Effortless Swimming

In today’s episode, we have Dr. Jim Taylor, a sports psychologist and author of Train Your Mind for Athletic Success. We will talk about the strategies for dealing with pain and figuring out what your motivations are. Tune in to this episode now.

00:58 Competed In The Super Sprint And Olympic Distance Triathlon

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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. This is episode number 266. I’ve got a recurring guest on today. I got Dr. Jim Taylor, Jim. Welcome to the podcast. Great to be back, Brenton. Always fun. Got to be one of the most favorite guests on the podcast. I get a lot of comments when you when you are on and I see people in the change rooms at the pool I go to, they said, oh, that, you know, that podcast you had recently was really good. And I’ve had a lot of comments about the times that you’ve been on. So on today’s episode, I want to talk about pain and motivation and not motivation in a rah-rah sense where talk about you got to be dedicated. You got to be committed. I mean, that’s everyone knows that stuff. But what are some actual strategies to increase your motivation to have more success in your swimming or triathlon to get yourself to the pool more often and and just to feed that motivation. So we’re going to talk about those

topics. But before we jump into that, you recently came back from the world championships, competing in the super sprint and Olympic distance triathlon there and had some really good success with a third in the super sprint and a ninth in the Olympic for your age group. So what was that experience like? Was that your first world champs that you’ve been to? It was my second I did Montreal, which is the sprint in mixed team relay events, June. So this is but it’s still pretty new to me. And this was an Abu Dhabi, which caused a lot of anxiety for Team USA in terms of just, you know, what’s allowed and and a lot, you know, sort of the cultural political differences, which turned out to be quite negligible. It’s very westernized there. But it was the challenge. It was very hot. And so everybody had to sort of figure out how to deal with the heat, you know, we were racing in the middle of the day. And it was about 90

degrees out Fahrenheit. So it was it was it was warm. And the water was warm, although relatively pleasant, very salty, no wetsuits. And so that always presents a challenge for those of us who are swimming challenged, which is swimming is not one of my strengths. But thanks to you, I’ve improved a lot. I’ve been working on it. But two of my goals when I race is one to execute my plan well. And except for in each race, one small thing, actually one small thing cost me second place in the super sprint, but I blew my flying mount. But and but overall executed really well. And then after the race, regardless of the result to just look back and go, you know, I left it all out. And, you know, we always think we can go faster, but I did the best I could. And I was really happy with the result. The end of the podium was super exciting. And it just gets me fired up more for next year and see what I can do next year by improving in this in my swim and in my

bike, especially because I’m a runner. Fantastic. Well, that that leads pretty well into our first topic of pain. Because the super sprint, it’s just all out from the get go. There’s no real real pacing yourself. It’s just an all out sprint. And it’s hard work. And I mean, I’ve done some some sprint events in my brief triathlon career. And they were painful. Look at those and go, my God, it’s just your heart rate is almost at max for the entire duration of the race. And it’s something that can be very painful. So I want to talk about some strategies for dealing with pain and how you interpret it. Because I think it’s all about how you view it. Because I see people who have done sport for a long time, and they’re fit, they’re reasonably healthy. Majority of those people seem to interpret physical pain training pain as this is a good thing. This is something I actually look forward to, because it means that I’m working hard, I’m getting fit and

I’m actually get a little bit addicted to that physical pain of exertion in training, whereas somebody who’s been on the couch for five years and they’re trying to get fit, they’re trying to lose weight and develop this habit of exercise, they see it in a very different way. So I think that goes to show that you can interpret it differently, first of all, but the mental the way that you view it, and that mental sort of training that you put yourself can actually help you look forwards to that pain that you’re going to encounter in training. So with your background, the people you work with, what are some of the things that you’ve seen that have helped people make that transition to looking forward the pain that they’ll experience in training? Sure. Before we get to strategies, I think it’s really helpful to understand what pain is and why we feel it. And that even though it’s, even though it doesn’t feel good, it’s actually really important. One of the

best quotes I’ve heard came from Greg LeMond, the Tour de France, three times Tour de France, France winner said, the more fit you get, the it doesn’t hurt less, you just you just go faster. And so there’s sort of a little more rewarding. But let’s keep in mind that pain evolved for a purpose. Then it was it was basically occurred to help us survive. So when we felt pain, that was a warning that our life was in danger. So we should get away from whatever we were doing. And so that worked on the Serengeti 250,000 years ago, when we first became home with sapiens, human beings. These are we felt pain. It’s like, okay, I need to get away from this thing that’s causing the pain, because I want to survive. The problem is, is that evolutionary response that worked back then really well, doesn’t work so well now, because we want to feel pain. And so when we experience pain and we push through pain, we’re actually resisting

billions of years of evolution, telling us to stop. And that’s not an easy thing, because it’s very deeply ingrained in us. Another thing, key thing to keep in mind, and this goes again to what you suggested about attitude, is that that we if it didn’t hurt, we wouldn’t do it. So part of the satisfaction of swimming events and triathlons is that it hurts. And as a general rule, the more it hurts to a point, the more satisfying it is because it means we’re working harder. And also, of course, when we’re hurting, we feel heroic. And I was thinking like Lionel Sanders, he’s one of the top triathletes in the world, he’s known for suffering. And the problem is, he uses that almost everybody thinks he’s super heroic, which he is because he can suffer so much. But he also suffers so much that it actually hurts his performances. He overtrees. He pushes too hard. And so there’s a balance of wanting to feel pain and also but too much is bad. Another thing

is distinguished between exertion pain and injury pain. And so it’s really important that to be able to tell the difference, because if we’re experiencing injury pain, we want to make sure that we stop. And so I went for my first run after Abu Dhabi the other day on Friday, and my Achilles started hurting. And it wasn’t exertion pain. And so I stopped. And so I listened to my body and that was a good thing. It prevented me from maybe sustained in a serious Achilles injury. At the same time, there is quite a bit of difference between exertion pain and injury pain. So injury pain tends to be very acute, very, very powerful. And it doesn’t stop when you stop. Exertion pain, it hurts, but it’s not like it’s not like getting stabbed in the eye or something. Not that I’ve ever been stabbed in the eye, but I assume it hurts really badly. And exertion pain when you stop, it goes away. And simply the fact that you know how to

control it, here’s a really good strategy is just being aware that I can stop my pain. That makes it more manageable. There’s been a lot of research on that. It’s simply the perception of control over your pain helps you experience more pain, which is in training what we need to be able to do. And so if you realize that, you know, if it gets really, really bad, I can stop. That sense of control enables us to basically sort of ratchets the pain down. It doesn’t remove the pain, but it ratchets it down. So that that is one very simple tool is just knowing and reminding yourself that, hey, this is within my control. Keep going. So another thing about pain is that we think of pain is physical, but we actually filter it through our mind. And that’s exactly what you were referring to and how we perceive the pain. And so if we perceive the pain as you know, this mighty effort as we pursue our goals, that pain feels really good. But if, for example,

you know, you’re doing Kona, or you’re in a race, and you’re just dying out there and you’re getting slower, that totally changes the dynamic where then it’s like, I’m getting beat here. And then all of a sudden, the pain hurts a whole lot more. And the natural reaction, of course, is to want to stop because you’re not getting anything out of it. So so that attitude and that approach to why you’re experiencing pain, having a reason for the pain is really, really important. Part of it for me, I think because competing wise, I do a few races here and there, but right now with where I currently am, I’m not working towards a big race or a big event right now. But I love training and I love to work hard. And part of that for me, I think is I see it as part of my identity with how I want to be viewed by others, how I want to feel about myself and having that identity as being a swimmer, of being someone who’s generally quite

fit. To me, that’s important. And that’s why I find it difficult to stop swimming. If I go a day or two without exercise, I’m itching to get to get back at it, not only because of how it makes me feel, but I think because of how I view myself and how I want to be perceived as well. What role does identity have in that as well? Yeah, a huge one. Because if you perceive yourself as an athlete and that if you’re not experiencing that which is associated with being an athlete, let’s a swimmer, triathlete, then you just don’t feel as good about yourself. And it becomes a bit of, I don’t like the word, use the word addiction, but addiction has negative consequences. But it becomes a habit, a practice in your life that it’s how you feel good about yourself as part of your self esteem. It’s how you achieve your goals, all those things. And so if you identify yourself as somebody who works hard, who can who can suffer some and who has goals they’re

working toward, then when you experience pain, that’s simply that’s affirming. So you want to embrace that. Rather than like, Oh, my gosh, this hurts so much, I need to push this away. So experiencing pain, exertion pain and training and in races is actually a positive thing because it makes you feel good about who you are. And yes, there’s no doubt just like the Lionel example, where people perceive you as like, Oh, my gosh, he can suffer. And so we all like to hear, you know, we like to all think we’re super tough. And and you know, to varying degrees, but anybody who swims or is a triathlete, you know, worth the higher end. Because you know, most people are sitting on their couch watching TV, and there’s not a lot of suffering going on there, although that would be suffering for us. So so there’s no doubt that that identity plays a role in how you manage it. So if you perceive yourself as someone who likes to feel pain in

your training and suffer, because it helps you, it’s helps validate you, then that helps you deal with it. It also motivates you to to get out. One of the things that was interesting when I had Gustaf Eden on the podcast a little while ago, and I asked him about some listeners sent in questions and one of the questions was, when did it start to hurt with his Iron Man World Champs race? And he said, at no point did it really start to hurt, which is an interesting perspective, because you say look at someone like Lionel who and a lot of the other guys who would have been working their ass off, they would have been suffering, perhaps halfway through the through the run. And he’s good stuff. Yeah. Okay. If you’re having a good race, it generally feels good, you’re relaxed and you race well and doesn’t hurt as much when you are having a really good race. So I think maybe that’s part of it. But for him, he’s not looking to push

himself to the wall in that race and just look to be hurting as much as he can because he knows he’s got the most out of it. For him, a smart approach is to sustain the right level of output and hold that throughout the race. And then he knows he’s going to be able to have the best success in that race because he’s hasn’t blown up halfway through the through the run, which I thought was an interesting thing. And obviously they do work hard in training and at the right times, but it was a different approach to the racing side of things where, especially for that distance, it’s more about just sustaining the same heart rate and output for the entire race, whereas others are looking to just, you know, put themselves to the wall. Yes, it’s a great observation. And just by coincidence, I was doing an hour spin indoors and I was watching Gustav and Blumenfeld being interviewed by Rich Roll and they talked about that and how it used to be an

icono, especially was about just like getting through it and surviving. But now it’s like racing, it’s start to finish. And the fact that, you know, he crossed the finish, having set a new course record, but not falling down and collapsing sets a couple of things. One, he’s in phenomenal condition. And one thing that Norwegians do is they train at extremely high levels of volume and intensity. And whereas, you know, some of the other athletes, they just can’t handle it. And so, so and but also that he was staying within himself and he left a lot of time on the course, which is a little scary. So really, they are both rewriting the long distance triathlon book on how to train and how to approach races. And because the idea of racing for seven and a half hours, meaning going hard, pushing yourself is a strange idea and not struggling at all, totally staying within themselves is a remarkable thing. Whereas, you know, you see others in

these races who are just dying on the bike and they’re just walking the run and they’re suffering. They’re in a lot of pain. This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, Form 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 $228 US dollars. Now, they’ve currently changed up the offer where you can now get the Goggles and you have that one year membership included for free. And then if you’d like to continue with the membership going forward, it’s only 15 US dollars a month where you get access to their workouts, training plans and their custom workout builder. But you’ll always have access to the real time data of the Goggles, so you’ll never lose access to that. So if you’d like to swim without stopping to look at a pace clock or your

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Are there any other strategies that can help someone continue to push behind in a race? Yeah. So this is sort of a preparatory approach and it has to do with wording and language. So I’m a word guy do a ton of writing, a ton of speaking. Words for me are very powerful things because they act as the filter through which we process the world in many ways. And so a number of years ago I was out for a ride, long ride in Northern California, really hilly with a bunch of guys. We finished and one of the guys says, man, that was a suffer fest out there. It was a suffer fest. And at the time I had been giving talks to a leukemia society team and training. I don’t know if they have that in Australia, but it’s basically where somebody signs up and they get coached in preparation for a marathon or a triathlon and things like that. I was giving talks to them, just volunteering my time. And so at every meeting they’d have somebody who has

cancer and is getting treated. And so I started thinking suffer fest suffering is what we do as triathletes and swimmers suffering. And I decided it wasn’t the suffering is unbelievable pain that you can’t control and that has dire consequences like somebody with cancer. And then I thought, well, OK, how do we go? How do we just call it pain? You know, pain fest, that doesn’t sound so bad either. But then I thought, you know, pain will pain is like a serious injury. Like I get hit by a car a little over a year ago and had some broken bones. And that was pain. And it’s it’s different than suffering because it will go away sooner or later. You heal, hopefully. So I decided pain wasn’t really what we experience. What I decided we experience is discomfort, physical discomfort. And when I when I mentioned this to different different triathletes, they go, you know what, that doesn’t work for me. And then I thought like, oh, you know, that was a

discomfort fest out there.

Brendan, it doesn’t work, does it? So I decided, OK, we’ll call it pain, but we know what it really is. So so in starting off, a painful experience like a race, if you can put that in perspective, it’s like what I’m going to experience out there, you know what, it’s not suffering and it’s not really even pain, but we’ll call it that. It’s just a lot of discomfort. And that alone changes it too, because there’s a big difference in how you interpret discomfort, which is uncomfortable, but it’s not like like that versus pain and suffering, which is really bad. So if you go into racing, oh, yeah, this can be pretty uncomfortable out there, like in Abu Dhabi, it was 90 degrees, it was hot, it was uncomfortable. So that that sets the tone also of that, OK, it’s not going to be that bad. And when you don’t think of it as that bad, you think, OK, but I can handle it. And it goes back to what I said earlier about being in feeling like you’re in

control of it. So they had cooling stations in Abu Dhabi with this little tent in this van where you if you wanted to stop and go into it and get sprayed with cool water. And it’s like that’s a way you control it. So so those are some things things you can do to set yourself up. But then once you get out there, what can you do? So there’s been a lot of interesting research on pain. And what they found was that how you think about pain and how you the emotions you connect with pain have a big impact on how you experience pain. So for example, they found that people who associated negative thinking. So if you know, if you’re out there and maybe it’s open water swim or the start of a swim and a bike race or in a triathlon, excuse me, and you’re hurting and you go, you go, oh, man, I hate this out there. This is terrible. This is no fun. I don’t want to do this. You’re going to feel more pain. And also if you associate negative emotions

with pain, you feel more pain. So anger, frustration, despair, those kind of emotions. And we’ve all experienced these things out there. Any endurance athlete has. And so you’re going to feel more pain. The other side of that is that if you associate positive thoughts and positive emotions with pain, you feel less pain. Now, Bretton, it doesn’t go away. But it just takes the edge off a little bit, turns the dial down a little bit, which means you can keep going. And so saying things like, oh, yeah, this is why I’m out here. You know, if it wasn’t if it wasn’t hard, everybody would do it or nobody would do it. Or this means I’m striving toward my goals. You feel less pain. Also emotionally. But here’s a tough one. When you’re really hurting out there, what positive emotions can you possibly associate with it? Fun? No. Excitement? No. Joy? No. Happiness? No. I can only think of two, Bretton. You want to take a shot or you want me to give it up?

I’ll let you give it up. Pride and inspiration. So it being inspired like I’m working really hard. That’s inspiring for me. And that will tie in with motivation, which we’ll talk about in a little while. And second is pride is like I’m proud of myself for pushing through that heat and Abu Dhabi and getting the results I did. And so those emotions, those thoughts then trigger a different physiology. So when you feel those positive emotions and those positive thoughts, it releases endorphins our body’s natural pain killers. So you literally are feeling less pain. And so these are some tools that are really practical. So how you think about it has a big impact on your experience. And I’ll be honest, like I think I told you in a previous podcast, I didn’t grow up swimming. I didn’t I’d never done, you know, lateral breathing or a lap until I was well into adulthood. And so relatively recently as recently as last year, I’d start

swimming in a triathlon and just immediately be going like, boy, I do not want to be here. This is no fun. You know, half an hour of this. Gosh, I just want to get it done. And I realized that that just it was just terrible for me. It was just sucking the life out of me. So this year I’ve trained myself and of course, given what I do for a living as a sports psychologist, I have to sort of practice what I preach. But I really worked on positive attitude and just saying like, oh, yeah, I’m keeping it going. Let’s keep it going. Moving along. Let’s finish strong, whatever. And and amazingly enough in Abu Dhabi in the Olympic event, I had the most enjoyable swim I’ve ever had. Like I actually enjoyed being out there. And I know, you know, you grow up swimming. So you just love it innately. But there are a lot of swimmers out there, a lot of triathletes who didn’t grow up swimming or lousy swimmers. And so it’s hard to stay positive in

that in those situations. So but it takes practice. You have to exercise that ability in those situations, especially if you tend to go to the dark side, you don’t mind the Star Wars reference. So there’s a couple of really practical tools. They’re great. On that point of not loving their swim initially is I had a guy come to a clinic or a no, he came to a follow up filming. So he’d done a clinic before and then he came for a checkup basically. And he said, prior to coming to the clinic, he hated the swim part of the triathlon. It was just he struggled to get himself to the pool. He came to a clinic and figured out what he needed to do to get faster and what to focus on. And for him, that helped him love love the swimming portion of it. And I found it funny because he said I should probably get on the bike and start running a bit more because I’ve just been doing way too many swims each week because it’s what he really enjoys now, which

is and I think that’s the case. Certainly if you figure out what you need to be doing to get better and you see that progress and improvement and still feed into the motivation, I guess is that’s a real motivator to continue to do that that thing. And it doesn’t matter if it’s something that originally you hated when you do have that within any area of life, it can actually draw you more towards it. But before we go on to that, I really enjoy that part about your reference point of what’s real suffering having cancer, having to go through chemo. That’s real, that’s real suffering. And so when you’ve got that reference point of what real pain and suffering is, you look at what you’re doing. All right, I’m choosing to go and do this triathlon. Yeah, it’s going to be uncomfortable. It’s nothing. And it’s the same with like a, I sort of look at it with long distance swim. So for me, prior to five, six years ago, the longest swim I

had done would have been a 10 K training session. But really, like for me, if I did a five K swim, I’m like, oh, that’s a long swim. And then I talk to these people on my podcast they’ve done, Chloe McCart, I think she did 118 kilometers broke the world record for the longest continuous swim. And now look at that and go, all right, well, surely I can do 20 K, surely I can do that. So you have that different reference point of what you consider to be hard or difficult or challenging. And I think it’s a good way to help you see what you’re doing is being easier or to take it on. So yeah, it’s a really good approach. Yeah, perspective just changes everything. If you just look at look at it in a different way. And you made a really good point with respect to the fellow who just improved a lot. So if you’re in the pool and I’m struggling with this a little bit now and I’m just like working my butt off and suffering in a lot of pain in my training

swim training, and I’m not getting faster. That’s hard to keep going. So if you show improvement, and it’s like, oh yes, worth it. It’s like, you know, yeah, I worked really hard and I felt a lot of pain, but it was worth it because I’m faster now. So if you can connect those efforts with those goals, then it’s really motivated. It’s like, I want to get out there again. And I want to work hard. So that’s really valuable. And another interesting thing is your physiology. So when you feel pain, you feel it in your body, obviously. And again, through evolution, our natural tendency when we feel pain is to brace ourselves to tighten up and hold our breath. And as I talked about before we got started recording, you know, on the Serengeti 250,000 years ago, if you’re about to be hit by a club with it by rival tribesmen, you definitely want to do this. The problem is that reaction of tightening up to protect yourself, to increase your chances of

survival doesn’t work if you’re swimming because you can’t swim tight and you can’t swim holding your breath. So a really valuable thing to do when you’re training and especially gets hard. So for example, let’s say you’re doing 10 by 50, 50 as hard as you can, then to really focus those last couple when your body starts to tighten up on just being loose and relaxed and really focus on your breathing. Now breathing is harder and swimming because I’m running and biking, you can breathe whenever you want. But you can’t obviously do that in swimming. But it’s really useful to have some little like keyphrase or keywords you can use. So for me toward the end of a hard interval set, all my key phrases long and loose. So I want to really stretch and get along along as per stroke and then keep myself loose. So so when I start to struggle a little bit, I keep that in mind. I’m repeating myself long and loose, long and loose. And that keeps my body

relaxed. And it keeps me breathing. And so I’ll also make sure big breath on the breathing side. And that has the direct physiological effect. So you know, we talked about thoughts, we talked about emotions. And now we’re talking about your physiology. And those are the big three. And so if you can do something about all three of those, you’re going to feel a whole lot better. And you’re going to feel less pain. On Friday mornings, we do a like a heart rate set. And it’s quite often hundreds at what I would consider best average pace. So for example, a set that we did not long ago was 24 100s on two minutes for them best average. So as hard as fast as you can maintain across the entire set. And then you’ve got to act recovery. So in total, it’s 1600s that will be at best average as fast as you can you can maintain. And that is that’s a hard set. That’s that’s painful where you get this lactic build up. And you’ve got to really relax

throughout the set to try and maintain your speed throughout. And every time I’m driving on a Friday morning to the pool, I’m sitting in the car. And in my gut, I’m nervous because I know the pain that I’m going to experience in this session. It’s probably the hardest session I do do all week. So I’m a little bit nervous driving to the to the pool. And for me, a few things that have helped me with motivation to make sure I get there every Friday, but also to make sure that I do my best each time is I just make sure I do a long enough warm up a decent warm up where I just have time to loosen up and fill the water. If I get straight into it, I will usually blow up a quarter halfway through that main set. So I need a long warm up first of all. But the other thing that’s helped a lot is for those sessions, I like to wear the form goggles because that way I can distract myself throughout that session of like, I’m looking, I’m pushing off.

