Effortless Swimming

Do freestyle tips from the 1960s still hold up today? In this episode, I’m diving into some notes I took from a DVD created by 1960 Olympic gold medalist in the 1500m freestyle, John Conrad. About ten years ago, I was deep into studying freestyle technique—trying to learn everything I could—and John and I actually had a few back-and-forth discussions about our different approaches. We didn’t always agree, and today I want to revisit some of his ideas, share what I took away from his teachings, and talk about where I see things differently.

If you’re working on improving your own freestyle technique, I’ve also put together a free checklist to guide you step-by-step—you’ll find the link in the show notes. Let’s dive in!

01:22-Apply Energy Only When Needed

Grab the freestyle checklist here:

Work with us (stroke analysis coaching):

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Anxiety is number one priority. If you are tense and anxious when you’re in the water, that can really ruin the rest of your stroke. So if we haven’t dealt with that side of things yet, the anxiety that you might have around being in water that you can’t stand up in, then we really need to address that first and foremost. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford.

Do freestyle tips from the 1960s still work today? Recently, I came across some notes that I made from a DVD that the 1960-1500m freestyle gold medalist, John Conrad, said put together. And 10 years ago, I was really deep into learning freestyle technique and trying to figure everything out that I could about the stroke. And John and I would actually go back and forth about some of the things that he was teaching that I was teaching and we’d disagree on some things. So in this video, I want to share with you some of the notes that I made when going through John Conrad’s DVD and some of the things I don’t necessarily agree with as well. Let’s get stuck into the video. And if you’re looking to improve your own freestyle technique, I’ll put together a freestyle technique checklist that you can get at the link below. It gives you everything in the right order to help develop and improve your own freestyle. The first night I made was apply energy only when needed.

I really like this tip. When we talk about recovery over the top of the water, it’s called recovery because you should be relaxed and recovering the arm over the top and not using unnecessary energy. So apply force only when needed. So I really like that tip where a lot of people are trying to muscle their way down the pool through all the different parts of the stroke. But if you can relax and switch off a little bit in the recovery parts of the stroke, if you can build into the catch, put a little bit more force into the catch in the pool as you’re accelerating through, finding that sweet spot of how much effort and force to apply can make a big difference. Swim at floatation depth. This is something that John Conrad’s would teach is you should swim at the same depth that you would float. Now I agree with this in some respects. So when we do our freestyle clinics, one of the exercises we get capable to do is to float

and we’re getting to float in a ball. We get them to try and float horizontally. Now everyone’s got different buoyancy profiles, meaning you’ve got different muscle fat distribution, limb length, where your lungs are, how much air it can hold. So everyone floats differently. So I would agree with this that if you can sit kind of at the surface or just below it, that’s a pretty good place to swim. But we do get a lot of people, particularly older guys, who have heavier hips and legs, and they tend to sink. So I wouldn’t want them to swim at that depth. But I think in general, it’s pretty good advice to follow. Anxiety is number one priority. If you are tense and anxious when you’re in the water, that can really ruin the rest of your stroke. So if we haven’t dealt with that side of things yet, the anxiety that you might have around being in water that you can’t stand up in, then we really need to address that first

and foremost, because it doesn’t matter how fit you are. It doesn’t matter how strong you are or how good your technique is. If you’ve got this anxiety around being in water, then it’s going to be hard to progress from there. As you relax, your body increases in volume. This is a really interesting tip that I got from John Conner as is that if you’re tense, then you will take up slightly less space in the water because of that tension through the through the body. Whereas when you relax, it’s almost like if you’re trying to flex in front of the mirror, things will come together. But if you relax, then you’ll actually take up more volume. And that means that you can float a little bit better in the water. So that is one of the reasons why you need that sense of softness and relaxation about how you hold yourself in the water. Swimming efficiently means you’re relaxed and loose. If you look at the very best swimmers in the world, they don’t ever look like they’re

muscling their way through the water. They’ve got this sense of relaxation, not only necessary tension through the way that they hold their body. So we want to get to that point. So if you’re trying to go faster by muscling your way through the water and trying to force it, that’s not sustainable. So we want this sense of looseness and relaxation through the way that we move. Look forward when learning, look down when more comfortable. John Conrad’s made this tip as part of his DVD and I somewhat agree with it. So if you’re not super comfortable with being in the water, you may want to see where you’re going when you swim. But the downside to that is it may drop your hips and your legs. So I think it just depends on the person. So if you are really struggling with that comfort in the water, maybe it is worthwhile looking slightly forwards or forwards to see where you’re going, but we don’t want to stick with that to too long because for a lot of people,

that means dropped hips and dropped legs. But the range that we want to head position should be zero to 45. So I think you’d be better off looking about 45 degrees in front. So you can still have a sense of what’s coming as opposed to looking straight down. Pivot your body. When we think of rotation side to side, don’t think about rolling and twisting side to side. You’re probably better off thinking about pivoting, thinking you’re rotating around the spine and you’re pivoting from your right side to your left side. And where your rotation primarily comes from is that pivot or that rotation and reach forwards. That’s where the rotation comes in. So that can be a good way to think of your rotation pivoting your body. Relax your kick. It is not worth the effort. Unless you are sprinting a 50 freestyle, maybe 100, your kick really is only going to provide up to about 10% of your propulsion. So there is no need

to kick really, really hard. It’s there more for balance and for timing, not so much propulsion. So I think this is really good advice where the kick can help really coordinate kins in the stroke and can be really useful. So we don’t want to forget about the legs, but a lot of your propulsion is going to come from your upper body. So let’s put a most of our focus there. Keep the kick light. Kick on your back instead of your front. Now I somewhat agree with this advice. The reason you can improve your kick by kicking on your back is it can help you focus more on the down kick. Well in this case, when we flick the foot down, it can help you work on a better up kick if you’re on your back. So sometimes if we’re kicking on our front, we’re just thinking about the downward movement. That’s certainly important, but we also need to think about the upward movement. When we draw the leg up in a somewhat straight movement, that’s half of the kick. So we need to make sure we’re moving our legs

correctly that way. And so by kicking on your back, you can help develop that part of your kick. So I think it’s good advice that kicking on your back, not only on your front, but on your back as well, that can come in handy. But same thing for kicking on your side, you can develop your kick in both directions by kicking on your side as well. Both arms don’t go at the same speed. If you’re thinking of your stroke is this windmill action where everything is going at the same time, the same speed, there’s a good chance that your timing is way off in your freestyle. The speed of the arms will change through the stroke. One of the ways that we like to teach is slow to fast. So once we’ve entered the ordinary of reaching forwards, it’s slower through there and then it will speed up as we go through the catch and pull and then we release out the back. So if we think of timing, it’s going to enter, extend out. This arm is going to be going quicker out the back in order to almost

catch up out the front and then we go through. So we’re not going in complete opposites to each other with our arms. So I think that’s really good advice. Delay the pull. This is pretty similar to that last tip that John gave is you shouldn’t rush into the catch or let’s say he’s calling the pull. You should take that little bit of time to reach forwards, set up the catch and then go through. So pretty similar advice, but delay the pull. Don’t come in and go straight through. It is counterintuitive. You would think that in order to get going and get your speed up that you enter and immediately start pressing back because we need to go forwards. But when you reach forwards and slide the hand out, you’re going to be the most streamlined at that point. You’re going to be able to get into a stronger position with your lats and your back and shoulders as you reach out. So it’s important to not skip the rich part of the stroke. Hey real quick, in case you didn’t know,

we run swimming camps around the world from the Maldives, Thailand, Japan with Sundays, Galapagos Islands plus a bunch of new locations for next year. So if you’d like to join us at a future camp and improve your swimming and explore and experience some of the best locations to swim in the world, then go to effortlesswimming.com forward slash camps. We’ve got all the dates and locations listed there. A question I get all the time is I’m not that quick. Will this camp be suitable for me? We have a wide range of speeds and abilities come to the camps. So as long as you can swim a kilometer, there’s a very good chance that these camps will be suitable for you. And if you’re not sure, just get in touch with us and we’ll make sure that we do find you a suitable camp. Thanks for listening. Let’s get back to the podcast. Learn by exaggeration. This is such a great tip that John Conrods gave in his DVD that if you are trying to make a change or you’re trying to learn something, exaggerate it.

So when we’re running freestyle clinics and a lot of our courses as well, I get people to do things the wrong way and then the right way. Do it completely wrong. For example, with your kick, let’s do a really big kick, lots of hip and knee bend, massive kick. See how you feel. Most people get completely gassed out at the end of that. Then we bring them to a smaller, narrower kick and get them to feel that. So those going between those two extremes is a really good way to find the sweet spot. Because as a coach, I can give you advice, I can give you tips, but the best coach is going to be yourself. You can feel for things in the water. You can get a sense of what’s right by how fast you travel, the feeling that you get in the water. So learning by exaggeration is such a great tip that I think we don’t often do enough of. Because whenever we’re trying to make changes in the stroke, if you try and change it by 5% or 10%, I guarantee you,

you’re probably not changing it at all. So more times are not things have to be exaggerated to be changed. The first component of swimming is relaxing. The second is catch up. The third is almost catch up. This was quite an interesting tip that John put in his DVD. And in some ways, I do agree with this. First, we need to learn how to be comfortable and relaxed in the water. So we just work on breathing and floating and those sorts of things. Next, it can be good to learn freestyle with a full catch up. Because again, that can help you stay balanced. And it can help you work on some of those other parts of the stroke if you’re doing a full catch up. But we don’t want to stick there. Because if you’re still swimming catch up, as you get more experienced, you’re going to be limiting your speed. You do not see the best swimmers in the world doing a full catch up. The timing of their stroke is an almost

catch up, also known as front quadrant freestyle or three quarter catch up. And all that means is that instead of having one hand admit the other out in front, it means that once you get to about here is when this hand will begin the catch. So that’s almost catch up. So not bad advice. I think for someone who is learning to swim freestyle, don’t confuse arm speed with swim speed. One of the mistakes a lot of beginner swimmers make is they try and pull really hard and fast in order to try and go faster. But there’s only a certain amount of force that you can apply to the water before you start to slip and be ineffective with it. So don’t equate arm speed with swim speed. The other part of that too is when we start to go faster. Don’t necessarily try and begin your catch earlier. It may start slightly earlier, but that increase in speed is actually going to come more from more force applied. So a little bit

more force and pressure through the catch and through the pool. That’s going to help you get faster, not necessarily by trying to rip really hard and fast. So don’t confuse arm speed with swim speed. Don’t rush the breath. Quite often when we are struggling to breathe in the water, we try and get the breath either really quickly or we try and gust for air where you might turn up really high, get this big inhale where mouth is really open and you bring it back really fast. Now we shouldn’t take forever to breathe. We just want to time the breath with the turn of the shoulders. So the head turns in time with the shoulders and back with the shoulders. So it shouldn’t be rushed, but it still needs to be somewhat quick. But if you are really struggling with your breath, make sure that you’re not trying to do this big gasp for there, quickly bring the head back. Just try and relax it almost like you’re getting a sip of air coming

back and going back into your exhale. Exhale all the time from the nose and mouth. When it comes to breathing, especially if you’re doing any sort of effort, you will need to have a constant exhalation. We normally see it as a moderate exhale before a bigger exhale as your head is turning to get the next breath. So the bigger exhale normally comes as you’re turning your head before the breath. So it doesn’t have to be this big forceful exhale from the beginning. That can be a trickle of air and then into a bigger exhale as you go. The only time that I would see someone actually holding their breath is more so if we’re doing breath control as part of training. Breathing every four, six, eight strokes, you might need to hold onto your air bend because if you exhale too early, you won’t be able to use that oxygen enough. But outside of that, we should have a small trickle of air at least from the beginning

as you return your head back into the water. Breathe every two but change every 25 meters or so. I kind of agree with this. It really depends though. You see some swimmers who prefer to breathe every two, some every three, some every four. So it really just depends on the person. But I do like the advice of bilateral breathing is okay to do but I think most people prefer to breathe every two strokes. So if you are breathing every two, at least in training, you don’t want to be doing that all to one side for the whole session. You’ve got to mix it up between left and right side. Whether it’s half your session or 30% of your session, you should be breathing to both sides regardless of whether you’re breathing every two or every three. Kicking on the side is good for developing your breathing to the opposite side. I do think this is great advice from John where if you do a side kick drill which is one arm in

front, other arm by your side, turning your body to about 45 degrees, kick with your face down in the water and then breathe to the side. That can help you get comfortable breathing low, keeping that bottom goggle in the water and finding your balance and comfort, breathing to your non-preferred side. So we do a lot of this and a similar drill just called side breathing kick with a kickboard. We do a lot of that in our clinics just to help people develop breathing to both sides and getting comfortable and finding their balance. Keep your hand loose in the recovery. Your recovery is when your arm comes over the top and if you are stiff and tense through here, it’s wasted effort and it does make it more challenging to bring your arm over the water. So if we think of what brings our arm through, shoulder, elbow, they’re the things that are really leading the arm over the top of the water. If we are trying to bring the hand over and not worrying about this, it really stacks up your

recovery and makes you come over in a way where you’ve got this closed underarm elbow pointing behind you instead of elbow pointing mostly to the sky. So I think that’s good advice. Use body roll to bring your elbow through the recovery. This is pretty good advice. If you are not rotating enough on your side, then it’s going to be very hard to bring your arm over the top. So we need to make sure we’re rotating enough, number one, to be able to recover properly. Our shoulder does not love this position here. If you’re flat and trying to get your arm over the water, our shoulders don’t work very well. So we need to get enough rotation to comfortably bring the arm over the top of the water. So you can use that body roll or rotation to help with a good recovery. And that’s where we should start. We’ve got to swim from the inside out. So the inside here, out to the extremities and that inside part is making sure

that we are rotating enough. Number one, pull harder, not sooner to go faster. One of the mistakes many people make, especially those newer swimmers, is they come into the water and they initiate their catch a lot earlier than what they should, especially when they’re trying to go faster, they turn into this windmill. We need to make sure that we are not initiating our catch too soon. We’re still keeping good timing and length, but we put a bit more force into the catch and into the pool and we accelerate through a little bit more. Don’t go straight away for faster in the catch, go for more force, more power. That will help you go faster, because that will keep not only good stroke length, which is half of your speed equation, but it will also help you make sure you keep good timing so things can coordinate in the stroke. Because if we come through and we don’t get enough rotation and reach, if we just come

straight in, well, you’re not going to be able to coordinate your catch with your body rotation and your kick, that’s going to get thrown out of sync. So that’s really, really good advice. And I think some of the best advice for swimmers who are still finding their way through that coordination aspect of how do I get faster without completely gassing out. It’s common for swimmers to pool too early when they breathe. Instead, extend more, press down slightly to help keep you up in the water. I think this is pretty good advice from John Conrad’s, where a lot of people will come in and this arm just drops straight away. If you can keep your arm out there for a little bit of time, it not only gives you something to balance on, it keeps your length in the water and your streamline in the water. And if you can just have a little bit of a press down, I’m not saying press straight down, but a little bit of

a press down through that movement of the catch. It can help keep you up to get the breath, which will make it easier to look to the side and not up to the sky. So there are all the tips that I got from the John Conrad’s DVD. And I think they still apply today. John was an incredible swimmer back in the 50s, the 60s, and all this stuff still applies today. Let me know which tip resonated with you the most down the bottom. And if you’d like to get a full breakdown of the freestyle stroke, click this video above.

The post Does 1960’s swim technique still work? appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

In today’s episode, I’m sharing 10 things I wish I knew when I first started swimming. Whether you’re just beginning or have been in the water for a while, these lessons can help you take your swimming to the next level.

Let’s face it—most beginners train too hard, focus on the wrong details, and waste a lot of time and energy. That not only slows progress but can lead to frustrating plateaus or even injuries like shoulder pain.

These 10 key insights will help you avoid those common mistakes. We’ll break down what truly matters when it comes to gear, technique, training, and mindset—so you can swim smarter, stay injury-free, and start seeing real improvement in the pool.

Stop training like a runner. You're a swimmer now when people run they often go for long runs and it's just all at the same pace and there's no breaks in between and For running that can be a really good way to approach it a lot of the time But in swing if you look at any of the best swimmers in the world They are all breaking their sessions into sets warm-up Cool down main set preset and more importantly, they're breaking it down into intervals of hundreds and two hundreds and fifties with rest in between and the thing about doing that is it feels like it's actually Not going to help you because you're taking rest in between But even five or ten seconds in between the intervals gives you this short amount of rest Where if you take ten seconds on the wall your heart rate comes down a little bit and your muscles get that little bit of Recovery so by the time you push off for that next interval you are refreshed and then you can get your technique back on track Welcome to the effortless swimming podcast to show that helps swimmers and triathletes love the water become a better swimmer and live a Better life. Here's your host Brenton Ford In this video, I'm going to share with you ten things that I wish someone had told me when I first started swimming Or if you've been swimming for a while These tips will also help you get to the next stage with your swimming goals because let's be honest most beginners train too hard focus on the wrong things and waste a lot of time that stops them from getting to under two minutes per hundred and

they end up wasting a lot of effort and Sometimes it leads to shoulder injuries and other things when they focus on the wrong things But these ten lessons will give you clarity on the gear technique training mindset and what actually leads to progress These are the things that make the biggest difference for me and the swimmers that I coach and when you apply them You'll feel more confident. You'll swim smoother and faster with less effort and swimming might just become one of the best parts of your life Let's start in not all swim gear is worth it. Here's what actually helps There's a lot of stuff that you are told to get when you start swimming but in reality you could get away with just having a pair of swimwear and Goggles that is really all that you need to get started But there are some things that can help you Progress faster the things that I recommend my swimmers get number one is a good pair of fins a pair of fins that are comfortable Flexible and give you a good amount of propulsion without changing your stroke something like the damn sea fins Very very good for the majority of swimmers out there There are other brands that have stiff and rigid fins that actually can make your swimming worse So it's best to avoid those when it comes to snorkels Most snorkels are all pretty much the same as long as you find a comfortable front snorkel Then that can be a good tool for the majority of swimmers out there It helps take away the need to turn your head to breathe and that can be a good thing when looking to develop Your catch and your pull and your kick and rotation. So that's also another piece of equipment that I'd recommend

Another thing if you are doing triathlons or open water swimming You may want to build your strength using a pool buoy and paddles So getting a pair of those can be worthwhile for some types of swimmers But in reality some swimming some swimwear some goggles will take you a long way in your journey Technique overwhelm is a real thing and if you've watched any of our videos or you've scrolled on Instagram or on YouTube You've probably been inundated with technique advice But the thing with too much advice is if there's too much there You're probably not going to do any of it. If you look at learn to swim lessons for children quite often They'll start with breathing and bubbles and then they progress from there as an adult There's a good chance you should probably follow the same sort of progression now You might be able to go through some of those Aspects of the stroke a little bit quicker than young kids might be able to however We still need to learn good foundations and fundamentals So don't try and work on your catch if you're still struggling to swim more than 50 meters You probably need to go back to the basics of breathing blowing bubbles Floating getting your body horizontal in the water. Some of these fundamentals are where we need to start and Sometimes our ego and our pride gets in the way. Well, I thought I don't need to do that I'm an adult kids kids can do it But I don't need to but quite often the stuff that we're teaching adults in our clinics It stems from a lot of learn to swim stuff and getting those basics, right?

So if you can get your ego out of the way and be willing to go through something that might seem really basic There's a good chance that long term to three years down the track You're going to progress a lot quicker and a lot more Sustainably where you can reach higher levels in your swimming if you get good at those fundamentals By trying too hard and got slower When I look back at my swimming career as a teenager one thing that I realized is that I went too hard Too often in the easy stuff. So I was in that gray zone where my slow stuff was too fast My fast stuff was too slow. So I was in that training gray zone where I wasn't really training in the right zones Now as a result of that I feel like I probably didn't progress as far as I could have If I had been willing to do my aerobic sets at an aerobic heart rate and my faster stuff actually to have the speed and Have that recovery in there where I could hit Faster faster speeds and and higher levels there So one of the mistakes a lot of people make is they don't look at those different zones They train in that middle section and I think the reason I did that was because I thought the harder I train the harder I work The more I'll progress Which is true to a certain extent. However Sometimes if we get stuck in that zone, then we're not hitting the right heart rates and other things So I feel like that probably stunted my progress a bit as a teenager now for you as an adult

maybe you're doing everything at one speed and You're not changing the pace that you're doing or perhaps you're stuck in that gray zone as well So it's good to make sure that we follow a good training plan follow something with some structure and we're Committing to it and sticking to it something like the LES squad workouts that we've got in their membership They break it down into different speeds What efforts what speed you should be going to so you actually see real progression and you don't get stuck at that one zone Open water swimming isn't just a pool without walls You know from what out there are so many variable conditions that it can really feel like a different sport in a way And so if you're coming from Swimming in the pool with a background in it and you're very comfortable in the pool You might have a bit of a shock when it comes to open water swimming where you feel like everything you've lands in the pool Doesn't apply in the open water now It does Except that it just takes a bit of getting used to the variable conditions where the water wasn't flat It's not smooth and you're probably having to Almost go against some of those things you learned in the pool in terms of your breathing You might need to turn a little bit higher You might need to begin your catch a little bit sooner your stroke rate might need to come up There's certain things that you do need to change in the open water Compared to in the pool, but it is something that you can get good at even if you come from that pool background it just takes time and it takes practice and There's not really any shortcuts to it apart from putting in the work

so if you can get really good at siding at maybe coming over the water a little bit higher a little bit quicker over the top and Knowing how much you need to increase your stroke rate in the open water and being willing to be Imperfect and a little bit choppy with it Then you can become very good at open water But it does sometimes feel like it's a different sport when you first come to it Though it does take time to get used to At effortless swimming our mission is simple make swimming more enjoyable Whether you're training for your next race swimming for fitness or just love being in the water We're here to help you swim faster smoother and with more confidence And one thing that can make or break a swim is your goggles if you've ever struggled with foggy lenses mid-session You know how frustrating it can be that's why we created the effortless swimming hydro clear Anti-fog goggles for long-lasting crystal clear vision I've been using them myself and the difference is night and day and I'm not the only one Deborah swam 36 kilometers down the Derwent River and the entire time her vision stayed crystal clear no fog no frustration Just an uninterrupted swim. So what makes a hydro clear goggles different? It's all in the technology Unlike ordinary anti-fog coatings that wear off over time Hydro-clear super hydrophilic technology is built into the lens material itself Here's how it works instead of fog forming as tiny droplets water spreads evenly across the lens creating a thin film that prevents the fog from even starting and the result

Consistently clear vision swim after swim and the durability our lenses are CNAS certified Tests show that even after 2,000 rubs with a wet cloth under a 200 gram load the lens stays fog-free No gimmicks, just serious performance that lasts Using them is simple. Just wet the lenses before putting them on and you're set for a fog-free swim Ready to see the difference yourself get 15% off your first pair of hydro clear anti-fog goggles with the code podcast at shop dot effortless swimming dot com That's 15% off your first pair of goggles with the code podcast at shop dot effortless swimming dot com We also have a 30-day money back guarantee So if you're not happy with the goggles for any reason you can simply return them for a refund Don't let foggy goggles ruin another swim. Try hydro clear today and experience clear vision from start to finish

Stop training like a runner. You're a swimmer now When people run they often go for long runs and it's just all at the same pace and there's no breaks in between And for running that can be a really good way to approach it a lot of the time But in swimming if you look at any of the best swimmers in the world They are all breaking their sessions into sets warm up cool down main set preset and more importantly they're breaking it down into intervals of Hundreds and two hundreds and fifties with rest in between and the thing about doing that is it feels like it's actually Not going to help you because you're taking rest in between but even five or ten seconds in between your intervals gives you this short amount of rest where if you Take 10 seconds on the wall your heart rate comes down a little bit and your muscles get that little bit of recovery So by the time you push off for that next interval you are refreshed and then you can get your technique back on track So quite often when someone's going to a pool swimming one kilometer two kilometers straight. No change in pace No Rest in between they start to fatigue and their technique and form begins to fall away So if you can get used to breaking your session into intervals, even if it's 10 100s With 10 seconds rest in between you'll find that you're much more likely to maintain good form And good form leads to speed and that speed leads to faster times in a in a brace So even if you feel like it's not as good of a workout necessarily because you've had some short rest in between

More than likely it's actually going to help you because you'll maintain your form and you've got to maintain form to maintain your speed Swimming isn't only racing in the pool. There is a whole world out there When I grew up it was all about pool competitions and racing In the pool short course and long course when I became an adult when I started coaching adults I learned about the world of open water swimming and swimming camps and swimming trips and just going for Swims with your friends. There is so much more to swimming than just racing in the pool and especially as an adult you have so many opportunities out there to be able to Do more than just race in the pool So what I thought swimming was all about just going up and down in the pool But in reality there is so many other things that you can do So if you find that like I don't actually love going up and down the black line while there's open water swimming There's swimming holidays that you can take like our male dive strip and our Thailand trip There's so many other things out there that you can do if you find that following the black line is not necessarily for you simple drills equal fast swimming Whenever i've filmed olympic level swimmers quite often they're all doing very similar drills And they're not just doing that because that's just what they were taught They're often doing it because there are a couple of drills that if done really well have a great correlation between your swimming technique So a lot of the drills that I see olympic level swimmers doing particularly for freestyle a lot of them are doing sculling drills

single arm drills And something like long dog paddle or underwater recovery freestyle They're the main drills I see olympic level swimmers doing as part of their warm-up because it can set up all those key things that they're working on Lengthen the stroke good catch and pull the right rotation and connection within the stroke So if you've got a good staple of drills that you can do as part of your warm-up each session and you know How you need to be doing them then that can go a very long way to helping you progress in your swimming What's the secret to staying consistent when you swim? It's absolutely fine to begin your swimming journey on your own going to the pool trying to figure things out And working working it out and what you can do to get swim a little bit further However, if you want to be able to maintain your swimming and really stick with it Most people i've seen stick with it. They find a squad They find a friend or a group of friends that they swing with it's that accountability It's that social aspect of it that keeps a lot of people in the sport So once you get going and you learn the basics of swimming It's worthwhile trying to find a group or some friends out there that you can go swimming with because that's what makes it much more Enjoyable and even though it's a very solo thing to do swimming up and down You don't really get to talk to people when you swim Outside of that in the intervals on the wall before and after a session That's often when you get that social aspect of it So if you can find a master's group or a triathlon group or something similar

That's often where people stick with it for much longer and find it so much more enjoyable Learning to swim is frustrating and it's not very appealing to get to the pool But once you get good enough at swimming It's frustrating when you don't get to the pool So whenever we learn a new skill, particularly something like swimming that there can be a bit of a learning curve, too It's very frustrating in the beginning because we don't know what we need to do to get faster We're not getting that enjoyable feeling of gliding through the water And so that is where a lot of people stop and they give up on their swing journey But once you eventually get over that learning curve You get to the point where swimming is enjoyable and it's fun because you get that Feeling of all that endorphin release after a good training session Get that feeling of gliding through the water the water rushing over your arms and your shoulders where you're going side to side It's a very good feeling and you actually miss it when you don't do it But it takes a while to get to that point So if you can persist with your swimming for three months or six months and get to that point where it is enjoyable That is when You're over that that hard part where you actually miss it where if you don't get to a session You're kind of frustrated, but you didn't get to do it. The real reward Isn't speed It's who you become I remember growing up. My dad was my coach and every single morning we'd go into the pool and we'd train He would always remind myself and the other swimmers there that There's no one else our age who was up at four thirty in the morning

Going to the pool early training hard. We were doing all this stuff before most of our Friends were awake and so he made the point that it was about who we were becoming the skills We were learning that that's actually more important than getting good at swimming Now obviously getting good at swimming is a is a byproduct of doing all these things But the the main thing that comes out of it I think of getting good at any skill like swimming is the person that you become it's the the dedication It's the commitment that it requires and so there's so much more to it than just getting faster and that's why I think swimming in particular is one of the The best sports for most people to be able to do because they're they can see that progress It takes a lot of effort and time And and thought to be able to get To be able to progress this for me So that is why I think it's not so much about just getting faster But it's about the person become by doing the hard work If you're not sure what to focus on next have a look at this next video Where I break down freestyle in a lot of detail so you know exactly what to do to get faster Thanks for listening to the effortless swimming podcast If you'd like us to help you become a faster more efficient swimmer go to

Effortlessswimming.com

The post 10 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Swimming with Brenton Ford appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

In this episode, we’ll break down that key insight—how chasing speed can hold you back, why real progress comes from subtle adjustments, and the shift in perspective that turns resistance into flow. If your stroke has ever felt more like a struggle than a rhythm, this episode is for you.

