Effortless Swimming

Why does swimming feel so hard after just a short break from the pool? In this episode, we talk about the importance of consistency in swimming and why regular time in the water is the key to feeling faster, smoother, and more comfortable. We also cover how drills like front scull can help improve your feel for the water and regain confidence after time away from training. If you’re searching for the “secret” to better swimming, this episode breaks down why consistency beats shortcuts every time.

00:11 – Why consistency matters so much in swimming

Transform your freestyle to be effortless and smooth with online video analysis:

Try the new Nanoclear Anti-fog Goggles: https://bit.ly/nanocleargoggles

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. If you’ve ever taken several weeks out of the water and you’ve come back and you feel like you’ve forgotten how to swim, you’re not alone. There’s something about our body that needs to get used to being in the medium of water, that needs to have this consistency of swimming and doing laps on a regular basis to feel comfortable, stable and balanced and in control. And so one of the hardest things to do in swimming is to be consistent, but if you want to get better then consistency to me is the key and consistency is doing ideally three swims a week without taking a week off. Now I know here and there you often have to travel, things come up and it might be say two sessions, but you will notice a big improvement in your swimming if you can swim

three times a week for weeks and weeks and weeks in a row without taking time off. Even if you’re sick or injured there’s usually ways around it. Maybe if you’re sick then you can’t push as hard, you have to swim easy, or if you’re injured maybe you’ve got to do purely kick or you’ve got to wear fins or there’s something else you can do there, but having that time in the water there’s no shortcuts around it. That is one of the things that it sucks, but it is going to make your swimming feel easy and it’s going to allow you to feel like you belong in the water because your body just gets used to holding itself in a balanced way in that medium of water. And so if you think about why people who grew up swimming just can always look and feel just so comfortable, it’s because their bodies just gotten so used to being in that medium and so if you can have that consistency over ideally like six months or 12 months where you’re just doing it on a consistent basis

you will start to see that gradual progression. Now one of the ways to fast track that feel for the water or at least enhance it is doing something like front skull. So there’s exercises and there’s drills that you can do to help build up that connection with the water. And to me one of the best ones is front skull where you’re scaling with your arms out in front and you’re sweeping side to side. That will give you that feeling of keeping pressure on your hand and your forearm which is your big paddle. That’s the main thing that’s going to move you forwards and scaling really enhances that feeling of connection with the water. So let’s say you do take a week out just for whatever circumstances arise. Well by doing some front skull and that might be something like 1225s of front skull with a pull buoy between your legs. Doing that is part of your session. That can help you enhance or regain that feeling for the water. And so one of the hardest things to do

but one of the best ways to get better is to be consistent. It is the key to being a better swimmer and if you look at some of the some of the pro triathletes that I’ve watched and some that I’ve worked with they didn’t grow up necessarily as swimmers but because they have swum for five years six years seven years very consistently they’ve just progressively gotten better because I’ve spent that time in the water. So if you’re looking for the magic pill or you’re looking for the secret to swimming a 115 pace you’ve got to put the work in. There’s no shortcuts to that and consistency is the way to do it. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster more efficient swimmer go to www.effortlesswimming.com

The post It Sucks, But It Will Make Swimming Feel Easy appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

What if the key to swimming faster is actually ignoring your watch? In this episode, we explore how constantly checking pace, splits, and stats can take swimmers out of the moment and disconnect them from the feel of the water. Learn why being present during training can improve technique, effort control, and overall performance — and why taking a break from your swim watch might be the reset you need.

From Strava habits to flow state training, this episode challenges swimmers to focus less on data and more on awareness in the pool.

Accurate Timestamps

00:14 – The cliff road analogy and being present

01:06 – Why swimming is all about feel for the water

01:56 – Watches vs using the pace clock at the pool

02:24 – Manually tracking swims instead

Transform your freestyle to be effortless and smooth with online video analysis:

Try the new Nanoclear Anti-fog Goggles: https://bit.ly/nanocleargoggles

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.

Imagine driving along a cliff top road, amazing scenery, and you’re watching the ocean pass by, and you’re thinking this is amazing, and you’re in the moment, and you’re really just truly appreciating the view that you’ve got. And then from the back seat, your five year old asks you, are we there yet? And it takes you out of the moment. That’s kind of like what a watch will do to your swimming. A watch will take you out of the moment and not allow you to be as present as you could when you’re swimming. And the problem with that is swimming is so much about the feel for the water and the ability to be present and hear the water moving over you, feel it rushing over your hands and your body and you just having that internal gauge of the intensity and the effort that you’re putting on and how you’re moving through the water that if you get taken out of that, because you’re looking at your watch and you’re trying

to hit a certain time, that is one of the things that is going to stop you from improving as quick as you could. And some people like to track their swims with their watch so that they can post it on Strava. But I would argue that you will actually get way more improvement and become a better swimmer by not worrying about what Strava says and not worrying about what your watch says and just allowing yourself to be more in the moment when you go to the pool. And I’ve seen this with many swimmers that will come into the wall, they’ll hit stop on their watch, they’ll check their time and then they’ll go again. Whereas you’ll have some swimmers who aren’t using a watch and they’re using the 60 second clock at the pool to see what times they’re doing and see what times they need to leave on. And they are the ones that are typically much more in that flow state because you can get taken out of it by using your watch. And personally, I found that

when I used the watch for a couple of weeks, just to kind of test it out, I was always worried about what my time would say at the end on the watch. I’d always want to be trying to hit a certain pace and I’d be doing an aerobic set, trying to hit a faster time than I actually needed to, because I just wanted to beat what my watch was going to tell me. And that’s just something that stopped me from actually putting in the right amount of effort. And it took me out of that flow state with my swimming. And I see it with so many swimmers these days. So if you’re currently on your watch all the time, what you could try instead is track your swims manually, whether that’s like a 3K swim or three and a half K swim, just put it in manually to your Strava or your Garmin app and just tell your coach, look, I want to get better at swimming. And I feel like the watch is a distraction right now. I’m doing the swims, but I’m just going to track it manually and

see how you feel after a month of not using your watch. And I would argue that most people would find that they actually become better swimmers by getting rid of the watch when it comes to swimming in the pool. So let me know in the comments, do you use a watch? Do you not use one? And is this something that you would try for a month just as a trial to see if it’s something that will help you actually get better at swimming? Let me know. 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 Once You Ignore Your Watch, You’ll Get Faster appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

In this episode, we sit down with professional triathlete Steph Clutterbuck to break down the real secrets behind efficient freestyle swimming. Instead of grinding harder in the water, Steph explains how better technique—especially rotation, body position, and connection—can dramatically improve your speed.

We dive into why many swimmers struggle with a flat, disconnected stroke and how that leads to wasted energy. Steph shares practical tips on how to stay long in the water, engage your core, and create a smoother, more powerful stroke.

If you’re stuck at a plateau or feel like swimming faster requires exhausting effort, this episode will completely change your approach.

0:11 – Introduction Overview of freestyle technique and common mistakes swimmers make

0:20 – Why swimmers struggle to get faster.

1:10 – The problem with swimming “flat”.

2:10 – Why a flat stroke wastes energy.

3:15 – Importance of body rotation.

4:20 – Timing and coordination.

5:30 – Catch vs whole stroke.

6:40 – Staying long in the water.

7:45 – Using your core in freestyle.

9:00 – Common beginner mistakes recap.

10:10 – How to swim faster with less effort?

Transform your freestyle to be effortless and smooth with online video analysis:

Try the new Nanoclear Anti-fog Goggles: https://bit.ly/nanocleargoggles

Follow Steph on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephclutterbuck/

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.

A few years ago, I came across a clip of Steph clatter back in the water that completely stopped my scroll. At the time, her swim videos were being shared and ripped off by hundreds of other accounts because of how easy she made it look. Fast forward to today, and she’s not just a viral highlight, she’s a pro triathlete who consistently clocks top 10 swim splits on the world stage. Today, we’re going beyond the Instagram reels to break down the actual mechanics of that stroke. I started swimming. I think I must have been three or four years old. I joined my first swimming club when I was seven or eight years old and started racing when I was nine or 10 years old. So for me, it’s been a very, very long time staring at the black line at the bottom of the pool. But I’ve learned a huge amount and Stephanie shaped me of who I am today. I started to think about my technique. Honestly, probably only as an adult. Like I remember when I had a, I had like a