We are in a 50 meter pool. So I’ll hit the turn at the 50. I’ll see what my split is. And that will just give me something else to focus on. It’s like, OK, well, that was it was this time. Now I know I need to come back in this time. And I’m just trying to match that every single time we’re doing an all out hundred. So that’s been something that has has helped me have better consistency with my time throughout the set. Take my mind a little bit off the pain because I’m just focused on my pacing there. And the other thing that’s that’s helped a lot to is I look forward to the very last all out of the very last hundred because in that last hundred where we’re going fast, I want to try and go a second or two seconds fast. I want to leave it all on the table at the end of it. And one of the things that I love about swimming is when I put everything into that last one, I’ll generally pick up the kick a little bit more I’ll be sitting a bit higher

in the water. And that first 50 I’m thinking, OK, I’ve got to go easy, easy speed. I’ve got to just relax that first 50 while just picking up the stroke rate a little bit. And then on the way home, I’m just going to build up. And I know I’m going to feel it in my my shoulders, my stomach, my legs. I’m going to feel this this lactic acid. And when I hit it, when I feel that, I go, OK, there it is. All right, let’s just see if we can we can maintain the speed. But I as best I can, I’ve tried to train myself to to look forward to that last hundred because I know what it’s going to feel like. But I know at the end of that, that I’m done. And that’s it. And so it’s something that that has really helped me just get to those sessions and and do well with them. So there are a few strategies that have helped with my my motivation throughout throughout them. Yeah. And also help you deal with the pain because two really additional effective tools are

distraction is if you can just think about other things like like some people like Lionel, he always has some headphones on when he swims. And so I don’t know what he’s listening to, whether it’s, you know, heavy metal or music or a podcast or something like he’s probably listening to you. But but you keep your mind off it a little bit. The problem is with with distractions is you can only distract yourself so long because it’s like the pain gets louder and louder and louder until you can’t ignore it. And there’s a number there’s research a number of years ago where they where they looked at pain strategies with elite marathoners and and we can warrior marathoners. They found that we can warrior marathoners tended to distract themselves. So again, they’d listen to music, they would talk to people, they would do everything they can to keep their mind off it. Whereas elite marathoners, they associate it, they focused on the pain

and they use that is information. And this is another really good tool. And and and it sort of ties them with what you said also in that using the information is like, oh, I’m starting to hurt here. What can I do to adjust my technique to adjust my stroke rate, maybe breathe the other side, adjust my kick, whatever it might be. So using that information, but it gets analytical, you can do things to ease the pain, but also simply engaging that part of your brain, what’s called the prefrontal cortex, it takes away your the processing of your primitive brain, which is where you process pain. And that’s where it’s telling you to stop. So simply by getting getting the analytical helps you in this ties in with with form goggles where you’ve got this data that by engaging that you’re shifting the circuit away from the primitive brain onto this logical brain, which is less emotional and less physiological. And another thing is you suggest is

is distraction, excuse me, is goals, having a goal for yourself. So at the end, I’m aiming for that last set, and I’m going to push it really hard. And so it’s like giving yourself a reason to struggle. So this is this is why I’m out here. And because I want to get faster and I want to achieve my goals, whatever they might be. So distraction using pain is information and making adjustments and also connecting them to goals, like this means I’m working toward my goals. And in terms of motivation, what are some other strategies that you’ve seen work really well and that you’ve used with the athletes that you coach? Sure. Well, motivation is one of the toughest things I work with, because I can give athletes tools to build up their confidence, to get them to relax, to focus better. And there’s certainly some tools that I mentioned that can help with motivation in the short term. And but motivation ultimately has to come from within. You’ve

got you just have to have to have a reason for wanting to go out there. Because there are a lot of things pulling you not, whether it’s the pain of a hard workout, or for example, to swim from five 30 to seven in the morning, especially during the winter, when it’s cold and it’s dark, it’s hard to get to the outdoor pool. And so again, it’s like what motivates me then is that my coach puts in training peaks. And if I don’t do it, A, I’m going to he’s going to look less kindly on me. And I’m less likely to reach my goals. Or I spent half my time up in the mountains of Northern California where it’s six and 7000 feet. And I don’t know if you’ve ever done interval workouts at that elevation. But there’s no joy in it. It’s hard. It’s way harder. There’s 25% less auction. And so again, for motivation, one really powerful tool is to tie it to your goals. Another one really related to my coach is accountability. Like, like it’s on the program. I’m

telling my coach expects me to do it. So I better do it so that that can really help a lot. What about strategies to the opposite of motivation? So to have something to steer away from to move away from because one of the things that I’ve found really powerful is yes, you want something to work towards you want that goal time, you want that that podium, but also having something that you want to you want to steer steer clear from. And so an exercise that I’ve done in the past is writing down the things I’m going for. But also, if I don’t do those, what does that look like? And then how do I how do I feel with it? If I don’t get up and swim each day, if I just turn into a couch and Tato, how does that look and how will I feel as a person? And to me that that’s almost more motivating than having something to work towards you had to run away from being this couch potato who’s overweight, who’s not fit that I’m on deck, I’m coaching and people may not

have that much respect for me because I don’t look like I must run. I don’t maybe look like I could do those those things that that to me is a really powerful motivator. Okay, certainly strategy that can work. And I know a lot of people use it. I don’t think it’s the best thing because it’s better to work towards something, move towards something, pursue something, then run away from something. And like basically what you do is you’re kind of shaming yourself and guilting yourself into it. And again, to guilt and shame are very powerful motivators. But ultimately, they’re not the healthiest. So so I would say, you know, balance it out. So still have the goals you’re working toward and a reason for being out there. But also, you know, use those other things like I don’t want to be a slug. I don’t want people to think I’m some guy just out of shape and hanging out by the side of the pool. So so that can be good. But I think a

positive orientation is generally more important. And just it feels better, I think. One thing we talked about before the podcast was it’s people think about motivation is like this rah rah, let’s go kind of thing. But really, there are a lot of different reasons why people swim and do triathlon. And so it’s really a matter of figuring out what your motivation is. So some people do it just because the satisfaction of getting better of improving others are competitive. They want to beat do well in a race. Others like the technical aspects of it, like I loved when I first discovered effortless swimming last year when I was basically didn’t know how to swim. I was enthralled with just the technical aspect. So you know, you have high elbow and the recovery. And that was really motivated to see myself understanding better how to swim properly and how to how that makes you faster. And other reasons, you know, some people love being in a master’s swim

class. So being with other people. So it’s a social thing. And so if you have those kind of social needs, then it’s really valuable. That’s really motivated to know that these people are waiting for me. Or if you have a swimming buddy, same sort of thing, you don’t want to get up at 5 30 or you don’t want to go to go to swim after work late in the day because you’re tired. But if you know your buddy is going to be there, and he’s counting you or she’s counting you, well, you’re going to go because in a way, they’re motivating you and you’re motivating them. So you both are hold yourself accountable to the other person. Yeah, that’s that’s a really powerful one. When I was training for right nests a couple of years ago, the 20 K swim, friend of Cassandra was a friend of mine. She was training for the swim as well. Every Wednesday morning, we’d organized to swim at six o’clock in the morning in the in the bay there in Melbourne. And it

was rain, hail, shine. We were going to do it. And there was no question in my mind when that alarm went off in the morning, it’s not like, oh, should I get out of bed? It’s like, no, you need to go because she’s not going to go swim by herself when it’s pitch black. And it might be chopping everything. So she’s relying on you to go. So that that accountability of having only you responsible for being there. Yeah, if it’s a group of 10 swimmers and doesn’t matter if they don’t turn up, it’s motivating, but just having that one person relying on you is very much a big one. So yeah, I quite like that one. Good, good. And another big thing is just reminding yourself of what your goals are. Because I have the same that you pay now or you pay later. So you can pay now by doing the work and feeling the physical discomfort, or you can pay later emotionally by not achieving your goals because you didn’t do the work earlier. And I can assure you

paying now is way less painful than paying later because the pain now it stops as soon as the workout’s done. Whereas the paid later in regret, for example, and disappointment in yourself because he didn’t achieve your goals because he didn’t do the work, that can last forever. And so really important to constantly remind yourself that when you don’t feel like doing it, it’s like, well, do you feel like losing? Do you feel like being slow? It’s your choice. And although I do want to point out that there are some days that, you know, most of the people I work with are pretty darn motivated, whether they’re professionals or Olympians or down to, you know, very serious age groupers or young, young swimmers and triathletes. And, and it’s really important to listen your body. So there can be under motivation or there can be over motivation. And I’m working with one of the top professionals in the world and triathlon. And he just basically thinks

if five sets is good, eight will be better. And he did Kona and he was totally cooked by the time he got there. And so you have to really balance that out, just doing enough, doing what you’re supposed to do and not thinking the more is better approach. And, and so the fine line, but having those goals is it provides the reason for why for why you’re doing it. And so if you constantly remind yourself, oh, yeah, it’s, you know, I do not want to get it get out of bed at five in the morning to go to the pool. But you know what, I these big goals from next year. So I’m going to go and another brand, another little side thing that I find is that that the time like getting there is the hardest part. Once you’re in the pool, you got your workout and and you sort of do your thing. And it’s maybe only an hour. Now obviously, if you’re if you’re doing for a 20 case swim, you’re going to have longer workouts. But for me an hour swim is pretty long

in 2020, 2,000, 2,500 yards, something like that. And it’s like it takes less than an hour and then it’s over. And then you look back and go, that wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t that long. And so you want to remember that at the beginning when you think it’s going to be super hard because it’s like, oh, yeah, in 45 minutes, I’m going to be done. I can get through this. And then all of a sudden it’s like, oh, yeah, it’s a lot easier to get yourself to go out there and do it and do the work. One of the rules I had for myself in training for the rottenness swim was I had any session I had planned. It was if I don’t feel like going, you’ve still got to go. But if you want to get out after 500 meters, you can. So the rule of that 500 meters, that’s the minimum you’ve got to do. And then you can get out if you choose to. And I only did it once. There was only one session. And I think I probably went 800 instead of 500. I was like, yeah, I’m just not

feeling it today. I can not be bothered. I’m gonna gonna jump out. But that was once over the course of, I don’t know, five, six months that I was training towards it. And about five sessions a week. So yeah, it’s right. Once you’re there, it’s easy. Once you’re in the once you’re warming up, you’re like, oh, okay, this is actually pretty good. And yeah, I do in do enjoy it. So yeah, it’s just a matter of getting there. And some of the things that helped me have helped in the past is just making that as easy as possible. Pack your bag the night before I’ve got my drink bowl, got my bathers, got my towel, keys are there. Everything’s lined up at the door so I can just wake up and I don’t need to think I can just walk straight out the door. Whereas on those occasions where I haven’t packed the night before, I’m searching in the dark trying to not wake up the family looking for my bathers looking for it for it’s our opening doors and

getting frustrated. I’m like, I can’t. Yeah, this is all too hard. And just having that preparation actually helps with the motivation because it just provides this nice smooth path to do the thing that you want to do. Yeah, that’s absolutely true. And I have a saying in terms of what you said, well, maybe I’ll just cut the workout short 90% of success is just showing up. And so if you just show up and he goes, okay, you know, and because I sometimes will do this where I’ll be doing my warm up and I’ll go, you know, I’m not really feeling it. I don’t think I can do this whole workout. But I’ll say, well, I’ll just I’ll just get it going. And then you start you start doing them like, like I have one workout that’s like eight 150s, eight 100s and eight 50s hard. And and so it’s like you’ve done two on three quarters the way done of the first of the first set. And it’s like you’re halfway done on the first set. And you start

knocking them off. And and so you see yourself you see yourself getting closer to the end. It’s like, oh, I can get through this, these next four. And so that’s another thing that can help with motivation is don’t look at the end of the workout, look at just like what you need to do now. So I’ve got eight hundreds coming up. And so let’s just focus on the hundreds. And I get the first one done. It’s like, oh, it’s one less. And then you get another one. Oh, I’m three quarters the way done. And so you play these little mind games. But but once you get in there, then hopefully the motivation kicks in. And you do it because like you, I’ve rarely ever not finished a workout occasionally on an on the indoor bike where I like I’m just not feeling it. And my coach has taught me if I’m not feeling it, I’m a motivated guy. Stop or just spin or something because if you don’t do one workout because you don’t feel like it, it’s probably a good thing.

Now, if you did that regularly, then that’s something you might need to come see me about or something. But but bottom line is if you’re fundamentally motivated and you’re not feeling it, that means your body’s telling you don’t do it. And and you know, swimming is is an endurance sport and it’s high intensity as well. And it takes us tall. And so if there’s one of those days where you just aren’t feeling it, then you should listen to your body and then go back the next day and you’ll probably have it. I’ve had a lot of those sessions before. It’s just it’s not happening. And on occasions, I’ll push it out. Other occasions, I’ll either if it’s a solo session, if I’m there by myself, I was planning to do three and a half four K, I might get out up to two and a half. I’m just like, yeah, today is not the day. Otherwise, if I’m with the group, I might just if I need to put a pool boy in, put some fins on and just sort of sit at the back and just

work on good form. If I feel like I’m about to overtrain or like I just haven’t had enough sleep and I know it’s not worth pushing it. Yeah, I’ll certainly certainly do that. Jim, this has been a great episode. I really appreciate you coming on. I love this topic pain and pain and motivation. It’s great to talk about some strategies where people can can use them and some actionable strategies, not up in the air sort of area for area stuff because, you know, that rara motivation stuff, it’s good for 10 minutes, but it just doesn’t it doesn’t last. It doesn’t sustain itself. So for anyone listening, where can they find out more about you and get in touch if they’re looking to to work with someone like yourself to help with their performance in whatever sport they’re doing? Yeah, so of course, like everybody else, I have a website. It’s drjimtaylor.com Jim Taylor drjimtaylor.com. And on there, I’ve got 95% of everything I’ve ever written

free on my blog. I’ve got categories of cycling. I don’t have a swimming category, but I have a triathlon category. And I’ve got books you can get it and contact information. So people want to ask questions just informally or what people have done actually reached out after listening to our podcasts and or hire me for various reasons, then feel free to do so. Fantastic. Well, this has been episode number 266 of the effortless swimming podcast. Dr. Jim Taylor, thanks again. All right, be well. 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 Enjoy Pain And Uncovering What Really Motivates You with Dr Jim Taylor appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

I want to have this episode to direct and help people determine what course will help them get better as a swimmer going forwards.

01:13 5-Day Catch Challenge

View our freestyle clinic schedule around Australia:

Form Goggles:

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 episode 265 of the Effortless Swimming podcast. In this episode, we’re looking at what coaching program is right for me. One of the questions I get asked least weekly, if not multiple times a week, is which course, which coaching product that you offer, which is the best one for me. So I want to have an episode that I can direct people to to help them determine what option will help them get better as a swimmer going forwards. And if you’re listening to this, you may not actually know some of the things that that we offer and we’re able to help with. So that’s why I want to cover them on this episode. Now, there’s a couple of courses that we currently have, all of these courses that I’m about to mention. They’re inside of our what we call the video membership. And the video membership is where we have all of our courses. We have workouts you can send a video in for our monthly call, which I’ll talk about in a moment.

But all these courses are included in any of our membership options. So if you’d like access to everything, that’s a place to go. But the first course coaching program I want to talk about is the five day catch challenge. And I’ve had more than 9000. I think people have been through that now. So it’s been a really popular program. It’s only $10. And that is a course for anyone who can swim 400 meters comfortably and they’re anywhere between one minute per 100 up to 2230 per 100. So if you can swim reasonably well, you can swim 400 meters, that is a good one just to get a tune up to your catch and pull and just work on holding more water and developing your catch that of all the things that is one that we’ve probably had the most results feedback from from people. And I think because it’s so simple, it’s one lesson a day, one or two, maybe three drills a day for some of the things there, but it’s a really simple thing to follow and it’s only five lessons.

So I’ve found that people have been able to improve their catch and get some ridiculous results with some of those things in that course, because a lot of times people don’t know what they need to be doing through the catch and the pool. And so they’re doing it wrong and it’s causing them to just slip through the water, not hold it very well. So when they do understand what they’re trying to do and they have a way to make those changes, then that can make a huge difference. And we’ve seen that with some some is taking 10, 15, 20 seconds off their 100 meter times in the course of a couple of days. Now that’s not you. That’s not normal, but we have had a lot of people who have done that. So that’s the five day catch challenge. And pretty much anyone who can swim, I’d recommend do that course, you’ll learn something and you will get better, at least in one aspect of your catch and pull by going through that course.

Now the next one is the beginner freestyle course. And this is designed for anyone who struggles to swim more than 100 meters without feeling out of breath. So if you can swim, say 700, 800 meters in a session, but you’re doing that in 25s or 50s, maybe hundreds, then this course is for you. So it’s designed to get you to swim your first 400 meters continuously without feeling like you’re you’re out of breath. And one of the athletes who we’ve had on this podcast, Marcus Meeks, is almost I think it’s the most popular episode this year, actually, he was a beginner swimmer who couldn’t swim things about 200 meters, couldn’t swim more than about 200 meters without tiring, without stopping. And then I started working with him and and he was persistent with his training and he eventually built up. And I think he did a 2000 or two and a half thousand yard swim continuous without stopping, could he kept going? Just that he’s like, all right, that’s

enough, I’ve proved that I can do it. So you can develop your swimming and get better with that beginner freestyle course. That is the best place for anyone who’s pretty much new to the sport or they’re stuck at that 100 200 meters maximum, the continuous swimming. So that’s the beginner freestyle course. Now, inside that course, inside the catch challenge and this other one I’m about to mention, if you’ve got any questions about your swimming, there’s a comment section where I’m there and I’ll answer your question. So I’m there to help you improve your swimming if you do have any questions along the way. Now, the third one is the eight week faster freestyle course. And this has been a good progression from anyone who’s done the five day catch challenge. Most of those people move on to the eight week faster freestyle course. And this is where we cover the other aspects of the stroke and go through those things that make a difference

and you should know when it comes to the different aspects. And we start with breathing because if you can’t breathe comfortably, you’re not going to be swimming far. You’re not going to be swimming well. So we start with the breathing and relaxation. And then we move through the other components of body position and body line, how you hold yourself in the water, your head position and where you breathe and then making sure your kicks effective and it’s not actually slowing you down. And then we move on to the rotation, recovery and then catch and pull. And then we put it all together with the right rhythm and timing. And then we look at stroke rate, making sure you’ve got the optimum stroke rate for whatever distance or event that you’re doing. So that one is spread out across eight weeks. You can do it even if you’re swimming in a squad. It’s ideal if you’re not swimming in a squad because you can take a bit longer with the drills and so on.

But even if you do swim in a squad, you can just incorporate some of their lessons from each week with a couple of drills as part of your warm up in your squad swimming. So it doesn’t matter whether you swim solo or with a squad. That eight week course is a great way to get the knowledge that you need on the technique and what’s important and progressively build up each of those things. And sometimes for people who go through courses like that, they think, oh, I’d love to do that. But I don’t know if I’ll stick with it. I don’t know if I’ll do it. The thing with that is when you join, you’ll get an email each week of what the focus is for that week and what we’re going to go through. So you get that prompt each week of this is what you should focus on when you’re at the pool. So even if you’re time poor and you haven’t got a lot of time to go through materials, the videos aren’t really long. I try to keep them as short

as possible and just have the relevant information that we need. So I want you to be able to do this stuff easily and actually do it rather than thinking you need to watch an hour of our video every week. That’s not the case at all. Most of them are between five to maximum 15 minutes for the videos. And then you’ve got the work out there. So you can do you can fit it into your week, even if you are a busy, busy person. So that’s eight week faster freestyle course. And most people tend to progress on to that after the five day catch challenge. This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, Form Goggles. They’re more than a pair of goggles meet the world’s most powerful swim platform. So yourself improve with Form Smart swim goggles, including a free one year membership when you purchase your goggles for only two hundred and twenty eight US dollars. Now they’ve currently changed up the offer where you can now

get the goggles and you have that one year membership included for free. And then if you’d like to continue with membership going forward, it’s only 15 US dollars a month where you get access to their workouts, training plans and their custom workout builder. But you’ll always have access to the real time data of the goggles. So you’ll never lose access to that. So if you’d like to swim without stopping to look at a pace clock or your watch and get live metrics right inside your goggles, including your time distance pace, they are right there in your goggles with form goggles. I’ve used these for over 12 months now and I’m a huge fan of these goggles and use them for a majority of my sessions and find them very helpful, especially for gauging my time, my effort and my pace. And I think it’s a very helpful tool for the majority of some is that I would normally work with to get your pair of form goggles and say 15 percent

off, use our link formswim.com forward slash effortless or use the coupon effortless at checkout. That will get you 15 percent off your pair of form goggles using our special link formswim.com forward slash effortless or use the coupon code effortless at checkout. Now the next thing is the video membership or our standard membership. This is where you’ve got all those courses. Plus we have a butterfly backstroke breast stroke course in there too. So if you’re wanting to develop those other strokes, we’ve got some nice gradual buildup drill progressions in there. Those courses are ones I recorded in the early days of effortless swimming, but the drills and the exercises are still just as relevant today as they were then. So I’ve got those courses in there as well. We’ve got our half and full distance Ironman training plans. They’re 12 week training plans, which you can download and follow. I’ve also got sort of maintenance, general

workouts in there. If you swim on your own, you can follow along with these workouts and build up your fitness, build up your strength. And that’s obviously an important component of getting better as a swimmer. It’s not just a technique. You need to be doing the right work and the right training session. So we’ve got that covered inside the membership there as well. And then the thing that seems to be most valuable for people is what we’ve added recently, which is our monthly live calls, Q&A calls, where any member can send in a video of them swimming and I’ll analyze it on that call. So we have people who send in their videos and I’ll say, all right, let’s focus on these one or two things. Here are some drills to go about it. And that’s what what’s the best thing to focus on and put your attention on. So I record those every month and they get recorded. They get posted inside the membership. And you can watch them back. You’ve got

the whole archive there from when we started doing it over the last couple of months there. And that’s where you really get a good idea of where most people are going wrong. You might identify some things in your own stroke where you’re like, okay, I’m probably doing that too. And then you’ve got a strategy on how you can make changes and improve on those things. So that’s our live monthly monthly call. There’s a few other things that we’ll be adding soon to that membership as well. But until they’re released, I won’t won’t mention them here just until they’re they’re ready to go and they’re ready to to launch. So that’s the video membership. Now the next level up from that, I guess, is our stroke analysis coaching. You get all those other things in the membership, but that’s where people will work with me one on one. And they’ll recall themselves swing post it in this private thread private chat. And then I’ll give them an analysis of their

stroke or pick out the one or two things and then give them a drill progression to do as part of their training part of their warm up. And then depending on the person, but they’ll either send a video the next week or two weeks later, and we’ll just continue that back and forth coaching over several months and just working on their technique and becoming a better swimmer. It doesn’t matter what your goals are, whether that is just wanting to be more efficient and look better when you swim or for a lot of people they’ve got triathlons that they’re doing, and they want to hit certain times with their races, then that’s probably the most of the people who I who I tend to work with. But that’s the stroke analysis coaching. I’ve only got a small group there. I don’t have capacity for a lot of people with that type of coaching. But I’ve worked with some people over multiple years doing that. And then we’ve had quite a few new people too, after we’ve had

some of our stroke analysis members on the podcast as guests as well. So that’s the stroke analysis coaching. Great if you have access to an underwater camera. Doesn’t have to be a GoPro, but an underwater camera, you can record footage every week or two. And then I’ll show you the angles to record. People post it to YouTube as an unlisted video. So it’s private. And then they send that to me through this private chat. And then I’ll provide them an analysis within a couple of days and go back and forth that way. And what amazed me when I first started doing that was initially I thought, I don’t know if I can actually help people remotely online, you know, can you actually make a difference by coaching someone when you’re not there physically in person. But sometimes the results even better than in person because when people see the analysis, they’re in their own home, they might be on the couch, they might be in the car waiting to go to the

pool. And so they’ve got the time to digest it. There’s no urgency or pressure to take this on board. They’re just there, they’re relaxed and they can take on the coaching. Then they go to the pool and they practice it in their own time. Again, there’s no pressure there. So they’re not too tense. They’re not trying to force things. They can do it on their own time. And I think it’s a combination of that and doing that back and forth over a long period of time where people can get really good results because of those couple of things. So it surprised me, first of all, when we started that several years ago, but now, you know, it’s just it’s standard. We know what to expect going going forward with this type of coaching. So that’s a stroke analysis coaching and links to all of these different courses and coaching programs will be in the show notes here for anyone who’s who’s interested. And then the final one is our camps. Now, we’ve got the Maldives

from camp next year. They’re fully booked. But if you would like to join the waitlist, you can add yourself there. I’m not sure how many we’ve got on the waitlist at the moment, but if we do get someone who’s sick or get a cancellation, we will contact people on the waitlist. So the Maldives camp. And then at the time of recording, I haven’t got this. We have got another camp in the works, but I haven’t got it finalised yet. So I won’t mention it just yet. You may have been emailed about it, depending on when you’re listening to this, but we have got another camp that we are planning for 2023, which will be on our website under the camps and clinic section. However, the camps are for anyone who’s a competent swimmer, you want to improve when you get some in-person coaching and you want to do it in an environment that is tropical, that’s that’s away from usual life and you want to work with myself and some other coaches in a more one-on-

one manner and do it over several days and have a good time doing it. So those swim camps are for people who are who are competent swimmers and who really love swimming and they love to learn and get better. And I become very good friends with the people who come along to our swimming camps because when you spend five, six days with people on an island with only a couple of hundred people and you’re seeing them several times a day, you get to know people really well. So I love those swimming camps. And that’s why we’re going to be adding another one hopefully for 2023. And yeah, and that’s that’s for anyone who is maybe listening to this podcast or watching YouTube videos for a while. They know what our coaching is about. They know what they they want with their swimming and they’d like to do some more in person stuff. So they tend to start fairly quickly when we do run them. And we’ve obviously got quite a limited amount

of spaces there. But that is a really good option for anyone who does want to take this stuff a little bit further. So thanks very much for listening to the podcast. I know many of you have been through some of the courses. Many of you are members already. But I’ll put those links in the show notes for anyone who wants to improve their swimming and has heard of an option that might be best suited to them. And I hope to see you inside. If you did hear about say the if you join the stroke analysis coaching you heard about on the podcast, let me know because it’s just good to know where you where you learned about it because I realize that we don’t talk that much about some of the things that we offer through the podcast here. So I just wanted to let you know what is available for anyone who’s wanting to improve their swimming. Thanks for listening. See you next week. 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 Which Coaching Program Is Right For Me? appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

My guest in today’s episode is Melissa Hughes from Tasmania. We will talk about her remarkable journey into the world of triathlon.