1:10 Progress Isn’t Linear

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So you don’t need to stop straight away as soon as everything is soon as something drops off But we do need to be aware of it and sometimes we just need to find that balance between putting in the hard work Having a straight breakdown, but not letting it break down too much where we’re training a really bad form Welcome to the effortless swimming podcast to show that helps swimmers and triathletes Love the water become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host Brenton Ford

Most of us spend years making the same mistakes again and again Thinking progress is about piling on endless lap after lap But what if I told you there’s a smarter faster way to become a better swimmer without necessarily training harder But swimming smarter in this video I’ll share with you 10 powerful insights that took me years to learn Insights that if I’d known them earlier would have saved me endless laps endless years of Swimming but not really seeing much progression whether you’re struggling with inconsistency Unsure if your technique is effective or nervous about open water swimming I’m going to show you exactly what to focus on to transform your swimming experience Progress isn’t linear One thing that I didn’t know growing up was that the progression wouldn’t always be in this upward trajectory It’s almost like walking up a mountain with a yo-yo that yo-yo will come up It will go down it will come up it will go down and we will see this

upward progression But sometimes we actually get a little bit slower before we get better and often when people hit those bits where they’ve Regressed in a way. They think that they’re doing the wrong thing But quite often the progression is this up and down movement that if we can just persist through those harder times Where we don’t really see the results of the work we’re doing then we can come out the other side of it Being a better swimmer and so often people quit or they get disheartened that they’re not getting better all the time But sometimes we do have to work away at things for several months and often several years to really get to that next level Especially as we are getting quicker and getting better getting towards the pointy end of the field So at the start you often see a lot of improvement early on but that’s not always the case as you get quicker video yourself early The first time ever got filmed was about eight years into my swimming journey and I thought this is going to look amazing

I have swum for a long time. I’ve reached a pretty good level in my swimming This is going to look amazing when I look at this footage But the reality was that there were so many things I was doing wrong that I didn’t even know about Yet I had trained for a long time. I thought I was swimming incredibly well So if you can video yourself early on in your journey You will progress so much faster than someone who goes 10 years without ever having seen themselves swim I often have a lot of members who sent through their videos for analysis and The first comment they make is I can already see five things I’m doing wrong because they’d never filmed themselves before and so That is such a crucial step to Fast-tracking your progression as a swimmer swimming is as much a mental game as it is a physical game Quite often people think that the way to get faster is to get fitter and get stronger and absolutely that counts for a large part of it

But there’s a big aspect of swimming that is all about the mental side of it Even if you are a beginner Sometimes that mental side of it can impact you more than the physical side of it Because sometimes we get caught in our heads wherever we think that this is an unsafe place to be or we think I’m not any good at this So we tend to panic or we tend to be short of breath so if you can control the mental side of it and Make sure you’re training about just as much as the physical side of it That will help you progress a lot quicker than if you’re focused on just the physical aspect of it And the faster you get the higher up you get in swimming That’s often where the mental games by a big part of it, too If you watch the Olympics and you look at the top two to three competitors in any event Sometimes it comes down to just the mental side of it and who’s been able to kick their nerve All the way for those four years leading up to the Olympics

So controlling the mental game as much as the physical game just swimming more doesn’t guarantee your progress Certainly, there’s an element to having to swim consistently putting in the yards putting in the kilometers However, if you’re just swimming without any focus and your technique isn’t that great Then you’re probably in spelling or training bad habits And if your technique is enough to scratch you’re going to hit this ceiling where you can’t get any faster So a good way to approach the swimming is yes We need to be consistent But we also need to make sure that the lats we’re doing are of a certain standard and a certain quality Because if we’re training bad habits with our technique then we are going to limit ourselves Now it doesn’t mean to be overly cautious and make and not do more than 25 meters without stopping We need to allow some Some leeway in there However, make sure that you’re not just going up and down with this really ugly scrappy technique

Make sure you’re training to a pretty decent level 80 90 percent of your Good technique is often a good good approach there and as you’re doing some harder sessions Yes, you’re going into fatigue your stroke is going to break down a bit So you don’t need to stop straight away as soon as everything As soon as something drops off But we do need to be aware of it and sometimes we just need to find that balance between putting in the hard work Having a straight breakdown But not letting it break down too much where we’re training a really bad form the clock can help But don’t worship it Quite often people will put their self-worth as a person as a swimmer On what their garment tells them at the end of a session But you are going to have days where you are absolutely flying And you feel like you’re hardly putting in any effort and you’re hitting amazing times And there will be other days where no matter how hard you try

You cannot get even close to what you know, you’re capable of doing So that’s going to happen no matter whether you’re an Olympian or whether you are brand new to swimming if you can just continue with your swimming and use the clock But don’t worry too much about the times that you’re doing if you can just continue and be consistent with things Then over time you will progress in this upward trajectory But the clock is only a very small part of swimming Especially with the ups and downs that you’re going to encounter throughout a week throughout a month and throughout a year Your stroke does not have to look like the pros

Hey real quick in case you didn’t know We run swimming camps around the world from the Maldives, Thailand, Japan with sundays Galapagos islands plus a bunch of new locations for next year So if you’d like to join us at a future camp and improve your swimming and explore and experience some of the best locations to swim in the world then go to effortlesswimming.com forward slash camps We’ve got all the dates and locations listed there A question I get all the time is i’m not that quick. Will this camp be suitable for me? We have a wide range of speeds and abilities come to the camps So as long as you can swim a kilometer There’s a very good chance that these camps will be suitable for you And if you’re not sure just get in touch with us and we’ll make sure that we do find you a suitable camp Thanks for listening. Let’s get back into the podcast One of our most popular videos in fact our most popular video that we did on this channel

was a video of dan smith swimming a 1 minute 10 100 In what looked like two minutes where he was absolutely cruising to hit a 110 But he made it even made it look very easy. Now his stroke is amazing Olympic level swimmer incredible technique yet that sort of way of swimming Is not probably the best way for a lot of the people that I coach who are adults who are triathletes Because they have different mobility particularly through the feet through the shoulders through their rotation and that sort of technique is not what they might need to Do in order to be the best swimmer that they can be So there’s so many different styles if you watch the olympics In an eight person final there might be eight different styles of freestyle in there So it’s best to find a style that suits you In our elite swimmer section in the membership. We have triathletes open water swimmers Olympic pool swimmers There’s a variety of different types of swimmers in there

And if you look at the differences between them there are some some big differences And so what I suggest to a lot of people is find a swimmer that looks a bit like you in how they swim Maybe they build maybe their mobility and try and copy their technique try and aim towards something like that Because if you’re trying to swim like dan smith Then you might actually be slowing yourself down because that sort of style isn’t best suited to you So you don’t have to look like a pro Or maybe don’t have to look like the swimmer that you Aspire the most to be because that might not be the best style for you You might actually be holding yourself back comfortable gear matters more than fancy deer The good thing about swimming is you can get away with having a swimsuit And some goggles and that is all you need to swim Unlike cycling unlike a lot of other sports require a lot of Investment in terms of money to be good at it. Swimming is very simple

So don’t get caught up in needing the latest or the most expensive gear Quite often you don’t actually need much to be a good swimmer. So if you just keep to the basics Get some gear that’s comfortable some good goggles cap A good swimsuit that will take you a very long way Now there is other gear that’s that can be worth getting and it’s worth getting a good pair of fins It’s worth getting a a snorfall and maybe some paddles if you’re doing trifle But you don’t actually need a lot. So don’t feel like you need all the gear To be a good swimmer. You can keep it basic have a goal even a small one When you first start swimming your your goal might be 50 meters without stopping And that’s a that’s a good goal to start with Then as you get going in your swimming sometimes we kind of get caught in the weeds a bit And we forget to actually set our next target And sometimes it just needs to be a certain race

Maybe a certain distance or a certain pace that you’re trying to achieve for a 1k time trial But even having a small goal to work towards Will give you that little bit of motivation you need to put in the work to get there I’ve been caught quite a quite a few times without having set a main goal And so my training’s been there and I’ve been going up and down But I haven’t really put in the effort because there’s nothing to work towards Yet when I set a really difficult goal for me, which was the rock nest channel Which is a 20 kilometer swim when I was doing that I got to the pool five times a week. I was driving An hour plus into Melbourne to do some my open water swims And I did whatever it took to to do that. So sometimes we need this bigger goal to actually Bring us forwards and bring us closer to To our swimming our swimming goal. We need something that kind of scares us a little bit Or we know we have to push towards and there’ll be times in your in your swimming journey where

You might just cruise for a little bit and then times where you set yourself a bigger challenge But the mistake I’ve been caught in so many times is not actually setting a target or a goal And then six months or 12 months of training It doesn’t go to waste But I certainly don’t putting the same amount of effort as if I’ve got a big challenge to work towards Learn how to stay calm in the chaos In open water swimming the elements can change all the time And you might be thrown into situations where you’re not necessarily very comfortable So when it comes to training in the pool One simple way that I like to use for our swim is to get comfortable in being in these chaotic conditions First thing is you can do some pack swimming if you’ve got a group of swimmers If you swim down a lane with four or five or six of you all together And you’re not swimming over the top of each other But you’re having people push your feet down swing very close

Getting used to having other people around and used to that chaos That’s a good way to To get used to it another thing you can do is breath control So we’ll often do sets where it’s like eight fifties where we breathe every three strokes five seven and then nine And when you’re breathing every nine strokes You have got quite a while between your next breath And you might feel like you are running out of air and that can cause you to panic But if you can get comfortable being in that sort of position And then you can push yourself to maintain breathing every nine That’s a good way to actually have that calm in that chaos So breath control is a really good way to Have to force the mind to calm down in order to hit that breath control So there are ways that you can help Be calming chaos By training in the pool and not just doing that in the the open water There’s a whole word or swimming beyond the pool When I was growing up all I knew was the pool the black line

I had no idea about open water swimming Swimming holidays swimming trips swimming camps There is so much more to swimming beyond the pool And so if you don’t necessarily enjoy going up and down the black line That is okay. There is so much other things that you can do Around the water and with your swimming that you might enjoy more And so it’s about finding something that you Like and then you’re probably going to stick with it And then you’re probably going to progress a lot more of you would if you did something you don’t enjoy Now that said I loved swimming in the pool I love training with the squad and going through hard sets But in terms of competition, I really enjoy open water swimming And so now that I’ve found that that’s the thing that I mostly do in terms of competitive racing And so when it comes to the pool That’s not necessarily where my head’s at right now But the thing is just do what you enjoy

And that’s usually the thing that’s going to actually motivate you if you enjoyed this video Check out this video with annie donson who held one minute 12 per 100 for four hours 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 Most Swimmers Take Years To Learn This appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

In this episode, I’ll give you the exact issues that hold swimmers back at each pace from beginner swimmers at two 30 per hundred or slower, all the way to advanced swimmers at one 15 per hundred for a kilometer. And I’ll also give you actionable drills and strategies to help you progress to the next level.

They feel the inconsistencies sometimes they feel like they are flying along and feeling really good And then other times they feel like they are Sinking in the water and they lose a lot of their speed So there's often a big Fluctuation between a good session and a bad session Sometimes they've been between strokes a good stroke and a bad stroke and they become aware of those differences between what's good and what's not Welcome to the effortless swimming podcast to show that helps swimmers and triathletes love the water become a better Swimmer and live a better life. Here's your host Brenton Ford In this video, I'll give you the exact issues that holds from his back at each pace from Beginners from us at 230 per hundred or slower all the way to advanced from us at 115 per hundred for a kilometer and I'll also give you actionable drills and strategies to help you progress To the next level and as I go through this comment below your current pace and which tip you'll try first over the last 18 years I've coached thousands of swimmers from beginners all the way to pro triathletes and seen what it takes to go from 230 all the way down to 115 let's get into it. So at 230 per hundred. This is our beginner level of swimmer This is where people are typically having trouble swimming more than 50 meters or 100 meters at a time Usually their body position is quite low. So the hips and legs are sinking a lot They're often having trouble breathing

They lift their head to breathe. They're looking up to the sky or they feel like they are taking in water And they often find that they are fatiguing a lot quicker than what they should be This is where we typically find that people are a bit panicked or they're not comfortable in the water And some of the frustrations that people experience at this level is they can't swim further than 50 meters Without tiring even though they might be relatively fit outside the pool and the other frustration is it's not Fun yet because they're not able to glide through the water They're having to work super hard to go not very fast and not very far And that is completely normal when you are at this 230 or slower pace Now some of the things people at this level need to focus on number one. It's regulating your breathing So in terms of regulating your breathing, it's getting comfortable and relaxed with your breathing Sometimes people will breathing too much so they'll inhale too much where they're Gasping for air and they'll try and exhale everything But we need to breathe in a somewhat natural way where we inhale and we exhale But we're not pushing all of the air out of our lungs. We still need to keep 20 to 30 of our air in our lungs So it's this more normal and comfortable breathing that we're aiming for They also need to focus on getting horizontal in the water So that means that we are minimizing drag So we're more streamlined Because if your hips and legs are low the amount of drag that that creates is a lot

And it takes so much energy to overcome that drag that you're never going to be able to swim with Much ease and much speed at all if you don't first get your body position horizontal So they're the main things we need to focus on How you can go about that? Number one, I love to do some drills like sink down drills This is where you'll take your breath in and you'll then exhale through your mouth or through your nose and sink down to the bottom of the pool and After a second or two of having no air left come back up and go again Now this might seem like a bit of a frivolous drill At first sight But I've had so many people do this drill and give me feedback that actually you managed to keep calm In the water whereas before they are quite panicked and quite tense So they sink down drills if you do this five to ten times even at the start of a session You start to relax and you start to get rid of a lot of that unnecessary tension in the body Another drill that we like to do here is ball floats So this is where you hug your knees you put your head between your knees and you're just in a ball Now make sure you take a big breath in before you do this And the purpose of this drill is to show you that you can float Quite often i'll get a lot of males who are Over 40 who think i'm just a sinker. I've got dense bones I've got a lot of muscle mass and I just sink straight to the bottom of the pool But I've never seen anyone sink while doing this ball float drill So your lungs are filled with air that gives you this buoyancy in the water

And that is the thing that helps keep you up in the water And so if you realize that you can actually float in this ball position That first it gives you the confidence to know that okay, I don't actually Have to kick really hard and thrash my arms and thrash my legs to stay up My lungs my body will actually support me if I use it the right way So we go into this ball float Into an x float which is where you extend your arms out and your legs out behind you And most people can get somewhat horizontal In that position especially when they go from a ball float Into an x float because they start to figure out how to hold themselves in the water to be able to get horizontal and that learning that balance and control of the body is really the first step at them being able to relax and minimize drag One more drill that we tend to do at this level And I actually had a swimmer recently who for more than he said I think 30 plus years he could never really swim more than 100 meters without being completely gassed And so one of the drills we had him do was this Body position kick drill Where he's face down arms extended kicking out behind him And the aim is to get the shoulders and the back and the hips out of the water as much as possible And again, this is just about figuring out how to hold and how to use your body so that you sit in that horizontal position Once you've gotten comfortable with your breathing once you've learned some of that balance in the water Then you're going to be starting to get close to that two minutes per 100

Now at two minutes per 100 This is more of our casual swimmers and triathletes and this is where we're starting to get a good idea of Being horizontal in the water a better idea of the rhythm and momentum we need in the stroke But some of the issues that people run into at this level Is refining their body position So a lot of people at this level have got their head too high We're just their faces in the water And they're not having the head deep enough Now the problem with that is that if they've got just their face in you're probably holding four or five kilos up above the water So your hips and legs are sitting still a little bit low So making sure that our head is like an iceberg 10 to 20 above the rest of it should be below Another thing we find at this level is that Their core control and the way that they're holding their hips and their legs Is in as streamlined as it could be So what we want to try and do there is make sure we draw the belly button into the spine Squeeze the butt cheeks together a little bit to make sure that's nice and straight And then importantly with the kick we want to make sure that we're not kicking like we're riding a bike We need to kick almost like you think of a ballerina moving their legs They need to be long a little bit of knee bend But we what needs to maintain is kick where it's almost like it's in a bucket Not too big not too narrow but somewhere in between so the kick isn't coming much outside of our body line Another thing we find at this level two

Is the breath timing quite often the breath timing is out Where people are often lifting their head Turning and it means that their breath timing is a little bit late And so their stroke is out of rhythm and out of sync So it's important at this level to learn to turn your head in time with your shoulders I also find at this level people are often muscling themselves through the water More than they would at those faster speeds So if you find that your legs or your arms are getting tired fairly quickly There's a very good chance that you're muscling yourself through the water That can often come from swimming too flat Now when we swim freestyle hips torso shoulders we want that rocking side to side Typically 30 to 40 degrees side to side If you are flatter than that Then you'll find that a lot of effort goes into just kicking or just the arms Because without correct rotation You don't get to use a stronger muscles through your back and shoulder And you don't get to set up your caption pool as effectively So that's where the muscling of the the stroke comes into it So at this level we need to make sure that we're rotating side to side evenly 30 to 40 degrees And the last thing we often say at this level too is a poor catch and a poor pool So lacking propulsion in the stroke And if you are not rotating correctly, it's very difficult to have an effective caption pool

So we also start to work on some elements of the catch and the pool at this level Because that is a big contributing factor to increasing speed Some of the frustrations that we run into at this level is that you might be fit And you might be getting overtaken by people who are less fit than you So it's very common to see triathletes here High bo2 max but they're getting smoked by people who have a vo2 max which might be half of bears And so that can be quite annoying And also at this level you might feel that your swimming is a little bit forced And it's not smooth and it's not efficient So what we can focus on here Refine the body position make sure that the heads are the right depth And we have head hips and heels at the surface We also need to focus on making sure we rotate 30 to 40 degrees side to side Because that will then help you set up a better caption pool And we can start to introduce some propulsive drills or caption pool drills To help you improve that aspect of the stroke as well Now at this level some drills that we would often do here Number one front kick with a snorkel So this is where you're kicking face down the water Arms extended and we are aiming to be horizontal Gilling that tautness through the core and through the hips And making sure that we hold this long streamline position Like a needle not like a noodle that's loose and floppy Then we go to side kick one arm extended one arm by the side

And here we want to make sure we're rotating to about 40 degrees as we do it Getting used to being on our side and getting comfortable in that position Then we'd often progress to a 6-1-6 drill where we do six kicks on the side We take a stroke and we swap sides Getting used to being on our side taking a stroke and then switching So we're starting to introduce that side to side rotation And making sure we get the feel for what is 30 to 40 degrees rotation Now equipment at this level you might start to use a pool billy You might start to use some some fins and maybe a snorkel at this level To help you do some of the drills And in terms of using a pool billy That can help you get the feel for getting that propulsion from the rotation And from the catch and pull as opposed to kicking yourself forwards At this two-minute level this is a really typical level that we'll see People go through our eight week faster freestyle course online Or attending one of our freestyle clinics here in Australia So once you're starting to master your body position Have good rotation and starting to feel a little bit of that propulsion Then you're going to be starting to get all the way down to 145 per 100 So at the 145 per 100 this is our intermediate level of swimmer This is where people have typically swum for about 12 months or more And they're starting to get a sense of what it's like to move effortlessly through the water Some of the common issues that people run into at this point

The first one is that they've got habitual errors or mistakes in their stroke So they've now swum for long enough that they do have some habits there But those habits might not be necessarily effective or efficient And quite often there's poor synchronization or timing within the stroke Where they're not necessarily swimming with front quadrant timing Meaning there's always there's not something in front of the head at all times So they might be a little bit rushed with the stroke Quite often people here as well they feel like they've only got one speed So they find it hard to judge how long do I need to keep my strokes And how much do I need to increase my stroke rate So finding that sweet spot between the two of those And being able to change that to go faster And also at this level we do often find a lot of swimmers are late with their breathing So they begin to turn their head too late So that throws off their stroke rhythm And eventually that causes me balance And it means that they drop their arm in the catch as well And so that's where they feel like their catch slips Or it's not very effective on one side or maybe both sides Some of the frustrations that people run into at this level They feel the inconsistencies Sometimes they feel like they are flying along and feeling really good And then other times they feel like they are sinking in the water And they lose a lot of their speed So there's often a big fluctuation between a good session And a bad session Sometimes they've been between strokes A good stroke and a bad stroke And they become aware of those differences between what's good and what's not

And I also find at this level There's frustration in putting in more effort But not necessarily seeing the results of that effort Translate to faster times So at this level what you can focus on to get down towards 130 The first thing make sure your breath timing Is in time with your shoulder rotation So what you think of that is pulling into the breath Turn your head when this hand is coming past your shoulder So when you initiate the turn And then the more important thing is Bring your head back down with your catch So your head and your arm goes back down together So we need to time our breath correctly We also need to start working on a high elbow catch position When we go through our catch So once we've finished reaching forwards and rotating Then we need to point our fingers down and bend our elbow out to the side So elbow goes out wide Getting that high elbow catch So we've got a lot of surface area pressing back If you can start to improve on that That means that the propulsive side of your stroke is really starting to improve And if we think of what makes your swim speed Well it's about minimising drag Which we do in those earlier levels Then we need to maximise propulsion And this is where we really have to put a lot of our focus at this point We also need to make sure that we are timing the stroke correctly Making sure we're in that front quadrant Always having an arm in front of us And that doesn't mean doing catch up freestyle Because you'll lose your speed And you'll just salarate if you do a full catch up Swimming is all about rhythm So we need to make sure we're always keeping the hands in motion

Without ever stopping and pausing completely But we need to make sure we've always got something in front of our head So getting that type of rhythm and timing in the stroke Is an important aspect here Where a lot of people get stuck in rushing the catch So they don't end up extending forwards And then during the catch they just enter and pull straight through So we've got to start to work on that front quadrant timing in the stroke And here at this level we can also start to work on balancing stroke length And stroke rate A good way to do this is doing sets where we are changing speeds For example, four 100s where we descend one to four Or build one to four So first one's the slowest one Last one's the fastest one And we're looking to get a bit quicker each one Now when you first do sets like this You might find that you actually start too fast And you drop off And you finish slower than what you started in But with more practice And getting used to finding that balance between stroke rate and stroke length You can get really good at changing gears and changing speeds And so this is a really good time to begin to do that And get a sense of how much extra pressure do I need to get on the catch How much increase in stroke rate do I need to put Do I need to do to see that results in faster times And quite often it's very incremental People think to go faster I've got a double in and out of power Double their stroke rate But it's very incremental It's like turning up the dial from six to a seven

Seven to an eight It's very small And so figuring that out at this level is what can help you Get that 130 per 100 Now drills at this level Some very common drills that we like to do This is a great time to do single arm freestyle So one arm by the side Other arm in front Wearing fins and working on single arm The benefit of this drill is when you've got one arm to think about You can get each aspect of it to improve to be better And it can also help you refine some of the things like your breath timing So single arm drill with fins on is a great one Another drill we typically introduce here is setup drill This is a one arm drill where you're kicking with both arms in front Going through your catch and coming back We're just isolating the movement of the catch And getting used to that elbow bending and going out to the side As you initiate the catch Because if you can get really good at that movement That helps set up a high elbow catch And that helps you then have an effective catch and pull So often starting with some specific catch drills This is a good time to do it And you might start to introduce some paddles at this point In order to build some strength and get a feel for A little bit more pressure or propulsion through the catch and pull And in terms of courses or products A lot of people go through the five day catch change Which is our five day course Which helps them improve their catch and pull And this is typically where swimmers will get the most out of that course

Because going from a 145 to a 140 or a 135 With the better catch that's doable at that level Because more propulsion If you've already got good body position More propulsion is how you can really see a big increase in your speed

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Ready to see the difference yourself? Get 15% off your first pair of Hydro Clear Anti-Fog Goggles With the code podcast At shop.effortlesswimming.com That's 15% off your first pair of goggles With the code podcast At shop.effortlesswimming.com We also have a 30 day money back guarantee So if you're not happy with the goggles for any reason You can simply return them for a refund Don't let foggy goggles ruin another swim Try Hydro Clear today And experience clear vision from start to finish So if you're doing those things You're gonna start to get down to 130 per 100 So at 130 per 100 This is our competitive triathlete Competitive swimmer sort of level And if you're an age group triathlete You're gonna start to be pushing towards the front of the broop At this 130 type of pace That for most people Now some of the issues that people run into here That stops them progressing to 115 It's small inefficiencies with their catch and pull So typically they've got pretty decent propulsion Their catch and pull is okay But there are things that they can refine and improve on Maybe they're pulling a bit straight Maybe they're dropping the elbow a little bit on one side This is where you can start to refine that aspect of it Quite often we're working on finding The right amount of rotation as well Typically people will over or under rotate On one side or both sides here So this is where we typically video Film from the front

See how much they're rotating And making sure it's in that 30 to 40 degree range Quite often in terms of the training as well This is where we really need to introduce specific training Making sure we're doing enough aerobic work Threshold work Introducing some speed work So being a little bit more targeted And specific to the type of training that they're doing To maximize their fitness And their ability to race whatever races they want to do And usually at this level People have difficulty maintaining their stroke length As they get tied So here we're looking to be able to maintain Stroke length for those longer distances And not have that drop off too much as you get tied Some of the frustrations that people find at this level The first thing is that next level of 120 or 115 Seems completely unachievable Because they can't physically put in any more effort And so it seems like that's not possible But the thing is it's not about necessarily getting more fitness behind you It might be these finer technique parts That we need to refine in your stroke And the other frustration here Is that those technical errors are harder to pinpoint So you're not sure what you need to work on at this point Where you feel like you're doing everything you can To swim at 130 But you don't know what can take you to 120 or 115 So at this 130 pace What you can focus on to get down to 120 and 115

The first thing is making sure you've optimized your rotation Making sure you're rotating the right amount So that you can get your catch and pull as good as it possibly can On both sides The second part there is making sure that you are consistent With your catch and pull Typically when someone turns to breathe It's that catch arm that drops away Where the elbow drops So making sure on your breathing strokes That you're still maintaining a good catch And the third thing is making sure you're optimizing your training You're doing the right amount of sessions You're optimizing how much aerobic work Threshold work and speed work that you're doing So that you have the fitness and the I guess the aerobic fitness And also the speed to be able to start to edge those faster times Drills that we would often do at this level Single arm freestyle drill Where you're breathing to your opposite side Also known as unco drill So single arm breathing to your opposite side with fins on This is a drill that I see all Olympic level freestyles doing It's a challenging drill to do well But if you can do it well It translates really nicely into the stroke So single arm drill bring to the opposite side The other drill long dog paddle This is a drill that I love to give to people This is a drill I love to do It's where you're extending out finishing past the hip And then you're recovering underneath the body So long dog paddle This is great for working on the right amount of rotation Improving a catch and pull

And connecting that with the rotation through your hips So that's a those two drills sort of cover all of your fundamentals there Now at this level you're probably using a range of different equipment Probably using fins for your warm up Probably doing a bit with pull buoy and paddles to build strength Maybe a bit with a snorkel as well And you're probably incorporating a few different pieces of equipment Within your sessions each week And people at this 130 pace They're typically coming to our long distance camps Like we've got in the Witsundays Like we've got in the Maldives And often coming to clinics as well Looking for that What they need to work on to get down to 115 Where they're looking for more assistance With helping pinpoint what they can do to get faster So as you start to refine your rotation Improve your catch and pull And get the right amount of training behind you That's when you're going to start to find yourself Getting close to that 115 pace per 100 So 115 per 100 This is our advanced swimmers This is our high level triathletes and swimmers Often people who have got several years of swimming behind them And this is really your front end or front pack type of swimmer Now at this level some of the issues that people run into here It's about maintaining Excellent form, excellent technique Under pressure and under fatigue Any changes that they make are for fractional gains So we're not seeing 5 or 10 seconds faster per 100 at this point

It might be half a second It might be 1 second per 100 At this point rather than those bigger gains that people have Earlier on in their swimming journey At this point we're starting to see a highly effective catch With minimal wasted effort Even at this level we're still fine tuning the breath timing To make sure it doesn't impact the stroke rhythm So at this level and myself included We can often refine our breathing So that it goes in time with our rotation Because for a lot of people that I've filmed And coached at this level We can still find improvements there And really at this level Especially for even open water swimming or pool swimming We are looking to work on race strategies Race tactics And really refining those parts of our race as well Some of the frustrations that you'll run into at this level Is improvement is very minor And it takes a long time to see the results Of the work that you're putting in Often 3 months or 6 months Working on one aspect of the stroke In order to see a half a second Or a second improvement per 100 The other frustration here Is that any minor technical flaws Could be the difference between making front pack And second pack So there's a finer line that you've got to work with there In order to be hitting that front pack or second pack And so those minor flaws really start to show at this level So at this level what you can focus on Is refining those small or single

Technical aspects of your stroke And being consistent And working on that for several months at a time And here you can also start to focus on Race strategy and tactics And making sure you're becoming familiar With what's required to compete at the very top level In terms of your pacing In terms of how you should be drafting Or strategizing where the other swimmers are So this is where those things become a whole lot more important Drills at this level Often doing a lot of sculling to enhance and develop that Feel for pressure on your hand and forearm They're very important drills to do As well as continuing with the single arm And the long dog paddle drills as well Like we did at the 130 level At this level you might start to introduce a swim parachute Or working on some power aspects of your stroke And strength aspects of your stroke As well as continuing with use of fins and pool buoy And paddles as well And at this level it really requires some expertise To help you get better Having someone help spot where the flaws or faults are In your stroke And things that can help there Something like the EO swim better The devices that measure your Propulsion, direction of force That's a great way to find things that aren't necessarily very visible to the naked eye Getting some underwater filming and analysis as well To help you identify that So here we're really looking to technology To help work on the finer aspects of your stroke at this point So if you can master your technique at your current pace That is what can help progress you to the next level

Comment below where you're currently at And what you want to focus on in your technique And if you're looking for help in your own swimming Then check out our effortless swimming membership below And I work with people every single day From 2.30 down to 1.15 To help them identify what they need to do to get faster Thanks for watching Check out this video here for a full breakdown on freestyle technique So you know exactly where to start And how to improve some of these things that I've covered in this video

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Hey, Brenton here. If you ever find yourself uncomfortable in the open water and not feeling that calm when you’ve got other people around and not knowing where to sit or where to draft off people to be most effective at it. This episode’s for you. I joined the Low Tide Boys, Chip and Chris on a podcast, and they asked me all about the science of drafting.

So on this episode, I get stuck into that so you know exactly where to sit. In a pack or with other people around to maximize the draft, as well as how to prepare for this stuff if you don’t have much access to the open water. So I hope you enjoy this episode. There’s a lot of value for anyone who’s training for open water swims or doing any sort of triathlon racing.

This episode is filled with things that will help you maximize your next open water race. Just to give you a heads up, we’ve added some dates for our 2026 camps for the Maldives and also for Thailand. I haven’t released this anywhere else yet, but I’m just giving you the heads up on the podcast. If you wanna join me next year on one of those camps to work on your swimming, then there’s a few dates that we’ve [email protected] slash camps.

02:57 General Consideration Around Open water Swimming

Want to really transform your swimming? Join us on a swim camp in 2025 in the Maldives, Galapagos Islands, or Thailand: https://effortlessswimming.com/camps/

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Low Tide Boyz:

open water swimming is very, can feel like a very different sport in a way in terms of or different stroke compared to the pool swimming which which I’m sure you’re aware of and you can be a very good pool swimmer and an average open water swimmer so it’s really important to get to get good in the open water some considerations that I would normally teach my athletes is obviously it’s not calm and it’s not flat and there’s going to be more turbulence in the water you’ve got the surface chop you might have currents you might have tied and all these things that you’re dealing with so I think it lends itself to a less perfect sort of stroke which can be good for for most people welcome to the effortless swimming podcast to show that helps swimmers and triathletes love the water become a better swimmer and live a better life here’s your host Brenton Ford hey Brenton here if you ever find yourself uncomfortable in the

open water and not feeling that calm when you’ve got other people around and not knowing where to sit or where to draft off people to be most effective at it this episode’s for you I joined the low tide boys Chip and Chris on a podcast and they asked me all about the science of drafting so on this episode I get stuck into that so you know exactly where to sit in a pack or with other people around to maximize the draft as well as how to prepare for this stuff if you don’t have much access to the open water so I hope you enjoy this episode there’s a lot of value for anyone who’s training for open water swims or doing any sort of triathlon racing this episode is filled with things that will help you maximize your next open water race just give your heads up we’ve added some dates for our 2026 camps for the male dives and also for Thailand I haven’t released this anywhere else yet I’m just giving you the heads up on the podcast if you want to join me next

year on one of those camps to work on your swimming then there’s a few dates that we’ve added at effortless swimming dot com forward slash camps see you there all right coming to us from the future our friend Brenton Ford founder of effortless swimming their second time back on the show welcome back yeah thanks to have me I’ll tell you what the future is very exciting wait and see what’s coming tomorrow we’ll be there it’s amazing so we asked you to come back last time you’re on was episode 237 if folks are at home want to check that one out was just like a 50 minute just stream of consciousness like knowledge bombed super helpful for us in the show super self-serving we asked you to come back on Brenton because a listener of the show reached out and be like hey what is the definitive you know take on drafting during swim run obviously you know about swim run we wear a tether try to stay in contact in

the water so we brought you on and basically just just tell us tell us like the rules but before that we thought it’d be more sense to kind of like branch it out a little bit for open water swimming so generally you know when you’re thinking about swimming you’re thinking about open water swimming so why don’t we start with sort of like general considerations around open water swimming and how you think about you know kind of like that part of the sport and swim run yeah open water swimming is very can feel like a very different sport in a way in terms of or different stroke compared to the pool swimming which which I’m sure you’re aware of and you can be a very good pool swimmer and an average open water swimmer so it’s really important to get to get good in the open water some considerations that I would normally teach my athletes is obviously it’s not calm and it’s not flat and there’s going to be more turbulence in the water you’ve got the surface chop you might have

currents you might have tide and all these things that yet you’re dealing with so I think it lends itself to a less perfect sort of stroke which can be good for most people so that’s scrappier sort of freestyle can often do a lot better some of the main changes that I’d normally recommend are in terms of your recovery you might need to be a little bit higher over the top a little bit faster and be a little bit more assertive with it as well over the water just because if you’re if you’re trying to be really smooth and a low hand recovery and trying to be perfect with the entry you’re probably going to get knocked around a bit so if you look at the very best triathletes and probably the same for swim runners I would imagine is just that arm recoveries like it’s over it’s in fairly quick and you will still extend and you’ll still reach but you’re probably going to start the catch a bit sooner as well so as

you enter and you’re extending forwards you’re not going to take too long if there is much chop there you still need to reach out but you’re probably going to roll into that next part of the stroke a little bit a little bit quicker typically we’ll find and I’d say maybe with paddles this this might be a little bit different but typically for say it’s triathletes or open water swimmers their stroke rate will be higher than it would in the pool so for me if I am going like my race pace in the pool it might I might be about 65 66 strokes per minute but if in the open water with a wetsuit on that would step up to about 74 75 individual strokes per minute so that’s fairly common that we that we see and it’s probably going to be the same for a lot of paper in the open water as well well yeah that’s a considerable 10 10 plus strokes on average more more per minute there and then yeah that’s a good good kind of framework to add in and it’s certainly yeah with the paddles on you

can’t be having a nice low low cast out front you’re gonna you’re gonna get knocked around that hand the paddle is gonna get taken off a different way there when you think about siding in open water I know for some people this is kind of really something that gives them a lot of lot of fits how often are you recommend siding for open water you know especially swim run you might not necessarily see hey here’s the exact buoy where it is it might be kind of siding off a piece of land or something that isn’t as well defined yeah I think you need to decide as often as you need to to see where you’re going so that might be really regularly that might be every six strokes or eight strokes if it is quite quite choppy because you think about going even if you go say a meter two meters off course that can really start to add up and I think if you can cite well if you can if you can do that well without breaking

your rhythm then you’re not really going to slow down much if at all so it’s worthwhile siding probably more regularly than you than you might think and just some of those strategies like you probably can’t see the buoys out there if there is buoys or maybe you’re siding for an island just trying to get lay the land before the before you do the race and it might be siding a tree or the top of an island or the side of a hill just using that to your advantage so we ran a camp in the Whitsundays last week and it was an open water swim camp so we had a bunch of swimmers there and the very first thing we did was just working on siding and I’d say about half of those athletes were siding what I call incorrect incorrectly they were they were breathing and then throwing their head and looking forwards and it’s a way to be able to see but it’s it’s very hard to keep your rhythm doing that so what what we took them through was sites and then breathe so it’s also called the

rolling breath so on one stroke you lift up lift up as high as you need to to see where you’re going and then on the next stroke you’ll turn to breathe and you’ll find that you lose very little speed doing it and it can feel really rhythmic and very easy to do if you do that well you might need to go a couple of strokes head up if you just don’t know where you’re going but that site and breathe or rolling breath would be the thing to get down pat especially before your next race if you if you feel like you can’t do it and it took about 10 15 minutes with those guys to get them sorted get them to be able to do it and it was almost like trying to rub your tummy and pat your head it’s like it takes a bit to coordinate but they got there and I think it’s something that ultimately is fairly easy to develop once you just put in a bit of time is there a drill to kind of develop that like in a pool that you’d recommend if you don’t have access to open water yeah so we were

going we just broke it down so I got them to swim and then one stroke just lift up go crocodile eyes and then back down so just a really quick look and and just get used to that so we did that three or four times and then we got them into sight and then on the next stroke breathing so just breaking it down that way and if you breathe to the I mean there’s actually different ways to do it depending on the speed you’re going so let’s say you breathe to the left only it might be that you are siding when that left hand is reaching forwards and then as then as you sort of go through your catch you’ll then roll to breathe on that next stroke so if you’re going slower you’ve kind of got more time to extend out on it but if you’re going faster with a faster rating it might actually be that you’re kind of lifting up as that hand is sort of catching and then you’re going and then you turn into breathe so it will just depend on the speed that you’re going but not what I was

starting with was the side that you would breathe to use that hand to extend out and press down on the water a little bit to help you lift up and then breathe to that side so for me I breathe to the left left hand was pressing down to help raise the head and then turn on the next stroke