10 year period where I didn’t swim. So I stopped swimming when I was 19 and then started back up again. Oh, maybe it was less than that. Maybe it was six years when I was training for a triathlon. When I was younger, it was definitely technique was forced upon me by coaches. So I had a coach that would walk down poolside with a wooden stick and would hit your head if it was too high, would hit your bum if it was too high. Like it was, I don’t want to say hands on because that sounds really weird, but it was quite physical coaching to help you understand body movement and body position. And as I got older and started to understand how to move my body to get a result, that’s when I was able to actually think about technique in a way that was a little bit more than, oh, I need to put my head down or pick my head up. And certainly now as a triathlete where I’m swimming less and I need to get more and more out of my stroke and I’m swimming open

water rather than in a pool. It’s added in a whole another layer of complexity that I’ve had to dial into how I’m thinking about my stroke. In terms of head position, I seem to decide to change it pretty much every session. So in the pool, I can get away with having my head slightly lower because I have quite high body positions. So my body stays quite high. My bum is quite high out of the water. So I don’t need to keep my head high necessarily. Like it kind of balances out. You add in the wetsuit and it almost brings my legs too high and it throws off how I’m used to swimming. So I have to have my head a little bit higher when I’m open water just to try and bring my bum down a little bit more. So it’s different swimming with a wetsuit than swimming with a swimming costume. And I probably have a different challenge than a lot of age groupers where they enjoy the wetsuit because it keeps their legs up. Whereas for

me, I kind of want them to drop down a little bit more. I like to think of myself as a log when I’m in the water and a log that is able to roll with the flow because rotation is obviously a huge part of the swimming stroke. So it’s all very well staying long and tall in the water. But if you can’t hold that as your shoulders and your hips are rotating, it’s kind of useless. So it’s from like the base of my skull all the way down through to my toes. I want to keep long but stay connected so that as I’m driving my hips to force the rotation, I’m able to kind of breathe and move my head as I need to without disrupting the flow at all, just like a log that is rotating in the water. So the role of kick for me is basically non-existent. I have never been a kicker. I was a back stroker. So it was never really part of our stroke. For back stroke for me, it was always about balance and that absolutely translates to freestyle as

well. So I lean into a two-beat or a four-beat kick if I absolutely have to. But I would much rather kick less, but I have quite big kicks because they’re there to stabilise me. My typical breathing pattern is two or four. So in a race, it can be, well, it’s usually two, two, four and siting on the four. Yeah, I just rotate to the right and I breathe every two or four. I try not to search for the breath when I’m breathing. So I really want to make sure that my head is in line with my body and I’m breathing into the pocket. I don’t want my head to be causing any sort of ripple through the rest of my stroke. So it just kind of shifts to the side of my shoulder rotation before moving back and doesn’t come out of the water too much. So I absolutely, like if I can get away with it, I’ll have no eyes out of the water. Like it will just be my mouth kind of poking out and coming in. With open water, it’s slightly more difficult

because you tend to have a little bit kind of more chop to contend with and you have people around you swimming. So the breath might look a little bit bigger, but as much as possible, it’s the smallest breath that I can get away with. So my stroke is long. It is long and it’s actually pretty slow and I think that’s just come from years of being in the pool with perfect water conditions. So I’m able to keep it long and stay really quite efficient with it. And I keep my hands really relaxed. I think that’s really important. So I will absolutely have space between my fingers. Quite often, my hands will be slightly kind of bent as well. Like it’s just really, really relaxed. And it’s a change that I’ve been trying to make for open water is to actually increase my cadence a little bit. And that’s not by ripping my arms through the water. It’s just by reducing the micro pauses that I’ve developed through years of swimming in the pool.

For the catch in the pool, I try not to think of them as a pool. I like to feel as though my hand is static and I’ve got like a nice bend in my elbow and I feel strong and powerful because water doesn’t respond like air and you can’t rip your hand through if you want to swim faster. Like you have to be able to keep your shoulder stable, your elbow stable, your hand nice and locked to then utilize the force and almost make the water solid underneath your hand and like lock all the molecules together. So that’s how I like to think about it. It becomes more and more challenging the faster that you swim and equally the faster that your arm turn over is.

My recovery over the top of the water is absolutely everything you’re told not to do when you’re a kid. I remember it being drilled into me that you need to have a high elbow, low wrist, strag your fingers along. My hand is up in the sky. Like I have a really loose recovery. I think it’s the only way to describe it. So obviously my elbows stay high, but my lower arm is absolutely higher than my elbow. And for me, it actually just, it creates a lot of freedom in the shoulders rather than forcing an elbow bend when one doesn’t want to be there. So for me, the finish of my stroke is really important and I like to feel as though I am really like intentionally ending the stroke out by my hip or like the top of my quad. And if I do that properly, it almost like flings my arm around. So then I just let it carry on. And it’s efficient for me. It works for me. And I’m not intentionally swimming with relatively straight arms,

but it’s just been an outcome of the pull that I’ve developed. Swimming out of water is something I actually still, I don’t wanna say struggle with because that makes it a thing, but it’s something that I’m definitely not comfortable with. And my speed just doesn’t translate or isn’t yet translating from pool swimming to open water. The primary focus has been increasing the cadence and recently the change in head position just to try and actually be able to kick my legs a little bit more because I default into like solid, steady swimming, but it’s basically I’m on pace for a half distance, which it’s not the end of the world, but it’s not ideal. Whereas if I’m able to feel like I can utilize my legs a little bit more by bringing my bum down, then hopefully that will have a positive impact and I’ll be able to translate pool to open water. I think the biggest lesson that I have come to realize that I learn as a youngster

because it’s difficult when you learn, when you learn to swim and you learn to race at such a young age, they become things that are just ingrained in who you are and how you act with water. It can be the smallest things that you don’t realize, like if you don’t have pointed feet, then you are literally anchoring yourself down to the bottom of the pool. And if you’re swimming with fingers together, that means that none of this is capturing any water because there’s too much tension. So all of those little things about how we can interact with water to ensure that we are able to utilize the limbs that should not be in water to the best effect has been quite revolutionary, I think, as an adult. If I could do more, I would. I live a fair drive away from a pool, so I like to swim four times a week. Four sessions a week, they’re all about 5K in length. Swimming is also really important for me in terms of the postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome regulation,

which I’ve been diagnosed with, so it helps keep my nervous system in theory a little bit more stable. And I like to have these 5K swims. The majority of it will be easy. And if I am swimming at speed, I’m not really searching for it. Like my favorite session to do is tempo threshold, like big chunks, like 400, 300, 200, 100, twice, where you get really uncomfortable really fast and you just kind of hang on for dear life, but you’re not ever hitting VO2. So I’ll have probably two solely aerobic swims a week, one that is pool focused and then one that is a session of intensity. So whether that is hard 50s or the kind of tempo threshold work, it’s just got a bit more of a focus to it. But actually the majority of my swimming is, it’s like aerobic, but leaning on easy. I think the biggest thing that I’m working through at the moment is, like, it’s not really a mistake, but I’m having these like, and it’s not anxiety attacks,

but I’m hyperventilating about three minutes into the swim and I’m having to stop and grab a paddleboard, which is weird and unusual because I have no anxiety around swimming, but I just calm my breathing and carry on. So these hour days are so long in the mid and long distance triathlon space that these mistakes feel so much less of a big deal than when your race is two minutes and everything has to be absolutely perfect and there’s no space for it, which for me has been a huge point of personal growth. Like I don’t have to be perfect anymore and actually if you just expect not to be perfect, then you’re probably gonna have a better day because you’re gonna stress way less about the stuff that’s going wrong. General advice I give out swimming is learn how to relax, properly relax in the water and understand what it’s like to do a somersault in the water and dive down to the bottom and swim underwater without moving, not doing front crawl,

just understand how to exist in water and then also find your balance points. So for me, my chest is a huge one, like you fill your lungs with air and it becomes the point at which that your body can move around with your head and your legs and I think it’s one of the reasons that I’m able to keep my legs so high is I know how to utilize this kind of center piece of my body and a lot of people don’t. Like if you fill your lungs with air, it’s gonna float, it’s like a life jacket. So hold the air there and also don’t rush your breathing. So you don’t have to breathe in and out while your head is out the water. You can breathe in while your mouth is out the water and then let the air out slowly as your head is under the water just to be ready to breathe again. So slow everything down, relax everything and the water will feel a lot less intimidating. 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 Secrets To Fast Freestyle with Steph Clutterbuck appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

In this episode, Brendan Cullen recounts his remarkable transformation from a non-swimmer to successfully completing the demanding English Channel swim. He reflects on how mental resilience, disciplined training, and a strong sense of community support helped him overcome one of the world’s toughest endurance challenges. Brendan also shares how his rural upbringing shaped his mindset, and how personal motivation and strategic preparation played key roles in pushing beyond perceived limits.

00:50 Introduction to Brendan Cullen: The Desert Swimmer

Transform your freestyle to be effortless and smooth with online video analysis:

Try the new Nanoclear Anti-fog Goggles: https://bit.ly/nanocleargoggles

Check out Brendan’s website: https://www.brendancullen.com.au/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.desert.swimmer/

it would probably come after the swim because I always had my why and I just knew I had to get there. I understood the support before I left but not to the extent once I finished and it was extraordinary. But I read two books, The Happiest Man on Earth with Jet Eddie Jakku and The Tattooers of Auschwitz, both Holocaust stories. I’m not a reader as a rule of thumb but I just can’t believe what they had gone through, what they were put through and I remember standing on the beach in Dover before the swim and thinking about that and I’m thinking I’m not forced to be here.

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 Brendan Cullen, also known as the Desert Swimmer because recently, well, 2022 successfully completed the English Channel without coming from much of a swimming background and living a long way from the nearest pool, a long way from the nearest beach, but you’re still able to successfully swim the English Channel. So I want to dig into a bit of your story, how that came to be and then how you managed to successfully complete that swim because when I look at the English Channel, I think that seems incredibly hard. I don’t know if I could do it yet. Without much experience, you’re able to have a successful swim. So firstly, Brendan, welcome to the podcast. Yeah, good on you. Thanks very much, Brendan. Lovely to chat with you, mate. So tell me a bit about your background in swimming and where you live because I think

it’s not the swimmer’s capital, the swimming hub of Australia where you are at the moment. Yeah, look, I learned to swim very young and then I didn’t swim at all. So, you know, basically five or six years of age and then stopped swimming from that point until about 42. So and swimming has never been my sport. It’s always been running. But look, I live on a Shevan cattle station about 60 kilometres outside of Broken Hill and I’ve been managing properties for the best part of 20 years. And prior to that, I worked on my parents’ place. So I’ve been chasing sheep and cattle since I was 16 and I’m 52 now.

