still keeping sharp with things yeah absolutely and it’s so true like you’re able to be ready for so much more in life because of sports so I always tell parents

like it doesn’t matter if your kid’s good at sports or not your kid doesn’t need to be the best swimmer on the team or the best player on the team it doesn’t matter if they go on and become an amazing athlete great but you shouldn’t be putting them in the sport with that being the end goal you want to be putting them in the sport because they’re going to be able to learn so many things in life that sometimes I don’t want to say only sport but that sport is able to actually teach them you’re also going to be able to learn teamwork you know problem solving goal setting you’re going to make new friends right so there’s so many other benefits and so sometimes I feel like you know I’m talking to parents and they think that if their kid isn’t excelling at it they’re questioning like well should I even bother putting my kid in the sport only yeah absolutely because if my parents sent me out of the sport like I was a struggling swimmer my parents

if my parents had that mindset to pull me out just because I wasn’t excelling at it after like 6-7 years I wouldn’t have been able to go on and you know achieve the things that I was able to achieve and be the person that I am today so any parent who might be watching this if your kid is struggling in the sport but they love it just keep them in it if you can just keep them in it yeah it always reminds me of a guy who coaches, coaches, Wayne Goldsmith he always says there’s no champion 9 year olds like there’s no such thing as a champion 9 year old swimmer because it just things change and really like who cares if you’re the champion 9 year old in your club or your state or even nationally like who cares like if you’re telling that story when you’re 50 years of age that I was the fastest 50 freestyle it’s 9 years of age in my state it’s like well are you a good person if I had to choose from my kid winning an Olympic gold medal

but being an asshole or being a great person that people want to be around and is doing good things I know which one I’d rather choose I think that’s what you can learn from sport and they’re going to be a select couple of people who are achieving those high ranks so I think the main thing is are they developing the skills to be a good person and and a resilient person and swimming is one of those sports where you got to get up early and you’ve got to put in the hard yards to have success I think it teaches it’s got to be one of the hardest sports to train for and be good at and I think that’s a good thing that’s why it produces good people that Brent I really appreciate you being on the podcast we’ve gone and now we’re here we could keep going for another hour but I appreciate it’s one we could keep going for sure but I know obviously a huge gratitude and thank you for having me on your show again it’s been awesome catching up with you

we’ll stay in touch even more and also I’m just super excited about what you and I are going to be able to do with the swimming community with the new skillist app together as well it’s going to be really cool well the fact that people can get analysis get feedback advice from someone like yourself as you said like that was not available even a couple years ago really it’s just it just opens the world up and the experience up for so many people so yeah thanks so much for being on the show if you’d like to work with Brent I’ll put those links in the show notes with skillist and his website as well so jump in those links there and Brent I’ll make sure it’s not five years between drinks again I’ll get you back on a lot sooner than that oh I just want to say too you will won’t believe how many times when people email me or send me messages they call me Brent and I know all the time I always get a bit like I’m not Brent

and Brent’s over it over effortless swimming but it’s all the time I can’t tell you how many times I get called Brendan in an email so it’s like well I mean definitely definitely that too but yeah it’s it’s I always get a good laugh at that yeah that’s it it’s yeah I didn’t even like just chatting now I didn’t even click that it’s like Brent Brent and like obviously I know that’s the case and first time we talk it’s like isn’t that funny but just because I’ve sort of known you for quite a while it’s like that’s just what it is but there’s not many Brentons out there and there’s probably fewer Brents out there so yeah that’s funny hope well if you are if you are going to get a three-way podcast with Brett Hawke on there on one of these days too it’s really confusing people and have someone host that podcast and try and try and get the names right it’d be like a parent trying to tell their kid when I’ve got two kids and I’m always

calling the other one the other name and they hate it so let’s get Brett on the podcast and we’ll make a meal of it yeah absolutely bud thanks so much Brent we’ll talk soon

The post Swimming Secrets With 4x Olympian Brent Hayden appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

Today, I’m excited to have Tom Hofnadel as my guest. Tom is a committed triathlete who is focused on improving his swimming in Ironman races. In this episode, we’ll explore the benefits of video analysis and receiving feedback, as well as the technique changes he has made in the past few years to enhance his swimming. We’ll also discuss how he keeps track of his progress over time. Tune in now!

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Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford.

So you want to swim smarter and swim faster? Then you need EO SwimBetter, the only swimming device that lets you see the previously unseen. Because the first time, you can understand exactly what your hand is doing on every stroke, analyse and adapt your technique, see the effect of every single adjustment and all with the device that you won’t even know that you’re wearing. Swim faster, fast with EO SwimBetter, a stroke of genius. Dive into the swimming evolution at eolab.com forward slash swim better. Use the code Effortless at checkout to receive your first 12 months free on an annual gold membership. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. Last week I posted a video as part of our feedback Friday of a triathlete based in Germany. And I’ve got that particular triathlete on this episode to talk about his swimming. And as a listener, what you’ll find from this episode is you might find some similarities in your own swimming that you’ll be able to take away

and you make some adjustments to your technique and to your swimming to be able to become a better swimmer. So I’d love to welcome Tom. I’ve got to get this right. Tom, whole nod to the podcast. Pretty good. How far off? For a non-native speaker, it was very good. My grandparents are Austrian, so I should have at least some ability to pronounce it right. But that was close enough. So yeah, I’m glad it wasn’t too far off. Tom, welcome to the podcast. And thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me. With any communication over the last couple of, I guess last couple of months and it’s taken me a while to put this video out on YouTube. But I posted this video last week and your best times for an Iron Man Swim are 56 and then a 53-30 is your best Iron Man Swim, which is a good time. Yeah, that’s in the top 10% really of age group triathletes and up there pretty well with most of the pros. And some of the comments that we were reading on the YouTube video was,

this guy doesn’t look like he’s swimming at that speed. Now, I’d like to get your take on that before I chip in because I’m curious as to what your reaction was to those comments. So the first reaction was that I know I can swim the time. I’ve done it. My clock ticked it and it’s on the official Iron Man side. So I know I’ve done it. So the reason why I send you the video and why I wanted to get a feedback Friday video is because of that, because my swimming looks like shit and it can be improved. There’s so much to improve. And all the comments say that there is so much to improve. And you kind of gave me nine minutes of hints what I can improve and what I have to do and to work on to get my times even better. So that’s exactly why I wanted to have the video because it doesn’t look good. It’s okay. It’s decent in a wetsuit. I can swim fast. I can hit good times in the pool. But that’s exactly why I wanted to have the video because I needed the feedback and I want to improve even more.

That’s my first reaction about the comments and the second reaction was, well, if you look better than I do, sorry for finger pointing here, then why aren’t you swimming faster? I like it. Yeah, that’s the thing. So there’s no points for looking pretty unless that’s your goal. Unless your goal is to have someone say at the pool, you look like an amazing swimmer. That’s a beautiful stroke. And there’s nothing wrong with that goal either. But if your goal is to do well in triathlons and to be doing competitive times, there’s no points for looking pretty. And sometimes you have to get a little bit scrappy with your stroke when it comes to open water swimming because to deal with the chop and wearing a wetsuit and having other people around, you have to let go of that idea of perfect and we just want to focus on what’s going to be fastest. And looking through the 100 meter video that you sent through, you did I think a 113 or 114 for that 100.

And I think you took 16 strokes on the first lap and then it was 18, 18 and 19, which is a reasonable stroke count for that 100. And I don’t know what the stroke rate was, but my guess is it’s probably mid to high 60s just off the top of my head. And so while some people thought it didn’t look pretty, that’s still effective because if you look at your stroke count and your stroke rate, you put those two together, that’s your speed. So it doesn’t matter too much how it looks. From the analysis, what did you maybe learn from it or pick up from it that you couldn’t identify yourself? Basically everything because you don’t always get the proper feedback from someone who’s coaching a lot of athletes here. If you are in a tri-club, sometimes you have one coach standing at the side giving you a small hint and the small notification what you can improve. But as I am training mostly on your own, you don’t get the feedback that you actually need.

Some of the things, especially the head position is something where I thought it’s better if I look down straight to the floor and I get a more streamlined position. That was one thing I corrected the last week and this week in the pool already. And it feels better, especially for my neck when I jump on the TT bike. If I have some sessions, it’s a little bit more relaxed and there’s not so much tension and also the breathing. While some advice on keeping the head in a perfect position is for open water swimming, especially for short distance and a lot of people around you, not sufficient but it still helps to remember the position is not to look down and you are moving your head around too much and if you can keep it simple, easy and smooth then it’s better. So those things were probably the things for the head position that was one of the main things I took away from the video and then of course all the other things.

It’s so many small details that you can improve and you should improve to get a faster swimmer. So I was just taking it all and taking it all up for the training. I’m a little bit time crunched so I cannot get everything into every training session and work on everything. I try to adjust as much as possible. The second thing next to the head position was probably my hand position. You already said that looking from the side it looks like I’m moving outwards with the hands and that’s what I do. I have got that feedback from other people as well and now I’ve adjusted that by keeping the hand in a more flat position because it was turning to the side. While I was catching or starting the catch I was more to the side and not a full surface area and that was the second thing I adjusted just now last week and it also feels very good but it’s more tiring the whole time to keep the pressure up because it’s more pressure that you have to keep up for the full stroke.

Yeah, that’s true. Especially some of those changes with the catch and pull can be exhausting. One of the changes I’ve had to make over the years and probably still need to improve a bit is just going deeper through my catch and it’s hard work. It is really hard work to do. So it does take a while for it to become comfortable and easy and then the thought that goes into the technique as well uses some energy. They’re concentrating on things all the time until we get efficient at that movement. So yeah, as long as you stick with it and you just take it one thing at a time then I would believe over the next six months, 12 months that you’ll see some nice improvements and would be working your way down towards that 50-minute Ironman swim if you’re consistent with your training and working on the technical side of things. I’d like to ask you, what’s your swimming background? Where did it start for you with swimming?

Okay, well, I was swimming. My parents took me to swimming early on but not like the competitive league swimming or any team swimming, just learning how to keep up my head above the water so I don’t drown because there are many lakes around here where I live and they wanted to make sure that I’m capable of swimming. But learning to swim and do a proper stroke was probably when I was 17, 18 years during my A-levels and until then I didn’t know about proper swimming technique. I was doing a freestyle stroke with my head above the water and then just during the A-levels the teachers showed us how to properly do technique and that was the background where I started swimming then when I started triathlon that was probably eight, nine years ago I went into a training club in Munich and they had a proper coach who has done endurance swimming, six-hour swims and such things and he was probably the best to show me how to properly do technique

and he spent a lot of effort and time with me for about eight to ten months at the time I was there and that was when I probably first learned how to do a stroke and how to hit 135 per hundred meters and that was basically the background that I’m coming from and since then it’s just continuous improvement going to the pool twice a week at least and the winter times here in Germany probably three to four times and the background that I have is just the eight, nine years of swimming in the pool and trying to get constant feedback every year during videos that you do or just recordings that we do with the GoPro or with feedback by watching other people and then watching myself and that’s how I got to the times that I’m at now Yeah, so you pretty quickly got to that 135 pace which is terrific going from there to where you are now has that been quite a gradual progression or did you make some big gains and then plateau for a while

make some gains and plateau what’s that development and progression been like over the last seven, eight years It’s a similar process every year during the winter month there’s more time for swimming less time for outside bike riding because it’s rather cold and I don’t enjoy the cold here in Germany so during the winter time I can work on my swim efficiency so from basically October, November until March I hit the pool more often that’s where I increase about one to two seconds every winter maybe in some years there was a larger jump in the style technique side and in some winters there wasn’t just at the same summer month or at the racing period starting in May until like August, September it is basically just keep the lights on keep the form that I have gained over the winter and that’s so the gradual increase by just training through the winter and then keeping the form in the summer and then training through the winter

to gain some seconds again and then performing in the summer Yeah, and the thing I like about that is it’s obviously you’ve got good consistency there and over a long period of time and when people aren’t looking to rush that progression they’re just willing to put in the work it’s like I really enjoy working with those people who just keep chipping away at it and not to say you can’t have significant improvements in your speed especially if you are around that two minute two fifteen pace per hundred you can certainly have some big jumps but the progression for the majority of people especially if you are a 135 swimmer it’s often more gradual and as long as you’re consistent with it you can do really well have you had what sort of technique changes have you made over the last couple of years were there some things that stood out to you in the early days of your swimming that you had to work on and you made changes

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use our link formswim.com forward slash effortless or use the coupon effortless at checkout and that will get you 15% off your pair of goggles using our special link formswim.com forward slash effortless or the code effortless at checkout I was very sloppy in the beginning and just trying to hit a high frequency with a very short pull phase and very short catch phase I didn’t stretch my body the whole way and that was in the beginning so I just had a high turnover but no momentum gained through the high turnover because it was just too short everything was too short I started the catch way too early without full extension and I stopped the pull the push in the end on my hip so it was a very short stroke and I have increased the distance and I’ve become a slow fast swimmer so from very high turnover I have moved to a very rather compared to other swimmers probably to professionals as well with a very low stroke rate

compared probably that’s why it looks so slow but I can reach full extension from the shoulder and I can push way more compared to the legs, to the knee during that time so in the beginning it was very choppy and not so smooth and now it’s a very smooth and fast stroke Do you think that that originated from seeing what other people were doing or that’s just what you naturally gravitated towards when you were first beginning in the pull and you didn’t know what you should be doing? Well, I think it was because I didn’t know what I was doing I was just focusing on momentum and speed and that’s what I know for the A-levels we had to perform a certain time in a certain and a certain distance and to reach that the only way was to hit the pool really hard and put all in efforts all the time and that was probably why I just was like swimming without control and since then I had a completely different approach because I don’t have to hit like 400 meter times

but I can train consistently and have another goal than just getting in a certain grade in school where I can just motor my way through the pool and it was okay now I have to really adjust because all the people around me they are getting faster and I really have to look at other things and there’s still a bike and a run coming afterwards for the school thing there was no bike and run afterwards there was changing and then they was done probably that’s because I didn’t know better at the time I was such a sloppy swimmer and I say that with a lot of people who are maybe one or two years into their swimming it’s just I’ve got to go harder I’ve got to work my arms harder and faster to be able to go quicker which is only true to a certain extent it’s more about the efficiency like you mentioned and if you’re looking at your video so you’re recording yourself how often are you recording yourself with the GoPro? I try half a year every half a year

because there are very strong privacy regulations in German pools so we have to hit a day where there are no other people at the pool or we have to do it at team training and then everyone has to consent that there is a recording so I try it every half a year if we have the possibility to be at team training then more often and this year I already had the chance to do it three times I’ve been to an indoor training pool where there are video cameras all the four sides with such a I don’t know the particular English word where the water is coming from the front and yeah like endless pool like an endless pool and I had the opportunity to be there this year in one of those endless pools to be filmed and that already gave me another perspective and also put your comments into perspective and the coach there you basically said the same things that I have to improve and so to come back to your questions probably every half a year

I get a video of myself swimming and have you looked back at your original video you still have that footage from several years ago? No, I don’t sadly I don’t it would be nice to have a comparison between now and then but maybe I can ask us around and find something where there is a recording of myself yeah it’d be interesting to see that we use an app called Skillist when we film people at clinics or if people send me videos I often use this Skillist app and that’s what I use for your analysis actually for the YouTube video and I look back at some of the videos I think we’ve been using it for seven or eight years now and I’ve had some swimmers who have returned after six or seven years and they’ve done a filming session with me and it’s amazing to look back at the progression for these people and sort of pull up both videos and go oh my god this is how you were swimming this is how you’re swimming now and it’s good for your confidence as well

because I think when you’re it’s like when you look in the mirror every day you don’t see any changes happen I’m 35 now and I look in the mirror I’m like the same as I was when I was 25 I look at photos now and go oh no I’m not but it’s the same thing with your swimming stroke when it’s your technique you just really can’t see those changes yourself as much unless there’s this really you put them side by side and there’s this big change so I think it’s good to acknowledge the progression and improvement that you’ve had over time so if you’ve got that opportunity I think it’s a really cool thing to be able to do I think so as well that’s a proper way to learn and to see your progression because it’s always frustrating to not see what you’re improving and your times are the same they’re more efficient and your times are the same then there is still an improvement but you don’t hit it at the split times when you touch the wall in the pool

so I think that’s a very neat idea to do that yeah that’s right and for you do you do any sort of test sets or like a 400 time trial is there anything that you use to measure where you’re at to measure your progress over time yes we have two to three tests that we do different tests regularly we have a 400 meter and 200 meter critical swim speed test so we do a warm up around 1000 meters then we do a 400 meter all out test then a longer break of like 5 to 10 minutes and then another 200 meter all out test and that’s the shorter one for the short distance races and for the Ironman we usually do a 1000 meter time trial in the pool and what’s your critical swim speed at the moment or what was the last time that you did it probably around 126 127 per 100 meters we don’t really use critical swim speed in our training we usually go more like RPE based because some pools are different and then some days I have a good stroke and some days