01:19 I swim like a runner

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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. My guest today is Melissa Hughes. You are a triathlete based down in Tasmania. And you had a really good result in the Noosa Triathlon swim, shaving off five minutes from your overall time from 29 minutes down to 24, which is an impressive jump in pace. So I wanted to get you on to talk about what you’ve done to see such a significant improvement. And just to talk about a couple other things as well, particularly what you’ve been through to be able to get to that point in your triathlon over the last couple of years. So Melissa, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Brenton. Lovely to be here. So about a month and a half ago, the Noosa Triathlon was held and you had to swim 24 minutes, which is a five minute improvement. What was your reaction when you hit that time you came out of the water and had a look at your watch? How did you know? I was running up the beach and I

looked down and went, I can’t believe it. That is awesome. And I thought, if that’s all I do today, I’m stoked. I still have the bike ride to do. So I’ve got to finish it. Yeah. Yeah, I couldn’t believe it. And I thought, I must have been courage-assisted. But no, I just I’ve been working really hard on my technique, particularly since your last clinic. And it’s paid off. What were some of those things that you’ve been working on? Well, a little bit of history. I was taught to swim by my dad in a very small pool, 10-metre pool, not heated in Tasmania. And I thought I was a pretty good swimmer until I joined a master swimming club about five years ago and realised I had so much technique I didn’t know and lots of bad technique to unlearn. So it’s been a bit of a process since then. And you probably heard this before, I swam like a runner, really fast technique. And I had no idea what I was meant to be doing under the water. And so someone said, Oh, it’s all

about the catch. What does this mean? And it wasn’t until you broke it down. People had tried to explain it to me into that YMCA drill, like, Oh, that’s what I meant to be doing. And you know, that whole swimming slower to get faster is hard to do, but it was really worth it. And someone else had said to me, Oh, the good thing about swimming in a pool is you can see where your arms are going. I thought, I can’t see my arms. Where are my arms? And you’re scraping the side of the pool, not the bottom of the pool. And you know, there was no power diamond. And it’s made a real difference. So I looked it back at your video this morning, actually, just to sort of see what it was like. And yeah, the arms were quite wide, quite far away, the body so that you’re missing quite a bit of that connection with the catch in the pool with the rest of your body. Is that something that you’re able to feel a difference with and change

quickly? Or did that take time? Yeah, I had to work at it. And you told me I’d have to work at it that it would take some time for those drills to to actually result in it coming naturally when you’re swimming and not thinking about doing a drill. And the wide arm finger drag was really good too, because previously I could not do finger drag. I hated that drill. And, and I’m, you know, slowing down and doing that it’s it’s really helped with my arm position and straightening everything out. But yes, you really do have to practice your drills regularly and be persistent. And, and then all of a sudden it just clicked and I was doing it. And how do you feel connected to the water and gliding through not all the time, but I tend to lose a bit of technique if I try to sprint, but I guess that will come. Yeah. And over the water with the recovery, looking at the video, it was again fairly wide. And I guess I’d say

it’s kind of swimming, it was swimming around a bit too much. And the elbow was pointing behind you more than pointing up. So when you, I guess, brought the had the elbow pointing up a bit more hand, maybe a little closer to the body. Is that what helped you be able to drag the fingertips? Yes. Yes. And I think you also mentioned that I was over correcting. So I was trying to do that big long catch. And so my arm was coming out of the water way too late to get relaxed. Everyone said you should be relaxed in recovery. Like, how can you do that? And, and when you shortened it a little bit, which meant I could reach furthermore, make a huge difference. And with your training leading up to there, the art of news to triathlon, how many swim sessions a week were you doing? And what kind of distance were you doing? Three to four. And usually a minimum of 2K up to 2.5, 2.6. Doing a little bit more now, but yeah, and a lot of speed work. So

not, not just constant speed. People have told me that’s a mistake triathletes made. They’re just going to the pool. They swim up, down, up, down, up, down and don’t vary pace. So that’s another thing that really helped me in the race because we practised sprinting, slowing down, sprinting, slowing down. I knew that when people were in front of me, I could pick up my pace to get past them and then drop back down into a comfortable level. So just having the confidence to know that you can do that really helped. And how did you work in the drills or the technique work in those sessions? I swim in the club, which is great. It’s great camaraderie and competition. And some of those sessions include drills at the start, but because we start at 6am and the pool opens at 6am, well, I’d like to get there earlier to do my drills first. That doesn’t often happen. So sometimes I’ll work them in at the end as well. Ask the cooldown. And was there a period of time

where it felt uncoordinated for you as you were making the changes or did it feel better? Yeah, it did. So it didn’t feel better straight away. Some parts, yes, the wide arm finger drag just worked well for my body rather than the narrower arm. You suggested that I do that one. That one, oh, that feels better. The YMCA doing that really slowly took me a long time to get that smooth, but it was worth it. Yeah, because there’s a lot going on in terms of the reach, the catch, the pull and the exit to think about all that. Who knew you had to think about so much when you were swimming? Yeah. And for anyone who’s listening, he doesn’t know what the YMCA drill is, just look it up on YouTube. I’ve got a video of it up there. Just look up YMCA Drill Effortless Swimming. And there’s the three drills in that sequence that made up a couple of years ago because when I was working with people like yourself who want, you

kind of know what the catch and the pull is, you have a rough idea of like, okay, I know it’s this part of the stroke, but where should I be through the different parts of it? The drills that we were doing, which can be really beneficial, but I find it, it just didn’t quite sort of tick all the boxes with breaking it down simply enough. So the YMCA drills just pass through the four positions that I see all the really good freestylers moving through. And I’ve analyzed thousands and thousands of swimmers over my time as a coach. And all the really good swimmers were moving through these four positions, which is the start of the catch when you just go to begin, high elbow position, your power diamond, which is when your hands are underneath the shoulders and your elbows are out to the side. And if you had both arms there, it looks like a diamond from the from the front. And then you’ve obviously got the exit, which is when the hand presses

back just past the the hip. And they’re kind of, they’re funny drills. They’re a little bit awkward. It’s much better to do with fins on and a snorkel. I think it’s so much easier. Probably feel like you’re gonna drown if you go through some of them without that equipment. But even though they’re a little, they take a bit of time to learn and do right. I think it’s worth the time investment for for most people because then it starts to make it more automatically. You don’t have to think about every little movement that you’re you’re making. Was that the experience that you had going through the YMCA drills where you’re really thinking hard, lots of concentration, but then it was able to just become part of your subconscious. Yes. So learning them at the clinic, I’ll give you a little plug. You’re really good at explaining it. I’m breaking it down. So having that base, I could then take it away and practice on my own. But yeah, when you’re

doing a lot of your own in the pool, you feel like an idiot. But it worked. It worked. And every now and then, oh, that’s not right. Or I’m rushing to it through fast, break it down and just focus on one thing. And yeah, it’s like anything you have that it takes a while for it to really consolidate and for it to run smoothly. And you have the added benefit of seeing the village people the whole time you’re doing it. Yeah, that’s right. And the other benefit too is you’ll be able to spot another person who’s either done a clinic or done like one of our programs is yeah, there’s no one else doing a YMCA drill who hasn’t been through one of our things. So you’ll have an instant friend at the pool if you see someone else doing it. So that’s the other upside. And one of the things you mentioned was the confidence that you had in the race. It was maybe about what that confidence, where that confidence came from and how that

was different to how you were previously in some other triathlons before that. Well, it’s interesting because a couple of years ago, I had my first panic attack in the water. And, you know, I usually care about going out deep. Tasmania, the water is cold. So that shouldn’t have been a surprise, but I’m thinking about why I just lost my breast and I couldn’t get it back. So breast stroking and people are going past me is more stress because I’m slowing down. I pushed on, but that was a real heads up to me, how do I fix that? And so I had to train harder in the pool. So when I was in race conditions, it wasn’t a surprise. So you’re used to performing under a bit of stress and talk to other people about, you know, going from a lot of the pool swimming into the ocean is how to enter the water calmly and, you know, the importance of getting wet for the race and warming up properly. So all those little learnings just added up to build

my confidence. So I swam at NUSA. On my first NUSA races in 2019 and the water was horrible. There was a really strong current. So they had to change the course. So you could only swim in one direction and you had to run back up the beach. And I survived that. So that helped as well because then you think, okay, well, if I could swim in that, not very fast, but that really helped. I know I’ve done that before. So it’s like that again, I can get through it. My swimming is better now. Practicing, running in, running out. What happens if your goggles come off? How to stop that? All those little things helped with confidence. I think that’s such an important point is that when you do something that’s challenging outside of your comfort zone and you get it done, you’ve got that memory there to draw from. So you’re like, all right, I’m back in this situation or maybe something that’s even a little bit more challenging than where I was previously.

You’ve just got that confidence there knowing that you can first of all do it and knowing what to expect as well. And the more races you do, the more experience you get in the open water, you just build that confidence. And then you can get to that point where you’re able to relax and enjoy the process and even enjoy it if the conditions are horrible. If it’s your big waves, if it’s choppy, if the wind’s howling in your face, you can have some sense of comfort and enjoyment out there. Whereas first time, if you’ve never been in the open water and that’s your first experience, it’s probably going to be terrifying, but

you can have either either response and I think it comes with the experience of being out there, but also just knowing what to do in those situations. And it sounds as though you were able to do that maybe with the help of coach or other swimmers and be able to develop those skills. Couple of open water clinics really helped. And another, I’m not sure if it’s a confidence thing or a mindset thing often in open water, you get stuck behind a swimmer who’s slow or someone’s kicking and you can’t get around them and that sometimes that’s made me angry. And if you’re angry, you tighten up and you don’t swim as well. Whereas this time, I just thought, here we go again. And as I said before, I could swim past them. You I could settle down and go on again. But that is an issue with self-selection of your speed. Races like this. If you’re breast stroking, you should not go out and zone one. That’s just a side. But I like the way you

phrase it. I hope you don’t mind me showing this, but when you’re talking about the news to swim in the messages, you said, I’ve got to I’ve got to overtake all the heroes, all the people who went out and zone one when they shouldn’t have been there. Yeah, yeah. And that maybe helped because I think look at me passing these people and it just helps you keep going. That it just felt really good. And it was nice. I could actually compare the times between this year’s no zone last year’s because the course was the same and the conditions were the same. We’re really lucky it was calm. Yeah, it was 2449. So just under 25. That’s pretty good.

Yeah, I reckon then for anyone listening who doesn’t know about the news triathlon, that’s an Olympic distance race. So 1500 meter swim. Now it’s only been a couple of years where you’ve actually been able to build up your training to a to a level will actually to be able to train really because 30 years ago you said you had a diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and that left you on the couch basically for several years there. And it’s only been the last couple of years where you’ve actually been able to get out and do triathlon. Can you talk to me a little bit about about what happened 30 years ago? This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor form 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 228 US dollars. Now they’ve currently changed

up the offer where you can now get the goggles and you have that one year membership included for free. And then if you’d like to continue with the membership going forward, it’s only 15 US dollars a month where you get access to their workouts, training plans and their custom workout builder. But you’ll always have access to the real time data of the goggles. So you’ll never lose access to that. So if you’d like to swim without stopping to look at a pace clock or your watch and get live metrics right inside your goggles, including your time, distance, pace, they are right there in your goggles with form goggles. I’ve used these for over 12 months now and I’m a huge fan of these goggles and use them for a majority of my sessions and find them very helpful, especially for gauging my time, my effort and my pace. And I think it’s a very helpful tool for the majority of swimmers that I would normally work 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 form goggles using our special link formswim.com forward slash effortless or use the coupon code effortless at checkout. I’m sure I just after baby number three, I woke up what it was almost overnight. I woke up with swollen joints and pain, swelling and the wasyptom people don’t know about arthritis is fatigue and very tired. And I was pretty sure I knew what it was because my mother has it. I thought I’d escaped it because she got it when she was 19 I was a bit older. So I was put on three immunosuppressive drugs. One of those is a cancer chemotherapy and it made me very sick, very tired and I just couldn’t move and having been fit had a reasonable level of fitness before then. It was very frustrating and after five years, the good thing was I haven’t got any joint damage because I went on those drugs

early. I got a second opinion and I’m now on a once weekly injection that I give myself and it changed my life. So after weaning off those other drugs which did take some time anyone that’s been on prednisolone knows took me eight months to get off five milligrams of prednisolone because your body just becomes so used to it. I had that if you’re not in pain anymore and you’ve got a clarity mental clarity. So I changed my career strategy. So I could think about that and I could also finally verbalize and be confident that I want to try triathlon and I thought I was a reasonable swimmer and we’ve talked about that had to learn how to ride a bike could always run and have been able to train to improve for about five years now. And I mentioned before I spoke to my rheumatologist and I’d always held back a bit in a race because I thought if I push myself like some people in collapse over the line that I’d cause a flare above my arthritis

and he said look you’re really well controlled next time give it a go. So we knew sir I gave it a go and I was really happy with the result. I got a PB 14 minute PB overall and just made the leaderboard in my age group 15. So I guess the message is that it’s possible. You know to it I’m quite determined and it’s about continuity for me and consistency don’t necessarily want a PB every time I race just to be able to keep moving. So to have these little wings is is lovely. Oh I can imagine after after going through that you mentioned that when you’re able to wean off the pregnancy loan that you’re able to verbalize that you wanted to do a triathlon. Is it something that you had been thinking about for a while? Yes yes probably 20 years. I had a friend who’d done it when I guess we’re in our 20s and I thought that’d be cool but I just you know a lot of people perceive barriers to entering triathlon. You have to be really fair and you have to have all the gear

and just being in a position and that’s not the case and I’m saying that with my president of triathlon Tasmania had on that’s not the case you can start and it’s a really welcoming community and and as I’ve done slowly improve and you know people very willing to share advice and help and have swim clinics have open water swim clinics and cycle skills classes learning how to change a tyre it’s a I’ve gone off track there sorry No that’s it’s definitely one of the most welcoming communities I think like because so many people well everyone pretty much gets into it with no experience yeah maybe they’ve got experience in one or two of the the legs but it’s it’s a very welcoming community and there’s so many teams out there so many coaches who are willing to work with people who who are coming from from no experience so that’s why I think it’s such a an inclusive sport and why so many people find a lot of enjoyment from it and I mean I’m sure you’d see

that with your role as as president of Tasmania and triathlon

and I guess the other thing too is I wasn’t sure if my body would hold up to three different disciplines so can be a lot of training that a health practitioner said to me it’s actually better than just running all the time or just cycling all the time or just swimming all the time because you give you know you get a bit of variation in the muscle worker you do so she was right yeah that’s so now what you’re where you’re at in terms of your health are you you’re confident that you can just continue the training and you can push in those triathlons without doing any long-term damage or putting yourself out for a couple of months now

yes at the current level but I’m going to attempt my first 70.3 in Hobart in February so my training loads increasing nice and slowly so it’s it’s doable at the moment so I’ll be pretty chuffed when I cross that finish line yeah well that’s exciting isn’t the first half Ironman down in Tasmania I know there’s quite a few from Victoria who are who are going to that with a new course and a new half Ironman in Australia which is which is very exciting so and you won’t have to travel too far at all just a short two three hour drive up to yeah to Hobart so that’s a very long trip for Tasmania and I can tell you it’s an overnight stay so yes depending on road works it can be two or three hours it’ll be fantastic atmosphere and so all the training group training together so being part of that building towards it’s very exciting and so the swimming distance has got to get a bit longer

and what are you what are you working towards with or focusing on with your swimming now with where you’re currently at well I’d really like to be able to hold one minute 30 pace per 100 for a bit longer than a couple of hundreds but building in speed is probably not quite right at the moment if I’m building endurance but so there’s there’s two goals there I guess I did write this down because I knew you’ve been asked for that

and my coach did say that on New Year’s Day and this is the sort of

psyche of triathlete let’s do a hundred hundreds I just thought no I don’t think so it’s just such a shame I’m into state and she teased me and said there are pools there you know

that’s 10 k’s I’ve never swum I’ve never swum more than you know three and a bit so I don’t know if I’ll be doing that New Year’s Day but you know building to be able to do that sort of thing having that level of fitness would be something I’d like to do that I’d like to hit the 130 pace first yeah fantastic or look if you’re in Victoria on Christmas Eve I think that’s when we’re looking to do our our hundred hundreds so oh excuse if you’re out in Victoria at that time but yeah it’s a good I know a lot of squads do it around like New Year’s or you know week before Christmas I like doing it day or Christmas Eve because then you’ve just got the debauchery of the next couple of days and you don’t feel too guilty so it’s yeah it’s a good thing to do and you might surprise yourself too like if you take enough rest after we’d normally take a break after every 30 take a few minutes have some food and then get back into it and if you mix it up with

some fins do a bit of pool boy and paddles just doesn’t have to be hard it’s just yeah yeah just mixing it up I think is a is a good way to do it because we’d normally do the first 10 with fins on and then we’d do a mix of yeah mix of swim pool boy pool boy paddles sometimes some other strokes just just depends so yeah you can do it it’s where I’m it was where I’m leading

well it’s interesting you’re going back to learning new skills at first time I started swimming with a pool boy it was so hard because I didn’t have all that underwater technique happening I was a kicker and I still am slower in a wetsuit I’ve got to work on that because it takes away your kick a bit and I’m very proud of myself this morning I did six two hundreds with paddles pool boy and band and a snorkel all the gear this morning so for my shoulders to be able to cope with that is amazing that’s excellent because you I think before the call you mentioned that you had some pain through the front of the shoulders and you thought it might have been the arthritis but then you can’t realize it it might have been from being so wide underwater yes yeah exactly right and I was doing backstroke this morning because someone finally told me what to do with my arms and backstroke under the water and I ah quicker and it doesn’t hurt so it’s you know just being prepared

to ask those questions because when you’re swimming you can’t see yourself so that was the value of you doing the video formula oh that’s what I’m doing wrong I can see it now and I mentioned before we got on the call that someone had said to me the good thing about swimming in a pool is that you can see where your arms go and I thought I can’t see my arms where are they and you know just people giving you that feedback make sure you think about what am I doing with them yeah fit out of your peripherals in there yeah yeah yeah well Melissa thanks so much for being on there on the podcast and it’s been great to hear what an amazing result you’ve had over the last couple of months and I’m looking forward to seeing how you’re going in February with the Half-I man thanks Britain great to chat thank you 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 [Case Study] 5-mins Faster In An Olympic Distance Triathlon Swim with Melissa Hughes appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

In today’s episode, we are looking at why you should look for the cause, not look at the symptom.

00:22 Itchy eyes?

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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 episode 263 of the Effortless Swimming Podcast. Today we’re looking at why you should look for the cause, not look at the symptom. Recently, I’d say a couple of weeks ago it was, I had really dry and red eyes like that. They were so itchy, they were really red, and I just could not fix them. So I went to the doctor, went to the optometrist and they just said, take these eye drops and that’ll fix it. And I tried that for several weeks and nothing was changing. So I thought, what the hell, I’ll go, there’s this Chinese medicine place on the freeway in my town. I saw the sign, I thought, I’ll just, I’ll try anything at this point because it’s really bugging me and I want to get it fixed. So I go and see this guy and he sort of asked me a couple of questions around diet, what I was drinking and so on. And he said to me, for the next week, I want you to have no alcohol and I would rarely drink anyway. He said, no alcohol, try and avoid most

sugar and don’t drink coffee. And I haven’t gone a day without coffee for probably a decade. It’s been a long time where I’ve never gone without coffee at all. So I thought off, all right, I’m willing to do it because I just want to get this thing fixed because it’s really, it’s quite annoying. And first day, I had no coffee, had headaches, had to sleep for an hour and a half. And mentally, I was not there. I just was not there at all. And then the second day, a little bit of that, but for the most part, felt all right. And then for the next six days after that, so I think I went eight days total, no coffee. Felt amazing. My body felt good. I was much more alert and didn’t have the cravings that I did the first two days. So took it a couple of days to kind of come off it. But I could feel that my body needed it. Now, the whole point of this, and since then, essentially, my eyes have been pretty much fixed. It took about three days, maybe four

days for the redness and the chin to go down. But then since then, it’s pretty much been perfect. Occasionally, I’ll get a little bit of it, but nothing like it like it was. I am back to having coffee on a on a daily basis, but I could feel that my body needed it. Now, the whole purpose of this story is what I was doing was initially treating the symptoms had nothing to do with the cause, which is why it wasn’t getting any better. When I eventually treated the cause finally got better, big surprise, right? So that’s it’s a fairly obvious thing. Looking back when it comes to your swimming, we’ll often see be looking at an aspect of our stroke, like maybe you’re zigzagging through the water, your hips are wriggling side to side, maybe your arms crossing over and we look at that and go, okay, well, that’s what I need to that’s what I need to fix. So I’m just going to think about being straight with my body.