Back in 2015, I was watching my brother and water swim and travelled from Broken Hill to Sydney and I thought I’ve got to have a piece of that. And anyway, I decided to join up with the Broken Hill Aquatic Swim Club in town and that was the start of my swing journey. And I sort of haven’t held back since. So I got to, I finally, look, I went to the pool. I spoke to the coach and I said, any chance I can swim with you guys? He said, yep, no worries. And the oldest person there was about 15. I thought I was going into a master’s clinic and he said, jump in, have a swim. So I did and he said, mate, you need a lot of work. So and he was right. So and from that point on, I just started swimming. And for two reasons, it was good for my head space. And it was a little bit different than running, of course. And secondly, it just gave me the opportunity to catch up with, you know, friends and my brother and have that different conversation, you know, as opposed to talking about sheep and cows and

the weather and, you know, I like to bum the, the open water swimming community and the swimming community in general, such a special place to be.

And being so far from the coast, how did you develop those relationships with the open water swimming community? Yeah, it’s a good question, actually. I did a, I used to travel down to Melbourne a bit. My in-laws are down there and my, I went to the Brighton Bars, actually, and there was a English Channel Qualifier down there. And there was a brochure on the wall, an eight hour, a six hour and a two hour. It was about 87 kilos at the time. And I looked at it and I thought I might have a crack at that. And the fellow who was running the Qualifier was Mike, the tractor Gregory. And I just said to him, is there any chance I can come in and do the two hour? And he said, yeah, mate, no worries. And the water had to be 16 degrees and less. And I said, come down at 5.30 and have a swim. And I said, that’s in the dark, mate. He goes, yeah, so I’m swimming in the dark. So I rocked up about half past seven. And he said, oh, it’s good to see you here.

So I jumped in and I swam for a couple of hours and, and finished my two hours. And I was frozen to the core. And as I was getting out, Mike looked at, looked at me from above. And he said, oh, I’ll jump in with you for half an hour. And I knew his credentials and knew how good he was. And so he got another half an hour out of me. And I was even more frozen to the core. But that sort of started our relationship as a, as a coach as a friend. And my open water swimming really, I mean, that’s when it started to get serious. I find it so funny that you saw a brochure on the wall and thought, oh, that’s a good idea to spend a couple of hours in the cold without, yeah, just on a whim. That’s

weird, bloody weird, mate. But what a, what an interesting, I mean, guess what a, what a journey that’s taken you on from, from that point, because was that the point that then you decided or things came about where you decided, okay, the English Channel is something that I might actually target here. Yeah, well, fairly enough, probably not. It was just, I think, just that relationship with Mike Gregory just blossomed over the years. And that was sort of around about 2017, 18 somewhere in there. I’ll take a step back. 2015 I was diagnosed with depression. And I need to change my life prior to people before 2015, I probably would have said no to most things. But with the late temperature, what did it get down to in winter? Nine degrees. So yeah, that was cold enough.

You know, I remember doing a swim down in Victoria when it was cold and Mike looked at me and he said, mate, you got to put a bit of weight on. So I went from 87 kilos to 97, you know, before the channel swim and you know, to protect your organs and just look after yourself a bit. And funnily enough, I loved it, you know, putting on weight and you know, getting fat and fast at the same time. You know, it was, it was a thing for like normally, if you’re exercising, you’re trying to strip it down with open water swimming, certainly for the channel. It was important to put a few kilos on and I actually enjoyed that side of it. But also had a nice bath here I used to jump in and, you know, regularly get in there and sort of set at about five degrees and get in between 10 and 20 minutes, just depending on the time and what I could handle. And I know the channel was never going to be at five, but you know, you just make it that little bit tougher for yourself.

You know, 18 doesn’t feel so bad for a long period of time. That was my theory anyway. What’s the special diet to put on 10 kilos? Just eat whatever is in front of you, mate.

I actually hired a multi-sport nutrition lady up in Queensland. She was incredible because I think one of the things for me was my lack of knowledge around feeding and, you know, energy-based foods and that type of thing. So for me, that was super important. I just felt quite lost in that side of things. She was great. Christy Robson, her name is, and she just set a guide for me and I sort of followed it mostly. But yeah, I had a lot of ice cream, you know, double bowls of pasta, whatever I could get in my gullet. Because one of the things in my role as a pastoral sort of farmer is that, you know, you’re on your feet all day and you just don’t factor that into your, I suppose, your sporting life. And so, you know, not all days are, you know, physically difficult, but some days are and then you add that swimming component or running component on top of it and you’re burning up so many calories. So, yeah. But yeah,

eating for me, I mean, pretty healthily, just, you know, your normal veg and your meat and stuff like that and pasta. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s, I mean, but yeah, being out on the farm all day, you would just, you would need to be eating so much when you’re including the swimming as well. So, I mean, there’s such a thing as farmer’s strength. Do you feel like, I mean, I guess when you are living that, you probably don’t notice it as much, but do you feel like the physicality of what you do for work has helped with the swimming? There’s no doubt about that. Certainly a core strength. There’s, you know, just your lifting most of your life and just using your muscles most of your life. But I will say one thing, when I started swimming, I was activating muscles I’d never used before, you know, and, you know, there was certainly fatigue there. So, I suppose, I suppose I sort of go hand in glove once you start swimming

and you’re still working on the property. You do become reasonably strong, but definitely helps your core working on a farm. But yeah, I just remember, you know, through here, my lats, you know, through my chest, I was burning up big time when I first started. But, you know, naturally swimming built muscle through my chest and shoulders and my arms also. So, it felt good. It felt good. And you, when it came to the

swim itself, it was a three year build up towards the swim from the moment that you’d sort of decided to do it. Yeah. So, we started in 2019 and we were in the water 2022. It was close to go in 2021, but COVID got in the road and we decided to call it.

Look, it was probably a blessing in disguise for me because it gave me an extra 12 months to train. But all I could think of at the time was, jeez, I’ve got to get through another winter. No. And so, I’m glad that went, you know, went by. So, you know, by the time I got to England, you know, I think I was more than ready. But if you’ve never done this sort of thing before, you’re always wondering if you’re doing enough, certainly from my perspective. And, you know, Mike was setting me,

you know, a swimming plan for the week and, you know, what that looks like. And if I didn’t meet the kilometers I used to sort of think, jeez, that’s going to let me down. And he’d just say, mate, you’re doing enough, you’re doing enough. And then if I found a day where I could get into the water and he’d set me five Ks, I’d do eight just to make up for those lost kilometers. And probably more so to help me mentally as opposed to physically,

which is very important. I mean, you need to have your eye before you start something like this. And literally my eye was just, I’ve got to get across the other side. I want to see if I can nail this. And so it was always sitting there. So once you make that decision, then you have to fully commit. And yeah, through Mike’s tutoring and training and me just being the student, I gave him all of me. He had total control, both through the training process and during the swim. And it’s a matter of allowing those people to

you know, come into your life and give you some direction. And without fighting it, just they asked you to do something, go and do it. Anyway, that was my philosophy. And that that wife of you of just wanting to prove to yourself that, yeah, or challenge yourself that you could get to the other side, where does that come from for you? And is that something that you kind of see with other areas of your life? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I’ve always been stubborn and I’ve always ran and

I don’t know. There’s something about distance, natural endorphins through sport and never giving up. And I always said that if I had a crack at the channel, you would have to pull me out the water because I’m not going to get out voluntarily. Now, you know, through my work life, I’ve had quite a few challenges as you do in the rural industry with droughts and floods and muddy fires. And you know, there are good times, mind you, but you can go through some pretty ordinary experiences and you sort of bring that into your life. And I think that creates a steely result. But it can become an issue if you allow things to get on top of you. So which I did at one point, I’ve got a long rap sheet. And but I’m hard to stop if I if I put my mind to something, you know, and look failure is failure or if you don’t make it so be it. But for me, not giving something ago would chew at me. You know, it would sit with me. So

it’s a matter of just making the call and getting stuck into it and seeing where you end up. So my why was literally, right, I’ll see if I can get to the other side. It was really that simple. And let’s let’s go to the day itself. So it was quite a long day out with with some strong currents and and much longer distance than the physical distance itself. So take us through the English Channel swim. Yeah, it was quite extraordinary. I picked a team that was going to be there for me if I didn’t make it. Some good mates and Mike, my coach and my oldest daughter, my wife and my sister-in-law were back on the back in the harbor when we started the swim. Sea Leopard Charter were taking me across the channel and we basically come out to the harbor. We parked about 300-400 meters from the beach. I just did my goggles, jumped in, swam to the beach and got out onto the beach. And you have to be away from water before you

start and literally put my hand up and said, all right, I’m right to go and let’s go. And they blew the siren and started swimming. And it was quite rough, quite windy at the start. And I thought, shit, this is going to be long. It’s going to be a long journey. And

swam up to the port side of the boat and I was getting flogged up a bit. And after about an hour, hour and a half, I come around to the starboard site just away from the wind. And there was actually a couple of boats there at the time that actually turned around and went back to the harbor. I didn’t know that, of course. And so I was getting fed every half hour. And that was, I’d have goo, baby food, ginger tea with honey, flat coke. I mean, that’s just powerful stuff. That is stamina, gatterade, whatever I could get in my body that had a bunch of energy in it. But once again, I gave myself over completely to my team because they were the only ones that were going to get me across there. And I was in their capable hands. And in fact, I remember the captain cooking a feed of bacon and eggs on the boat. And he washed the bloody frying pan out in front of my nose so I could just smell, I could smell the bacon eggs in the water.