I have a bad stroke and we usually try to have a small range and then also an RPE feeling in the pool or at least I do, my coach gives me times of course that I should do and then that’s basically how we measure our training we just want to see the progression and if we improve with the training that we do that’s what we do the 400 to 200 test for or the 1000 test and the 1000 meter test is also for pacing the Ironman because the time that I can hit there and we subtract some seconds will be the Ironman time that I am able to swim Yeah, yeah, fantastic I just recorded an episode on critical swim speed actually and I think it’s a good way to measure where you’re at and what your aerobic threshold is based on when they’ve studied it it’s within about 1.4%

of what your 1500 meter time trial would be so the idea behind the critical swim speed if you’re listening it’s roughly what your 1500 meter time trial would be so roughly your aerobic threshold and doing this 400 meter and 200 meter time trial will give you this pace and it’s within 1.4% when they have tested people provided they warm up enough and get enough recovery in between so I think it can be a good way to have a rough idea of some paces that you should be using in training the downside to it is as you said if you’re not having a good session you’re not going to be able to do any of the pools so let’s say different pools a 50 is going to be slower than a 25 meter pool for majority of people same with if you’re in warmer water so our pool that we normally trained in last week they had chlorine issues and so we had to go to the indoor 25 meter pool and it’s hot it’s like 28 and a half degrees I think which doesn’t seem that hot

but it’s a degree and a half warmer than the competition pool that we swim push above about a 70% effort and so my times where they were quite slow so there are going to be some factors there that will impact your ability to hit your times based on CSS training so I think as long as you are aware of those and maybe you’ll need to adjust the times then it can be a good way to train but I’m a big fan of perceived effort because if you’re in tune with your body and how much effort you’re putting into a certain training session or how much effort you’re putting out in a race that is going to be much more effective than I think just checking your watch all the time because we just want to get in tune to roughly what we’re doing without having to look at the clock so I like both styles and for me I probably prefer the RPE perceived exertion but I think CSS you can kind of use both together in a way so yeah that’s what we would normally do

but there will certainly be some factors there that will impact your times there and that’s when I quite often get people saying my time is very a lot between sessions I’ll have good days and bad days but there are a lot of factors that will contribute another thing that can contribute too is if you’re leading the lane you’re all going to be having to work a bit harder than the person who’s going second in the lane especially if you’re pushing off three seconds after the person in front of you so you’ll get a lot of draft you’ll probably be able to hit faster times for about 20% less effort so there are lots of things that will impact that so it’s good to be aware of them so that you don’t get a the wrong idea with what pace you could hold in races or long distances have you experienced any of that had you come to realise some of those things of your time that you’ve been swimming all of them basically there are some pools that are faster

and some pools that are slower and I think 25 meters maximum a third of 50 meters when it comes to times so my 50 meters are around 2 to 3 seconds slower than my 25 meter pool times and that’s something I realise every year when I come from winter season to the outdoor 50 meter pool that we have here that I’m rather slow compared to the 25 meter pool times probably because my flip turn has improved over the last two three years which also improves the 25 meter splits because I don’t have to swim for 50 meters but all of the points that you just mentioned are true, if you work on the front it’s way harder to go the same speed as if you’re on second, third position in a lane absolutely, yeah, big difference there so it is good to be aware of them and for me I really enjoy leading the lane because I like to have flat clear water out in front and I don’t love the turbulence but I guess the benefit is it’s easier but it’s also good practice for open water

so it’s a toss up between those two but I think coming from a pool from background I just like to have clear water if I could have my own lane I’d take it even if it meant having to work a bit harder because I love the feeling of it just being calm and flat are you doing all your training sessions as part of a squad or are you doing your own solo sessions or with friends what does that look like? With friends, so the third option that you mentioned mostly I train alone because I can manage it around my schedule and at work when I have some free time I can kind of quickly go to the pool or I can do an early morning session and some of my friends are not the only morning person that they don’t want to swim before work they just enjoy it after work but I try to get around people that are swimming the same pace or faster so that we can improve together and we have a small group of four or five friends we are all doing triathlon

no one is a pure swimmer and we try to hit the pool together to improve our swim speed and also the motivation is way higher if there’s someone next to you or behind you swimming in the same or similar pace that’s what I prefer nevertheless I do most of my sessions on my own sadly because I cannot manage the team times in the evening because I want to do something else spend time with my girlfriend or just do a biking session or work a little bit longer and that’s why most of the sessions are alone even if I would prefer to be in a like a competitive swimming squad or in a more group swim scenario yeah I mean you’ve got to be able to work with your own schedule so it’s not easy to have where you can’t have the perfect scenario where the squad times work with when you are not working and all your other sessions as well for me it’s been I normally swim the squad three times a week and then over summer I’ll increase it to maybe four or five

and those other two swims will be solo sessions I think the benefit to solo sessions is that depending on when you do them you’ve got more lane space sometimes it is harder to push yourself because you don’t have others racing you what I normally do depending on what the other sessions have looked like I’ll try and do my more sort of aerobic threshold sessions in those times where I’m swimming by myself and I’ll make the main set about 2k and there’s short rest I can make it very specific to what I need whereas with the squad the rest times are a bit longer because at the front end of the group there so I’d say the sessions aren’t really specific to me they’re still great but I do like to make those really specific sessions so I’ll try and do like real sort of top end aerobic work where I’m hitting about my CSS pace I just wanted to mention something there the other way around I like to do the very hard sessions the very aerobic

sessions, anaerobic sessions with a squad because I can push myself so much more like 2 to 3 seconds are the splits better when I do it with a group compared to when I do them alone and that’s where I see a difference between us because I really like to do the hard sessions with the squad and with people that swim similar times because we can increase our average over the whole set by just pushing ourselves and sometimes when I do it alone after 5, 6, 7 repetitions of 10 I’m like oh no another 3 oh no another 2 and when we do it in a group it’s like ok we hit this one ok next one faster still 2 to go come on let’s go it’s really the team spirit or friend spirit that we have in this group we push ourselves way more than when we’re doing it alone so maybe there we are different but that’s something where I accelerate if I’m in a group and we can push ourselves that makes my splits faster and that’s why I like the harder sessions in a group

and I would say that’s probably the for most people that’s probably the best way to do it because you will push harder I think the reason why I do those sessions on my own is because I miss our Tuesday, Thursday session with the squad which are the more aerobic based days so I don’t get enough of that work during the week because I can’t swim in those mornings so I think that’s probably partly partly why and I think I’m just like being a coach I used to coach a squad for 9 years so I’d always have to do most of my sessions just after coaching and so I’d want to just get in like warm up for 500 meters and then try and get maybe 2 or 3k in where I’m just like alright let’s go in let’s get it done and make it a hard session so I’m just used to that with my background of coaching and having to do some of those swims by myself so I think some of it carries over from that but when I do train with other people, certainly pushing

harder and I look at some of the sessions that I used to do I was living in a different part of Melbourne and I was training with friends there and we used to work hard and I don’t think I can push myself that hard by myself anymore so it does help to have those others around over your last 8-9 years of doing triathlon and thinking of the swimming in particular is there any advice that you’d have for someone who’s new to triathlon that you think would help them with their own swimming? Film yourself and get constant feedback. In IT we have a continuous improvement process. You always have to get feedback on what you are doing to improve the things that you are doing even if it’s just your own feedback your own feedback loop to increase to improve what you are doing. I think that’s very important and one thing that you should do and don’t over stress the technique issues in the beginning, look at them also enjoy swimming. Have a fun session

at the pool every now and then or just go hard every now and then and enjoy it in the beginning because it will be a hard and long journey to get to specific times. For me it’s still a journey I might have very good swim times compared to many of the other age group athletes but still I think there is way more to go and I see that in the video that you provided and the feedback that you provided there will always be something that you can improve but in the beginning enjoy it and don’t over stress all the things and just get continuous feedback and one thing that I really enjoy even so the Sun Yang was probably doping there is a very nice YouTube video where you can see him from all angles on YouTube which is a loop and you just see his technique and how good and smooth he swims and that should be like an ideal image to always get it’s an ideal image that I always go back to and I just watch that YouTube video for a minute

or two and then I remember okay next time when I’m in the pool I have to focus at this and that and then I can compare it to my videos and get the continuous feedback so I really like this video of Sun Yang on YouTube you probably find it Sun Yang stroke or something like that on YouTube and you don’t over stress it and enjoy swimming because most of the triathletes say that it’s their hate discipline and if you go with a negative mindset onto your first discipline then it probably always sucks if you just go there and say oh no swimming again and do a nice and joyful session and if you have kids just take the pool noodle and enjoy it for some time I think that’s great advice because it’s so easy to be very critical of yourself and I’d say I’m guilty of that as well I filmed myself a couple of weeks ago and looked at it and went oh my god this is I thought it was better than this and similar thing like I’m happy with my times

times are reasonably good but I look at it and go oh my god there’s this wrong and there’s that wrong but like this morning I was training and I was just going through the cooldown and I had this thought in my mind of how good is swimming we just get to float in the water it’s a full body exercise and it’s just so meditative and you can get such a good workout and it’s something that I’ll be able to do until the day I die which is which is great and you know running is probably a different story so it’s just such a great activity to be doing and if you are not enjoying it then it’s going to be a lot of time that you’ll be spending in something that you don’t enjoy so if you aren’t enjoying it what my suggestion would be I just said get either get filmed or just find a coach who can help you work on a couple of things and just have a really simple roadmap of things to work on and just pick one thing don’t try and do it all just pick one thing

and make sure you start in the right order I can’t remember what podcast episode it was but probably I don’t know, 15, 20 episodes ago I recorded one about the structure on how you should analyse your own stroke and I’ll just run through it very quickly now it’s head, look at head body then we work on the kick, the rotation and then kind of what the arms are doing that’s a really simple way to just go step by step through your stroke through your stroke so you don’t need to start with your arms for example if you follow that correct order then it’s going to make it really simple for you to know where to begin and when we looked at your video we looked at the head position and it was just moving around a little bit too much so that’s why we wanted to start with that which was why I suggested it and now it’s probably dialed in pretty well so we can then move on to the other things, well yeah maybe right so we’ll find out next video

but yeah it’s like anything when you know what you can do to get better it is so much more enjoyable so yeah if you just get something personalised it makes a huge huge difference so Tom I want to thank you for being on the podcast and being willing to share your video with tens of thousands of people on YouTube and probably more than that with the Instagram and Facebook as well it’s not only helpful for obviously yourself you’ve got some things out of it which is great but so many people can relate to your video as well so I appreciate you putting it out there and allowing me to share it with others and also for jumping on the podcast. Yeah thanks for having me and I really hope some people can take something out of the video and also can improve their swim times based on what I’m doing wrong maybe they see similar issues or they see similar problems where they can improve and that’s why I want to be on the podcast and share the video

with you because I think continuous improvement is a very important thing for all of us to improve and to get a better swim time even if we don’t enjoy it I do enjoy it now earlier I didn’t so thanks for having me and I hope I could help some people improving their swim. Awesome thank you Tom.

The post [Case Study] 53-minute Ironman Swim with Tom Hohenadl appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

In this episode, I’ll discuss CSS training to enhance your swimming’s aerobic capacity, enabling you to maintain faster times over longer distances. We’ll explore its definition, and application, and suggest effective sets to boost your aerobic capacity and overall performance. Tune in now!

This podcast is brought to you by NanoClear — our own range of anti-fog swim goggles, designed by Effortless Swimming with the anti-fog treatment bonded into the lens itself (not sprayed on, so it doesn’t wear off after a few swims). Check out the NanoClear anti-fog swimming goggles here and use code PODCAST15 for 15% off.

Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford.

Do you want to swim smarter and swim faster? Then you need EO SwimBetter, the only swimming device that lets you see the previously unseen. Because the first time, you can understand exactly what your hand is doing on every stroke, analyze and adapt your technique, see the effect of every single adjustment, and all with the device that you won’t even know that you’re wearing. Swim faster, faster with EO SwimBetter, a stroke of genius. Dive into the swimming evolution at eolab.com forward slash swim better. Use the code Effortless a checkout to receive your first 12 months free on an annual gold membership. Hi and welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. On today’s episode, I’m going to cover CSS training and how you can use it to improve your aerobic capacity when you’re swimming, so that you can sustain faster times for longer distances. So if you are training for any events that are 400 meters or more, this is the real fundamental training that you should be including

as part of your workouts at least once a week, but ideally twice a week. So we’re going to dig into that and see what it is, how you can use it, and what types of sets that you can do to make sure that you are improving and increasing your aerobic capacity. And this makes me think of an athlete that we’ve had on this podcast before, Josh Sally, and Josh started swimming a bit over 18 months ago. And when he first started swimming, he was struggling to swim more than about 25 meters at a time without running out of breath. Fast forward to today, and he is averaging in the 120s for his half Ironman events, massive improvement in quite a short space of time. What comes to mind with Josh is there’s two things that he’s really improved. One, technique, massive improvement in his technique. Number two, his aerobic capacity when he’s swimming. Now the reason I make that clarification there for his aerobic capacity when he’s swimming is that

yes, overall his aerobic capacity is improved with the training that he’s been doing, but swimming fitness is very different to running fitness. Now if you think of the athletes or the cyclists who are racing in the Tour de France at the moment, which is going on, if you have a look at their legs, they have very strong, very muscular, well-defined legs. And the reason for that is the amount of training that they do, their body gets very efficient at pumping blood to where it needs to be used. And that’s why they have those strong muscular legs because they’re using them a lot. And if you think of a river that has lots of different branches and outlets and it goes out to sea, when that river gets a big influx of water, so that rains really heavy, then you see all of those rivers getting pushed up high and sometimes expanding into new rivers and estuaries, similar thing with your capillaries and your blood vessels.

When you are using certain types of muscles more, then you’re going to get more blood flow there and you’re going to develop the pathways to be able to deliver the blood where it’s needed. So if you’ve just begun swimming and you’re finding that you’re getting quite fatigued quite quickly, especially through your shoulders, that’s normal. You’re probably not used to using your shoulders and your body in that way if you’re new to the swimming. So we just need to get over that initial hurdle of having our body become somewhat efficient at delivering the blood where it needs to go. But once we’re past that, then we can really start to work on our aerobic capacity in the pool or in the open water. And that’s what CSS training can really help you with. So what is CSS training? It’s known as critical swim speed. And you can think of it as your aerobic threshold. So you can do a test called a CSS test, so critical

swim speed test. And it’s supposed to be to give you an idea of what your 1500 meter race pace would be. So if you were to do a 1500 meter time trial, what pace would you get? And the way that we do this CSS test is it’s a 400 meter time trial with some recovery in between, followed by a 200 meter time trial. Now with those times, we go, we take the 400 meter time and we take away the 200 meter time from that 400. And then we divide that result by two to get your 100 meter pace for what we would assume to be your 1500 meter race pace. So let’s throw some numbers in there. Let’s say it takes you eight minutes for the 400 time trial. And it took you three minutes 50 for the 200 meter time trial. That would give you four minutes 10. And then we divide that by two, which would be a 205 pace. So that 205 would be your critical swim speed. And we can now use that number to start to design some training so that we can over time improve that 205 and and work that down

hopefully towards a two minutes 155 150 and going down from there. So with this CSS test, how often should you do it? I would recommend doing it every four to six weeks, because that’s going to give us ample time to be able to make some improvements, especially if it’s every six weeks. So every four weeks, you should start to see an improvement over that time. But certainly after six weeks, if you’re doing the right type of training, then we should start to see your CSS pace coming down. Now, why should you do it? Well, we want to measure our progress. First of all, if you don’t know where you’re at, it’s very hard to know where you want to go from there. So I find for most athletes that I will work with, which large majority of them are triathletes or open water swimmers doing events in the one to four kilometer range, most of them are. Well, this is a really good way just to get an idea of what your aerobic threshold is and to put a number on that and start to use that in training.

Now, the way I would approach this or the way that we want to use this number to then start to train and be able to improve upon it is if you have looked much into zone two training, and we’ve had very well known triathlete on this podcast, Norwegian triathlete, and he is quite famous for doing a lot of their classified zone two training, which is aerobic training and doing a lot of training in this zone two, particularly the upper range of that, that is how they start to develop this engine where they’re able to be able to sustain good pace for a very long period of time. Now, if you think of your CSS pace as kind of like that very top, very, very top of your aerobic capacity, if you can do training around that CSS pace or just below it, so let’s say it’s a 205, if you can do quite a bit of your training for around between to say 205 and 215 pace, if that’s if 205 is your CSS pace, then that’s going to help you develop your aerobic fitness and that’s going to help you

work that down. So let’s take a look at what type of sets you could do. Now, let’s say you’ve done your tests, you’ve done your CSS tests, you know what your CSS pace is. An example of a set that you could do to begin to work this down would be say 3100s, and this is a set that I did with MySquad this morning. We did 3100s, broken into three lots of 10, and the first set of 10 that we did, we took 10 seconds rest in between each one, and that was at CSS plus 3, and then we took a minute rest after the first 10, then we did the next 10 at CSS plus 2, and then we took another minute’s rest and we did the last lot of 10 100s at CSS pace plus 1. Now,

this plus 1, plus 2, plus 3, this is plus in terms of seconds on top of your time. So let’s say it was a 205, well, we’d go that first round of 10 at 208, second round of 10 at 207, and then the last round at 206. Okay, so that’s how we’d work it. Now, there’s a couple of things I really like about this type of set, this 3100 set. It’s first of all, it’s a progressive build. So I love those sessions where you’ve got to be able to sustain your pace the whole way through and just gradually building up. It’s like a crescendo. We’re at the end, you’re kind of working the hardest, but you’ve got to maintain your speed and ideally get a little bit quicker towards the end. I think those sets are great for for confidence, and also just really encouraging you to be able to maintain your your pace through the through an entire session. This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, form smart swim goggles. They’re more than a pair of goggles,

meet the world’s most powerful swim platform. See yourself improve with form smart swim goggles, including a free one year membership when you purchase your goggles for only $249 US dollars. They’ve currently changed up their offer where you can now get the goggles, and you have one year membership included for free. And if you’d like to continue with the membership going forwards, it’s only $15 a month where you get access to their workouts, training plans, and custom workout builder, but you’ll always have access to the real time data in the goggles. So you never lose access to that. My favorite thing about the form goggles is having the instant feedback of what times you’re doing, what stroke rate you’re doing, and also the ability to see what your heart rate is. Because never before have we been able to have these immediate feedback heads up display where it’s actually telling you what your intervals are. So when I wear the goggles in training, I like that I know my

split for the first 50 and the 100 and the 150. So every single lap, I’m getting that feedback on what my pace is. And I find it’s such an important tool for being able to not only have different gears where you can switch between the different speeds that you want to swim, but it helps you develop those gears and it helps you intuitively know how fast you need to go to before you’re going to blow up or before you’re going to go a little bit too hard. So it helps you just get really good at judging your pace for when you do go to a race. And even if you’re not wearing the goggles in a race, it’s that intuition and that ability to develop your pacing that these goggles can really help with. To get your pair of form goggles and save 15% off, use our link formswim.com forward slash effortless or use the coupon effortless at checkout. And that will get you 15% off your pair of goggles using our special link formswim.com forward slash effortless or the code effortless at checkout.

So that’s a one example of a set. Now another set that I quite quite like is a similar sort of set up to it where we’ll go you go 400 and then two 300s, three 200s and then four 100s a decent set depending on what your ability or your level of swimming. But with those cycles there, I’d go the 400 at CSS plus, that just depends where we’re at, but normally like CSS plus six seconds. And then I’d go the two 300s at CSS plus four seconds, the 200s at CSS plus two and the four 100s at CSS pace. So again, just gradually getting faster throughout. And it’s just another nice gentle build into the into the set. So by training at just below your aerobic threshold, that is how you develop your aerobic engine. And that is how you can have your swimming fitness start to increase over time. And I’d recommend doing usually two sessions like this a week, because if you’re time poor, and you’re only able to get in a couple of

sessions a week, then two of those ideally should be this CSS or threshold type sessions, because they give you big bang for buck on on what you’re actually doing in the water. And I find for most people, this is how you can really work on that type of fitness. And this is going to help you deliver that blood flow to the muscles that need it. And it’s going to help you become efficient in those swing movements. Now, what I’ve just added to our effortless swimming membership is I’ve got our calculator there. So you can explain how to do the test. And you can just put your numbers in. And that’ll spit out your CSS results there and what your pace is per 100. But more than that, I’ve added my top 12 CSS workouts. So if you’re not sure what types of sessions you should be doing, I’ve got my top 12 CSS workouts that I’ve done through through the years and ones that I will often refer to. And and use as part of my

training. And if I’m prescribing sessions to people, these are ones that I would often give them. So they’re inside the effortless swimming membership. Now, when you combine this type of training with better technique, you are kind of getting twice the return on your investment. So what I mean by that is if you think of someone, let’s say Josh, for example, who didn’t have really bad technique, but he certainly didn’t have great technique early on. Over time, he was able to really swim like swim. He looks like a looks like a very high level triathlete in the world. Looks like he’s swimming very, very well. If you’re able to develop your stroke and your technique alongside your aerobic fitness, then you are going to see some pretty incredible gains if you can do those two things. So if we think about what does it look like for you to be a strong, efficient, fast swimmer, well, they’re going to comprise 80% of those things, those those two things, your aerobic capacity and your technique.