But sometimes crossover with when your hand crosses a centerline, that is a symptom. That’s not the the cause. It’s not if we think about just going wider, that might not be the thing that’s actually going to change the crossover because it there might be something else in the stroke that’s leading to it. So we need to look at the cause. And I was speaking to my dad on the phone the other day, and he said, we’re just talking about this podcast. And he said, you should have Lee Nugent on the podcast. He’s he’s been a coach in an elite level for a very long time. He’s on the Australian team as a coach with Ryan Taylor, highly experienced decades of experience as a coach and a very good communicator and really knows his stuff. And so I’m looking to get Lee on the podcast and I’m sure he’ll be in an episode soon. And what he was talking about was when Lee came and did a clinic or a day with some of my dad’s athletes and some other athletes in the area, he

was talking about how he likes to analyze the stroke, what order of things that he goes through things in. And he said, this is really simple approach. So this is a good way to diagnose issues with your stroke and in what order. And it’s somewhat similar to our five core core principles. But this is a, I’d say, a really simple way to remember how to look at things. And he said that Lee explained that when he’s analyzing the stroke, first thing he looks at is body. So your body position, your body line, how you hold yourself in the water, which is your posture, where you are with your hips. Make sure you long through the spine. So looking at our body and just how you hold yourself. That’s the first thing. This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, Form Goggles. They’re more than a pair of goggles, meet the world’s most powerful swim platform. See yourself improve with FormSmart swim goggles, including a free one year

membership when you purchase your goggles for only $228 US dollars. Now they’ve currently changed up the offer where you can now get the goggles and you have that one year membership included for free. And then if you’d like to continue with the membership going forwards, it’s only 15 US dollars a month where you get access to their workouts, training plans and their custom workout builder. But you’ll always have access to the real time data of the goggles. So you’ll never lose access to that. So if you’d like to swim without stopping to look at a pace clock or your watch and get live metrics right inside your goggles, including your time, distance, pace, they are right there in your goggles with form goggles. I’ve used these for over 12 months now. And I’m a huge fan of these goggles and use them for a majority of my sessions and find them very helpful, especially for gauging my time, my effort and my pace. And I think it’s a very

helpful tool for the majority of swimmers that I would normally work 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 form goggles using our special link formswim.com forward slash effortless or use the coupon code effortless at checkout. Second thing is head. Right. So what’s the head doing? And what’s it doing when you when you breathe? Is it moving around? Is it looking up and down? Right. That’s the second thing. So we need to get get that in place. The third one is the kick, making sure the kick is effective and it’s not too big, making sure the toes are pointed, ankles are relaxed. So making sure that there’s nothing going on or going wrong with the kick fourth ones rotation and making sure you’re not under or over rotating. And then the last one is the arms, what you’re doing

with the arms there. So that’s an easy way to work back from your stroke and see what might the cause be. So if we look and see we’ve got that crossover with the arms. Okay, maybe it is you just swing your hand around too wide and then it comes across. Maybe that’s the case, but also might be that you’re over rotating. And that’s causing you to or you like you’re over rotating that’s kind of throwing your timing off and causing the answer to swing around. So you can work it back from those couple of things to work out where should you focus. So to go through those one more time. The first thing we want to look at is body and its head, kick, rotation and arms. So I think that’s a great way to analyze the stroke and what’s the order of things I should be looking at them in. And if you are looking at a video of yourself, you’re recording yourself, you’re comparing it to some of the videos on our YouTube, some of

the analysis videos there, then you can compare some of the aspects that we like to look at there and compare it to perfect stroke like Dan Smith or Kim Alverton. But you can also go through that order and look at things in that way. And if your head is moving all around the place, but your body position or your body line, your body positions fine, then you may just want to start with your head position. So I thought that was a really good way to approach them. And so we want to look at the cause and not the symptom. Another example of this is I was getting a really really tight like mid back, sort of thoracic and sometimes lower back. And I would only get on the days where I was sitting down for three or four hours at a time. And so I would try and stretch, I’d go get a massage, you know, get it fixed. That’s great. But the cause was I had a really crappy office chair and it’s taken me way too long to make a change to this.

But finally, I saw a friend post about a chair that he had good success with. So I bought this chair and since switching over to this chair had no back issues, so much better. But it just took me a long time to realize that. And I think speaking personally, for myself, I know that when we do look at these, when we do have things that come up too often to try and fix the symptom, the thing that’s come out of it, but we don’t often look at and treat or change the cause of it. So this is this is my way of wanting to show you that there is maybe a better way for you to approach the things that you’re doing in life, because I know that when I have actually tapped into the cause and made a change there, life spent a whole lot better. And you can do that with your stream of stroke. You can do that with other aspects of your life. Thanks again for listening. Catch you next week. 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 A Simple Guide To Finding The Cause Of Your Technique Errors (Not Just The Symptom) appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

I wanted to talk about a different approach to achieving your goals in today’s episode. It might be something you haven’t heard before, but it can be a helpful way to achieve what you want. Tune in to the episode now!

00:43 Think of your perfect day and write that down

Atomic Habits ( Effortless Swimming Podcast #230):

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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 episode 262 of the Effortless Swimming Podcast. On today’s episode I want to talk about a way to approach your goals a little bit differently than maybe you are currently or maybe you have in the past. If I was to talk about setting smart goals, I think I’d lose 90% of you right now. It’s important and a good way to set goals, definitely the smart goals approach in terms of specific, measurable, attainable, all those things. Yeah, it’s a good way to go about setting goals and I’ve used that in the past and still occasionally today. But what I’ve found more useful, especially with where I am in my swimming career, my sporting career and where I am in life is I’ve approached it a little bit differently now. An exercise that someone had me go through about 12 years ago now was they said

think of your perfect day and write that down. What does it look like from when you wake up? Where are you? What do you have for breakfast? Go through the entire day and what does the perfect day look like for you? And initially when I went through that process, I felt a bit guilty going through it because I’m like, oh, there’s no, there’s no like work in there. There’s no, like I felt guilty about writing my perfect day. So if you do encounter some guilt when you’re writing down your perfect day, let it go. Imagine you’ve got no responsibilities. Imagine you can just do whatever you like and then that’s going to be your perfect day. Now for me, some of those things that I wrote there was I’m waking up near the beach, have a healthy breakfast. I go for a swim in the morning and then I come back, have some breakfast, say hi to my wife and kids and I go for a surf during the day, come back, have lunch, go

for another surf, come back and then I spend the rest of the day with the family and we cook a barbecue outside. It’s warm and we enjoy that meal together. That was roughly my perfect day. But I wrote down a few more details and specifics around it. I did that 12 years ago and it took a long time to have that perfect day exactly as how I had planned it out a while ago. And even then, so that was 12 years ago. That was that was pre kids. I didn’t know then that I’d enjoy spending time with my kids as much as I do. So even then, I actually felt guilty and like, oh, yeah, I assume I want to be hanging out with my kids and and enjoy spending time with them. I’ll put it in there just in case. But I did feel initially like, oh, yeah, maybe I just sort of leave that out. But anyway, so that took a while to play out. So that’s your perfect day. I think that’s a good thing to include as your as to what you might be working towards.

But the other kind of perfect day that I wrote down was in general life in normal life where you’re going to be doing some work. You’re going to have some responsibilities. What does your perfect day look like there? And mine is still fairly similar there. But I’m thinking of like a Monday, for example, where Monday morning I’ll go swimming, I’ll go training and then I’ll drop the kids off to school. And then I’ll go for surf, come back, I’ll do some analysis and some coaching, maybe record a podcast. Then I’ll pick up the kids, take them to the pool and then we’ll come home and have have dinner like for me. That is pretty close to my perfect normal day. And when I wrote down those two different perfect days, that gave me a really clear idea of what I’m working towards. Now, how that relates to my swimming is swimming’s in there. And I went into some details of how I want to feel when I’m swimming, how healthy I want to be, what kind of person I want to be.

And so getting into the nitty gritty of that and thinking ahead of how I want that to look. So for me, setting my perfect ideal day with no responsibilities plus my normal day where there are responsibilities involved gave me a good idea of what to wear towards this episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, Form Goggles. They’re more than a pair of goggles. Meet the world’s most powerful swim platform. See yourself improve with FormSmart swim goggles, including a free one year membership when you purchase your goggles for only two hundred and twenty eight US dollars. Now, they’ve currently changed up the offer where you can now get the goggles and you have that one year membership included for free. And then if you’d like to continue with the membership going forward, it’s only 15 US dollars a month where you get access to their workouts, training plans and their custom workout builder.

But you’ll always have access to the real time data of the goggles. So you’ll never lose access to that. So if you’d like to swim without stopping to look at a pace clock or your watch and get live metrics right inside your goggles, including your time, distance, pace, they are right there in your goggles with form goggles. I’ve used these for over 12 months now and I’m a huge fan of these goggles and use them for a majority of my sessions and find them very helpful, especially for gauging my time, my effort and my pace. And I think it’s a very helpful tool for the majority of swimmers that I would normally work with to get your pair of form goggles and save 15 percent off. Use our link form swim dot com forward slash effortless or use the coupon effortless at checkout. And that will get you 15 percent off your pair of form goggles using our special link form swim dot com forward slash effortless or use the coupon code effortless at checkout.

Now, what that includes is your habits or the process that you have to go through to be the kind of athlete or the kind of person that you want to be. So if you’ve listened to this podcast for a while, episode 230 was on the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, I think it was. And if you haven’t listened to that audio book or read that book, I held off for a long time from listening to it. But I’m glad I did because it gave such a clear way of achieving goals that it explained it really differently than I’d heard before really. But the gist behind that book is if you want to achieve something, it’s not about necessarily setting the smart goals. It’s about what are you going to do on a daily basis or a weekly basis to to achieve it? What habits are you going to set in order to to make those things happen? So for me, that really came down to, well, OK, if I want to be swimming for the rest of my life and I want to maintain

my swim fitness and my speed as long as I can and be enjoying swimming, I need to put that into my calendar. I need to have this habit and this ritual. So that means that on a weekly basis, Monday, Wednesday, Friday and my swim mornings when I swim with squad. And if I can, I’ll normally try and fit one or two other sessions in there as well. And having the processes or the schedule, the habit, is what allows me to hit that goal. Now, I’m not that competitive anymore. I don’t have aspirations, at least at this moment, to chase after results or medals or events. I still enter some still compete and I enjoy that it still gives me motivation and it still gives me motivation to train and to to work hard. But at the end of the day, I don’t really care compared to what I used to. I do it more for fun and enjoyment and it’s just a challenge to myself. Now, I might be at a different phase of my sporting career than many of you.

So if you if you are driven to achieve something, then it is great to set those those smart goals. But it’s still going to have an element of the habits. And on a daily basis or weekly basis, what are you going to do to achieve it? So for me, I haven’t necessarily worried too much about the specifics around those goals or when I want to achieve them. They’re more just general goals with how I want to be as a person, how I want to live and what does my what does my life look like? So that’s what I’ve tried to orient myself to and and looking at it as what I want to achieve with my two perfect days there. What does that look like? That’s really given me something to strive for. So that’s that’s my slightly different approach to setting goals. I think both of them, the smart goals and then the more habit driven ones, they both they both tie into each other than they both have their purpose. But I found that to be really useful for what I’m targeting now.

So I want to share them with you on this podcast. So if you haven’t listened to the Atomic Habits episode that was episode number 230, but I didn’t think that book is available free on Spotify. If you’re listening to this on Spotify, I think that’s available for free as an audio book on there too now. So if you’re a member of Spotify, you can probably just go and listen to that straight away without costing you anything. Thanks again for listening to the podcast. If you haven’t left a review, whether you listen on Spotify or iTunes or elsewhere, that would mean a lot to me. It helps us get in front of more people when you do leave an honest review. So thank you to everyone who has done that. And if you haven’t, that would be amazing if you could. And I’ll see you next week with another episode of the Effortless Swimming podcast. 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 A Different Approach To Achieving Everything You Want In Swimming (And Life) appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

In today’s episode, we sat down with Brigetta Hamilton to talk about her impressive improvement over the last 6 months. Brigetta attended one of our clinics in May starting at 2:20 pace per 100. She got her time down to 1:48 and now she is at 1:39. Find out what she did to improve!

00:51 Swimming background

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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. My guest today is Brigetta Hamilton and Brigetta. I met you earlier this year at a clinic that you came to here in Melbourne. And I’ve seen you twice since then where you’ve come along to some follow up filmings. And I wanted to get you on the podcast today because I’ve been so impressed with how much you’ve improved this year. And especially considering you’ve only started swimming since May. So when you started in May, you said you’re around a 220 pace per 100. And you’re now down to low 140s. You said you’re 139 this morning, which is a hugely impressive for anyone, but especially having started in May. So welcome to the podcast. And what got you into swimming to start with? I was a cyclist and got COVID quite badly in December and just thought, ah, I’ve had enough cycling. It was too much on my system. And someone suggested swimming. So I thought, well, I’ll swim at school. Can’t be that hard. Got into the

pool and look like a frog in a blender flailing away. And then realized nobody was just gliding past me. Men, women, children. This is like unbelievable. Yeah. When you did start swimming, were you able to like swim comfortably without stopping? Or were you having to stop after a couple laps, get your breath? Like, how was it for you when you first got into it? I probably started off about 500 meters. It was my goal to get at least a 500 continuous swim. But I’d be able to do a meter a length and then I’d have to pause for 15 seconds or so and do the next one. So I think I did that for at least a month of just back and forth and trying to build up distance. My arms really sore, fatigue and aching. I did an open water swim just to see how I would do it. And I did in the shallows. And I think I did 300 meters. It took me about 35 minutes or 45 minutes. So it was really slow going and you must look back at that now and like recognize how far

you’ve come and think, wow, okay, that’s a big change because watching your your first video, I watched it just before just to get a reminder of sort of where you were when you first started. Like I wouldn’t say you weren’t swimming poorly at all. Like you had some really good things happening with your stroke. But the hips and the legs were quite low. The breathing was quite high. Three was quite wide. And at that time, like your counted the strokes to there and it was 22 strokes for for that lap that you the first lap that you did in the first filming and fast forward to your last filming that you did basically you’re doing the same stroke count. But your stroke rate is much higher. So you’re able to maintain the same stroke count with a faster rating, which is kind of the goal. So if you were to just do long and slow strokes, you could probably go, I don’t know, 18, 19 strokes, I’d imagine. But now you

just your hips are higher, your legs are higher, your recovery is much better over the water with a higher elbow. And then a couple of other adjustments that you’ve made and it looks as though that maybe cycling background that you’ve got coming from another sport is really starting to come into your swimming now that you’re getting a bit more experience and you’re doing it regularly. Is that something that you can feel now? Yeah, the endurance from having done endurance sports for so many years, that definitely helps with that that longevity and staying in the zone and staying at that certain pace. It’s still, even though I was fit, I had to get swimming fit. So the the cycling and and I think a bit of rowing in that as well, it didn’t really translate into pool fitness or the swimming fitness as well. And I also never realized how technical swimming actually is. And it, it’s, I mean, you get in a bicycle and you cycle, you’re thinking about

one thing or you’re running, it’s one thing. With cycling, I find, I mean, a swimming, I find that work on one part of my stroke and the race goes out the window or I get something else right and something else goes wrong. It’s just the whole time you’re swimming, you either concentrating on the catch, the pool, leg position, hip position, your head position, how you’re breathing, how you’re recovering, it’s like chaos in your head. So that it was a long and the other thing was it took me a long time to realize how much that the technical aspect of swimming makes a difference in your stroke. So I mean, as the faster I went, the more my technique went out the window. So it was, you know, I would see these people passing me, I think, oh, well, I just have to pick up the kicking pace or I have to pick up my cadence and I’d flail around like a washing machine and not get any faster. It was so frustrating. It’s those things that actually make you

like really slow you down usually because it goes against what you think you need to do. And I sometimes, I see that at the pool, if I’m swimming, maybe say a little bit faster than someone, sometimes that person will go, oh, all right, I want to try and stick with him for, you know, for this part as he’s passing me. And then they’ll like, you’ll see the rating go up, you’ll see the kick go a little bit faster and harder. But then they might pick up the pace for two or three seconds, but then they’re going to drop off because it raises the heart rate. And in order to get faster, you have to relax and maintain good form. And it’s a little counterintuitive. So what’s that been like for you? So now when you’re working on going faster, what are you thinking about instead? It’s still in my mind, even this morning at squad training, there was someone I was chasing and I don’t, I noticed I was trying to pick up the pace, pick up the

kicking speed, pick up the cadence. And I actually, they pulled away from me and I thought, oh, you’re doing it again, you know, slow down, take a breath, lengthen the stroke, get that proper catch, get the grip, wash your feet in. As I settled back down into that, that gap narrowed again. So it’s, even now, intuitively, I just want to go faster and harder. And I’ve got to, you know, it’s hugely frustrating when you, and I don’t know if time is the only mark of a good swimmer, but that’s the benchmark I’ve been using. And it’s so frustrating when you take that 25 meters, and for me it’s 25 meters, I just don’t see my speed over 25 meters, not getting any better. That needle just sat there for about four months, I mean, no matter what I did, until I actually, I just happened to be scrolling through Instagram and I looked up and there was a photograph taken underneath the swimmer and he was stretched out, you know, he’s a full

extension and on the side and I thought, goodness me, it was, it was beautiful, you know, the whole, his whole body was in line, feet were in line, his arms were in line, he was like just this sliver through the water. I thought, well, so I just started doing that, you know, just really stretching into, what a difference. Just that extra couple of inches, my cadence hasn’t gone up, but my breathing rate has come down, I can actually turn the other day to breathe and I saw a bow wave and I thought, oh, a bow wave, how exciting. It’s handy to have something like that to strive for. I think of that position that you’re describing is the base position where your one arm’s reaching forward, you’re rotated, your hand’s just pressing back past your hip, that’s the position that if you return to every single stroke on your left side to right side, it’s when you’re most streamlined, it’s when you’re longest and if you just think

of your swimming as going from your left base position to your right and you’re just trying to move well between the two, then it seems like a movement where there’s not a position to stop in, but there’s a position that you’re always returning to rather than feeling like it’s this treadmill that there’s no stopping, there’s no actual position where you can feel comfortable or relaxed in, but thinking of that longer position, that’s when swimming feels good, when you’re getting good length on that side, you’re rotating the right amount and one of the things you’re initially doing, I think, was you’re a little bit flat and then had to work on… Like a barge, I think, where you was? A bit, and in a kind way, but it gets the point across where a barge is just going to, they’re quite slow through the water, but you need to get on your side a bit at least, and initially when you made that change, one of the comments you

said was you’re going a little bit slower and same with your recovery, when you try changing your recovery, initially you’re a bit slower, but then it seemed to come together after a couple of weeks. I don’t know what suddenly works or what suddenly doesn’t, so I take on board the feedback and then I head off to the pool, you know, the wheels spin away to the pool, plan to the pool and think, right, I’m going to make this change, it’s going to knock seconds off immediately and it’s like, ah, so I think sometimes you’re concentrating so much on that change that you forget the rest of the techniques, so I would concentrate and say the rotation and I found out I was over rotating a bit, or my suddenly my breathing wasn’t there because the rotation was on my side and the timing went out. It’s only when I managed to bring together my kick timing, that stretching, getting my head in the water, getting that catch right, getting all these seven or eight

things that go through your head the whole time, it’s when I actually managed to get all of those in a bundle that it’s not moving forward. If I concentrate too much on one thing, I would forget all the other things and then slow down again. So it was trying to incorporate the new learnings and feedback but not lose the rest of the stroke as well. So it’s, and those drills are really good because you can isolate a piece of the puzzle and you can just work on it and then that feel of the water, those ones are just amazing. You know, I think one of your feedback sessions were doing an underwater something or other to fill the water and it’s just fantastic. You know, when you actually, suddenly you realise when you catch, when you can’t actually feel that water pressure against your hand and the catch you realise your arm’s in the wrong position. It’s just these tiny little bits of feedback you start recognising from your body.

So as soon as I can feel I’m not pulling on the water and it’s not, it’s not like I’m grabbing the water and pulling it back. I know my catch is wrong, that I’ve dropped my elbow or something because it’s coming back too easily. So I’m starting to get more in tune with when it’s right. I can feel it in the water, which is, it’s amazing. This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, FormGoggles. They’re more than a pair of goggles, meet the world’s most powerful swim platform. See yourself improve with FormSmart swim goggles, including a free one-year membership. When you purchase your goggles for only $228 US dollars. Now they’ve currently changed up the offer where you can now get the goggles and you have that one-year membership included for free. And then if you’d like to continue with the membership going forwards, it’s only $15 US dollars a month where you get access to their workouts, training plans and their custom workout builder.

But you’ll always have access to the real-time data of the goggles, so you’ll never lose access to that. So if you’d like to swim without stopping to look at a pace clock or your watch and get live metrics right inside your goggles, including your time, distance, pace, they are right there in your goggles with FormGoggles. I’ve used these for over 12 months now and I’m a huge fan of these goggles and use them for a majority of my sessions and find them very helpful, especially for gauging my time, my effort and my pace. And I think it’s a very helpful tool for the majority of swimmers that I would normally work with. To get your pair of FormGoggles 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 FormGoggles using our special link formswim.com forward slash effortless or use the coupon code effortless at checkout.

It’s got to be a good feeling, right? Where you said initially, when you first started swimming, you were probably the slowest in the pool or one of the slowest. And now you’re starting to become one of the fastest in the pool, which has got to be a nice feeling. One of the things you mentioned, not yet, not yet. Give it some more time. But one of the things you mentioned though was the intuitiveness that you’re starting to develop. And it’s the thing about swimming, especially when people first begin swimming as an adult, is they’ll normally go to YouTube, maybe a podcast, maybe ask some friends about, what should I be doing? And then they get inundated with a lot of information and ideas and they try a lot of different things. And then you need to pass the information and see what’s relevant to you. And you’re up in your thinking brain a lot as you’re going through these changes. And you talked about, think about seven, eight different things

trying to put them all together. But then the more you do it, you start to get that intuitive feeling for things. And that’s when things tend to start. They come together a lot better because swimming is an activity where you really want to be feeling for it and not intellectualizing it too much. But you kind of have to go through that in the beginning. Find to be able to adjust some of those big rocks that we want to change in your swimming. And I think my husband is so tired of me getting to bed next to me at night and all I’m doing is staring at your podcast or your videos and trying to work out just the one little nugget. And it’s quite amazing. You post something, you watch three or four podcasts of Swimmers Stroke. And suddenly it’s just that one thing that is one swim is doing wrong, that you’re doing wrong as well. And you explain it and think, oh, that’s what’s wrong. And it’s so exciting. You just want to put your bathers on

and head off to the pool immediately. It’s like, I’m going swimming at five o’clock tomorrow. I need to try this. So nice when you watch over and over and you see everybody. And I have to stop myself now at the moment at the pool as well. If I see someone swimming past and they’re crossing the midline or something and I’m like, don’t tell them, don’t say anything, don’t say anything. So it’s so nice. You start to recognize it, don’t you? Yeah, you do. Yeah. And one of the other things that I quite like too is that when you, like you mentioned initially, you got a bit slower with some of those changes. And I think I might have said, maybe just try doing it to 50% of what you were doing. Like, just don’t try and change it extremely. Just do 50% of it. And maybe that was one of the things that helped it come together. But it’s good to get that feedback from people. So when you do a clinic, I like encourage people to say,

let me know how things are going a few weeks down the track. Even if it feels like it’s not happening or even if you have gotten a bit slower, let me know because then we can start to adjust things and find what might be the issue. And some of the main things that can cause people to not get faster straight away is when they change their stroke, like you mentioned, another thing might fall out of place, which is really, really common because they’re concentrating on one thing, but they might have forgotten something else really important. Another main one is that the stroke rate can come down a lot because people are thinking so hard about things. Their stroke rate is way too low and so they’re just never really getting that speed. But one thing that I noticed with your recent video is that your catch and pull, your feel for the water looks so much better. You’ve got a really nice pace of your arms moving through the water.