That’s just cruel. Anyway, swimming along, I got to about the eight hour mark, I think, I had to do an eight hour qualifier. I had a rough idea how long I’d been in the water, but I had no idea how far or how far France was away. And kept swimming. And I reckon about the 10-12 hour mark in there, I looked up and I could see France. And I just, I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. And I hear this voice from the boat, put your bloody head down and keep swimming. And I remember swimming for over 10 minutes. And I looked up again and put your F and head down, you know, because what, you know, one of the things is the landmass doesn’t get any closer, you know, you’re still a fair way away. Interestingly enough, also, as I rarely spoke, hardly spoke at all. And I was getting fed with a lanyard and a, you know, a bottle, about 300 mils of fluid and whatnot, each 30 minutes.

Anyway, sun was going down. And I was looking over my right shoulder and it was starting to disappear. So I changed from UV goggles into clear. That was a battle I must admit, you know, just floating in the water because I don’t float naturally and put the light on. And I started swimming next to the boat and I always imagined on these boats that they have these huge bull lights that had shined out and open up the side of the, you know, the ocean with a big light. Well, in this case, it wasn’t like that. And so you sort of feel when you’re swimming in the dark that you’re actually drifting out of the light a bit. And I remember a few times that the boat was getting away from me and I was thinking, oh, this doesn’t feel good. It just didn’t feel right. And about the, about three hours out, I started to get crook. I remember just remembering my nose filling up with mark and all the rest of it. And then

my groin started playing up. And, you know, there was a few things going on, but they were counting my strokes from the time I started to basically the time we got towards the end. And my stroke rate didn’t change from the time I started right through. It wasn’t effective, though. It wasn’t. There’s no way to be effective. I remember my coach saying to me, you know, push, push, you’ve got to push. And he always said to me, yeah, there’ll be a stage in the swim where you really need to dig deep. So I did, and I did that for about an hour, hour and a half. I was probably swimming at about 65%. And then I upped it to about 75 at a guess. And I thought, I can’t sustain this. And I knew in myself that I was blowing up. And anyway, I got caught in what they call the Channel Swimmers’ Graveyard. The Channel Swimmers’ Graveyard is, you know, basically you get close to France and you’re trying to swim towards the nearest

point, Cap Grinne. And you get caught up in these rips and then they, they spear back out up towards Belgium somewhere. I had no idea what was going on, but they saw one of the buoys in the water just slapping up and down. They actually thought it was a shark. And it was just the, the size of the rip that was going through. Anyway, unbeknownst to me, I just kept poking along.

And I remember, I remember looking at Mike and I’m thinking, they’re doing a lot of rummaging around. I’m a Collingwood supporter and Mike’s a Carlton Football Club supporter. He’s rummaging around. And next thing I look at him and he’s got this, got this Carlton Football Club jersey on. And so I’ve looked at it and I’ve given him the bird from the water and they, they wanted a reaction out of me because I basically never spiked. So Mike just said, yeah, you know, he’s going all right. And anyway, getting towards the end of the swim and once again, I had no idea where I was at. He called last feed. And he’d always said to me, he said, you know, when you hear last feed, that’s the last feed before he hit France. And there’s footage of me looking at him because I had blue tack in my ears. I couldn’t quite hear what he said. And I was looking at him and I thought, this is the last feed. It was a surreal feeling. And I was pretty busted up at that point.

Mike stripped off and jumped in the water with me. Part of the CSA rules are, is that you can jump in with a swimmer, but you can’t swim next to him or in front of him. You’ve got to sit behind him. And he was swimming behind me and Sea Leopard was shining the light towards France that was on. And I swam for about 20 minutes to half an hour once he called that last feed. And I started to need like another feed. And so I had no idea what was going on because pitch black. And I said to Mike, I’ve got to go in for a feed, mate. And he said, keep swimming towards the light. I said, no, mate, I need a feed. And he said, just keep swimming, mate. And right, I, no worries. So I just kept swimming and

and then this amazing thing happened to me. My left fingers scraped through the sands of France. And I got the biggest shock in the world because I wasn’t ready or prepared for that. I didn’t know what that was going to be like or whether I’d actually make it. And then he yelled out to me, mate, stand up, stand up and get out. And I thought, standing up is going to be interesting. Anyway, I stood up and literally walked out and got clear of the water, put my hand up and I blew the siren at 3am in the morning. And 17 hours exactly and covered a distance of 64 kilometres. Yeah. And we embraced and it was a surreal experience. It was amazing. And then I just had this brain thought. I thought, I’ve got to go and get some pebbles for my kids. So I started rummaging around on the sands of France looking for bloody pebbles. The things you do after 17 hours in cold water, and Mike said, you’ve lost the plot, mate. He’s chasing me around for five minutes.

And he got me back onto the boat eventually and got back on the sea leper charter. And then they basically stripped me down, put some warm clothes on, tucked me into a bean bag. And I woke up at 6am in the morning back in Tobarba. It was just a hell of an experience. Three years of training and managed to make it was extraordinary. They say that it’s about the journey, not the destination, but was there any particular moment within that build up or in that swim where you look back and it’s the most,

the thing that you appreciate the most about that whole experience for you? It would probably come after the swim because I always had my way and I just knew I had to get there. I understood the support before I left, but not to the extent once I’ve finished. And it was extraordinary. But I read two books, The Happiest Man on Earth, with Jet Eddie Chacoux and The Tattooers of Auschwitz, both Holocaust stories. I’m not a reader as a rule of thumb, but I just can’t believe what they had gone through, what they were put through. And I remember standing on the beach in Dover before the swim and thinking about that. And I’m thinking I’m not forced to be here. I’ve chose to be here. And then I also thought about some of the big days that I’ve had or weeks that I’ve had working in some pretty trying conditions. And I just thought to myself, let’s just go to work. It’s only going to be a few hours. Let’s just go to work. So that’s what was rattling around

in my head. And really that, they were the stories I kept telling myself.

I was told that counting might be good for you, count from 100 and then 100 back to one. I tried that and I failed dismally at that. I can’t do this. So yeah, but once the swim was over, I couldn’t believe the support and around that. And I found it really hard to understand all that for quite a while. But I do understand now where I live, where I come from, what I’d achieve. But it was a really good new story coming out of COVID. And let’s face it, COVID was horrible for most people. So people clung onto that, especially our local crowd out of Broken Hill and beyond to be truthful. So yeah, huge amount of support. And you haven’t just stopped swimming from that point. You recently successfully swam the Catalina channel as well. So it’s not something that you were just sort of one and done with. What’s open water swimming given you? And what have you learned about yourself and just about, I guess, maybe about life with open water swimming?

Yeah, one thing, I mean, you know, our bodies are bloody powerful, aren’t they? I mean, incredibly powerful. But our brains, like, they’re so much more powerful than our bodies. I mean, we can, I learned a lot about myself on that swim. I learned that I had a lot more in me than I actually thought I’d ever have. So to know where your limitations are would be very difficult because you can push yourself to extraordinarily, extraordinarily, extraordinarily, you can just push yourself. And so I still don’t know what that looks like, knowing what I achieved. But the open water swimming community is is massive for me and the swimming community, because, you know, I talk a conversation around farming, whatever it may look like, you know, daily to friends and neighbors and whatnot. And for me to be able to shift that conversation over to open water swimming and talking open water swimming, talking swimming in general, it’s a different conversation. So

and it’s such a positive conversation. I just don’t know anyone in the swimming community that’s a negative individual. It is such an extraordinary place to be and live. And look, I it’s something that has to be part of my life now, but also the eating component, Brenton. I mean, after a big swim, mate, you can just, well, after a workout, you can sit down with your mates, have a coffee, have a food, you know, have a good chat about your life and then go back to work. And that’s a big gift you can give yourself. I love the community full style. Yeah, something I can relate to with the food afterwards. And then also, like, you know, we don’t normally go out for breakfast after, but it’s like just chatting in the showers after training. It’s like 10 minutes and you’ve done your workout. You’ve had sort of a good social session with some friends. And you’ve got those natural endorphins as well, just from the swim.

So it’s such a, yeah, I found when I couldn’t swim for a couple of weeks or a few months through COVID, like I really missed it. I really felt like something was missing from my life. And it’s just, I think once you really get hooked, it’s hard to, it’s hard to go a week without swimming, if not a couple of days at a time. Yeah, I agree. And such a good challenge you can set yourself. I mean, it’s can become personal and you can set yourself these little goals, whether you swim 100 meters or, you know, you want to swim 10 Ks, you know, and I think the Strava and Bloody Garmin have got a lot to answer for in regards to that. But it’s really healthy for you. And the other thing I like about swimming is it’s all shapes and sizes, you know, no matter what you look like, just get in there and get a pair of bathers on and go for it. And there’s no judgment. You just get in the pool and have fun. And I think

that’s pretty cool because let’s face it, your bloody stripping down into your jocks, aren’t you?