I love that and yeah I mean that’s something just like Chris mentioned I know not everyone has access to open water but this is certainly something you can practice in in your lap pool swimming and you know work in and hey do whatever 10 by 100 but then do some siding on maybe that first 25 or the middle 20 of whatever you want to want to mix it up but that can really help kind of reinforce those movements and that way during the race it’s not your first time trying to figure out like oh how do I how do I do this it’s kind of already baked into your to your rhythm yeah definitely and that’s something that’s really easy to do in the in the pool and I think we might might have spoke about it last time but just trying to get your times as even as possible from when you’re not siding to when you do introduce your siding so if you can get your hundred times within maybe two seconds if you’re doing a hundred meters and you’re not siding

and then you introduce your siding and you might do it five six times within that hundred if you can be within about two seconds you’re probably doing quite quite well with it nice yeah yeah I’m gonna bring the stopwatch out next time on you Chris okay sounds good sounds good I want to go back to something that you mentioned earlier because definitely for swim run it is a bit of unique when compared to triathlon triathlon you know you got the big Dorito chip inflatables in the water you can kind of very easy see that and you’re doing your little rectangle or whatever the swim might be but in a swim run especially for open water Chris and I it’s always really served us very well to like stop take a beat one two seconds and say like okay here’s where we’re going and like we’re going to this tree or we’re going to this building there and that’s always helped us like kind of check in and give us something to like really orient around

when we’re swimming and that way when you’re in the thick of it and you aren’t getting tossed around you can kind of always look for that same spot we might take up another second or two kind of before you get in the water but it saves you like definitely a lot of time from getting lost and and dinged around in the in the water there so just another little tip how it served us oh that it’s so so worthwhile taking that extra couple of seconds to do it on this this camp last week we had everyone was got their siding down pretty well and like they sided quite regularly so rarely would they go off course but we had this one swim on the last day where it was between the mainland and an island and there was like there was our boat just kind of in between the two and everyone was swimming and then there was one swimmer who just started to veer off into the like the channel between the island and the mainland

and he was like a good 30 meters off to the side and he was just heading out and there’s a strong current going there too oh no all right like let’s uh he has not looked whatsoever so let’s let’s go and get him and drag him back in but it can happen before you know it and you know as soon as you switch off um you know and you just kind of get into um you start daydreaming then you can really go off course i think yeah if you can if you can just take that time it’s so worth it yeah i mean our mantra is like you know these races are already long enough let’s not swim any extra any extra meters or yards that we don’t have to so swimming straight is certainly i mean it’s a tactical advantage not just like a finish time advantage and yeah that’s that you’re you’re well served just knowing where i guess the other rule is like don’t get into the water until you know where you’re going right until you kind of have a good sense of where you’re going but

that kind of leads into you so in swimrun you know we’re drafting we’re wearing tethers um how do you think about drafting and yeah just tell us like what is the like what is the optimal way to draft yeah so in it’ll be probably a little bit somewhat different between triathlon open water swimming and swimrun so and i’ll explain why in swimrun you’re working with your partner obviously you’ve got your you’ve got your tether you’re working together and the slowest swimmer is going to be behind to to draft off the fastest swimmer if they’re yeah if they are different speeds sitting behind someone you can reduce your drag by about 25 percent if you’re sitting in the right spot it creates this sort of you know low pressure behind the the swimmer and it’s moving that water out of the way and then it sort of sucks the person behind along with the the swimmer in front so that’s the more efficient way to to draft and and the reason the other part of that is if

you’re drafting off the hip which is the other way that can be yeah you can still get quite a bit of sort of reduction in drag with it 10 to 15 percent you’re more being pushed by that their bow wave off the hips so you still certainly get that benefit you get that push but the downside of it is if you’re on someone’s hip you are often taking their water on that side of them so in their catch in their pull through if you’re pulling through in the same sort of water you’re actually slowing that person down which can be great if you’re trying to overtake them or beat them but as a swimrun pair you’re trying to work together so that’s why i’d suggest for most people to work on drafting behind now if you are say sitting not right at their hip but a little bit further back and just off to the side you can yeah you’ll still get some pretty good draft and that can be a good way to do it especially if there’s any sort of chop and wave so let’s say

you’ve got waves coming at you from the left the slowest from them might want to sit off to the right of the of the fastest from them and almost at like a 45 degree angle so not quite behind not quite at the hip but somewhere in between and just get protected a little bit from the waves also get that draft and it’s probably going to be a smoother smoother swim for them so that might be the easy way to do it especially if there is those waves and and more chop so i think it can change depending on the conditions and other things but as a general rule of thumb i’d suggest most people sit sit behind and you probably need to um you know one thing that i noticed at this camp and we see it all the time is like we try and get people to swim together as a group and it’s really up to the fastest swimmers in front to be aware of the slowest swimmers behind because if they just got their normal pace well then they’re probably going to lose the people behind

but if we’re working as a group then it’s up to the fastest swimmers to just maybe take a breath look behind on that breath and come back so it might be up to the swimmer in front to just have that awareness i mean you’ll have the tether so you’ll have a pretty good idea too um or you i don’t know i don’t know what you guys would normally do but whether you tap their feet every couple of strokes intentionally is there a sort of strategy that you guys would normally use for that yeah i yeah that’s it’s a good question um which remind me there’s a follow question of how far back you should be from from the person in front but but yeah so the way chipper and i go is you know i try to be on his feet and um you know i just hey if i’m on his feet i’m on his feet i’m tapping and it’s just like hey i’m just letting you know i’m here there’s no real you know i’m not trying to do anything other than just like just keep going uh but sometimes if i do need to get as

attention or if we are planning on switching uh you know we’ll have like some signal like hey if i tap you on the foot on the right foot like three times that means that i’m ready to take a pull or something and then he’ll kind of pull up or uh you know so we’ll have some signals like that but yeah but typically yeah not too much communication unless i think chipper’s going the wrong way then i’m like you know just backseat riding exciting which has happened i got a foggy goggle once and he’s like where are you going like where are you going dude i was trying to one eye one eye sighted wasn’t working too well that’s good that like yeah those sorts of signals uh yeah great way to great way to do it so um uh and you normally sit behind is that where you prefer to sit yeah yeah i prefer to be in the back yeah but i mean on your your stroke crest i mean you’re maybe three inches from my foot yeah you’re pretty you’re pretty close i try to

keep it close because i you know i also you know i want to make it as easy for chipper as possible so i don’t want the tether i don’t want him to feel like he’s actually pulling um but we know so one of our dear swimmer friends like their tether is super short and this guy he basically has his head in between the other person’s legs and he’s just doing this really wide stroke and i mean i don’t know that seems like a little aggressive to me but i’m curious like what is the optimal like should you just be tapping the person’s feet or is there is there something around like how close you are that you get more of the benefit of the of the draft yeah i mean that’s uh you’d really want to know the person if you if you head between your legs seriously first date first right it’s like yeah um the i mean really the closer the better if you look at um if you look at any sort of aerial footage of some as you can kind of

see that little like pocket that it creates behind someone where it sort of takes the water and then the other water pulls in so uh yeah the the closer the better really and i think if you’re having to adjust your stroke so you know hitting their feet you’re probably in a pretty good pretty good spot there but i mean um you still get you still obviously get draft three meters even five meters even a little bit further back you still get some well it’s gonna be a lot it’s gonna be a lot less so yeah if you can sit right on their feet i think that’s the the way to go um i’ve i’ve never been invited to swim with my head between someone’s leg so i couldn’t tell you how how much you can join us you can join anytime it’s a worth a trip from australia yeah um because i mean sometimes it does like i’m going back to on the bike days where you know hey when you’re in that great slipstream and the draft it feels

like oh man you’re you’re great you’re saving so many watts but then there is that that kind of space that can develop and if you get kind of like snapped off the back of that you’re just you’re like in not a good place so that’s kind of what what we’re trying to get to on the on the tether piece but it sounds like as close to you as close that you can get for your own personal and your partner’s personal comfort um you know that’s good yeah if it becomes a game of chicken you’re probably winning so yeah that’s uh uh yeah i think that the closer the better and um the thing with like sitting fairly close to like if you’re at behind yes you want to be sliding to make sure your partner’s staying on track but you can also just look forwards and look for the bubbles and look for the feet too um so it can sort of save you from from looking up and maybe slowing yourself down even more so that’s the other thing that uh yeah but uh and it’s also good to

probably play around with it a bit to see where you feel like you get the most draft but it’s most likely going to be as uh well just fingers at their feet yeah now you know you have a pull buoy in your leg so your legs some i mean i’ve gotten this feedback from a swim coach on deck about hey like my lower half just is just you know i’m not holding a good tauntness in my in my fishtailing a lot so i would assume that as the back person you might want to try to keep it pretty tidy is not you know kind of keep a nice streamline there i would assume that would be kind of a a good a good thing to suggest to folks as well if that’s just assuming yeah if you see uh yeah if you see the feet in front kind of doing that just stay in the middle of them it’s um i mean especially with with your shoes on with your pull pull buoy in it’s going to lend itself to a bit more of that sort of fishtailing anyway when everything sort of strapped in so um like normally it normally as a coach

should say keep you know obviously keep things centered you’re going to get a little bit of movement through the hips and things like that but i think what you’re doing it kind of lends itself to that quite a bit quite a bit more especially with not kicking and just the the drag from the shoes as well so um yeah that’s i think that’s just gonna that’s just gonna happen yeah keep it tidy back there chris keep it tidy i’ll try i’ll try i’ll try um you know i so so back at last this is now in november i i did a race with another partner because chipper was injured and i had to lead all the swims and this is the first time we’re out of lead all the swims in a race and i certainly gained new even more appreciation i already have a lot of appreciation be doing more appreciation for chipper for leading for doing so much of the yeoman’s work but he’s 10 years older than me so it’s fine he can handle it but uh but uh but you know it’s what i found interesting was like it obviously

takes more effort to be in the front than being in the draft but i also felt like it was um like i was i had to expend more mental more mental focus right in the back you can i’m citing i’m making sure we’re not messing around going straight but when you’re leading i felt like i was responsible for kind of all of it like making sure we’re swimming straight making sure we’re taking a nice tight line make sure i’m not running over any sort of underground obstacles or what underwater obstacles or whatever and i’m curious um you know do you have any strategies besides just like yeah maybe trying to alternate who’s leading the swims to kind of recover from some of that or or is there like you know some sort of mindset the that that you think would be helpful for people that are leading swims so just like kind of you know keep the main thing the main thing and not just over stimulating yourself with trying to keep to keep things together

yeah that’s a it’s a great point and late last year i i did like our state five kilometer championship race here and in and that was the first time i’ve actually or the first time in probably how do i know in probably like 20 years that i’ve done like sort of yeah like 5k race with that sort of level of swimmers and what i noticed so there was basically a group of about i don’t know eight to ten of us in the in the main pack and for four for 4k i did i didn’t really have to cite i didn’t have to think at all because i knew these these swimmers would be siding going straight and like that’s just the pack so i could just sit in and not have to think about it for 4k and it was it was one of the easiest swims i’ve done for that that 4k then as soon as i i i lost it i drifted off and for i moved about three meters off to the side lost the pack and the last k they were they were gone and that last k felt longer than the first

4k as a result of it and so the the mentality that i’d take into that is like if i’m the lead swimmer it’s like right this is this is on me this is my time and i yeah it’s up to me to to kind of set the pace a bit to make sure we’re going straight and i’m in charge here and i think just taking that responsibility and it’s like yeah this is this is my zone that that can kind of give you this like you know i don’t know not just kind of good good feeling of like yeah it’s my time to shine because the person at the back can’t really do a whole lot to help the person in front apart from just trying to minimize the minimize any sort of impact behind so and then i mean i haven’t really done a swim run for about 15 years i think but you know it could be that maybe in the run the other person goes in front and you can just kind of sit behind switch off a little bit and you know have that mental recovery a little bit because sometimes i don’t know if you find

find that with your running but you just uh even just sort of running behind someone you can kind of just switch off a bit so maybe you can return the favor favor that way is that what you guys tend to do or yeah chris is usually taking the charge on the runs all uh i will usually yeah i i kind of like what you were saying brenton i kind of take the i’m like oh this is a time to shine for me like let me let me you know show off all my swim fitness i have and kind of really charge out and then i charge out of the water uh you know blow my heart right up and then chris comes around and just takes takes the rest of it uh i’m trying to hang on for the rest of the run but yeah that learning that chris had you know we we’ve talked about applying that to our future races about say if we’ve had a couple swim you know runs and swims where the pace is kind of getting up there and someone is feeling a little bit more cooked than they want to be

take that next swim off and i mean you can really have five you know eight ten minutes of recovery on on the back and then you’re gonna kind of be be in a better better spot so i think overall yeah you might give up you know three seconds per hundred or one second or it’s probably really the same pace pretty much uh but the energy levels will be will be better matched for uh for the next couple legs following that so looking forward to deploying that strategy at some point yeah yeah not not too soon though yeah yeah like it’s amazing how much you know whether you’re training or whether you’re racing in the beginning you might feel heavy and then after like a k and a half you come good so i can like that energy levels can oscillate a lot through the uh yeah through through the race and so if you get that little bit of recovery you’re probably good to go again because i mean some of those races are hours and hours in the water and uh and on land right so

yeah yeah and it’s the type of thing where some of the races are so long you can feel great feel shitty feel great again feel great again yeah and then you know just like you just keep going back and forth and you just you know try to problem solve you know throughout it but uh but yeah you know i i think like again what the the lesson for me was like oh you know it’s obviously more work physically but sort of like mentally was more work and thinking about you know i really like like like that advice of just like hey just kind of just for whatever period it says you just kind of lean into it gotta do it so just like get through it and then find other other places where you can kind of like recover whether it’s on the run or the next swim or whatever it is so i think i think that’s a that’s a major pro tip right there

and like when we were doing this camp last week uh we’re doing a lot of a lot of pack swimming we’d get the slowsomers up the front to lead we’d get the middle swimmers there like we just circle around and one thing that i i found like when i’m at the front i’m just like yeah it’s like i’m i’m this i’m a dad and this this is my family behind me and i’m like there to protect them and work for them and stuff like that like just taking that sort of role when you’ve got there when you’re in charge uh yeah it’s like um being like class class leader or something in in school it’s just like it’s something that doesn’t really mean anything but you can take it to mean yeah as much as you want sort of thing so uh yeah whatever your ego needs yeah yeah and that’s a lot here so uh yeah that’s half of it you know it’s like once the kids birthday in elementary school they’re line leader so they’re they’re leading the line

they’re walking kids to the gym and everything similar situation um i don’t you know at least chris and i we kind of end up and we’re racing and and no man’s land between the front group and between some sort of mid pack um but for when you are trying to overtake in the water i i always remember these kind of feelings of like oh man we’re stuck back here let me let me just get around and like surge up but it’s easier said than done what sort of tips do you have for kind of making an overtake in open water or things you should like keep under consideration especially with someone attached to you and you’re literally trying to pass two two more bodies hmm i i mean what i generally i’d try and you know sit behind as long as you can to get that draft to come up to them and then in when you when you are overtaking it’s like i’d try and stay pretty fairly close to the other person in front and then once i sort of pass their hip

it’s like i want to get i want to get off to the side i want to get away from them so that they’re not then jumping jumping on on me so it’s like trying to be trying to be sneaky and you know sneak up on them surprise attack and then just kind of get off to the side and look they might jump across but i’m just using that as much as you can and like even uh like what we’ll find in a lot of swim races and triathlon races is of some people who are like you get the different groups going first and then you might have like a one fifteen swimmer who’s there with two minutes swimmers and they’re having to overtake them but even like even if they’re a lot slower you can still just come straight up behind them sneak past them and just kind of go around so even using just using that as much as you can that’s without any experience with being tethered to someone so curious to see what you guys well i’ll tell you i’ll tell you so tether being in the back

when we’re swimming in a pack and we’re passing people usually this is usually like first second swim type stuff yeah first yeah first swim leg or second swim it’s uh i it’s like my responsibility to make sure that no one crosses the tether because talk about wasting a ton of you get your tethers tangled it’s just it’s a huge mess it’s never happened to us but we’ve heard horror stories but i think one of the reasons that it hasn’t happened to us because i really treat you know if there’s a pack like i’m aggressively protecting the tether with my stroke changing my stroke rate sometimes even like doing like a like a real skip so i can just make sure that i can protect it if someone’s on the right uh you know not like being like a dick like sticking elbows but just making sure that i’m extending just to kind of protect the area because even if someone takes a stroke and just catches the tether if they’re wearing a paddle

it can get stuck in the paddle and it’s just like when someone loses the paddle and you know bad anyway just you don’t want any of that bad juju anywhere so so on the back is is you know i’ll see when we’re getting either into a pack or first swim and there’s just a lot of chaos happening and i’ll i’ll usually just make sure that i’m really close on chipper’s feet and being very cognizant of like my surroundings um i think that’s it i don’t know if i have any chipper if you have any more notes from the tether side yeah no i mean i think for that first one it’s usually trying to get kind of the clean air like clean water and not yeah trying to trying to get out in front of someone or or find a good pair of feet uh as well is helpful um but i like the sort of advice it reminds me of like a tour de france pass you know when they when they’re on the big mountains and they pass around they try to like really dive off to the side

and try to make it so they can’t get any any draft so you’re the way you explain that kind of reminded me of that but um yeah it’s just kind of really like a very very sergi feeling about really uh hitting kind of like a threshold pace to to really break out there and then you know kind of feeling off that tether like hey it how is chris is coming along here as well or is it like oh you know maybe maybe we need to pull back a little bit on it but and i think that’s where and that’s where communication too which is like you know one of the advantages of swimrun is that you have a teammate so you can actually strategize and really think through a lot of these things so you know depending how serious stripper and are taking the race like we’ll be like okay this first swim like what are you like are you gonna just do what you usually do and kind of have like dancing your pants and really want to get going

or like what’s going on um you know and that and that’s super helpful and i was like yeah i’m gonna hit it on this first swim and you know usually it’s i’m gonna have uh you know my left my life flashed for my eyes because i wore the wrong wetsuit and the water’s super cold um but you know regardless it’s like okay i kind of already know what chipper has in mind or he’ll just tell me like i’m feeling good i’m gonna go for it and because you know we’ve trained so much together he can say yeah i’m gonna hit this at like 85 percent and have like some general idea of what that means um but but yeah that’s that’s like an experience thing that uh that works for us but but brenton i’m curious like you know tipper’s talking about like surging in open water and doing all this stuff is there like um again i bring it back to the pool because that’s where most people are training for these events like is there like a

drill or a set that you that you’d recommend to just help kind of develop that like surge especially because you know we would be doing it with paddles so you know it could be you could be in the middle of a thousand-yard swim and you feel like all right now’s the time to really punch it like anything you’d recommend there yeah there’s a guy um uh i’ve forgotten his first name now he’s got three brothers so always get confused with one switch but um so he uh really good long distance smart he held the english channel world record it was um not cody simpson yeah one of the simpson brothers anyway um so he uh i remember looking at some of the sets that that he was doing and pretty much like every every distant set that i saw that he would do and he would prescribe for other people they always finish with something like 8 50s of 50 fast 50 recovery so it always put some speed stuff at the end of each session and like i i’ve started

to incorporate that for a lot of the sessions that i’m writing for our squad here in australia and i think i think that stuff is really good it’s like when you’re tired when you’re fatigued after 3k 4k if you can just get your get your sprint on if you can just pick up that pace that’s going to train you to be able to to do it when you need to as well as i think including some you know some efforts in the middle of of a main set and then just trying to go back to your aerobic or maybe threshold pace like that that stuff is really good the the variable pace stuff goes a long way there’s a set that i really like that i think can be good for those surges one that we would often do is 50 at like 90 effort 5 seconds rest on the wall into 150 at around sort of 75 effort and we do that it depends like six to eight times but i really like that one because it’s like you you go hard really short rest on the wall then you’ve got to try and

settle into that 75 effort pace and just calm the heart rate down at that pace you could probably sustain for your for your swim run event um so a few sets like that i think go a really long way and for people who are newer to swimming newer to the sport they feel like they’ve got one gear they can’t get out of it and this is like i don’t i just i no matter what i do i’ve just got that one pace but i think and the mistake i made when i was growing up is i think i was in the gray zone too much like i just the harder i train the better off i’d be but that neglects the fact of those different training zones so it’s like make sure your aerobic stuff is aerobic make sure your fast stuff is fast so just allowing that that change in speed um to yeah to happen in training yeah i love love the gear gear like having the gears uh when you’re swimming because we were swimming with someone who’s doing the world champion she’s like i just have one speed i

just go the speed all the time i’m like you kind of really the gears are very helpful to have because you are going to need to get out of uh or you know power through like a situation where it’s going to cause you to to go over over a little bit uh outside of whatever your zone to or whatever pacing you’re doing and it is really helpful to have those gears i i love the like eight by fifty or eight by twenty five or whatever and i think something for me that really helped is like hey this isn’t eight by twenty five at like my fast twenty five it’s just eight as hard as you can go twenty five like just get the tank empty for these it’s not who cares about the pace it’s more about the the effort against the twenty against the the distance not what the number is on the on the distance that you have it’s like you got the big fatigue you’re you’re you’re surging you’re you’re getting you’re getting some some big efforts in

there uh that was a really helpful like reframing for me uh it’s like it’s like it’s like a fart lick in a in a run workout where you’re just like just pick it up for 30 seconds like you know what like what have you got you know yeah yeah it goes goes a long way and it Trent Grimsey sorry that was uh that was his name got it nice you got it that’s the important part nice nice um so so so i guess you know one one you know to to start kind of wrapping wrapping this up a little bit Breton i’m curious like you know let’s say someone’s new to swim run and they’re kind of daunted by open water maybe they’ve signed for their first race maybe they have it like you know what what are what are your sort of words of wisdom for someone maybe they’re just like literally brand new to open water like what will you tell them in terms of just got their confidence up to go out there and do it like me you know just curious what you’re like for just camp you did last weekend

like how did you coach people up i’m just like getting into it

yeah so there was actually there was actually one swimmer there who said like every time i race open water after about 200 meters i just might heart rate with skyrocket and i’d panic and then i would just struggle my way way home and she wasn’t like she wasn’t a bad swimmer by by any means but uh she just kind of had that had that uh when she went open water that’s just what happened so and by the end of the week like she did all the swims she she came out of it like so much more confident about about her ability to swim and i think there’s a number of things that played a part of it one is we kind of progressively

progressively made it more challenging through the week so the first swim was was very calm you could stand up and you know we just sort of do a lot of stopping and drills and stuff like that the last swim it was going into a very strong current fairly big chop and waves and it was probably our longest swim of the of the week and like at the end of that like she got through it really well she was tired but she’s like i just feel so much more confident with my ability out there so i think it’s like starting small building up another one is just having other people around so like there was nine nine of us in the water um and just having those people there for for support feel like for safety and also just like when you’re around other people who are doing that it seems like it’s no big big deal and then i think that like the practice component of it so if you were to do say a hundred open water swims is it fair to say that you would get good

at at open water swimming or get fairly competent at it like more than likely yes so just um just taking that first step starting small playing it as safe as you as you want and then just progressively pushing it from there because uh we had a had a lady come to our Maldives camp last year and she would swim a hundred meters and i had to stand up because she was just out of breath quite panicked in the water and i thought well we’ve got a a task ahead ahead of ourselves here like the requirement was to be able to swim 2k um but 100 meters it was but we just sort of worked with her really gradually we’re in the lagoon where we could stand up just talk her through some of the basics um then kind of got up to about 200 meters and 300 meters and by day six she swam around the island which is nearly it’s probably 1.5 miles or a little bit less and but it’s just that progressive you know progressive build up and and having some support

there so it’s like it’s possible for everyone and i think it’s it can be very scary initially because it can seem like there’s just so much out of your control and it’s dark it might seem scary but um just start start small and uh yeah and i think you can really surprise yourself with how far you can get with your with your swimming that way yeah you know i actually think you said some of those those pretty profound there it’s like yeah if you do a hundred open water swims you know it’s it’s like it’s like it’ll kind of take care of itself like you don’t you don’t need to like oh i gotta do all this stuff just go out into the element if you can’t if you have you know and just keep doing that and then eventually it’s like you just have enough reps so it’s like what’s to fear when you’ve done it a hundred times in practice type of thing it’s really really well stated there’s um there’s a group near where i live uh down at the beach here

and uh they i think they call themselves the the teabaggers it’s like you you just sit in the water and just like they would just sit in the water um like it was a bunch of uh getting a soak yeah yeah just getting a soak and and having a chat and then like eventually they kind of some of them just kind of got bored of just chatting they’re like well we really should be swimming here and i think about you know two years later since they first started there’s some of them that are like traveling around the state and going into state as well to do these one kilometer two kilometer swims and like they’ve just progressively built it up and i think if they were to look back two years and go like i that they’re actually traveling to go in these swims i think they’d say there’s no way but that’s happening but um yeah and i can i think some of them will probably push and do some yeah five k’s and 10 k’s in the next couple of years because it

you know what it’s like it gets addictive oh yeah for sure please tell me that one of the members of the teabaggers was named earl earl gray yeah but that’s sorry they’re all women so uh maybe not jasmine was one name jasmine yeah there you go yeah white peach i don’t know i don’t know

that’s i don’t have any more tea references so i’m i’m gonna i’m gonna bow out of the rest of it yeah coffee it might be a different story yeah coffee i can i’m i’m there with you but the i love like sort of this unintentional theme that we ran into you know talking about how to how to do siding properly and how to do that it’s really and i think swimming it’s uh it is easy to kind of get overwhelmed i’m like oh man i might at least my intro needs to be like this and catch and everything break it down into small pieces work on that and then kind of layer up and and stack it whether it’s siding for open water or even just really acclimating and getting used to open water and really expanding your your distance or working with the tether like you don’t have to go swim a mile right out with your partner on you can do a 50 in the in the thing and then see how it goes but yeah kind of start small and then stack it stack it on each other

yeah absolutely and it’s the uh i think it’s like just that uh that consistency over time and just progressively building it up it’s like i think it’s the secret to success in so many so many so many things yeah for sure for sure it really is i mean and speaking of consistency so effortless swimming i mean how many swimmers have you guys had gone through your program at this point like so many yeah well like face to face in our clinics i think it’s it’s probably up to seven thousand plus i think like face to face here in australia um which is like and i’ve yeah so i’ve probably run about half of half of those maybe a bit more um but yeah like thousands and thousands of different swimmers that i’ve i’ve worked with and wow it’s uh yeah and like it kind of gets that point where when i look at someone swimming it feels like it’s really clear on what they need to do and the steps that they need to take but those first you know first couple of years and first

hundred it’s like it really had to kind of uh it was a lot of effort to to do it and so um yeah just like anything as time passes um you kind of look back and go oh crap actually i can’t believe i started there with it because i remember when i started coaching i just thought god how i just find it really hard to pick out what people actually need to change and like the order that or what’s causing what it made no sense to me and i was watching so many videos from other coaches on youtube and dvds back in the day like just trying to figure out freestyle technique and eventually eventually it started to make sense but i remember thinking god it just it’s so complicated but um yeah with it with enough practice i feel like it’s a lot easier now you’d right well yeah i mean it’s like it was like it was super complicated but you’ve actually made it so accessible for so many people so you’ve taken that complexity it actually worked it out to explain

it to people in a way that’s like this is super helpful for so many people not just in person but also all the online programming and stuff so so yeah like you know mad respect from from the low tide boys and as ever thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your knowledge with our listeners and viewers but yeah man really appreciate you brenton oh thanks for the invite it’s great to chat with you guys and it’s it’s always a lot of fun so i appreciate the invite yeah absolutely and if you’re looking to improve your swim effortless swimming dot com is a great resource there’s lots of five-day catch clinics to do online also i’ve consumed many many hours of brenton’s youtube channel it does these great breakdowns as well uh and it’s always uh me finding new new things to work on in the pool so be sure to subscribe to those uh we already know you’re subscribed to the low tide boys so go go subscribe to effortless swimming as well

awesome thank you guys see you thanks for listening to the effortless swimming podcast if you’d like us to help you become a faster more efficient swimmer go to www.effortlesswimming.com

The post The Fastest (And Easiest Way) To Draft In Open Water appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

Have you ever realized you’re spending thousands on supplements that do little more than clutter your cabinet? One athlete was on the hook for $6,500 a year—until Taryn Richardson helped her strip it back to what truly makes a difference. In this episode, Taryn breaks down how to use simple blood tests to guide your choices, and spot the supplements worth keeping (and those you can dump). Stick around—you’ll finish this show knowing exactly which pills, powders and potions deserve a place in your daily routine.

00:00 The Supplement Dilemma: What’s Worth It?

Taryn Richardson

Want to really transform your swimming? Join us on a swim camp in 2025 in the Maldives, Galapagos Islands, or Thailand: https://effortlessswimming.com/camps/

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So we need to be mindful of all these types of factors that go into when we take our supplements. And then also being mindful if you take any other medication, taking things like say magnesium, for instance, can interfere with other medication that you might be taking. So that’s again, why I think you need to be much more strategic around your supplement use rather than just taking stuff willy-nilly because you might be doing things to harm what you’re trying to do otherwise without you being aware of it. 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 back to the podcast. Thanks so much for having me back. It’s been a while Brenton, but good to be back on the podcast. It has been a pleasure to have you come back on and today I wanna dig into supplements. What’s worth taking?

What’s not? To kick it off, what’s the most you’ve seen someone spend on an annual basis on supplements? I have seen it all, honestly. I find that most athletes take far more stuff than they actually need. One of my athletes recently gave me an entire spreadsheet with everything she takes so that I can review it when she joined the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program. I was like, holy crap, I’m oily. And I was like, you can cut all that out except for this one thing. And so her as an example, she’s saving six and a half thousand, but I know athletes that spend way more money than that on a monthly basis or annual basis for supplements that are, are they effective? Are they worth it? Probably not. That you’ve got me very curious as to what that one supplement was. Is that something that is specific to her that you think she should keep taking or is a pretty general one for everyone?

