Effortless Swimming

Welcome to the podcast. This is a rebroadcast of another podcast called the Human Endurance Podcast with two friends of mine, Bruna and Fabi. I was a guest on there recently, and I wanted to share this episode with you because I feel like a lot of key things were covered that if you’re a swimmer or a triathlete, this is going to help you improve.

Whether you want to get better at open water swimming, making sure you fuel correctly, how you should train, what are some common mistakes and foundational skills

01:28 Meet Brenton Ford: Founder of Effortless Swimming

11:24 Common Mistakes and Foundational Skills for Swimmers

18:56 Improving Swimming Technique and Training Tips

29:16 The Importance of Drills and Effective Training

39:45 Skills in Open Water Swimming vs. Pool Swimming

44:02 Increasing Stroke Rate vs. Distance Per Stroke

47:47 Choosing the Right Wetsuit

58:15 Fueling for Long Swim Sessions

01:03:14 The Journey of Effortless Swimming

01:15:12 The Future of Swimming

01:20:38 Fire Questions

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

Change your technique and swim a smoother, easier freestyle with the Effortless Swimming membership:

but the funny thing was when I first started the business I was 21 and like when you’re 21 you’ve really got no idea about the world and you think I don’t know things happen really quick and I thought yeah within 12 months like I’m gonna like I’m gonna be going so well with this business and it took probably 10 years to get to the point where I thought I’d be when I first started yeah that’s that’s just being young and not really knowing how things and how things work but yeah yeah I’m glad I stuck with 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 hey welcome to the podcast this is a rebroadcast of another podcast called the human endurance podcast with two friends of mine Bruna and Fabi I was a guest on there recently and I wanted to share this episode with you because I feel like a lot of key things

were covered that if you’re a swimmer or a triathlete this is going to help you improve whether you want to get better at open water swimming making sure you fuel correctly how you should train what are some common mistakes some foundational skills you need those sorts of things were covered on this episode hope you enjoy let’s get into it yeah in terms of the way I got started my granddad was he used to run a pool in here in Australia and he actually I think he taught me to swim and then he was my coach up until I was about nine or ten years of age and then when he passed away my dad took over and started coaching me and so I swam since I was very young and I made it all the way through to like a national level but I was never good enough to make the Australian team I missed out by I think it was 0.03 per second on making the olympic trials so I was I was a good swimmer but not good enough to make a team but I think that’s why I actually got really interested in technique because I

don’t think I could have trained much harder than what I was doing I was a hard trainer had success but never enough success to kind of make a team so I think that’s where that curiosity came in terms of wondering yeah how can people get faster with with technique rather than just the training side of it and I mean also the Australian team is one of the best teams in the world right when it comes to swimming so it’s already the standard is very high compared to like for example like let me just say the Swiss team yeah it’s um like Australian swimming is probably the equal equal with the US or I mean China is very strong too so it’s a very competitive nation when it comes to to swimming but yeah it’s uh it’s something that I’ve always done growing up and I just I love the sport of swimming it’s something that’s always just stuck with me and a lot of people train a lot as a kid and they get sick of it and they get burnt

out but I’ve just continued to do it ever since I was about four or five years of age and outside of COVID I’d never really missed more than probably seven to maybe ten days of being out of the water like I would get in the water every single week multiple times if I if I can but yeah it’s just something that’s always stuck with me and um I’m very grateful that I can coach and I can be around the pool and always be around the water because I think I’m just naturally drawn to it yeah that’s amazing how how do you think you survived this burnout because I don’t know if you know this about me but I grew up as a tennis player very competitive and I went through the exact same thing that you did because I played really intensely from like ages nine to nineteen and once I was done with it in college I just didn’t grab my racket again for like 10 years I was super burned out so what do you think was the secret for you

I mean I was I was never pushed to do it I trained about eight or nine times a week as a teenager I was falling asleep in school all the time constantly tired constantly hungry but I I don’t know I just I just really enjoyed it and I think I liked being good at something I like having dedicated myself to to to something that I put the time in to get good at and it was something that I naturally enjoyed and gravitated towards so I think that’s part of it like if it was another sport then maybe it wasn’t it wouldn’t be the case but yeah just naturally it’s something that I I really liked so I think maybe it was a bit of fortune and Ben certainly my parents never never pushed me I know my dad when he was coaching we’re driving home one day and he said like was I too harsh on you in that session and I said yes and from then on he never like he never sort of had to go at me at training but I still trained hard like yes I think there was a bit of that I think dad was really

aware to not push push me as a kid because I see it all the time with with a lot of coaching or swimming parents sporting parents in general they they really drive their kids and I’ve really had this more hands-off approach and just try and develop this curiosity among my own kids and as long as they enjoy it I think they’ll stick around and it’s the people that stick around that often have the most success the 10 11 year old champions in any sport yeah absolutely right what why do you think um like why did you get sick of tennis what do you think that was ah that’s a great question um you know I also wasn’t super pushed into it by my parents it wasn’t like I had massive outside pressure or anything but I don’t I I didn’t have great coaches that’s for sure when I was younger they were more on the rough side like there was specifically one head coach like this really old man who was super tough on the kids and I think that brought some some trauma with it and a way of thinking

that was not much about enjoying and a lot about performance and results and stuff and I think I didn’t have the awareness to think about tennis in a different way you know so even when I was out of that specific coach that mentality stuck with me and I just put so much pressure on myself that one day I was just like I cannot do this anymore I cannot handle it I remember being on the tennis court for practice and think oh my god I wish I could be doing anything else other than this right now um so I get a mix of uh yeah I guess a mix of just some bad coaches but also not being mature enough yeah there’s so many different factors that play into it right and and then coming back to what got you into swimming was uh an injury we I think we get a lot of people come to swimming from injury especially from running uh so many people who come to the clinics here in Australia have come from a running injury and they’re like oh I need

this aerobic exercise I need an outlet but I can’t run maybe I can’t ride as well so swimming swimming’s it and so we get to convert a lot of people that way which is also also nice

yeah it’s uh it’s a sport that I feel like if you haven’t been exposed to it as a child it’s harder to get in as an adult because it’s not an inviting thing to go to the pool oftentimes at least here in Europe because I mentioned to you before they’re overcrowded there’s not a system it’s dirty often so it’s often I guess the path of injury or something like that that draws you to it and for me it was not being able to swim at all you know I could hold myself over water but I wasn’t able to actually really swim freestyle um which was also very embarrassing for me because I’m an adult and I couldn’t really swim so that really stopped me from going to the pool and for me was luckily this experience of having this pool in Amsterdam that is made for endurance swimming it’s called swim gym so they specialize on you know it was like a gym that’s a pool and they really had good coaches and then maybe then go but if it was just for average the average public pool I would have never