Call them bathers, but you know, you can call them whatever, but you’re really exposing yourself. And some people feel uncomfortable, but they put their bathers on and they’re empowered. They get in the water and they just do their thing and become really comfortable in that, in that space. I think that’s a wonderful thing. And just recently, a couple of weeks ago, actually, so you just had a book released. Tell me how that, how that came about, because it’s, I’m sure you would have thought a couple of years ago, like there’s a book, like you releasing a book, like that’s not a thing that’s going to happen. So tell me how that all came about. It’s called The Desert Swimmer. And I was lucky enough to be chosen by Rebel Sport in 2024 for an ad called Sport is Calling. And it really encapsulated my swim life in a minute and a half. And the producer of

that ad then introduced me to a bloke called Paul Mitchell, the ghost writer of the book. And I, you know, I’ve always thought, you know, how do you write about yourself? I mean, I couldn’t do it. And I needed someone else to find a narrative. And Paul was very good at that. And so we made the choice to have a crack at it and put a book proposal into some publishers. And lucky enough to, for Alan, I’m willing to come on board and they’ve published the book. And, and the way the book is written is as I step into the water in Dover and start swimming towards France, I actually take you back to the age of seven of my life. And the chapters bounce from my swim back to my life and swim back to my life. And I’ll take you through not only my swim journey, but I take you through my life, boarding, living on sheep and cattle stations, talk about my family and what it’s like to live through droughts. And just there’s a whole

lot of subject matter in that book. But, you know, swimming is probably the instigator that got me the opportunity to be able to author this book. You know, Brent and I wasn’t the best student at school, mate. And here I am. I’ve got this bloody book in my hands. And I really can’t believe that it exists. But it took me a week and a half. I had the book sent to me and it took me a week and a half to open it up and look into it. I needed my family around me because I was excited, but I wanted to share it with them. And I’ve got adult children. I’ve got 25-year-old and two 20-year-olds, twins. And I just wanted them to be with me. And most of them were. And it was just a surreal feeling to be able to author a book. I still shake my head and think, my God, this is out there. If only your teachers could know about this. Absolutely, mate. Absolutely.

Well, we’ll put all the links in the description for this podcast. Or if you’re watching on YouTube, we’ll put them in the description there. So you can grab a copy of Brennan’s book.

Yeah, mate. I appreciate you jumping on the podcast. It’s great to hear about, I’ve been involved in swimming since I was quite young, but really in the last 20 years doing a lot in terms of the coaching and then more so with the open water swimming community. And it’s something that I had no idea about as a junior because I was all about pool competition. But it’s something that I’ve really fallen in love with, is racing in the open water and just enjoying longer distance swims. And it’s really drawn me away from the pool than I used to have as a kid. So I can certainly see the appeal. And I think there’s such a good community around it. So I appreciate you jumping on the podcast, sharing just a small part of your story. And there’s a lot more there that will be in the book. So Brennan, I appreciate you being on the podcast. And yeah, all the best with the future swims that you’ve got coming up too. Beautiful. Thanks very much, Brennan.

And look, you do a wonderful job with your podcast and teaching us all how to swim from afar. I mean, I watch what you do and it’s extraordinary. But also, just if I can add that, but you’re one of the rare species that don’t drop off at the age of 15 and keep swimming through your life. And I think that’s extraordinary. And a lot of people swim because it’s hard work when you’re young. And you can see why people drop out, but then they come back in and they find their love for the sport. So it’s been awesome to chat, mate. I’ve really, really enjoyed it. Yeah, likewise. And I don’t think I appreciate having stuck around in swimming. I just think, how could you not keep swimming? It’s just such a fun thing to do. But my dad was my coach. And I think a big part of that was with my parents that they never forced me to swim. It’s just something that we did. And it was never like, that wasn’t good enough, never questioning results or effort or anything like that. And so

I’m trying to do that with my kids, where it’s just enjoy watching them being in the water and then they can do what they choose to do with it. And yeah, and I think that’s what makes people want to stick around when there’s no judgment or criticism around them as a sports person in their teenage years. So yeah, so I’m trying to bring that to my kids, but then also some of the kids that we have come to clinics and things like that too, because it’s not about how good they are at 16 or 12 or whatever it is. It’s like, well, if they continue swimming, when they’re in their 20s and 30s and 40s and onwards, to me, that is success as a swimmer, because it offers so much more later on in life, which we can see in your story. Yeah, yeah, I agree with you, mate. Absolutely. Thanks. Thanks, Brendan. Great to have you on. All right, mate. Well, all the best. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming podcast.

If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.

The post How To Conquer The English Channel When You Live In The Desert with Brendan Cullen appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

One of the most common things I see in newer swimmers… is how flat they are in the water.

Their hips are flat, their shoulders are flat — and what ends up happening is they just spin their wheels.

They’re putting in a lot of effort with the arms, kicking hard with the legs… but nothing is really connecting.

It feels like hard work — but it doesn’t translate into speed.

So in today’s episode, we’re going to break down why swimming flat is holding you back… and how to start linking everything together so your stroke actually works as one powerful, efficient system.

Transform your freestyle to be effortless and smooth with online video analysis:

Try the new Nanoclear Anti-fog Goggles: https://bit.ly/nanocleargoggles

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.

One thing that’s really common among swimmers who are quite new is that they tend to start to flat when they’re swimming. So the hips and their shoulders are very flat and they end up spinning the wheels and a lot of effort has to go into their arms and their legs and nothing really works together. Then what happens next is we often see people get taught to rotate, but it’s really common to see people over rotate and over rotating is just as bad as staying too flat. And so in this video, I’m going to share with you how much you should rotate and how to know if you’re doing too much or too little. And when you make this change, you’ll likely find that other aspects of your stroke will improve a lot, especially your catch and pull. So recently I was working with a swimmer who had been taught that you should rotate your hips and your shoulders to 90 degrees because the longer you are, the more you are on your side, the longer your strokes will be and

the easier it will be. But the problem with that is, if you rotate all the way onto your side with your hips and shoulders, you’re likely going to lose balance and stability in the water. And what happens when you lose balance? The first thing that tends to go is your legs. They will splay out behind you like a big parachute opening up. And that’s going to cause you to slow down. The second thing that we often see happening there is that if you over rotate through the shoulders, it’s really difficult to keep the arm out in front, especially if you’re quite tight through the shoulders. And so what happens there is that the arm will just drop straight down, it will push down on the water and you’re unlikely to get much of a catch and a pull. And so you’re not going to get much propulsion from your stroke. And so those two things will slow you down and make it hard to get much faster. So with this summer, we

saw that her hips were going to about 60 or 70 degrees on the side. And she was really twisting through there. And we saw with her catch and pull that she wasn’t bending the elbow and pointing the fingers down to set up a nice catch position. She was going down very deep and very straight. And she said to me, I feel like I’ve got no power in my stroke. And it was really obvious why that was once we had a look at the footage. So what we had to initially do was make those hips be a bit more stable. Now you might see videos of coaches talking about keep the hips completely flat and let the shoulders rotate. That’s what you’ll find more with sprinters, 50 meter sprinters, some 100 meter sprinters, where the hips are quite stable, they’ll rock a bit, but not a whole lot. Most of the people that I work with are middle to long distance swimmers, especially triathletes and open water swimmers and general adult swimmers who are going longer than 50 meters fast. So what we

tend to want to do there is rotate the hips, but make them go 30 to 40 degrees on the side. To me, that’s like the engine room of the stroke. If you can have your hips just rocking gently side to side while keeping them in control, then you can start to rotate the right amount of pressure through your shoulders and get into a nice catch position. Now, if you feel, particularly when you breathe, that your hips start to fall apart, start to collapse, and particularly on this lower part of the body, like your lower back arches and your hips drop down, then you’ve probably over rotated. And it’s very common on that breathing stroke because we have to turn to breathe. And that’s where we see most people over rotate. So the important thing there is when you at least take a breath through this bottom part of your hip, almost like your hip flexor there and your lower core, we want to feel like that’s being held up near the

surface. So you’ll be on your side slightly, but from that lower part of the body, the hip flexor, the core, we want to feel like that’s being held up. And so we’re keeping that switched on or engaged. That way you’ll maintain your stability. And that’s what’s going to allow you to get a nice catch, especially on those breathing strokes. And so for her, when she made this change, from rolling side to side and tipping. And then she went to being more stable. One of the things she really started to feel was, oh, my, my lats and my, my back shoulders, they’re starting to work a little bit more. Whereas before it was all through the front of the shoulder. And that is not where you want to be when you’re going through your catching the pull. Because these are not the bigger, stronger muscles that we want to use. It’s more through the lats, around the back, through the shoulders, a bit through the chest as well, through the pec. It’s

more the lats that we want to be using through this part of the stroke. So she really started to feel that. And so what tends to happen there is people will make a change. They go, oh, that’s a little bit harder. That’s a little bit different. And then they go back to what they were doing before. But it’s going to take her three, four, five weeks to build up that strength in those different muscles to be able to hold that change in the stroke that will ultimately be faster. But it doesn’t necessarily feel like that straight away. Now, the other thing we had to do, because she was very deep and straight, she was just used to, she was in this habit of going down deep and straight with the arm. So the way it felt when she was doing it right was that she was very wide with the elbows. Because in our catch here, in order to get a high elbow catch, which is basically where we’ve got the fingers pointing down, hand and forearm facing

back, in order to get there, the only way you can do it is with this elbow out wide. You cannot get a high elbow catch if this elbow is narrow. You just can’t do it. It’s going to put you in a dropped elbow position. So she had to go, elbow would feel very wide in her catch. And the second thing, she just had to feel really shallow with the arms. It felt like she was here when in reality she was in the right depth. But it felt super shallow because it wasn’t what she was used to. And that’s one of the things I’ve learned after coaching thousands and thousands of different people, is that you often have to exaggerate any changes that you want to make in the stroke, to the point where it just feels like you are over doing it. And if you’re not sure if you are doing the right amount, get some footage taken, even with a camera on your phone, get someone to film you, and just get some idea of am I in the right position or not. And if you need help

with that, we work with people in our courses and coaching program to help them improve their swimming. And that’s where you see people improve 10, 15, sometimes 20 seconds per 100 over the course of a couple of months, as they start to refine the right aspects of their stroke. So you can find that in the description below. 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 Why You’ve Been Taught To Over-Rotate with Brenton Ford appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

You’ve probably heard it before — your freestyle catch is everything.