Now, what else is in there? Your skills, the way that you move, your flexibility, your strength, those things are certainly factors. But I’d say the majority of it is your aerobic fitness is a swimmer and then the technique. So that’s why we have a big focus on those couple of things because they are what will give you your biggest return on time spent.

The post How To Use CSS Training To Swim Faster For Longer Distances appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

In this episode, we delve into the concept of challenges and how they transform over time. Using my own experiences as a surfer and swimmer, I look back on the challenges I’ve encountered and how they’ve influenced my journey. Tune in now!

This podcast is brought to you by NanoClear — our own range of anti-fog swim goggles, designed by Effortless Swimming with the anti-fog treatment bonded into the lens itself (not sprayed on, so it doesn’t wear off after a few swims). Check out the NanoClear range here and use code PODCAST15 for 15% off.

Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Hi, and welcome to this week’s episode of the Effortless Swimming Podcast. I want to start this episode off with a story about something that happened earlier this week. Three months ago, I purchased a new surfboard. I had it custom made to the exact specs that I wanted, the exact size, and I was really looking forward to this board coming. Now, a week ago, the board finally arrived after three months of waiting, just checking the mail every day. So it finally arrived, so I waxed it up, put some fins in it, and I was waiting for some good conditions to surf this board in. I didn’t want to waste it when it was really choppy and windy and not nice conditions to surf in. So finally a day arrives and earlier this week, I take the board down to the beach and I go out and I catch a couple waves and it’s feeling really good.

Then this wave comes and I am surfing on my backhand, which means for me, I’m going right when I take off on the wave. And this is the best backhand wave I’ve ever surfed. The wave itself was okay, but the way I was surfing, this was the best I’d ever done in terms of had these three nice flowing turns. I was relaxed. I was in flow. It felt really good. And I thought, oh, I’ve just levelled up my surfing here. I’ve never felt this good going to my right. I had this big smile on my face as I was paddling back out to the line-up. Then on the next wave, paddle for it, take off, and I go for this top turn. And I’m a little bit confident here, so I try and push that turn a bit harder and a bit faster than normal. And what happens? My foot slips off, so the board turns to the side and then as I’m coming down off the top turn, I land with my knee on the rail and I’ve cracked the rail. A big crack on my brand new, not so cheap board.

And I was pretty frustrated. I was angry because I had this high high where I was thinking, yep, I’ve improved big time here. And then I go for the next one, ding my new board. And the reason I’m telling you this story is because in life we have ups and downs. We’ve always got the ying and the yang, but as we get better and we progress, our challenges and our problems, they evolve. 10 years ago, actually 15 years ago when I started surfing, the challenges that I had was not getting cleaned up as I was paddling out for the waves or just trying to actually go across the right wave rather than going straight. So the challenges I had back then were very different to the challenges I’ve got now. Dinging boards because I’m pushing too hard in turns and swings very much like that where as you progress and you get better, you’re going to have different challenges with your technique and your fitness and your skills.

But the overall baseline begins to rise. So even though we still have highs, we still have lows, the overall baseline and threshold will creep up over time. But it’s not going to stop you from having good days and bad days. Often I’ll get asked by people, like, what’s going on? Today I was from in 140 pace and yesterday I was from in 135. I just don’t, I don’t get it. Like what’s, what’s going wrong here? But we always have those good and bad days and sometimes it can change with how much sleep you have, how you’re feeling, how you’ve done a lot of training before that, how’s the stress with work and family and life. All these little different things, they play a different part. So what we want to try and do is just remember that that’s part of the journey and we can overall raise that baseline and have different challenges and different problems as we get better. But it is easy to forget that sometimes.

And I know when I came off that surfboard and I looked at my rail and saw it was dinged up to the first surf and thought, ah man, this is really annoying. It took a little while to calm down from that and go actually, all right, this is a good problem to have. My surfings improved a lot over the last 10 to 15 years. Doesn’t mean I’m not getting frustrated when those things happen, but it’s just part of the journey. In next week’s episode, I’m going to cover how you can raise the baseline of your aerobic fitness. Because most of you who are probably listening to this, you are probably training for some middle to longer distance events and the way that we can improve our overall speed there, a big part of that is your aerobic fitness. And I see people doing some things in training that aren’t benefiting them, that’s not really working for them as well as they could. So in next week’s episode, I’m going to cover in detail

what you can do to improve your overall aerobic fitness, how you can track it and the types of workouts that you need to do in order to make those gains. Because coming from a swimming background, this feels quite obvious and quite, how do you put it? It’s general knowledge coming from the swimming background, but a lot of people that I coach, they don’t have that background. So they’re stepping into this world without that knowledge. So that’s what I want to share next week. So tune in for how you can raise that overall baseline of your aerobic fitness so you can sustain a faster pace for the next event that you do. Thanks for listening. See you next week. This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, Form Smart Swim Goggles. They’re more than a pair of goggles. Meet the world’s most powerful swim platform. See yourself improved with Form Smart Swim Goggles, including a free one-year membership

when you purchase your goggles for only $249 US dollars. They have currently changed up their offer where you can now get the goggles and you have one-year membership included for free. And if you’d like to continue with the membership going forwards, it’s only $15 US dollars a month where you get access to the workouts, training plans, and custom workout builder. But you’ll always have access to the real-time data in the goggles, so you never lose access to that. My favorite thing about the Form Goggles is having the instant feedback of what times you’re doing, what stroke rate you’re doing, and also the ability to see what your heart rate is. Because never before have we been able to have these immediate feedback heads-up display where it’s actually telling you what your intervals are. So when I wear the goggles in training, I like that I know my split for the first 50 and the 100 and the 150. So every single lap I’m getting that feedback on what my pace is.

And I find it’s such an important tool for being able to not only have different gears where you can switch between the different speeds that you want to swim, but it helps you develop those gears and it helps you intuitively know how fast you need to go before you’re going to blow up or before you’re going to go a little bit too hard. So it helps you just get really good at judging your pace for when you do go to a race. And even if you’re not wearing the goggles in a race, it’s that intuition and that ability to develop your pacing that these goggles can really help with. To get your pair of Form Goggles and save 15% off, use our link formswim.com forward slash effortless. Or use the coupon effortless at checkout. And that will get you 15% off your pair of goggles using our special link formswim.com forward slash effortless. Or the code effortless at checkout.

The post Riding the Waves of Success and Stumbles In Your Swimming appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

Today, I have the pleasure of chatting with Joe Friel, an exceptional endurance sports coach, renowned for his expertise in triathlon and cycling. Not only is Joe a highly respected coach, but he’s also an accomplished author, having written multiple books, including his most popular work, the Triathlete’s Training Bible. In this episode, we will discuss swimming techniques, including the PDLC method for improving skills, the 5-2 training methodology, and many more. Tune in now!

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Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. So you want to swim smarter and swim faster? Then you need EO Swim Better, the only swimming device that lets you see the previously unseen. Because the first time, you can understand exactly what your hand is doing on every stroke, analyze and adapt your technique, see the effect of every single adjustment and all with the device that you won’t even know that you’re wearing. Swim faster, fast with EO Swim Better, a stroke of genius. Dive into the Swimming Evolution at eolab.com forward slash swim better. Use the code Effortless a checkout to receive your first 12 months free on an annual gold membership. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. My guest today is Joe Freel, he’s an endurance sports coach best known as an elite triathlon

and cycling coach as well as an author of multiple books. Joe’s most popular book and most well known book is the Triathletes Training Bible and on this episode, Joe and I talk about swimming technique. He talks about his PDLC method, which I think is a great approach to improving your technique very similar to what we cover in our clinics and eight week faster freestyle course. We also talk about the five and two training methodology. What you should do each week and that’s the five and two method. We also talk about how your body and your VO2 max and your strength changes as you get older. And what you can do to delay that regression in VO2 max and strength. We also talk about how triathletes need to approach this from a little bit differently to pool swimmers and what some of those technique changes are. And we also talk about what Joe’s been interested in lately. What’s peaked his curiosity and kept him researching and learning about

different parts of human evolution. So let’s get into this podcast episode with Joe Freel. I really enjoyed this episode recording it. So I’m sure you’ll enjoy listening to it. Let’s get into it. My guest today is very well known coach and author, Joe Freel. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Brenton. Glad to be here. I got introduced to you by Mark Evans, who was on the podcast quite recently. And I’ve known about you for a long time, heard your name around the triathlon circles because you’ve been around for a long time. And I think a key figure in endurance training with the books that you’ve written and the knowledge that you’ve shared. So it’s great to have you on the podcast to talk about some of these things. And specifically for the swimming side of triathlon. And before we got on this podcast, we were talking about what do you think would be probably the most relevant thing for triathletes listening.

And you said something that you’ve worked on with triathletes when you’ve been face to face is the skills, is the swimming skills. And I love to hear that because that is what we specialize in. I love to work on technique and skills with athletes because there’s just so much to gain, no matter what age they’re at. And I had a camp last weekend up in Queensland and had an athlete in his late 70s come along. And over the past 12, 18 months, I’ve been working with him on his technique. He’d never done any filming or analysis before. And even in his late 70s, he’s he’s still looking for improvement. And I love to see that. And I know you’ve done a lot of work with people as they they get older to help improve their, their VO2 max and their endurance. But also skills is a huge one for swimming, because no matter what your age, you can you can get better at it and see improvement. And unlike the VO2 max, which will drop off for people as they age,

skills you can improve over a lifetime. So with that in mind, what sort of things were you looking at when you work with people in person in terms of the swimming skills? What sort of things do you see stand out? Yeah, well, as as we talked, she had a very, very briefly about at the start of this conversation this morning, you know, what I what I found with triathletes, especially is that if they started swimming or six years old, seven years old, they have no problems whatsoever. They’ve got it figured out. But unfortunately, at least in the US, most triathletes come into the sport and they’re in their thirties, forties, fifties. And they have absolutely no idea how to swim other than what they did when they were kids playing around the pool. And so but they come from a sport like like usually running or perhaps cycling. And so they think the way they’re supposed to become better swimmers is doing the same things they did in those sports, which is basically

doing intervals all the time. And that’s going to make them faster, but it doesn’t work. You really can’t do it that way. Swimming is an entirely different animal compared with running and cycling. Water is a very thick medium to try to move your body through compared with air. Air is very easy to move your body through, although it’s got some resistance. Water has got I don’t know what the number is, but hundreds of times more resistance than air has when you’re trying to move your body through it. And so it doesn’t really matter how many intervals you do. All you’re doing, if you’ve got poor technique, poor skills, you’re just creating a lot of bubbles around yourself as you go through the water. You’re really not doing anything to make yourself faster. So when I put on camps for athletes, the things I think that what we’ve always done is so they’re usually one week camps because we start off the very first day with a 500 meter swim time trial

just to find out where they are. So we’ve got a baseline and they came into that day fresh because I told them before they come to the camp, it’s going to be a week long. They’re going to put in probably 20 hours or more of training, which almost none of them have ever done. And so they need to get rested up before they come to the camp. So they come to come to us fresh. And on day one, they do a 500 meter time trial. And we record those those those numbers for for posterity. So we know what’s going on in the future. And then for the coming week for the next five days, all I do with them is work on skills. We never do a single interval. We never swim more than a 25 at one time. All they’re doing is swimming to 25, working on a skill and stopping at the end of the 25. At the end, at the end of that 25, we talk about I talk with them about what I saw, what they need to be working on individually. And it’s for the next 25.

And I talk again about what they need to be working on individually. And there’s four things I work on with. I won’t go into those right now, but we record them throughout the session. So every day we record every athlete. And then every day we go over every athlete’s technique on that video so they can see see themselves because most athletes don’t really they think they’re doing things right, but they don’t they don’t really realize what’s going on. So we’ve got an underwater camera taking a look at them and we can see what it is. And I can point out these things and tell them how to correct this. And we boil it down to four things. So I’ll go to those four things. Now, if you want me to or we can say that for later, how do you want to do it? That’d be good. Let’s go on to those four things. OK, I started working on this many years ago. Because I realized working with that with swimmers was not really going very well

with just trying to get them to be to be better. And they were given so much information, so many ideas on how they could improve the swimming and the idea just didn’t work. You know, there’s all kinds of things out there. But what should an athlete be doing to swim faster? For example, a very common thing that I run into talking to athletes is they have a coach that tells them to have their fingers closed in the pool or have them open in the pool, they get both at both instructions. And I would say that’s like that’s like a two percenter. You know, you may get two percent better if you forgot which of those things you’re supposed to do, it may make you two percent better. And there’s other things that they do that are really detrimental to the performance. And so what I’m trying to find is things are more like 80 percenters. They can make this change. They can get 80 percent change in their in their speed in the in the in the pool.

And so I narrowed it down to four things. And what I saw, these are the four things I work with them. We have to work with them in a in a in a procedure in a process over time, I found. So every day when I have these these athletes in the camp, every day I introduce one more of those four things to the very first day we work on what I call posture is easy, but you’ve got to do it. And it’s amazing how swimmers who start late in life have terrible posture in the pool. It doesn’t matter what you do as far as everything else you’re doing. If your posture is poor, you’re never going to be a good swimmer. They always have this situation where they’re swimming with their tails down. You know, their their buttocks are below the surface. The water in their heads are up. They’re like in this position in the water, not exaggerating it. It’s much less, much less extreme than that. But they’re never the last. Their butt is way below the surface of the water and their head is breaking

its surface surface of the water. That’s called posture. And so I work on one thing with them on that because they’re all doing the same thing. They’re all looking at the wall that they’re swimming toward. But they’ve got their heads up and got their heads up in this position so they can see where that wall is and they’re swimming at it like this with their heads that that caused their hips to go down. So we work on getting their nose pointed toward the bottom of the pool. That’s the first step. And as soon as they get their nose pointed down, their hips come up. It’s the first thing that happens. The hips come up close to the top of the water. So now the key is how can they watch where they’re going? So I teach them something that I also teach them on the bike when they’re doing a triathlon or a time trial. But you should do on the bike is you should keep your head down. But every few seconds, you bring your head up to look to see what’s coming up.

So you put your head down, bring it up. Put your head down, bring it up. In the pool, you don’t have to do that. All you get is put your head down, punch your nose down and roll your eyes up. So you’re looking through the tops of your goggles. So my eyes are looking up here. But my nose is pointing down there that are bringing your head up in this position where you get your eyes now in the middle of your goggles. We want your eyes atop of your goggles. So we do all kinds of drills just to get this and get them to understand how to do this. And then we start throwing in things like, OK, we’ve got to be able to site when you’re an open water swimming. So when you site in the open water, you’ve got to bring your head up out of the water and see what what what’s your what’s your landmarks are that you’re using to to make sure you’re swimming straight line. So we’ll work on drills for doing that, how we go from being a nose down

position to bringing your head up above water, how you do that. And then get back down into the into the aerodynamic water dynamic position again. So that’s the first thing we do on the first day. We spend about a half hour just working on that until everybody’s got it, everybody’s got to figure this out. And we video record each athlete and show them where their head is. So they know where it’s at. Have you found easy? Have you found that the video will people think they’re looking down, but they show them on the video and they go, oh, my God, I can’t believe I’m actually looking directly forwards. I thought I was looking down like it and it’s such a simple thing with the head position and it’s an easy one to change. But even just with that alone, the perception is just so far off with with a lot of swimmers, which I’ve found quite interesting doing a lot of video work as well, where they think they’re looking down.

But they’re just not when you actually look at the video. I agree. Yeah, that’s that’s why we do the video so they can see themselves doing the things that we’re talking about or not doing those things. So the video becomes this feedback for them. We show them the video before they can get out of the pool. We shoot the video and while they’re still in the pool, we show them on the mini screen for the camera we’ve got. We show them what they’re doing so they can see it right now real time. So we don’t wait 24 hours to show them. We show them right now immediately. So they can go right back into the water again and work on it again. Shoot the video again. Show them again. Shoot the video again. Show them again. The idea is they’ve got to get some feedback from someplace. And swimming is a strange sport because you really can’t tell what the rest of what your body is doing because of the water and the position your body is in.

It’s not like running where you can look down at your feet and see what they’re doing. You really can’t look around when you’re in the pool. You’ve got to trust yourself to be doing the things the right way. So I agree. That’s that’s a that’s a challenge. And we really have to work on that with all the athletes. So that’s day one in the camp. Day two, we go to the second thing. These I call these four things. PDLC, P was posture. D is direction. Direction has to do with where their where their lead arm is pointing when they reach out. So what is all too common is they reach across their face. So if I can demonstrate that here, they reach in this way. Their arm crosses in front of their face or maybe right in front of their face. But they think it’s right in front of their shoulder. That’s what they think is going on, but it’s not. It’s over here someplace. And so all these drills, we do to help them learn how to do that the correct way.

The most common drill I do with them is something I call penguin stroke, penguin, penguin swimming, penguin swim with these little bitty wings out to the sides. They never crossed their wings in front of their face. The wings always stayed the side. So we start off doing a drill where that what I tell them what to do is what I want you to swim and I want you to put your hand outside your shoulder when you make entry into the water, outside the shoulder. And it takes it’s amazing how long it takes them to figure that out. The fish, the ones who have been crossing over at their hands in front of their faces or even worse across their body. They think when they’ve got it in front of their shoulder, that’s out it’s beyond the outside of their shoulder. They think it’s wide. That’s right. We’re supposed to be right in front of your shoulder. So we show them that video and they learn real quickly. When I feel like it’s wide, when it’s too wide, it’s actually just right.

So what I tell them is from now on, all I want you to do is a is a penguin drill. Whatever you swim, you’re always doing the penguin drill. So never think about what you used to do. Think about swimming like a penguin. You know, there’s other drills we do, too. I do a drill. Well, there’s a whole bunch of things we do. But the idea is we’re teaching a skill and they do that. We do that drill for about a those drills for about a half hour video. Recording every athlete head on recording underwater so they can see where their hands are going and we do it over and over and over until they get it right. One thing I left out here is what we do is on before we even get in the water to do that drill, I have them stand on the deck with a partner. They stand facing their partner. They bend over at the waist as if they’re in a swimming position. Head nose pointing down and they reach out in front of themselves with their hand and put it where they think it should be

to be in front of their shoulder and then their partner who is with them corrects, takes the hand and puts it where it’s supposed to be. Then we do it again, put the hand in front of the shoulder and they put it back again in front of their face. The partner takes their hand and moves it back in front of their shoulder. They do this over and over and over until they feel on deck what it feels like to have your hand in front of your shoulder. Then we get in the water and we do the drill, the penguin drill. And so and we record them so they can see it again in that regard too. So we do that. That’s the second day and that that’s a little bit harder than than posture. It’s getting a little bit harder because they’ve got these built in habits of how to swim and this one is a really hard habit to break. That’s why I tell them to swim like a penguin all the time. If this is one of the habits, bad habits you have.

Those people who don’t do this, who don’t have this bad habit have to just hang in there with us as we get through this with all the people who do in the in the in the group because there’s going to be lots of athletes who’ve got this problem. So that’s day two. Day three, what we work on is what I call length

and start out on the deck.