started swimming actually it’s such a like there’s quite a few hurdles to get over there’s okay I I feel like I don’t know how to swim at all I have to get into this small costume like swim costume um it might be dirty there’s a lot of people there like there’s a lot of hurdles that people have to get over so if you’ve got something like a a really good environment and good coaches that you can that you can learn from it it makes it so much easier and that’s not accessible for everyone you know there’s not um there’s just not many adults learn to swim places around there’s just just not a heap so there are a lot of hurdles so anyone who starts as an adult and can just put their ego to the side and go right I I’m not going to probably look good here I’m not it’s going to be frustrating if they can put that to the side you know it’s um I have a lot of respect for people who take up swimming as an adult and I think

in terms of my coaching approach I’d like to sort of I want to do it with no judgment whatsoever because I know when I’ve started something new like you’ve just got no awareness of your body there’s a there’s a big uh a big sort of skill gap and knowledge gap there so yeah anyone who who wants to learn like I don’t care how people look when they swim I just I want to help them want to help them get better without any judgment because I have had a lot of swim coaches who do have that sort of judgment with people and it’s like well that’s just not helpful yeah it’s not so fair yeah so no exactly exactly right and um same for like parents with their kids who like they might be annoyed that their kids not getting faster in in two months time or like they’re not making this change their stroke it’s like if you get in there and you understand how much work it takes to make a change to your stroke and uh and building that body

awareness like it’s a lot of work and it’s a lot of time and repetitiveness so like there’s that as well it’s just that understanding of what it takes to get to a certain point with your with your swimming yeah yeah absolutely um I think now it’s a good point to ask you specific questions about swimming so I have one that’s been uh on my mind uh when we were thinking about what to ask you so we’re going to open with that so um what’s the most common mistake you see amateurs swimming swimmers make and how to fix it I think it’s really a lot of people are swimming to survive rather than to uh like to just move forwards and and relax through the water so a lot of those things that we see in terms of that more survival instinct for people who are who are new or or even amateur swimmers it’s it’s the breathing it’s the body and the the head position so you can you can hold yourself in a way in the water where

your body’s supported by the water and you’ve got the buoyancy from your lungs where you can hold your body there where you don’t have to put much effort in at all to be horizontal in the water then all of that effort can go into moving yourself forwards but I think a lot of people amateurs or fairly new they’re working on that balance in the water so if you can learn to stay somewhat relaxed and calm and you can just breathe you know in a comfortable way and learn to look in the right position and hold your body correctly that takes care of so many things and it seems seems somewhat simple but it does take a bit of effort and thought and focus to get there so uh yeah that’s why like everyone’s got to go through the same get over the same hurdles when they’re when they’re starting but um that’s where I would always start with people and they’re the main mistakes that I see with with so many swimmers and often people think they’re in the right position like they’re looking in the right

spot they might think their hips and legs are high but when we look at it on the camera it’s often not the case so sometimes that reality is very different than than perception so just either getting something to look at you getting some video taken if you can or just maybe doing a bit of a self-check when you’re swimming can go a really long way because I mean I’m sure you’ve probably had it right you feel like that you’re doing something in your stroke and we look at it and go that’s actually not the case I remember the camp right because we met in your camp in the melodives and you did the first video analysis and I thought my body position is the the one thing that’s good but then we realized that I’m arching my back and that’s kind of messed up a lot of other things and I didn’t realize and now when I go to the pool I actually always focus on that part which I never did before because I wasn’t aware of it so yeah yeah so Brenton would you say that then body position and

head position I guess those go together body position in general is like the most foundational skill that perhaps an amateur swimmer should spend you know few weeks on before moving on to anything more complex like the catch or the pool and stuff like this yeah absolutely it’s worthwhile spending several weeks or months on that as well as the breathing side of things and like you might be fine with the breathing but a lot of people are just breathing too short and shallow and they’ve got this when they go to breathe it’s like this gasp where they’re like where rather than just this now just this small inhale of air and then you release it like I think people are just quite uncomfortable and often with the head position we see that with new swimmers where they’re holding their head quite high in the water and it’s just their face that’s covered but 80% of their head is out of the water so there’s a thing about like when

you knew you want to firstly see where you’re going because that’s just natural and you don’t want to get your ears in the water because sometimes you’ve got water in your ears and that’s not comfortable so those two things I think hold a lot of people back and so if they can just accept that all right I’m going to have to cover my ears I’m going to have to look down and not see much of where I’m going that can help overcome a lot of their the hurdles that they you know would otherwise have to try and get through with those things yeah it’s kind of against a survival instinct right to put your head in the water and then you’re cool

cool um and another question for you um that I’m super curious because I haven’t started swimming as a kid uh is that do you think you can actually really become a good swimmer if you haven’t swam as a kid like with good I mean swim say me very competitive in my age group for for triathlon absolutely I’ve seen it so many times that someone can can learn to become a very competitive swimmer uh particularly in triathlon now not to say it doesn’t take work but yeah it’s certainly possible one of my best mates he is a professional triathlete he wasn’t a swimmer as a kid he could swim a bit but he wasn’t a swimmer as a kid um he’s got himself to the point where he he’s been in the front pack at at world champs and you know it’s consistently up there now sometimes his second pack if he’s not having a good day he might be second pack but when he’s when he’s on he’s able to be in that front pack in the pro field so but he’s put a lot of work in uh that

it hasn’t come easy but then I’ve had other people who I’ve met it I’ve had come to clinics and I’ve met and yeah they’ve they’ve had a couple years of swimming and they’ve really gotten themselves to a pretty good point so the people are some people they swim a bit more naturally they’re a bit more comfortable in it and it takes less time other people it’s not it doesn’t feel so natural for them and it does take more time but yeah I’ve seen it so many times that people can swim really well without having to have a swim as a kid that’s really reassuring

how much work do you think that takes like what would you say is like this friend that you have that you know became swimming first second pack at the world champs and stuff how often is this swimming and what kind of volume like what do you think mid-heb stand out besides probably being talented as well a lot of work I mean I think from when he was mid probably mid mid 20s mid to late 20s he I think he traveled overseas and then he would have been swimming five to six times a week and he started swimming with like a really top really good top triathlon teams overseas and he was he said he was way behind like he was getting lapped in this squad when he first joined and then it took him I don’t know took him my guess four to five years of like a lot of hard work to to get up in the field a little bit and then another couple of years to start to become front pack now is mid 30s and so it’s like a good 10 10 years plus of work

but I think the first like you can get a lot done in three years I think like and that’s even sounds like a long time but you’ve got to just accept the fact that this will take time there’s there’s no necessarily shortcuts to get things done in three months it all takes time but I think when if you just put the work in if you can swim ideally if you can do three times a week to me that’s like the sort of benchmark of being able to improve quite well four’s obviously better two I think you can maintain pretty well you can improve a little bit but three would really be the minimum if you’re really looking to improve so yeah it just depends on the on the person but yeah it takes time it really does good I’m happy you say three because at the moment I swim three times a week and I feel I’m improving but when you said just now putting the work in is that just showing up at the pool doing the volume or is it also having