For her, it was something that’s specific for her. She’s recovering from injury. So I guess I take an athlete and where they’re at in their training, in their season, where they are in life. And also we had the benefit of her recent blood tests to go on to know what she actually needed because when we talk about supplements, the truth is in their name, they should be a supplement to a really good foundational diet. They are not the basis of somebody’s diet. And that’s where a lot of athletes go wrong is that they go to supplements first. I always talk about nutrition being a cake. So most athletes will do the sprinkles on the icing on the cake first because it’s really easy to add to cart. You get something shiny in the mailbox, which is a dopamine hit. You take it like people are generally pretty good at taking things the most days. And that’s really easy to do. Whereas the stuff that is the foundational layer

of somebody’s diet, the cake base is much harder. It’s doing things like eating enough for its vegetables, making sure your recovery nutrition start in for training, making sure you’ve got your fueling right for training. All the things that you do day in, day out form the big rock-solid foundation and adding supplements should be something that you sprinkle on at the end to get the advantage from that, not form the big base. Because if you do that first, there’s nothing for those guys to stick to. And there’s a really cool paper that I can dig up for if you want to dive into the research that the more things we take, the worse it seems to be. They all seem to kind of wash themselves out. So we need to be and think much more strategically around supplement use that we’re using something for a reason and with a purpose rather than just like throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks. One thing you mentioned there was blood tests.

Is that something that you recommend all your athletes get or just specific people get? Yeah, I think active people should definitely keep an eye on what’s going on. Most people do it kind of annually with their GP and if they don’t, then maybe you shouldn’t. I do have a free blood test guide. Actually, people want to go and grab that. If you go to dietitianapproved.com forward slash bloods you can download it. And it goes through a range of different things that are useful for active people. What on earth that test actually means and then some reference ranges as well. Now it’s not medical advice and it’s not going to replace having a good discussion with your doctor or your dietitian but it might spark some ideas for things to actually check in and monitor, particularly when you’re active because our need for vitamins and minerals is higher than somebody that sits on their butt all day but it doesn’t mean that we need to blanketly

be taking a multivitamin to try and meet those needs. So doing your bloods regularly at least once a year for some people it’s more often. So as an example, a female with low iron I’d be checking their bloods every three months because the red blood cell turnover is every three months to see what’s going on. And then strategically doing some interventions to see if what we’re doing dietary wise or even supplementation wise is helping or hindering. So it’s just being smarter and I guess taking ownership of your health a bit more and checking bloods is a really easy way to do that.

And is there a common thing that you see with endurance athletes that they are typically lacking when you get their blood test results? Yeah, really commonly iron particularly if you’re a female athlete or you’re a vegetarian vegan athlete and the endurance variety because we use more iron on a daily basis and we lose more iron as well. So it’s something that you want to keep a good close eye on. The other one honestly is vitamin D. So many people are deficient in vitamin D and have no idea and our whole bone structuring like system doesn’t work so well if we’re deficient in vitamin D. There’s so many like pathways in our body that don’t work well if we’re deficient in things. So iron and vitamin D are big ones to check as an endurance athlete in particular.

And are they ones that you would generally supplement for or you would obviously real foods is what we want to go to first but are they typically ones that you would look to supplement for and you’d be happy for an athlete to do that? Yes, but only if there’s a deficiency. So we don’t want to blanketly supplement those things without having the data first because vitamin D is actually a fat soluble vitamin. So if you have too much it can be toxic. So you want to check your bloods and check for a deficiency and is there a natural way for you to elevate that? So for us or anywhere in the world the depth of winter your vitamin D stores are probably at their lowest but in the height of summer or at the end of summer they might be there higher. So want to check at different times of the year to see what our vitamin D status is because it’s not stable. And that’s the best way to increase your vitamin D stores is to actually seek light at the right wavelength.

And there are a couple of dietary sources as well but it’s not a good one to be really deficient in. So something that I would supplement if it’s particularly low but definitely not one to supplement if you just think it might be. And the other one is iron. Again, like too much iron is bad. And so we want to check our bloods and particularly you’re looking for ferritin which is our storage form of iron and making sure that storage is higher. And the reference range for that for the active population is higher than the general population too. So working with a sports physician or a sports dietitian is going to help you make sure that both of those things are optimal because your performance is not going to be particularly good if you’re deficient in either of those. Interesting. And makes a lot of sense, right? Some are obviously getting a lot more sun you’re getting a lot more vitamin D so it could change with the seasons.

Now, the next one is creatine. It feels like in the last 12, 18 months has had a really big increase in popularity with how much you should take, why you should take it. I remember probably 10 years ago it was like take it to get jacked and get strong but now they’re talking more about the mental benefits of it. So what’s your take on creatine? Yeah, you’re right. Creatine has just had an explosion lately and the messaging is that everyone should take creatine because everyone’s going to benefit which I disagree with but there are certain subgroups and subpopulations that it would be beneficial for. Historically, like it’s one of the most researched supplements and historically it has been in the Jimbrough space to, yeah, get swole, but we are seeing more research in the female space and particularly females through the lifespan too. So there’s some stuff in sort of menopausal women and the cognitive benefits of creatine for that brain fog

which is really cool to see. The dosing for that is quite high though and I wouldn’t suggest that there’s enough research in that space to warrant taking such huge doses. Also don’t enjoy the blanket, everyone should have three to five grams a day advice because it is based on your body weight because creatine is uptaked, soaked up into the muscle and like you’ve got more muscle mass than I do so your dosing of creatine should be specific to you. So something to look at but it is still a supplement and it’s not something that you should replace without having a good quality diet because you can get creatine from all of your animal meats too. So it doesn’t have to be necessarily something that you supplement. If your diet quality is poor then you’re not going to get the same advantages for it. Protein powder kind of along those lines I guess as well. What’s your take there? Again, it is a supplement. So we want to supplement our diet

with that in certain situations. You will get so much more benefit from having something like a high protein Greek yogurt with some berries, some nuts and seeds or some muesli type thing that meal has got healthy fats, it’s got carbohydrates, it’s got calcium, it’s got a huge range of vitamins and minerals in that. Whereas replacing that with a protein powder you are literally only getting the protein. So we need to think more globally around what we’re putting in our high performance engine I like to call it. Our body is our temple and it’s what’s going to get us to the finish line fastest. It’s not this one supplement but protein powder I think is relatively low risk. I’d be looking for something that is informed sport tested so that you know that it’s been independently batch tested and it includes, it doesn’t include any water prohibited substances because supplement industry is in particularly well regulated to be honest.

America’s atrocious, Australia’s slightly better but everything that you put in your body you want to make sure that it is safe and also effective. So checking supplements that are informed sport tested is a good thing. And then there’s a couple of different types of protein powders. You’ve got way based protein powders, you’ve got other like plant based protein powders if you’re vegan or can’t have dairy and their quality is different and how much protein they have per serve is different. So just going into a supplement store and asking the huge buff dude behind the counter for a protein powder is probably not the best strategy. You actually want to pick one that is suitable for you and then using it strategically where you need it to like supplement or top up your daily protein intake where you need it rather than using that as like a lazy way of trying to do recovery because it doesn’t actually tick all of your recovery boxes.

So like any of this stuff you need to be strategic about it rather than just going, yep, that’ll do and like tick a box because it generally isn’t ticking a box for most people. The next one, general multivitamin. Oh God, are you still taking AG1? No. I don’t know. You mentioned it, I think two podcasts ago. I was like, yeah, well, I’ll at least finish what I’ve got and then looked into it more as well. And I was like, yeah, you’re right. Yeah, so no, I’m not. How much am I saving you? I don’t know, probably 80 bucks a month. They did offer to send me, actually they sent me some as like a potential podcast sponsor. And then besides I’ll take that and then like I didn’t proceed with it, obviously. So yeah, I’ve got the free one. That didn’t cost me anything. But no, I’m not taking it anymore. Okay, you’re welcome. So I asked that because it’s in the same line as a multivitamin, right? And people think that that’s a better way to go

than taking a multivitamin. But a multivitamin is kind of like a general practitioner that it’s a generalist at lots of different things but it doesn’t have enough of specific things to be beneficial. So you wouldn’t take a multivitamin and say, if you’re iron deficient and you need to increase your iron because it only has a tiny amount. So it is kind of a little bit like a safety blanket that a lot of people would take but it is also throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something fix. Oh my God, can I say that again? It is a bit like throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks. A lot of our vitamins are water soluble. So if we don’t need it, then we are literally going to break it down and pee it out. So it’s not something I would recommend anybody take. I’d much rather be more strategic around supplement use and using sole supplements. So an iron only supplement to treat iron deficiency

or vitamin D only to treat vitamin D deficiency rather than taking a little bit of all this stuff. You will get so much more benefit from eating actual food, getting the vitamins and minerals from real food like our fruits and our vegetables and eating the rainbow to get all that huge variety because you’ll get fiber, you’ll get more satiety from eating and chewing your food that you won’t get from taking a pill. And you also get a whole range of food chemicals that can’t ever be packaged up and put into a shine little product either. So it’s a no for me for a multivitamin. But what about vitamin C? Is that one that you would ever consider? No, short answer no. Same sort of thing. It’s water soluble. If you have a look down at your pee, your urine color after taking a vitamin C, generally it’s kind of glowing. It’s like bright orange. And that’s because you are literally breaking it down and peeing it out because it’s water soluble.

You can get your daily intake of vitamin C just by eating some citrus fruits or a pun of the strawberries. Like it’s really easy to meet your requirements on a daily basis from food. And it’s not something that we’re generally limiting in the modern diet either. Okay, gotcha. I’m sorry, were you gonna say something? Yeah, do you want me to keep going? Yeah, sorry, go for it. If you are feeling like you’re coming down with an upper respiratory tract infection though, like a cold, then taking vitamin C in combination with zinc can be beneficial, but only for the first five days. And that’s been shown to lower the severity and duration of a upper respiratory tract infection. But it’s not something that you wanna take prophylactically all the time either. So again, being strategic around a supplement use rather than just taking things all day every day. One question I wanted to ask before, but I forgot to was in terms of how,

with some of these supplements, let’s say it’s iron or vitamin D, do you have a preferred method of taking it as in like pill or tablet? Like what is there some that are better than others? Yeah, it depends what it is really. Timing of day is often really important for some things over like the form. Say for instance, vitamin B12 often needs to be given intramuscular via injection, but it’s really difficult to become deficient in vitamin B12. You have to do a really crap job of dietary stuff for a long period of time or have another pathway where you’re not absorbing it properly. But I think timing is more important than form with a lot of things. So iron in particular, we have this hormone that controls our iron status and it increases as the day goes on. So if we’re supplementing with iron, we want to put it sort of first thing in the morning before that hepsidon response has increased as the day goes on. And then for example,

and for iron as an example, there’s a lot of foods that enhance the absorption of iron and inhibit the absorption of iron too. So we need to be mindful of all these types of factors that go into when we take our supplements. And then also being mindful if you take any other medication, taking things like say magnesium for instance, can interfere with other medication that you might be taking. So as again, why I think you need to be much more strategic around your supplement use rather than just taking stuff willy-nilly because you might be doing things to harm what you’re trying to do otherwise without you being aware of it. Gotcha, okay, interesting. Next one’s electrolytes. So good, bad, yes, no, what’s your take there? Obviously it’s like it’s a supplement in a way but maybe a little different than some of the other ones we’re talking about but what’s your perspective there? Yeah, it depends. So it’s not something

that I would take necessarily outside of training but because I work with triathletes then having some form of sodium during exercise can be beneficial for some people in some situations which is why it depends. So it really depends on what type of sweaty you are and how much sweat sodium you are excreting. And you might need to be supplementing during exercise if you’re a really salty sweater or you’re out there for a long period of time. But before people get into supplementing out there are other things that I would do first and that’s making sure their fueling is right as well as making sure their overall hydration status is right and then I like to layer in the sodium piece on top of that. So we do other things first whereas most triathletes, because that’s how I work with, they do the electrolytes first. And kind of like creatine, the sodium story has had a lot of limelight in the last couple of years and people are just taking more and more and more.

And that’s not necessarily beneficial either because we know that the more salt that you have in your diet, the more your sweat glands try and get rid of in exercise and the more your kidneys will just filter out as well if you don’t need it because you don’t store salt or sodium anywhere. We don’t have like a bucket, like our protein in our carbohydrate in our muscles as glycogen, we don’t kind of store sodium up for later. So we need what we need at the time but the kidneys do an excellent job of filtering out any excess and then also retaining what they’ve excreted if they need it. So it’s not a really simple answer to that question. So that’s why I said it depends.

Remind me of myself, it’s like someone asked a question about a certain aspect of the stroke. It’s like, well, it depends. Yeah, it’s always case dependent. You need the context that, yeah, great. So it can be certainly be a useful thing to have. Another one here is just BCAAs. So, yeah, amino acids, is that something that can be worthwhile for people? Maybe, so branch chain amino acids are what all of our protein foods break down to so that we can digest and absorb them. So if you’re eating enough protein in your diet, then you shouldn’t need to supplement with branch chain amino acids. The jury was out a while ago when I looked at the research. I haven’t looked at it recently in the last sort of five years but whether you take BCAAs in strength training and whether that actually helps with muscle strength and muscle hypertrophy, there’s papers for that and there’s also papers against it. But because all the big like buffed gym bros did it,

it filtered down to the general population and we think we should do it as well. So I think like primarily if we’re talking back to our nutrition cake, we need to make sure we have enough protein on a daily basis and you’re meeting your protein needs and then you shouldn’t really need to supplement with branch chain amino acids. You’d probably go more of a whey protein isolate powder first rather than doing BCAA. Yeah, gotcha. Hey, real quick, in case you didn’t know, we run swimming camps around the world from the Maldives, Thailand, Japan, with Sundays, Galapagos Islands, plus a bunch of new locations for next year. So if you’d like to join us at a future camp and improve your swimming and explore and experience some of the best locations to swim in the world, then go to effortlesswimming.com forward slash camps. We’ve got all the dates and locations listed there. A question I get all the time is, I’m not that quick, will this camp be suitable for me?

We have a wide range of speeds and abilities come to the camps. So as long as you can swim a kilometer, there’s a very good chance that these camps will be suitable for you. And if you’re not sure, just get in touch with us and we’ll make sure that we do find you a suitable camp. Thanks for listening. Let’s get back into the podcast. The other one here is magnesium. What’s your, what are your thoughts there? I have this love-hate relationship with magnesium because so many athletes take it and we don’t really know if it does anything. And they, when I ask them why they take it, they also can’t tell me why. A lot of people take it for cramping, but there’s no evidence that magnesium is gonna help or reduce the severity of cramping. People take it for sleep and there’s some research in sleep, but are you again masking or trying to, you know, safety blanket a deeper problem there than magnesium is not necessarily the answer.

So it’s not necessarily something I would take somebody off if they were really attached to it, but I would never recommend it to somebody. Mm, gotcha. Is there any that I haven’t mentioned that come to mind that pretty common? There is so many. Like I think collagen is probably another big one that’s getting a lot of limelight at the moment. And that’s because, you know, 10 years ago, the research was like collagen doesn’t do anything. And now there’s more literature saying, yep, collagen does, but again, it is a supplement. You can get collagen from your diet. And I think a lot of women are taking it for the skin benefits, which, you know, I’m all four. I turned 40 this year and I’m absolutely freaking out. So I don’t personally take collagen, but it might be something that I add into my diet in the near future. Like there’s so much stuff, right? Like my athlete that sent me her spreadsheet, I should bring it up.

Like there’s just so many things that she was taking that just get added up over the years. Like someone somewhere told her to take something and then she just continued taking it forever more. So for instance, she’s taking a really high dose iron supplementation from postpartum 10 years ago that she never got rid of. She definitely doesn’t need that. Same as vitamin D, she was taking vitamin D, but when we look at her bloods, her vitamin D levels were fine. Like they’re perfect. And so it’s just being mindful. And I’ve said the word strategic so many times because I think that really is the key that it’s not just to take everything and like cross fingers and hope for the best. You actually want to layer things in strategically. So if you’re going to use creatin, for instance, maybe you do it in a strength phase and then you get rid of it again and then you bring it back in through like a strength block. Protein powder could be something that stays,

but again, it needs to be at a strategic time of day rather than having it every day or every snack because you need more protein. So it’s just being more aware of what you put in your mouth and doing things that are going to help you and actually are effective rather than just kind of taking things because you feel like you’ll get left behind if you don’t do it. Taran, thank you so much for this. I’ve kind of a quick rapid fire or fairly rapid fire answer to a lot of questions that I know people will be wondering. And some people, it may be a little bit of putting to hear that the thing they’ve been taking might not be giving them the advantages that they… They thought and I mean, I experienced that a few years ago with AG1 as well. So yeah, I know what it feels like, but give it a few months and then see how you feel about it. Taran, thank you again. If this all sounds like there’s… It depends, there’s a lot of information.

It’s like, well, what’s relevant to me? Get in touch with Taran. We’ll include the link to your website there with the triathlon nutrition academy. So anyone who needs a bit more help themselves can get in touch. So Taran, thank you for being a guest on the podcast again. My pleasure, as always. Thanks, Brenton. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.

The post Which Supplements Actually Help Your Swimming with Taryn Richardson appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

This a rebroadcast from the Get Fast Podcast with Jordan and Gerard Donnelly from TriVelo Coaching Trivelo Coaching: https://www.trivelocoaching.com.au/

Welcome to this week’s episode of the Effortless Swimming Podcast. This is a rebroadcast of an episode where I was a guest on the Get Fast Podcast with TriVelo Coaching with Jordan and Gerard Donnelly. On this episode, I’ll talk about how triathletes can swim minutes faster in any races that they’re doing.

So if you’re a triathlete or you’re interested in triathlon or open water swimming, there’ll be a lot here that can help you improve your swim speed and ultimately make it easier. And a lot more enjoyable. Let’s get into this episode on the TriVelo Coaching Get Fast podcast.

Want to really transform your swimming? Join us on a swim camp in 2025 in the Maldives, Galapagos Islands, or Thailand: https://effortlessswimming.com/camps/

there are things you can do to see an increase in speed. So there's a very good chance you might be working on the wrong thing. And the wrong thing is possibly something that's a few steps ahead of what you actually need to work on. So I will quite often get people come to clinics or they'll send videos into me and they're like, yeah, okay, I can see that like my catch, my elbow is low and I've been working on my catch and I can't seem to make it any better. But if you look kind of earlier on in the chain of what needs to be worked on, it's like, you can't possibly get a good catch because you're firstly lifting and turning really far to get your breath. So you're over rotating. So your arm's dropping straight down. And so physically you're not capable of actually getting a good catch on that side because of the breathing. And so we need to really just bring it back to the first order of priorities and focus on those, get those right and then build up from there. So I think more often it's a case of just working on the wrong things. And typically when people, I mean, people watch the videos that I put out and I've had a lot of people say, look, I quite often get distracted by working on different things and I hear it on podcasts, I see it in videos and you can get a lot of really good information there but it can also just be like the wrong thing for you. And so I think I'm guilty of it myself as well. Just like you hear a good idea like, okay, well, that's certainly gonna be better than what I'm doing. But if it's not really specific to you, it's not gonna be to change anything.

Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast the show that helps swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here's your host, Brenton Ford. Hey, welcome to this week's episode of the Effortless Swimming Podcast. This is a rebroadcast of an episode where I was a guest on the Get Fast podcast with Trivelo Coaching with Jordan and Gerard Donnelly. That's a mouthful to say. But on this episode, I'll talk about how triathletes can swim minutes faster in any races that they're doing. So if you're a triathlete or you're interested in triathlon or open water swimming, there'll be a lot here that can help you improve your swim speed and ultimately make it easier and a lot more enjoyable. Let's get into this episode on the Trivelo Coaching Get Fast podcast. So a very big welcome back to the podcast, Brenton Ford from Effortless Swimming. Brenton, this is now I think makes you the most repeated guest we've ever had. So thank you very much for joining us again. Thanks for having me. I expect the plaque or the trophy coming very soon. Thank you. So we want to launch right into the main premise of today and the topic, which is just the notion of this inevitable swimming plateau that everyone hits. And how do you break through the swimming plateau? Because improvement in expectations, improvement expectations in the sport of triathlon seem to be just lower than what you can get in the bike and the run. And a lot of people just accept that the swim is the swim. And once they hit that two minute pace

or 150 pace or 140 pace, they just stay there for years. And so why do you think so many triathletes get stuck at the same swim pace even after years of training? Is it mindset? Is it technique mechanics or is it something else?

It's usually working on the wrong thing. I think it comes down to working on the wrong thing and maybe not sticking with it for long enough to see a change. So if we look at someone, let's say they're being stuck at two minute pace for three years and like, oh, this is my pace. I just simply cannot get faster. Physically, I think majority of people they can go beyond that pace. And so look, it may be a mobility issue. Like maybe physically you can't get into some positions that you are required to get faster. But I think for like pretty much everyone, it's just, there are things you can do to see an increase in speed. So there's a very good chance you might be working on the wrong thing. And the wrong thing is possibly something that's a few steps ahead of what you actually need to work on. So I will quite often get people come to clinics or they'll send videos into me and like, yeah, okay, I can see that like my catch, my elbow is low and I've been working on my catch and I just, I can't seem to make it any better. But if you look kind of earlier on in the chain of what needs to be worked on, it's like, well, you can't possibly get a good catch because you're firstly lifting and turning really far to get your breath. So you're over rotating. So your arms dropping straight down. And so physically you're not capable of actually getting a good catch on that side because of the breathing. And so we need to really just bring it back to the first order of priorities and focus on those, get those right

and then build up from there. So I think more often it's a case of just working on the wrong things. And typically when people, I mean, people watch the videos that I put out and I've had a lot of people say, look, I quite often get distracted by working on different things and like I hear it on podcasts. I see it in videos and like that you can get a lot of really good information there, but it can also just be like the wrong thing for you. And so I think I'm guilty of it myself as well. Just like you hear a good idea, like, okay, well, that's certainly gonna be better than what I'm doing. But if it's not really specific to you, it's not gonna change anything. Do you find that if you give some really good feedback analysis, which is what you do very well, you get people to send videos to you and you analyze it and send it back to them and ask them to work on three major things and you give them drills specific to the things you're looking at. So that's a bit of a quick summary. So do you find that when the athlete comes back, maybe six or eight weeks later, that they haven't changed anything about what you've asked them to do because they haven't done maybe the drills or they haven't thought about it enough? What are the things they're doing wrong in that period between you giving them the instruction and it should work. You know, if they, it's like going to the physio with an injury and then the physio gives you all these exercises to do and you go back four weeks later, you haven't done one exercise and you say to the physio, it's not any better.

You know, is that something that you find is prevalent a lot in a lot of the athletes?

Yeah, it certainly is. It's, there's a few things that can result in someone not having improved down the track. So one is they either haven't done the, like the exercises or the drills, even if it's five or 10 minutes, which is normally what I would prescribe for most swimmers, a little bit in their warmup goes a very long way. So quite often they haven't done the drill or also they probably just haven't exaggerated the change enough for it to make a change. And so when we film it at clinics, second filming, I quite often ask people to exaggerate what they're trying to say. And whenever they do that, I would say one in 50 people go too far with the change. Like I'm getting them to exaggerate head position, rotation, whatever it is. One in 50 might actually have gone too far that we're like, okay, you can scale that back a little bit. But the majority of them, it's like, right. It's right there. It's like, oh, that's really good. But it feels like such a big, big change. And so I don't think people get comfortable enough with the exaggerate, how much they need to exaggerate the change. So more often than not, it's that. So that it feels weird. So like, this can't be right. And then we don't like to stick with something that feels unnatural or weird. And so we just go back to what's normal. So it's just, it's more often that than anything, especially for someone who has, say, practiced the drills that booked in for a follow-up filming. Like they've spent the time, they've spent the money working on, I think working on it.

But if we don't see a change, it's quite often that. Or it's just like they've tried to focus on three things instead of one. So if you, I mean, I was getting some coaching myself a couple of weeks back, I had the coach give me one thing to work on. It was looking really good on video. And she said, all right, now I want you to, I want you to focus on your breath timing and this aspect of your catch. And it fell apart most of the time. Like two is, you can't do two really when you're swimming. So I think it's often confusion as well, or just complicated, too complicated.

What I love about your videos and whenever you're on a podcast is you give such good hope to people that the improvement is possible. And even just your early answers, someone listening will just go, okay, that actually makes me believe that I can improve. You mentioned something really interesting there with not enough time dedicated to it. So when there's a change that needs to be made, what is that amount of time in terms of working on it per session, as well as is it a six-week block that you should expect improvement or 12 weeks where you really should expect that habit to start happening naturally? So when I first started running clinics 12, 13 years ago, there was a guy who emailed me on a Monday morning. So this was up in Sydney. He attended the clinic on the Sunday. Monday morning, he said, I did my 400 time trial and I was two seconds slower. Like, what's going on here? I just attended the clinic.

And then I had someone from that same weekend email me nine or 10 weeks later. And she said, I was working away at the technique stuff. My times were the same. Nothing much was happening, but I thought, look, I'll just stick with it. And then I had this one session where it clicked and she went from, I think it was 140 to 134, and she stuck with it from then on. Like, it just clicked and she stuck at that pace. And I see that as like, if you've got the patience to stick with it for eight, 10, 12 weeks, then you're much more likely to see those results. But don't feel like you're wasting your time if you're not getting faster straight away, or maybe it doesn't even feel better straight away. Like it might just feel awkward because it's different. So normally, and from my own personal experience as well, I think two to three months is pretty typical of how long you should expect it to take. And I was getting some coaching at the start of the season as well for myself. And I got this one cue just about breath timing. My breath was a bit late. And what I found there is that it took me, it was like six to eight weeks practicing it in training. The first two races of the season, there were glimpses of it, but then it was sort of three, four races in where it really started to gel. And yeah, it just takes quite a bit of time, even if it's just one thing. So, but I mean, the thing is, you're gonna be putting the time in anyway. When you're going to the pool, might be in twice a week, three times a week, you're going to be there.

You may as well just be okay with just working on your technique rather than just trying to get the fitness gains from it. Obviously they're really important. Fitness is a big factor, strength is a factor, but you may as well just be focusing on something technically as well, because you're gonna be putting the time in regardless. You could be sending a message out that it's okay to swim slower, to swim faster eventually. And if you stick with the process, that's actually gonna be so much better than if you just keep defaulting. Every time you're under pressure, we'll default to our normal swim stroke, which is actually what you're trying to prevent. You're trying to get this new method of swimming technique ingrained into that being a new default swim technique. And I'm doing the same thing. When I'm in the pool and I'm getting tired, I know my thought process has gone out the window. I'm going back to my old stroke and my times go back to what they were. And if I'm not conscious of saying, no, I'm gonna put up with this, I'm just not going to improve. I'm going to be the same swimmer. And we all keep doing that. And a lot of the time, and the question I'm gonna ask you is, is the fitness causing us, our lack of fitness holding the new position or the new entry or the new catch or the new push through phase or the new breathing style, is it that we don't have the fitness to maintain it? That's why we go back to our old form. Is that what's causing us to default to the old way? Is it because we're not fit enough in the water and how do we manage that?

It can be a number of different things. When we're making a change, we often using different muscles or using the muscles in a different sequence or in a different way. And so quite often we have to engage more muscles in the beginning of this process as we work on this change in stroke. So I think it can be more tiring and more fatiguing in the early days. Plus you've got to put a bit of mental, like mental effort into it as well. And so the way that we swim right now without thinking, like we can sustain that at harder efforts for longer periods of time because we don't really need to think about it because we've got that ingrained. And so when we're making that change, we've got to use that mental energy. We probably have to use more, more of the muscles around the area that we're looking to change until it starts to become subconscious. And so I think it's, and there's also the element of like, we don't wanna lose our fitness gain. So we're afraid to actually take a little bit of a step back in terms of the times we're holding. So it's, there's a bit of that as well. And I feel that too, when I'm swimming like, geez, I hate, I don't like being three, four seconds slower than what I'm used to. And I wanna just kind of push the effort and not be too concerned about the change. So it's, in a way you just have to know what to expect. I think that's probably the first thing. It's like, if you know that that's probably gonna happen, then be okay with it. And think long-term, like let's say 12 months down the track. What's my main goal?

Is it that I wanna be, all right, I wanna be fit and fast for the next three months or 12 months down the track, do I wanna be five, 10 seconds quicker? So yeah, looking ahead, that patience and just knowing that the results will come if you're okay just taking a step back.

Yeah, it's such a great discussion and why we wanted to really go through this because there is this notion of the plateau is there and it's really hard. Whereas what we've already uncovered in the first 10 minutes is that there are so many little things that you could do to push you through. And I think that notion of not wanting to go slow, start with or slowing down to go faster later is so funny because you do know that and this is exactly what you're talking about, Dad. When you just default, you'll be that same swimmer. So you might as well try something different. And the only way you're not going to improve is to not try something different, not to try any one of the things we've already said. Whereas if you try something different, at least you have the opportunity to improve. And if it doesn't work, you'll just default to your normal swim stroke and you probably swim the same anyway. But the next part of the plateau I wanted to ask about is often what the pattern we see is, especially for beginner athletes, they go get their first bit of technique help and they get that first bit of improvement, whether that's five seconds per 100 or 15 seconds per 100, they really make that jump and they get stuck at that next wall because they've worked on some good things. They've got a nice kind of looking at catch and pull and stroke and things are on track. Is that next hurdle any more difficult? Because that's where people who are especially experienced swimmers, and I'm thinking about more experienced triathletes here who have been in the game for maybe years, they've made those progressions really well and now they're stuck at 142. Now they're stuck at 136. Is it a myth that that's a harder barrier to jump over or is it the same principles again? That's a good question.

I think that earlier gains can typically be the easier ones because some of the things we need to work on, you can see that much bigger gains as a result. Obviously, because it's, let's say if you're at 230, getting down to two minutes, it's 30 seconds, but it's like, there's some really easy wins you can do there, like better body position, head position, those sorts of things. It can certainly get a little bit more challenging because there's more nuance to it. Some of the changes are a little bit more refined, I think, so the improvements are, yeah, can be a little bit more challenging to make, but it doesn't mean you can't make them by any means. I think of, there's a guy who came in on the weekend for a follow-up filming. So he did a clinic in January or Feb, so a couple of months ago, and he dropped 15 seconds from his 100 pace, just like his long distance 100 pace. I think he was, I think it was around two minutes, he's down to 145 now. And he had just some basic, like some basic stuff where he was swimming, he was crossing over, he was swimming pretty flat, he was really rushing in the stroke. And so we just, we worked on more rotation, good head position, not crossing over, just some of those things. And he improved them really well because I was going through his video the other day. And so now what he's got to work on is that he's quite like, he's actually swimming a bit too wide. So he's actually over-corrected the change, which is like, all right, well, that's good. At least you're not doing the same thing. So we need to work on that. We need to get a little bit more streamlined.

We need to work on a little bit more rotation. And actually the one thing for him is his breath timing. His breath is very late. And so it's kind of throwing the rest of his stroke out. So if he doesn't correct his breath timing, he's unlikely to make many gains from there because that, to me, that's like the bottleneck that's holding him back right now. So I think the faster you get, typically there's like, there's one thing there that can be stopping other things from falling into place. So I think it's about really getting that dialed in and figuring out what that one bottleneck is. And then just being hyper-focused on that one thing for several weeks and then moving on to the next thing. So yes, it is harder to get faster the faster you get, but I think it just means you've got to be more focused on one certain thing. And it can feel like a challenge to know what that is sometimes, but if you do have someone who knows what to look for, look at it, it can make such a big difference, I think. So it doesn't have to be me, it can be anyone else, but I think, yeah, it's often just that one bottleneck. Realistically, because the bottleneck is individual to everyone, you can feel like, oh, what is my bottleneck? It can be so complicated, but if you narrowed it down, it's probably one out of what? Eight to 12 main things, where it's the catch, the pull, head position, like you just said, timing of breath, the position of the arms, tram tracks,

position of the legs. When you actually list them all, there's not that many it could be, so it's gonna be one of those ones. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's like, there's nothing that I feel like I haven't seen with people swimming, and you're right, it's just like, you could probably make a bullet point list of eight to 10 things, and it's going to be one of those things. But I think it's often the more basic things that are the bottleneck for a lot of people. It's just the basics of, all right, good head position, body position, and the right kick, the right amount of rotation, breath timing is a big one that's sometimes overlooked, and then obviously you've got the catch and pull and those sorts of things. But yeah, it can really boil down to just a couple of things, really, for most people. If, this is something I really want you to consider. If you feel that some of your athletes are plateauing that much, that you would stop them from training, because repeating the same incorrect stroke is nearly as bad as not training at all, because you're just reinforcing that the, you're not gonna create a change by continuing to repeat the same technique that you're trying to get out of. So would it be worth just stopping people from actually training as a swimmer and then just getting them to strip it all back and just do the drills and forget about the fitness, forget about the fitness gains that you should be doing in the swim session? And really, can you do it that far?