And maybe you’ve been working on it. You’ve improved the position, you feel stronger in the water, and technically… it looks better.

But here’s the frustrating part — you’re still not getting any faster.

So what’s going on?

Today, we’re breaking down exactly why improving your catch doesn’t always translate into speed… and what you need to do to actually get the benefit from it.

Because recently, I worked with a swimmer who had done everything right. He sent in underwater footage, we reviewed it closely, and his catch position? Nearly perfect.

From the setup… to the moment he begins to press back and generate propulsion — everything was there.

And yet, his times hadn’t improved.

When we dug deeper into the footage, we found the real issue — something subtle, but incredibly common.

He was rushing into the catch.

And that one mistake was costing him speed.

Let’s break it down.

01:05 Going Too Quickly Into Catch Position

Transform your freestyle to be effortless and smooth with online video analysis:

Try the new Nanoclear Anti-fog Goggles: https://bit.ly/nanocleargoggles

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. You know your catch in freestyle is important, which is this part of the stroke here, but you’re just not sure why you can’t seem to get any faster even though you feel like you’ve improved your catch. In this video, I’m going to share why that can happen and what you can do to make sure that you actually get the benefit from a better catch position in your freestyle. Recently I was working with a swimmer who had been working on his catch and he’d sent us some underwater footage which we took a look at and we saw that his catch position, which is this part of the stroke. So we begin up here and we get down to here. This is what we would call the catch in freestyle and that’s the position where we had set up really well to press back and start to generate a lot of our propulsion.

And we saw that he had almost a perfect position for his stroke, except he hadn’t really gotten any faster despite improving that position and he wasn’t sure exactly why that was. When we looked back at his footage, we saw that he was actually going too quickly into that catch position. So once he entered the water, instead of extending forwards and then rotating a little bit and then getting into his catch, he would come in and straight away begin the catch and bend his elbow. And so while the position was better and he had more surface area, so he had a bigger paddle that he could press back with, he wasn’t getting the benefit from it because it was out of sync and out of time with the rest of his body and his rotation. And so he wasn’t able to connect up this great position through his shoulder, through his body and with his rotation. And so what we had to work on to get him to increase his speed from that

improvement in technique was we had to get him to slow down a little bit in order to go faster. Now, where he had to slow down was once he entered, I wanted him to think about sliding that hand forwards out in front of the shoulder and allowing from the hips all the way through his torso and his shoulder, allowing that to extend forwards and feel like he’s sending that forwards a little bit before he began his catch and before he began pointing his fingers down. And while that would slow his stroke rate down a little bit and he would feel like he wasn’t trying as hard or working as hard, the benefits that was firstly out in front here is when you are the most streamlined. And so that allowed him to get some free speed from that movement. Whereas if you don’t extend out and you’re not that streamlined for very long and you just go straight into the catch, you begin to create a lot more drag quicker than what you otherwise should.

And then the other part of that, too, was when he took that little bit more time to extend forwards, then it’s easier to actually get into that catch position, too. So it didn’t feel as forced for him and it just becomes much more natural because everything is in time and in sync together. And so essentially once he slowed himself down and he didn’t stop and glide forever, he just took that little bit more time to extend forwards. Once he did that, as he went through his catch and through his pull, it actually felt a lot easier. And he felt that as he was going through this part of the stroke, it tied in really well with the rotation of his body through his shoulders, through his hips, as he went back onto the other side. And then he felt like he was skating from one side to the next. And the reason I use the term effortless swimming, the reason I came up with that is obviously you’ve got to put in the work.

You’ve got to work hard when you’re training, when you’re racing. It’s not just all about going super easy. But when your swimming feels really good and things are timed well and they’re in sync, it feels almost effortless. It feels like you are floating. And that’s the change that this swimmer was able to make. It was able to feel easy and he was able to get that improvement in speed. And that is why it’s important to make sure that we don’t focus on just one aspect of the stroke if other things are not quite in place yet. There’s an order to how you need to work on things. And he had just missed out on that timing piece of the puzzle when it came to his stroke. So if you need help with your own stroke, if you’re working towards an event, we work with people in our coaching and courses program all the time from all over the world to help them become better swimmers. And you can see the link in the description.

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 Why You’re Not Faster After Working On Your Catch with Brenton Ford appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

If you feel like getting faster in the water means you just have to work harder… push more… suffer more… there’s a good chance you’re taking the wrong approach.

Because here’s what most swimmers think: if you’re stuck swimming 1:45 or 1:50 per 100 freestyle, and you’re aiming for 1:30… the only way to get there is by getting fitter, stronger, and grinding harder every single session.

But what if that’s not true?

What if the real reason you’re not getting faster isn’t about effort at all… but about how you’re swimming?

Today, we’re breaking down the biggest misconception holding swimmers back—and how shifting your approach can unlock speed without burning yourself out.

00:27 Do You Need To Get Fitter To Get Faster?

Transform your freestyle to be effortless and smooth with online video analysis:

Try the new Nanoclear Anti-fog Goggles: https://bit.ly/nanocleargoggles

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. If you feel like you would need to work so much harder to get faster in your swimming, you might be taking the wrong approach. If you’re at a 145 or 150 in your 100 freestyle, and you look at swimming a 130, you might currently think of that as well, I just need to get so much fitter and stronger, and I need to try so much harder to get there. That might be the case if you’re not that fit at the moment. But if you’re swimming three times a week, and you’re putting in the work and you’re generally fit and strong enough, then it might not be that you need to get fitter to get faster. What we often find is that people who improve technically in their stroke, they can then really make bigger gains in their stroke with their same

current level of fitness. And we had a swimmer recently who we’re working with in our coaching program, who last year in a race, he got fourth in a five kilometre swim. And he looked at getting faster. How do I do it? How could I possibly get first next year? And he’d been sending in a couple of videos, and there was two key things that he had worked on based on what we had identified in his stroke. The first one was that he had a real tendency to cross over his centreline. Now, when we think about entering and extending forwards, we want to think about swimming on train tracks. Imagining like when you enter the water, we want to extend forwards in front of the shoulder. And then we begin our catch. What we don’t want to do is cross the centreline too much, and then have to make our way back out. Not only because it’s going to cause you to zigzag or snake through the water, but it can really impact your

catch, and it can increase the drag quite a bit. So we worked on reducing that crossover. We worked on him swimming on the train tracks. But the other factor there was he was partly doing that because his timing was out. He was rushing and forcing the catch. So what that meant was once he entered the water, he would extend out and then immediately go into his catch. And he wasn’t patient enough out the front. And so he was beginning his catch early. And so that meant there was a point in his stroke where there was nothing in front of his head. There was no arm in front of his head. And when we’re swimming freestyle, unless you’re sprinting, we typically want to be front quadrant, which just means we’ve always got an arm or a hand in front of our head at all times throughout the stroke. And so when he was pulling through, he had nothing in front of his head. So he was twisting over here, and then his arm would

cross over. So he worked on those two things, which was, I imagine, like he’s swimming on train trucks and taking that a little bit more time to extend out and not forcing the catch. Because it’s one of the most overpowered parts of the stroke is a forceful catch. He’s going too hard through that part of the stroke. Now, what he found was that when he worked on those things, he felt like he wasn’t trying as hard. But the thing was the next time he went back to that race, he ended up winning that same event. And part of the reason why it felt easier and that he won was because his timing was so much better. So that he was actually able to get a lot more out of his catch and his pull because those things were in sync and that meant everything could work together. So if you are thinking it’s got to be so hard to go from two minutes down to 130, it might take you some time, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll have to get way,

way fitter than you currently are or put in five times of work to get there. Quite often it’s improvements in technique and timing. And it’s about being less rushed or less forceful with different aspects of your stroke. And so if you need help with this, we work with people in our coaching and courses program, which you’ll find a link in the description below. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.

The post How This Swimmer Got Faster, Without Working Harder with Brenton Ford appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

If you’ve been swimming for six months or more, but you still run out of breath after 50 meters, this episode is for you.

28:00 Running Out Of Breath

Transform your freestyle to be effortless and smooth with online video analysis:

Try the new Nanoclear Anti-fog Goggles: https://bit.ly/nanocleargoggles

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. If you’ve been swimming for six months or more, but you still run out of breath after 50 meters, this video is for you. I was recently running a clinic where we had a swimmer who’d been swimming for nine months. And she was running out of breath before she got to 50 meters. She’d have to stop halfway down the lap, get her breath back and go again. And it’s not because she was unfit. It’s not because technically she was doing things really, really poorly. It was actually down to one thing that she got taught but didn’t quite understand the nuance of it. So when I was asking this swimmer about what she does with her breathing and what she had been taught in the past, she had learned that it was important to hum when you exhale in the water. So

straight away once you take your breath, bring your face back in the water and start to hum and exhale immediately. Now this is not necessarily bad advice for a lot of swimmers, especially if they are beginners, except what was happening was she would take her breath, bring her face back in the water and start exhaling straight away and exhaling a lot. So by the time it came to get her next breath, she was already out of air. And so that meant two things. The first thing was that she was exhaling and not able to use the air that was in her lungs. So she was kind of deprived of oxygen. And secondly, she was sinking a bit because she didn’t have that air in her lungs for very long. Because most of your buoyancy will come from the air that is in your lungs. So they were the key things that was causing her to run out of air. So once I taught her that instead of exhaling immediately, I want you to hold on to your air but