somebody at the deck that corrects you or like what is what is the key to putting the work in and what you just described yeah I a coach on deck can certainly help especially if they’re a coach that’s going to give you feedback but you there’s no reason why you can’t improve without having a coach on deck I think it’s certainly a combination of doing the work in terms of the training and that’s the the volume that’s the intensity and then also the technique side of it like you they those two things go hand in hand you can’t just be focused on technique without doing the the training as well you’ve really got to match both of them but swimming such a technical sport water is so much thicker than than air you know it’s it’s the technique side of it’s just very very important so there has to be a pretty um you have to sort of lean towards that especially in the early days because yeah if you if there’s things in

your stroke that’s stopping you from getting faster well you’re going to be stuck there for quite a while and I went to New Zealand last week we did two clinics and I was going through all the videos there’s about 30 to 40 videos like different people that I’m looking at and with so many of them there’s like one thing that they’re either doing or not doing in their stroke that’s like this bottleneck it’s the one thing that’s to me it seems like it’s just stopping from getting to that next level with their swimming so like sometimes you need a coach to kind of help you identify that that that can make it a lot easier but I see it all the time like there’s yeah often this one thing that that they’re doing or not doing that is just limiting them to to get to that next step um and you know maybe that’s just like your body position maybe it’s you know rotating enough there’s there’s a lot of different things but to me with all

the videos I’ve done I’ve probably analyzed 8 000 plus different people um like it’s to me it’s really clear on what that bottleneck is for a lot of a lot of people so um I think you can keep it quite simple most of the time like you don’t need to be thinking about five things most people can really dial it dial it down to to one or two at least that time being yeah makes sense so uh for a beginner right if we focus on on that cohort of people that are just starting to swim it’s not like they can expect that they will just show up at the pool not really know what’s work on and improve right I think unfortunately it’s not as simple as maybe like it is with running where you could just show up there’s very little technique just about building building that volume I also tell my athletes to run at least three times a week and that’s usually how you progress with swimming you then need the volume but you also need to be doing some

technique work right otherwise you’re not really improving yeah yeah it’s something that I if I’m swimming if I’m coaching like in every session there’s some components of technique and typically it’s in the warm-up it can be okay through a main set but normally that’s when we want to do the training component of it so if we’re looking at like a if we’re looking at a session let’s say it’s an hour session for someone and a beginner’s probably not going to do an hour but in an hour session we might look at doing 10 to 15 minutes of warm-up and in that we would do some technique work which might be some drills some kick some skull and maybe a little bit of like preparation work in there so something like 450s building one to four to get the heart rate up ready for the main set the main set might be 40 minutes 45 minutes or so and then we might have five minutes of swim down after that so that’s how I’d structure most sessions but if it’s a if

it’s a beginner we might increase that to you know maybe a good like 30 percent of your session would be technique focus and some drills and the intervals would be probably a lot shorter 25s 50s work on good form work on good technique and give yourself that break at the end of the pool so that you can stop you can refresh you can refocus and give your muscles a rest you can get your heart rate back down and just work on that good good technique because if you’re if you’re swimming and it’s like this survival where you’re throwing the head around yeah and really struggling to to make it through you’re probably training some some poor form it’s not that you need every let the stroke to be perfect but yeah we don’t want to be training anything that’s that’s really really bad yeah yeah that makes sense I swam a bit as a kid so I had that advantage and when I started swimming again as an adult really focusing on our first triathlon that Fabi and I signed up for

together um I had no idea about these things and I definitely just showed up at the pool and just swam I never did any drills and I did not improve it was terrible so I took Fabi to get a coach and then teach me no he needs me doing this he needs to be doing that so and definitely feel the pain and I hope listeners that are tuning in will not make the same mistake as me yeah so uh so common right like people approach their swimming like it’s there like it’s right like I’m just gonna go for a jog yeah I’m just gonna go for a swim and it’s like maybe 500 meters or a thousand meters of swimming and it’s just continuous and there’s no real thought to technique it’s just I’ve got to get these laps done but it’s like you don’t know any better so uh yeah but if you’re listening to this and you’re new or you’re thinking about getting into it it’s like yeah just um find find a bit of structure there and you’ll you’ll shortcut that

time to to success uh in a big way yeah actually that’s one thing I really like about swimming is to have like you mentioned before you have your swim set broken up in the warm up which contains the drills and the main set where you do sometimes intervals and then you have the different tools that you use so for me that’s amazing because a swim session goes by and like so it goes by much quicker because in the beginning like bruna I just swim it was swimming the 1k just swimming and I just swim and after 200 meters I was like oh I’m a bit bored and I still have to do 800 meters so kind of breaking the whole set up and now I swim 3k 4k sometimes and it’s really it really helps in the head because you’re you’re like having little chunks of work you do so that’s really helpful it makes it fly doesn’t it yeah just like breaking it up with different intervals different paces maybe you’re using some paddles and taking them off like it’s

it’s about eating an elephant it’s just one bite at a time and it really helps it go go quick I mean I find the same thing with my running when I did a season of triathlon and I had some structured runs in there which I think helped so much and like it helped the like a 12k run go by really quick because yeah it might be five minutes on one minute off and different paces and stuff and I think my running improved a lot then and now my runs are just like 30 minutes aerobic like there’s no structure to it and it seems like a bit of a grind so you know I guess the same thing applies in in running a bit too so I should probably just take some my own advice and structure my runs a bit better there’s some swimming drills in the run and I have a question actually that I’ve always I’ve always had to myself but now I can ask you how what do you think about the resting between the sets because that’s something I often I think I do take too much rests between my hundreds for

example my coach obviously always puts 10 seconds rest and sometimes you know I’m finishing and then I clean up my goggles I drink maybe I talk to the person next to me and I’ve realized when I’ve watched more professional or better swimmers that I was amazed by how little rest they take so I’m wondering what’s your opinion and also what is the advantage of taking a short rest between the set versus like really waiting for a minute or two or so we hope you’re enjoying this episode so far please rate the show and subscribe this keeps the show growing and helps us to reach more people with those amazing stories now let’s get back to the episode