Or what I'm worried about is people getting new information, understanding what they should be doing, but still they do that in the drills properly, and then when they go to swim, they just go back to their own stroke again. They just keep, and they're only practicing the drills properly, but they're not actually, should you stop people, if you see that happening, would you be stopping them from doing the swim session and saying, look, we're just gonna have to do drills the whole time if you're not gonna change a stroke. Would that be how you would approach it? Or yeah, let me hear what you think about that process. That's a tough one, because it depends on what their goals are too, right? It's like, they might have a race in six weeks time or even 12 weeks time. It's like, well, we still need to have that level of fitness there. What's that person willing to put up with as well? A lot of people aren't willing to do just technique work for the next two months as well. And like I understand it as well, like you can sometimes just go to the pool because you wanna get a good workout and all of that. So it really depends on how, yeah, on what they've got coming up and what they're willing to do for it. But I think it's- If you had a, put it this way, Brett, if you had a person who said to you, I don't care about any races that are coming up. I wanna change my technique so that I can use this for the rest of my life. How would you structure that next eight weeks? Would you strip it right back like that? If you had the person who's mentally on board,

then they're willing to give up then the next six months of races to swim slower, to swim faster in a year's time. How would you structure their program?

Probably similar to what you said. I would go, like let's, we'll pick one thing to, well, maybe one or two things to kind of focus on for them and just firstly have a look at their stroke, see what they need to work on. We'd do some drills as part of their warmup, just focusing on one or two things. But then I would certainly give them some swimming to do and we might bump up the pace as we're going through it because I wouldn't want them to swim just slow. Like I want them to have to try and hold that stroke at different paces. But when they're really starting to fall apart, it's like, all right, let's stop there. Because you want them to get to this point of failure in a way it's like, okay, I can feel like things have fallen apart. So let's just take a break and go again. But that would probably be the approach and it would probably not be in a squad environment. So I think squad is great for fitness, social. I get a lot from swimming in a squad, but in terms of technique, that is often where things just go out the window, especially in squads where people are pretty competitive, you're pushing off a second behind someone, you're gonna have dirty water in front, you're gonna have this choppy water and you're just gonna be trying to keep the feet. So what I normally recommend there is just try and get one session a week at the pool by yourself with hopefully a little bit of space there and work in that calm water. Now, you're not gonna be racing in probably calm water if you're a triathlete, but if you can't swim well in calm water, you're probably not gonna be able to swim well in choppy water.

So just try and find some space and time where there's no pressure to be able to get there the feeling of what we're trying to do. So yeah, I would really just strip it back. Still, you still wanna put in not a lot of Ks, but you still need to do a bit each session. But yeah, it would just be very technically focused swimming. We'd be doing a bit with stroke count as well, just trying to maintain stroke count. So if you're going from say 40 strokes to 45 strokes a lap, something's going wrong there. So being aware of that as well and giving them tools to be able to know whether or not they're starting to fall apart like stroke count. Like it's a simple one, but it can work really well.

It's such an interesting discussion point around what I think is priorities. And we are big proponents of every single one of our sessions. We ask our athletes to spend 400 meters, four to eight minutes at least on drills. And we would do more, but the athletes often just either skip it because it's kind of boring or don't really focus on it as a priority. And I guess in terms of thinking about the really interesting point you made there with the value of swim squad versus the fact that it's really good for, not just social, but intensity, you know, being really pushed for pace. But the consequence of that is, your stroke can go out of the water and you're potentially thrashing around. And really finding in your week, what's the priority here of time spent on drills, time spent on your own VO2 sets, time spent on endurance, time spent at swim squad. If you were to think about, regardless of the athlete preferences, what would be ideal amount of time to spend on swim stroke and technique as a ratio? The last point I'll make on that is the bike analogy, for example. We know that, you know, straight threshold training would be the most valuable thing. If an athlete could just do that twice a week, you know, an FTP test or a 60 minute threshold session, it would be as valuable as you can get, but it's just so grueling, you know, and it's just not possible to repeat mentally week after week. So in a swimming sense, you know, where do you place the value in terms of time spent with drills? If the athlete didn't have a say in it, what would you be really allocating to?

It makes me think it was like, if you have kids, it's like, you'd love them to have like meat and three beds every night for dinner. And, you know, you can have this perfect diet, but then it's like, what are they willing to actually have? So, yeah, with a triathlete, let's say you're doing a 3K set, I would look to do probably a K of that as some warmup with technique within that 1K. And then the rest of it would be, I mean, some sort of swim set where you're trying to maintain that form. So I don't think you need to do just a full session of just technique. I really like to incorporate this stuff into your normal swimming because that way you really get to, like, you're not gonna hold perfect technique across a 2K swim. It's just not gonna happen. But you're going to start to notice, when does it fall apart? You're going to kind of have to challenge yourself to maintain good form, to maintain your speed. And I think it's good to work it out within the normal swimming. So sometimes, what I wouldn't suggest though is that I had a swim on the weekend. She said, I train, I do 3K every swim, and it's three by 1K. And I just like, I just do three by 1K. And that's fine if that's like just good for your mental health or your fitness, whatever it might be, but you're probably not improving much at all because the intervals are too long. You probably need that mental and physical reset

after 100, 200. So just give yourself that little bit of a rest in between to be able to just switch back on. And now that you've got some drills, all right, let's just focus on these things at the start. So it doesn't, yeah. And what would give someone the biggest bang for buck? We talked about FTP with the cycling. Depending on the person, I think one longer swim can be really good where it's like maybe some slightly longer intervals, they're just holding an aerobic pace, but then also like a threshold set as well where they are and one way they may be just building and progressing through the set. Like I love the sets that crescendo towards the end where it's like you start off comfortable, you're building, you're building, and then at the very end you're like, you're going for it. I think those sort of sessions are so good for the average triathlete, provided that it's not getting really messy and their times haven't dropped off. Like I want them to actually get faster because then they're actually holding good form. Like that's a sign. It's like if you, yeah, if you're going 130s and at the end of the session, you're going 140s, but you're trying to go 125s, well, something's gone wrong there. So you might need to start out easy in what you think. Is the theory behind the shorter intervals if we took the elite Olympic world champion swimmer and then all the way down to the beginner, you don't see a lot of the elite swimmers who train twice a day, who probably swim, I don't know, you'd tell me five or six K in the morning, five or six K at night, that might be more than that.

They don't do a lot of long, slow, three by one K reps for a reason. And that's sort of the message I'm trying to get across to the triathletes. Sure, we need to do open water swim where we are actually getting used to swimming. But if the analogy of a runner was, you need to do that long endurance run or a bike ride, you need to do that long endurance bike ride. So your body gets used to holding that aerobic capacity. But as a swimmer, we know that the swimmers don't do the same as a bike rider or a marathon runner. They don't do that long, slow swim. What's your theory on that as the world's evolved with swimmers over the journey? I know we're looking at people who are swimming Olympics of 50 meters, 100 meters, 200, 400, and of course there is a 1500. But the majority of the events are all around 100, 200 to 400. So is that the reason why we're not doing more long, slow training, or is it because it's not appropriate for swimming?

If you think of the, if you look at the long distance swimmers, like the marathon swimmers, I should say like the 10 K at the Olympics, they will do longer intervals. But again, very rarely are they doing like, yeah, one K intervals. It's like, and I think part of it is just boredom. That's like, if you don't get that reset after say 400, it's like, it's quite boring and it's easy to switch off and then your technique can start to fall apart a bit. I think part of it is that. And also just the monotony of it too, where if it is one K intervals and you're doing an eight K set, like it's just, it goes so much quicker if you break it down to shorter ones. There's different reasons why they do it. But I personally think a lot of it is just, you do start to switch off if you're going for too long. And when you start to switch off, technique falls apart. You might be fatiguing a bit quicker as well. So even that 10, 15 seconds at the wall after a 400, and you go into the next 400, that can make a world of difference to how you're swimming. So it's, yeah, to break it, break up a boring session, it's to get that rest and recovery. I see like sometimes with the marathon, marathon swimmers like the 20 K, 30 K, your English channel swimmers, if they have to do a lot, they will sometimes break it into like one K intervals

and 1500 intervals just to get through the miles sometimes in the case. But I think in terms of performance, yeah, it's normally shorter. So yeah, and now I think of myself, when I did one marathon swim, which was 20 K, and it was very hard doing one kilometer like intervals. I might do one K swim, one K pool boy, one K pool boy paddles, and maybe repeat that twice or three times. But my God, it just goes so slow.

Yeah, right, yeah. Even if it's the same distance, it just goes so slow. It takes a certain type of insanity to commit to a 20 K marathon swim. How was it?

For the most part, enjoyable, apart from getting really cold. I just don't deal with the cold. So English channel is not on my list. And yeah, I'd put on a bit more fat next time. But I had a friend who did the English channel and he put on 15 kilos for the swim and he started taking it off 10 years later. Yeah, that's put me off. Yeah, everything is context dependent though. And an example of where a three by one K is quite appropriate and we do with our athletes is for the Ironman athletes who, and especially a lot of beginner athletes who have never swum that kind of volume, they just didn't need to experience three by one K in the open water and get a feel for that. So that the 3.8 K in the Ironman is not a shock. And that can be broken down to six by 500, but that is appropriate there. And I think that's important for the athletes to realize is that, yeah, there's no blanket rules. That's why we're having this conversation. But I did really like your kind of ratio of, in a three K set, almost a K of drills and two K of a set. That's good to think about. But again, it is always context dependent on where the athletes at and what their race is. Absolutely. And that's the, like I had a swimmer on the weekend at a clinic. She said, oh, my last coach showed me to, was like, I thought I should sort of cross my legs and my kick and do something else. And I'm thinking like, well, that's not what I'd suggest for you right now. But like possibly at the time when he was coaching you, like that might've been appropriate. It's like, I'm not going to say, oh, he's wrong. It's like, he saw what he saw and he gave the advice he gave probably

for a good reason. So it's all context dependent. So yeah, if you're saying, oh, well, I heard you should never do more than 400 meters. It's like, well, yeah, you might need to. Yeah. Just on the, probably a topic that a lot of the listeners would like to hear your opinion on.

The athletes in the world pro tour level in triathlon, we've watched Lionel and Sam Long really struggle at the back of the fast swimmers of this generation who are incredibly good swimmers. They're just below Olympic level almost. And yet they can still ride and run. It's gone are the days where you were just a swimmer and you couldn't ride or run. Now a lot of these top triathletes can do it all there. But Lionel and Sam haven't grown up as squad swimmers. And I'm just using them as two examples. There are hundreds of other pros out there who are struggling just as much as these two guys. But because these guys are in the news a lot more than the others, it sort of means more to people to hear your opinion on this. At Effortless Swimming our mission is simple. Make swimming more enjoyable. Whether you're training for your next race, swimming for fitness or just love being in the water, we're here to help you swim faster, smoother and with more confidence. And one thing that can make or break a swim is your goggles. If you've ever struggled with foggy lenses mid-session you know how frustrating it can be. That's why we created the Effortless Swimming Hydro Clear Anti-Fog Goggles for long lasting crystal clear vision. I've been using them myself and the difference is night and day. I'm not the only one. Deborah swam 36 kilometers down the Derwent River and the entire time her vision stayed crystal clear. No fog, no frustration, just an uninterrupted swim. So what makes a Hydro Clear Goggles different? It's all in the technology.

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And they were 130s, 140s when they first started. And, you know, but the guys at the front are now swimming 105s in their sessions. And, you know, one to 105s and leaving on the 110 or leaving on the 120. So what is it that's, you know, with the swimming compared to as a runner or a rider, it takes so much longer to actually get to the level where you're wanting to get to. Yeah, it's, with the level of swimming now, especially in the PTO, it's like these guys, they are so quick. They are just, the level's really, really stepped up there. So I think that gap shows even more for that sort of level of racing. And absolutely it's harder. It's absolutely hard if you haven't grown up swimming. And look, you may not get to that same level of the very best triathlon swimmers in the world. Because as you said, they're like, you know, they're almost off, just off Olympic standard for swimming. Like they're just, they're swimming very, very well. But I think a trap that people sometimes get caught in is that they're not, they're worried about losing the fitness gains by taking that step back, that they never fully commit to the changes in their stroke. That they don't want to get to race season and not feel like they've done the same amount of work. Even though like aerobically, they're probably, they're just so fit anyway. Strength wise, they're probably pretty similar

in terms of their swim strength. So I think it can be a trap that they sometimes just get caught in. Feeling like they haven't done the work in the pool and just smash themselves in the pool. But swimming so technical that I think for the majority of them, they're just better off being willing to take that step back and getting beaten in training by their training buddy because they know that they're working on their technique. Because when you get in that competitive environment, a bit of ego flies around and you don't want to be that guy who's like, well, I'm five seconds behind when I used to beat this guy next to me. I know I'm better than that. So it's very easy to get caught in that trap. So for those high-level guys, I think that's a big factor. And I mean, even for your age group, we've got egos as well. We want to beat the person who's nipping at our heels. So yeah, it just takes a lot, I think, to be willing to take that step back. And it's a tough one. Because the thing is it's not guaranteed either. It's like, if you take that step back and you haven't really changed your stroke and you're not swimming faster, and maybe you have lost a little bit of fitness, like, well, that was a waste of time. So it is a little bit of a roll of the dice and you have to trust the process and you have to trust what you're working on. So yeah, it is a gamble at the end of the day. But I think for a lot of people, it's a gamble that is worth taking.

That's that mindset element that I think is the last piece of the puzzle to come into it. And that was the whole purpose of this topic is to not let any mental barriers, like you're saying, and that ego of potentially being unwilling to go slower to go faster and try something new can get in the way. But what is your advice around athletes? You just, it's a warranted fear to be like, I don't want to go backwards. I'm putting the time in. But I just feel like my stroke is stuck. What do you say to get past that mental barrier, not thinking from a technique or fitness or training perspective?

If you look at what the options are on either side, you go, all right, well, is the way that I'm swimming now, if I'm at 140, is it because I'm just, I'm not fit enough? Like, where can I get to if I just get a little bit fitter and a little bit stronger with my swimming? Like, what's the possibility there, realistically? And it might be like, it might be a 120 to someone. Maybe they're just not very swim fit and they're at 140. But I think realistically for a lot of people, it's not the fitness side of it that's actually holding them back. Like they know it's their technique. They've trained three times a week for the last five years in the pool. Like, it's not a fitness thing. It's a technique thing. So if you can objectively take a look at it as an outsider and determine what's actually holding you back and then just go after that thing, work on changing that thing that is holding you back and just know that it is a bit of a gamble to work on it. But like long-term, what's like, really, what's that gonna look like? Maybe I do get a little bit slower initially. Maybe I take this gamble and I don't race quite as well this season. That may happen. But yeah, at the end of the day, it's probably more technique that's holding you back if you have been at the same pace for year after year. And we see that in the data. And we really agree with what you've just said then because one of the things we're often looking at in swim training sessions is how, what's the gap between your threshold work

and your hard efforts compared to your endurance efforts. And so often an athlete is swimming 142s for their hundred sets. But then in their four by 400, they're swimming 144s. The cap is so small. And then you go, okay, well, you've got fitness. Your techniques can probably stop you from going faster. Whereas if the swimmer could swim 130 in their hundred sets, but when they go to an 800 meter effort, it goes to 150. You go, oh, there's probably a bit of a fitness gap there. You agree with that?

Yeah, that's a great way of identifying it, right? It's like, you can see that you can't get faster than a 142, but you can hold 144 all day. Well, that's a very clear sign. So that's a good way of analyzing it. And what do you guys do for testing their, well, testing their swim fitness or swim speed? What are your go-to tests?

It's a very similar principle to cycling and running. It depends so much on the race goal. And the same way that we do 20 minute FTP tests regularly on an indoor trainer, that doesn't help necessarily inform us of the most accurate data for an Ironman race or a half Ironman. But we do it regularly just to have that comparison. So we do regular pull tests, whether it's 1K swim at 1.5K or longer, depending on the athlete. But then they need to go test in the open water as well and show us what they can do in a wetsuit. And especially as you get closer to race day and that becomes difficult depending on where you live and the time of the season. But it's the same principle. It's translating the same way on a bike. You've got to get off the trainer and go out and do a 20 minute FTP test outside. You've got to go out and do a 60K time trial or a 90K time trial for your half Ironman. The same principle applies for your open water stuff. And it's not just a time trial. It's go do your two by 1K efforts or four by 500 in the open water and show us what you're holding there. And that informs us how well you're translating your pull stuff to your open water stuff. Yeah, that's such a big one with the pull versus open water. I know we've talked about that on previous podcasts, but that can be quite eye-opening for someone who's never tested in the open water. They're like, all right, I can hold 145 in the pool. And on race day, it might be 155. And they're like, well, what's going on here? Yeah, so it's good to see that before your race and then try and figure out whether it's like, well, was it bad conditions? Was it because I just don't swim as well in my wet suit? Like, am I shortening up?

Like, am I just going off course? Like, why am I slower? And just making sure you figure that out before race day. It's interesting, isn't it? We do have a lot of athletes who don't actually swim in the open water at all, except for race day. And they do come back with that. Oh, I'm so confused. Why am I swimming so much slower? And every example you just gave is probably contributing to that result. But one of the things I say to them is when you're in the squad all the time, you're swimming in moving water, and you're getting this inflated pace because you're drafting the whole time. And you need to do some swimming, as you said, in still water, where you're breaking the surface as the number one. The only person in the squad who's really swimming properly is the person at the front of the line who's getting to break the water. And so that's more a realistic pace, isn't it? That you can compare. You just can't compare if you're sitting fourth or fifth swimmer in that pace line and expect that that's the time you'll be able to do outside. And I have a lot of trouble convincing people. You understand what I'm saying. Do you have that same problem with a lot of your athletes? Yeah, so many people think they are faster than they really are because they're used to swimming behind other people. And you can save up to 30% of your effort when you are drafting, especially behind multiple people. So I can, yeah, people can think they're swimming so much faster than they really are. But it's like playing Gran Turismo on PlayStation

and then getting in a real car and thinking you can drive around a racetrack the same way. It's not the same. You've got to get out into the real world and just see where you're really at there. So I think certainly that's a big way that people convince themselves that they're swimming faster than what they are. So if they can do, say, a time trial without being on anyone's feet, like that, then you've got still water. You get a much better sense. And then the open water where conditions can change and it's choppy and it's not smooth, that can, and you don't have the turns to get the extra speed and sometimes a little bit of rest as well. That can change the pace that you're actually swimming too. So it's worth getting that data. We see so often on the bike that the trend is more beginner athletes are more efficient on the trainer because they've got this assistance in helping them pedal efficiently. And when they try and translate that power outdoors, they can hold better power indoors and outdoors. And we find with more experienced athletes, they're actually better at holding, they can put more power outdoors and indoors. They're better at pushing against the resistance of the road. And it's an interesting phenomenon that that would happen. And so it's funny with swimming as well. Athletes tend to show some variability. In summer, it's just slower in the pool. And once they check a wetsuit on and for them, they get some buoyancy. It really improves that stroke. And for others, they get out in the open water and they're so much worse than in the pool. So what are the common reasons or trends you see about those differences? That's interesting. Yeah, in some ways, in some ways it's actually,

there are some similarities there between say, beginner and more experienced cyclists. So for some swimmers, if they have really bad body position, the wetsuit lifts them up and they can be faster. But it makes me realize what you said there that with a lot of people who do go from the pool to the open water who are less experienced swimmers, they sometimes have a harder time holding their pool pace in the open water. And I think, but the more experienced swimmers are typically a little bit quicker than they would be in the pool. And this is with a wetsuit on as well. And I think one of the reasons for that is like they, they're obviously more proficient in being able to kind of hold. It's like pushing against the road or the resistance from that. It's like similar in the pools, in the open water. More experienced swimmers are just, they can really increase their stroke rate and they can get a better grip in the open water and they can maintain their line and their rhythm when they're siding. Like it's just, yeah, that experience counts for a lot. And I see the same thing. That's, so that's interesting. A bit of a realization there, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we have had a big discussion on open water swimming and you can listen to an old episode on that, but there is so many elements to it that are just different to the pool. Like the siding, you know, that can throw anyone's stroke completely out of whack. Just that one factor. Yeah, that's right. And you could be doing 2.2K for your 1.9K Ironman swim and that's six, could be six minutes

where you're going slower. So yeah, just that one factor alone is worth getting right. I love that you said that because it's probably our core message to triathletes when thinking about the races. You know, not swimming at 800 meters counts for a lot because if you run an extra hundred meters, it's potentially you're losing 20 seconds. But if you swim an extra, you could be losing two minutes in the swim. So it's something really to get right. Before we go on to, I kind of wanted to finish off with some, some quick rapid fire myth busting questions to see your opinion on, but anything on these last topics data on the plateau or these last topics that you wanted to ask before we go to this final segment? No, I've loved that conversation so far. I think the listener should get the gist now that, you know, it's just not about being fitter in the water. It's all about doing both, having good technique and practicing perfect swimming rather than practicing imperfect swimming will be the thing that you should be actually aiming for as an athlete when you're training. But yeah, I'm really keen to hear some of the, the myth busting questions that you've got lined up to see what Brenton's answers are to this. It's always good to hear his version of what he sees as the important things. And let's get this straight. You are one of the experts in the field around the world, and people should be really honing in on the answers to these questions. And as a preface to this question, these questions, you know, some of these might seem really obvious to some people, and some people will have never heard that answer before. So I think it's really important to, you know, people are coming from all different contexts and backgrounds of education with swimming. So yeah, we want to ask away.

So first one, you need a high stroke rate to swim fast, true or false? False. Add in quickly why.

It's a combination of stroke length and stroke rate. So you can have long strokes and a lower stroke rate if to swim fast as well. Yeah, more Ks or time in the pool always equals more speed. Yes or no? No. I think we've got exactly why, but it's… We would have just negated our whole podcast. Exactly.

Yeah.

This is funny as well. Drills are a waste of time for experienced swimmers and triathletes, and thinking with pros like this as well. Agree? No. Yeah. They're not, yeah, they're not a waste of time. And can sometimes be even more important because it can help them still work on the changes that they need to make. Kicking is almost irrelevant for triathletes. They should save their legs.

Oh yeah, almost, yes. It's like, if your legs aren't doing the right thing, it can really throw off the front end, but you don't need to be kicking hard at all to swim well, or you don't need to be kicking a lot. So it's like, if your legs are doing the wrong thing, it can completely stuff you up, but it only provides probably five to 10% of propulsion for most triathletes, if that. So yeah. Awesome answer. And I'm really realizing now, reading some of these, that I didn't expect the conversation to necessarily go the way it did, and we've answered some of these. Sorry, oh. Sorry, this is me. So wetsuits fix bad technique, reality or myth?

Myth, yeah. It can help improve some things, but it's not a magic wand by any stretch. It's too late to fix your swim if you start it as an adult. True or false? False, you can, yeah, obviously you can improve.

You touched on this before, but I'm interested to hear a slight explanation. You should hold the same technique at easy versus threshold efforts. Is that realistic?

So, not necessarily, but it can, depending on the person. So, yeah.

Yeah, go on, yeah. I was just gonna say, like if you look at someone like Katie Ledecky, if she's swimming easy, she's fairly even, she's fairly balanced. When she goes fast when she's racing, she has more of this sort of gallop stroke. And so some people, like they'll change their stroke that way, whereas other people are pretty consistent no matter the speed. So, it just depends on the person. I'm curious about, you know, potentially thinking about changing your stroke between pool and open water, would you, you know, especially when it's a little bit choppy, like, you know, you definitely can find that trying to get on top of the water and over it, and that's okay for trafficists to think about if they experience those conditions. Yeah, quite often people will be better off with a bit more of that uneven, or unevenly, uneven stroke or gallop stroke, where you're sort of quicker on one side, longer on the other side. That tends to lend itself pretty well to open water, especially with a wetsuit, just to help kind of get over the top of the water. And Dad, chime in with any thoughts you have in these. And I think you were laughing because anytime you, we do this, Dad hates these kinds of questions, because every answer is, a good coach would say, well, it depends, but we still want to get some thoughts on it anyway. I think you're doing a great job, Brendan, because we wouldn't have got past question three with me. A couple more to go. So there is a agreed preferred breath rate and breath first stroke rate. Is that true?

No, no, it depends on the person. It depends what your stroke rate is. Like if you've got a high stroke rate, you could breathe every three, you'd be getting the same amount of air as someone with a lower stroke rate, breathing every two. And just depends what you prefer. Last one. You should never swim with bad form. Is there ever a place for just getting it done, even if it's not pretty?

To a certain extent, yes, but whenever you are really pushing it, your technique will begin to fall apart, but you don't want to continue that for too long and really train that bad habit. But I think it is good to get to that point and be able to push yourself there as it does start to break down, because that's kind of a necessary requirement for people who are looking to compete at a certain level. Just on that question, I'd love to hear your answer, Brenton. The minute you feel like you've lost form, should you take a break in a training session, give yourself 20 or 30 seconds and then reset and go again? If it's within an interval, I think let's say you're doing like a 300 and you're starting to push it, you might start to fall apart halfway through it. Finish off that interval, try to get back on top of it. Try and just make that switch. Maybe you're back off the pace a bit. So you don't necessarily have to go, hang on, stop. All right, I can't continue any further. Try and just correct it the next stroke or the next lap. But if it's just like repeatedly just falling apart, you're having one of those sessions, then you might just want to change what you're doing.

Awesome. Yeah, great answers all around. That's a really good way to finish. Yeah, you did really well there to dispel some of them. And the purpose of asking some of those questions was really just to help any listener gain some clarity on some… It happens in every discipline. There's just some common things. And we, the cadence one, we get that in running all the time. Like I got told I need to have a 175 or 185 RPM with cadence and it's just not true rather. It's true in certain contexts, but yeah, we just want people to avoid falling into the trap of blatant rules. Because as with everything, it's really ever that black and white. Yeah, that's right. And as I said, it depends on the person and the context and what they're training for. Yeah, hopefully people have been able to get something from this podcast where even if it is a little bit of hope that they can get better. Because I see it all the time. I mean, you see it all the time with people that you're coaching. It's like they maybe done a six hour half Ironman and that might've got down to sub five. It's like you can absolutely get better at anything you put your time and your attention to and your focus on. And swimming is no different. Might be a little bit harder in terms of, rather than just putting the effort in, you've really got to put the focus on it as well on the technique, but it's absolutely possible to get quicker. I also really love that side of swimming that it is such a technique thing. I think that's really encouraging because you would look at some Olympic swimmers or the top level pro triathletes or even the top level age group athletes who are 120s and go,

geez, that gap seems so far away in terms of the training. But to know that it's really a technique thing means it's possible for anyone. Anyone can improve their technique, which is really encouraging. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's not just brute strength or height or anything like that. Like it's, yeah, it's almost like a secret, like a card that you've got in your back pocket for anyone and you can play it at any time, but just by working on it. Yeah. Anything last from you, Dad? No, I loved it. And look, I still remember when I used to take you guys to squad training when you were seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 years of age. And I'd see a lot of the big guys come into the pool after they'd been in the gym and they were huge, muscly guys and flexing their muscles. And you had seven, eight-year-old kids just flying past them in the water with no muscle development, no strength, but super efficient swimmers as an eight-year-old. They just used to make me laugh the whole time. These guys are just powering through the water with just brute force, with no technique. And I think that epitomizes the beginner swimmer. They just feel like they've got to brutalize the water to get through it. And it couldn't be further from the truth. It's such a technical sport that if you don't get that right, you are going to be so frustrated for a long time. So I've loved the fact that you're really pushing the technique and just throwing more time at things is great, but not always going to get the right results.

And I think you've really made that clear today, which I really appreciate. Well, thank you so much for having me on. I love telling you about this stuff and especially with you guys. And I appreciate you having so many people come to our clinics and me being able to work with them. It's something I really enjoy doing. And yeah, especially with adults, because they can come in thinking, well, look, I don't, can I actually get any better? I'm just frustrated with it. It's annoying. And I don't love the swim. But I think when you see improvement, that is when you begin to enjoy something and you can see how you can get better. So yeah, it's possible for everyone. So thank you for having me on. And your coaching is aptly named Effortless Swimming, which is exactly what we're talking about. It's supposed to be more effortless and not brute force. So that's a great way to finish. So Brenton, yeah, thank you very much for coming on again. We know that our listeners will get a lot of encouragement from it and we hope we can help anyone out there understand that you can break through a plateau and it is possible and give that hope. So thanks again. And thank you to everyone that was listening and we'll see you on the next episode.

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 How Triathletes Can Swim Minutes Faster with Brenton Ford appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

Imagine a group of busy parents hesitating in front of a pair of 25 pound dumbbells, unsure, even a little intimidated. Fast forward two years and those same people are confidently pressing 75 pounds, moving through life with more energy and far less pain. That’s the kind of change Kate Galliett creates.

Kate works with moms, dads, and everyone in between to build lasting strength without burning out. In today’s conversation, we’ll talk about why tiny consistent steps matter more than all out efforts. How tuning into your body can help you avoid injuries, and a simple morning habit. No fancy gear required that can boost your energy and sleep.

Whether you are juggling family work or a swim routine, I think you’ll come away with at least one idea to try on your next workout. Let’s get into today’s podcast with Kate Galliett.

And so I've had to really teach them about the fundamentals and the importance of listening to their body and specifically for dads is to learn how to, if you have this mentality where you're going to just hammer yourself to death in the gym, you're going to do 500 curls. You're going to bench press until you get hurt. You're going to swim until you're so crushed, your shoulder's killing you the next day to learn how to listen to your body better because you're a dad. And if you're not a dad, maybe you're a husband and you're taking care of aging parents or you have a spouse or whatever you got going on. You are needed by other people in this age of life. You are definitely needed. And if you're injured because you went to her in the gym because you saw some guy on YouTube do it and you're like, yeah, I'm going to do that too. You're not being as useful to your family as you could be. 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 a group of busy parents hesitating in front of a pair of 25 pound dumbbells. Unsure, even a little intimidated. Fast forward two years and those same people are confidently pressing 75 pounds, moving through life with more energy and far less pain. That's the kind of change Kate Galliott creates. Kate works with mums, dads and everyone in between to build lasting strength without burning out. In today's conversation, we'll talk about why tiny consistent steps matter more than all our efforts, how tuning into your body can help you avoid injuries and a simple morning habit, no fancy gear required, that can boost your energy and sleep. Whether you're a juggling family, work or a swim routine, I think you'll come away with at least one idea to try on your next workout. Let's get into today's podcast with Kate Galliott. Kate Galliott, welcome back to the podcast here on a couple of years back and we talked about becoming unbreakable, how people can listen to their bodies and make changes so that they are not getting injured consistently and just so that they can live a healthier, better life where they can do the things that they love. And typically the people who listen to this, the things that they love are swimming and potentially triathlon and just general health and fitness. So I wanted to get you back on today to talk about some topics similar to that, but basically how can we be living in a way that is not going to get us injured, that is going to help us be fit and healthy long term and how we can listen to our bodies. And I think you are the perfect person to speak to when it comes to those topics. That's nice to be here. Thank you.