allow a little bit of an exhale to come from your nose or your mouth. But the bigger exhale comes as you turn your head to get the next breath, then she was able to swim more than 50 metres without stopping. And she was much more comfortable swimming every single lap. And we ended up doing about two kilometres in that clinic. And she was very comfortable throughout it. Now there was one other thing that was causing her to use way more energy than she had to. And that was how she was kicking and how she was holding her body. So quite often we have new customers, they get into the water and they feel like they’ve got to kick very hard to keep their hips up and their legs up. And that causes them to panic and feel like the water is making them sink or that their body is just built to sink. But the thing is if you learn to hold your body correctly and you’ve learned how to balance yourself in the water, then you don’t

need to put any effort into staying horizontal and float. And the effort can go into moving forwards. So what we ended up doing was we saw her kick was bending a lot at the hips and a lot at the knees. And so that was creating a lot of drag and causing her to use a lot of effort within her kick, which is not where we want to put most of our effort. And so instead what we thought about was think of the top part of your legs, your thigh bones, as moving slightly back and slightly forward over the hip. Just a very small movement. More for balance and stability as opposed to propulsion and keeping your legs up. So that was the first thing we did. The second thing that we did was we taught her how to hold her body and hold her posture. And so we want to think about getting the head away from the toes so we’re long through the body. And it’s like we’re this soldier standing to attention and that way we’re long and tall. Now in that position

with that narrow kick, if you’ve got a little bit of air in your lungs, you can float pretty close to being horizontal. If you are extending your arms in front, face down and you bring your legs up behind you. So we can float in that position. Now you might have heavier legs, you might have high bone density, so you might not float as well as the next person. But the thing is everyone can hold a decent position when they’re like that. And so what I find is that when people understand that they can generally float quite well if they learn those few things, then they tend to relax more. And that keeps their heart rate down and then they can put a little bit more effort into going forwards instead of staying afloat. So if you are struggling to swim more than 50 meters or you find that you are starting to tire much quicker than you should based on your fitness levels, then it might be that the way you’re breathing or your posture is the

thing that is causing that to happen. And if you need help with that, in our coaching program, we have swimmers from all over the world who send in their videos because we send you an underwater camera with your coaching program membership and that way you can film yourself. We’ll give you feedback and we’ll let you know exactly what to focus on next to get to that next stage in your swimming. Whether you’re at two minutes 15, whether you’re at one minute 30, we’ll give you the next thing to focus on so that you can see that gradual and steady progression and improvement within your stroke. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlessswimming.com.

The post The Real Reason You Are Out Of Breathe with Brenton Ford appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

So what does he do that 99.999% of swimmers don’t? How is he able to swim this fast?

I’ve spent my career analyzing the best swimmers in the world, but watching Sam swim up close is a completely different experience. I’ve never seen anyone hold as much water as he does, even at world-record pace.

What stands out the most isn’t just the speed. It’s the relaxation. His recovery looks effortless, and the way he reaches forward into the catch is incredibly fluid—almost calm—despite the intensity of the pace he’s holding.

When Sam shared some of his training with me, one thing surprised me. He’s consistently swimming up to 80 kilometers a week. Massive volume. Huge power in the stroke. But when you ask him what really matters, he often comes back to the basics—simple things like rock-solid head position and clean fundamentals.

If you’re a triathlete or an open water swimmer, Sam’s power stroke isn’t just impressive to watch. It’s actually a blueprint for efficiency.

So today, we’re breaking it all down—the sets, the technique, and the mindset around recovery that helped take him to the very top of the sport.

01:27 Sam Short Intro

Transform your freestyle to be effortless and smooth with online video analysis:

Try the new Nanoclear Anti-fog Goggles: https://bit.ly/nanocleargoggles

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.

What does it take to swim 55 seconds per 100 meters? Not just once, but four times in a row without stopping. Sam Short is one of only six swimmers in history to ever break three minutes 41 seconds for the 400 freestyle in a long course pool. And to the average swimmer, that speed feels impossible. So what does he do that 99.99% of others don’t? How is he this fast? I’ve spent my career analyzing the best in the world. But watching Sam swim up close is a different experience. I’ve never seen anyone hold as much water as he does. Even at world record pace, there’s this level of relaxation in his recovery and fluid reach into the catch that defies the intensity of his speed. And Sam told me he’s consistently hitting up to 80 kilometers a week. But despite massive volume and raw power in his stroke, his focus often comes down to the basics like rock solid head position. If you’re a triathlete or open water swimmer, Sam’s power stroke

isn’t just impressive to watch. It’s a blueprint for efficiency. And today we’re breaking down the sets, the technique and the mindset changes regarding recovery that took him to the top of the world. My name is Samuel Shaw, train and swim in Brisbane, Commonwealth champion, world champion, multiple time world championship medalist and an Olympian. How do you describe your stroke when you race? I’d say powerful stroke. I do have a tendency to like lope and I’ve kind of morphed that into like my optimal stroke for me, not as tall as I’m like competitors. So I kind of try and use my long arms for my my heart to my advantage and you know, kind of creates a lope. So and is that something that you’ve always swum that way or you it’s developed over time? Yeah, I’ve grown up swimming in the surf all since I was a baby up till now. And I think I was kind of influenced that a little bit and swum into it and then just developed into me right now and some of my

fastest times on it. In terms of mobility and flexibility, how do you rate yourself in terms of that? I say shoulder mobility and health is relatively really good right now. My very good shoulder range. If you’re talking hips and all that sort of stuff, I can definitely have some help on that. I always get tight hips and all that sort of stuff. But for a swimmer and a distance from that, I’d say my range is pretty good for shoulders. What does swimming feel like for you when you’re swimming well? What do you notice between when you’re swimming well and when you’re not? When you’re swimming well for me, I feel really light, just weightless almost and you can feel yourself propelling through the water. You feel strong and you can feel like you can just keep building through those races. And if someone takes off or you need to chase them, you have the capability to do that. What about any particular parts of your

stroke you’re working on at the moment? Consistent kick. Sometimes if I’m lazy, I have a tendency to like kind of miss it, miss a kick here and there. And that’s just gonna waste its space and not as optimal. So consistent six bit kick for me. And how does it change between a 400 free and a 10 K open water swim? Honestly, probably the legs and obviously the stroke rate as well, but you’re not going to be belting your legs as hard in a 1500 as you would be in a 400. Your legs don’t need to be really fit regardless. But I think your legs, definitely if you’re for 1500 will fatigue very quickly if you’re just belting them. Are you doing a lot of kicking sets to develop it? Yeah, I’ve improved my kick a lot over the last couple of years. I used to be horrible. Actually, when I won the Commonwealth Games when I was 18, I could barely kick sub two minutes. And now I’m like, I can kick some 130 like on repeat probably. So it’s a

lot better. And I definitely far from the best. Is there any cues or phrases that you think of when you’re swimming or you’re racing that you tend to go to? I’m a stroke rate based kind of swimmer. So I know all my stroke rates for my races. And so pretty much just tempo. I just keep trying to repeat the word tempo on my head. Sometimes I have a song with the tempo I like that I just like to try and hit those stroke rates with. What are your stroke rates for the different events? Like 400. When I swim my best, I’m like 42 43. So pretty high for 400 800 free. When I saw my best like 39 40. And then 1500. When I saw my best, the first thousand was like 38. And then towards the end, I was like 36. But you know, probably 36 or 38 range. And what about in terms of head and body position? Are you thinking about that on a constant basis? Or what do you like to think of there? If I’m really tired, I do tend to move my head a lot. And you know, that

creates drag. So keep my head low is a good cue I like to use. So sometimes the break out in the turns I do tend to be lazy and lift my head and that creates drag and it’s slower. So definitely keep my head low. Is that something you’ve seen in in races before from field like analysis footage? So like if you look at my 20 25 400 freestyle, I came second by point oh two and like the last turn I come up and just take a massive breath. And there’s you know, that’s just you could you think what what could have been. So you know, definitely try and keep that head low. What do you still when you have your body position is not where it should be? Well, I feel like you almost something like that like your legs could feel like they’re dragging along along the bottom of the floor. If your head’s too high like that’ll affect your hips and your legs. So it’s all that hip set for me to be honest. If I’m in a good body position and I feel nice and high in

the water and my legs are kind of just like on the surface kicking well. The feeling of heavy legs pretty much. So are they some of the things that you feel like you’re not sitting high in the water? What things would you play around with to try and improve it for the session? A lot of drill work I’d say like I always do drill work it’s out of my sessions to warm up like I love the long dog drill six kick switch. Start to kind of keep my legs active and also a lot of scale I love getting the feel for the water with the scaling that sort of stuff I do kind of helps me have the good feel for the water and that kind of creates good body position. What about breathing? So what’s your typical breathing pattern in a race and then training? Definitely in a race I breathe every two maybe for like the last 10 meters I’ll try and put my head down and just really rip that strike right towards the end but every two and then in

training up every two as well except I try to mix it up so maybe a 50 here and there I’ll breathe to the opposite side just to kind of even out the shoulders here and there but when I really want to try and swim fast all the session gets hard just to the one side my right. What about rotation? So with that more loping stroke do you feel that more uneven rotation and is it something that you’re conscious of or you’re actively trying to pick up? Yeah I definitely try to be not seesawing all over the place like if the legs are on I can kind of be a bit more flat and there will be a tendency for me to have a little bit more rotation just because of my stroke but obviously you don’t want too much because that’s there’s a kind of a sweet spot. What about open water how do you change your stroke for it when it does get a bit choppy in the open water? Yeah I’m pretty lucky that I already do kind of have that little loping stroke so it’s not too hard