I had a professional triathlete on the podcast on my podcast a couple years ago and he said he was trying he was doing a couple of sessions with I think it was Alistair Brownlee and it was doing some swims and he said that the main thing that I learned from Alistair was that you can get a lot more swimming done in a session if you take less rest like if you just change your rest interval from say 30 seconds down to 10 seconds and like that was the main lesson that he that he got from him now it obviously depends on what you’re training for and the intensity that you’re swimming at so I think the answer is usually it depends but certainly for something aerobic it doesn’t have to be a lot of rest like 10 seconds 15 seconds would be more than sufficient but I think yeah sometimes we just take our time you know we feel like we’ve got we’ve got a bit more time but if it’s a harder set like for me on a Monday we do a threshold

session we would take like 30 seconds sometimes up to a minute between some of the intervals because we’re going to be pushing a bit harder and if we don’t rest enough we can’t get to that level of intensity so it really just depends but certainly for anything aerobic it doesn’t need to be a lot of rest and you can get quite a bit more in especially if you’re time poor you can feel a lot more into some of those sessions so yeah it just depends on on what you’re doing I think yeah yeah that makes sense now Brenton let’s talk drills I’m curious if there is like one specific drill that you find yourself always coming back to with your athletes like is there one or maybe two drills that you’re like oh I actually kind of almost always recommend these drills to my athletes yeah there’s there’s one drill that I always end up giving people like most most people because it covers a lot of the things that we want to achieve

especially early in early in the stroke like for those that are either beginners or like intermediate level swimmers and it’s it’s the six one six drill or six kick switch some people refer to it as that and the reason that I always come back to that one is because where we want to be when we go to start a stroke is on our side it’s called 40 degrees rotation you want to have our arm extended in front with our shoulder near our cheek we want to make sure our fingers are about the same depth as our underarm and we want to get this shoulder out of the water as well so the opposite shoulder just out of the water and the other arm resting on the hip that’s pretty close to the position that you’d start each stroke so we’re just going from here to here basically so if you can have all these kind of things ticked off in that drill to me that’s practicing a really good base position like a position that you’re always going to start start with when it comes

to each stroke and not many people have all of those things ticked off when they swim and what I see when I’m coaching a clinic is that like we’ll film people and analyze them first so we know what they need to work on when they’re doing that drill with all of them they’d like anything that they were doing incorrect in the video will come out in that drill for example if they’re crossing their head right they’re probably going to be kicking like that if they were over or under rotating they’ll be doing that in the drill if they weren’t finishing their stroke then they’ll often be holding their arm up like here with this bent elbow so all these things tend to come out so if they can change that in the drill then to me that’s the first step at changing it when they swim so I love that the 616 drill and then if it’s like maybe a slightly more advanced swimmer the two drills that I say all the like all the Olympic level

swimmers doing it’s single arm freestyle and it’s a long dog paddle or underwater recovery freestyle it’s sometimes called like it’s those two they seem to be the the top two that I say all all top freestyle is doing so yeah I think that can cover most of your bases nice actually the 616 drill is part of my sets all the time actually it’s 636 so I have a stroke in between and then yeah same drill just add a few more strokes but like covers exactly the same things yeah that’s great and the doggy paddle under the underneath stroke so I can be you’ll be making the Olympics in nighttime but that’s good to know and I actually really like the 616 drill because it’s also helping me a bit with relaxing my breathing because if I do it for a long time I feel that I get a bit out of breath you know and then I have to realize to relax and really you know take it easy take my breath and not because it’s I do it without the snorkel so it’s

I get a bit nervous doing the drill of like wow I can’t get enough breathing because that’s one one of my still uh weakness that I always feel getting out of breath rather quickly are you doing that with fins on with fins yeah yeah yeah good I it’s a difficult one to do without fins for most people so I think fins are great and then like what you can do as well just to help with getting the breath comfortably I don’t mind if you do a little bit of like a skull with the hand just to help you get the breath because like sometimes it helps just to support yourself with with that but I love what you said just about kind of relaxing a bit as well often we have this tension especially when we first get in and one of the things I always try and do when I start a session is I try and I think about being soft through my hands and my fingers and my forearms as I’m like entering and extending forwards I think about being soft

and just working on that like getting rid of the tension in the stroke and usually when I do that the stroke starts to lengthen I start to feel a bit better whereas if I’m in there and I’m just like sort of racing it yeah at the start like often it takes me a long time to come good in that session so just by focus focusing on relaxing and being soft that to me helps helps a lot with that that sense of just breathing easy relaxing and getting a good feel of the water early on yeah yeah that’s a good tip I I also find myself like as I enter the water you know it’s cold and I don’t know I still working on swimming more often and every time I’m there I’m always a little bit tense in the beginning so that’s a good one I’m gonna keep that in mind

now on to another question about drills is do you think a specific drill is maybe overrated people do it too much and maybe they shouldn’t be doing it

yeah the one that came to mind when it comes to overrated drills it’s well like zipper drill or also sometimes called it’s not quite fingertip drag but so zipper drills where you’re kicking on the side and you’re dragging your thumb up along the side of the body here now there’s a time and a place and a purpose for pretty much any drill you could make a case for it but I see that one done a lot by people and done in a way where it’s actually making them swim a lot worse because a lot a lot of people tend to be too jammed up in their recovery where the hand and the arm is very close to the body and they restrict themselves through there where they lose a lot of their momentum over the water they might be over rotating as well because of how far up they’re coming here and sometimes it can lead to a few shoulder issues because of that that impingement so that to me is a drill that most people don’t need to be doing and it’s one that’s

probably making things worse so yeah zipper drill or thumb drag drill okay I’ll remember that one

next time my coach tells me to do that one I’m like no no nice and what do you think about turns because that’s something that looks very cool when people do it at the pool and I feel it’s also I guess nice for the flow in swimming but for me I do it sometimes when I’m swimming very easy I never do it when I push because I feel like oh my god I’m already out of breath and now I need to uh like kind of turn in the water so is there an advantage to it by just looking cool or what is the purpose of it that’s the only reason people do it is to look cool no it’s um like it it’s it’s going to be faster that’s the first thing so not that that necessarily is going to help you in a triathlon swim where it’s just one continuous swim without turns but yeah you might find if you get your turns down and you can get really good at them that might save you a couple of seconds per hundred which is always nice to see on the clock

and I think as well like it’s just it does help develop that overall body awareness in the water and like yes a lot of people run out of breath when they’re learning like it’s that’s the thing that they struggle with but it can also help with just like general sort of shoulder

or like the general streamline position so when you tuck you’ve got to be quite tight when you push off the wall you need to make sure you’ve got a good streamline so I think it can just help with that which is which is beneficial and it’s something that I think people like anyone can get good at them it just takes a bit of practice and persistence and a few things that I would recommend for people is it’s totally okay to breathe the last stroke into the turn and the first stroke out of the turn now if you go to any like age group program like 12 to 18 year old kids they’re going to get taught like don’t breathe necessarily into the wall and certainly don’t breathe that first stroke off the turn but we’re not an age group program if you look at the best like if you look at world records especially in a short course pool like a 25 meter pool for an 800 freestyle and 1500 freestyle the world records that the swimmers

are breathing first stroke last stroke into the wall first stroke out and sometimes they’ll breathe like one two and then turn like and that’s completely against what you kind of get taught as a keep growing up so that’s one thing that can help make it a lot easier is it’s okay to breathe yeah in and out of the turn because it does take you yeah take a bit of your breath away there so yeah I think it’s worth practicing and doing it you’ve just got to suck it up for a couple of sessions and yeah except that it’s not going to be not going to be fun but yeah yeah I think everyone can get it okay and you know at what point for a beginner do you think you make sense to invest in that like what are the maybe core competencies you need to have before you try this out I think if you could swim yeah 400 meters without stopping and do that reasonably comfortable then you might want to start looking looking at doing flip turns but I’d say that’s probably