Now, Kate, you've been working with a lot of people in your area at the moment. You're over in the US and two of the types of people that you've been working with that you mentioned before the call was moms who were afraid to go heavy with weights and then also a lot of parents or dads who are just used to going hard until they break and then they've got to take time off and then get back into it, but you're showing them a more sustainable way of approaching that. So which one would you like to sort of kick off with in terms of who you'd like to chat about first? The moms are, of course, I want to start with the moms. It's been wonderful. I've been building an in-person practice here in my town and the last several years have been great for that. Just with the people I've met and the type of work I get to do, which is kind of, as you summarize, they're really fun because it helps people who weren't previously, for example, like the moms who weren't lifting heavy, who weren't training, so to speak. They were training, but it was the little aerobics here, lighter weights there, this that or the other thing. It was intentional being active and working out, but not with a really specific intent with really structured programming. I hate to say it, and the audience here will already love this, but I hate to say it. We really have to be that mindful and intentional when we're training as we get older because there is no such thing as too old, but your body does need more directives as you get older because when you're not 20 and bouncing off the wall resilient where you could go out drinking at the bar on Friday night and then go hit the pool

or the gym on Saturday morning, too, your tissues do turn over more slowly. You need more direct inputs to tell those tissues how to respond, whether it's tendons, ligaments, muscles, and so on and so forth. Some of the moms I've gotten to work with are awesome because they were in that phase of like they're trying to do stuff, but it's not super structured for creating really distinct specific change. The changes they were going for was to be strong, but to get in better shape, kind of feel good in their body, but also to learn how to do this for a lifetime. And I think that's really important because I do think knowing how to train your body is important for a lifetime. I don't think you can get away with not learning that at some point. And thankfully a lot of the people listening here, of course, are very into like learning a lot of things about their body. So if anyone listening right now feels that way, don't ever lose that because I do think the smarter you are, the wiser you are, and the more you learn about what your body needs, the more capable you're going to be as things come up. You might be at the pool and you get a weird shoulder tweak. You might get something happening and the body starts to kind of go, oh, I need an adjustment here. And it's up to you to know what to do for that. So these moms were training, having a great time, but it wasn't super structured. And we started working together. And at first it was like starting with what we had, which wasn't even heavy weights. We didn't have any weight. We had what we had. We had like a 25 pound dumbbell, like a couple of things, you know, and slowly we started doing this work consistently of strength training with progressive overload, consistency in the exercises, not doing random stuff every

single week. And what happened was they started to really notice that the soreness was good soreness. It wasn't like, Oh, you just feel wrecked because you beat your body up doing a bunch of weird things. But also that they were getting stronger and then they were feeling more energized and their body was starting to change. And now we've gotten to a point where they've got all their home gym setups and they've got heavy weights and they're, they understand and appreciate and value the, the consistency that I was just speaking about that you have to have as you're training to take care of your body. And they've gone from the 25 pound weight was intimidating and heavy and like, Oh, I don't know what if I get hurt. I don't know. It's so heavy to they're hitting PRs. At the end of this last training cycle, we just finished a couple of these gals that they're, you know, inclined bench pressing like 75 pounds, which is quite a bit more than 25 pounds when we first started. So that's really cool to see. And I love that for women, especially because we get this, we're still, we're coming out of it. I think we're mostly out of it at this point, but we still, a lot of us my age and a little bit older got the messaging when we were younger, like don't get too bulky, don't have too heavy of weights, focus on aerobics, cardio is really important. But none of those actually create the change that we want. Most of us want as women, you know, is to have a high metabolism, have a shapely body that can perform well, that doesn't just look good or can do things, but it's both that we like. And so that's an important thing for these moms. And I just, I love that for them. And it's extrapolated out into so many other things. We went into, instead of just doing cardio for the sake of cardio,

to learning how to do zone training, training for a half marathon, having the best training program they ever had for their half marathon, no injuries and so on and so forth, how they eat, how they live their life, what they teach their families. It really has ripple effects. So any of the moms out there, get, get into it with strength training and proper training and all the activities and sports you like to do because it makes a huge difference. Now on the flip side, you mentioned the dads that I work with, I love the dads too, because they're same but different. They are saying that they've been busy. They've been kind of prioritizing other things just like the moms I've been there, like raising a family work and doing all the stuff. But where they're a little bit different is that the dads I've worked with are great because they, most of them lifted in high school and now they're in their 40s or 50s and what they know is what they learned in high school, which may not be great if you all remember being in the weight room in high school. And we've learned more, like exercise science has learned a lot more in 20-something years, right? So with the dads, it really has been more about getting them to appreciate the fundamentals a lot more rather than trying to kill themselves in the gym with 500 bicep curls because that's what they remember and that's what makes them feel that kind of energetic spunk like they had when they were in high school. And so I've had to really teach them about the fundamentals and the importance of listening to their body and specifically for dads is to learn how to, if you have this mentality where you're going to just hammer yourself to death in the gym, you're going to do 500 curls. You're going to bench press until you get hurt. You're going to swim until you're so crushed, your shoulders killing you

the next day to learn how to listen to your body better because you're a dad. And if you're not a dad, maybe you're a husband and you're taking care of aging parents or you have a spouse or whatever you got going on, you are needed by other people in this age of life. You are definitely needed. And if you're injured because you went too hard in the gym, because you saw some guy on YouTube do it and you're like, yeah, I'm going to do that too. You're not being as useful to your family as you could be. And so our efforts with dads is to say, I love that you have the passion already, but we got to hone in the fundamentals a little bit because we need you to train consistently and still be able to do your life where it actually matters that you show up every day like being a dad, taking care of the house, taking care of aging parents, taking care of your spouse, so on and so forth. So in the same way, they come from similar but slightly different places, but the success we've been seeing has been phenomenal and I'm so grateful to be a part of it. I mean, it's all my clients, it's all them, they put the hard work in. Let's get into some specifics in terms of how do you approach what exercises people should do, how often they should be training and what sort of reps, how many sets. Do you have a general approach that you would take with most clients? Yeah, borrowing some unique circumstances. I think everybody does well with basic programming, at least for a while. I guess that's the funny thing, isn't it? You've probably seen this with coaching. All the hot, flashy, sexy stuff shows up every couple of years and everyone's like, we're doing this wild, intense, crazy, really specific training program and at the end of the day,

and then it fades off. At the end of the day, what comes back is like, you've got to put the time in, you've got to put the reps in, you've got to do it consistently, you've got to do progressive overload, whatever that means and the activity that you're doing and beyond that, we're kind of just playing in the weeds and if that makes you feel joy about your training to play in the weeds, have at it, have a good time. We can do weird crazy stuff, but at the end of the day, everyone does well to start with full body training three times a week. If they're not swimming, if they are swimming, they're probably going to only be able to fit twice a week in. If you're more experienced taking that full body routine, turning it into a split routine where we're doing upper or lower on different days and then again, everybody does well in that six to eight rep range, especially for endurance athletes, I will say you already are putting in so much volume that I do, I do with endurance athletes try to shy away from anything higher than eight reps on leg exercises, back exercises, chest exercises, but if we're doing arms, that might be a little bit different, but because you're putting your volume in, you do want to think about your tendons a little bit and make sure you're not overtraining and creating tendonitis, but here's the funny thing. Man, I love the people who are doing research and exercise science right now because they're looking at all this stuff going, okay, all the bros have argued about rep schemes for decades. So who's actually right? Let's actually figure it out. Who's right? And the funny thing is that always comes back is they were all right. 15 reps was great. 8 to 12 reps, that was great. 4 to 5 reps, also great. Like every rep range worked for creating gains and change provided you were working up to within

one or two of your maximum. So when folks are thinking about strength training in the gym, sport training, whether it's on the bike or in the pool or running, figuring out what that represents for you. So in the gym, it's easy. Could you have done one or two more reps? Okay, then you did enough. If you've could have done five more reps, you probably should have kept going or made the weight heavier. But in the pool, you have to think about that a little differently, same with the bike and running. Maybe the goal is to say, could I have swum that just a little bit faster, or could I have bike that for just a little bit longer? Okay, well, that probably means you're working at that range of your body is going to create the adaptations that you want. So I don't want people to get tied up around the axle between 15, 12, 8, 6, 3, however many reps they should do. But I do think if you're working at a weight that gets you to within one or two of your last good reps that you could do reps in reserve is what we call them. You're going to see success with your program. So that's how I kind of approach that. Yeah, that's the progressive overload that you talk about. We've got to get to that point where we do break down and break the muscles down so that we can build and then continue. And it's one thing that I've found having been consistent for a little over two years now with my gym routine has been that I went too hard at the start and injured myself a bit with some of the exercises that I was doing, brought it back, and then I just built it up much slower than what I did at the start. And now, being two years into it, I feel like I am very hard to break with having built up this strength

through these different exercises. Now, obviously, I still do sometimes get injured if I'm surfing and I maybe wipe out or have to duck dive and it's with a big wave and a big board and I might jolt my shoulder. This episode is brought to you by Pillar Performance. Our new sponsors Pillar are a sports micronutrition company. And the easiest way to describe it is that while hydration and carbohydrates products will take you through to touch the wall as fast as possible, Pillar's mission is to get swimmers to the starting blocks in the best condition over and over again. I recently started taking Pillar triple magnesium after a friend had recommended it and it's been a game changer for my sleep and recovery. I take one scoop 30 minutes before bed each night in the same way that you might start your day with a coffee. I finish it up with a magnesium and recover better for tomorrow's session in the pool. Pillar Performance is used by some of the biggest names in swimming and triathlon, including Zack Stubble to cook, Jan Frodeno, Ben Canute, Ash Gentle, Taylor Nib amongst the host of other well-known swimmers and triathletes. Where Pillar differs from other micronutrition you may have taken before is both the quality of the types of magnesium and the tangible results that I see on my garment each morning. If you'd like to try Pillar today, head to pillarperformance.shop and enter code effortless for 15% off. That's effortless for 15% off all first-time purchases or for anyone in North America. Enter the same code at thefeed.com.

So I still get injured occasionally but it is much less often and I feel much more unbreakable having taken this very steady approach to increasing the weights. And you hit the nail on the head there like I think when across the board whether it's health, wellness, performance, sport, whatever you're doing, the vast majority of us need to take our medicine when it comes to patience with the process. Like we are ready for the results right now. We're like I've decided I'm going to get fit. Let's go right now. I've decided I'm going to do swimming so I better be good at it right away. I've decided I'm going to do a half marathon so I better have the fastest half marathon ever. That's not how body works. And you will get injured when you do that. Everyone does that. Everyone does that at least once which I think maybe that's a sign that it's like a learning thing you have to go through. I've done that too. But if we can say I'm in this for the rest of my life and the progress will happen provided I continue to push for that one to two reps left in reserve, which means your weight will have to go up over time or your reps in the pool will have to go up over time. If you do that consistently, the change does come and actually comes much faster than the person who does go balls to the wall right out of the gate, then they get hurt, they're off for three weeks, then they got to come back again, then they get hurt again. The steady, the tortoise wins the race, right? Tortoise on the hair.

Yeah, that's especially in the gym I think for anyone who has either not been in there much before or is just getting back into it. That steady approach where you think oh I'm actually going, I'm progressing too slow with this. I feel like that's the better option even with swimming as well. It's like don't expect to be, make a change to your stroke and don't expect to be faster straight away. If you have got the patience to stick at that change for two months or three months, you will come out the other end and go oh wow okay I'll look back three months and geez I've improved, but yeah it's just it is not as instant as you. It's not as flashy and exciting but I say that to my moms all the time like the amount of stuff they've learned in the last going on two years that we've been working together they're amazed at how many things have changed and I said to them just recently I said what would you have said if I on day one said here's all the things you need to change because we've done everything from like dietary nutrition changes we've done lifestyle changes we've done how they train we've learned about we've done all these things and they said it right out of the gate they're like we would have thought you were crazy like it would have been impossible to do all of those changes and I said yes exactly because everybody wants give me the whole thing give me all the answers right now I'm ready for the answers but in reality you're not you're actually not going to be able to take all of the answers on and do all of the things and go hard on everything right away you have to accept that you're going to go you know what my technique is not great yet in the pool but I'm working on it and I'm still not good at that drill that he keeps showing us to do but I'm going to keep working on it

and one day this is going to get better because that's what bodies do they respond they get better if you keep teaching them what to do what you mentioned there it's it's keeping it keeping it simple and just adding one thing at a time over the course of many months and many years and I mean I look at yeah like I have and how many sessions I've done at the gym I think it's probably it's probably getting close to 250 three maybe 300 sessions since I started at this at this keys gym and same for my wife she started Pilates when we moved down to the coast and I think she's nearly up to 400 sessions and just like the way that it's kind of come on very slowly where like she just feels so much better and it probably took a good 12 months to really notice the difference there so it's uh yeah looking back you see a big change but at the time it's it is a very slow slow and steady approach hundred percent is there a certain client that stands out to you who is has made a big change and has really changed that their life because of the stuff that you've been doing yeah 100% I have this one client that um this individual had

been on this path maybe you all can relate where when they found getting in shape the first time around something about how their brain works took them towards that place of being a zealot about it like kind of getting annoying and obsessive with about it like they're doing all the things they were paying attention to all these like in the weeds kind of details annoying their family members with how they're cooking differently and doing all these different things like really just like embracing it but to the degree where you're like oh geez okay take a break here but they thought that was what they needed to do at that point which I again I do get all these things I'm like oh I see bits of myself and that for sure from my experience in my history but they that's where they were at and they were constantly trying new supplements trying new routines trying new treatments trying trying everything that they would see online they would try it and then they sustained a couple of injuries and that's how they found their way to my path and so we started working together and at first of course we're like working on the rehab after the injury has healed kind of thing we're like okay we're building you back up and doing all that but of course through talking you know I'm picking up information about like you're taking like 50 supplements and you're eating a really like abundantly strict diet to the point where it's causing some detriment to your performance your health your well-being oh you're being really rigid about a lot of things okay so I'm gathering all this stuff so then I just started you know kind of talking about well hey you want to talk about some food today hey let's talk a little bit about this hey because of the training we're doing I'd like you to focus on some things and I just started throwing out little invitations

for this individual to try new things that I knew would take them the direction away from where they were going but I was like let's just see what they'll do because it's not totally up to that person to decide if they want to do something they're happy with it good I'm just here to invite them to do something different if they would like to and so over the span of two plus years this individual went from being like broken in their body despite doing all this rigid specific stuff they were still were very fragile in their body and very they had to follow the rules otherwise everything went haywire if they even ate one wrong thing their whole body kind of would react right we went from that to they are now same thing they are lifting so hard in the gym they are swimming that's one of my clients who started swimming they're walking regularly which was a very painful thing for them to do before they've reintroduced so many foods into their diet they're eating way more than they were before and have a thriving metabolism because of it we've gotten that supplement list down to like almost nothing which is a miracle because you know how it is like you see stuff online and an influencer will be like I take such and such supplement and they're compelling and so then you're like oh maybe I should buy that maybe I should buy that so we got all that pared down and they have such freedom with what they're doing they're still very passionate about learning so many things about how the body works they constantly ask me questions which I love but they don't feel like stuck if the family is going out for a restaurant meal or dessert or something like that they don't feel frustrated by the fact that they their body can't respond even when they eat a certain food they are just living freely and

training super hard and same thing if I had told that person in a year or two time I'd like to see you eating tons of food more than you are training really hard in the gym doing a bunch of sports you never would even think you'd be doing they would have been like you're insane I'm never talking to you again so it's been really incredible and we're still working together today and continuing we've knocked off all the goals that we were trying to achieve and now we're going okay the next thing let's build the performance now let's get you training at even higher levels and what else do you want to take on that's why they tried swimming because I was like would you like to try swimming sometime it's it's pretty fun and it's it's like you could be in the pool you can train hard you can do some cardio but it could be kind of unloading on your joints so that we're not running and walking too much you know and re-enduring anything or do anything like that I'm like okay I'll get that a try and then when I said and you know you do build muscle when you're in the pool you start to get that swimmer physique and they were like oh I'm into that perfect perfect so here we go now we're swimming and it's awesome I have good it like you said you see yourself in that client in some areas I am exactly the same probably 10 years ago I was into keto diet for probably two months or three months and then fell off that train and I've tried a million different diets and exercise routines and what I do get from that is like I tend to go very hard and almost colt colt like in some ways with the with the approach step out of it go back to where I was but I may I've added that knowledge of all right well this was one of the benefits from that diet or that way of approaching things and I can use that

going forwards and so now I'm a little bit more aware of it where I feel like if I come across a new approach whatever it is I'll just take the one or two key things from it and include that into my routine or maybe replace something I was doing and then just keep going on my way and kind of collect these different ideas or exercises and and just kind of yeah make these minor changes in the direction that you're going to hopefully end up in a in a better spot and now I'm more aware of it I don't go quite as hard on some of these new things that I come across I don't know if you're the same that was my story too and you I think I really do think some of these things nobody can teach you like someone listening today will be like yeah right okay whatever that's good for them but I'm gonna do it my way and then maybe in a year or two they'll be like ah yes I also was zealous and I did not need to be but that's how you that's how you do find that middle ground I do think a lot of people go want really hard one way really hard the other way and then that's how they find the middle ground and you get this wisdom from learning to listen to your body to try things to actually like with the supplements for example I've used to buy a million supplements so like oh I need this and I need that and now I'm like okay I'd like to try that supplement I'm gonna try it on its own for a month and just see what happens that a novel idea my gosh friend do you know how many times I tried supplements and didn't do that I was taking like five things at once and I really couldn't even tell what was working whereas now I'm like yeah like with that soon for me or no I do not like what that is doing for me okay I'm not going to continue that supplement you know it's taking really that personalized approach

take the knowledge learn from other people but then personalize it to yourself yeah yeah that's I'm exactly the same when I went keto for two or three months I made this dessert that was what was it it was it was either like coconuts I don't know if it was coconut milk but it was like it was almost like a frozen cheesecake type thing with a lot of no cashews so it was ground up cashews and some berries and stuff and and coconut oil and it was it was about this big it was would have had hundreds of grams of fat in it and I ate it in two nights and like because I'm like well I'm pretty I'm pretty hungry here and it's this is kind of sweet so it tastes good and like I finished it in two days I'm like what am I doing to myself like this is not healthy to have this much you know this much fat and all that at night so you know you can look back and laugh but I've thankfully changed most of most of my approach now because I think I'm a bit smarter with it yeah and just taking that sane approach is my really it's truly my favorite thing to do is to teach people like a sane fundamental approach to like how we can just take care of our bodies for a lifetime not be over the deep end like doing whatever diet and doing whatever training program because those things never last those are always a flash on the pan you might learn some things and that's what you should carry with you for the rest of your life but that like intensity can't exist for an entire life or if it does you're going to a hundred percent break down from that like I've definitely met some women who have done the super intense super hard never listening to their body just go go go do all the things try all the things

and their bodies are now rebelling like they are experiencing the effects of driving on adrenaline and cortisol for way too long over training for way too long under eating for way too long not listening to their body which is screaming at them like hey this thing in my back it's it's like not nothing you should do something about this pain back here you should do you know that they're dealing with it now and and some of us have to go through that you know we do have to hit the point of going and this really isn't working before we go okay let me try something different you know and that's okay if that's what happens well and one of the things you mentioned prior to the call also was there's a big there's a big element of people getting into fitness with like a 30 day fat loss challenge and things like that and I mean I think part of that is it's almost like a sales tool to get someone into a gym or with the trainers like hey you know you might feel you might look overweight and you know we can promise that you'll lose 10 kilos in the next 30 days so it's a bit of a sales tool it's obviously not a sustainable approach and it's probably not the right approach for people so what's your take on that yeah I was really tired of seeing those approaches and you know I owned a gym as well in Illinois so I get the idea I totally get it I can see where a gym owner might be coming from with that or where a coach is coming from with that but I'm so sick of those things because I'm like I said I'm like two plus seconds into this I've been around all enough to be like okay those things never last they're flash in the pan they don't teach you good long-term habits because whatever you did to lose however much weight in 30 days you're not going to be able to keep that up for the rest of your life and I know

some people think they will but you won't you will not you actually have to learn how to create a good metabolism exercise in a way that doesn't also rely on like willpower and hating yourself into exercising because I think that happens a lot with these challenges too people just turn into a competition against themselves which is not who you should be competing against you should be on the same team as your body and learning how to listen and work with your body with things you can do every day for the rest of your life so I got sick of it and was like you know

I would make a great challenge it would be like the anti-challenge challenge it would be great because what we're going to do is spend six weeks total but 30 days for a challenge but we're going to challenge ourselves to do really basic action items every day for 30 days because that's how you actually build change you actually build change by saying every day for 30 days I'm going to see the sunrise every day for 30 days I'm going to eat a certain food or a certain meal quantity or focus on having better circadian habits in my home every day for 30 days I'm going to do that and so that's what I did I built the transform challenge for my clients at first I just said hey guys I want you all to do this let's see what happens and the results were fantastic like it gave people that 30 day mentality which I think is very doable longer than that starts to get challenging but that 30 days wasn't like go crush yourself in the gym every day for 30 days and do such a restrictive diet that you can't wait to eat dessert as soon as you finish your challenge it was like do things that are going to stretch you a little bit they're going to like one of our action items in the transform challenge is see the sunrise every day just catch it for 30 seconds it's all you got to do and there's some specific rules around that but just go do that that's not hard fundamentally but it is if you live a modern life where you haven't been doing that where you haven't considered your circadian health at all for example and you're doing all this other stuff and you're on your phone first thing in the morning or on your computer or whatever that is hard and so my tagline for my clients whenever we do transform now I have a sign other people up for it now is we're

trying to make the bar so low we can step over it because when you do that that's how you create real change bj fog is a permanent habit researchers research are long before James Claire they kind of tag team buff each other um that's what he always said make the bar so low you can step over it is that exciting no but is that what you and I talked about like 20 minutes ago hey real quick in case you didn't know we work from is all around the world to help them become faster and more confident in the races and the training that they're doing so if you've got access to an underwater camera or a phone even recorded above the water then I work with people on a weekly basis where they send in their videos and I give them feedback and advice on what to focus on and how to make changes to their stroke so that they start moving up in the lanes in squad or getting better results and not having to work so hard so check that out at our effortless mean coaching membership which you'll find on our website at effortless mean dot com all right back to the podcast where we're like we just need to do the consistent thing showing up every day it might take you 12 months to see noticeable change but wouldn't that be better than having fits and stops and all that kind of stuff so that's what we do in transform we focus on four pillars of health food of course that's a big one we want to make sure we're eating all the right foods that support a lowering inflammation building a faster metabolism which is possible as you age I promise you that it is movement so of course exercise movement mobility things like that environment so creating both an internal and an external environment around us that supports metabolism and lowering inflammation and then circadian health as I mentioned light that's the fourth pillar that we work on

and those four all work together very synergistically to create a healthy body because you can't separate them out one by one that's the other challenge with challenge with challenges is if you do like a diet challenge for 30 days but you don't account for the fact that the type of light you're being exposed to in the morning and in the evening and even throughout the day is going to change how your body responds to eating carbs for example it will change how your metabolism works it will change these things that are influencing your food that you wouldn't even think about if all you're thinking about is doing a 30 day diet for food you know so that's what we do in the transform challenge and it's so much fun to teach this program because I feel like I'm getting to introduce folks to things they might have heard of before or know a little bit about or maybe know nothing about and going look at all this awesomeness about how your body works this is how your body works naturally we just have to get it back into harmony by doing some really simple things and that's your only job for the next 30 days is to do these simple but not easy to do for 30 days things and then let's see what happens after that and the goal is to then integrate it into your real life because that's the other thing I hate about challenges okay great you're done with the challenge now what like now how are you supposed to eat and move and live so in in transform we have an integration week where we say okay you finished the challenge congratulations now we're going to see how you uniquely are going to put this into your life how are you going to take what you learned about your body through those four pillars and apply it into your everyday life so it is doable for the rest of your life

and I now have like repeat people repeat people coming back because they love the accountability and the seasonal nature of the program and it's just it's just really fun not to be a salesperson for my program I just love it it's like one of the funnest things I get to do right now is teach that program very similar to with our clinics and say eight week course that we've got at go through the course we go through the clinic and this is you know this is wonderful with you've learned a lot hopefully but now what you know how how are you actually going to incorporate the stuff that we've gone through into your normal routine and like the easy thing for most swimmers or triathletes to do is incorporate something like six or eight fifties of drills and skills as part of their warm-up every session you're already going through your warm-up so we can probably just replace some of your existing warm-up with a few of the drills that's specific to what you need to work on and that's it you know like that just keep it as simple as that and that way when you train for the next six months you will have worked on something that's specific to what you need to do to get better you've you've been able to do some drills so you can hopefully set yourself up well for the rest of the session and like and that's it like it's it's simple it's achievable and we're not necessarily adding new things into what they have to do like quite often if we want to change a habit see the replacing an old habit or we're trying to strip back and we're trying to like the client you're talking about 30 50 supplements whatever it was and all these different exercises and things that they're looking at but if we just cut if we strip things back to the bare essentials then it's actually a lot easier

to maintain it and so I think that's such a such a good approach you know you don't you don't need all this stuff like just get get back to basics get back to fundamentals and you'll find that that accounts for 80 or more of what you need to be doing absolutely I couldn't agree more

and in terms of the circadian rhythm I want to dig into that a little bit more yeah can you talk about how what is it what is it that most people wouldn't know about circadian rhythm and the types of light that you think people should know about it because I'm I guess a little bit familiar with it but I probably don't know much about it yeah yeah for sure and I love that it's making it through to the mainstream now which is really great um so most people listening probably the least have heard of it you know if not if maybe they know a lot maybe they don't know much at all I have just heard the word or something like that but your circadian rhythm is the kind of the master rhythm that regulates everything in your body literally everything is being influenced to some degree by your circadian rhythm and that's essentially like you have a master clock in your brain and it goes out to peripheral clocks all in yourselves and that clock is being set by some really important things called psychibers which are essentially like specific inputs that when your body senses those signals it goes up we know what time of day it is and when the body knows what time of day it is not not on your watch just like on the wake sleep cycle it can work more efficiently so when we think about circadian health we want to first think about light for sure because our bodies are directly influenced by the kind of light we're receiving so if we're receiving natural sunlight shortly after we wake up that signals a hormone cascade to get going all throughout the day if we're receiving you know a blaring alarm clock with a really bright light and bright bathroom lights and none of it's natural and it's all very kind of blue lit heavy our body's going to get a

different signal where it's going to drive course all a little bit higher and have a little bit of a different rhythm as we start the day the thing is our digestion our training performance our ability to recover our immune system our hormonal health our heart our mind all of it is set on a circadian clock there's all influence with that so when we don't get things like our light environment and there's other things that also go into that but I'll just stick with light for now when we don't get that right when we don't consistently signal to our body hey it's this time of day because this is a kind of light you're getting the clocks kind of get a little discombobulated it would be a bit like if we took every clock in your house and set it to a slightly different time and then said okay I need you to get out the door by 745 in the morning but you don't actually know which clock is right and you don't know which one's running fast and which one's running slow and that will negatively impact your ability to get ready on time because you're like should I rush do I not need to rush do I have time to do my hair I don't even know our bodies are kind of dealing with the same thing and so anytime we see some circadian dysregulation we're going to see some sort of slightly less functional slightly less optimal situation occur and so for folks when they're first starting to learn about this the first thing you'll hear about is light but after that is meal timing so the simplest thing people could do listening to this podcast to start addressing their circadian health would be two things number one make natural sunlight the first thing you see in the morning which takes a little bit of intentionality because you might have to not open your phone right away or pull the computer up or turn the tv on you might need to go wait a minute the first place I need to go is to the

window pull the window open okay just gaze outside look at the light you don't have to stare at the sun don't stare at the sun we don't want you going quick just gaze outside get some natural sunlight okay now you can get started with your day and then eat breakfast within one hour waking up meal timing is the second most important signal to your circadian rhythm and when you do that consistently it signals two things like your body about how it should produce insulin throughout the day to manage your body's blood sugar response well how you should digest foods um how much digestive enzymes you should have available to be able to do that how your liver should work these are all going to be influenced by your circadian rhythm so if you could go get natural light first thing when you wake up and then eat breakfast within one hour of waking up you would do more for helping your circadian rhythm get on point then then I could even offer to you and beyond that there are other things you could certainly work on and they're important to get to over time but those are the most important signals to start your day on the right foot to make your whole body work well yeah it's uh I know when days where I have got the uh when I've done that not open the phone gotten that gotten that early sunlight eaten within an hour typically the day kicks off pretty well from there so it's uh yeah those those basic things go a really long way they really do and that's the thing with circadian stuff like it's right there for you and there's a there's a ton of science you can get online and look up circadian health and you'll be down rabbit holes with people talking about things that you're like what are you talking about it's so scientific now it's amazing because it's just coming to the masses but again it's simple can you live more closely to

your natural rhythm and what's it going to take to make that happen consistently hmm well um Kate I've really appreciated you being on the podcast uh for those that are listening what's the best place to get in touch with you if they're interested in perhaps the transform program uh or any of the other stuff that you've spoken about today yeah folks can find me at fit for reallife.com that's my home on the web and that's where you'll find transform um all my about me stuff anything you want to find it'll be at fitforreallife.com fantastic and what have you got coming up I know you're going into summer now so probably a pretty good time for for you and your clients it's much easier when the sun's up earlier and it's a little bit warmer so but what are you looking forward to in the next couple of months oh man well the training is not slowing down we've got transform going on right now so folks are really just diving into that whole realm and then all my clients are doing really well in the one-on-one sessions as well but honestly for me it's garden season so in between and outside of and around work and all the things it's time to be out in the garden growing my vegetables and taking care of the fruit trees and trying to bring in as much food as I can for the year you know that like whether people can have a big garden or just a little patio garden I think that's another really cool thing you can do that is totally not fitness-y it's not in the pool it's not gonna I mean maybe it'll make you better swimmer because it'll make you more like in touch you know but but growing something yourself because that does start to bring you closer to your natural world that you're living in your natural environment thinking about things like you know it's a little different down where you live but up here tomatoes don't grow except in summer

up here so then you see those tomatoes in the grocery store in January and you're like those where did those come from those can't possibly taste good it gets you in touch with like what food is around at certain times of year and what is nature telling me my body needs because it is your nature is always telling you what you need at different times of year so I'll be out gardening a lot this summer and enjoying all that outdoor soil time and encourage anyone listening to this that is totally not a fitness-y tip to give but there you go that's my tip throw a little garden if you haven't already fantastic look my grandparents they when they bought it when they built their house probably 20 years ago now they bought the block next to it so they got two blocks the second block is all garden that's fruit trees a greenhouse they uh they really went to town with it and um yeah they're always giving away vegetables and fruit and we come back with buckets of them so it's uh yeah it's really cool and it tastes tastes good too tastes a lot better oh yeah for sure for sure that's awesome I love that so there you go everybody plant a garden thanks Kate enjoy your uh your summer and appreciate you being on the podcast you too have a good one I'll talk to you soon 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 Real-Life Strength: Building a Body That Serves You for Decades with Kate Galliett appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

On this episode, we’ve got a guest who’s been at the sharp end of elite performance for over 50 years — Robin Williams.

Robin’s a former Cambridge rower and the coach behind multiple Olympic gold medal crews. He was actually recommended by one of you — a fellow listener — and once I dug into his story, I knew we had to get him on the show.

This episode kicks off with a promise: We’re going to uncover the lessons Robin has learned from decades of turning raw athletic power into smooth, relaxed efficiency — and show you exactly how to apply those insights to your stroke in the pool.

We’ll dive into his athlete-centered coaching philosophy, how to give and receive feedback without offense, and even explore some over-speed training hacks — no speedboat required.

A few standout moments to listen for: 🟡 The “spoonful of sugar” analogy that helped an Olympic champion transform clumsy pulls into effortless power. 🟡 A game-changing moment in Lucerne 2012, where one of Robin’s crews found an extra half second — and turned silver into gold. 🟡 And yes… the brutally honest feedback that once branded him “a gerbil on steroids.”

Plus, Robin shares three no-talent-required habits that any coach or swimmer can start using today to supercharge their training culture.