And on the deck, what I have the athlete do is stand if there’s hopefully there’s a wall like there’s maybe like a the locker room wall or something there as you came out in the pool, there’s a wall there next to it. That’s perfect. If you have that, have them walk over to the wall, face it and reach up above their head as high as they can. So they’re in this position, put your hand up as high as you can. And then I say, let’s get a little bit higher. They reach up even higher. And I say, let’s get even higher than that. So now they go up on their toes. That’s let’s get higher than that. So what they do is what I teach them to do is if you turn your body slightly to the side like this, you can get your hand higher. This little rotation you do with your body at the hips, get your hand even higher yet. And so I talk to them about why this is important and with triathletes, most triathletes swim like tugboats, I tell them.

Tugboats are wide and they have they have no speed because they’ve got all kinds of drag. And that’s what most triathletes swim like. They swim in this this position where the shoulders are always in this posture. So the shoulders are always going like this. They never rotate their shoulders enough to get this posture like this, which good swimmers do, they swim in this tugboat position. Good swimmers swim like speedboats to get as narrow and skinny as they can in the water by reaching out as far as they can with that hand. So that’s the next thing I teach them is how to do that. And so we go through drills for that. There’s a whole series of drills I go through. We do the same thing on the deck again with the partner. So what they’re supposed to do is get in that position, reach out as far as they can. The the partner puts their hand where it should be and then helps them rotate their shoulders so they get a good body position in the water.

And that gives them even more length, just like they did when they were standing against their wall with their hand over the head. If they rotate their hand like we’re body like this, they get their hands even higher. So this we’re trying to get the speedboat way of swimming as opposed to a tugboat way of swimming. So we spend an hour or another half hour in the pool just working on that. Recording every athlete who goes through drills. One of the drills we do is I call belly to the wall. What they do because most athletes have a hard time and understand that they’ve got to actually rotate their body is a little bit as they swim. It’s not just like this. It’s more like this as you swim. And so the belly to the wall drill is as they swim, is to take the right hand into the water, they rotate their body to their belly button points to the left wall of the pool. So it’s a exaggerated role. Their belly button is now facing the wall.

Then their left hand goes forward and now they want their belly button pointing to the right side, the right wall. So go back and forth, swimming at 25, just doing that, just doing this, getting used to what it feels like to have your body do this by exaggerating the movement. I don’t really want them pointing their belly buttons at the wall when they’re in a race. But I want them to get the feel of what this movement is like so they can begin to get a sensation what your body feels like when it’s rotating. So we exaggerate it, which is what you have to do sometimes to teach the skill to athletes, exaggerate it. So we spend a half hour doing that. We record the athletes and we show them how to how to to do it on their videos. And then we come to the fourth day on the fourth day. We get to the last thing, P D L L was length. Now we’ve got a C P D L C. The C is catch and it’s amazing how athletes have been told

about the catch over their entire time and that they’ve been swimming. But not a single one of them knows what it means. You can ask them what they’re told and say, well, reach over a barrel. Or they get some other instruction. And I tell them, what is that supposed to look like on the deck? What do you do when you reach over the barrel? And they really don’t know. That’s kind of like they’ve got this vague idea that somehow they’re supposed to reach over a barrel or whatever it was they’ve been told. And so I got to now work with them on a catch. And so the catch is now changes a lot of things. Now we’re becoming open water swimmers. Open water swimmers don’t swim the same way pool swimmers do. If you watch open water swimmers, this this came to me once and I was watching a I was on on the at a race and our men. And I was on the on the it was a race with the water. It was swam in a canal. And so I could walk along the edge of canal.

I could watch the swimmers down below me. And so the first wave was the pros and I watched the pros go off and I walked the ways with them and the next wave came and it was age group athletes and I watched them. And it dawned on me all of a sudden they weren’t doing the same things. In fact, if you look at if you look at the pros open water swimmers, the pros, what you’ll see is when they’re when they’re taking their stroke and their and their hand comes out of the water, it comes out of the water above their elbows. It does not come out of the water below their elbows. They don’t have elbows high. They have hands high. That’s what open water swimmers do. They have their hands high. Look at look at the start of a race sometime for the pros and look at the same start for amateurs. And you’ll see the amateurs have their elbows high. The pros have their hands high. That’s the start of the catch is getting your hands high

because what happens is we’re telling athletes become to become open to become pool swimmers. But they’re going to swim in the ocean or they’re going to swim in a lake and the water is not calm. It’s not a good thing to put your hand in like we’ve been teaching to do. We typically teach them, put your hand in relatively close to their heads and insert your hand into the waters. If you’re putting your arm into a sleeve or reaching into your mailbox, I’ve heard all kinds of things about how to do this. And what the athlete winds up doing when they do that is something I call the death move. They wind up putting their hand in a position where their hand is is above their elbow.

That’s the position they wind up in when they stretch their arm out. Their hand is above their elbow. Once you’ve got your hand above your elbow, you’re dead in the water. You’re not going any place. You can’t go any place until you’ve got your hand below your elbow. Now you can go someplace. That’s what they don’t understand, is that the difference between this and this. When you put your hand in the water next to your head and then you reach out, what happens is your elbow drops and your hand comes up and you wind up in the death move.

So we’ve got to get rid of that. And the way to get rid of that is learn to swim with your hand above the water instead of entering next to your head. The hand is coming in above the water and when it hits the water, it fingers in the water first. We’re trying to get your fingers in the water first, not the palm of your hand. The fingers in and point your fingers at the bottom of the pool. When you do that, your elbow automatically comes up and when you point at the bottom of the pool, start the stroke as soon as you get your hand in the water. You start, you immediately have a catch. And so we work on all kinds of drills for that. And there’s just a slug of drills to do because everybody has a hard time with this one. That’s why it’s the fourth thing that I teach because I want them to go from the easiest to the hardest. And this is by far the hardest one to learn is how to get this catch. Once they get it, they’re amazed

at how fast they move through the water. So then we do drills with this. We do a drill where they swim freestyle three strokes, flip over onto their back and swim backstroke three strokes. But if you’re going to go from a freestyle to a backstroke, what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to catch the water with your hand and pull your body around. Pull your body around to a backstroke. You cannot pull your body around if your elbows blow your hand. You can’t do it, it’s impossible. So they have to learn to do that, it’s going to make that movement. They’ve got to get their hand down to grab the water and pull with it. And then they can go to a backstroke, three strokes, backstroke, and then pull your body back around again and go back to a freestyle. So we do that. We do that drill over and over and over to swim in 25s and video recording underwater. So we do the same thing. We’re showing them what they’re doing, how we can get it right.

We do an on-deck thing with them again for the partners, partners showing them how to get their hand in the right position with their head. They’ve got their noses down so they can’t see their hand. So that’s PDLC. And what I tell them is if you can master these four things, forget about everything else. Forget about everything else they’re teaching you. Get these four things right and you’ll become a faster swimmer. You won’t get a golden medal at the Olympics, but you’ll be a faster swimmer than you are right now. Hopefully you’ll get down to like 90 seconds per hundred. If it gets you down to 90 seconds per hundred, think how great that would be. So then that’s four days. Of course we had the first day, which was a test. Then we have the sixth day. The sixth day is we work on whatever the individual’s unique weakness is of those four things. We work on that with each individual. Then we go to the last day of the camp.

The last day of the camp, if now put in more than 20 hours of churning, swim, bike, and run, they’re tired, they can’t wait to get home. They really don’t want to get back in the pool again, but I have them do another 500 meter time trial.

What do we think? What do we find? We find that 90% of the swimmers, 90% of the triathletes improved their times just by doing 25s. And the only thing they worked on was technique and they got faster. Sometimes it’s only a couple of seconds. Sometimes it’s 30 seconds. Sometimes it’s remarkable what they change they make. It’s like 90% of them get improvement in their times just by doing drills on 25s. Never doing a single interval the entire week. Nothing hard whatsoever. In fact, they’re very tired coming into this day. So they’ve got everything, all the cards are stacked against them and yet they swim faster. Most of them do. The ones who don’t swim faster, I think are probably because they’re so tired, they just can’t do it. And I suspect they’ll be faster when they get home if they keep on doing the stuff. So then I tell them the last day, now you know you can get faster doing this, no more intervals. Until you can swim the gold time

we’ve worked out for each one of them, no more intervals. Just work on your technique. Just work on those four things. Every day, when you go to the pool, especially the base parade, every day when you go to the pool, all I want you to do is swim 25s. Swim a 25 and work on those, of those four things, which one is the weakest for you that you need to work on? Just swim a 25, focused on that. At the end of the 25, stop on the wall, lay back on the wall, look around, see what’s going on, forget about swimming for a minute. What are you gonna have for supper tonight? What are you doing at work? Take as long as you want. I don’t care how long, don’t time it. And then start bringing your focus back again to that one thing you gotta work on, swim another 25, focused on that one thing, stop at the wall, and so forth. And so do that for like a half hour. That’s all I want you to do, entire base parade, is swim a half hour swim 25s,

just working on your particular weakness of PDLC. Every day, do that. That’s all you’re working on. If you have a master’s program you’re swimming with after that and the coach on deck tells you to do something different, reach over the barrel, put your fingers together, put your fingers apart. What do they tell you to do? Say, okay, I’ll do that and then forget it. And come right back to doing the four things that I just taught you, PDLC, because that works. We just proved it works for you. So keep on working on those four things. So I’m trying to get overwhelming information here, but that’s what I do with swimmers in a camp is those four things.

I was smiling all the way through that because, first of all, I love that approach. I love keeping it simple because I believe a lot of coaches overcomplicate things. And I’ve read some comments on, let’s say some videos I’ve put out on YouTube and I’ve had someone in there just give this big spiel about, well, you should be doing this, this, this, this. And as a coach of 17 years, I can’t understand what they’re saying. I’m thinking someone who’s been in the sport for a year or two, they’re not gonna understand this either. So the best way to teach something is the simplest possible version. And I really like your approach there. And it’s very similar to the approach that we take at our clinics. And I’ve tried to refine this over the last eight, nine years that we’ve run these clinics. We start with a similar thing, post your head position, make sure you’re holding your body and your head correctly. Then we go on to,

we do call it alignment, just making sure you’re in line with the shoulders. Then we work on that rotation side to side. And again, not too much either. So I see a lot of coaches telling people to rotate much more than what they need to. So I think rocking side to side, rather than rolling side to side, because we do, I do see a lot of swimmers, and I’m sure you do too, or triathletes, when they’re going to take a breath, they’ll roll to 90 degrees. They lose their balance and the leg splay and things fall apart there. So we work on rotation. And then we pretty much just focus on the catch or the catch and pull or whatever you might like to call it. And that’s it. They’re the fundamental things that’s going to make someone who’s a two minute per 100 swimmer. They’re the fundamental things that’s actually going to move the needle for them. And it’s, when you explain it like that, it can seem like, no, that’s too simple.

Like there needs to be more to it. But when people see themselves swimming, they go, oh my God, I can’t believe I look like that. And I feel myself three weeks ago and I looked at them and I can’t believe I look like that. And I’d consider myself a pretty reasonable swimmer. But yeah, people can see, okay, I’m not actually doing the things that I think I’m doing. So if you just can be intent with sticking to the fundamentals and just working on your technique and not fogging yourself for the next couple of weeks, if you’re around that two minute mark or a little bit quicker, you are going to be seeing results if you can just get those things right. So I’d love to hear that approach because it gels a lot with what I’ve tried to develop over the years. And I mean, I learned from a lot of coaches and try to use things that I find helpful. And I really liked the one too about being on the wall, getting that extra little bit of length

where you rotate in the body, you get in the shoulder to come up and the hips to rotate a little bit. That’s a great one just to show that extra length because when we do six, one, six drill with the six kicks on the side, take a stroke and swap, a lot of swimmers, they just, they’re flat. They’re not rotating at all. So it’s like, yeah, let’s exaggerate that rotation, get you used to it. And then we’ll dial it back a bit, but let’s exaggerate these things to learn it. So I mean, for me, this is kind of great confirmation in a way that, okay, I think we’re taking a good approach here. And you’ve had so many years in the sport and worked with thousands of athletes, I’m sure. So it’s great to, great to hear that. This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, Form Smart Swim Goggles. They’re more than a pair of goggles. Meet the world’s most powerful swim platform. See yourself improve with Form Smart Swim Goggles,

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Yeah, it does work. It’s amazing how when you make things simple, athletes get better. The more complex we make things, the harder it is for them to understand and we don’t get any place at all where things are really complicated. So I kinda keep it in the back of my mind all the time when I start thinking about things that I wanna do with an athlete to get them to improve their performance. First thing happens to me is I start going through all the details. I’m starting to think about all this stuff and I have to remind myself, keep it simple. Keep it simple, that’s what it’s all about. It doesn’t have to be complex. And the athlete will improve faster and better and become a much faster athlete if they simply learn some of the basic things and get these basic correct. Now, if I’m talking about somebody who’s an Olympian, different story. Now I can deal with it. It’s a much more complex situation now with this athlete.

But this athlete’s got a much better understanding of what’s going on too and has mastered a lot of things about the sport. But there’s still things we need to work on with. Still need to tweak things. And so consequently, working with an Olympic athlete is not anywhere close to working with somebody who started swimming when they were 35 years old. It’s an entirely different animal. So you got to treat it entirely differently. Yeah, very true. And one of the concepts that I think is very simple is the five and two training concept. Could you talk a bit about that for those that may have not heard it before and where that originated? Yeah, originated with me. The almost everything I do with athletes originated with me, the PDLC, for example. But I realized that I was working too hard because I’m training too hard. This has happened decades ago because I would get pretty worn out fairly quickly. Fairly early in the week.

And by about Thursday, you know, every week, I’m like dreading the Saturday workout because I’m already just dragging my heels as I try to run or swim or whatever I’m doing. I’m just tired all the time. And so I began to realize, you know, the problem is I’m just working too hard. I’m doing too many hard workouts. I need to do fewer hard workouts. That’s the key. And I started reading more and more about the benefits of doing easy workouts. And so I started shifting my personal training from high intensity all the time or nearly all the time to low intensity nearly all the time and high intensity rarely. And so what evolved from that was what I called 5-2 which is five easy days every week and two hard days every week. Easy days could include a day off. So if an athlete wants to take a day off, that’s fine. In fact, that’s a good thing to do. So instead of training five days easy, we train four days easy, but certainly a day off is easy.

So you get five days easy every week and two days hard. The idea is on the easy days that you really go easy. On a RPE scale, one to 10, you’re doing a one or a two.

You know, it’s way down there. It’s really quite low. You’re really not pushing yourself at all. But when it comes time to do one of the two hard workouts every week, now you’re doing something’s more like a eight, nine or possibly even a 10, which is not usually the sort of thing you need to be doing, but some much, much higher intensity. So we only do that twice a week. And I try to separate the two hard workouts for athletes. So if they do a hard workout on Tuesday, the next hard workout is gonna be two or three days later. So it could be if it’s on Tuesday, have the Wednesday, Thursday easy, Friday could be hard or Saturday could be hard. If Saturday’s hard, then Friday’s easy. So every week is five days easy, two days hard. If you do that, so you’ve spaced the workouts, the hard workouts, so they’re always separated by two or three days, the athlete comes into the hard workout much fresher. It becomes a higher quality workout

to get a lot more out of it. And besides that, we’ve now gotten a lot of aerobic fitness out of this too. There’s a lot of stuff out there now about zone two, the benefits of zone two for aerobic fitness and quite honestly, that is exactly what it is. You’ve gotta get a lot of time in zone two to improve your aerobic endurance. Triathlon is an aerobic sport, is not an anaerobic sport, it’s an aerobic sport. You need lots and lots and lots of time aerobically. What does that mean? Well, that means basically trying to keep your lactate level below two, and we’ll get into details on all that, but keep it easy. And if we keep the lactate levels low, then you’re working on your aerobic system. As soon as the lactate level starts to go up, as soon as you start to accumulate lactate in your blood, you’re no longer improving or enhancing your aerobic fitness, your aerobic endurance. Now you’re working on something else,

but it’s not aerobic endurance. Most athletes spend far too much time in zone three. If we talk about a five zone system, they’re spending far too much time in zone three because they think to get more benefit out of that, and it’s only slightly harder than zone two. Well, they don’t really realize what they’re doing. They’re accumulating lactate. When you accumulate lactate, it screws up the entire aerobic system, and so you don’t get the benefits you would have gotten out of the lower heart rate. So that’s basically five, two in a nutshell. It’s five days easy, two days hard. And the thing that ties in with that same idea is that we’re gonna emphasize zones two and zone five. What you’re doing for, you do a lot of zone two and a lot of zone five. Zone five improves your two max. It’s the best indicator there is of your fitness. How fast you can go at VO two max is, if I just knew that about every athlete, if I could just get,

we have a list of athletes who are gonna start the race and they can tell me what their velocity is at VO two max, I can pretty much tell you how the race is gonna turn out. Who’s gonna win? Who’s gonna be second? Who’s gonna be third? Write down the list. Because velocity at VO two max or on the bike powered VO two max is really the key to performance. And so we get to elevate your VO two max and that’s gonna drag along your speed along with it. And so you’re gonna become, you’re gonna start doing a lot more zone five stuff and a lot more zone two stuff and no zone three. We’re only gonna do zone three if the race you’re doing calls for zone three, like a half Ironman for a lot of athletes would be done in zone three. Well, we’re gonna spend a lot of time in the specific preparation period getting ready for zone three, that’s okay. But if your race does not involve zone three, if you’re doing an Ironman, you’re gonna be in zone two,

there’s no reason to be doing zone three. If you’re doing a sprint distance race, you’re gonna be in zone five, there’s no reason to be doing zone three. So we narrow it down to what are you training for and let’s make sure we get the intensity right for that event that you’re training for. So it’s five to five days easy, two days hard, emphasis on zone two and emphasis on zone five. That’s kind of the whole concept in that show. And with that sort of training, let’s say zone five, are you thinking much about that in the pool with triathletes or is that more why I can run, how would you split up those sessions? It’s basically the same thing. But I don’t start doing anything as zone five as an athlete in the pool until they’ve got PDLC figured out. There’s no reason to go out there and go as fast as you possibly can. If all you’re gonna do is fall apart in the pool and start making lots of bubbles around yourself

and not go into any place any faster. So that’s the first thing. Once they’ve got PDLC under control, they’ve got it figured out and they’re now a master swimmer, now we can start working on things like high intensity training. So now we can go back to doing intervals. Now we can do that zone five stuff, accelerations. All the stuff we’ve gotta be able to do like when you’re going around a buoy and open water swim. Things you gotta be able to do to come out of that buoy and accelerate again. So when you start doing things that have to do with the sport itself, the start of the race, the start of the race is always fast. If you wanna be with the lead group or with any group, you gotta be able to start out fast with them. So we gotta work on zone five. But again, not until we’ve got PDLC mastered. Once we have that, now we can start working on the high intensity stuff.