lower on the priority list I mean for someone who’s swimming three or four k’s then I think like yeah do your flip turns so you should do it bro I should be able to do it I can swim 400 meters we can do it tonight nice let’s move to more triathlon specific questions for swimming I guess a lot of people that are listening are also interested in triathlon and practice triathlon obviously pool swimming and triathlon swimming as you do it in open water is quite different can you share a bit what you see as the main drift differences in terms of skill set that you need to have when it comes to pool versus triathlon the open water can feel like a different stroke sometimes in the pool things are calm they’re controlled you know exactly where you’re going in the open water it’s the complete opposite they can be very windy it can be choppy you don’t necessarily know where you’re going so it can feel like a very different stroke to a lot of people and I

think some of the main the main things that are worthwhile getting good at it’s first one’s siding just knowing where to go and most people when they start siding the way that they do it is they just have their head up for multiple strokes and then they bring their head back down and that’s fine for starting with but it’s a very hard way to swim for long distances doing that so it’s worthwhile learning what’s called the rolling like rolling breath or sight and breathe where you look up on one stroke and you turn to the side on the next one so that’s the first thing is siding if you’re confident in the open water draft things a big one but that’s only if you’re comfortable and competent in there you can save 30 percent of your effort by drafting behind someone and doing that well so that’s a good skill to learn if you if you’re a little bit more advanced but then also just I think knowing how to adjust the stroke and one of the models that I’ve

got with the arm over the water it’s it’s higher wider and faster so if you have a wet suit on or if you’re in the open water you may need to bring your hand over a little bit higher because you might be hitting waves or chop if you’re too low you might need to bring it over a little bit wider as well so in the wet suit sometimes we’re a bit restricted and you probably can’t come maybe as close to the body as you normally would you might be a bit restricted so you have to go wider and then the last one’s faster so in the open water we typically have to increase our stroke rate five ten fifteen percent because sometimes the water’s a bit more air rated because you’ve got the waves and chop you might have bubbles from other people so you probably can’t spend as long in the reach and in the catch there sometimes you have to be a little bit quicker with that again depending on conditions so being a little bit

fast over the top and just getting that hand in the water is is what we want to go for so it’s less of a perfect stroke and you have to be okay with getting a bit scrappy yeah compared to what you were doing the pool would you say that you’re also gliding less when you are in open water

typically yeah yeah unless it’s like a pool then it’d be fairly similar but yeah you’ll be you’ll be gliding less you’ll be getting into that catch a bit sooner in in most cases there um yeah and so you not that you want to throw everything out the window that you’ve learned in the pool but you just have to yeah have to get a little bit messy with it I think in a way and and make sure that the stroke rate stays up there for it for a lot of a lot of people yeah again if you’re a beginner not necessarily but yeah I mean I see um I had a had a swimmer he that I was coaching he in the pool I think he was sort of averaging like 56 strokes per minute um at like his his race pace and then in the open water it was like it was about the same maybe it was 60 but it wasn’t quite enough for him to like increase his speed so one thing that we worked on was getting that in like the 65 to 75 range for the open water and that’s so much more effective for him

and so many other people it’s quite high the 70 I feel like because I also am around 50 60 in the pool if I’m having a good day and I feel yeah I feel 70 it’s really you’re basically just turning your arms and then I always feel that I don’t push back enough because I’m already thinking about uh doing the next stroke so how how what do you think about that increasing stroke rate but then you’re doing for or sacrificing for the distance per stroke yeah

yeah it’s like so for me if I’m going at say a race pace in the pool my stroke rate will be 60 about 64 65 strokes per minute in the open water that will come up to around 75 strokes a minute and it’s easier to do that when you’re say in the ocean you got extra buoyancy from salt water and if you’ve got a wetsuit on as well so that’ll just come a bit more naturally and a little bit easier but to hold like for me for example to hold a 75 in the pool that is that’s really hard work so I think some of that just comes naturally with the with the situation or the yeah where you find yourself in the open water with that wetsuit on and and some other factors as well so it’s okay if like if you can’t do that in the pool I you probably don’t want to be training that that high necessarily anyway so I think like you’re probably doing the right thing okay there okay and how how to practice increasing your stroke rate brands and do you also use the

the little beeper thing and in the in the cap to tell you how fast you’re going or do you have another trick yeah there’s there’s two ways you can do it you can either do well no there’s three ways so you’ve got a tempo trainer which can be can be really good that’s going to guarantee you’ll hit the right tempo the other thing you can do is like the form goggles can tell you what your stroke rate is that’s that’s another but one I’ve actually given to a few people recently and is I’ll send them as a song on youtube that I know has got the right the same tempo that I want them to hit and I’ve got I’ve got to think of a song now the during the Iron Man World Champs they posted a video of the top two guys in the swim I’ve forgotten who it was now but they had a back a track to it a song playing through it and oh it’ll come to me anyway but it was matched perfectly to their stroke rate so I think a much better way for people to like

try and hit a certain stroke rate is look up what you want to hit so it’s that 65 strokes a minute 65 bpm songs and it will come up with you know different songs that have got that that beat and I think that’s easier for people to to hold because you know you know the songs you know the beat and you can generally sort of time your strokes to it so I much prefer that that’s a really cool tip to to use a song yeah yeah it’s a good idea how do you do it with your athletes do they have like the like shocks headphones that you can listen to music underwater are you playing that in the pool uh no you could use the the headphones this is actually just like playing the song in your head just thinking about it yeah just thinking about it oh nice yeah that’s smart that’s a little bit more um let’s say yeah endearing than the beeping yeah that’s right now you know swimming so much uh it’s so much like dancing anyway that I think it goes really

well together like the song and then trying to match your tempo like I’ll I’ll usually try and listen to a song on my way to the pool like just before I get there that’s like pretty chill you know it might be like have this sort of 60 tempo um and I find I swim pretty well if I’m doing that as opposed to something that’s like hard and fast and you know nice um very practical question Brent and what are your thoughts on wet suits and how much to spend on them like there’s so many options out there I know we briefly talked about this on the camp but yeah like when you’re starting out it’s so overwhelming all the stuff you need to buy when you’re looking at open water some wet suits can go you know for like over a thousand and stuff like what are your thoughts does it actually make sense to invest on good wet too so they all the same yeah so a good friend of mine he has he’s started a wet suit brand a couple years