Let’s dive into this powerhouse conversation with Robin Williams.

but when you when you're working harder trying to race or go faster particularly at the beginning of the stroke as the ore goes in you have to it's like lifting a weight in the gym you know you have to brace really hard so and also breathing is very is very linked to posture in rowing so in the we call it the recovery phase when you're coming forwards to begin you know to begin a stroke it's important to sit sit in the right way sit tall so the lungs can fill properly and you you're in a you're in by mechanical good position with posture and length at the at the beginning of the stroke so breathing is definitely part of that as you inhale it helps posture 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 Robin Williams a former Cambridge rower and coach of multiple Olympic gold medal crews robin was recommended to me by a fellow listener of the podcast so i thought it'd be great to get him on and this episode kicks off with a promise we're going to uncover lessons from 50 years at the sharp end of elite rowing and translate them straight into your stroke robin has spent decades perfecting the art of turning raw power into smooth relaxed efficiency and will dive into his athlete centered coaching philosophy how to ask for feedback without a fence and how over speed hacks and over speed hacks you can use in the pool with no speedboat required a couple of moments you might listen out for the spoonful of sugar moment it's a simple analogy that helped an Olympic champion go from clumsy pools to effortless power he also talks about a moment that happened at in Lucerne in 2012 where one of his crews gained an extra half second in the dreaded third 500 of a two kilometer race to search from silver to gold and don't miss the brutal feedback that once branded him a gerbil on steroids plus the three no talent required habits every coach and swimmer can implement today to supercharge their culture let's get into today's episode so robin thank you very much for joining me on the podcast I'd like to give those that are listening a bit of a background on how this came to be so we had a listen at the podcast Mike Taylor sent me an email and said

I love the conversation you had with Nick Winkleman and and Bobby McGee and someone who I think would be great to get on is Robin Williams so yourself who has a lot of experience in rowing so I'd love to chat today about maybe some similarities or some things that we can garner from rowing that can translate across to swimming and also the aspects of coaching how coaches coach how they can be more effective because I think there's a lot to be had and a lot to be improved when it comes to how coaches get their message across so welcome to the podcast robin thanks for joining me thanks very much Brenton good good to be here so in in terms of let's say coaching philosophies and the way that you've developed your way of coaching over the years how would you say that your what your approach and your style is like perhaps compared to what it was in the early days of your coaching I think it's a it's a constant evolution is one thing I think you know we were saying recently that as you as you get better and better as a coach of course you pick stuff up but it's difficult to get feedback people tend to get better education or more courses that sort of stuff and they become more qualified if you like but that doesn't necessarily mean you become a natural better coach so I've become really interested in that I always say to other coaches when I'm with them or mentoring them I say you know you your job every day is to tell these athletes how to swim better or row better or be better who helps you who tells us where we're where we're going a bit astray or whether we're doing things really well so in recent years that's what I've been doing

and I found it very rewarding I mean I've had a quite a long career in rowing I've been at it for over 50 years now believe it or not as a rower and then as a as a coach so it feels like it's it's brought things around to a full circle in a way and putting something back into I think coaches are so important because they steer the whole process athlete-centered but coaches are I think key to helping them get to where they're trying to get to in the shortest amount of time if that makes sense yeah absolutely what are some of those actually how would how should a coach go about asking for feedback because it can be I know personally like I uh depending on who it's coming from I'm going to be receptive to it or not and it can be hard to hear sometimes but often the feedback that is hard to hear is the stuff that we we need to hear so as someone who may want to give feedback to a coach what's a good strategy to approach them

I think you obviously have to have the right kind of relationship because it can be quite intimidating or even threatening to have somebody come up to you and say why did you say that why do you say it this way or that wasn't very good you know if if things are too blunt and you'd just be defensive straight away so I think you have to accept the right tone and normally when I go with other coaches I I generally do at least sort of three visits the first visit is a sort of getting to know you visit so there's some trust and you have a discussion about what are you seeing what are you trying to do and then it builds from there so I think it can take a little bit of time but the more honest the coach and the and the and the mentor can be or even a coach and a coaching buddy it could be a co-coach you know the more honest you can be the better the feedback because we'll all say oh brilliant well done that was fantastic because it's nice to hear and what's not to like but nobody's perfect and you know even the best coaches in the world can and should still improve but the question is is how if you're often say I use the example in rowing you know Jurgen Grobler was a legendary coach I mean he won gold medals that I think eight or ten consecutive Olympic games I mean it's astonishing record really and he's a sort of a figure of authority he runs a you know a very strong program and he's got he's got his strong methodology but I wonder how many people would actually maybe ride along on the bike beside the rowing lake and say hmm not sure about that Jurgen you know or even question him

it's much less likely to happen the more senior you get so I think that's interesting

but I'm working a lot at now at sort of club and intermediate level and it's very it's much easier there because you know I've been to five Olympics and I've got a certain track record and a bit of age in my favor so people feel quite comfortable I've finished my real competitive coaching so there's no threat there either you know what I mean but if I go into the national training center it's much tougher you know I'm not asked to give that kind of feedback to them but I watch them coaching and they're brilliant coaches I mean they're winning gold medals Paris last year you know is very successful but I still I still think there's that feedback could be given to those coaches they should want it it's just a question of how how you do it but I think it's really key you know and what about in terms of ways to ways to coach so one of the things I spoke on the podcast with Nick will comment about is using cues stories metaphors as some of the the ways that you can get your message across are there any particular things like that that you've come across in your time that you've used coaching that you've found to be really beneficial as there's actual coaching techniques or in terms of yeah coaching techniques well I guess in the early days I was I had a New Zealand coach mentor Harry Mann who's not with us any longer but he was a big influence on me and I thought he was a fantastic coach it was in the days when I was coaching Cambridge University in the University boat race which was a big deal in rowing in the calendar I did 11 years

there and Harry used to come over and visit and do some coaching and I basically tried to sort of copy his coaching style and it didn't work at all for me you know in fact I had athletes say to me that I don't you know that you were bombarding me with things I didn't follow what you were saying they gave me all this sort of really negative feedback and it made me question I thought I was doing it just like Harry that clearly I wasn't so I think you have to be original you have to be yourself but you can also sort of project the bits of yourself which are useful for coaching you know I think we all have this ability sometimes coaches say oh you have to just be you you can't be something you're not and that's true but you know if you're a naturally quieter sort of more passive kind of person then maybe you have to kind of rev yourself up a little bit and deliver a bit more passion and a bit more energy or maybe vice versa you know and I think this is where the feedback comes in because if if you know if another coach says Robin you know you're like a kind of a gerbil on steroids you know kind of thing you know way way too busy well I'd say okay well if that's how I'm perceived that I need to quieten myself down you know so it's how others perceive us so I've learned I don't have a particularly strong voice for instance so communication for me is tricky you know and in rowing as opposed to swimming pool you're quite a long way from the athlete so you need to work out communication

if it's verbal vocal you've got to choose what to say how to say it at the right time so that the row the rowers would hear it or you use a megaphone or a radio communication so communication is a huge thing for us because they're on rivers and lakes and it's quite quite difficult and I often say to coaches you know I don't know if swimming coaches actually get in the pool with their from as maybe they do but you could do feasibly and certainly with young kids that's sort of how you help teach them to swim but in rowing you can't do that you have to do it all through description you can't even really demonstrate because you're riding a bike and there in a boat so I think I've learned a lot about that you know on the on the communication side and I had one one athlete some years ago who said told me to my face I don't think you're tough enough Robin so I found that quite hard to hear but at the same time I thought well fair enough you know that's something I'm going to have to listen to so I think being being honest with yourself and not being trying not to be offended by feedback as long as it's sort of not malicious feedback of course and uh and I think the other element Brenton is that I've always when I was a rower I used to just enjoy with such a passion I worked in London I'd finish work and I'd race down to that river as fast as I could because it's where I wanted to be and I think sports should be enjoyable I don't know the word fun is I don't know if you know serious competitive swimming you'd call it it's a serious business but

but there should be satisfaction enjoyment and it shouldn't be you know I don't know what's the word a sort of a to grinding a negative process so I think coaches have that ability to bring atmosphere and and set the right tone and in a way that's our job because athletes will get tired or fresher have ups and downs because that goes with training I think coaches are there to kind of help steer that level straight course and you know that's part of our job as well so you know I always feel like I need to enjoy my coaching as much as you need to enjoy your swimming or your rowing yeah those are sort of broad lessons but they're things that I think go quite a long way absolutely in terms of the when you got the feedback about not being tough enough what did you do following that how did you change the way that you were coaching well I think it depends a little bit on the athletes that are in front of you because you know my at that time my assumption was to the athlete like well you're here training hard at national level I expect that's a given I don't expect to have to tell you to be tough or to try harder because that's a basic level that you have to bring to training every day because that's what everybody else is going to bring who you're going to compete against I therefore gave myself permission to be a little more relaxed and laid back whereas I think what the athlete wanted was somebody who's going to kind of bang the drum a bit harder and you know a bit more yeeha you know which isn't really my style so much but I thought well okay appreciate particularly

if you come into competition time you know the race briefing in rowing again it's quite tricky because you might have um you know it's mostly crew so you've got more than one person stood in front of you to be briefed for your race so you might have you know it could be a four or you know you could have an eight you know and you've got to look at a group of people in front of you and deliver your briefing in a way which presses the right buttons for each person you know and somebody they'll obviously some will be a bit up and some will be a bit lower um so I think when it came to race briefing I would make sure I checked in with this with this athlete and gave gave them the sort of you know thought you know the appropriate

type of wording and framework and um but I had um the two women I coached particularly through 2012 2016 Olympics Helen Glover and Heather Stanning it felt I didn't need to be like that with them in fact Helen was quite a revvy kind of person who would you know you'd have to hold her down a little bit and Heather was very very even you know so um and they were so tough on themselves the coach didn't need to be tough on them as well mostly so I think it depends a bit on the athlete really and it's again it's a judgment thing but um but it's not like one style of coaching fits all I guess is the lesson you have to you have to work out what's best for those athletes that are in front of you. Yeah which is it takes a while to get to know the different personalities and the different athletes knows what know what makes them tick and and the best way to to get the most out of them and it takes quite a bit of quite a bit of time right so I want to go into some of the technical aspects of rowing and see what we can take from rowing into swimming because I it's in in water there's a lot of common things I think there so I'd just love to get your take on a couple of topics if we can can go into them and the first one is the connection between power relaxation and efficiency so in in swimming one of the most common things that I see from people who come into the sport quite new quite fresh is they really try and muscle their way through the water and when you get to that more elite level things are smooth they are

they have this sort of controlled chaos in a way and it's it's quite a different approach once they they get really good and experienced in the sport so what was your what would what did you see at that that top end of rowing between power relaxation and efficiency

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I guess the you know that I mean rhythm is is a huge thing I'm sure you know I'm sure it is you know in swimming too but in rowing it's a massive thing and it's a very it's a word which people use a lot so when you talk to a crew after a race you know if the race has gone well and they're giving you feedback they'll all they'll always say oh we had a fantastic rhythm or if the race hasn't worked out they'll say yeah the rhythm was bad or it fell apart you know and they'll say these things and then you say well tell me then describe then what you mean by that by the rhythm and then they often get a little stuck and they can't quite put it into words so it's quite important that therefore in my world you know you do try and define good good rhythm because in rowing because there's a work phase and there's a there's a glide or recovery phase you know I suppose I'm trying to sort of think of a definition in a way which would be succinct here without going into big spiel but essentially that you know the power needs to be fed through in a progressive way so it's not bullying and tight and tense like you let your saying is well in swimming you're not muscling it a rowing or is pretty long you know so at the beginning of the of the stroke the loads are the highest and the leverage is greatest so if you try and over muscle that part then it doesn't reward you with any speed so there's there's a kind of a there are sweet spots in the stroke so that's definitely part of it the changes of direction at the start and the end of the stroke are very key so that the rhythm is not broken up by the ends where you're leaving or joining the water so I think

there are sort of parallels there with swimming um the power that you can deliver will help help to generate the amount of glide that you get so out of that what you get is the sense that if the rhythm is strong then you can row in a more relaxed way and if you can be more relaxed then sort of neuromuscularly or neuroly speaking you could you could execute better skill level so the people that muscle their way through don't give themselves a chance to be relaxed and sort of in control of their movements um therefore their skill level is lower so there's a there's a complete sort of correlation between these things but in in rowing I mean that you know you've got the person obviously they've got a boat that they're sitting in probably with other people as well and they've got the oar and then you've got the things all moving in different directions and so on so if you if you I don't know if you're listeners have seen pictures of of rowing eights but you know rowing eight is a weighs nearly a ton with all the people in it you know a big a big heavy big open weight men's crew it goes 20 feet per second through the water or more you know they're going quite fast and they just look like in some ways like they're like a kind of like a walk and who like they sort of physically just pumping this thing along but actually you know the the weight of the of a boat is about the same as one rower okay the weight of a racing eight is 90 to 94 kilos something like that about the same weight as one rower and there are eight rows plus a cocks in the boat so in terms of synchronicity given that you're you're all moving in one direction

then you've got to return to begin another stroke if one rower is even a hundredth of a second off time with the others for that moment on there on the loading point you feel the weight of boat is doubled and even for a hundredth of a second or a few hundredths of a second that's catastrophic you feel it in your muscles in your body you feel that I've met this sort of deadness you know so I think these are the intriguing things about water sports because there's this interaction between us and the water and and how you deliver power but also have feel and relaxation and they they appear sort of contradictory in some ways but they have to be brought together for it to work it's that dichotomy of tension and relaxation and it's about finding this the sweet spot in in between there and an analogy that I use in swimming is that in terms of how much we want to how much force you want to apply in the water it's almost like if you pick up a glass of water you're not going to grab it as hard as you can you're going to grab it with just enough force to keep the shape and hold it so you can lift the cup up or the glass and it's a similar thing with when we're extending forwards going through our catch in our pool it's like we need just enough tension and force there so that we we hold our shape and form but we don't need anything above that because then it's wasted effort and I imagine a similar thing applies through the rowing stroke as well yeah actually I did an interview with a guy called jack bowmont who stroked the gb men's

quad in the tokyo olympics and they got a silver medal and he was describing this sort of pickup point to me and he said he said imagine if you've got a bowl of sugar then you put a spoon in if you try and scoop out more sugar than the spoon can hold it just falls off the spoon and it's the same with your hand going in the water or the ore going in the water you know if you just if you're over ambitious the water just falls off you you know you you can only take the certain amount and I thought I really like that image because a lot of rowers will will snatch at the water or try and just get as much as they can get and you know I know as a not very good swimmer I'm sure that's what I do too you know in the pool I still I'm one of these sort of recreational swimmers that all the old ladies go passing me by like doing nothing and going twice as fast it's really frustrating even though it's a rowing coach I'm trying to tell myself the same messages that I would tell my rowers and then come on Robin you're swimming work this out you know but I that's where the coach comes in I need that feedback in the pool to get any better because I I sort of swim like that rather than like that I'm not energy efficient for sure you know so even though in theory I've got an idea of what I'm trying to do I clearly am not doing it well or it sounds like you you swim like I wrote I I wrote I wrote in college for I think it was just one year and I made the A the A crew because I was fit from swimming and we made it through our first race and then we're looking to qualify for the final

and I was the one in the eight that caught a crab and just ruined our race and I felt so bad I had no rowing experience before this but the amount of training that we did and you know just letting the other seven down and the coach I just felt I felt so bad but it was when everything was humming along and everyone working together it was such a great feeling just no one's talking you can just you can feel it you can hear it and I imagine you've had more than a few probably thousand hours of hearing that that noise is the they always leave the water and they click up and come back it's a yeah I I worked out that I think I coached that women's coxas pair for six years through two olympics cycles and I think I saw them do four million strokes thereabouts in that time you know and I often say you know it never got boring because they were great to work with and there was a sort of synergy between crew and coach with kind of mutual objectives and I always sort of felt that I mean rowing you know it is a physical sport there's no doubt that you might be technically not tip tip top but you could still win if you've got amazing physiology and you know it's a power endurance sport but they were I think the best rowers are intrigued by the the nuances and the sort of the the you know the the better we often say no technique is your gearbox you know your your

body is your engine or the physiology is your engine but your technique is your gearbox so especially as they were middle-sized athletes they weren't the biggest most powerful ones there so they had to really optimize the accuracy and then the synchronicity and so on of that technique so we had lots of these sorts of conversations with them about it's almost sort of philosophical really isn't it like how you think about what you're trying to do in the pool or on the river I often say to coaches you know that if you can get your athletes to sort of get their approach right the concepts in their head you know what are you trying to do you've done half the coaching job because they are then searching themselves whereas you know sometimes they just wait to be told the next thing oh okay and I'll do that now because you told me that should make me better but I think when they've internalized it and they're really trying to understand it and develop the thinking themselves I think that's the best most rewarding situation for the coach because you think now we're we're all we're trying to solve this together and they give the coach feedback the coach gives you feedback and it's this mutual lovely mutual cycle um it's a sort of real kind of meeting of minds in that sense I had a had a parent call me this week saying that they wanted to bring one of their kids along to a session to a clinic that where we do underwater filming and analysis so technique is is the main thing that we specialize in and they're frustrated because the coach that the kids got at the moment said but they don't do any sort of technique work the coach just said

they'll like they'll find their way and they'll find the most efficient way to to get to the end and in a way that is true but if you just leave someone to their own devices they are going to take a lot longer to get to that point and they're probably missing some really big gaps obviously I'm missing some really big things in there in their stroke and probably need some feedback and some guidance there so I think it's like the truth is somewhere in the middle you know it's people need a bit of direction you've got to steer the ship in the right direction then they can sort of go on that path and then you have to shift you have to steer it again and make sure it's still going in the in the right direction it's not um you can't just leave it to it to its own devices or it's just trying to get from point a to point b without a without a compass it feels like yeah I think that I think that's so true you know and I think also um I mean that's exactly true that if people were pretty much uncoached they could probably get quite a long way through experimentation and trying error trial and error and sort of copying other swimmers but it would take them longer so I think the coach can shorten down that process by helping them avoid the obvious sort of pitfalls and and and that's part of big part of the coaching job is just to help people streamline the process but I think um I've all because I I rode they have we have a lot we have slash had a lightweight category in rowing I was my race weight was 70 kilos and for for lightweight women it was uh 57 58 kilos and so

basically you're all the same size height weight and pretty much power so you had to look for what's going to be the edge here because I can't just be six inches taller because I won't make the weight you know or I can't be 10 kilos heavier obviously because it's not allowed so it made that's always made me think about you know the the the rowers who are or the sports people who are sort of maybe good but not not amazing how how you can help the sort of the average more average person if you like still achieve a really really good standard and maybe achieve their dreams and so you know I think I think a good a good coach can help those people a lot the people who are given granted you know the perfect body for swimming or for rowing or whatever their sport is they've just got that head start and other people because you know they've got the longer arms or they've got the better born with a better genetics but but there's a lot of people out there who can still win their medals and still perform at a really really high level if if they optimize everything else they've got and you know I had um there was a female lightweight rower um she won a gold medal in in 2012 at the at our Olympics in London she was um Sophie Hoskins would it be about maybe five feet five or so and at the time you know with the thinking was oh we need to find lightweight women who are more like five eight five nine tall you know tall lean good leavers and and probably in 2010 I think it was she came up to me and she said I'm look I'm training in the team I've given up work for

the time being to try and make this happen am I wasting my time because it seems like they don't want athletes like me and and I said to her well no you're not wasting your time if you if you can show show your speed and we can help you and and use you you meet the selection criteria why wouldn't it be you and I wasn't her coach her regular coach I have to say and that Paul Reedy who's actually an Aussie who was coaching him he he delivered them to that gold medal in in London but she was maybe not I mean she's a very good athlete but maybe not your sort of um what's the word sort of you know the target body shape that the document says these are the sorts of athletes that you need and I think sport is fantastic that there are so many people that there's no normal really you can be all kinds of shape sizes and physiology and still do really really well as long as you understand yourself and you get good guidance and help from your coach and people around you it's so true I mean you look at the Steph Curry in the in the NBA and obviously it can help to have some of these you know these height and limb length and that sort of thing it can absolutely help but you can also find a lot of examples where people have succeeded without that and I mean for me with the athletes I work with it's a lot of people who are doing triathlon as a bit of a challenge or it's it's their sport that they choose to do kind of recreationally and one of the things that I always come to me with is like especially men who are maybe 40s and 50s they're like I'm a sinker I just cannot float like I just

I just don't I don't float so I know I'm not going to be a very good swimmer but what they haven't been taught is well how to how to use their lungs which is obviously got the buoyancy and how to kind of shift that center of mass forward so that they can bring their hips and their legs up like they just they don't know what they don't know and that just either been told or they just believe that they're a sinker and so that they'll never be able to swim well but there's a lot of people who have maybe got a heavier build or don't have great mobility but they can still swim very very well so I think they've just got to take that into consideration and know that it's no excuse to just kind of stop trying or to limit themselves because there's a lot of other examples where they have succeeded with the same build. Yeah yeah yeah it's so true. In terms of I mean rowing I think one of the most aerobically challenging sports that I've done and seen just some crazy endurance feats that these guys are doing and in terms of the sort of breathing and like breathing patterns oxygen efficiency could you talk a little bit about that and what you see there with rowing because I think swimming particularly like a 400 medley or a 1500 freestyle also very challenging events where people are under a lot of pressure for a long period of time so what was your yeah what did you learn there? Yeah you know it's an interesting one because I think in rowing it gets overlooked a lot because you're sitting in a boat as opposed to having your head in water and you know you

can kind of within reason breathe as you choose but when you when you're working harder trying to race will go faster particularly at the beginning of the stroke as the ore goes in you have to it's like lifting a weight in the gym you know you have to brace really hard so and also breathing is very is very linked to posture in rowing so in the we call it the recovery phase when you're coming forwards to begin you know to begin a stroke it's important to sit sit in the right way sit tall so the lungs can fill properly and you you're in a you're in by mechanically a good position with posture and length at the at the beginning of the stroke so breathing is definitely part of that as you inhale it helps posture if we're in a seated position obviously as opposed to being horizontal and when you're rowing at a steadier pace it's quite easy to you know you can exhale and inhale again before the next stroke but when you're up at pace it's you know as you're describing in those sort of more sprint events or medley events where you're changing strokes there comes a point where one breath per stroke cycle is not enough you can't bring enough air through through your system so you have to you have to get you have to get two breaths in but I think I mean there is a bit of research on it I know I got a somebody I know down in Bristol who's actually I think she's a physiotherapist by trade but she's been looking at diaphragmatic breathing in rows and believes that there's there's some improvements that could be made if people looked into it more in in rowing actually and I think

actually rowers who quite often if rower gets a combined injury they'll send them off to the pool for some rehab you know and they always come back saying oh actually you have an enforced breathing regime in a swimming pool which which actually helps a lot when you when you're not in the pool when you're back in a back in a boat so I think swimming helps rowing but very much in that sense and when you're swimming just nice and steadily and there's not too much of an oxygen demand it's okay you know you can do your bilateral breathing or whatever one of the first problems non-swimmers find when they try and go harder is that the the rhythm goes to to pop because they have to work out suddenly well okay I can no longer breathe in that pattern and that becomes the sort of overarching problem until you know until they solve that so um yeah so I get you know I guess I guess in rowing the training side of rowing is geared towards building a big sort of cardiovascular resource because it's you know it's a sort of six or seven minute race you know and then you've got you've got the oar and the and the the drag on the boat you know there's loads load on your body and you have to produce I think open weight men are something like 500 watts of power over a over a 2k race you know it's quite a lot of power that you've got to produce so that sort of volume training is important so we're we're we're rowing around probably like when swimmers are doing just the sort of volume distance stuff you know low cadence um uh to just create this aerobic base

the problem is that so we do a kind of 80 20 split normally in a top typical rowing program 80% of your training is sort of aerobic volume stuff and 20% would be um crossing over into that sort of anaerobic and higher end stuff but the actual sort of speed work side of things is a relatively small part of the program and of course that's when the breathing challenge really comes in as it does with technique and everything else so it's a big challenge as to how do you give the the the the performer the experience of what it's like at the intensity end of the sport when actually almost all of the training is done kind of down the other end or in the intermediate level so it's quite a challenge but we do have drills and things which we bring in to try and to try and help solve that and teach them what are some of those drills that you do um well we we do um things like you know so like short strokes so for instance the full a full rowing stroke i'm trying to sort of think i mean we measure it in terms of the the arc that the ore travels through normally which is sort of 90 degrees if you've got the just the one or but in terms of distance the handle travels something like it's about six feet sort of 180 centimeters something like that so if we if we want them to do so if you say right do the whole stroke but i want you to up the cadence and up the power they're going to get fatigued quickly it becomes hard very very quickly i think you use about 85 percent of all of your

muscle groups in rowing almost every muscle is engaged so everything's producing lactic acid there's very little chance to sort of flush stuff through you know so one of the things we one of the things we do is say okay well if you row like one quarter slide or one quarter of the stroke the back quarter you can effectively practice the whole of the back part of the stroke but at a higher cadence but without carrying the physical sort of penalty or workload with it so you you can be up at a racing cadence just on that part of the stroke and you could do that for you know several minutes if you want so you're producing the speed of movement and the flow and the rhythm and the and the all the kind of biomechanical stuff in just that section of the stroke so i think a lot of sports do this you know runners they do they do kind of high high knee lifts and sprints and this you know short sprints or short step work it's the same principle really so you take a compartment or a piece of the stroke and try and and and drill that and then of course you've got to put it into the whole thing again at some point which is always going to be more difficult but i mean that's typically what we do but we try and make them sort of you know really functional drills because what we find is that if you do a drill at so low effort low cadence that's fine to just get the correctness part of it but it doesn't mean you'll do it up at pace when you're working hard

quite often people drills can look quite pretty and quite nice when they're just sort of incomplete control and calm so we always say you have to stress test drills so whatever the drill is you then i i normally say okay now do it still with a low cadence but put more power in to see does your body now tighten up or can you maintain competence and then have the power and the cadence because that's ultimately what we're trying to do when we go out to race so that's a sort of the process for drills that we use not to just do them for the sake of doing drills but to do them because we're looking for a specific outcome. I had another guest on recently andrew shave who's an american swim coach and we spoke a lot about drills and he mentioned something very similar where it's okay we might go slow might go easy because we might need to work on a particular movement and one for swimming is is the catch it's that initial movement it's a big one one of the drills that we do in our clinics is is just that catch movement like just just practicing that horizontal just get them to bend their elbow and point their fingers down because most people just do it the wrong way now it's all well and good to do that slowly with fins on and everyone gets it right doing that but then we need to build it up with the speed and the power and ultimately people will fail at doing that at speed that yeah initially if they don't have a great catch it's going to take a while to build up to that but yeah you do need to to really just push it and and do it at faster speeds or whatever it might be

so we advocate a lot for drills and I think a great way to do it is part of your warm-up in swimming and that can help set you up but yeah it does eventually have to be done at speed or really have to challenge yourself throughout the drill can you do can you do like over speed drills in swimming yeah so one yeah you can so basically a lot of people a lot of sorry coaches will give something like 15 meters of over speed where they're looking for the swimmer to get their rating up very high let's say it's like 110 120 strokes per minute individual strokes and have very little hold of the water so they're basically spinning the wheels let's say it's freestyle for example so you can and the tech the technique will suffer a little bit but they do it just so that when they eventually come back down the stroke rate will feel easier and they've kind of just like fired up the neuromuscular system so yeah you can but I guess it's a little bit different to rowing you can't really do a half stroke in freestyle anything like that no I mean it's a tricky one in rowing because I mean you don't want to do half strokes or quarter strokes you you want to practice the whole thing but but like you know runners can do it usually because they just run downhill or if they're doing resistance work they can drag a parachute or a car tire or or another person or something like that behind them you know you can you can resist or assist cyclists can do the same thing because they can easily over over spin the legs downhill

uphill you know so in it's an interesting one because in rowing you know if you take a like the the the target speed for a from the open men's eight to olympic target is five minutes 17 you know but nobody's ever gone that fast but they've got to 518 it's it's territory nobody's ever experienced but probably in 10 or 15 years time somebody will do 517 or 516 so it'll happen the question is how do you how do you sort of preempt it or make it happen you know how do you how do you find out what it's like to go to speed that nobody's gone before so we've tried towing boats at speed but the trouble is you know if you have a long rope or something to a speedboat you know it's going to be very very long otherwise the weight from the speedboat upsets the rowers because they're in wash and also a rowing boat the speed kind of slightly oscillates because it's not you know there's two phases to the rowing stroke so it's you can easily resist because we add straps around the boat or you know you can do that obviously in the pool as well so adding resistance is quite easy and quite straightforward you just swim in a t-shirt or something but the assist I think is is is a bit that fascinates me because you're trying to say to somebody it's like a simulation you know if you could swim as fast as I'll say Michael Thorpe because he's a name that is it might know Richard Thorpe I can't remember who was the famous Ian Thorpe it's the ASEAN and Michael Thorpe it's all my first things wrong Ian Thorpe

like most of us will never experience swimming that fast but if you if you could be going through the water at the speed that he went through the water it would be mind-blowing so I find that kind of that side of it's quite intriguing how do you give the the the rower or the swimmer the experience of going faster than they're capable of going because if you can show them what it's like they might be able to solve the processes that actually the necessary the speed of the although technique of the catch at the muscle contraction whatever you know so it's an interesting one at effortless swimming our mission is simple make swimming more enjoyable whether you're training for your next race swimming for fitness or just love being in the water we're here to help you swim faster smoother and with more confidence and one thing that can make or break a swim is your goggles if you've ever struggled with foggy lenses mid-session you know how frustrating it can be that's why we created the effortless swimming hydro clear anti fog goggles for long lasting crystal clear vision I've been using them myself and the difference is night and day and I'm not the only one Deborah swam 36 kilometers down the Derwent River and the entire time her vision stayed crystal clear no fog no frustration just an uninterrupted swim so what makes a hydro clear goggles different it's all in the technology unlike ordinary anti fog coatings that wear off over time hydro clear super hydrophilic technology is built into the lens material itself his artworks instead of fog forming as tiny droplets water spreads evenly

across the lens creating a thin film that prevents fog from even starting and the result consistently clear vision swim after swim and the durability our lenses are cnas certified tests show that even after 2000 rubs with a wet cloth under a 200 gram load the lens stays fog free no gimmicks just serious performance that lasts using them as simple just wet the lenses before putting them on and you're set for a fog free swim ready to see the difference yourself get 15 off your first pair of hydro clear anti fog goggles with the code podcast at shop dot effortless swimming dot com that's 15 off your first pair of goggles with the code podcast at shop dot effortless swimming dot com we also have a 30 day money back guarantee so if you're not happy with the goggles for any reason you can simply return them for a refund don't let foggy goggles ruin another swim try hydro clear today and experience clear vision from start to finish yeah that actually reminds me so they we do have like rubber not rubber bands elastic cords that people will swim against and then they can also get pulled in by the coach so they can go over speed that way and I know at the AIS in Canberra I don't know if they still got it but they used to have a electronic device at the on the roof and they attach it to the swimmer at the hips and they would actually get pulled along at speed and I had some friends who had used it and they said it's just swimming at world record pace at the time

was like a 48 second 100 freestyle they said it just feels unbelievable like it just it feels feels so quick and like it is just it's mind-blowingly quick and and one thing I've noticed when I've watched Olympic level swimmers compared to even just very good swimmers it's there's a whole another level to it and I imagine this is something that you've seen in your in your coaching like there's just you know you watch someone who can swim very very well but then coming across the bit like the top point or 1% in the world it is just you notice it you can see it you can you can just see something different about them is that something that you you've noticed in your time coaching yeah definitely I mean I think when I was working at the national training center with the national team there you collect so much data in training that you sort of know your speeds and it's an outdoor sport so you have to factor in water temperature and wind direction and things like that plus the fact that crews change a little bit because somebody might have a small injury one day so they change change somebody in the boat but there are lots of variables but on the whole you you build up this body of data so when you go to compete you know already that you're in sort of final a territory or podium territory you know you know that you're in there with a good chance of of having a having a crack at the top top result but I think I mean in my own case when I was rowing I think the early stages of people are you know as you get better at a sport you think I've got a chance of winning

and then it becomes like a very good chance of winning and then it becomes a very small a very small chance that you might lose that in other words you're more likely to win than lose and I think those swimmers and performers who are just out in front the chances of them losing are really small and it would usually be something like you know maybe something like a slight they've had a slight head cold or maybe just on the day there they've got some other little stress or something going on it be some some sort of interference like that I remember there was a race we did with the with the women's pair in Lucerne in Switzerland one year and we had big rivalry with Kiwis actually and they had this very good women's pair that were trying to beat us and I'd said to the two to the two Brits over 2000 meters we'd split it down to 500 meter chunks and you get split times for that and I said to them you know you're quick off the start you have a very good transition into the mid part of the race and the third quarter which is where all actate kicks in and it starts to really bite hard I said you know they they they're they're sometimes a bit quicker than you there you know why why should they be quicker than us if we're better we're better you know being better off the start is about some dynamics and sprint and so on the transition into rhythm we can do with that so if we're fundamentally faster we're faster anyway they took that on board and in in that particular race in the third quarter of the race they took another half a second off the Kiwis

and we got to the end of the race and we I was I was sort of really quite tearful because it was such a brave hard thing for them to do but I said you look at those results and the opposition there's no weak link they can analyze in your performance because in every quarter of the race you've had a superiority even if it's been by a width of a fingernail and I think that's what the top performers do is they they can they can just judge those pacing and those fine margins I mean the touches on the end of the pool amaze me but the person who's won they know they know that they're winning and that they're always going to win and it to a you know just watching from your couch at home I mean it's mind-boggling how slim the margins are but the winners win you know yeah it's I imagine at that level too a lot of it a huge component of it is going to be the mental side of it and not only the mental resilience but also just the the confidence and knowing that you've done the work and almost seeing your competitors as as no we're like they're not as good as us like we having that sort of confidence and I see this in a lot of the top performers like some of the top Australians from as lovely lovely people but when it comes to racing they flick a switch and they are like they hate losing they absolutely hate losing and I you know I think that that kind of almost has to be the trait of of those that are going to win a gold medal they have to have

a little bit of that in their mentality where where they just hate to lose what did you see with the with those two great britain rowers so something something like that that sort of mental attitude definitely I think what I I don't know how it is in swimmers but I think a lot of rowers I think that that they they're sometimes quite sort of like understated type people you know that they're sort of not necessarily quiet you know what I mean they're they're not like you know how like boxes they basically goes with the trade you stand there and you say I'm gonna you know knock you flat and you're you're terrible I'm great you know it's very outward kind of toughness bravado

you know I think a lot of rows have have that it's very much an inner in inner toughness so like like you're saying with a lot of your swimmers you know they're just regular people conversationally and away from the sport but when they get in when they get in the boat or they they're on the water they just have some extra level of toughness and and self-belief