It’s like trying to drive a car before it’s been completed. It’s like, yeah, yeah, get it to get it completed. And it doesn’t have to be perfect, but it has to be most of the way there because we’re not looking for perfection with technique. I don’t think there’s such a thing, but we really want those core fundamentals in place. I really like that approach. And something that you’ve spoken a bit about recently is the transition is people go from their 40s, 50s into their 60s and 70s and the decline in VO2 max and their capacity there. What mental advice do you have for people as they transition through that period? Because I mean, even I think personally, for me going from my late teens, early 20s, you’re invincible, can’t get injured. And then as you go into your 30s, you start to realize, okay, you’re not invincible. You need to be a bit smarter about your training and your approach. You need to do a bit more strength training

and recovery and those sorts of things. So what sort of mental advice would you have for someone transitioning from the 40s and 50s into the 60s and 70s? Yeah, there’s things that change. As you mentioned, you’ve hit the nail on the head there. One of the most common things that changes is your VO2 max starts to decline. That’s been going on probably since the athlete was in their early 30s. That’s been going down. And they may not have noticed it because they’ve gotten smarter. They’ve become better at training. They’ve become better at racing. They know the nuances of the sport. And so they may be able to keep this hidden by the, they may have started losing their VO2 max aged 32, but aged 37, 38, 39 are still doing pretty well because they’ve figured out all this stuff about how to do this sport. They don’t realize it’s going on in the background, but by the time they’re in their mid 40s, typically they’re very aware that something isn’t right.

And by the time they’re in their 50s, it’s become obvious. It’s like, there’s no way to hide this. I do not have the VO2 max I used to have. And this keeps on going. Every decade, the athlete gets a little bit slower than they were previously. And it really is difficult to deal with with the athlete because you can make changes. You can stop it temporarily. You can stop it, slow it down. You can even reverse it temporarily, but you’re never going to get to go back in the other direction in the long run. It’s always going to keep on coming back down again. But the idea is to get it up as high as you can for your age group and your gender. So that becomes one of the goals of training is to keep that high. That’s where zone five comes in stuff. The stuff you do in zone five, the idea is to improve VO2 max. Now, the problem is, especially with running, that athletes are more likely to get injured when they’re doing zone five.

They push themselves too hard. So if I talk, you know, if I talk into a group of athletes and I tell them the ultimate VO2 max workout is something like four times four minutes at zone five with two minute recoveries. The next day, the athletes in the audience will go out and start doing them and start doing their workout immediately. Four times four minutes as hard as they go with two minute recoveries. And what’s going to happen is, especially if it’s running, they’re going to get injured. They’re going to push it too hard. You can’t do it that way. You cannot start out immediately at the top. You got to start out building very slowly. So if that four by four is the ultimate workout, we’re going to start with 15 seconds on, 15 seconds off, then every five, we’re going to take a break for about three minutes and then go back and do it again. So we’re going to start very, very piecemeal and bring this together with a few seconds at a time.

Then we go to 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, move to a minute on, minute off, minute and a half, minute and a half, so forth. Then we finally get them up to four minutes on, four minutes off at zone five. But we’ve done that over the course of, gosh, three or four months. We just can start out immediately jumping on the track or in the pool or on the bike and immediately starting trying to do that. You kind of built up to it very slowly so they were, their body adapted. And that’s where athletes, that’s why athletes mostly get injuries is because they don’t allow their body to adapt. They push it too hard. They can, they push their limits, they’ll get faster. But all they really do is they wind up putting themselves in danger of being injured and therefore actually slowing themselves down for a long time and starting all over again once they finally recover from the injury, whatever it may be. So that’s the first thing you got to be concerned with

for aging athletes is VO2 max, muscle atrophy. That’s one thing that happens with athletes also. They start becoming, as they get into their 60s, 70s, they become lazy. They quit drifting in weights and they quit doing hill workouts. They quit using paddles. They quit doing things that give some muscle to them, give them some more muscle mass. And because of that, they lose the muscle. It starts atrophying. And once it starts atrophying, it’s very difficult to turn it around. You’ve got to be very, very focused on doing this and something you need to be doing all the time. So that’s the second thing that’s very common for athletes, especially under 60s and 70s. Not so much in their 50s, but it’s going on and they just don’t realize it. The final thing is body fat. They’re gaining body fat as they lose muscle mass. So body weight may still stay about the same, but they’re gaining fat while they’re losing muscle.

And so consequently, we need to do something about that. What the search is telling us anymore is that aging athletes, especially 60, 70-year-olds, but really all aging athletes probably, should be getting more protein in their diets. And more protein means more muscle, basically. If you do something to stimulate that muscle like lifting weights. So that’s the starting point for them is doing something that increases, gets more protein in, so we can start doing things that build muscle mass, but you’ve also got to be doing things along the lines of the produce muscle mass, like lifting weights. Those are the big three. They all tie together. They’re all related in some way. And the bottom, the thing that ties them all together mostly is sleep. If you get adequate sleep, by adequate, I mean at least seven hours of sleep a night, if you get adequate sleep, most of these things won’t be flying as rapidly as they would have otherwise.

But unfortunately, as we get older, we tend to have a harder time sleeping. And so it becomes more of a challenge to get seven hours of sleep a night, to improve your sleeping. But I even hear athletes in their 30s and 40s saying they don’t wanna sleep very much. They try to get as little sleep as possible so they can get up and get started again the next day as fast as they can because they can sleep when they’re dead. Well, the good thing there is, if you do that all the time, you’re gonna be dead much sooner than if you got seven hours of sleep every night. And it’s been connected with Alzheimer’s also. Poor sleep is a good way to wind up with dementia. So when you’re in your 70s or even 80s, possibly. So sleep is kind of like the common denominator for all of these things, but most athletes, I’m afraid, don’t give sleep nearly enough importance in their lives.

I get it in some ways where I like to get up early in the morning, I like to go training early, I like to be up before the sun’s up because I’m excited to sort of start the day. But if I go to bed at 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock, it’s too late and I’m gonna feel the effects. So there’s that philosophy of the harder I work, the more success I’ll have, which is true to an extent, but you’ve gotta be smart about it. And if you’re thinking long-term, that’s what I really like about your research into this and the things that you talk about is you are looking 10, 20, 30 years down the track for a lot of athletes that’ll be listening to this podcast. And I think the first step to stopping it is that awareness. This is gonna happen, it doesn’t matter who you are. When I was in my 20s, I thought, I looked at people in their 30s and 40s and went, I can’t believe you’re complaining about a sore back and all these sorts of things.

You think you’re gonna be able to escape it, but as you get a little bit older, I’m in my mid 30s now, I look back and think about some of the things that I thought as a teenager or 20-something and went, oh my God, I was so naive back then. This happens to everyone, but you can get a step ahead and just make sure you put some things in place and you’re just consistent with the training, the strength training and you’re smart about it and you can make sure you’re still at the top of your game at your age bracket, whatever that might be, but you’ve just gotta be aware of it first of all. Are there any other things that you look at or maybe you wish you knew when you were younger?

Yeah, pretty much what you just said a while ago about realizing that things are not gonna be the same when you get older. You know, I’m now 79 years old. I’ve been doing this since I was in junior high school since I was, gosh, 12 years old. And so all these things have happened to me. I’m very familiar with all of these things from a personal account. My VO2 max has gone down. First time I had my VO2 max tested was when I was 40 years old and it was 65 milliliters per kilogram per minute, which is okay, nothing great, but it’s okay. Now it’s like 45. So it’s gone down 20 points over what, 30, almost 40 years. It’s gone down 20 points in almost 40 years. I’m losing about five points per decade, which really isn’t too bad, but I’m not happy about it. So I still do my VO2 max intervals once a week to bring them up, to try to keep it up high. I’m a cyclist. I do group workout every week with a bunch of guys who could be my children

and they give me a hell of a workout. And so I’m always doing things to try to keep pushing myself to be the best athlete I can be as I get older. And people who I look up to are those people who have done that already. And I know lots of them. They’re all, many of them are friends of mine that have really kept state active over their lifespans or now some are in their 90s, even though one guy who was over a hundred years old was still working out every day. So those people are amazing and they’re my role models. I try to learn from them everything I can.

And Joe, before we wrap it up here, because I appreciate, you know, we’ve been on this podcast for almost an hour now. Is there anything that’s been capturing your curiosity lately? What’s been peaking your interest there that you’ve been researching or thinking, oh, this is interesting to me. I want to find out a bit more about it. You know, one thing that always interests me is how we got here, how we came about as humans. But I don’t know why that interests me, but I follow Paleoarchaeology on Twitter, just so I can see what they’re talking about. This whole idea that our ancestors, things we’re good at now or not good at now, came from our ancestors 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 years ago. And so I look at this zone too. For example, we talked about a little while ago, and I look back at how the hunter-gatherers, you know, 20,000 years ago, how they hunted. What’d they do? They hunted typically two days a week. They went on a run to find a deer

or whatever they could find, a big animal, and they ran it down. We’re the most endurance-capable athletes on the planet. No other animal has the endurance that we have. That’s what we’re good at. So a deer can just very, very fast, but they can’t survive being chased by humans. So eventually the deer just gives up, falls down, collapses, and that’s the end of the deer. And now the hunters bring the deer back to their camp

and they feed for two days. Maybe three, but how big the animal was, then they go out and they hunt again. And all this zone, all this training, all this running they’re doing is zone two. They’re not sprinting until the very end. It’s all zone two. It’s just this nice rhythm that goes on for a long, long, long time, in some case hours, as they’re chasing an animal, trying to wear it out, and they always win. So we’re still doing the same things. We’ve evolved to work out hard twice a week and go easy five days a week and go when they go hard to really go hard and we go easy to really go easy, but to go for a long time, we’ve evolved to do these things over the course of,

I don’t know how many thousands of years, but it’s just part of our DNA. And so we’re doing things now that we’ve learned to do, but they’re all very good for us. So if we try to beat them back by doing things differently, trying to work out five days a week hard, it’s not gonna work. We’re not designed for that. I love it. There’s something about zone two, where it’s just got this nice tempo when it’s like a drum beat that just sort of sits in the background. And for me, it’s a really satisfying type of training to do where I don’t really find it monotonous. I just find it enjoyable once you get into the groove of things. And I know from my swimming background, you had the distance swimmers and you had the sprinters. And the sprinters didn’t, most of them did not enjoy that zone two, that easy work. Although they’re very good at it because they would just go very easy. More zone one, they would never put in much effort at all,

yet could pull out a really good sprint. But those endurance athletes that I used to train with, just just love getting stuck into a long set. And yeah, to me, that’s a really enjoyable type of training. And I think it’s really interesting to look back and just see where does that maybe originate from? Or how does it time to where we are today? So I think that’s fascinating. Any projects, what are you working on at the moment and where can people buy your books and find out more about you if they haven’t come across you before? Yeah, in a nutshell, I’ve just finished off a project, just now finishing off a two year project called The Craft of Coaching. It’s a multimedia online series of 17 modules that we put together. There are video recordings, there are roundtable discussions, there are interviews, there are articles that people or I have written on all kinds of subjects trying to cover everything that a coach has to deal with in their coaching.

Just now finishing that off, you can find it by just by searching the internet for craft of coaching. So that’s the biggest thing I’m working on right now. And I just finished off revising my triathlete’s training Bible. The last time I wrote it was 2016 and it needed to be updated. So I just finished that project, off took me about two months to rewrite large portions of it. And that’ll be coming out probably about the end of the year or the first of next year.

Can I ask about what you updated? You know, what were some of those things that you revised?

A lot of things on intensity. I set up my intensity zone system back in 1987. And I thought, well, it’s time to take a look at that again. And so I did. And I made a lot of changes, like heart rate zones, power meter zones, so forth. So I went through a lot of things and just made, started to update, going back to the research and looking to see what we now know that I didn’t know in 1987. And so I’ve changed all the zone system that I’ve been using and tried to keep it simple, but somehow it still came out rather complex, I’m afraid. I think the center of one of my friends is a PhD in exercise science at the University of Stirling in Scotland. And he said back and said, way too complicated, which he should have said, that was a good thing to say. So I had to keep on rethinking the thing. I got down as simple as I could, but I think it’s still too complicated for him. But anyway, so that was the biggest thing I changed.

And that then required all kinds of changes throughout the book on, wherever I talked about intensity, I had to make changes on what the intensity, how you came up with that intensity. Gotcha, that’s a funny one, isn’t it? It’s just so, everyone’s got a different idea of it and how they would classify zone two and zone three and all these sorts of things like it’s, yeah, it’s a bit murky. So the fact that you’ve been able to feel like you’ve been able to keep it quite simple, I think is good, but it’s a hard one just to condense into a really, simple couple of sentences or a small graph or something like that. My table had 10 columns and 10 rows. So it was not very simple. And I think I got it down to nine columns and 10 rows. So it changed a whole lot, but I had to have all that stuff in there just to be able to explain it in the book. So I kept referring back to that one table throughout the book. So anyway, that’s the newest thing for me.

Fantastic. Well, Joe’s been great having you on the podcast. I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge and the things that you’ve learned over your years of coaching. And some things that we’ve covered is the PDLC, I really liked that approach. So for someone going to the pool, you can think of, all right, what should I work on first? I talk about it like building a house. You need to build that foundation. You got to build it in the right order. And so posture, direction, length and catch, really liked that approach. And then number of drills as well. You talked about exaggerating some changes to be able to actually see a difference in your stroke because we find people just don’t do things enough to actually see any sort of difference. So I’ve got to exaggerate it first and you can always dial it back. And you just talked about some of the, talked about five and two, two hard days, five easy days. Again, it’s a really simple way to think of

what should I be doing with my training? And there is a tendency for people to over train because they want to push harder to have more success. But if you’re smart about things, you can go a lot further. And especially the consistency of things as well, where if you train consistently for six months without injury, you’re probably going to be a lot further ahead than if you pushed it too hard in months too when you had to sit out for a month, you’re going to be further behind. So just being able to have that consistency and not get injured. So Joe, thanks again for being on the podcast and I really appreciate your time. Thank you, Brandon. I enjoyed it. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.

The post Unlocking Speed: Mastering the PDLC Method for Triathlon Swimming with Joe Friel appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

My guest today is Kyle Chalmers, an Olympic gold medalist and one of the world’s top swimmers. I’ve featured him in some of my YouTube videos, highlighting his excellent freestyle technique. I’m excited to discuss his training and technique in depth. Tune in now!

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Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Do you want to swim smarter and swim faster? Then you need EO Swim Better, the only swimming device that lets you see the previously unseen. Because the first time, you can understand exactly what your hand is doing on every stroke, analyze and adapt your technique, see the effect of every single adjustment and all with a device that you won’t even know that you’re wearing. Swim faster, fast with EO Swim Better, a stroke of genius. Dive into the Swimming Evolution at eolab.com forward slash swim better. Use the code Effortless a checkout to receive your first 12 months free on an annual gold membership. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. I’m excited today to have very special guests on. It’s Carl Charmers. Welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me on, mate. I appreciate your time. Well, you’ve been someone who I’ve featured in some of our YouTube videos over the years, just looking at your technique and showing what a great example of good freestyle technique looks like. And as an Australian, I’ve really enjoyed watching you compete. And especially your last 25, 50 meters in some of your races, it’s just spectacular to watch and exciting because you’ve got probably one of the best backends in the 100 freestyle that I’ve seen. And I just love watching you come home, especially in those relays. So it’s an honor to have you on the podcast. And I want to dig into some things around technique in your and your training and a number of other things. So the first thing I’d like to start with is that race in 2016, your first gold medal at the Olympic Games. I can’t believe you’re only 18 at the time. But how did your life change after that gold medal?

Yeah, 18. So I think I was I was only just turned 18 as well. I was looking the other day swim, swim, did a stats. And it was kind of the youngest, you know, male athletes to win an individual Olympic gold medal in the past however many years. And I think over the last nine Olympics has only been Thorpey and I that have managed to do it as teenagers. So it was a very kind of special thing for me. I I probably didn’t know how special it was until I got home to Australia. For me, I went away to the Olympic Games as a I think I probably just turned 18, like I said, didn’t know a whole lot about swimming. I wanted to be an Aussie rules footballer and kind of sacrificed that to be a swimmer in that lead up to the Olympic Games. Went over there as the, you know, kind of the shadow of Ken McAvoy. He was the he was the man that everyone was expecting to win. And he was my teammate and training partner at the time. I was training with his coach, Richard Scarce at the Olympics

because my my coach wasn’t there. He was my roommate. So for me, I didn’t have really any pressure or expectation on myself. So I was able to kind of just go there, fly under the radar, have a bit of fun. You know, there was no sort of media attention on me. I didn’t know any of the guys in the marching room, probably other than Nathan Adrian, because I’d seen him win in 2012, but other than that, they were, they were just other guys. So for me, it was just like doing another competition and, you know, probably that transition that I’d been, you know, on from a very young age, from, you know, that state level to national age, to national open, to Australian junior teams, to the World Championships long course in 2015 as a relay swimmer to then in Rio being individual. So I’d never raced individually. And yeah, that 47.5 seconds definitely changed my life very drastically. I kind of went away and nobody and kind of came body,

came back a national hero that, you know, everyone was kind of stopping me for photos and signatures and I was going to restaurants and getting free food or, you know, flying overseas for photo shoots, being in the back of a car on AFL Grand Final Day. Like it was just a very overwhelming, probably experience. Like you probably can’t really teach anyone how or how to you can’t prepare someone for that really. Something you kind of have to go through yourself and it was, yeah, definitely a challenge at different parts, but an experience that I absolutely loved and probably an experience that I desperately want to do again and that’s probably what keeps me motivated and keeping me in the sport. Did you speak to anyone after that someone like Ian Thorpe who had been through a similar sort of situation for looking for advice or for tips on how to handle that kind of attention? Definitely, yeah. Thorpe was one that I had a little bit

to do with, he gave me a bit of advice here and there, but again, you know, like it’s just such a different world to when Thorpe won his gold medals back in 2000, 2004 because of probably social media, like anyone can contact you, anyone can have their say and so it’s definitely different generations, but I definitely appreciated having someone like Thorpe on my side that kind of gave me that feedback and Haki was one, like Grant Hackett, I went to 2015 World Champs with, he was another one that I was able to kind of speak to and you know, most of the older guys that have kind of been through it, I’ve had a fair bit to do with now and you know, Chris Feidler, Michael Klim,

and guys that I’ve relied on quite a lot through the period of swimming. I know that I’m definitely gonna be missing names out, but yeah, those guys were crucial for me, you know, like Adelaide, there’s probably, there hasn’t been too many Olympic gold medalists come out of Adelaide, especially in swimming and there’s only been three 100 freestyle Olympic champions from Australia. So there’s very few people that you can kind of rely on to, I guess, but insights on how that experience is. So it was definitely challenging as an 18 year old, that’s for sure. Yeah, I can imagine. And in terms of the social media, have you got any rules that you set yourself to, like especially coming around competition time, are there rules that you set yourself to not look at it for certain times or in competition? Because I can imagine that would be very hard to do, but an important thing to consider, especially around those key races that you’re trying for.