It’s got a bit of that slow to fast and it looks like you’re not rushing it at any point. You’re not muscling it at any point there. You’re just timing that really well. Whereas in the beginning, that first video that I saw, it was quite stop-and-start, wasn’t it? There’s like a big pause at the end of each stroke. And now you’ve got this… I think I’ve seen somebody, some video somewhere that they said reach and pull, so I was like reaching and pulling, but I didn’t realise I was actually stopping until you pointed to that. But I think the most… Yeah, you said, boy, it looks so much better now. The most valuable thing I have found is that the picture you have in your mind as you’re swimming of what your stroke and what you actually look like, when someone videos it or gives you feedback, is not at all what you’re actually doing. So until I realised or came across the internet that you actually have these feedbacks,

it was… It’s quite a revelation because suddenly you look at yourself and you think, but why am I doing that? Or my arm’s going round instead of over. And I think one of your feedbacks were as I was stroking through I was coming all the way around and the time it took my arm to all the way around versus coming over, it made a massive difference. Just that one observation, which I had no idea I was even doing that. What did that first one look like compared to what you thought you were doing? Yeah, I thought I was Michael Phelps, you know.

It was, as you said, I was completely flat. I don’t think there was any rocking going on whatsoever. And my arms were coming round and then crossing in the midline. And finally enough, I could never understand how come I couldn’t track straight in the pool. You know, I was zig-zagging all over the pool and it was only when I started looking at rotation and you were talking about that rock effect so it’s not just a complete rotation. So first I tried the rotation and I over-rotated it completely. And I had fins on just trying it out and I kind of went turtled up and down. And then in one of your podcasts, you mentioned it’s more baroque. So I started doing it just like gently rocking and suddenly it just came, you know, and I could feel my stomach muscles for the first time that I was using my stomach and I wasn’t using my chest to actually haul myself around because before that, I didn’t realize you actually, you know, should engage your abs and that.

So it’s taken me a long time to actually get my stomach muscles, butt muscles and my legs to move myself instead of my hip, my shoulders trying to move myself. And all those things, as you get the kick timing right and everything right, it’s almost like a little corkscrew. You just start gliding and it is effortless. I mean, some days I can go to the 50 meter pool and I just do a warm-up, you know, say 400 meters. And I’m not even out of breath and it’s just, and the times are okay, you know, and start up at about two meters or one minute 50, just warming up. And I’m not out of breath at all. And I can see people next to me that say sort of, you know, raise pace or whatever when they’re charging up and down. And for every six strokes of theirs, I’m just doing one, you know, it’s just such a lovely feeling. It’s amazing when it comes together and it’s so nice. Yeah, I know the feeling you’re talking about and it’s just something that always draws me

back to the pool or in the ocean. And especially if you have a good session where you’ve got a nice flow to your stroke and your times are good and you just feel like you’re holding lots of water without even to work for it, it’s a very good feeling. And it’s such a great workout as well because as you mentioned with the core, for example, it takes a while to be able to hold your body in the right way and use your body the right way and develop the muscles to be able to do that. But yeah, it’s like it is. There’s a lot of core, hips, glutes, all of that’s involved when you’re swimming correctly. So if you feel like it’s all up a body at the moment or maybe all in the legs for some people who are kicking too hard, when you get the whole body working together like you’ve been able to do because you’ve now got the right rotation and you’re not having that energy come around so wide and flat over the water and you’re being a bit more direct with things,

that’s when you get… Yeah, I think that’s a big reason for why you’ve had such big improvement in your stroke and probably how it feels as well. So for you, what are you looking at, say six to 12 months down the track? Are you swimming something you’re going to continue with? Because obviously you come from a cycling background. It’s my passion now. I absolutely love it and get quite grumpy if I haven’t been in the pool on a day. I did my first open water swim about two weeks ago with a 2K, not a race, just a group swim and the sea was harling and brown and I thought, ah, and I was flailing around like I just managed to get out to where the course started and I kept getting smacked in the face with the wave and I was doing the head up, pounding away and getting nowhere and I thought like, you can swim, just calm down, put your head in the water and swim like you do in the pool. But it took a while, so I think I’d like to get my open water swimming up,

pace up again and my confidence. I did try the sighting because I’d obviously been on YouTube and I heard this crocodile r-things where you pop the r’s, I just have a snapshot and my body’s so used to, as soon as my head comes up breathing, so as soon as I pop my r’s, a lung full of red sails, coughing and gasping and choking in the ocean, wasn’t a pretty sight, but I loved it. So once I’d settled down enough, it took probably half a kilometer for me to get calm enough to enjoy what I was doing and then I started passing people, you know, it was great and that wetsuit gives you a certain amount of buoyancy so that gave me a bit more confidence. So I think that’s my next goal is to see how comfortable I can get an open water swimming, how comfortable I can get with lots of people like the Mass Start, because that also worries me in the pool, you know, it’s just yourself in a lane so you get in there and it’s all calm

and you can see the lane markers below you so you track fine. And so that sighting’s new and getting used to waves and the currents. I mean, I really enjoyed it when the current was behind me, it was just surfing into the beach, but when you’re flying it other way into it, it was quite different. And also that, you know, the sea’s quite murky and you can look around and you think, all I can hear is that Jor’s cello music starting. Jum, jum, jum, jum, jum, jum. God, don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.

So that’s, yeah, that’s great. That’s the next next challenge, is getting comfortable and more proficient in the open water. And with the sighting, if you’re not already, try the sight and breathe method. So look up the dent on the next stroke turn to breathe and that way you can keep your rhythm going well. I think we’ve got a video on YouTube. Yeah, I was wondering about this. Yeah. So, yeah, just the sight and breathe, just look up how to sight and open water, effortless swimming on YouTube. And I think that the video that I made a couple years back will pop up. But that’s a much easier way than just going head up freestyle for a few strokes. It’s this way, use your sight on one stroke and then you turn to breathe on the next one. And so it’s hard. Don’t really lose much speed at all. By doing it that way, it’s much easier than just, just eyes up. And yeah, being in the open water, it’s a challenge with being comfortable

and being able to relax out there. It’s like I love to surf and the surf’s been reasonably big the last couple of days. And you can, if you’re out there and it’s, and it’s big and maybe get held down, there’s two ways to approach it. It’s like, well, this is scary and like I could be in trouble here. Or when you’re relaxing, you just breathe through it and you’re like, well, how cool is this that I’m out here, the sun’s shining? Or even if it’s just, it was hailing the other day and it had to hide under the board out there. But it’s like, how cool is this that we get to go through this challenge and be out in nature? And I think if you have the same approach when you’re swimming, it’s just like, even if it is howling onshore, it’s choppy, it’s bumpy, when you’re relaxing, you just like take it in your stride, you swim better, you swim quicker and it’s just a different mindset going into it. And it sounds like you’re really

taking that on board when you’re going to the open water. Yeah, I’d like to, I did the two kilometer, my goal is to try and, not this year, but probably next year, get up to a five kilometer open water swim in a reasonable time. I’m hoping for two minutes, okay, we’ll see. I’ve just realized the time is up in the open water and the pool is vastly different. So we’ll see how it is. It can be a bit slower in the open water because you haven’t got the tumble turns or the flip turns. So you do get an increase in speed off the turns. But yeah, I can’t, if it’s within a couple seconds per 100, then that’s usually, then you’re in a pretty good range with it. So Brigada, thanks so much for being on the podcast and I really enjoyed working with you and continuing to work together in the future too. So yeah, well done on the improvement so far. Not done yet, there’s still a lot more that I’m sure we’ll see come in the next couple of months.

So thanks so much for being on the podcast and looking forward to seeing how you go in the next few months from here. Yeah, thanks, Brenton. Awesome. 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 [Case Study] 2:20 to 1:39/100m In 6 Months with Brigetta Hamilton appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

My guest today is Taryn Richardson, an advanced sports dietitian, and a triathlon nutrition specialist. In this episode, we will talk about triathlon and swimming nutrition and what you can do to make better choices to get fitter and healthier.

1:08 What are the common mistakes working with age group triathletes/swimmers

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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. My guest today is Taryn Richardson. She is a triathlon nutrition specialist and she’s worked with the elite triathletes and the paratriathlon with triathlon Australia for six years. And I’ve got Taryn on the podcast today to talk about triathlon nutrition but also swimming nutrition and what we can do to make better choices, get fitter, keep leaner and basically just be healthier overall. So Taryn, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. You’re a fellow podcast host. So you’ve got a good mic. You’ve got good headphones. You know what you’re doing when you come on to a podcast. I expect you to basically just run it from here. No worries. No pressure. So Taryn, you’ve reached out a couple of weeks ago and I feel like I’ve seen you around just through the swimming world and triathlon world and you’ve worked closely with a past guest, Dan Atkins as well with a lot of his

athletes there to kick off the conversation. I want to start with some common mistakes that you come across when you’re working with age group triathletes or awesomeers. What are some of the things that you see and you go, oh, you would be so much better off if you just stop this or you started doing this. Oh, there are so many things. How long have you got? Let’s dive into them. That’s yeah. When it comes to nutrition for triathlon, it is so much more complicated. It doesn’t need to be hard but there are so many things that you need to do when you’re training for three sports in a week. Like it’s not just like you’re a swimmer and you just do pool, maybe some dry land stuff, or you’re just a runner or you just go to the gym. You have to understand how to eat to support swimming and cycling and running and then putting all three of those together. So what I find with triathletes, one of their biggest downfalls is that they are so into tech and so

into all the gadgets and they love all of the shiny little one percent of things and they go down those paths first, but they haven’t got the foundations of what they need to do on a day to day basis. Right. Like they have no idea how to recover properly after sessions to back up and go again. They have no idea how to periodize their carbohydrate intake to training. They have no idea how to fuel sessions properly either, but yet they’re taking like the weirdest supplement and they’ve got their spreadsheet with all of their stats and they’re doing this one thing that they might implement on a race day, but then on a day to day basis, they just suck. So yeah, there’s so many things that I see them making and what I try and do, my whole passion is to try and get athletes to understand how to fuel themselves properly on a day to day basis, because that’s where you’re going to get the best bang for your buck out of training is what

you consistently do daily. It’s not this one thing that you might do occasionally. It’s getting those foundations right. So as part of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy, I step triathletes through exactly what they need to do on a day to day basis to be fueling and recovering properly to get the most out of their body. It’s interesting to hear you say that because it is about what you do day in, day out. And it’s the same with think about with like kids relationships, your what you eat, what you do for training. It’s not the one session that’s going to make you a champion and get huge results. It’s what you do day in, day out when your significant other gets home from work or how do you say hi to them? What’s that relationship like it’s all those day to day things that really make up your life. It’s not the one thing. And we’re talking before the podcast. I made burgers last night without the bun, a healthy burger. I was looking

at the pickles. I emptied the pickle jar, got the last one out and I was looking at the pickle juice going, Oh, I know, like I’ve heard this is good for you. Maybe I’ll just drink and I went, No, that’s okay. I don’t need the benefit if there is one, but it just goes to show like your mind tends to go for those shiny things or what you may have read in an article or in a headline. And so reading through your bio, that’s one of the things that really starts to annoy is information that maybe doesn’t have the backing or doesn’t have the proof or it is the shiny object. So what what are some standout things that you think the majority of swimmers or triathletes are probably doing that they may be able to replace with a better option? Yeah, there’s so many things that make my blood boil to be honest. I’ve actually tried to calm myself down as I get older, but I’m very much an evidence based practitioner. I look to the literature and the research

to help guide interventions that we make with nutrition and I don’t watch like Netflix documentaries or random punters on YouTube to get my nutrition advice. So I guess it’s coming back to those fundamental things again, right? We don’t want to be taking a supplement which is what I call like the sprinkles on the icing on our cake. We want to lay that cake base first, that’s our sponge, that’s the biggest layer and then once you’ve done that’s your foundations of day-to-day healthy eating. It’s not particularly sexy messages like eating enough fruits and vegetables, but it’s that sort of daily habitual stuff that makes the biggest impact over the long term. It’s kind of like compound interest. Little tiny bits incrementally expand as we go on. Once you’ve got those foundations right then we want to ice that cake foundation. When you’ve iced it with some more advanced sports nutrition principles, so things like carbohydrate

loading, maybe some acute sodium loading to help with hydration, starting to sprinkle in some of our performance boosting supplements here, something like caffeine that’s got many years of well-backed research to support its benefit in endurance exercise and then only then once you’ve done those things you can put the sprinkles on your cake so that they actually stick to something. There’s a lot of literature around multiple supplement use and we see that the more stuff you take the less impact they have. So they wash each other out in a way. So we want to just focus on one key thing at a time and use that strategically to get the most benefit out of it and then maybe look at implementing something else separate to that. So it’s about getting those foundations right and not taking, I’m not going to mention any names. I can think of five off the top of my head. Supplements that are being very marketed to triathletes at the moment that are

probably not doing a whole lot because you haven’t got some of those foundations. One of the questions I had was eating before swimming so for me I get up at 4.30, 4.40 in the morning. We’ll be in the pool at 5.30 and I normally won’t eat. I’ll have fair bit of water. I’ll often have like not sponsored but like athletic greens. I’m a big fan of that. I’ll have that in the morning beforehand. No, what are you doing?

How much is that stuff? It’s like 80 bucks a month. Yeah, so for me I found it’s that’s replaced my coffee beforehand and I feel better throughout the day but what would your suggestion be pre-training first because I don’t like to eat before training because I feel a little bit, I feel too heavy getting into the water that early. So what would you suggest? There’s so many things to unpack there. Can we just stop on that athletic greens for a second? You’re not going to shoot it down are you? Not my athletic greens. What is it? Tell me, you tell me what’s in it. Do you understand what you’re taking? Green stuff that has lots of nutrients in it. Oh god, okay, so it is a sprinkle on the icing on the cake. It’s not a very sexy message but you will get more benefit from eating fresh fruits and vegetables than taking a greens powder and it’s way more cost effective as well. So you might feel better because you’ve stopped

caffeine in the morning. It’s not necessarily the greens powder that’s making you feel better. Yeah, I don’t agree with it. It has helped replace the habit of it as a sort of a substitute for that habit. So if I was to make a smoothie of some sort with fruits and veggies, you think that’d be a better option in the morning. Okay, so then we go back to the question around pre-training nutrition. You’re a pretty efficient swimmer right? You would be much more efficient in the water than potentially a triathlete listening who’s not as proficient in the water. So I like to set people up strategically with a bit of a plan for what they do pre-training based on what that session is. Like what are the goals of that session? Are we trying to perform in that session to the best of our ability and in turn having some metabolic adaptations that happen that are going to make us fit it and faster? If it’s that sort of performance session then we want to set

that up a little bit differently to a session that is maybe just for you maybe a 3k aerobic very easy throw the arms over type session. We want to think differently based on what the goals are. So something that is performance session so for you it might be like intervals and sprints in the pool or it might be a super long endurance swim that is targeting sort of race distance. Then my suggestion is you do a bit of fueling before a session like that and we want to focus on carbohydrate rich foods. So if you feel heavy in the mornings when you wake up or heavy before you swim then that might be something that you’ve just done for a long period of time and so you’ve trained your gut to feel like that but our gut is really trainable so it’s about putting in small little impactful change and shaking that up over time until you get used to it. So thinking about carb rich foods that are quick and easy to digest something that you can do and tolerate

at 4 30 in the morning it could be some of those big juicy medjool dates it could be some banana it could be a slice of toast with some spread on it it could be an up and go or something like that it doesn’t need to be complicated it doesn’t have to be an entire sit-down breakfast but thinking about our carbohydrate foods to fuel that session because if you fuel that session you’re more likely to push harder and train better and then get fitter and faster as a result rather than drag your ass through a session like that and not do what it’s meant to be doing. And so for the say they eat like an easy 3k session where you’re not really pushing it’s more aerobic based those ones you may be looking for the metabolic adaptation by not eating before training. Yeah yeah yeah exactly and so we want to fast then and so having an athletics greens powder is no longer fasting so even this weird middle ground of doing a little bit of fueling but

not really fueling enough. So having a strategic plan for your week so that you eat differently on different types of training days. So fasted means nothing you could have some water if you’re a caffeine user you could have some black tea or coffee but no milk no sugar no sweetener nothing like that that’s going to flip that switch of carbohydrate oxidation by having carbohydrate in our mouth. So fully fasted to do those easy aerobic not trying to no intensity in that type of session will help those fat oxidation pathways or fat burning pathways become more effective and efficient and then fueling on those really hard performance sessions so that you can push harder and train harder when we’re trying to actually do that type of session for a reason. And the sessions where we’re going over an hour let’s say it’s an hour and a quarter hour and a half and they’re some of the harder sessions should most people be fueling within that session or if they

have something just prior it can get them through it. Yeah it depends so depends what you’ve done before and then depending on what you’re doing after as well I think I always come back to triathlon where that swim is not their only session for the day typically. So what is going on before that and after that. For swimming you can typically survive on whatever you’ve had pre if we’re talking about elite level athletes though so working with Dan Atkins guys and the development squads for triathlon Australia they always had some sort of fuel on deck if it’s a performance session because their needs are so much higher than somebody that is just an age group triathlete so they might have a bit of sports drink in their bottle. Some of the girls sometimes had some coconut water which has got the same amount of carbohydrate in it as sports drink and it’s got those electrolytes as well you don’t necessarily need anything solid on the side of the

pool unless you get really hungry but just thinking about what you’re doing before and then whether you need something during or not would depend on your overall training load and what types of sessions you’ve got coming into that and coming out of that as well. And why does swimming make people hungry? I know my wife has been swimming she hadn’t swam like a lap since she was probably 16 years of age and then she injured her hip a few months ago and has had to start swimming and so he’s come back from the pool she’s like my god I’m so hungry and get this when I not as much when I run when I do pilates it’s just like a different sort of thing and I certainly find the same so what’s the go there? Yeah it’s an interesting one it’s because you’re swimming in a temperature controlled body of water so pools typically what 27 degrees Celsius that’s different to our body temperature so we’re trying to date what’s going on with our core body temperature and so

typically when it’s a really hot pool or it’s a really high lactic acid developing session those types of things blanch your appetite and so you may not be as hungry after a hot pool or a really high lactate session but compared to running or cycling doing that sort of distance or volume of training in a cooler pool you just feel so much more hungry because we cool ourselves so much more effectively into that pool water whereas if we did that same session on land we’re not as good as at cooling ourselves down so it’s hard to equate appetite to training intensity when we’ve got a pool involved because it’s going to make us so much more hungry increases all our appetite compared to if we did that session on the land. Does that mean we’re using more carbohydrates to burning more fuel than usual and we need to account for that? Not necessarily we use smaller muscle groups swimming typically so you might glycogen deplete some of those smaller

muscles like a deltoid in your arm but it doesn’t necessarily mean that we are burning more calories overall particularly if you’re a efficient swimmer you can pull through the water and glide for a bit some people are like what is that Tyrone I have no idea how to do that but yet we don’t tend to burn as much compared to doing that same sort of work on land. And you mentioned carbohydrate periodization, dietary periodization before what are you referring to when you talk about that? So it just means we’re not eating the same things every day is the summary of that particularly for triathlon we have different types of training days we have lighter training days or those elusive rest days where we don’t do a lot or a light day might mean just an active recovery session but it’s an easy training day your carbohydrate needs on that type of day are so different to if you went did a three four six hour endurance ride you’re burning so much more carbohydrate

on a long session day so you need to eat differently to support that that is one of the key mistakes I see triathletes make is that they just eat the same thing all the time like particularly if you’ve got a job that is maybe a Monday to Friday you just plug into your usual rhythm Monday to Friday and eat the same breakfast maybe the same lunch dinner might have a bit of variety but it’s generally like whatever your normal rhythm is and then we hit the weekends where if you have a job a full-time job that’s typically where your long endurance sessions fall your energy burn carbohydrate burn on those days is going to be so much greater and I see people fall into two camps here they either just eat everything they can see they might go out to dinner more or grab takeaway they’ve got plenty of access to their cupboard to their pantry so there’s lots more snacking that occurs compared to when you’re stuck at work and in a rhythm or other people the

other people go the other direction where they just don’t eat much at all because they’ve lost their rhythm and routine with eating so they might skip a meal or you’re skipping a meal because you’re out on the bike all morning and then you just plug back into the usual rhythm so puritization in a nutshell is not eating the same thing each day and eating to support the work that you’ve done this episode of the podcast is proudly bought you by form goggles they’re currently running a holiday sale between December 8th to the 20th where you can receive 20% off your purchase if you purchase through our link formswim.com forward slash effortless so this is the best time to get the goggles for yourself or to give the gift of smart swimming then 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

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so to get your pair of form goggles go to formswim.com forward slash effortless that’s formswim.com forward slash effortless yes it sounds like you’re really focused on making sure that it’s there’s no obviously one size fits all and that’s never the case even with swim technique and drills and all that sort of stuff it’s very individual and so with the coaching that you’re doing how much does it differentiate between the different athletes that you’re working with is there like the fundamentals that you’ve got you’ve talked about the cake and then is it just adjusting those fundamentals for the different people that you’re working with like how individualized are these nutrition plans that you provide for people they’re fully customizable and individualized because you’re right there is no one size fits all with nutrition we definitely have our evidence-based guidelines but every athlete is different I’ve got athletes inside the academy

program one guy Lewis has never been able to put weight on his entire life like the last 10 years he’s really struggled and then in the last 12 months I’ve been able to get two kilos on him versus another athlete who I’m not going to name who wants to lose 10 to 15 kilos and so my advice to both of them is always going to be different so the academy is set up that I give you the information and we go through the training and then all of the athletes inside get me live every week on pow hour where we fully customize and individualize everything so we’ve just finished our 70.3 and full distance Ironman race nutrition plans and every athlete inside has their own custom race plan because everyone’s really different we’ve got somebody like Jason who is going through brain cancer treatment and has just had radiation and he doesn’t have balance on the bike so his plan is designed for him to never take his hands off the handlebars

even in an Ironman distance event we should be able to get through that versus else wants to eat on the bike and has the ability to maybe grab a bottle behind their saddle or down between their legs on the tube so every plan is different I don’t believe in generic and it’s my job as an advanced sports dietitian to help you fast track that research into something that’s practical and easy to implement and in terms of being individualized there’s a lot of athletes would be probably leaning more towards leaning up but still having the energy to perform well on race day and to train what are some of those things that you would steer towards or where does your mind go when you’re thinking about this is how someone might be able to lose a couple of kilos over several months I went on a we had our Maldives swim camp a couple of months ago and after that I had a it was awesome and I think I put on weight there because it was a buffet

breakfast, lunch and dinner and the food was amazing and I’m like no this I’m going to skip this meal I don’t need it but I didn’t have the willpower to do that once while I was there and that’s okay because you’re in the Maldives live at large and the thing was I had a surf trip for seven days after that where we surfed three times a day I was in the water for seven hours each day and I would have lost I would have lost three kilos on that camp because I left at 87 came back at 85 and I reckon I would have put on a kilo pre-surf trip so aside from exercising for seven hours a day and eating healthy can someone do to lean up if this is a personal question for me yeah what can someone do get to lean up oh goodness am I talking to you am I talking to the listeners because my advice changes depending on who it is I was asking for a friend of mine just asking for a friend I did do a podcast episode on my podcast on this topic how to lean up

and maintain energy for triathlon training if listeners do want to dive into that in more detail it is really periodization and getting that right is one of the fundamentals of leaning up and still fueling training because what triathletes do and what any athlete does really if they want to lean up is they go on a calorie deficit they cut typically carbohydrate out first and sometimes when you are a high performing athlete whether it’s mental or not or physical you want to do everything right and so we go a bit too hard in cutting out our overall energy intake for the day and if that happens then you don’t have the fuel and the energy to support your training one of the things I’d get you to consider or anyone is to think about when is a good time to do that you don’t want to be chasing your tail and trying to drop a whole heap of body fat in your key race season you want to be looking at doing that potentially more so in the off season

or your pre season so that by the time you get to racing where you want to be training and performing and fueling to the best of your ability you can do that you can stoke the fire with fuel so that you can get all those beautiful adaptations that we want to get out of training rather than putting yourself into a hole and not performing at the best of your ability through training as well if you’re in season and you can’t go on a bit of a health kick I hate that term you want to think about cutting out I guess just crap in your diet I don’t need to tell you what crap is right chocolate alcohol or minimizing it junk food like anything that’s deep fried hot chips croissants all the tasty things keeping those things to a minimum not saying cut it out all together because that’s not the type of dietitian I am I’m like all about eating delicious food but thinking about where you’re putting those maybe they’re a little bit more strategic

on those heavier training days and not eating the whole buffet on a light or a rest day so a bit strategic around where you’re putting your calories it’s that periodization concept again and then thinking about where you are in your season is now a good time to look at some fat loss or should you be doing a in a bit more of an off season where your training performance doesn’t matter so much a lot of this comes down to willpower and changing habits and totally replace replacing habits so there’s some things that you’ve seen work for people along your journey as a dietitian that’s helped them stick to these things yeah you’re right it’s changing habits that you’ve had possibly for your whole life when you if you ever have little people or anybody listening that’s a parent you’re setting your kids up now for what their food habits and behaviors are like in adulthood do you have anything Brenton that you stick with now that you did when you were a kid

when I was in high school my mom would occasionally get like a packet donuts for us to have when we got home from school and we would I don’t know how many would have but I don’t know let’s say it was like two after school and that I’d say for now I’ve kicked it but certainly in my early 20s I would okay I was coaching I was coaching a squad and beforehand so at four o’clock I’d train for an hour and a half it’d be a hard session normally 5k working hard wouldn’t really eat much before then going to coaching and coaching for an hour and a half and then I would it’d be about 8 30 at night and I’d be driving home having not fueled after training and coaching and I’d be driving past coals and there was a time where I was devouring an entire cabri block or an entire packet of donuts every time after coaching because I hadn’t I think part of it was the maybe a childhood habit and a part of it was just I just wasn’t fueling right I wasn’t getting no recovery

no recovery at all and yeah in your 20s you can get away with it but it’s obviously not good for you but and I knew at the time but I just I couldn’t stop myself from doing it but I certainly see some of those habits that I may have got as a kid they certainly do that you have played out later on in life yeah I think the first step is being aware of it you don’t really understand that you have these habits and behaviors until somebody maybe points it out or you’re trying to fix something or go down a different trajectory and you’re starting to think about all those things that you have yeah being aware would be the first step and then understanding what you actually want to achieve or what you want to do about it a lot of us have food reward as a behavior that’s been set up from childhood if you’re ever upset or you played a game of netball or soccer and then you went and got ice cream after all of those things those little linking behaviors

are things that you really need to be careful of not setting up in your kids now because that stuff that happened in our day sound like an old person eat everything that’s on your plate type stuff or you can’t have dessert until you’ve eaten your broccoli all of those things have been set up from childhood so I spend a lot of my job untraining habits that people have created and again it’s I guess coming back to those foundations getting your fueling and recovery right is key and then thinking about what else it is that is a habit or behavior that you have and then taking small little incremental actions to change it so you’ve got as an example I don’t want to keep coming back to this athletic greens I feel like they’re getting too much air time for a product it’s too personal to me anyway so I don’t