but definitely the open water changes it got really choppy and like the waves is hitting me so I feel like it’s just kind of not trying to fight the water almost like you know I relax them is often a fast summer and just kind of using it and not trying to just bash away through it and just kind of not move more water than you need to I’d say. But what about favorite sets any particular sets that you’re doing a regular basis that you quite enjoy? Before Worlds we did this really cool set it was like four twos which are all 400 pace and then like four ones all 400 pace eight fifties fast and 400 pace like no recovery just all in a row and that was pretty good I think the four 200 is wrong maybe four minutes so a lot of rest I think best time I did I was like 150, 150, 151 and 151 off a push and then the hundred fifty fours and fifty threes and then into the fifties like 26 lows maybe finish them a 25 and after that I was like I’m ready to

go so stuff like that it’s very hard and you’ve got that constant vomit feeling but it’s you know look back at it saying that was pretty hectic. What about the hardest set you’ve done? We’ve done a 3000, 2000, 1000 like descend all the way through that’s that’s pretty hard a lot very mentally as well if you start too hard you’re gonna gonna hurt but then also one time we did a 800 free best time four twos on 230 400 best time you could possibly do four twos on 230 200 best time you can do four twos on 230 100 best you could do then four twos that was really hard. What about training wise how much distance would you typically do a week? At the moment this time of the season between I probably don’t have 70k to be honest nothing too crazy compared to some of my competitors overseas that are doing hectic stuff but I mean I kind of can come down to the 200 as well if I want to so need a bit of speed and then maybe when

more quality work comes in probably around the 60-60 something mark. How long did you typically take before leading into a main event? Me I’m probably shorter than most wouldn’t even really think about table till two weeks before off maybe start dropping it down obviously the sets will kind of get a bit more refined into like more quality work less bash yourself but yeah two weeks and then the weekend I’ll probably start to drop it down pretty quickly. How many sessions a week in the pool are you doing and what about gym? I swim I’m doing nine main ones with the squad and then I swim on Sunday by myself just to try and keep the feel for the water for Monday that’s only like a two and a half case swim and then gym I’ll do two lifting days so Tuesday Thursday and then Saturday I’ll try and get some mobility in and roll out stretch just because I’m pretty knackered by the end of the week. What about things that you’ve

maybe picked up or learnt over the years that you wish you’d known when you were younger? Yeah definitely something I know now that I wish I knew like 2024 Olympics is you don’t if you’re injured you know getting shoulder injuries as a distance swimmer or a professional swimmer is inevitable most people have some sort of niggles here and there. I always used to think just had to bash my way through that or illness. Now I know like a lot of training is how good you recover so I’m a much more of a smarter athlete now and if something hurts you know like seek help professional advice like a lot sort of stuff so instead of just bashing through it and pretending like nothing’s wrong realize that it’s wrong and try and fix it and not be afraid to recover a bit more than you know I’d say I need. 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 Only 6 Swimmers In History Have Done This with Sam Short appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

Six months of consistent training.

But your times… haven’t moved.

You’re still sitting at 1:50, maybe two minutes per hundred, and no matter how hard you train, it just doesn’t seem to change. And that can be one of the most frustrating places to be as a swimmer or triathlete.

Because it feels like you’re doing everything right.

You’re consistent. You’re committed. You’re following the program.

But you’re not getting faster.

So what’s actually going on?

In this episode, I’m going to show you why swimmers get stuck at the same pace for months, even when they’re training consistently—and more importantly, what you can do to finally break through that plateau and start dropping your times again.

00:56 Plateau of Okay

Transform your freestyle to be effortless and smooth with online video analysis:

Try the new Nanoclear Anti-fog Goggles: https://bit.ly/nanocleargoggles

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.

You consistently for six months, you’re showing up, you’re doing the sets, you’re putting in the work, but your times have not moved. You’re still sitting at 150 or two minutes per hundred, and you cannot figure out why. This is one of the most frustrating places to be as a swimmer or triathlete because you’re doing everything right, except you’re not getting faster. Today, I’m going to show you why this happens and what to do about it. So a few months ago, I got on a call with a guy named Michael. Michael’s 42, he joined our Effortless Swimming coaching membership, and he’d been swimming for about eight months. And he was swimming four times a week. And his coach was giving him workouts so he was fit, and he could hold a decent pace in the pool. But his times had not improved in six months. So when he joined so when he joined the Effortless Swimming coaching membership, he sent me a video and I asked me to tell him what

was wrong. So I watched the video a couple of times and his stroke looked overall pretty good. His body position was decent. His catch was okay. And his kick timing was fine. Nothing was terrible. And that was the problem. When nothing is terrible, but nothing is great, you end up with a stroke that looks fine, but doesn’t really go anywhere. And this is what I call the plateau of okay. You pass the beginner stage, you know how to swim, you can finish your workouts without stopping, but you are stuck. And here’s why. Most of us at this level are trying to fix everything at once. They watch a video about body rotation. So they work on that for a week. Then they see something about the catch. So they focus on that for a week. Then someone tells them their kick is wrong. So they start doing kick sets. Every week they’re chasing a different fix. And nothing sticks because they never spend enough time on the one thing that would

actually make them faster. So when I told Michael this, he said, yeah, it sounds like me. So I asked him one question. I said, if you could only work on one thing for the next four weeks, what would you what would give you the biggest improvement? And he said, I don’t know. That’s why I’m here. So I thought, fair enough. So I told him, your stroke rate is too slow. You’re gliding for too long at the front of your stroke, because someone told you to lengthen out. But you’re not actually moving forwards during that glide. You’re just waiting and sinking and slowing down. And when you finally begin your catch, your hand’s not really connecting with the water the water early enough. So you’re losing the first third of your stroke. And this means you’re working twice as hard to cover the same distance. So I told him, we’re going to fix that one thing just one. What I want you to do is with your hand when you finish reaching forwards, I

want you to begin the catch a bit sooner. So your hand connects with the water earlier in the pool. So you can actually use that front part of your stroke. And that was it. No work on body position, no kick drills, no breathing changes, just one thing for four weeks. And here’s what most people don’t understand about improving in swimming. You don’t get faster by fixing 10 things a little bit. You get faster by fixing one thing completely. So when you try and change everything at once, your brain just cannot process it. You end up swimming worse because you’re thinking about 12 different cues and your stroke falls apart. But when you focus on one change, your brain can actually integrate it. You can feel it, you can repeat it, and you can begin to make that automatic. And once it’s automatic, you can move to the next thing. That is how you build a fast stroke, one piece at a time in the right order. And most of us don’t realize that

the order of the corrections matter. If you fix your catch before you fix your kick, well, you might just be kicking harder to compensate for a week pool. If you’re hand, if you try to fix your hand entry before you fix your rotation, or you might just struggle to get that hand entry correct. The fastest way to improve is to fix the foundations of the fastest way to improve is to fix the foundations of the stroke first. And that often the foundations for most people will be head, body and legs. But then we work on the propulsive part of the stroke. But for most adults, as they think it means fixing the catch. Now your catch is responsible for a large part of your propulsion. And if your catch is weak, everything else you do ends up just moving the water around without going anywhere. But for a lot of people, they’ve got to work on body position, head position and rotation first. But that is why I wanted to start with this summer on his

propulsive phase, because he ticked those boxes. He was swimming, he was quite streamlined in his stroke. It was just that he was lacking propulsion because the timing of his catch was off. So this summer spent four weeks working on his catch timing. And every couple of sessions he would film himself, where he focused on getting that hand connecting a little earlier in the pool, rolling into the catch and not stopping and gliding and pausing for too long. He didn’t worry about anything else. And after two weeks, he sent me a video and he said, I think I’m getting it. And he was right. He was starting to grab the water a bit earlier and his stroke looked more connected and his effort looked a lot lower. And after four weeks, he tested his pace and he dropped eight seconds per hundred. Eight seconds from 152 to 144 per hundred, with the same fitness and training volume and same pool, but just that one change. So if you’ve been

training for months and your times haven’t moved, you probably don’t need to train harder. You might need to stop trying to fix everything and just focus on the one thing that will actually make you faster, the one thing that is the bottleneck in your stroke. For a lot of people, it can be the catch. For some people, it’s body position. For others, it’s kicking or breathing. But there’s always one thing, not 10 things. And once this is done completely, then you’ll find that your stroke will improve. So here’s what I want you to do. Film yourself. So here’s what I want you to do. Film yourself, watch it back and be honest about what you see. And then pick one thing that’s costing you the most speed. Not the thing that looks the worst, but the thing that is costing you the most speed. Now, if you’re not sure what that is, send me a video and I’ll tell you. And that’s exactly what we do inside the Effort the Swimming

Coaching Membership is you film yourself, send it in, and myself and Tasman will watch it and tell you exactly what to work on and in what order. So there’s no guessing. There’s no trying to fix 12 things at once. Just one clear instruction that you can actually execute. And we’ll give you some structure around how to work on it and the drills that may help with it. And once we get that piece told in, we move on to the next one. And that’s how this from a drop date seconds in four weeks. And that’s how most of our members drop a large amount of time in the first couple of months of being a member, not necessarily by training harder, even though obviously that can make a difference for many people, but it’s by training smarter. So one fix at a time in the right order. And if you want to help figuring out what that one thing is, you can join the Coaching Membership at effortless swimming.com. You actually get a waterproof camera included with

your first month. So you can film yourself easily from multiple angles and you can upload it. We’ll analyze it and tell you exactly what to work on. Then you work on that one thing until it’s automatic. Then we move on to the next thing. The link’s in the description. Look forward to joining you in the Coaching Membership. And thanks for listening. See you next week. And 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 I’m Now 8 Seconds Quicker Per 100m appeared first on Effortless Swimming.