I think previously, like when I was younger, I definitely used to kind of delete the apps or log myself out of the apps and not access them during competitions. But for me now, I enjoy being able to stay connected with my friends and family. I use social media to be able to do that. So I find that hugely important that no matter where I am in the world, I’m able to kind of connect with the people I love most and probably just talk about normal things. I think, you know, a lot of my mates know me as just Carl Chalmers, the dude they grew up with and they don’t talk about swimming or necessarily care about results either. So I can kind of continue that while I’m away, which is always nice. And I also, as I’ve got older, have appreciated reading comments, whether it’s good or bad. I think it kind of motivates me at times. You know, like I love reading through the swim, swim, comments on how I’m swimming or whatnot

because I draw motivation from what these kind of people that have no idea think so. For me, yeah, my strategy hasn’t changed all that much. I kind of use it and access it and it doesn’t cause me too much stress anymore. As a kid, definitely it used to, I kind of used to read into those articles of where they were predicting I’d go or what time I was predicted to go or just anyone and everyone kind of reaching out, wishing me luck and stuff. But now I enjoy it. I think I’m a lot more relaxed. I’m a bit older. I’m a bit more kind of content and know my strategies of how I need a race and it’s a beneficial thing probably. I think if some of the YouTube comments that I’ve got over the years, just from putting out content for the last 10 years and I was similar at the start, like used to affect me and then I have to kind of go through, well, do they have a point here? Is there something that I could learn from it? And now I just kind of look at them and go,

yeah, like, all right, that’s completely fine. You say what you want to say. Like an example is I put a video up of Dan Smith, like just doing an easy like 100 free style and there’s people saying he’s breathing every two, like this guy’s no good. Like what are you talking about? The elites of his breathe every two, like they’ve got something in their mind, like you must breathe every three. Yeah, it’s weird. It’s really weird. So you just, I think you get that maturity and you just sort of, you know what’s right. You know what you’re capable of and what you’re doing and it’s just eventually becomes water for ducks back for the most part. But it’s, yeah, it comes back maturity I think. I think you just got to be confident in what you’re doing and trust what you’re doing. You know, like I spent 50 hours a week probably hanging around the pool, training, working on my stroke, kind of doing what I need to do to be the best.

So I’ve kind of refined and know exactly what works for me and what’s going to help me get to the end of the wall as fast as I can. And you know, these people that think they’re there, some people that think they’re experts and want to bring you down or comment. I’d love to probably see them swim at times. It would be quite funny to see that. But you know, like with the breathing twos, like I breathe twos my whole entire hundred or even if I do a 50 freestyle, like I broke the Australian record. And the 50 freestyle breathing twos. So yeah, definitely just is dependent on who the person is I think in your stroke. Yeah, exactly right. And you’re up in Darwin at the moment on a training camp and just before the call, you’re saying you’ve got two coaches up there for skill acquisition that are doing underwater filming and just analyzing your starts, your turns, your finishes, your stroke and really just giving all the swimmers up there

a lot of feedback. Can you talk a bit about how much of that you’ve done over your career and how you like to use it and how you have improved with that kind of feedback on a consistent basis? Yeah, feedback for me has been probably the biggest aspect of my swimming career, I think. I think I’m naturally pretty strong and fast through the water and powerful, but being able to actually use that to my advantage by putting, I don’t know what the feedback that they’re giving me into place to swim faster and be more efficient is what’s been the driving force to me actually improving over the years. So I think I started working with skill acquisition probably early as 2015 with underwater cameras and GoPro’s and as we’ve kind of progressed and I’ve had a bit of success, I think the funding into swimming in South Australia has probably gone a little bit more so we’ve been able to acquire probably better equipment and gain that little bit more knowledge

from me racing against other guys around the world or things that I’ve done to be able to improve myself. But just that constant feedback of when I’m in the water, just videoing every single turn, we have the big screen in the pool is kind of a live stream of that turns. It’s on a 50 second delay, so we’re able to look straight up on the screen and see the turn that we just did or occasionally we’ll swap it to the other end to see the finishes that we’re doing. And then I have a skills coach there that’s able to give me feedback straight away with how my feet are hitting the wall, how I’m pushing off the wall, my fly kicks, my break out, whatever it might be that I’m working on in that period of time, which I find super beneficial when I’m a visual learner. So I have to actually be able to see what they’re talking about and then try to put that into practice. So I know that if it’s something on my turn, I kind of have to do it.

They have to show me what I’m doing wrong and then I have to get straight back in the pool to do it to be able to learn that skill and acquire it. But I know that I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today without my skills. You know, I used to think back in 2016 or early days, I probably used to win races by being one of the fitter swimmers in terms of my back end. But if you watch my skills from probably Rio, it’s probably some of the worst skills you’d kind of see. You know, like my turns, probably two to three fly kicks and then it’s my head comes straight out of the water on my break out and my finish was terrible. I remember in that race thinking I’d lost the race just on my finish. So over the years, I’ve got better and better at my skills and I have to do that if I’m gonna match the likes of Caleb Dressel. In the 100 freestyle, his skills are amazing, his dive’s incredible and I’ve learned a lot from watching his dive

or his turns and his underwater fly kicks and breakouts and then trying to put that into practice on myself and I think that’s what’s allowed me to get better. And have you found that what you’ve learned from those skill acquisition coaches with how they analyze it, how they go about teaching you, have you done much work with younger kids in sort of clinics or just in squads where you’ve been able to take that stuff on board and then pass it on to those younger kids who are up and coming. This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, Form Smart Swim Goggles. They’re more than a pair of goggles. Meet the world’s most powerful swim platform. See yourself improved with Form Smart Swim Goggles, including a free one year membership when you purchase your goggles for only $249 US dollars. They’ve currently changed up their offer where you can now get the goggles and you have one year membership included for free.

And if you’d like to continue with the membership going forwards, it’s only $15 a month where you get access to their workouts, training plans and custom workout builder. But you’ll always have access to the real time data in the goggles, so you never lose access to that. My favorite thing about the Form Goggles is having the instant feedback of what times you’re doing, what stroke rate you’re doing and also the ability to see what your heart rate is. Because never before have we been able to have these immediate feedback heads up display where it’s actually telling you what your intervals are. So when I wear the goggles in training, I like that I know my split for the first 50 and the 100 and the 150. So every single lap I’m getting that feedback on what my pace is. And I find it’s such an important tool for being able to not only have different gears where you can switch between the different speeds that you wanna swim,

but it helps you develop those gears and it helps you intuitively know how fast you need to go to before you’re going to blow up or before you’re going to go a little bit too hard. So it helps you just get really good at judging your pace for when you do go to a race. And even if you’re not wearing the goggles in a race, it’s that intuition and that ability to develop your pacing that these goggles can really help with. To get your pair of Form Goggles and save 15% off, use our link formswim.com forward slash effortless or use the coupon effortless at checkout. And that will get you 15% off your pair of goggles using our special link formswim.com forward slash effortless or the code effortless at checkout. Yeah, definitely like an example of that this year probably being on the national event camp on the Gold Coast, we split up into Ash strokes. So I was with a hundred freestyle guys and we’ve got a couple of young guys coming up through there

like Flynn South and Dylan Andreia that are both really keen to learn and both looking to me for advice. And I think, you know, we did a morning where it was just kind of based around turns and I’m kind of almost giving more advice to them what the actual skill act that we had there was giving to them because I think I’ve been learning, you know freestyle turns for such a long period of time I do them however many hundreds of times a day probably that I’m able to kind of look at their turns see exactly what they’re doing wrong and then give them the advice which I found really cool. And they’ll both super eager to learn and both super keen to be able to then put that in the place so quickly and they’re going to be important parts of my relay the next year. So the faster that they can turn and the faster they can swim the better. But yeah, definitely the kind of skills that I’ve learned from being coached by skill acts

for such a long period of time has allowed me to probably retain that information to then coach the next generation. And I’ve done a few swim clinics where I’ve been able to do that and that it’s something an area that I definitely love doing is helping the younger kids that are coming through because my time in swimming is probably coming to an end a little bit, you know like I’m at the pointy end of my career whereas these guys are start just starting up and if I can help them kind of take over from where I’m at, you know, it’s just gonna be more beneficial for Australia really moving forward. Yeah, I mean, when I was just doing some research for the podcast, I looked at how old I, how old’s Kyle, no, like 20, 25. And I was like, man, you come across as so much more mature than that. And I think you have for a very long time. What do you put that maturity down to? Is this something that you feel like you developed early with maybe the level of sport

that you were competing in with footy and then swimming? I kind of got thrown onto a team which I didn’t know anyone at all, any of the swimmers, I didn’t know any of the staff or coaches and I had to go away for three to four weeks with these guys that are, you know, mid-20s to close to 30 year old, hacky was probably 35 or 36 of that age and I kind of had to, I had to fit in, I had to talk to people, I had to kind of put myself out there and mature very quickly. Like I had to grow up very, very quickly to be able to have those kind of adult type relationships or swim at a extremely high level internationally and I couldn’t probably be a kid as much as my mates were or even having successes at a quite a young age, winning an Olympic gold medal at 18 and then kind of having to deal with all the media and pressures and expectation that comes with that but just everyone knowing who you are not being able to kind of go out

and make a fool of yourself and not have to worry about that. You know, I’m always in the public eye so I’ve got to kind of be as mature as I possibly can. You know, it’s pretty much every time I step out of the door almost. So yeah, I think it’s, I had to grow up very quickly just from probably the, yeah, the experiences I had and just wanting to be a professional and wanting to be the best I possibly can and learning from the older guys. You know, I was kind of that generation where I loved the feedback from the older guys that they were kind of, I had a training partner, Sally Hunter who was a two-time Olympian and you know, probably close to 30 by the time I started training with her and you know, I was a 16, 17 year old kid so I’d be probably lazy on turns or push-offs or you know, joked around and take this a little bit of training whereas she’d get into me about all that sort of stuff and I loved that feedback a lot.

So yeah, I think those just experiences has probably matured me quite quickly. And coming towards the end of your career, do you feel like that’s given you a bit more freedom to choose the path that you wanna take? Like I’ve seen you up on the sunny coast training with a friend of mine, Ash Delaney up with his squad there and just sort of, you know, mixing things up a bit. Has it given you that freedom now that you asked one of the older ones and you’ve got the success that you’ve got? Like has that opened up options for you and have more choice with what you can do? Yeah, definitely. Obviously over the last couple of years I’ve been spending a little bit of time up on the coast with Delaney’s one of my best mates and like a brother to me really, you know, like him and his wife, Taryn and the two kids have been a very important part of my swimming career. I think that, you know, this time last year or sorry, a little bit earlier,

maybe like February last year through to April I was semi-retired from swimming because I’d come back from my second shoulder operation and I was kind of just in constant pain like with driving, sleeping, you know, drinking, eating whatever it was, whatever involved my shoulders. It was causing me quite a lot of pain. So for me, I kind of went, well, is this really worth it? You know, seeing physios every single day when I’m at the pool, just doing, you know, snorkel face down, kick with my hands by my side for kilometers on end, doing a lot of running, you know, just being in pain that kind of made me question whether swimming was what I wanted to continue to do. Is it worth the pain? And I kind of took quite a lot of time away. I went back home to the country, did some work with my cousin. He’s a boat mechanic, so kind of just stuffed around with the workshop with him, kind of went fishing, lived a pretty normal lifestyle

and then went to Josh Beaver’s Bucks Party in Melbourne and he and Ash Delaney was there and Ash is one of my best mates at that stage and kind of went, you know, come up to sunny coast, see the kids, see Taryn, you haven’t seen where I’m living and obviously I was pretty well unemployed at that stage, so I could kind of do whatever I wanted to do. So I rolled up there and he didn’t put any pressure on me to kind of get in the pool, but, you know, just being in that environment made me want to get back in the pool and just training with different people, like the kids are probably more so high school kids or semi-professional swimmers, so they had a lot more fun and you’re kind of joking around mid-session or mid-made set, which I really appreciated and I kind of had to, you know, I had to work a lot harder than to make sure I was beating all these kids all the time because I’m a very competitive person and pride myself on winning.

So I loved that and now it’s become an important part of my lifestyle, I think, going up there for a couple of weeks when I feel like I need to decompress and probably de-stress a little bit. I go up there, spend a few weeks with the kids, you know, it’s just a different lifestyle, dropping the kids off to school in the morning, having your best mate around you all day, every day, kind of going to the pool with him, training, kind of coming back, watching South Park or whatever on TV, and then going back for the afternoon, it’s just a good lifestyle, but I do think that, you know, I know exactly what I need to do to be the best now I’ve been around for a long time. I’ve been at the top of the world in the 100 freestyle on a couple of occasions, so I know exactly what I need to do in terms of diet, rest, recovery, what I need to do in and out of the pool, you know, gym-wise to be the best. So I’m able to do things like go up to the sunny coast

and spend a few weeks there and I know that my coach trusts me to do that, but you know, Bish, my coach in Adelaide is one of my very best mates, you know, like a father figure, you know, such an important role model for me and someone that I’ve swam with since, you know, about 2011, 2012. So I’ll never leave him. He, I trust exactly what he says to me day in, day out. I know there’s occasionally times where I might be like, oh, is this actually gonna make me a hundred, bet a hundred freestyler, but I have so much trust, so much respect for him and I love working under him. And, you know, I feel like when I race, I represent, you know, him and the whole Sassy team, it’s a very special crew that we’ve created in Adelaide. And yeah, I’m very lucky to have them on my side and kind of being able to have these amazing experiences like come to Darwin on training camps and whatnot. And you mentioned injuries before. Has there been any silver linings

from the surgeries and injuries that you’ve had? Yeah, well, both of my shoulders are back up and firing pretty good at the moment, which is really nice. It’s kind of my first time in three years where I’ve able to be injury-free for an extended period, do the work that everyone else is doing in my squad, race and all the competitions and to lead up to trials. Last year, I gave myself seven weeks’ preparation for trials, whereas this year, I’ve been able to train from January through to trials, which is really exciting to me. And my bursas have come out on my side. They shaved my AC joints down, fixed up my labrums, which has both been pretty good. I think at the end of my career, I’ll have to have both of them reconstructed because I’ve got a bit of extra bone in both my AC joints. It’s called the Osmo Chromiali. So it’s kind of a bit of bone that never fused when I was a kid. So that’s the thing that still causes me a bit of pain

because it’s just bone grinding on bone. When I’m swimming, but it’s definitely a whole lot more manageable than having, you know, bursatus or a little bit of tears in sub-scap or labrums like I have previously. So, you know, I think that’s, you know, making me very, very happy in and out of the pool. I’ve probably had the best season I’ve had just in terms of how much fun I’m having with it and enjoyment and I’m back loving swimming. So who knows, my swimming career might be prolonged to Brisbane if I’m able to stay this happy and be injury-free and you definitely take it for granted. I think being injury-free, you know, like I think as a kid, you don’t really understand how gruelling injuries are both physically but mentally and emotionally as well. It caused me so much, yeah, just hurt for a long time. Yeah, it’s one of those things where when you’re in it, it’s all you can think about and it’s just constantly nagging at you.

And then as soon as it’s good, it’s like, you forget about it. You’re just like, back to normal life. But if you can have that, yeah, you can be grateful for it and just recognize what it is like to actually be injury-free. It just makes a world of difference. And your training, so do you have to ease into the training in terms of the distance that you’re doing? How do you have to change your training when you are leading into trials, for example, where you don’t wanna overdo it? So you’re having to reduce your distance each week. What’s it look like for you? Yes, this year it’s kind of been easing back into it slightly, but the last two years I’ve had shoulder surgery in December. So I haven’t been able to start back training for quite long periods of time. Whereas this year I was able to get back in January the second with the rest of the guys, build right back into it. And I’ve even managed to get some weeks out

where I’ve done 50 kilometers in the pool in a week, which is a massive amount for $100 freestyle, but a massive amount for me when I haven’t been able to do that sort of work in such a long period of time. But at the moment, I’m in my last hard block of training. So probably hitting close to 40, 45 Ks a week. And then we get back to Adelaide on the 25th of May and we’ll start a two and a half week taper down into trials. So it’ll be definitely getting a bit lighter, freshening up and dropping the Ks down. I won’t go down probably fully because I’ll try and do that for world championships. But yeah, I’ll taper down to swim faster trials, make the team that’s the first box to tick every year and then probably go back into a harder block again leading into world champs. So for us here, two and a half weeks seems to be the kind of the key amount of time for me to get tapered and it’s just gradually dropping down.

You know, the first couple of days of taper might be four, four and a half Ks and then it will drop right down to three, probably the week leading into it and then probably two, one and a half. It’s the days before when we’re in Melbourne ready to race. I’ve heard you say you really enjoy the aerobic training. Can you talk a bit about what that looks like for you and why you do enjoy that? Because from my experience, there’s not many sprinters that enjoy the aerobic based training. I’m a person that I have wired my brain to enjoy the stuff that I know that people shouldn’t like, I think. You know, like I think aerobic swimming for me is so important and that’s why I’ve had such a good back end over my career. I probably train more so for the 200 freestyle and come down to the 100 freestyle than training for the 150. For me, you know, like the other night we did eight 300s on 330, one at lactate and a half, one where we’re descending the hundreds

and then descending that 300 while the eighth one’s gonna be pretty well a 300 max but you gotta make sure you’re descending the hundreds through that. So those sort of sessions, you know, that’s my bread and butter and something I do probably, you know, some form of that at least once a week, if not twice a week and it’s all just developing that back end and kind of dampening my anaerobic system because I know that if my anaerobic system’s too fast then I swim slower so I’ve got to be smart with how I train and I’ve got to do the aerobic stuff and I’ve got to do, you know, I am stuff in training. I’ve got to do the short rest stuff, the stuff that people don’t enjoy doing but I know that it’s just gonna make me better in the pool. So yeah, I definitely have loved that stuff over the years and this year I’ve started doing it. I did a couple of 800 freestyles just to kind of put myself in uncomfortable positions,

events that sprinters historically probably wouldn’t do, but you know, I like I said earlier, I’m getting older and I’ve raced for a very long time and I just kind of go through the motions when I’m rocking up it, you know, New South Wales State Championships or Nationals these days, kind of like I had just another race, I don’t get as motivated as I used to for those sort of competitions. So putting myself in an uncomfortable position like the 800, I get anxious and stressed and it feels like an Olympic final really for me. So I definitely love doing that sort of stuff and it’s something that, you know, I’ll continue to do over these next few years because I know that it’s gonna make my back end and my 100 freestyle better and make my total time better in it.

So the 8300 you’re leaving on 330 and this is, is that leaving on 330? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and this is in a 50 meter pool or so long course. What’s, what times are you hitting in those eight threes and obviously they’re different pace, but what are you averaging there? When I’m assuming like day one and a half, I was about 315 and then to stand down, I got down to about 303 or 304, I think with about a 57 for my last 100. So I think that’s pretty solid for a 100 freestyle. Obviously some of the guys would go a whole lot faster. You watch, you know, the guys like Sam Short and the 1500 guys that we have trained, they’re incredible. The times they’re able to hold such long periods of time, but you know, I’m lucky to have a great training partner in Matt Temple that’s kind of swimming alongside of me going very similar times where we kind of race each other. That whole two and a half case of swimming, we’re kind of just pacing off each other,

pacing off each other. And then as always, it’s sprint for that last, that last bit for your last 100 in that case to see and get their hand a little first and then something that I’ve tried myself on. Yeah, that’s, that’s cool. And I mean, that aerobic work, when you get into the zone of it and you’re actually just not thinking about anything else, it’s just looking to hold your pace and just make sure you’re hitting your times. For me, that is, it’s just one of the best feelings coming out of a session where you’re working at those sort of intensities and you’ve got to hold your pace for such a long period of time. It’s, I’m similar. I just love that aerobic training. It’s, yeah, coming out of it just feeling so much better than like a sprint session where I’m just wiped and, you know, it’s like I need it. I need to refuel straight away, but those more aerobic ones, it’s a little bit different. Definitely, I’m glad we’re wired to save, mate.