ago and he’s he’s developed it with um a guy who worked with a big wetsuit company from about 10 to 15 years years back and so I was chatting to my friend and you know asking him the same question and he said look the difference between like a mid-range wetsuit and a top-range wetsuit is the top-range wetsuit will have thinner material through the shoulders which means that yes it’ll be easier to move in but it’s not going to last as long so for like your very top end consumers like your top 10 percent of athletes that’s probably going to like make a difference and a bit of a difference but for 90 percent of people most mid-range wetsuits are going to last longer because they’re a little bit thicker and not really impact your your speed or like you’re not going to tire anymore if you’re doing events of like one to four k so I found that really you know really interesting and I think yeah for most people most mid-range wetsuits will be will be fine

the like base level like some of the really cheap wetsuits fine for doing like a sprint triathlon in but doing anything sort of longer yeah you might sort of notice that that difference there so I think most people who are taking triathlon somewhat seriously or doing a couple races a year I’d go for a mid-range wetsuit that may cost I mean Aussie dollars that would Australian dollars it might be like 600 700 dollars that might be like 400 500 us thereabouts so yeah yeah I don’t think everyone needs the the top range because it’s like you’re paying a lot more for not that much more for most people not that much improvement and you want to kind of save money where you can because triathlon can be an expensive sport yeah for sure I think I told you I have a custom made wetsuit which I I found very nice because I was in a camp and there this guy from the UK and he makes he measures your

your body measurements and then he also looks at your swimming and he would add a bit more thickness to the wetsuit where maybe on your hips if you’re not floating nicely so and also you can choose the thickness on the arms before I had the the first one that I ever bought and I through time I realized that I can’t really breathe well so I always came out of the water very tired and really stuck and now this one is a bit it’s a bit more loose but it really I feel way more comfortable and I think you got stronger over time for it all right yeah that’s yeah it’s good if you can get if you can get something like that’s really well fitted like that makes it makes a huge difference because you don’t want to be in like an oh well an oversized wetsuit is just going to carry water and an undersized wetsuit is going to be very very restrictive so finding the right fit like is yeah it’s important yeah I have another question about open water versus pool swimming because when

I am training for a race I do most of my swimming in the pool and then maybe the month before the race I slowly go out to the open water some sessions and I was always curious because right we get taught that you need to train specificity in your training to really practice what you’re going to race but I found it interesting that I or in general I also from what I hear from other triathletes we train very little in open water compared to that that’s the thing we race so what are your thoughts about it when should you go to the open water are we in generally triathletes doing too little open water too much pool swimming the same friend who started the wetsuit brand he was on the Australian team for the 25 kilometre um they just had a 25 kilometre open water swim at world champs and um yeah it’s nuts and so I asked him the same the same question and he said like every like all the elite open water swimmers will do

nine nine swims a week in the pool and they’ll do one in the open water in the lead up to their their competition and the reason for that is you can train you can improve your fitness and kind of your technique so much more in the pool because you’ve got to stop watch you know the distance and it’s much more predictable and like for them at least like that’s really the the most important thing is that is that fitness um and then obviously you get the skills of swimming open water when you go open water so I think it depends like it depends on where you’re at with your open water swimming if you’re still a little bit unsure with it and you feel like you’re not as confident as you would like to be then maybe you can hit the open water a little bit more maybe you yeah maybe you go a dozen times in the lead ups of the race if you’ve got the opportunity to but um I think like yeah the fitness is is what you’re building in the pool

and then obviously it’s the open water skills in in the open water so it just depends on where you’re where you’re at with it and yeah and like uh it’s just like I think it’s just because it’s it’s not that accessible for most people right like most people don’t have a good open water swimming spot that’s easier to access safe and reliable that it’s going to be calm enough to to swim in so I think that’s that’s part of it as well but um yeah I think like what I suggest to my athletes is that six weeks out from the race start going to the open water once awake if you can and get that practicing that’s interesting that even open water swimmers go very little considering that it’s their their sport so good to know I have a also another question that’s been on my mind with regards to swimming training um when I think of uh endurance sports in general there is this concept also of progressive overload right we want to you want to build

volume over time and you don’t want to like build the volume too fast so that an athlete gets injured and stuff and that’s really key in running because you obviously like it’s so obvious when you don’t do that right because most people get injured how does that apply into swimming given that there’s no actual impact is that still like kind of a thing um or is it more okay for you to you know kind of some weeks to swim way more than previous weeks or even just jump from you know 2k to 3k in a session how do you see that yeah exactly what you said the the impact is so much lower the one thing you’ve got to be mindful of is is the shoulders and the load on the shoulders especially if your technique isn’t quite there because a lot of people I’ve worked with have had shoulder issues from swimming usually because of something they’re doing in their technique but and then if you load like just load that or put too much volume with that kind of

technique that’s where you can start to have issues but yeah it’s it’s not something that you have to worry about as much although it’s still something that is good to to follow is that progressive overload so when I I’ve done one marathon swim in my life it was to an island over in western Australia it’s called the rottenest channel swim and when I built up for that I just had a spreadsheet of my um of my training and at the bottom I’d just sort of look at the distance of how far I was going and each each week I’d try and build up by

about two to four k I think I started at I probably started at like 12 or 13 k’s and I built up to I think 40 something k’s in the last week so like that that was really helpful to have that gradual you know progressive load um but then for for a lot of people who are doing say distance swimming uh or even Ironman what I try and get them to do is just increase the distance of their long swim each week so let’s say you’re doing an Ironman all right we might want to make our longest session for like four k um eight weeks out 12 weeks out from the race but maybe towards the end we want to get to a session that maybe we’re doing six k’s maybe we’re doing six and a half k’s um so that’s where I’d try and like load it up because you because you could do like maybe at doing five swims a week most people can probably get through three k or four k per session with those five sessions it’s still going to be tough but that

one session a week where we’re increasing the distance that’s what we want to look to gradually increase the most there so that’s how I’d normally approach it if someone’s doing a longer swim that they’re training for that’s quite a long swim like six k I definitely never done that that distance in the pool there’s your challenge it’s um yeah it’s like it is it is long and like depends on what you’re training for you it’s not something that you that you have to do but you might you might surprise yourself with what you’re what you’re capable of like every year before Christmas we do a hundred hundreds and the cycle changes we try and break it into groups of 10 so it’s kind of interesting and I think if most like if you’ve got some swimming under your belt and you’ve got some swim fitness there I think most people if they fuel well and they make sure that they you know have enough nutrition and that kind of thing I think most people can do it not

that it’s going to be that easy but I think it’s people are capable of a lot more than what they expect uh yeah so that’s um that’s what I’ve seen with the hundred hundred you just mentioned fueling I want to quickly jump on on that point how for let’s say I would swim six k session a very long session in a pool how do you recommend fueling before and during the session and after actually so actually in the in the second week of the mildives camp we had a nutritionist speak there so I got a lot out of this talk from from Katie who used to be a new nutritionist and I’ve followed that the last couple of months since the camp and found it really helpful and so what she mentioned there was before a session if you can have a little bit of protein then through the session just making sure you have some electrolytes and then if it’s a session longer than about 75 minutes then you want to make sure that you’re having some sort of carbohydrate