I don’t love it but you so you change your coffee by putting something else in that you think is better for you so it’s doing things like that doing a swap for somebody that might eat sweet after a meal again that’s something that’s probably habitual and you’ve been doing since childhood you have dinner and then dessert have something else there instead that’s still sweet to help you get away from having row or tour of chocolate every night at dinnertime so maybe it’s something like a herbal tea something like licorice is quite sweet like licorice tea if you feel like you have sweet cravings maybe it’s having a piece of fruit maybe it’s having some yogurt so that you’re having something sweet still giving those brain receptors kind of what they want and then slowly stepping away it does take there’s lots of research around how long it takes to change a habit I’ve heard 30 days I’ve heard 38 days I’ve heard 45 I guess the summary of that is it takes time

and it’s putting in place what you want to do differently just and being consistent on a day to day basis if you’re used to having sweet after dinner try subbing it out or if you’re a cold turkey type person go cold turkey and it’s probably going to take a week or two for that craving of sweet to subside if you are a habit tracker type person there’s lots of apps that you can get on your phone or if you’re a physical list person the active actually like physically ticking something or crossing out has got so much more power physiologically psychologically than just thinking about it so I guess it’s yeah being aware thinking about what you actually want to change and then putting some steps in place to do it and then keeping yourself accountable so if there’s something that you want to cut back like eating chocolate every day then set yourself a little reward for a month’s time of not doing that and make it a non-food reward

and something that you actually really want so whether it’s some new running shoes or a new cycling kit or something that really excites you to do it then you’re more likely to implement that long term and if you fall off the wagon it’s all good just get back on the next day don’t wait until the whole next Monday comes around to get yourself back on track because that’s going to help that momentum too if you can just get yourself back on track the next it’s the first couple of days are always the hardest I find first one, two, three days whether it’s cutting out something sweet at night one thing I went through recently was two weeks ago, three weeks ago I cut out coffee for a week and I hadn’t gone probably a decade without having one coffee in a day and the first day I was having headaches I had to sleep for an hour and a half I was probably coming down from it I’m like if I had ever had drugs before and was addicted

this is the closest I’ll ever get to it it is a drug yeah and it wasn’t pleasant but then the second day was all right and then after that I felt great for those seven days after that that I was off it but a similar thing happens if you’ve been on sweets at night and then the first day or two you get those cravings but then after that they subside and you don’t think twice about it so knowing that that’s coming can be very helpful similar with when I’m working with people on their technique it’s like knowing that you’re probably going to be a bit frustrated and awkward and clunky when you’re changing things if you expect it and you know that you’ve got to push through that period to then get to the other side can help them mentally because if you don’t know that then you’re just going to hit that awkward period with your swimming or get that urge or that craving without knowing okay here it comes here’s that craving but if you can identify it

and just separate yourself from it you can then make the better decision yeah amen and the thing I want to finish on here Taran is every nutrition so going back 10 years ago when I was training at four o’clock in the afternoon doing a hard session and then not eating anything or not eating much at all before then coaching for an hour and a half so that’d be a period of four to five hours where I hadn’t eaten but I’d trained hard what’s happening there when I drive past coals and I go and get the block of chocolate like why is that so hard to resist and what would be a better choice to make there what should I have done looking back at that so what you should have done is had some sort of recovery snack or something convenient for you that you could have after your session before coaching thinking about the four hours of recovery we want to be ticking off those boxes in a way that is perfectly designed for you so your recovery meal

is different to mine because you’re a different human being to me but it’s understanding what you need for you and then building something that works for your lifestyle to tick those right boxes too so the first R is refuel you want to put some carbohydrate back in your fuel tank for whatever you’ve just burnt for that session and thinking about your overall training load as well so how much carbohydrate depends on a number of factors it depends it’s like my favorite saying with nutrition it depends I’m going to get a printed on a t-shirt but how much carbohydrate you need is different to me so it’s understanding your specific needs and meeting those then we want to make sure we repair with some protein as well and we want to make sure we’ve got enough to maximally stimulate all of our muscle protein and recovery pathways we want to make sure that we are rehydrating and water is fine it’s the best fluid for rehydration

you don’t need chocolate milk you don’t need sports drink or anything like that as long as you’re eating that food has more electrolytes in it than a bottle of sports drink anyway and then the last R which most people forget is what I call revitalize and that’s putting lots of vitamins and minerals back in the tank because they are the precursors for our recovery plus we have higher needs for a lot of things when we are more active than the general population so they’re the four Rs that you need to tick making sure you’ve got a perfectly formulated meal for you it’s going to look different to your training buddy and then we talk about this window of opportunity we want to try and get that in within sort of 30 to 45 minutes after your training session if you are backing up and going again in less than 24 hours so for triathletes that’s pretty much every single session for swimmers depending on what level of swimmer you are

that’s probably every single session as well but you are going through coals and looking for those really high carbohydrate fast digesting simple sugars because that’s what your body is needing it’s what it’s craving and your resolve is weak there because all of your hunger hormones are probably at their highest because you’ve just put yourself into a massive hole now there are some adaptations that happen by not recovering but that is very much an elite principle and not something that I would dabble with unless you’re someone like Ash Gentile and Matt Hauser those sort of elite level athletes it’s not an age group or everyday athlete type strategy one of the things you mentioned there was if you are backing up again in 24 hours that you should have that recovery window 30 to 40 minutes why not? if let’s say you’re not training the next day you won’t be back again for two days why is it less important? because you’ve got time

you’ve got time to fill up your glycogen fuel tank again so glycogen is our storage form of carbohydrate in our muscles and it takes it a 24 to 48 hours for that to fill back up again when it’s emptied now you may not have done a glycogen depleting session where you’ve emptied your fuel tank just like a car if you don’t have any fuel you can’t go anywhere so it takes a bit of time to fill that up if you’ve got the time you probably don’t have to be as aggressive with your recovery practices but if you have a short space of time like less than 24 hours then you really want to get a jump on it because you don’t have much time to do all of that process is there any advantage to delaying it? yeah there are some adaptations that occur by not carbohydrate refeeding but again it’s an elite strategy it is more likely to put an age group athlete into low energy availability doing that so please don’t do that don’t listen to this and go

I’m going to try that I’m doing good I encourage all age group triathletes unless you are winning Kona you need to be much more aggressive with your recovery after every single session we had Gustav Eden on the podcast who won the Bruce and Iron Man World Champs and they’re obviously very structured and scientific about their nutrition and all of that they’re very calculated with it and it seems like there’s a big more of a shift going in that direction rather than trying to get as a lean as possible there’s a big shift more in that direction when people see the results that the Norwegians are having and I’m sure you’re probably looking at that going this is a good thing are you talking about the body composition? yes that’s what I’m talking about in terms of like those if you look at Gustav Eden Christian Blumenfeld they look like Blumenfeld for example he’s a bigger I say bigger guy like they appear to be less concerned

about being lean to be able to go fast that they’re more focused on making sure that they’ve got the right fueling and they’ve got the right strategy for them to be able to sustain their speed and their energy throughout a race yeah they’re the best in the world so don’t question what they’re doing they are amazing athletes I’m very disappointed in the limelight that Blumenfeld’s body composition gets like he looks mean he looks fast he looks strong triathlon back in sort of Sydney Olympics 2000s that sort of timeframe back then athletes were just striving to be the lightest and leanest that they possibly could and since then the sport has very much evolved now we’re looking at much stronger athletes who have more muscle mass on and we’re seeing less stress fractures and less incidents of low energy availability and faster times is the result so I think that’s a really good message for triathletes and in any endurance athlete to hear

is that lighter is not necessarily better you want to have good strength to power to weight ratio and strength through particularly the bike but when we see things like draft legal racing you have to have a really strong swim too otherwise you’re left at the back on the bike as well so Lena is not always necessarily better one of my guys Jason inside the academy he is probably in the worst physical shape he has ever been in I hope he doesn’t mind me saying that but he is he came to me very carb phobic from like F-40 to 5 challenge type mentality where they cut all carbohydrate out and he’s understood over the last 12 months how to eat properly for triathlon and feel better and yes he’s put on some body fat because he was probably his metabolism was probably pretty short but he is performing the best he’s ever performed ever with more carbohydrate on board so it’s a delicate balance for sure for triathletes you’ve got to be lean

but strong and that’s not necessarily skinny I appreciate you coming on the podcast to share all of these things so Tyrone where should someone get in touch with you if they’re interested in the academy or contacting you what’s the best way to do that best place to do that is probably the website dietitianapproved.com but you’ve got to spell dietitian with two T’s not a C and the page there is the academy page I also have the triathlon nutrition academy podcast if people want to hear all things triathlon nutrition and if you send me a DM on Instagram at dietitian.approved you’ll get me in the DMs there as well fantastic well Tyrone thank you very much for being on the podcast and I’ve really enjoyed this chat and there’s a I think a lot that a lot that people can take out of it and just to let you know I don’t stop at coals and get a block of chocolate or a pack of donuts anymore I’m a changed man no judgment

and I’m sure I’ll all improve after this as well and only continue to get better so thanks again Tyrone yeah awesome thank you so 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.effortlesswimming.com

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In today’s episode, we will discuss the best ways to go about improving how you look when you swim.

02:00 The Base Position

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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. On today’s episode I’m going to talk about how to look good when you swim. I know a lot of you are here to swim faster, be more efficient, and those things do tie into looking good when you swim. But I know there’s a lot of you out there who are looking to just look good when you swim. You can either compliment at the pool or at the ocean at the beach where someone says geez you look like a good swimmer, you have a nice style, you have a nice technique, it’s one of the highest compliments you can probably receive as a swimmer. So this episode is all about what can you do to look good. Now it doesn’t always translate to more speed or an increase in speed because sometimes you have to get a little bit scrappy to be swimming faster where you may have

to get your stroke rate up a bit more, you might have to be a bit more assertive with your recovery, your kick, and so on. But there is a bit of a correlation there in many cases. But solely today we’re just focused on looking good. And I was at the beach with my kids last week and we’re down at a place where a lot of swimmers will go out and there was a guy who rocks up. I’d seen him before. Actually I didn’t know it was him until he came out of the water but I see this guy go out into the ocean and start swimming out to the first buoy, yellow buoy out there. And soon as he took his first couple of strokes I noticed he’s a good swimmer. He’s got a nice stroke and some of the things that made me aware of him being an experienced swimmer or looking good was you can just see what he was doing as his arms come out of the water with his recovery. And you can see how he has composure when he’s swimming. You can see how he’s got good length in the stroke.

So I’m going to dig into some of those things that made me realize that he was a good swimmer even though he was swimming 50, 60 meters away from me. It’s one of those things that stood out. Now one of the first things that I think is good to know is the base position. What I’d consider the base position where you should return to after every single stroke. If you think of swimming freestyle as this constant movement where there’s no stopping point or pausing point where it’s just like you’re running on a treadmill and there’s no distinct clear or starting position really then it can seem a little bit confusing as to where should you be in the stroke. What I like to think of the base position in freestyle is when you’re fully extended with one arm out the front, you’re rotated on your side and your other arm is about to exit the water. That I consider the base position or the starting position of each stroke.

And if you think of swimming freestyle from going from that base position to the same position on your other arm and other side then that helps you know where you should be at the beginning of each stroke. And if you get that base position right then you’re going to set yourself up really well for the other parts of the stroke that are to come. Now what is a good base position? Well that is when you’ve got good posture so you’re long through your spine, you’re long through your neck and your eyes are looking either straight down to about 45 degrees in front. So we hold our body the right way, got a head in the right position and we’ve got this length and this line through our spine and through our head. It’s important to get right first because if you don’t hold your body the right way there’s going to be a lot of wiggle and movement through the hips and through the legs and through the arms. But good swimmers don’t usually have too much movement or wiggle

through their body line. They keep it fairly straight. So that’s the first thing we need to hold the body right, have the head in the right position. The second thing is they’ve got the right amount of rotation and that’s typically 30 to 40 degrees through the hips and through the shoulders but that base position it’s important to get your opposite shoulder to the one that’s in the water. So your opposite shoulder should be just out of the water because if you have your shoulder in the water or too low of the arm that’s about to come out of the water there then it’s very hard to come over the right way to come over comfortably. So if you think of your base position on one arm let’s say your left arm is in front or your right shoulder should be just out of the water. You need to bring it back a little bit to get that out. With your lead arm, the one that’s in the water we want to aim to have the hand or the fingertips at shoulder depth.

So essentially you’ve got your arms straight out in front of you and that’s where you’re going to be most efficient and most streamlined there. Whereas someone who isn’t as good with that they haven’t quite got their base position. Sometimes people go too deep. I know there are coaches out there who teach 30, 40 centimetres below the surface of the water but it’s just it’s too deep. It’s not where you see the best rooms in the world going to. So I like to aim for shoulder depth or armpit depth with your hand when you finish reaching forwards. So if you’ve got that and making sure that you’re not dropping your elbow or dropping your wrist at any point there you’re essentially just keeping it straight out the front. And then the final thing just in that base position is keep the kick fairly narrow. You don’t want to be kicking too big. You don’t want your legs to be spaying out the back there. So just keep them roughly within your body line.

When I’m running clinics, when people are going through our eight week course we use some really simple drills like side kick and 616 drill to practice being in this base position and getting all those things correct because when people are in the right spot with all of those different aspects of the base position they usually feel really streamlined, they feel fast and they also look a lot better. We work on these things straight away in our clinics and it’s usually after the first three drills and two of them are side kick and 616 drill where we’ve just ironed out a couple of the faults or errors that we often see in the stroke. It’s once we’ve done that that they tend to look very smooth and very efficient. So that’s why I think it’s good to start with the base position and getting that right. So if you’re working on that base position you may do the side kick or 616 drill but where fins were snorkel to get good at that

and hold everything in the right spot and that’s a nice way to build up to a good base position. Now once you’ve got your base position the next thing that I would be looking to do is recover the right way. Now good recovery will have first of all that shoulder out of the water like I mentioned in the base position but then if you think about being open with your underarm or your armpit you’re almost trying to show part of your underarm to somebody on the side of the pool as you’re swimming. Be open through the underarms in that recovery and feel as though it’s the elbow that’s lifting or causing the arm to come over the water because that way then your hand and your forearm can relax as you come over the top. You see a good swimmer and this guy that I saw down at the beach last week nice and open through the underarm. He had a high elbow recovery as in good lift through the elbow not where he’s trying to keep his hand close to the body

don’t get confused with high elbow recovery as like a zipper drill where your hand’s really close and tight. No, he was coming over open through the underarm hand was relaxed off to the side and he just looked very calm, very composed as he went over the water with his arm. So that’s what a good recovery will often comprise of and it’s a very distinct thing that good swimmers do. You can see it from above the water. You can see that composure and how they come over as a really evident thing of a good swimmer. And I think that’s something that most people can achieve to make themselves look good is that type of recovery. There are some typically guys who a bit tighter through the thoracic, through the shoulder and so on who are a bit more limited with their range of motion. But I think for most people, if they practice that base position, they practice getting their shoulder out and they come over the water the right way.

So they feel like the elbow’s causing it, the arm to come over and not the hand. Then they can start to work towards that better looking stroke. This podcast has brought you by Great Ocean Wet Suits an up and coming Australian performance wetsuit brand for triathletes and open water swimmers. The wetsuits are designed and tested in Melbourne, Australia for fast, easy and enjoyable swimming for athletes of all levels. They’re worn in and raced by Olympians, triathletes and open water swimmers from all over the world. And I personally use Great Ocean Wet Suits even before they became a sponsor of the podcast. I’ve personally found that the buoyancy, the freedom through the shoulders and the fit are the best that I’ve ever had in a wetsuit. So I highly recommend them and you can currently get 20% off either the gold or silver wetsuit models using our own code effortless20 at checkout. So enter the code effortless20 at checkout

at greatoceanwetsuits.com and no matter where you are in the world if you’re in Australia, the US, Europe there’s free shipping worldwide. So get yourself a great ocean wetsuit. I personally use the gold model of the wetsuit. It just depends on what your goals are. So greatoceanwetsuits.com effortless20 at checkout. I know you’ll like them. That leads into the next thing which is soft hands. And if you’ve listened to this podcast for a while you will have heard me mention the term soft hands where we don’t wanna be overly tense with the hands anywhere through the stroke. Just enough tension to hold the shape of them. So your fingers are reasonably close together. A bit of a gap is fine. But if you keep soft hands, then you’re going to move well and you’re going to feel the water much better than if you’re tense. So I like to really keep the hands soft or relaxed over the top of the water in the recovery especially with the entry.

I’ll sometimes have a bit of separation between the fingers when I enter the water. And then especially when I’m reaching forwards and extending. If I’m just cruising up and down and I’m not looking to go fast or anything like that I’m just looking to feel good and warm up. There’ll be a bit of separation through the fingers in the entry and through the reach. And I’m not talking much because good looking freestyle won’t be a hurried freestyle. It will be a longer, more relaxed stroke where you’re taking a bit more time in the reach or glide phase of the stroke. Never pausing, never stopping out the front. You’re always keeping in motion but you will take that little bit of time through the reach. So good looking freestyle is never hurried and never rushed. And by keeping the hands forearms relaxed or soft that allows you to do it much better. And for those swimmers that tend to be hurried and rushed just generally

they’re normally two tents straight away when the hands enter the water there. If you’ve got that tension and this is a good right way, wrong way drill to do in the pool is some 100 meters where you’re trying to keep your hands really tense and your forearms really tense and see how you feel with your entry and your reach. You’ll probably find that your stroke rushes more. You go quicker into the catch and you just can’t have the same sort of length that you would have if you keep that soft hands feeling. Do that back and forth and notice a difference. And you’ll find that you’re typically much better off with that relaxation through the hands and forearms. So we’ve got those things in place. You’ve got the right base position, correct amount of rotation there. You recover with an open underarm and the hand and forearm is somewhat relaxed. Then you enter fingers first, again, keeping that hand relaxed and then you reach forwards in the water

out in front of you, keeping the hands relaxed and soft still. Now the other couple of things that are important is obviously a good catch and pull. Now without going into too much detail with the catch and the pull we’ve gone into that with other episodes. Many of you have done the five day catch challenge which explains how to go through that in detail. But some key aspects of your catch and pull is it’s slow to fast. You’re going to be slower through the reach, a little bit slower through the catch and then you’re just going to gradually build up the speed through the catch and pull. So you’re a bit slower out the front of the stroke with a gradual buildup and acceleration out the back. Nothing too extreme, not really slow and then really quick but just a nice gradual buildup that will help you keep pressure on the water and buildup pressure as you go through that part of the stroke. You’re a good.

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In today’s episode, I wanted to get Victoria Smith, who recently joined the Maldives Camp, to share her swimming improvements over the 12 months. Tune in now!

01:11 What got you into swimming?