Good man. And for you, so is there any, say, unconventional beliefs or something that you believe that is maybe different to your other competitors? Any sort of, yeah, unconventional beliefs that you’ve got that you think, oh, maybe not everyone thinks this.

I probably just think with my work ethic and whatnot, you know, like, I just, I believe that I have to be the best person at training, whether it’s a recovery session or a key main session. I love to pride myself on being the hardest worker in the pool just because I, you know, my goal is to be the best in the world. So I know my competitors are working pretty hard. So I think I’m wired probably different in that sense than some people. Probably some people take recovery a bit more seriously or whatnot, whereas I’m kind of go, go, go, go, go. Even throughout the days, you know, like I’m not a person that’s able to sit still. So now on a Tuesday and Thursday afternoons on my recovery afternoons, I’m laboring on a building site, just as a bit of work experience really, but just something to do and something that I know is that little bit extra that’s going to hopefully benefit me in the pool because I’m kind of physically, you know, working

but having fun while I’m doing it. So I think, I think, yeah, just probably wired to work as hard as I possibly can every time I enter the pool and I pride myself on that. I can’t really think of anything off the top of my head, but yeah, that’s probably probably where I’m at. It’s, when I saw you make a few posts about being on the building site and a couple of months ago, you’re sort of playing footy as well. Doing those things outside of swimming, obviously you feel like that benefits you because the other way to approach it is train and then just rest and sit on the couch and do nothing. But I think that can really get in your head if you’re just sitting around and doing nothing. Whereas if you’re just keeping active, keeping busy, even though it might kind of go against what you think could be best and just resting so you can train back up that afternoon for another session, just keeping busy, I think is actually a better approach for most people.

What are your sort of feelings around that? Yeah, massively. I think life balances the key to success. There’s been periods of my life that I’ve focused completely solely on swimming and probably burned myself out because my major focus has been swimming. And it’s like you’re always constantly living in your head. You kind of go home from swimming, you’re thinking about training, you’re thinking about the session you’ve just done or the session you have tonight or kind of what you’re fueling yourself with to get ready for the next session. And that’s pretty unsustainable. You’re not able to do that for long periods of time. So there is points of the year where I have to do that. At the moment is a period where I probably have to do that more so leading into trials and world championships. So I’m not burning myself out because I’m a person, like I said, that will go all day every day and then just absolutely exhaust myself by the night time.

But over this past period, especially this year, I’ve found having that life balance, doing things that I enjoy, even reconnecting with a lot of my mates that I’ve probably not necessarily pushed aside but haven’t probably given the attention to them that they deserve over this last period while I’ve been focusing on swimming. I mean, I’ve reconnected with a lot of them and that’s just making me a lot happier in the pool and making me more cold charm as the person again rather than cold charm as the swimmer. Yeah, I’m having a lot of fun with it. And I think that’s what the key is to why I’m swimming so fast this year and having so much fun in the pool is just that, you know, I’m going fishing. I bought a fishing boat. I’m going fishing a couple of days a week probably. I’m out there working a couple of days a week. I’m hanging out with my mates and kind of having all my mates over to have a fire at my house. I love having the fire pit going with the footy on

and cooking up some big steaks for everyone and just being a lot more social and doing the things that I love doing and that, yeah, that life balance is definitely the key to success, I think. Yeah, I think surrounding yourself with, especially old friends who like, if you might not seem for two or three years, it’s like you only saw each other yesterday where you can just reconnect and get straight back into it and that surrounding yourself with people who are like that and you know each other’s life story and then just having those activities like watching the footy, just those basic things that accounts for a lot, especially when swimming, certainly physical, but it’s very much a mental sport with the amount of training that you’ve got to go through how much time you can spend in your own head. So being able to just step out of that with the social side of things is really important and like I remember when I finished high school

in between school and uni, there was probably two or three months there where I was pretty much just training, I knew I was gonna go to uni but I started to get sort of in my head a bit like there’s nothing outside of just training and I thought there needs to be more than this. I need something more than just swimming and obviously uni came along and then I wasn’t sort of competing or training as much as I was, but yeah, when there was just swimming, life was sort of, it was a lot harder mentally just to keep on top of things. Definitely, definitely. And I see a whole heap of swimmers kind of go through that and I think it’s a big learning step that everyone finder has to go through at some point themselves and find themselves and find that balance and what they’re gonna do away from the pool to keep themselves in a good mental spot and there’s only so much advice you can give everyone that you kind of see these young kids come through,

they have their success, they go, yeah, this is me, I’m focused in on swimming, I’m gonna give everything to swimming and you see them burn out pretty quick and struggle for a little bit and then find themselves again and it’s definitely something that I went through and something that I still see a lot of people go through. And now with what we do, we have heavily technique focus with our podcast and content and we run clinics around Australia where we do a lot of underwater filming and analysis and so I’m sort of heavily technique driven and majority of the listeners of the podcast are adults who are doing triathlon, swimming or open water swimming and they just love to improve their technique. So for you, what are some of those key things that you’re thinking about when you’re training and what does it feel like for you when you’re swimming? Wow. Yeah, I think the key things for me at the moment is making sure that I’m rotating on both sides.

Obviously I breathe to my right side so occasionally I won’t then rotate back onto my left side as much as I need to. So while I’m training at the moment and the key area is just kind of making sure I get that rotation, which is helping my shoulders as well because otherwise I’m loading up probably the left shoulder a whole lot more than the right shoulder at times. So that’s a key area for me. The other one’s obviously my hip positioning, just keeping your hips quite still, which to do that you’re strengthening your core and strengthening your back out of the pool so that when you’re in the pool you’re able to kind of keep that nice rigid, yeah, hips in that good position. And then the other one, my kick may look like it’s quite good when I’m swimming. I have quite a lot of splash going behind me. My kick is probably my weakest area of my swimming. So working on my kick and that’s probably not having too much knee bend

that’s trying to keep my legs a lot straighter and just those three areas is something that I’m working hard on at the moment to have good freestyle. And I know that when I am doing those to the best of my ability I’m able to swim a whole lot faster like I’m rotating evenly across my shoulders which is probably lengthening out a little bit so I’m holding a bit better water. My kicks probably not as taxing and hard if I’m just, if I’m keeping my legs straight I’m kind of moving and my hips are sitting a little bit higher. So those are definitely things that I feel. And in your say 100 freestyle, let’s say for the four by one at the Melbourne short course champs a couple of months ago I came home so strong in that last 25. What’s your thoughts on pacing? How do you try to pace like 100 freestyle? For me, I just try to be consistent throughout the whole race. So obviously you can jump in and burn all your energy quite quickly.

But so for me, I’ve got to make sure that I’m telling myself to ease into the race a little bit. Like I’ve got to hold myself back on that first 25 a little bit. And then it’s kind of building into that second 25 getting a nice turn, working that underwater. But again, not maxing straight off the turn again because you don’t want to burn that energy. It’s all about being as consistent as you can. So you’ve got that energy to be able to burn in the last 15. And yeah, it’s something that, the way that I’ve always swung my 100 freestyle is kind of that way. And when I started probably doing that it was almost a new way of swimming the 100 freestyle in a way. Like there wasn’t too many people that were solely working on their back end. Whereas now, like that seems to be the way that people are swimming the 100 freestyle a whole lot more. Like you look at some of the guys’ back ends from around the world nowadays, they’re very, very impressive.

And I like to think that I’m kind of the guy that’s changed the way that people look at the 100 freestyle and how they swim it. So yeah, that’s probably my thoughts behind it. Especially coming out of that super-suit era where it was just like guns blazing from the start and it was like just all sort of upper body. It’s really evolved over the last sort of 15, 14 years now but very different approach to the 100 freestyle compared to back then. Definitely. And you still see a few guys, you know, like Santa Condarelli or Vlad Morizov or these guys that are 50 meter-based that try to come up and do the 100 and they’re always out pretty hard and kind of die off in that last 50. But yeah, it seems to be the guys that are able to do the better 100s nowadays are guys that are also able to do a pretty solid 200 and swim, yeah, you know, the person that’s kind of finishing the fastest is almost the winner of the race in most cases.

Are you changing your stroke from 50 to 100 and then from 100 to 200? Probably 100 to 200, yes, but 50 to 100, no. So I mean, I don’t do very many 50s long course at all. Like I did one this year, which is probably the first one I’ve done over the last few years. But for me, if I’m gonna swim my best 50, I’ve got to make sure that I’m trying to think like I’m swimming 100. You know, like my best 50 freestyle, I think is 22.07. My best first 50 for my 100 freestyle is 22.7. So you kind of take that feed into all into account and that’s about 0.6, 0.7 of a second. So I’m actually going out as fast as I possibly can swim at this point in my career. So my stroke tries to stay the same in terms of I’m breathing every two strokes. I’m trying to lengthen out as much as I can. Whereas the 200, obviously you drop your stroke rate a little bit to that extra bit, that little bit further. But I think as I get a little bit older,

I’m not doing as many 200s as I had done previously. And it’s probably not as much of a focus that has been either. Yeah. Well, Kyle, I really appreciate you being on there on the podcast. And also want to make note of you know, Baden from Skillist who set this up. So you’re on the Skillist platform to, so anyone who’s got some video of their swimming, you can send it through to Kyle on Skillist and he’ll analyze your stroke. And I didn’t know how much analysis work you’d done with professionals over the years. But I think that’s really exciting because there’s so much that you can get from it. And having that experience now, being able to do it yourself and give that feedback through Skillist is fantastic. And what we’ve done for the last, probably seven, eight years at Clinics is a lot of that underwater filming and analysis with swimmers who are more around like the one 30 to two minute mark per 100. So those people who’ve learned to swim as an adult

and just that experience of working with those people and doing it day in, day out, get a really good idea of what people are doing, what they need to do to change and hopefully see five, 10, 15 seconds improvement per 100 just by getting that experience and being able to do that yourself and then put that into practice and training is such a good way to learn what’s required for other people. So yeah, that’s really great that you’re on the Skillist platform. We also had Ryan Murphy, who’s a good friend of yours on, he was on two weeks ago and he’s also on Skillist too. So what made you sort of jump on board with Skillist? What did you like about that kind of platform and opportunity? Yeah, I think for me, I do love my sport. I love kind of seeing people get better, especially kind of the younger generation that are coming through if I can have a positive impact on them and kind of give them a little bit of advice and tips

that’s always beneficial. But yeah, so I think that’s just, it’s a great opportunity for me to better my sport, help people reach their goals, help people with their freestyle technique or, you know, butterfly technique. I probably don’t know a whole lot about breaststroke or backstroke, but those two are that I think that I’ve spent a very major part of my life and major part of my days every day is kind of perfecting my skills if I’m able to pass that advice on to the other swimmers who are eager to learn and keen to learn from me. I think it’s a great opportunity so I’m really excited for people to interact with people on skill list, have people send their videos through and ask for advice and ask for technique. I really love people when people are able to, you know, ask for that. I think it’s something that doesn’t happen too much with the new generation that’s coming through, you know, like they don’t want to ask for advice or help

as much as what, you know, I know that I did when I was definitely growing up. Now it’s kind of seen as a bit of a, you know, if you want to give advice, people get offended sometimes by that. So, you know, people that are actually actively reaching out to get better at swimming and whatnot, I appreciate. And I, yeah, like I said, really look forward to being able to interact with that. And obviously, Prime Minister is a great mate of mine and he’s on there and he kind of talked me into it. So I’m definitely looking forward to having the opportunity to meet some new people in swimming, some like-minded people that just want to be better at the sport and hopefully I’m able to offer some great advice and help people shoot faster and reach their goal in the pool. Yeah, the thing I like about it is like you’ve got, there’s that cameo app where it’s like, you can get something to say like, yeah, happy birthday to your mate or something.

So that’s, it’s great, but it’s not helpful for swimmers. It’s like, if you can send you a video and actually get feedback from someone like yourself, you can get so much more, you know, it’s just, it’s so much more valuable than someone just saying good day. So yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s gonna be a really big thing over the next couple of years. Kyle, thank you so much for being on the podcast. All the best for World Champs trials in about a month’s time. And look forward to watching your journey over the next couple of years. And yeah, seeing if you stick around with swimming for longer, how the shoulders hold up and all of that. So it’s been great having you on the podcast. Thanks very much. No worries. Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.

The post How Olympians Use Underwater Filming And Analysis with Kyle Chalmers appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

My guest today is Seb Wichmann, who attended one of our clinics in 2022. He was averaging around a 2:05 to 2:10 per hundred and said he was happy to survive a 1K swim at the pool and has now got himself down to around a 1:45. Tune in to the episode now!

This podcast is brought to you by NanoClear — our own range of anti-fog swim goggles, designed by Effortless Swimming with the anti-fog treatment bonded into the lens itself (not sprayed on, so it doesn’t wear off after a few swims). Check out the NanoClear range here and use code PODCAST15 for 15% off.

Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. My guest today is someone who attended a clinic in mid-2022 and was averaging around a 205, 210 per 100 and said he was happy to survive a 1K swim at the pool and has now gotten himself down to around a 145 and a little bit quicker in terms of threshold pace and a 125 to 127 for an all-out 100 and has seen a really good improvement with technique and times and I’m still continuing to see some improvements as well, which is fantastic. So I want to welcome Seb Wichman to the podcast. Welcome to today’s episode. Thank you. We were talking about this earlier. I said don’t know if I’ll get the German pronunciation, but it’s close enough. So you come from a semi-professional cycling background, you said, and doing triathlons,

a half-ired man coming up in cans. So talk to me a little bit about what it was like coming from that cycling background to triathlon and swimming and if you had any challenges there when it came to swimming. I see a lot of cyclists just, they will kick like cyclists. They have heavier legs from that muscle build up and they find it’s a bit frustrating initially. Is that something that you encountered? Swimming was for me, Brandon, like a fish out of water really, you know, it’s kind of as you described. I’ve never actually focused on training my upper body at all. Everything in my life in the past has been just training my upper or my lower or my legs obviously. And you know, swimming for the first time, I had to, I had to just focus on suddenly using my torso and I just didn’t know, I’ve never really learned how to swim. I didn’t know how it all works. So it was really finding my own feet, so to speak, in the water, trying to kind of understand

what it all means and trying to feel the water and none of it is something I have really. Did you teach yourself or did you have a coach or someone help you in the beginning? I’m not sure if that’s because I’m German, but initially I went into triathlon just looking to find a challenge and knew I’m strong on the bike, knew I’m very weak in the water and I love the science behind things, right? And so early on, I visited your clinic as well, which I absolutely loved. Just a technical aspect, we sat down and just looked at video analysis. And so I really quickly seek out mentors to just learn from and to improve. And I don’t do that to, you know, to do anything more, but to learn and to just figure out how to get this thing called swimming to the best of my abilities. And you were one of my coaches, obviously, right now. And I have another coach I’m working with that’s helping me, you know, on a consistent

basis to just constantly improve my swimming, which is super important. And what did you take away from the clinic that you’re able to use going forward with your technique? Was there anything with your own stroke where you thought, OK, I’m doing it this way, we can see in the video, this is how I’m doing it. But I know that the best swimmers, the fastest swimmers are doing it another way. Yeah. You know, I think that when I came to your swimming clinic, I really truthfully had no idea what I’m doing. I just knew I had to to kind of, you know, move my move my legs and kind of do something with my arms. And so, you know, and then the whole the whole aspect of technique obviously comes to play. And, you know, the thing that I kept focusing in my mind are those kind of pillars that you kind of taught me, which is kind of to really make sure that I don’t look too far forward to have a to have a kind of relax and almost like heavy head in the water.

We focus also on I had a very wide kind of reach, so to speak, elbows hitting the water first. And, you know, I kind of shorten this up a little bit rotation and then really eventually work under for my catch at my on my catch as well to making this, you know, making this as best as I can. But it’s just a progress, as you know, nothing comes just by itself. You just start somewhere and then as you improve on something and you focus on something else, this first thing falls again off the boat, so to speak. And you have to revisit it as it’s constant learning, which is great, which I love. Yeah, there’s you’re never going to stop finding things to improve with your with your swim strike. And then that’s one of the fun things about swimming in many ways. And like looking at and we did a YouTube video on your kind of before and after and you look at the video and some of those things have changed really nicely.

There’s there’s still some things there that that we can work on. And and when you when you look at it, like you look more, I’d say you like your stroke is definitely longer in the water, you’re now in that front quadrant, which is which is great. And you just look like you’ve got kind of better, better rhythm and stuff going. But I think when people like someone who doesn’t know swimming that well, they might just swim recreationally and they haven’t seen themselves swim, they might look at that before and after and go, there’s, there’s not that much difference, right? Until we sort of slow it down and break it down and say, well, actually, you’re doing this. And we’ve made a change there. But the end result is about 20 seconds faster per 100. So I think when people look at the visual changes over time, to the naked eye, it doesn’t look like a whole lot. But in reality, there’s quite a bit there. And if you’re swimming 20 seconds quicker,

well, yeah, it might be fitness. That’s certainly an aspect of it. But it was fitness and strength. But also that like the technique, even these subtle changes can make a big difference. But it takes a long time to ingrain them and to do it consistently.