I think I think another thing that plays into rowing a lot which I love is is the loyalty aspect so I was doing a bit of work with a spanish a couple of years ago and we had a two person crew and generally the first round of the race didn't quite work right you know so we we switched the order round and and and it produced a different sort of slightly different psychology in the boat and you know they would try harder harder for each other than they could individually if that makes sense if you put them out individually they'd push hard but when you're in a crew with another person or other people you'll drive yourself to the very very very limit for the sake of other people and I love the fact that it brings that out of people you know people will work hard for other people not just for themselves and in the single skull in rowing which is I guess like being an individual swimmer there's an element of kind of you've got to be slightly mad to do it really you know because it's it's super super tough I mean on your own you've got nobody to sort of help you along or give you an encouraging call so that they're they're a breed almost you know in their own really the single scullers which I think is you know

sports where you are the you know an individual person I mean it's it's that's how you have to be but I think crew rowing is I love that dimension because yeah you know I can think of more than one rower who could achieve something extra in a crew boat because they've got this interaction with their crewmates and they'll they'll they'll kind of go to the end of the earth for them you know literally sort of in a in a physical mental sense in a race it's very much the same in in swimming I know like the like the coaches the and the swimmers as well they they just all look forward to the to the relays like talking about the Olympic Games it's just you see a lot of incredible times swam in those relays and yes like people are a bit faster because they've got a a flying start you know it's a they don't have to leave when the buzzer goes they can leave a bit earlier when someone's coming into touch but outside of that like you just see some some absolutely crazy times because yeah those people put themselves aside and it's just doing it for the for the team and it's I just love watching the relays at the Olympics for that for that reason and the fact that Australia is fairly competitive at the moment also helps with that it's nice to watch yeah yeah for sure Robin so when you're like you go around and run workshops and clinics and things like that for the coaches and you've done this with throwing and and just for coaching as well are there any particular messages that come to the

front of your mind that you try and get across every time you're you're doing these like some some real things that have just kind of been there that are that are fundamental that you think all all coaches or all rowers should should know this yeah there are actually and I've learned a lot from doing it because you know I get to see a much bigger variety of of clubs and rows and coaches than I than I used to when I was just doing my national job so there are three things really Brenton so the first thing and they're in order actually the first thing is sort of the culture like when you go to a club and you walk through the door of course every club feels a bit different but the atmosphere the buzz just the joy of being there the sense of understanding what the club is about these sorts of things I think count for a lot

so from a from a performers point of view or athlete point of view there are clubs you know the best clubs you go through the door and straight away you feel welcome you understand if is it a participation level club is it a high performance club you know but you understand what you're in there to do and therefore you understand your role and people support you and you've got like-minded people so I think the whole cultural thing is is huge I think the thing that then stems from that is the actual coaching because in clubs and any club or any crew or any athlete that's doing well is inevitably going to have a coach there that's working hard and producing those results and when the coach leaves that club for whatever reason quite often the club will drop a few levels until you have another inspiring coach come along so I think the culture and the coaching sort of go together because the coach is there so every day and you know your attitude and the energy you bring to coaching is part of the culture of the club you know if you were a good coach in a club with weak culture it's like pushing a broken down car it's hard to get things to happen so culture coaching and then the third thing I think is that is the training and technique so I think you know they follow from each other and so those are the three main ingredients and they're pretty obvious I suppose when you think about it but in reality for all sorts of reasons it does vary quite a bit when you when you go around different regions and different different parts and usually because

people just you know they're working hard in their own situation because they have done for many many years but they don't always have the perspective that says an outside person like me you can bring in and say like I had one the other week where they were it was a really simple thing actually this is sort of slightly cultural so that it was seven in the morning they all turned up for training the coach did the briefing and and then my assumption was okay we've done the briefing now we go rowing but half of the half of the group went back in the changing because they weren't changed so half were changed and half weren't

and I said to them is that isn't you know why is that and he said well you never thought about it you know we just turn up and brief and so it brought in an extra 15 20 minutes of dead time or sort of faff you know and I said well if you just got everybody changed do the briefing go rowing you're going to gain 15 minutes towards your training if you want it and that accumulates over time these little sort of efficiency things mount up you know and at club level where people have got jobs and they're fitting their sport in and around life and other things you know it becomes quite important so they're often quite obvious things but they don't yeah will we see them yeah but when you're when you're when they're in it you they don't they don't see it right it's just the way that's been done and then not not aware to it and just take someone like yourself to open their eyes to something super obvious that that might be cool because of NTRs actually no talent required that you've probably seen those but there are sort of slides and I like that you know things like turning up on time being prepared bringing energy you know helping out etc you know these are things that

should be embedded in the culture of a sports club before you even start your training session because they don't require talent they just require attitude and full thought really so I think that kind of stuff goes a long way and I one of one of my mentors was was talking about like what you know what is what's culture it's well it's it's basically about like it's how people almost feel or how they associate with with the club and that's just all these little things that all these little things that happen it's like saying hi saying goodbye when you when you turn up it's having a smile on your face it's it's getting there on time it's encouraging your teammates it's like it's all these little actions that that build the culture and it's nothing that's that's difficult it's just it's all these little little things that that add up that everyone can do just these small actions so when it and when it when it gets shown or when you get told that like that's that's how you do it it becomes really tangible and it's not this thing it's like all right we need a good culture it's like well it's just all these little actions like you know we can do this doesn't matter how how bad your rowing team is or how bad your swimmers are they can all contribute to this this good culture so and my dad was my coach growing up and so from when I was about 11 I think he started coaching me and he he was adamant that everyone says hello to him on the way in goodbye on the way out we use each other's names just little things like that and it was just such a like I was 11 I was 12

I was like god why is he making such a big deal of it but I can see now that it was a really important part to building the the club up and having people enjoy it and having people look back at that when they're 30 and going well wasn't that such a great time that we spent together so yeah all those little things are really really add up yeah yeah definitely Robin thank you so much for your time I appreciate you jumping on here and particularly being in the UK it's always hard to organize a a time but I appreciate you getting on nice and early for the podcast and I'm looking forward to showing this without our listeners because I love getting fighting lessons from other sports because there's obviously a lot of crossover but there's things that we can take from it from other sports that will help us in swimming so thank you very much for sharing all that you did on the podcast and it's been a pleasure Brenton nice to meet you and not that early for me but it's a little bit later for you in Melbourne there so thanks for making this happen it's been enjoyable my pleasure thank you thanks then bye bye 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 Translating Raw Power into Relaxed Efficiency with Rowing Legend Robin Williams appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

How Actually ‘Engage Your Core’ When You Swim with Carl Reader

In this episode, Carl, our go-to strength and conditioning guru joins us again to finally demystify core engagement for swimmers.

We’re unpacking the Pilates inspired Halloween technique. Versus Stuart McGill’s bracing method and revealing simple land drills. Think step ups, carries and hip rotations that make your core switch on automatically. Once you hit the water, Carl will share why loosening your hips could be the missing link in your freestyle.

How to balance front, back and side core work. And one posture tweak that instantly transforms your catch. If you’ve ever felt your hips sink, or your kicks play, or your back start to ache mid set, this episode is for you. Grab your goggles and maybe a chair, because by the end of this, you’ll know exactly how to build a swimming core that’s strong, supple, and effortless.

Let’s get into the podcast.

Timestamps:

I think the best answer would be that it's just the body's ability of the muscles around the trunk, the hips, the pelvis and the lower back to really stabilise the spine, which is where most of the tension has gone, but it's also to be able to generate power to produce efficient movements, so sports and everyday living tasks without causing injuries. So it's kind of a big umbrella term for core strength. 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. I still remember watching a swimmer at our last clinic lean so hard into sucking her tummy in that a stroke felt stiff and awkward, like she'd forgotten how to swim from the inside out. Today, Carl, our go-to strength and conditioning guru, joins us again to finally demystify core engagement for swimmers. We're unpacking the Pilates-inspired hollowing technique versus Stuart McGill's bracing method and revealing simple land drills, think step ups, carries and hip rotations that make your core switch on automatically once you hit the water. Carl will share why loosening your hips could be the missing link in your freestyle, how to balance front, back and side core work and one posture tweak that instantly transforms your catch. If you've ever felt your hips sink or your kicks play or your back start to ache mid-set, this episode is for you. Grab your goggles and maybe a chair because by the end of this, you'll know exactly how

to build a swimming core that's strong, supple and effortless. Let's get into the podcast. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. My guest today is Carl Reader, who has been on multiple times and you're our guru, strength and conditioning sort of expert on the show, Carl. So welcome back to the podcast. Oh, Brenton. Always good to be here. Thanks for having me back. So today I want to jump into core strength, something that I get asked a lot from some of these, how do I engage my core? What does it mean to suck your tummy in? How do we use our core when we swim? And one thing that I got taught from an early age was you've got to swim from the inside out. So it's got to start from the core and the center of your body. And then we can deliver that power to the extremities from there. So let's just start with what is core strength? What should we think of as core strength? Sure. I think the best answer would be that it's just the body's ability of the muscles around the trunk, the hips, the pelvis and the lower back to really stabilize the spine, which is where most of the tension has gone, but it's also to be able to generate power to produce efficient movements, so sports and everyday living tasks without causing injuries. So it's kind of a big umbrella term for core strength. And in terms of how we, I guess, use it or don't use it throughout the day or through different activities, what are maybe some of the common mistakes that you might see people making with their core control and their core strength? I think before we go there, Brendan, we get us to just touch base of what are the two

common techniques people use to engage the core, which is really important. So you've got this idea of what they call the hollowing effect, which is what you talked about that sucking in. And this was really pioneered but sort of developed more by the Pilates industry where they talked about the core being this like an onion, so like an onion. If you think about an onion, you cut up, it's got all those rings inside. So your muscles, your core trunk is like an onion ring. And so they were talking about stabilizing these or engaging these deep muscles, often referred to the TVA, the transvestite dominance. And then you have the other side is the sort of which has been pioneered and developed by Stuart McGill. A lot of this is what we're familiar with him and he's done a lot of great work on lower back pain and had some amazing results. But he talks about this bracing concept. So it's that, and both those are a function of core work out or the system of the core system. But what's important and I want to share on this and propose to the listeners is that the core should actually automatically engage. So what they've used these two techniques to do is to try to help people to engage them. But the key is really to that. How do I engage them without actually trying to think about it? And I think that's where we want to get into that. Think about if you think about like surfing or like even swimming or golf, you it's difficult to really be thinking about how much you're engaging your core and you're about to take off on a wave or like playing hitting a golf shot. You want it to be get there naturally. And so, you know, we can unpack that. But that's really, really important that they know that there's two different ways. Now, which is the best way, which is the correct way that's debatable.

And we can, you know, we can unpack that as well. That it's with a lot of the things that we want to do in swimming, whether it's engaging or switching on your core. Or if we're thinking about the kick, which is another sort of big issue that people run into, if they're thinking too much about it, they're probably not doing it in the right way because it doesn't lead to this natural use or natural engagement of it. So let's get in. Let's dig into that about some strategies that people can apply to be able to do this naturally, ultimately without having to think about it. And it's just there in the background. So the what just before you guys get there is that that hollowing effects when you talk about the hollowing is is very linked to also it's a stress response. So you find people who struggle with anxiety or worry a lot or overwhelmed. They kind of hold in and suck in their tummy. So it's it's it's this is actually creates like I want to say it creates a stress response, but it's actually the bodies we're holding. The other thing is we see with that is that they struggle to breathe. So especially and I'm generalizing it with men, but if you're awesome to hold down there and pull the pelvic floor muscles up and breathe and swim becomes a bit like too much to think about. But like you say, but the kicking the biggest thing is posture. And I mean, we talked about this on the podcast. And I know you've had a lot of guest speakers as well. And you talk a lot about, you know, getting the right posture. And that is actually the key is to position your body correctly. So the core works automatically. So if you've got poor swimming posture or if you've got poor posture in general, it's going to affect how that core works automatically. And a good example. We've done this before, but I don't know if you remember like a long ago

when we first met, we talked about like if you sit at your desk and you put your fist and for those who are new members or new listeners, if you just sit very upright with the chest up and tall and you push into the desk, you'll feel the back muscles working in the and the triceps. And if you just relax the posture and then you push down, you'll feel the core automatically kicks in if you can feel that. Yes. So, so again, when you push harder into the desk, you don't have to think about, do I have to brace to do that? So if you just put, say you're pushing like really gently, then you're pushing harder and harder and harder. As you push harder and harder and harder, the core automatically activates. You see, you don't have to think about, I need to now brace and suck in. It just, it just happens. So that's, that's the, that's one of the key things.

And so with this, with this swimming rinse, I think it's also key is that a lot of people, they're in what we call the sagittal, sagittal front and back plane. So like swimming in the front, front muscles, back muscles kicking. So that cause generally like gets well trained in the pool. And if you look at the, I mean, I've got now here, the top 32 men's health core exercises I've written more down. And I would say like 90% of them are all frontal, like working like, so it may be like, you know, planks or it's a leg lifts or hanging on a bar, lifting the legs up, all those kinds of, so it's a lot of it's moving away. It's not, there's not enough side core workouts or rotational core. Now in the crawl and freestyle, you've got rotation, but this is something that's important. We can also unpack is to, is to balance the core. Yeah. So not, not just working in that crunch type of motion and just working in the different directions. Yeah. So. Oh, so I was going to say with the, I like that exercise pushing on the desk or the, or the table there because to me that relates so much to, to swimming when someone tries to intentionally brace the core and then they're trying to extend their sort of, their shorter through here. And they do tend to, to muscle it through the back and the shoulders. Whereas when they just, they sort of soften, they just relax and they've got that, that suppleness to them with, with just generally good posture. The shoulders move freely. The core can be used just, just naturally. That to me has got such a good correlation to how we want to swim

and the mistakes that people make when they try too hard to engage the core. So I think that's a, that's a really good one. And, and what you just brought up there is that, is being mindful of the core and every single exercise you do. So I always said to my clients, like every exercise you do is a core exercise because we have this mindset of like, I'm going to do my core exercises, then I'm going to do my arm exercises, I'm going to do my leg exercises. But actually the core should be engaging with the leg exercises and the upper body exercises as well. So for me, that's where we can go into all this, like how your posture plays an important role. And we know that most people are, especially they're behind the desk all day, is that the nerves of the core are in the middle back. So that if you, so if you're stiff, which we know from swimmers and just in general, like aging population, they tend to get really stiff in that thoracic spine. And again, that's not saying new to listeners, but it's if you can mobilize that thoracic spine and really improve that mobility, especially extension. And it's extension, it's a little bit lower down. So often when people think about their middle back, they tend to want to extend up through the top, through the middle part of the blades, the wings. But it's actually that where we, where we compromise with the body and the spine is actually lower down. So if you watch me here slouching, it's actually happening, kind of happens like the top of the lumbar spine bottom. So that's where it's really important. Is that swimming exercise you guys do that when you kind of like, you know, lying your stomach and your legs up and up and down like that? That's a good exercise because it kind of gets into that,

that middle to lower back exercise and mobilization.

And in terms of other exercises that would be helpful for swimming, what are some of those other core exercises that you think would be key? Yeah. So the lateral, so the lateral side, the lateral core, which is your, basically your obliques, your obliques are primary function is obviously rotation, but they play a major role in like the lateral side of the body. So what you see a lot of people doing things like side planks, which is where that's why that's important. There's the Copenhagen, I don't know if you know the Copenhagen plank where you put your leg up on a bench and you lift the other leg up. And it's, so it's all trying to strengthen those side muscles. And so one of the ones that I love the most is the pharma carries, where you're walking with the heavy weights on both sides of the body. You can do it on one side of the body if you want to challenge the side. But my favorite is stepping up on a bench or a box with the weights, so with a single hand, because that really challenges that whole side core. And especially for swimmers, because again, we've talked about, they've got the rotational, they've got the frontal and back, but they often lack that side horse stability. And with the step up holding the weight, would you alternate arms? So let's say you're stepping up with your left leg. Would you hold it in your left arm for some of it and then in your right arm for others? Or is it better to do one side the whole time? It's a great question. So if you're stepping up on the left leg and you have the weight on the right side, then your left stabilizes because the weight's pulling you down on the right is going to work really, really well.

And so that's a great exercise here. And if you want to target the glutes and the hamstrings, then you would put the weight on the left hand side with the left leg, which will then challenge much more low abdominals on the left side, again, stabilization. So it's a really, really simple exercise and something the guys can do, but it's super effective. And in terms of what you've seen with some of the people that you work with, because you work with a lot of people online for multiple different things, but you've worked with a lot of our swimmers, whether they've had injuries or they just feel like they're not moving well. What are some of the things that you've seen with how they might come to you? How are they currently using their core? And then what sort of process have you taken them through to get them to the other end, where they're starting to use it better, which can obviously help their swimming a lot? Yeah, so the big thing, Brenton, is just getting them in tune with their bodies. So often I'll explain, I've got this thing called the core quadrants. So they kind of like draw like a, you know, just imagine you're like a, pouring a quadrants on your lower abdominals and upper abdominals. And then I asked them, are you able to actively contract that quadrants? Like if you put your hand on below your belly button to the right, can you squeeze and activate there? And then the left, can you squeeze and act? And often with the members, I've seen quite a few be like, oh, this is really easy, but I don't even feel like I've got anything happening on the left or I don't feel like nothing's happening on the right. So it's just drawing attention to those areas. And then I'll mindfully like guide them through, okay, let's try to now lift the right leg slowly up in the air,

but just use the right side. And they'll say, I can't. And so there we go. So we have to then mobilize the spine a bit. Once they've got that contraction, then we take them onto things like step ups. So without the weight, we're just going up and then asking them to, as you push up, can you feel that core engaging? Yes, or doing single leg like balance work. So that's just building up that awareness is so important. At Effortless Swimming, our mission is simple. Make swimming more enjoyable. Whether you're training for your next race, swimming for fitness, or just love being in the water, we're here to help you swim faster, smoother, and with more confidence. And one thing that can make or break a swim is your goggles. If you've ever struggled with foggy lenses mid-session, you know how frustrating it can be. That's why we created the Effortless Swimming Hydro Clear Anti-Fog Goggles for long lasting crystal clear vision. I've been using them myself, and the difference is night and day. And I'm not the only one. Deborah swam 36 kilometers down the Derwent River and the entire time her vision stayed crystal clear. No fog, no frustration, just an uninterrupted swim. So what makes the Hydro Clear Goggles different? It's all in the technology. Unlike ordinary anti-fog coatings that wear off over time, Hydro Clear Super Hydrophilic Technology is built into the lens material itself. Here's how it works. Instead of fog forming as tiny droplets, water spreads evenly across the lens, creating a thin film that prevents fog from even starting.

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Yeah, absolutely. And then some of the notes we've got here, you've got bracing versus automatic core in swimming. Could you talk to that a little bit? So it's back to that whole thing, it's like when you're swimming, are you consciously tensing the core while you swim? Or are you actually, like you said, like you just, as you perform in the stroke, it just feels like the core is engaging appropriately. And that's the key word, is it doing enough? Have you got enough stability? The work that you do outside the pool plays a huge role. And this is where the coaching and where the work outside pool workouts makes a big difference. So are you able to do it in the pool? You've got to be able to do it outside the pool. Does that make sense? And that's like a logical thing. But I find that what happens is that a lot of the workouts the guys are doing, and we cover this in my course as well, it's just how do you position people in the doing the exercises to get the core to function automatically? That when they get back in the pool, as soon as they start swimming and kicking, they go, it's doing it already. I don't have to think about it. And that's kind of, that was that difference. Yeah. It's not like, of course it's not wrong to brace while you swim. It's just, it's just a challenge because especially people struggle to do multiple things. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I once like looking at the, or thinking of the swimmers that we, we say at clinics. So a few things that I think can help them just in terms of technically, with making sure that course switched on, like number one, it would just be head position. Make sure you're looking zero to 45, kind of lengthening through the neck. Again, not too much,

being overly tense and stiff with it. Because most people look too far forwards. And so when they're up like this, they just can't, they can't use the core correctly because they've got too much of this lower back arch. And then second thing would be posture. And we referenced this earlier where posture, like tall, tall and proud, but not too much. Not too much there where you're stiff and rigid through there. You have to have that length through the body, but just kind of letting the shoulders move freely. And then I also think the other part of that can just be how you're using and how you're moving your legs in the kick. A lot of people tend to kick like they're kicking a soccer ball and there's too much hip and too much knee bend. So just keeping the thighs, the top of your legs, just kind of moving back and forth slightly, which creates a good size kick out behind you. But any more than that, and then you tend to kind of lose that ability to hold your core well. Great. So I think those things go hand in hand. It's like good technique and also the ability to control this outside the pool. And if you can't control it on land where you've got this stable surface, you're going to find it very difficult in the water to be able to do it. So you've given all those great tips on how to position the body to do this. So I'm just going to share some of the positions on the land, which we talk about in the course as well. And one of them is head position. Exactly what you're talking about. It's often like where you're looking is so key, especially for things like squats. So even like if you're doing a shoulder press, as you press up, you want to look up slightly. If you're looking straight ahead, it puts pressure on the neck

and it doesn't engage the core as effectively. But here's the big one, and it's as you've got to loosen the hips. I don't know if you, so my kids do karate and if you watch karate guys or golfers, even surfing, it's all in the hips. So they'll often say, you know, like you're not using your hips, you're not using your hips in many different sports. And so that thrusting, that pushing, and the reason that it's not that the hips generate the power, which is where they say it comes from, is that when you release the hips, the core activates. So that you're getting power to the hips. And that's, so a perfect example would be like if you did a shoulder press, for example, if you just stand and do a normal shoulder press, the average person will just say, I feel my delts, I can feel my traps, I feel a little bit of like, you know, the shoulders working. And you say that I just soften the knees and relax the hips. And as they press, I go, oh gosh, I can feel my core now. So all you've done is put the body in a good position. It's the same with the squats. And often are we spoken about this, if you squat correctly, it's a fantastic core exercise. But the average person who squats goes, I don't know what you're talking about, I don't feel my core at all. And that's because they often stiffen the hips, which we know is a big, big issue. All their technique is, in my opinion, not efficient. There's a lot of, just on that whole note, quickly for those who do that squatting, you know, like there's a whole draft towards the knees going too far forwards. I don't know if you've heard of that sort of a knee over toes. It's a new approach now where the guys are squatting and the knees are going like wave forward. It builds the knee muscles like tremendous, tremendously.

But when you do that technique, you kind of switch off the core. Because you're not all in a, which I, in my opinion, biomechanically, you're not in the right position. So you've got a lot of load going into the knee and there's not a load going into the hips and that low and then into the core muscles. So how you squat plays a big, big role as well.

And for those that are listening, we did a podcast. Well, I'll find it and we'll put it in the show notes, but we've done several podcasts. One of those was on some of the nuances for how you should squat to be able to use the core. And one of the things I remember you saying, and anytime someone mentions squat, I remember this is like, you say that squats can be one of the best, or is the best core exercise, which was, which was new to, like certainly new to me at the time. And yeah, I think I'd certainly agree with you, having them kind of learned from you with that and then just having done a quite a bit more gym work in the last two years or so. So we'll make sure to link to that in the show notes for anyone who's interested in some of the nuances of the squat. And you also obviously cover that in your functional movement course as well, which we'll put in the show notes as well. And so Carl, anything else you'd like to sort of cover here for actually, before we go into that, talking about the hips, it's, that made me think of, again, something we cover in clinics is, when it comes to rotation through the hips and torso, we need to rotate enough firstly, so that our arm can come out of the water comfortably. This is in freestyle. And then enough on the side in the water so that we can get into a strong catch position. And if someone's swimming flat, then it's very much like doing a shoulder press without having rotation is it's just, it's all arms, it's all legs, but there's they just miss out on so much power there.

But as soon as they get the hips and shoulders, like it's a bit of a swivel through the hips. And if you're coming forward, it's we're not tipping onto our side. We're just sort of swivelling or rocking onto the side there. Then you get all those muscles through the middle of your body working. And it just makes those movements that we've got to go through 10 times easier because then we get the core and the hips, the hips into it. So again, yeah, again, another good, I guess, analogy or something that I can see just has great correlation to what we need when we swim. To the swimming. Yeah. And just, and remember, we talked about as well, the electrical lines, you know, the body, their muscles, but they're actually battery packs. They produce electricity. That's what gives you the power, its voltage. So you've got the front line and you've got the back line. You've got different lines, but these are your major lines. So when these core muscles are engaging, and remember when you engage the core, the back muscles also engage. So they work, they co-contract, but it's all got to do electricity. So you've got a free flow of electricity. You don't have any sort of impedance or blockages. And you don't have to work hard. That's where the word efficiency comes from. Otherwise, you just, it's like, you know, inefficiency and electricity produces heat where like inefficiency in them in the body is just like just wasted energy, just having to breathe and work harder. I just want to just touch base on this as well. Those who are lifting heavy weights, you know, it's important to brace. And if your body lift bodybuilder, then you must use the same technique that you've been taught. But like that bracing before you do things, if you've got to lift a heavy box out of a trunk

or move something, it's important to first brace. You don't want to kind of like try to figure it out on the way as you're starting to lift, because that's where you do the damage. So like there's a place for that. It's like real gripping, stiffening, tensing the muscles. But that's how in terms of sport, like you want to, like we talked about that earlier, you don't want to get inside grippy feeling it. It's got to be like an automatic course. I think it's a good way to describe it. Yeah. And using it, I would say appropriately was, yeah, a good way to think of it. It's like just, yeah, using it enough so that it's switched on, but we don't need, we don't need more than that either.

And then your other one, sorry, your shoulder exercises, you know, like the guys do a lot of those push and pull in the gym with the cables. We often see them in a very staggered stance. If you just get more like into a wider staggered stance, so it's not like, you know, too far, then you lose the stability. So the core systems are really affected. But just with that, with the training course, like often people say, what are the best core exercises? It's important for you to work with a coach or to assess where you are, you know, look at the core exercise you're doing and saying, hang on, I'm doing all, most of my core exercises are working that frontal and back. There's not enough on the side. There's not enough rotations. So it's to really just to work out where you, which we call core balance, balancing your core exercises. And then, yeah, that's, that's pretty, I think for swimmers that that will be where I spend a lot of my time is balancing their core.

Yeah, well, I've noticed a lot in the last two years or so. There's a gym locally and I've got some, they've got some other gyms around in the state that I'm, I mean, and there's, there's a couple of machines that I use that over the last two years I've noticed building up the strength through these movements has made a massive difference for me. So one is it's you seated and then you kind of got your arms in the machine and you basically just like rotating from here into the center. So you turn the body, but the hips stay still and you're kind of rotating across. So, and you do that in both directions. That, I hate that machine, but it's, it's such, and I think anything that you tend to hate, it's like with drills, any drills you hate is probably because you suck at them and you, yeah, you don't enjoy it because you're not very good at it. So I, you know, I've been working on building that up. That's helped a lot. Another one is actually, is that a gain resistance? Is that a gain resistance? Is there a resistance there? Correct. Yeah. So it's a weight check machine. So you've got the weight going in towards the center. And then another one is a back machine where you start almost sort of hunched over and you're pressing against it. So it's almost like a reverse punch in a way. Yeah, very good. And just like it really loads up the lower back and I've built up this my strength in that probably double to what I was when I first started. And then obviously like just another core one, just it's almost like a weighted crunch in a way lying on your side. But those three just movements and directions have like, I just, I get injured a lot less and just really notice a difference when it comes to my, my swimming, my whole connection feels a lot better. And like you're, you're, you're probably, sorry.

No, sorry, go ahead. So I think I've answered, because you know the 80, 20 principle, like the Pareta principle, if you look at what's giving you the biggest bang for your back there is those back extensions. So like a lot of people are scared to, scared is the wrong word. I understand if you've had back pain, I hesitant to work lower back muscles, but that, that extension machine, I use a lot and also, so I use it more just, and that's, and the squat, by the way, is in that position when you're holding weights in the squat position, you're actually really working those lower back muscles. So it's really, really important to strengthen the back and it's, it's taken a mind shift because we, we all want to protect the back. But I mean, if you look at those muscles, some of the biggest muscles in the body, if not, like it, you have to strengthen your back. And so swimming naturally does that. That's why it's one of the, it's another wonderful sport to do for back. But I love, I love what you're saying. And it's, it's so, so it's.

Oh, it was, yeah, such a, not a revelation for me, but just having never done any exercises that actually build that and always protecting the back and like just being really careful about it. But when those muscles are weak, you, like you're going to get injured a lot more. So you, you can do exercises that maybe look or seem like they could be dangerous in a way. But if you do them correctly, you, you will find that you, that, that strength just stops you from getting these really common injuries or at least makes it happen a lot, a lot less. And like these machines are fairly, some of these are not that widely available, but there's other exercises you can do if you don't have these machines that, that I'm using at the gym that I'm going to. So, yeah, and obviously you would know a lot of variations or ways that people can, can adapt for this. So for those that are listening, if they would like to get in touch with you, we'll put your, your details in the show notes because you've worked with a lot of our swimmers and our members and have helped them either with injury or just developing strength. And we've also got the, your functional movement course available too, which again, we'll put in the show notes. Carl, appreciate it once again. I think you're the most, probably the fifth time or sixth time, which is probably a record. So I really appreciate you jumping on the podcast again. No, thanks, Brent. And then that's always good to share the new insights, it's a continuous learning process. Yeah, that's, that's exactly right. Now, the way that I sort of see it is very much like what we do in our clinics and coaching,

it's like, it's the same, it's the same sort of fundamentals, but what I'm learning is just different ways to approach it that might work for different people. And it's, from my end, it seems like you're kind of doing that. You're working with a wide range of people and so you've got this real, really wide level of experience and you can then prescribe what will help get someone from where they are to where they want to be in hopefully the shortest possible time if they follow the exercises and so on. Yeah, it's, it exercises a tool and that's like any, it's a skill. Great. Well, well, until next time.

Yeah. Thanks, Kyle. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. If you'd like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.

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