Follow Victoria on Instagram: @victorialucilleanne

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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. My guest today is someone who I don’t know how to introduce. It’s either swimmer, sailor, anesthesiologist, fashion designer. I don’t know where to start, but Victoria, welcome to the podcast. Hi, thanks for having me. I’m so happy to be here. We’ve gotten to know each other over the last almost 12 months now, since we started working together. And I got to meet you in person along with your husband Jody on our Maldives camp a couple of months ago, which was awesome. And I wanted to get on the podcast because in the last 12 months, it’s been awesome to watch your journey and just how much you’ve improved as a swimmer. And I recently, well, just today, I went back and looked at the very first video that you sent through because I’m like, what was that like? Yeah, how were you swimming back then? And well, it wasn’t as bad as what you’re making it sound there, but it was it just made a little bit of

refinement and I think and you only really started swimming last year in September, where you said you could hardly swim two laps back then. So to go from that to where you are now is incredible. So what’s got you started with swimming? So I have always been able to like tread water and I’ve never been afraid of the water, but I’ve never known how to do an actual freestyle stroke or any kind of stroke in particular. And my friend who I talk to almost every day, she is a pattern designer and makes patterns and I sew. So that’s how we met. She got into triathlons. And I talk to every day. So I’m seeing her like train and do all these, you know, cool things. And I’m exercising doing like kind of body weight hit type stuff. But I used to be a dancer. So I never really liked the concept of exercising because you have to exercise. I kind of like just having a goal or like enjoying what you’re doing and just happen to be exercising. Do

you know what I mean? Like just doing something you love, but not. So I was kind of interested in, oh, what’s she doing this triathlon thing? What is this about? And I’ve always been the kind of person that’s like, I’m only going to run if someone’s chasing me. I don’t ride my bike other than with my kids. And I never swam. And so I have a pool basically across the street. It’s like the community pool. And they were they had to sign up for like adult learn to swim classes. And I was like, well, if I’m gonna even consider this whole triathlon business, I’m gonna need to know how to swim. Like, like, let me just see if I can learn how to swim before I even like start anything else. And I was like, I feel like I had been having some injuries and some problems with like the workout I was doing. And I was like, I feel like swimming would be obviously better for my body. So I was like, this is gonna be good. This is gonna

be good. So I go and I call them and I end up taking the class is kind of a long story, but I end up taking the class and I’m with this other girl that’s terrified of the water. And then this other like gentleman that’s a lot older than me. And then I’m in there. And then there’s also this like 18 year old that looks like he could swim forever. And then I’m in and it’s me. And so we’re all just like starting out just kind of like blowing bubbles. And I’m like, okay, like, I’m not afraid of water, but I’ll do it. I’ll do it. And it was really good to kind of, you know, relax. And it was kind of like a sink down basically. And then I it was four classes, only $10 for four classes. And at the end, you know, we learned all the strokes. And at the end, he told us to swim to like the middle of the pool. And I was like, what? No. And so I did. And then I finally went all the way across. And when I got to the other end, I was

like, Oh my God, what just happened? Like, it took me like 10 years to get across. And then I was totally out of breath. So I wanted to obviously continue to swim. And I was talking to the coach, and he has a swim masters like us one masters program in the morning. They don’t compete or anything, but they just kind of swim together like as a group. And I was like, well, I don’t know when I can come because you don’t have to be work at like, you know, 630. And I need to get home before that. And the pool doesn’t open till five. And I don’t know when I get off and the pool opens, and it closes at like 4pm, and it’s not open on the weekend. So it’s very limited. And he’s like, well, you can come so in the morning with us at 430. And I was like, what? Geez, that’s an early start. But I was like, well, I get up at 530. Anyway, I was like, I mean, what’s an hour? Fine. Okay. So I started to come and he was giving me like these

sheets of like, it was like called swim a mile. And it was like a 12 week program where you build up to just swimming a mile continuously in the pool. And so it would be like, you know, I would swim like 25. And then it was like, okay, swim 50s. And then it just gradually built up. And it helped build my fitness. But I was still like, just working so hard. Like every lap was just so hard. And I was, I think I was just, you know, my head was up. And I was just not doing well. I was like, and he he had a lot of people that were swimming and he would swim as well. So he would he would tell me some things. But I started kind of YouTubing. So I was like, okay, I need to figure this out. Like, I need to research. I need to like, investigate like how to swim. So I started coming up on your videos. And I was like, okay, I can do I can learn all of these things. And I can get better at swimming. And but it will feel easier. And I was like, this is amazing. Like,

because I’m the kind of person like, I don’t want to spend a lot of time, like, doing something the wrong way. I think you had someone on the podcast that said something like, to one of his swimmers that he was spending a lot of time, like swimming the wrong way or like, you know, swimming like 3000 meters the wrong way or something. And I was like, well, I don’t want that to be me. But I don’t have that much time to waste. Like, I’m trying to do 5000 things in my life. I need to be efficient. So then I just started watching all your videos and and stumbled upon it and joined the membership. And even like the first, like, I think I sent you an email with a video, which I watched that video the other day. And I, it was so hard to watch. I was like, I don’t see how he can look at these things and not want to say like, 10 things at one time, you know, because it’s just so awful. But at the time, did you, like, when going back to that

first video, when you recorded it, when you watched it, did you have that understanding of what you were doing wrong though? Not really. I mean, the only thing I really noticed was I thought it was helpful to video myself and just watch myself because I had watched a lot of your videos too. But my biggest thing was like, when I saw like my head, I don’t think it was a video I sent you, but I had fixed it for a second to you. But like, my head was like, all the way out of the water, like, I don’t even know. I didn’t think it was that high. And I was like, you could see it like my whole head. And then when I turned it was like, I don’t know, like everything was out of the water. And I thought it was a lot lower than that. Like, I thought, Oh, I’m doing great. I’m low, you know, I feel like I’m good. But when I watched the video, I was like, Nope, that is not okay. But like, looking back at that first video, any

things that stood out to me there, and I know that we worked on was that, like, the first one was the breathing, you were turning and almost looking up to the ceiling. Yeah. And that was causing a lot of rotation through the through the shoulders, which was impacting the catch. And so I think the first thing we really started with was just that that breathing position and trying to stay a little bit flatter as you do that. Because if I’d mentioned 10 things and said, All right, now do this with your catch. And now I want you to make sure your hips don’t roll up. It’s just like, it’d be overwhelming. And yes, what’s been really pleasing for me, working with you is like, you’ve just followed the process. You haven’t been in a rush to change things. You just take your time. And that and in the results of, you know, 11, maybe 11 months now. It’s like, it’s amazing to see what you’re doing. And we saw that like stroke count was you

were 22, 23 strokes, maybe when we started. And then we’re down 18, maybe 19. Yeah, it’s probably more than that might started actually the eight that 22 is probably just a few months ago. But yeah, yeah, it’s a lot lower. Yeah. Yeah. And just watching you swim just purely by the visuals of it, you are holding so much more water. It’s like, it’s great to see that connection and the catch and the pool improve and all those sorts of things. So it’s amazing to have that kind of result in such a short space of time. And I mean, you’ve been really consistent with your swimming. You’re active, you’re doing it, you’re doing a lot. And you’ve just got that patience and willing to, you know, try one or two things at a time, which has been great to see. Has there been any frustrations that you’ve experienced with your swimming in since you started? Yeah. I mean, for a really long time, like, I felt like I was swimming

so much better. And I would look at my watch and be like, it’s the same time. You know, like the time just would not change at all. And I was like, but it’s just so much better. But I mean, it was just getting easier to swim. And then I think when I tried to coordinate my kick, I was like, Oh, my gosh, this is horrible. It feels so weird. Like, I thought I was doing it like, you know how I should be doing it. But when I actually, I think I was like kicking my left leg down when my right catch it, like, I don’t know, I think I was doing it completely the opposite way. Yeah, I don’t know how I think I had to do with my body rotation or something. But when I finally donated that, it was so much better. Like everything was so much better. I like when I, but when I was learning that it was so rough for like two or three weeks, I was like, this is horrible. I hate swimming. I feel so unnatural, you know, I even like I would

swim with a pull buoy and I would like still kick my legs a little bit just to kind of be like, remember, okay, which leg goes down and which arm goes, you know, was there something that that helped make it click or was there a drill or something that actually made it come together after a few weeks of frustration? Yeah, I was not the one with this. I would do it with fins, but you know, it would be like the single arm stroke or single arm drill, I guess, with the making sure your kick coordinates with it. And it helps to also coordinate it with the hand entry, because I think like one of the videos you had said that I like my kick was before my hand or something was entering before. Like I was coordinating it with the catch, but not like it was coming in too late or something. So I was trying to think of it like with both of them and like anything that’s in sort of a rhythm for me is really helpful. Like I’m very like I connect really

well with like music and rhythm and like just like, you know, just like a pattern. And so that was helpful for me. So I can like think about that drill, like when I’m swimming and that helps a lot. So could do you come from a dancing background? Yeah, I did that my whole life almost until part of college I could finally, but then that’s and it kind of comes across in your swimming. Like you’ve got good rhythm and flow in the stroke. And I see that with like sometimes like gymnasts as well who work with like you can kind of see it when they swim and the drill that you’re talking about sounds like it’s the single arm kick timing drill, which is you put fins on, you’ve got one arm in front and then you just do a single arm stroke and you want to try and coordinate the hand entry with your opposite foot kicking down. And then you want to coordinate the kick with the downwards kick on your left foot with your left arm. So and

it’s only two kicks per stroke. So you just focused on those things and I think we did that in the Maldives and most people, at least for the first five minutes, just like, oh my God, yeah, and it like and people just go, I don’t get it. I just cannot get this to happen. But eventually people start to get it with enough practice because it’s a tricky thing. It’s like, you know, trying to find a beat trying to find a rhythm when you’re dancing. I still can’t get that. You know, I probably need a good drill for that. But it’s the same thing in swimming like it’s it does take a lot of practice. But when it does come together, you get that full body timing and connection. And it just it feels good, you know, when you’ve got it. Yeah. And I had practiced that I had been practicing that drill for like three weeks before before the trip. And so whenever I was doing it, I was like, I’ve been there.

And like, I could do it. But I was like, I could not do it three weeks ago. So you got the head start on everyone. Yeah, I was like,

yeah, it’s and especially like what I noticed after you were sending three videos after the camp as well. You’re like, that’s that seems when things really came together for you. And like you said, in like our coaching thread is that part of that you feel like your swim strength has improved like what what changed there for you or what did you change to have yourself feel stronger in the water. This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, form 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 $228 US dollars. Now they’ve currently changed up the offer where you can now get the goggles and you have that one year membership included for free. And then if you’d like to continue with the membership going forward, it’s only 15 US dollars a month

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formswim.com forward slash effortless or use the coupon code effortless at checkout. So for a while, like way back when I was I would do the sets that I do with my squad and I would some of them would have paddles. And I think back then my catch was either I don’t remember like too deep or something was going on with it where it was causing a lot of pain here. And so I stopped using the paddles because I was like, well, I was thinking it worse. And so, you know, I stopped using them. But I think since I stopped using them for months and then my catch got a lot better, like technique wise, I wasn’t using just, you know, my shoulder or my pecs. I was using more of my back probably. And then when I went to the monitors, I was like, OK, I feel like my catch is doing pretty well. But I just can’t like keep it up for that long, you know, I can see like I just get tired, like I need to just swim more. But I do swim three times a week, but I

don’t really use paddles. And I was like, well, let me try those again, because I feel like my technique is a lot better. And I feel like they won’t let’s just see if they cause a problem this time. So it’d been a long time since I’ve used them. So I started using them more like whenever, not more than I’m supposed to, but whenever the set would tell me to use them, I would use them. And I feel like that’s helped me a ton. Like I try to use them and then I take them off and then I use them and then I take them off like I don’t do it for, you know, a thousand yards at a time, you know, I take breaks just because I want to try to feel the water with my hands also and not just, you know, with the paddles. But I really feel like that’s helped a lot, just the pals. And I also do, when I remember, I do like the bands, you know, for the rotator cuff, like the rotator cuff exercises. Yeah, with the band. Yeah. Yeah. And my arms have always

been like the weakest part of the enemy. And as a dancer, you have strong arms, but like my legs are always a lot stronger. So yeah, they’ve always been kind of not so great. So yeah, extra hard. It’s really showing. And like you just, it’s a very, it’s quite a unique movement swimming, especially the overhead movement of your catch. It’s just, there’s nothing really that you’d probably be doing in daily life that’s similar to that or similar to those muscles that you’re using. So it’s, yeah, it’s a different form of strength. And I think some of that comes with the time and practice and consistency. But if you can use the paddles and have that little bit more load on them, you can, you can increase the strength and also the TheraBand stuff is really good because you do lose it use a lot of their like infraspinatus, super spinatus through the catch movement. And I think part what might have been causing your shoulder pain through

the front initially with your catch was you were coming, you weren’t crossing under your body, but you were like just coming in a bit too much in the beginning, just loads, loads it up too much through the front of the shoulder. Then you started to come a bit wider, which allows you to get into the, to the lats just from memory. Thinking back to those years. Yeah, I was doing that as well. Yeah. I went through all the areas that was here and then it was here and you’ve found the sweet spot now, which is I’ve done a lot. Yeah. And look, you’ve got to try different things. And that’s what I was just checking out, making sure you were right. Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. And I mean, thinking of your times now, like you’re, I think you’re around two minutes at the start of the year, two minutes for like a roughly 400 and 200 meter time trial. And now I think you’re was it 140 or just under 140s? Probably like nice and easy. If I went for like

an hour, I would probably average to like 142 or 143 or something like that. Yeah, which is a lot better for me. Yeah, that’s really good, especially for having swum for just over 12 months. And then you’ve been doing some hundred time trials as well, just seeing what you can get down to. Is your current best 128? No, 127. 127. There you go. So you’re continuing to edge that down, which is cool. And and you recently sent through like a sprint video as well, like a 25, 25 sprint. And what I like there is that you’re letting things go. Sometimes people are trying to be too perfect with their stroke when they sprint, but you have to get the stroke rate up. So that was that’s really good to see. And I made some suggestions in our last coaching video there, where I think you can find a bit more speed. And some of that was around keeping your length. So when you’re entering and reaching forwards, the hands just rushing down a bit. So even

with sprinters, they’ll they’ll take that little bit of time to reach forwards in front of the shoulder and then start the catch. So I think you can just keep it hold your length a little bit more in the sprint. And it will. I think we can get that down to under 125 in the next month or two, which would be yeah, which would be a good, yeah, pretty good goal to hit. Should be awesome. And and thinking of you assuming what it like a lot of times when people start swimming, they they might try it for a few months and go, OK, this isn’t really for me. But it seems like it’s something that you quite enjoy. You’re doing it regularly. You’re coming to the Maldives for a swimming trip, which probably may not have thought you would have done 12 months ago. So what is it you like about swimming? I think I just love it because it’s so technical. Like I’ve always been like a math person and science person. And I feel like if I can just figure out

how to do something like with my brain, then it just I just love it more. It’s just cooler to me because I feel like I can conquer it like not just with hard work, but also with like technical, you know, I guess the technical part of it. So I think it’s just like something to conquer. Like it’s just kind of like a goal. Like I want to keep perfecting it and I want to keep analyzing it and keep like just and swimming for me. Like I have, you know, three kids. So and we’re really busy and there’s always so much noise and I listen to podcasts and stuff too. You know, and I’ve been learning French for a couple of months and so I’m listening to French podcasts. And then when I get in the water, it’s just silent and I’m just like, OK,

it’s just nice to like not because I think if I have the chance to like listen to something, then I’ll do it because I feel like, oh, I can’t waste time or whatever. But when I’m in the water, I can’t and it’s just like a free moment where I’m just like, I can just listen to nothing and it’s great. So it’s very relaxing. I always feel like my body feels so great afterwards, like I don’t have aches and pains or, you know, issues. You know, I had that one for a while, but that’s gone now. So I just I feel like it’s so easy on your body. And I don’t know. It’s fun. You used to not be fun, but now it’s funny how things become enjoyable and fun when you see improvement, you get good at them and you have an idea of what you need to do to continue to get better. Whereas when you’re coming at it with no experience, no idea of what you should be doing, you just bang your head against the wall and you can put in the hard work and see results.

But it is it’s frustrating. And I compare that to my like surfing for me. I started when I was 18. So I was an adult learner and like first two or three years I saw improvement because you’re just practicing and coming from nothing. But then there was probably a period of about seven years where I was just like exactly the same never got any better. And then I started to actually get some coaching and like listening to someone on YouTube as well. And I’m like, oh, my God, this makes so much sense. Like all these analogies, how you should hold your body, what you should do in different parts. I’m like, oh, my like my world has opened up now. And it’s so much more enjoyable. And I feel like I belong there more. Like if there’s good surfers in the water, I feel like I maybe I can’t match it with them. But I belong there and I’m not going to look like a total kook out in the water, which and that feels good. You know, for me, it’s like,

yeah, like I worked hard to get there and I’ve taken the time to learn these things. And for me, that’s really satisfying that I can see that improvement. And I know that I am getting better and I can still see what’s possible going forward as well. And for me, that’s like, yeah, I get a real kick out of that side of things. Yeah, I think like and it’s a habit for me now to like getting up Monday was a Friday every week and going to the pool. Like now I’d be like lost with that. Like the other day, the pool was closed for Veterans Day and it was Friday. And I was like, what? What am I supposed to do? I don’t understand. This is so weird. And my guy was like, just take a break day. And I was like, no, what? I want to break day. Yeah, that’s the same. And I if I get back from, say, coaching late on a Sunday, if I’ve been into state for clinics and I get home like one in the morning and training, I’ll get up at four thirty to go

training and I’m not going to do that because I’ll be pretty cranky during the day. Yeah, that but yeah, I’m just like, oh, I wish I had gone for gone to swim because it’s like, it’s part of the routine. It’s part of the habit. And you just feel so good because I find it hard to get that kind of workout in, you know, many other X in many other activities. It’s like swimming is just it’s a whole body thing. You’ve got that force meditation in the water. You’ve got the sound of the water as well. And I like that you can be very intuitive with like the effort that you’re putting in and you become hyper aware of how things feel, the output that you’ve got and little changes that you make to your stroke and what correlation they have to your speed and your pace and all those sorts of things. And so you just really just like it is it’s better than lying on the floor and meditating for half an hour. It’s like active meditation. Well, you’re just so you’re

just so aware of your body. Like I was having this conversation with my friend the other day because I was like, I feel like when you’re a dancer, you have to be very aware of your body, like what your arms and legs are doing because even without watching them, you know, I have to just like, you know, I used to have a ballet teacher that like it which you would think I’d be good at high elbow because she would come around and like put your elbow up like when you’re in a, you know, the first position or second position, she’d be like, no, no, because your elbow cannot be down when you’re, you know, so the stuff like that, like you have to know where everything is. And it kind of brings that back, like that feeling back for me, like when I’m in the water, like, OK, I felt like my hand slipped through the water, or like whenever I make a change and I can feel myself pushing more water and I’m like, it’s so cool.

Like when you can feel it, it’s just really cool. How did it take you to get that feeling of being able to hold the water or, you know, move it through? You know, I want to say I really like I felt I always kind of felt it with paddles. It’s easy to see feel with paddles, but like when I would take them off, I would try to get the same feeling. But I feel like after the trip after the swim trip, the Maldives, I think that’s when I really started to feel it because I feel like I finally like saw like I was going up and over kind of, you know, and that I felt like I was like scooping almost, you know, like scooping the water. And I feel like that’s when it really kind of clicked. But like before then I could start to feel like when I would really push back, I could kind of feel like what I was pushing. So I think it’s I don’t only remember like when I first started feeling it, but I do know that like any kind any time that you

would tell me to change something like it was easier than I would think to feel what I needed to change. But I did know I needed to change it until you saw it. But yeah, that’s what I think a lot of the dance trainings probably come in is that ability to the proprioception that you’ve got from it because it’s it can be really hard to know what you’re doing. But I think that dance training would have helped a lot there. And with the camp, like we were in the water twice a day, pretty much every day. That’s obviously more than what you’ve done before. You’re not normally doing three sessions a week. Did that do you feel like that consistency helped you sort of step it up in terms of your swimming? Yeah, definitely. Like I think that because I’ve heard people say before and I might have even heard you say this before, like even if you’re just going to get in for, you know, a couple hundred, like just to practice a few things, like just

reminding your body of something every single day. Like I feel like makes a huge difference. Like I wish I could go to the pool more than three times a week for that reason. But yeah, I think just like being repetitive, like just I think it just helps build the muscle memory like so much more because you’re just constantly doing the same thing correctly. And then you end up ends up just becoming part of how you swim, I guess. But yeah, I think it definitely made a difference. And that camp definitely challenged me in a lot of ways, especially when we swam around the island. I was like, oh my god, what? Never swam that far in my life. I was like so afraid to do it. And everyone else, it was like a normal day, you know? And so that’s probably one of those moments where you’re like with the surfers that are really good. And you know, you’re just I kind of was like, I don’t feel like I’m along here. But I did it and it was fine.

Yeah, well, you ended up doing two laps of the island, which I think is I think was about three and a half kilometers from memory and going one way is hard work because you’re swimming against the currents and you’re just seeing it’s like grains of sand at a time you’re moving past. It’s going so slowly. Once you get around the corner, then you’re flying and you feel like you just turned into Michael Phelps after that. Yeah, exactly. Which was it was good fun. It’s just the warm water, the sea life that the like the people there was that was so much fun. And and I like I doubt you’ve probably swum in like out in the ocean like that before it was probably quite a different experience. Did that did you feel like you gained confidence from that side of things in the open water and just being in the elements of it? Yeah, definitely. Because actually we had so we were we did sail in the Bahamas. No, the. Yeah, the Bahamas before that.

And I did swim a little bit, but I was so afraid the whole time and there were currents and wind and there was this giant stingray. And I was like, oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Done where I’m going back on the boat, going back in the boat and I’m eating some chocolate or something. I’m tough. But in the like in the Maltese, I was like, we were all swimming together and we were in this big group. And I was like, well, I feel safer because there’s so much so many more people around me. And so that helped. And I saw, you know, a couple of sharks swim below. And I was like, it’s fine. It’s fine. You know, it didn’t bother me. It was weird. And then we got so much practice with like open water, you know, with open water skills, like looking for the bubbles so you’re not like looking up while you’re swimming, like you can kind of keep your head where it’s supposed to be and just like see the bubbles of the feet in front of you.

Like that was super helpful. I’d never even thought of it that way. And then drafting. I drafted someone almost isn’t like halfway through swimming around the island. And that was great. It was just like a giant break. I was like, oh, this is so easy. So that was good to practice because I was in a safe environment. I didn’t have to like practice it during a race, you know, for the first time. So that was really cool. And yeah, and just and then you guys would be like, OK, go swimming around here. And I’m like, what? OK, fine. Like, you made it seem like it wasn’t a big deal even in my head. If I was just doing it on my own, I’d be like, oh, that’s so far. You know, but like. Yeah, that’s it’s been really good to just see kind of level up a bit with your swimming since coming back from that camp. And yeah, it feels like everything sort of come together really nicely. So I’m looking forward to seeing what the next couple of months hold for your swimming

because yeah, just keep sort of checking the boxes, making these adjustments and working your way up, which is awesome. And for someone who is either looking to start swimming or they’ve sort of just started swimming and they’re like, maybe how you were earlier in the year where it’s like, OK, I’m I’m working hard, but I don’t know what I need to focus on or what I can do. Like, what advice would you give to someone who was in the same situation to you earlier in the year? I would definitely say just be consistent because I there were probably months at a time where I didn’t really see that much of a change. But like, I knew that things were changing because I would send you a video and you would tell me something was better. So it’s hard to know, like, if you’re getting better because, you know, you’re maybe not videoing yourself or you’re not seeing a huge change in your times. But like, I feel like just consistently

going to the pool. Like, I feel like every time I go, like it does something. It’s kind of like funny because it’s just similar to dance because my dance teachers used to say, every day you don’t dance, it takes two days to make it up. You know, they would all like they would always say, especially at this one ballet school I went to, it was super intense. It’s the same thing. That’s what it kind of like. Yeah, it was just. Then be like, if you missed, you know, a day of dance because for us, it wasn’t just one class. It was like hours and hours of ballet or whatever. And so they were like, if you miss a day, then, you know, you’re behind. It takes like two days. I’m like, oh, my God. So I mean, that that’s like kind of the mentality that I was used to. And so now I’m like, you know, it just I understand is coming from that background, like how every time you get in the pool or every time you practice something like it, it does get better.