Yeah, absolutely agree. What’s your what’s your weekly routine been like for swimming? How often have you been getting in the water? You know, with triathlon, as you know, it’s, you know, I thought cycling is challenging and difficult, but triathlons are totally new game, you know, it’s kind of trying to combine three sports, one of which on my end is kind of okay, you know, and I haven’t really focused like, hugely on swimming as per se, like, you know, have a massive swim block, for example, four times or five times a week. But I do swim very, very regularly. And I do swim when I swim with a lot of intention and with a lot of constant in my mind, constantly reinforcing what I’m working on in that moment kind of feeling the water kind of seeing myself from above almost, you know, looking down upon me, if you will, and just seeing where my arms are at and just constantly being with the stroke if this makes sense. And so I have been going in

the water probably about depends probably three times a week. So nothing, nothing huge, but just this consistency over time just starts yielding dividends, which is great. How long did it take you to start seeing results with those changes? This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, form smart swim goggles. They’re more than a pair of goggles, meet the world’s most powerful swim platform. See yourself improve with form smart swim goggles, including a free one year membership when you purchase your goggles for only $249 US dollars. They have currently changed up their offer where you can now get the goggles and you have one year membership included for free. And if you’d like to continue with the membership going forwards, it’s only 15 US dollars a month where you get access to the workouts, training plans and custom workout builder, but you’ll always have access to the real time data in the

goggles. So you never lose access to that. My favorite thing about the form goggles is having the instant feedback of what times you’re doing, what stroke rate you’re doing, and also the ability to see what your heart rate is. Because never before have we been able to have these immediate feedback heads up display where it’s actually telling you what your intervals are. So when I wear the goggles in training, I like that I know my split for the first 50 and the hundred and the 150. So every single lap I’m getting that feedback on what my pace is. And I find it’s such an important tool for being able to not only have different gears where you can switch between the different speeds that you want to swim, but it helps you develop those gears and it helps you intuitively know how fast you need to go before you’re going to blow up or before you’re going to go a little bit too hard. So it helps you just get really good at judging your pace for when you

do go to a race. And even if you’re not wearing the goggles in a race, it’s that intuition and that ability to develop your pacing that these goggles can really help with. To get your pair of form goggles and save 15 percent off, use our link formswim.com forward slash effortless or use the coupon effortless at checkout. And that will get you 15 percent off your pair of goggles using our special link formswim.com forward slash effortless or the code effortless at checkout. It probably took a while to be honest. It probably took me, you know, probably after we met in, I think let’s say June, July last year, which is now whatever it is, what’s the 10 month ago, let’s say, you know, you kind of initially you’re still not stuck, but you know what to do in theory, but practically the muscle haven’t caught up yet in terms of you having the strength. I remember in the beginning that my, especially my left hand because I’m right hand

on my left hand constantly just, I just couldn’t pull through the water in that, you know, in my mind is something that I just worked on to just working on the strength part. But then you start combining strength with technique. And I would say that the initial kind of next stage probably came, you know, probably five months after, four or five months after where we saw in terms of speed, in terms of time, noticeable change, you know, in the beginning, you know, straight away out of the clinic, so to speak, I felt that I mentally again knew what I had to work on. And I kind of constantly focused on that. But again, you don’t have the strength necessarily. And you know what to do, but you can’t necessarily put them to practice straight away. And then through repetition, eventually you develop or I developed speed and you’re just trying to just be more streamlined and everything eventually comes a little bit together, which in my case, yeah,

was the case, but I still got to work on it as well, which I’m excited about. Never stops. What made you stick with it? Like, how come you didn’t just go, this, this doesn’t work? You know, I’m just going to keep doing what I was doing. I’m not saying any improvements in time. So that’s a waste of time. What made you stick with it? Yeah, it’s a good question. I think one part that I know is that when you know what to focus on and when you have a vision and a goal. And for me, I have my vision on my vision boards. You know, it’s a goal to go to the world championships in 70.3 probably next year. When you have a coach that really guides you through it. When you have a mentor like ICU, being a mentor, we have met each other in person, but also I’m watching your YouTube channel probably every day. I’m listening to videos and I’m just almost like what I’m eating. I’m just, you know, clicking on a random video and just picking little

things up. And some videos I watch multiple times because, you know, again, when you’re swimming, you then remember, ah, and you kind of start reinforcing it’s just this world you enter that I absolutely love the technical aspect of swimming, which is, I think one reason why swimming has become not my strongest discipline, but in my mind, the discipline I feel challenged by the most. And therefore I love the most as well, which is kind of interesting to looking at that dynamic. Did you think that this was something that you could come to love? Or when you first started, did it feel like it was always going to be a hard slog and less enjoyable than the running or the running? Absolutely. Yeah. Swimming to me was an absolute struggle. Like I, you know, I still, I still can feel how my core and my legs just were sitting in the water, you know, just like dragging myself along. And this is not enjoyable, you know, it’s kind of you

see other swimmers or when I watch, observe other swimmers and you, I get really excited and I’m like, I’m an awe of swimmers that just glide through the water. I’m like, how does this work? Or when swimmers just come past me, when you’re just going full steam in the water, and some are just with a, with a lower stroke count, just suddenly comes past me like, how does

this work? And so yeah, so I’m really, you know, at all, which is, which is awesome.

I want to talk a bit about the, so just before we jumped on the call, you said that you just did a new PB for like a half Ironman distance swim in the ocean. So you weren’t racing a half Ironman, but you did the distance and just saw what time you could get. So prior to, well, when you, when you message me, I can’t remember when it was a couple of weeks ago, perhaps, but you said you’d just done a half Ironman distance swim in the ocean, you got, was it 32 and a half, 31 and a half, 31 and a half. Yeah. Yeah. So 31 and a half. And then I did this YouTube video last week and talked about, okay, what’s the next thing that you could probably focus on and talk to a bit about the exit. You said you just did another PB that was about two seconds quicker per 100. Yeah. Yeah, in two seconds. Do you want to talk a bit about that change? And yeah, well, it adds up 30 and a half instead of 31 and a half. So it’s not insignificant. So talk to

me a bit about that, that change and what you were focusing on and what you’re doing beforehand with the exit. So, you know, like June last year was my first half Ironman. I did a, I think 34 and a half pristine conditions. You know, obviously there was a lot of people around. I’m not sure how you can compare this. And so three weeks ago or so I had in my race plan or prep for the next race, I had a race effort with wetsuit in the ocean, which again was, you know, flat, really good conditions. And I did a 31 and a half. And I thought that was pretty good. When I looked at it, I saw all those moments where my pace just slipped off the race pace, you know, to a two or to a five even. I didn’t really know why that is. And a couple of changes you mentioned, which I really focused on was just simply on the right side, my hands exit to speak. So what I saw or what you alluded to is that my in the in the actually catch phase and in the in the exit, my

hand slipped, kind of more vertically, whereby I lost the pressure of the water. Or, you know, and so I think, like, initially, in my earlier days, that was due to just have not having strength. Some it has to give somewhere, right? And so where it gave until now, and I still I’m still working on it is this last third of the quadrants to exit. And even though I mean, you tell me but even though this is not where the main propulsion comes from, it’s to me super important for stability and for rotation, all this on the other sides, and to be able to to glide and to lengthen the opposite arm because you have still pressure on the water. And so this is what I’m working on now. And just this just slipped before. And so I just did one little change, which was to constantly just keep pressure on the right side, not slipping, not for the for the hand to slip. And so with consistency, applying all to this consistency piece to constantly

keep the pressure up, I did another. So 138 another two seconds per 100 meters off the half Ironman, which is about 45 seconds all up. So that’s a significant little little change of money right there. You know, that’s that’s maybe the difference between, you know, you know, later group or group before that that comes or goes on the bike, right? So it was pretty cool, actually pretty cool to see that’s exactly right. Yeah, that’s that’s great. It’s a really common one, the exit either people yet hand turning in and coming out a little bit early and just losing that pressure. And that’s really hard to get it get a good reach and roll into the catch comfortably. Typically the arm will just drop down a bit soon because you lose that propulsion at the back. You’re going to pay for that somewhere and it’s out the front. So and then on the other side of that sometimes I see people pushing back as far as they can with a lot of exertion

at the back almost where they’re flicking their hand out the back. But that’s unnecessary because as you said, it’s not there. It’s not where you get most of your your propulsion. So I have heard coaches say, like, like, put like put as much power through the back of the stroke as you can. But to me, it’s like that’s that’s kind of wasted effort. Because most when you measure the force, most of it’s just underneath the shoulders and the and the chest. That’s where you’re applying the most power. So as long as you just clear the hips, go just past it and keep the palm facing towards your feet. That’s that’s kind of all you all you need. Otherwise, I think muscly, you’re going to fatigue quicker than what you need to there. But as you said, without that swimming background and swim strength, it’s initially like it’s just hard to keep the stroke that little bit longer because like through it uses your triceps a lot. And, you know, most people

probably aren’t using them as much as they would when they’re when they’re swimming. So it does take a bit of a bit of time and and awareness as well about what’s what’s required to to maintain that length. Did you find so with that change, it sounds like it’s come together pretty well already. But did you find that when you’re making these changes in your stroke that was it on some strokes, you were like, yep, I’ve got it. And then it started to fall away. Or was it just like you’d have some sessions where it wasn’t working and and somewhere it was? What was that like for you? How consistent were you? It’s just incredible, you know, like, it is just one day it’s off. One day it’s on. It’s you never know quite nowhere lands. I had one session late last week where I thought that is just feels so great. And you know, like I love I always focus on ending the session well. And even if it’s just 25 meters to cut, you are exhausted and you’re

always trying to end the session well to keep in mind what the stroke should feel like, even though you’re super fatigued. You know, but the truth be told, some sessions are really good in terms of you just honored your course switched on just over the over the barrel, you just have a lot of, you know, pull underwater, you feel extreme line, you just feel on top of it. And some other sessions for whatever reasons, maybe you’re fatigued or maybe you haven’t slept well, it’s just you’re just a little bit off. And so I think that what is to me important, at least, is that you always give it your best shot, right? So way, whatever, wherever you feel the fatigue, you just trying to pull yourself together and just, you know, maybe end the lap well, or whatever, it’s just, you know, constantly just, yeah, erring to to do the best you can. And that’s not that’s not always great, but it needs to be good enough, sort of speak enough for yourself,

at least. I think the important thing there is that you use on those sessions where you feel rubbish, don’t get out and go, oh, there’s a waste of time. It’s like keep going with it. You’ve got to finish that. You’ve got to still do the session or at least the majority of it, because even if your time’s rubbish, your technique is not nearly as good as it could be your hips and legs as thinking like you, you’ve just got to have that consistency and expectation that some sessions will not be great. And maybe your technique is not going to be as good as you’d, you’d like. But as, as you said, just maybe take a bit more rest or try and just maintain your form as, as best you can. But as long as you just keep that consistency up and you’re looking at like this, I think it’s like a walking up a, up a mountain with a, with a roller coaster where you’re always going to have this upward trajectory if you stick with it, but you’re this, so this, this yo-yo

where it’s like you go down, comes up, goes down, comes up, that overall trajectory will be upwards as long as you just stick with it. And I think that’s an important thing to, to, you know, to note. And so for you, when you go to the pool, is that do you feel any different when you go to the pool now compared to 12 months ago? Look, my coach, this is a while ago, my coach eventually said you now look like a triathlete. I still don’t know exactly what that means, but I think this, you know, initially when you go into any sport, there’s just certain muscles are just not there. And I pretty much looked like a little chicken finger thing to some degree, because I’ve never really trained my upper body. I think naturally I have muscle, but I’m also a vegan or kind of 89% raw vegan. So it’s also difficult to really build heavy muscle or build muscle that, that we build after you, you broke it down through intensity, for example. But, you know,

nowadays I go in the water, which is lovely, where before, you know, I almost was, I wasn’t anxious, but I felt quite conscientious about not being able to swim well or swimming slowly, and especially when you go into squats, right? So you suddenly have swimmers in there that have been doing this for a while. And it really took me took mentally a little bit of an effort to just say it’s okay for you to not be any great right now, you’re just starting up, and you just stick with it, you enjoy the process and

consistency wins in the end, right? And to, you know, 10 months fast forward, I still don’t compare to the pure swimmers in the squat that I’m going to that go like, you know, 110 or 120. But I hold myself in a, in a fairly fast lane now. And that is just really good to see progression or people that come and comment on my stroke, I say, hey, you really improved a lot. You know, that means really a lot from for me, coming from people that have been swimming for quite a while. You know, because I love the sport and I work on it mentally and physically, almost on a daily basis, even if it’s just watching a YouTube channel from from effortless swimming, right? So, and it’s just a nice compliment for sure. Yeah. Yeah, that’s excellent. And even though, even though small comments about about your stroke or your technique or seeing, OK, I’ve moved up, I’ve moved up a lane or I’ve moved up a place here, like that’s, that’s all you need.

You just want to see that, that progression. It’s, it’s those little wins because you know how much work it can take to do that. And you know what you’ve put in as well, to be able to see those improvements. And as you said, like it doesn’t happen overnight and it’s not going to happen instantly. But if you’ve got that long term view, like you have and you’ve got that, that big goal of making world champs for for half Ironman, I think you’d need that, you need that kind of goal or ambition to really keep you on, on the right path. And yeah, it doesn’t have to be world championships. It might be for other people, it might be a certain time or it might be getting to a certain lane in the squad, or it might even just be like swimming a certain distance for someone. But if you’ve got something to aspire to, that’s going to drag you out of bed early in the morning, wake up at 440 most mornings to go swimming. And it’s just like

and I love it though. I’m like, yeah, I’m not I don’t want to sleep in. I just want to get up and get at it. And I really enjoy the feeling of having a good session and coming home from it. Totally. And just even, you know, even if we take all goals away, right? Even if it’s not us or, you know, whoever was watching right now, you know, like to me, even going in the swimming pool or going in the ocean or, you know, getting early up, as you just said, Brandon, right, into having a good start into the day, that maybe already an awesome goal to have instead of sleeping in or whatever. It’s just this lifestyle you create and this consistency and routine that makes you just be tomorrow a better person, right? Which is awesome. Yeah, absolutely. And would you have any advice for someone who was in your position 12 months ago? Maybe feeling like that they can feel they sit low in the water, maybe a little bit frustrated with that swimming?

What sort of advice would you give to someone who was in your shoes 12 months ago? Yeah, it’s a good question. I think, you know, this initial to overcome this initial hump to be able to not any more feel your drag your feet literally in the swimming pool, I think is a is a is a big one. And to me, the number one point that kept me alive was just start to love the process, right? Start to enjoy the art of swimming, start to just see the good in it that comes out of you going through the struggle. I think like anything in life, you know, overcoming struggle and challenges is what I live for at least. And so I think, you know, specifically, you know, have good mentors, have a plan for the session. You know, I remember in the very beginning, Brandon, I would literally just go swimming without having any focus, without having any guidance. And that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense either, because I think that if I wouldn’t have

attended your clinic. And if I wouldn’t have, or if I don’t continue to watch your YouTube channel every day, or if I don’t continue to have a coach that keeps me on my toes, I don’t think I would have progressed that much at all, because you can only see so far, right? Or you can, you can see far further by standing on giants came before you, so to speak, right? And to be, to be able to leverage of people like yourself that have been doing this for a while and to learn from it. And to improve through that process, I think it’s invaluable. And so, you know, one thing that I’m still working on, and that I wish I would have done earlier for sure, it’s just working on my core, for sure. You know, to be able to really pull yourself forwards into the water, so to speak, that was missing a lot in the beginning, you know, taking, you know, like, I would say like the heads, the head position and just to relax the heads. I mean, there’s so much to it, but I

would say the head position,

starting to feel the water and then kind of look at consistency and working on your core, although probably those three or four points I would have loved to have done probably earlier.

And what, what are you doing to, to work on your core at the moment? So I have twice a week physiotherapy sessions where I work with my physiotherapist on specific core exercises. So we go through the whole body, most of it is trying to alleviate, you know, weak spots in the body, but it literally exercises I do on the, on a roller where I alleviate my, my pelvis on the roller. And then with a ball in between my legs, then I stretch out and I just go through the motion of stretching the ball out while squeezing and then just really focusing on activating my deep core and then also doing up and down movements. That’s kind of off the, you know, off the training. And then while you’re training also to constantly be just to constantly intentionally focus on switching on your core. It is so easy. Like when I did the 1.9 K race effort just a couple of days ago. So I really pulled hard for my, for my, you know, for my ability, so to speak. And

I felt last 300 meters, I started to slip and I had to really pull myself together in that moment, say, no, you’re not going to slip. Just you just keep being strong. And just I pulled myself again forward and just had this initial, there’s not a inertia coming through. And yes, my lead were quite so afterwards, which I think is a good sign, but it’s really it takes mental, mental intention and mental awareness around where is your core right now. When you’re running, run tall, right, switch on your core, move yourself a bit forward. I’m just really using your glutes and your your core to just strive forward the same recycling. It’s so easy just to sit on the bike. No, activate your legs and just really drive. Right. And so it’s this constant intentional kind of action and being aware about where core is at. And then just keep focusing on it and keep strengthening it. Such a huge thing. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. One of the things I like to do in

the pool is I like to experiment. I like to go back and forth between some of the mistakes I see when I’m filming people, some of those common ones, and then go back to what is what is good technique just to experience what it feels like from their end and just see if there’s anything I can uncover in terms of how right how could I teach this a bit better? Or is there a drill we could do to sort of make make this change in that the engagement of the of the core is is such a big one that’s very subtle. And I think when you know you’ve got it, it’s when you feel like so, you know when you’ve got it basically because you will feel yourself sitting higher in the water, things will feel a little bit tighter and narrower and things will be much better connected. And I often see that newest from as a kind of like beginner surfers and what beginner surfers will do is they’ll be on the board, they’ll have their feet hanging off the end of the hanging off

to the side of the surf board and their legs are really wide apart and it’s sort of out there just to help keep them balanced. But they’re wriggling around a lot and they’re very ineffective with their with their paddling. Beginners surfers are very much the same. Their feet, their legs are out really wide apart. So I’m not talking up and down, but with ways that they’re out quite wide. And again, it’s just sort of trying to keep them balanced in the water. But there’s no core engagement. There’s no hip glute engagement there at all. But when they can bring it in and squeeze feels like you’re squeezing the butt cheeks together a bit and just like suck the time in a little bit when you’ve got that, then everything else is just so much easy. That’s that’s a huge bottleneck for so many beginners winners that I see. Do you think if I wouldn’t mind just throwing a question back at you, would you because I remember like it wasn’t like it’s easy

said in theory to do that, right? Sweden, the butt cheek and just active any your core. If you would have told me this eight months ago or six months ago, like, I’m not sure if I would have had the core to really do that because you saw exhausted already with the all the other stuff you’re doing in the water. Like, how would you how would you go about that as a beginner here? So to reapply this? Because one thing in theory, things actually practice.

Yeah, that’s that’s exactly right. I think part of it is certainly strength and just some some basic exercises out of the pool can can help. And some of those would be ones that you’re doing yourself now or even just like lying on your back hands under your bum and just just doing some small freestyle kicks lifting your legs just just off the ground and just keeping that quite small. Like that is hard work. It’s hard to do that for more than 15 seconds for most people, I’d say. So just you can develop some course rank there. You can develop your kicking a little bit that way. And then even just like if you go on all fours. So you’re on your knees around your hands and then just alternate like lift the leg up, bring it back and then even just alternating left right leg, trying to keep the body straight. Most people can’t do that without arching their back. So I think even just developing control through those sorts of movements can can help as well.

And then just going into like some some front kick or even side kick, just thinking about being long from your fingers to your toes, switching those two things on and trying to be long and then going into some swimming as well. So just trying to hold that that that long position with them switched on, start with the kick and then go into some swim. So just trying to build up from there is how I’d approach it for a lot of people. But you’re right, it certainly takes time and there’s so many other things to think about. But holding the body is one of the holding the body correctly is one of the first things that I think people should learn how to to do. So like for me, the first couple of things would be like head, body and kick and just getting that part that main part of your body. Don’t get that right. Get that right first. So said, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I’m glad you reached out a couple of months after the clinic and said,

oh, look, this is this is great. This is what I’m at now. And I’m glad you’re stuck with it because not ever not everyone sticks with it. They get frustrated and they go, look, this doesn’t work. I’m going to just keep doing what I was doing. But it’s unlikely you’ll see any improvements if you keep doing what you were doing, aside from any fitness gains. So I’m glad you’re stuck with it. And I’m excited to see where you can get to with it. You know, sub 30 is not far away for that half Ironman swim. And there’s you can absolutely get under that that 30 minute mark and and beyond that because there’s there’s still some really good things that we can work out in the strokes. I’m looking forward to working with you in the in the future and seeing where you can get to with your swim. Thank you so much. And I look forward to seeing you in one of your next clinics as well. So I took enough. I’ll be up in this soon. Yeah, not not a hard place

to convince me to come to. Don’t worry about that. Yeah. Well, thanks again, Seb, and all the best with your swimming. Thank you so much, Brandon. Take care. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.

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