through it but then at the end just making sure you’re replacing well you’re having some protein and carbohydrate and a bit of fat as well afterwards so I mean I would normally swim for about an hour and 15 minutes in the morning so I wouldn’t normally have anything through the session I just have the electrolytes but pretty I always keep some like protein bars and snacks in my bag or in the car for afterwards so one mistake that I made growing up I would train we’d do like a six k session I wouldn’t eat throughout it and then I’d go and coach so this is when I was like 21 I was pretty young and stupid so I’d go and coach for an hour and a half directly after that and I’d only have like a banana and so by the time like I’d be driving home I’d be so hungry because I would have burnt about I don’t know 1500 calories or something and not replaced any of it and so on my way home I’d just be so hungry that I’d either get a six pack of donuts or a full block of

chocolate and eat it in the car on the way and like just so bad and the only reason for that was because I was just like that hungry so yeah it took me such a long time to to figure out nutrition and what you should be doing through the session and directly afterwards and sometimes it’s really tough because there’s so much misinformation out there and well maybe not even I guess misinformation but also just different philosophies of regards to nutrition and and I think to figure out what works for you also takes some time and some practice and some air although for sure the full bar of chocolate afterwards I think that’s probably universal not probably a good one to do but I still sometimes do that actually because I just love chocolate but do you have a particular gel or something that you take during your sessions is it the same brands that are out there for triathlon or is it yeah something different yeah I don’t have a lot of gels because most of my sessions aren’t

like aren’t more than an hour and 15 when I was training for Ironman I was having the hammer nutrition ones but recently I’ve had the oh what’s it called uh no it’s a skate me it’s got like a black packet and it’s got like a yellow red and um anyway I can’t remember what it’s called

yeah it might be precision yeah yeah that’s very popular yeah so I quite like that like that that tastes pretty good it goes down easy and it’s just I think it’s like the plain flavoring I think anything you can sit with stand for a long time is probably going to work for you what do you normally have yeah um we have Morton I don’t you don’t take more than anymore I can handle more I take precision as well uh and I I play around I I don’t want to get too fixed I always change a bit because also I get tired of certain gels at some point like the Morton for example and my stomach didn’t absorb it super well so I like to change and see if it was what’s out there but still I still still feel I haven’t figured nutrition out because when I trained for my Ironman I I realized also a bit in the melodies with this talk with Katie that I was consuming way too much carbs you know I would eat I would go to the bakery buy like a whole focaccia bread

and just eat it and of course you buy this it will make me feel good uh in the moment and but still I was then I started reading more up on nutrition and also because during my race I actually had too much carbs like too much sugar I took during the Ironman so I um the run was horrible and I also had to I had to throw up in the run uh because of too much too much carbs and then I also realized oh it’s it’s really it’s such I mean for Ironman it’s so important nutrition right it’s almost like another discipline so now I’m way more conscious about fueling and how important it is but it’s I still haven’t figured it out I think it’s hard

yeah yeah you live and learn I I had the same thing in my Ironman I went to the shops the day before my event and I saw cliff bars and I’d never had them before and I’m like oh that looks pretty good oh it’s a good amount of energy let me have five of those on the bike and combine that with uh with the coke on the run and yeah I paid the price for that so yeah that was I was young anyways yeah living and learning um cool let’s jump to effortless swimming your company your business a lot of pit listeners don’t know because it really only became super big in the last years but you’ve been doing this for for quite a long time and I’m sure it also evolved a lot from what it when you started to how what it has become now can you share to the listener a bit the what is effortless swimming and how it has evolved over the years yeah so in my last year of university we had the option to either go and work for

another big four accounting firms because I did a bachelor of business entrepreneurship course and you can either go and do a placement at one of the big accounting firms or you can try and start your own business and I had no idea what to what to start but I was coaching at the time and the only thing I knew and had experience in was swimming so I thought I’ll give I’ll give that a try and uh so at the time Sam so friend of mine was uh he was on the Australian team and so I asked him if I could film some videos with him and we’ll put together this course helping people with their freestyle and that’s where it started and initially I didn’t want to be the face of it I didn’t want to like even people even know that I was like kind of not doing this but I didn’t want want me to be involved at all it was just effortless swimming and I think part of that was just like I was thinking who am I who what right have I got to be teaching anyone about swimming like I felt like I had no experience

apart from my own little bit of success but who else is going to who’s going to listen to me so there was some of that in the beginning and I that carried it on for a very long time until I started to get some runs on the board and started to have success with the master’s team I was coaching and I proved myself that I could help people when I started running the clinics and things like that but it took a long time to get that confidence but I think the confidence only comes from actually getting the results you can’t just trick yourself into thinking you know what you’re what you’re doing and so it started it started with that course and then I didn’t really know where I would would go with it but I just stuck with it long enough to like finally see it really take off in the last couple of years but there was a turning point where my wife was we were looking to have a baby and she said look you’re not making

much money at all from this effortless swimming team and you’re not like you’re coaching a squad but you’re like you’re making I don’t know 15 or 20 thousand Australian dollars a year like probably a quarter of a full-time wage with that so like figure it out like you’ve got to make it work or you’ve got to go and get a job and that was about six that was probably like six years into it I think and yeah so I swallowed my pride and then just figured out how to make it work from there so I sort of started to figure out what was working and how I could actually really help people and it was through the online stuff but a lot of the clinics here and then the camps as well so I started running the camps about 10 years ago and we’ve added more locations and started to figure out what’s a good format to follow and that sort of thing so yeah I’ve been going since I think it started in 2008 so whatever that is 16 years or so and yeah and it’s like but there’s been so many times where I’ve

thought of all like this is this is getting tough for you know but I’m glad I stuck stuck with it because it’s just all slowly slowly built up but a lot it’s it’s taken a lot of work and I’ve had a lot of other coaches come up to me and say like oh you know I thought about doing that or like yeah I wanted to do make some content and stuff was like you can make it but you’ve just like it takes a lot of work and you just you’ve got to persist with it and I think a lot of people just give up too soon like if I’d stopped yeah if I’d sort of gone and got a full time job and just stopped effortlessly swimming I would have missed out on on a lot and I think I was like right on the edge of being like of that turning point almost so yeah it’s um it’s been a fun fun ride and I’m just I’m so glad I stuck with it because like the people I’ve met have been amazing the the things I’ve got to do I’m really pleased with uh I just yeah I

couldn’t have envisioned what it sort of would have turned out like but the funny thing was when I first started the business I was 21 and like when you’re 21 you’ve really got no idea about the world and you think I don’t know things happen really quick and I thought yeah within 12 months like I’m gonna like I’m gonna be going so well with this business and it took probably 10 years to get to the point where I thought I’d be when I first started yeah that’s that’s just being young and not really knowing how things and how things work but yeah yeah I’m glad I stuck with it yeah it’s a thing of entrepreneurship right it’s it’s often romanticized as you start and then you’re immediately successful and it’s going to be all this amazing journey but actually it’s a lot of determination continuing when it’s not that it doesn’t look that good it’s not that rosy and then you know we all see the outcome of effortless swimming now is you’re