But it’s just it can be really small, but it’s still like really does get better. So I would say like the more you despise swimming when you start, the more you should go. Just like, you know, just go and it’ll eventually it will click and get, you know, get easier. But like it just you have to work at it like it’s not magic. Like even my arms like being not that strong. Like I feel like I just I have to just keep going and keep putting the work in and it might take like a couple of years to get faster, just based on my strength, even if my technique is good. I feel like I still just need to be stronger in general. So yeah. Yeah, that’s and it’s such an important lesson as a consistency and like you can’t steer a parked car. You need to be moving. You need to be going to the pool and try and try these things. So it’s yeah, great to see how far you’ve come and being a pleasure working with you as well and meeting yourself in Jodi and you’re both on the camp next year as well,

which would be great both swimming next year as well. So yeah, I can go to Jodi. He was on the beach. Pina colladas and there he’s got to join us. Yep. So yeah, I’m looking forward to that. So thank you very much for being on the podcast and sharing your story and looking forward to working with you in the months to come. Thank you so 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.effortlesswimming.com.

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So thrilled to have Ironman World Champion Gustav Iden in today’s podcast episode. Tune in now as he shares his inspiring journey toward success!

02:02 What’s changed for you after winning Kona?

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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. Before we get into today’s very exciting episode with Iron Man World champion Gustav Eden, I want to let you know about two offers that we’ve got available at the moment. The first one is we’re running a Black Friday sale on our eight week faster freestyle course and beginner freestyle course. I’ll put the links below if you’d like to purchase either one of those, but that’s going to be running until November 28th. So you’ve got until then to get those courses for 50% off if you’d like to either improve your freestyle, make it faster and more efficient, or if you’re more at that beginner level and you’d like to be able to swim 400 meters continuously without stopping, that course is designed for you, the beginner freestyle course. So check out the links in the description of this episode to get half price off those two courses until November 28th. The other offer

that we’ve got available is form goggles are running a 20% off Black Friday sale from November 24th to the 28th. If you go to our link, which is formswim.com forward slash Effortless, then you’ll be able to get access to that discount there. So they’re only running that over the Black Friday weekend. Again, I’ll put the links below if you’d like to get your pair of form goggles, which as you probably know, I’m a big fan of I use in a lot of my sessions and the athletes that I have recommended to and they’ve started using it have had a lot of success with them and really enjoy them. So I’ll put those links in the show notes. Let’s get into today’s episode with Ironman World Champ Gustav Eden. It’s not often I get up at 3.30am in the morning to record a podcast, but when you’ve got the Ironman World Champ on the line, I’ll do anything to to record a podcast. So Gustav, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. Yeah, it’s it’s early for you

didn’t realize you were on a New Zealand time. So yeah, sorry about that. No, that’s okay. I know you’ve had a very busy schedule. So you know, whenever we can get you on the podcast, it’s very exciting to have you on, especially since you won Kona about two weeks ago, or three weeks ago now. And yeah, like with that race, has anything changed since you won Kona? Yeah, people ask me like, if things change if I win something big, for me, it’s like a gradual thing. I think the biggest win for me was back in 2019, when I won my first the half Ironman World Championship. And that was kind of revolutionary there in comes to, yeah, to sponsor and media attention and everything. But since then, it’s just been like gradual evolution. And yeah, obviously Kona is the biggest thing I’ve won so far. But I saw myself winning it already a long time ago. So it’s not too much I’ve changed, I still have to do all the training and I still

have to, yeah, to live my life as a high performance athlete. But of course, it’s more attention from the media. And today I had a press conference back home. And yeah, it’s, it’s a lot of more, it’s a lot more attention, but training wise, it’s still the same. And I still love the training. So not too much. Every time I see any videos of you or podcasts with you, you’ve got this grin on your face that it seems like you just absolutely love the sport. What are some of the things that really draw you to it? Yeah, it’s I love being outside. That’s my like, number one love. It doesn’t really matter the weather, even though it’s hard being from Bergen in Norway, where we have a lot of rain and a lot of darkness. But just love being outside and also love this adrenaline rush of going fast. So it’s a miracle I haven’t done anything stupid on a bike yet. But yeah, I just love the speed and adrenaline and yeah, being

outside. And I have to say swimming is kind of, I know this is, it’s a swimming podcast. But it’s sometimes a bit boring. And especially since I don’t feel like I’m not a natural swimmer. I don’t get the hang of it as some others do. And I know it’s yeah, obviously, everyone is working harder to swim. But I feel like I’m working really hard, but don’t get all that out of it as someone else. But yeah, still just love training and being activity. I think, I think some people would hear you say that and go, but you, you swam a 48 at Kona, you’re in the front pack. How can you not be a natural swimmer? But by the standards of it, it’s something where you have to really put in the work to get there. Can you talk to me about the Kona swim and what you did to manage to be with the lead pack there? Yeah, so my swimming, I have been working so hard over so many years. Another felt like I had like a breakthrough way

of swimming kind of. I always tried to, yeah, just swim a lot and see how things go. But for Kona, we did a lot more open water swimming and training that we normally do. And partly because in Hawaii, we only had access to 25 yards or meter pool, which for us is a bit short. And also, you’re in Hawaii. And you have access to this beautiful ocean. So yeah, going into the race, we did a lot more volume in open water. And I think that was a key because swimming in open water is not the same as swimming in a pool, not only because of the current and the waves, but because you don’t get any breaks, like in the flip turns. And also, you have to do a lot more sighting. And yeah, it’s generally just different. So I think that was one of the reasons why I was able to be with the front pack there. We’re doing any race simulation in training in the open water? Yeah, to do race simulation, it’s actually really hard. You

need a quite big group to do that. So we didn’t do too much, we just had focus on some intensity training together with my training partner, Christian, and we did some starts from the beach and those kind of things. But yeah, to do the race simulation, it is pretty difficult because, yeah, you need kind of like the real aggressiveness of the group to really get the sense of how it’s going to be in a race. And the week before before the main race, the corner, they have this open water swim race. We didn’t prioritize to do it this year, but a lot of athletes actually do the open water swim to get the sense of how things will be on race day. And I think that’s a pretty, it’s a pretty smart way to do it because open water swimming, especially in a race, in the race, did you know you were with the lead pack? Yeah, so the dynamic of the race was a bit special. So I wasn’t actually with the front pack the whole way. It was

about after 1000 meter, I think it was almost splitting up. And yeah, I think the front maybe settled down just a little bit. So I was able to catch up again. But it’s yeah, I had an idea after the halfway point where I could see the leaders that I knew that I was in the front pack. But in the start, I had no reference to anyone. And I just tried to keep on the three feet in front of me. And yeah, swim as easy as possible, as fast as possible. But it’s pretty chaotic out there. And yeah, when you’re laying down in the water, it’s pretty hard to look above the feet in front of you. So I didn’t have like an overview of exactly where I was. But when I came closer to the finish, and I saw all the big names around me. And I realized I was in the front pack. And actually, I relaxed so much that I was wondering if people were like breaking in the front, because I was swimming so, so, so relaxed. So that was a nice feeling. And not something I’m

used to in a triathlon. So normally, I’m here so far behind that I’m stressing the whole way to the end of the swim. But this time I actually could relax a bit. So that was nice. Do you think that helped you later on in the event? As you, as you relax, you tend to perform better. Was do you feel like that was the case knowing that you made the front swim pack? Yeah, definitely. So if I didn’t make the front swim pack, I would have to push more in the start. And also it’s hard to know how hard you should push. So it’s not only that you are behind and have to catch up. It’s like, you have to do a lot of calculations in your head. If you should go way above threshold now for 10 minutes to catch the leaders or if we go slightly easier, but then catch them after 30 minutes. Now I knew I was with the front. So then I didn’t have to do all these calculations in my head, I can just relax and follow the group. So yeah, definitely

had a huge impact on a race that I was able to be in the front. I heard the had some of the ritual podcast and I think maybe before the race, you spoke to Mark Allen, maybe asking, you know, what’s your advice? And he said something about like respect the island or respect the spirit of the island or something. And in your mind, you’re just like, nah, like, it’s not about that. It’s about like getting out there and racing. I thought that was quite interesting. Your approach is just like, no, this is like, it comes down to the training I’ve done and everything and that outside thing or the way where it just that doesn’t apply to me. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? I thought that was quite interesting.

Yeah, so I’m not I don’t have any like, yeah, superstitious beliefs or anything. But I do believe you can change your performance with mentality, of course. But it’s not something that comes from the outside. But if you actually believe it comes from the outside, then you have to kind of believe that if that makes sense. So if in your head, you are superstitious, and you need to have the help of the Highland, it doesn’t help to say to you, no, you don’t need it because then it just hurts your performance. Because it’s something that just grinds in your head. But for me, I have no nothing like that. So it’s pure, scientific and mentality part comes from confidence in training and confidence in my plans on race day, and just confidence that my equipment is the right that I can do the right things on race day. So yeah, the island believes this is not for me. But I know I heard a lot of feelings when I say that. But

yeah, I can’t change who I am just to save someone’s feelings. Yeah, yeah, that’s right. And then in terms of the, I guess, the scientific side of swimming, so like biking, running, more a little bit simpler in terms of the scientific side of things with swimming, you’ve got technique which is a large aspect of it. What’s been your focus with technique over the last couple of years? Are there things that you have worked on changing or improving? Are there things that you think about when you’re in the water? Yeah, so as mentioned, swimming is so hard to instrument. We have tried different things to measure swimming. And yeah, it’s really hard to find something that that you can use that also don’t take a lot of time changes the way you swim. So we tried some paddles that was measuring the the power, yeah, the way you swim and some different things. But it’s usually extremely hard to find out data for swimming. But now we have these started

using form goggles, which is a good start, but it’s not the end goal of how I want to instrument swimming. But for my part, it’s yeah, I do, of course, think a lot when I swim. But it’s for me, it’s hard to see how I swim from the outside. So if I see a video of me swimming, it’s like, do I really swim like that? And it’s hard to when a coach tell me to do something on land to implement it in the water. So that’s been my main focus for technique over the last few years. But now I am more leaning towards just trying to, yeah, don’t follow the visual guidelines in swimming. I know a lot of coaches have like this idea of how swimming should look. But if you for example, see running, the best runners, they don’t look the same while running. And we have to see that we all should swim different to reach the end goal. It’s not like that is one size fits all in swimming, especially being different. Yeah, body size, the flexibility, and if your

strength is, yeah, view to max or threshold or whatever, we need to swim differently to achieve the same end goal. So for me, now I have kind of ignored swim coaches that is giving me insights just based on visual data and start using more more concrete data like oxygen consumption, and lactate and more feeling and going that way. That’s funny because we run clinics in Australia, we do a lot of underwater filming and analysis with with age group triathletes and other swimmers as well. And one of the comments we get all the time when they first see themselves swimming is, I can’t believe that’s how I look. That’s not how I thought I swam. And initially, it’s quite painful for them to like, Oh, I mean, I don’t want to look at it like it’s, it hurts just to know that I look like that swimming. However, like you mentioned, it’s not about how you look, it’s about the end result. You know, are you hitting those times, are you doing it at the right

effort level? So it’s good to know that the world champion still has those same issues when it comes to how you look compared to how you think you look. And it’s so true that it’s, there’s so many different styles. I mean, even at the elite end in swimming, if you look at the 1500 freestyle, there was four somers very close together in the Olympics last year. And some very different styles and ways of swimming there. So it really just comes down to the individual and their body type and their range of motion and all those sorts of things. And as a swim coach here, one of the best swim coaches in Australia called Michael Boll. And he was talking to Dan Atkins who works with, he’s a triathlon coach, works with a lot of the elite Aussie triathletes. And he’s, their swim squads were next to each other one day. And Michael Boll said to Dan, just get them in the best position you can and then just get them as fit as you can from there.

Because when you looked at the difference between the swimmers and the triathletes, it’s just, it’s a different, a different way of moving because you spend so much time on the bike and the run. So the swim doesn’t need to be pretty. It’s just got to be fast and good for, good for open water, which is quite a different stroke, like you mentioned. This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, Form Goggles. They are currently running a Black Friday sale from November 24th to the 28th, where you can get 20% off your pair of Form Goggles. Go directly to our link at formswim.com forward slash effortless. That’s formswim.com forward slash effortless to receive your 20% off Black Friday discount. Then 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 $228 US dollars. Now,

they’ve currently changed up the offer where you can now get the goggles and you have that one year membership included for free. And then if you’d like to continue with the membership going forwards, it’s only $15 US dollars a month where you get access to their workouts, training plans and their custom workout builder. But you’ll always have access to the real time data of the goggles, so you’ll never lose access to that. So if you’d like to swim without stopping to look at a pace clock or your watch and get live metrics right inside your goggles, including your time, distance, pace, they are right there in your goggles with Form Goggles. I’ve used these for over 12 months now and I’m a huge fan of these goggles and use them for majority of my sessions and find them very helpful, especially for gauging my time, my effort, and my pace. And I think it’s a very helpful tool for the majority of swimmers that I would

normally work with. So to get your pair of Form Goggles, go to formswim.com forward slash effortless. That’s formswim.com forward slash effortless. Yeah. And also, yeah, of course, swimming or videotaping, it helps, definitely. And it helps also giving like a visual impact for athletes, but it’s only, you can only take it that far. If you’re doing some obvious mistakes, then, yeah, you have to do the filming and do those things, but spending hours upon hours to change your technique based on visual reference. That’s not how I think it should be done. But for ace strippers, it’s definitely the way to go to do some videotaping just to get a sense of how you’re actually swimming. So I do support you there at the swim cleaning. And when you are swimming well, how does it feel for you compared to when you’re not swimming well? For me, it’s, yeah, it’s a lot of about how I can breathe. If my breathing is relaxed. And usually

it’s when I’m in good shape, then I can just hammer it and have a slightly higher frequency. And then just, yeah, if you swim more rapid with the stroke, you can also breathe more often. And that’s when I usually swim the best. So if I think I swim good with a good technique and have like long strokes, then I actually not swimming that good. But my breathing is too slow. And then I after five, six minutes, I tend to lose power and get too much acid in my bloodstream. So yeah, with a higher frequency of breathing, then I’m usually swimming the best. And how often are you doing lactate testing in the pool? It’s like a period dependent. So towards Kona, we didn’t do too much because then it’s more focused on race pace and not the metabolic training effect. But in a usual altitude camp, we can do, yeah, maybe five sessions a week. And then we do like four tests per swim. So then it means about 20 tests only in the swims a week. So it can be

That’s a lot of what I was expecting. Yeah, it can be quite a lot. And it can be periods where we don’t do anything at all. So it depends on what the focus is. So we only do lactate testing when it’s a metabolic training effect we are. And do you feel like you get fitness from swim training that helps you with the ride and run? Or do you feel like it’s separate? Yeah, kind of you do. But it’s a different kind of fitness. And right now we are focusing more on the total calorie load. So of course, you do get fit in the sense of you burn a lot of calories, and it’s good for your metabolic effect. But I don’t think you necessarily get a faster runner by swimming, but you do get more fit. Yeah, yeah, makes sense. I’ve got a couple of rapid fire questions for you that our listeners have sent in. So you can have these answers be as short or as long as you like. The first one is on average how many kilometers do you swim a week? So now

I’m about six sessions a week. I would say the average swim session is about 4k. So not insane volume, but we tried to have higher volume before. And for me, it didn’t work at all. I couldn’t handle the volume on the slower pace. And if I tried to do more on high pace, I couldn’t. It wasn’t sustainable. So now we have gone back a bit on volume on the swim and do a bit more intensity. So yeah, about six sessions a week with 4k is average. And for Kona, at what point did the right start to hurt for you?

It never really hurt that badly, but it was more the mental fight when I passed Sam Lado because up until that point, it was more firstly a battle between me and Christian. And then when I dropped him, it was a battle to catch up with Sam Lado. And from that point, I didn’t have like a clear person that I wanted to beat. It was just more getting to the finish line. And I had basically everything to lose. So if I didn’t win at that point, it would be extremely bad. So yeah, when I passed Sam Lado and still had like six, seven K to go, that was the worst part. But it didn’t hurt in that way. So hurt less than like some of the short course races that you’ve done. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s a different kind of effort for sure. And what’s the most important advice you’ve gotten your career and why? Yeah, it’s hard to give only one advice. But I have this motto I’m kind of living for. And it’s winning is a choice. And it’s more behind that than just

winning. It’s more that you have to take a lot of choices in both training, but mostly the day to day life. Like is this going to make me a better athlete? Or is this going to make me motivated to continue for another 15 years of this sport? So it’s more like evaluating every aspect of your day to day life and see if that makes you a better athlete or not. And if it doesn’t make you a better athlete, why do you do it? Is it for your own pleasure? Or is it? Yeah, what’s the reason you’re doing it? So try to have an active relationship with the choices you take at the every step of your day to day life. And then usually you would find you’re doing something without reason and take that out of your life. And maybe do some more training or eating or whatever. So winning is a choice. Do you take the same grams of carbs in swim practices? You do the biking? Usually no, because a swim session for me is not that long. And I do more

focus on recovery after. But yeah, usually it’s intensity and distance related. So if I have a longer, harder swim session, then I definitely hit the same grams per hour as I do my bike and run. But just since it is usually a shorter session, I don’t have that high intake. What’s your standalone marathon time? I never did a standalone marathon. I only did it in the Ironman. And yeah, I get this question a lot. I don’t think I could run that much faster at the standalone marathon right now with the same training as I do in an Ironman. But I think if I had this right course, some time to prepare, I think I would be able to reach the Olympic standard, which was 213, I think. And back, I don’t know what it is now. But yeah, I think I will be able to do that with some specific training, but definitely not as a triathlete. Do you see that happening any time soon? No, so I’m too much in love with the biking and just a challenge of triathlon to ever go

running. If I did one sport outside of a triathlon, I think it would be cycling just because the lifestyle is really chill. Have one session a day and spend the rest of the day in a cafe or something. So the cycle is going to be too nicely.

That’s right. What setting do you use on your form goggles? Like what are you looking at? What metrics when you swim? It depends on the focus for the period and also the focus of the session. So I have some different screen times both on the, I think it’s called interval settings and the lap swim setting. But usually it’s a frequency or then 50 meter times. So then that’s like the standard one. I like to have the heart rate on if I swim with a heart rate. So that’s the three main things for now. And I’m so bad at counting. So for the flip turns I have the last or the total distance because I can’t count on swim. So I’m so bad at that.

You’re not alone. There’s one guy I swim with who every main set guaranteed to miss a 50 or 100 and miscount. So I feel like I need to give him the goggles, but they’re good for that. If it was just that alone, is that worth the money? The next one is what’s the best piece of tech from Santaratec for a mid-pack age group? That’s a hard one. Yeah, it’s most of the things is pretty expensive to just buy it to to have it on your own, especially if you don’t know how to use it. So hopefully we can work in the future to bring it more to the masses. But for now, I think I don’t want to like give an advice to buy equipment that costs, I don’t know, maybe from thousand dollars and upwards. It’s quite an investment. But it’s more for now, I think more for the club to buy in to use, especially the virtual master as a club to buy into to use it together with the club. But the one thing I would say is it’s maybe just invest in in your

sports nutrition and do the Morton product. I know it’s not like the technology in the same sense of like a tech piece. But sports nutrition is so insanely important that it’s worth to buy the Morton to have a good Ironman time. Makes sense. I’ve already asked what your favorite way like triathlon. So the next one is what’s your least favorite thing? We try it long with triathlon. I think the struggle on the swim for me. If I go like a longer period, some races where I feel like I’m really, yeah, shit, that’s swimming. I’m trying so hard, but the terms are just going backwards. And I don’t get the sense of why it’s going so slow. If you know why, then at least you can do something about it. But if you feel like you’re really doing your best and it’s still not going anywhere, that’s my biggest struggle with triathlon. Luckily, I have been at least struggling basically nothing with injuries. So if I had a lot of struggle with that, I

guess that would be my biggest issue with triathlon. But yeah, struggling on a swim. That’s not fun. Yeah. Gotcha. And the last one here is does you strike right or does your kick change between different distance events? Or does your swim change between different events? It’s probably a better question. Yeah, I mean, the intensity do change. So I do a little bit more kick in the start of a sprint in the Olympic than I do for the full distance. But it’s actually the worst kind of swimmers out there is the half firm and swimmers. They are so aggressive in the start. I don’t know why it’s why it is like that. I think maybe it’s because in the Olympic distance and sprint distance, we have at least enough space to space out and not have too much fighting in the start. But for all the half Ironman’s I’ve done, people have been so insanely aggressive in the start. So that’s actually been where I’ve been kicking the most in the

start because I just have to fight people off. So I don’t know if they’re desperate to reach the front group or what it is. But yeah, they’re so aggressive. And I think Ironman should do something about it because it’s not even swimming anymore. It’s just fighting the first 200 meters almost. Really? Yeah, right. Is it because you think part of that’s because you’ve got the drafting on the bike in the shorter events typically. So people are a little bit more relaxed about things or me. I don’t know. I think in in the half Ironman in St. George than it was pretty narrow place we started. And also it was in it was so dark. So I think people just realized that if I can see anything, the judges can see anything. And I won’t get any penalty anyway because no one can see me. So I can’t just drag this guy under. So in St. George, it was terribly bad. And it’s not good for the athletes or the sport to behave like that. So I’m not saying I’m like

perfect, but I don’t I don’t do anything in particular to someone. But you get dragged in the feet or held under in the half. So it’s his athletes are known to be bad at that. You don’t need to name any names. Yeah, some are more aggressive and known to be more aggressive. So but usually it’s just they’re desperate in the start and willing to do whatever to get in front. And I think since it’s less personal in the swim, you can’t communicate and you don’t really see who it is. Then it’s easier to get away with. You obviously wouldn’t do it on on a run because then you would get the yelled at that. I think people are afraid of the like personal reaction. But in a swim, it’s yeah, you’re in your own bubble kind of and you just do whatever you can to get to the frontpack. Yeah, it’s weak mentality, I would say. Yeah. And then so your target now is Paris 2024. What’s what’s your thinking behind that being the number one goal for you now? What’s the

appeal of the Olympics in 2024? For me, the Olympics was yeah, one of the reasons I started with triathlon. I really wanted to firstly go to the Rio Olympics. That was like it was too early for me, obviously, but I had like this small ambition to maybe make it in 2016. I didn’t make it, but I still was like a big motivation for me. And then for Tokyo, it was all about winning the gold there. And I knew the few weeks going into the race that yeah, I wasn’t that the level I needed to be to to win there, but I still had an OK performance coming eight, but it was not the race I was there for. So I feel

yeah, I’m really I really missed that Olympic gold. And I wouldn’t be happy with my triathlon career without giving everything I can to win there. And yeah, it’s just the reason why I started loving triathlon is the Olympic game. So I can’t give up the Olympic dream just to go long distance just because it’s more attention and more sponsor money and everything. For me, it’s still maybe 15 years left of this sport. And to just do long distance to please others from now on would be yeah, not as fun as to really do everything I can to win the Olympic games. Yeah, I think it’s great going with what deep down really drives you and motivates you. And maybe it maybe you won’t earn as much money for the next two years because of sponsorship and that sort of thing or as much attention. But if it’s a thing that pleases you most, that’s what I think in the long run really tends to matter. Yeah, and I see some comments like, why would Gustav go back

to shortest and see just one corner? But they really don’t understand what sports is about. If it’s just about finding the easiest to win, then yeah, it will not be fun at all. It’s about the challenge and the constant development and do what you think is fun. So not only about doing what’s maybe fitting you the best, but doing what you love the most. Well, Gustavo, I appreciate you being on the podcast. I was really excited coming on to the podcast to chat to you because that’s not every day gets a chance to chat to a world champ. So I wish you all the best for the future and thanks for being a guest on the podcast. Thank you. 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.

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