like how big it is and you kind of think oh it’s been like uh even as an outsider it’s been like a smooth path but it’s uh when you hear also from you it’s not that linear and it’s amazing that you stick to it and we all get to enjoy this amazing content now yeah for sure it’s very inspiring you mentioned these things to us when we are at the camp and I remember going back to the room and just talking to Fabi and being like yeah we gotta continue our podcast you know and just keep going on the journey because as you said I think it’s a lot of just persistence and determination and then with time I think you know strategy is also important make sure you’re going the right way but a lot of times it’s just keep going even when it doesn’t seem like things are particularly going well you know yeah totally and like a few things that have helped that have helped me in my time running effortless swimming one thing is being I’ve had the same

business coach since I pretty much since I started he’s been with me for 15 years now I think so just having someone to bounce ideas off and get advice from like having a sports coach a swimming or running coach that’s made a huge difference and I don’t think like I certainly wouldn’t be where I’m at now without his help and his guides and the other one is like the things that I’ve done have led to different like say like I started my podcast maybe I don’t know 10 or 12 years ago and the YouTube channel a long time ago as well and you kind of don’t know where it’s gonna gonna lead and sometimes it’s just been like one post on Instagram or one video or one one podcast that’s like that’s really taking the business in a different direction in a positive direction but you don’t know when what like what that’s going to be or which one it’s going to be so it’s just about taking a lot of taking a lot of shots like one of the things

that really sort of took the business took off with was that video of Dan Smith it’s like one swimming 110 sorry 100 freestyle in a minute 10 but it looks like he’s going at two minute pace there’s that one video we posted on YouTube a couple years back and like that was one point where like just that really spread they go went viral on on YouTube and so many people saw it

the way he makes that speed of 110 look it’s just it doesn’t seem real like it just doesn’t look like he’s actually going at that pace it just looks like he’s doing half of that pace and so I think like you know it’s a good title it’s a good thumbnail and then it like it delivers on the promise and it was just quite unique at the time I think so that was part of it but then there’s been a few other things like that that have happened along the way that’s sort of helped kind of get the business get the business going so um yeah it’s just had to take a lot of work to to get there and same with like with the camp so the first camp I ran was about 10 years ago and the only reason it started was because a friend of mine was working at a sports resort in Thailand and he said why don’t you bring a group over and I thought yeah I’d love to but like I don’t know who’s going to want to come along so I I booked some rooms I booked like I don’t know 12 rooms or 15 rooms

and I put it out there to the swim as I was coaching at the master’s squat and the um like my small email my small sort of database of people through effortless swimming and we managed to pretty much fill that camp I think we had 15 or 18 swimmers there or something like that and that like that kicked it off and then that’s just led to like other camps overseas and that becoming a something that we do every year and like I just love doing it and it’s become something that we’ve grown over time so it’s just like this one idea or one person like that’s what’s really taking things in a different direction so yeah and you often don’t know which which component that’s going to be um yeah and and Brandon so with effortless swimming you have of course your youtube channel your podcast you have the clinics that you mentioned the camps you also have like the whole effortless swimming uh membership which I have um what do you

consider as like your main business actually is it the online stuff is it the in person stuff like how do you see the whole ecosystem that you put together in terms of like um the different ways you could look at it it could be like yeah how many people we’ve gotten each thing or revenue wise and stuff like that but it’s all like the online components the biggest part of our business um like we have uh I don’t know like probably we’ve got tens of thousands of customers with our courses um that’s amazing and membership included in there so like that’s a really big part of it but then the clinics here in Australia um they fill up a lot from word of mouth and I’ve run those for 12 plus years I think oh no maybe 12 years or so so like that in person stuff I think is really invaluable because obviously the connection you get in person like like we get at the camp it’s hard to go past it so I think they all sort of feed feed each other and for me

just to keep saying in my coaching I need both like I can’t just be online I can’t just be in person I need for me I need both and there’s a I don’t know if you’ve read this book it’s called uh it’s called hell hell yeah or nah by Derek Sivers I think that’s the name of it um and he’s got this very short article in there or it’s even like a page and it’s basically says like you you’re either like like local or international or or sort of a mix of both and I haven’t said that well but basically he said like he moved to this small town and he thought all right I really want to be involved in this community so like we’ll do all this community stuff and get to know people and that was really good but what he was missing was that part where he could sort of share his knowledge and he could impart the things that he’s learnt to a bigger audience so he really needed both so and I resonated a lot with that article because I love to be able to put these like

YouTube videos out put podcasts out reach a lot of people but then I also like to work in these small groups at camps and stuff like that so for me I’ve learnt that I need to have both of those things to kind of be not satisfied but you know to kind of get my fix with the with the coaching yeah that’s really cool and uh yeah I think it’s it’s really nice to see how effortless like what it what it has been come and we’re both huge huge fan and yeah excited to see what’s coming in the future and speaking about the future what do you think are future plans for effortless swimming do you have some something some new things in mind like maybe camp in Europe or what are your plans asking for a friend

it’s on the whiteboard it’s uh it’s uh what to say uh well it says yeah book book the the best centre or just like yeah I need a book at camp in uh yeah in Europe so that’s kind of the next thing on the on the list and and in terms of like yeah with the with the business I mean I like to be sustainable with things I’ve seen a lot of people just go too hard too fast with the things that they do and they just can’t maintain it and so I think the reason I’ve been able to go for 18 years is because it’s just very steady and and manageable so I like I want to add a camp in Europe um and then a few other things that I’m working on but nothing too nothing too crazy that would mean I can’t can’t do it forever cool we’re definitely going to be there in in the look for a team camp very sure I’m curious about the swimming swimming as a whole as a sport um but like zooming out high level how do you think swimming has changed over the past year and is evolving to you feel there has been changes

in the sport do you feel like it’s been the same all the time or what’s about your take on swimming as a whole as a sport so when I was a teenager we would do uh like a gym program that my dad who was a coach had set up and he just read some things from some books and it was like some dumbbells over here we’ll do some you know some seated rows and like it was a very ad hoc approach to it and when I look at the times that like my the people in my age group were doing at you know the national level compared to today like the kids are just so much faster and I think the like the knowledge is a big one and just the specificity of the training and it’s become a lot more about doing the right things and not just doing more so yeah I think that’s what I’ve seen change the most over the last you know 20 plus years is uh people the things that people are doing are just much more specific and they’ve got the technology to help with

the tech technique as well in terms of video analysis and that sort of stuff as well so that’s what I’ve seen change change the most is um is that like we just never we didn’t didn’t have youtube back then so we just didn’t know what was what was out there but so much yeah so much good content that you can just pick up a lot no matter where you are in the world yeah yeah and I can imagine that video now is really uh really changed things too as well right because yeah if you didn’t really didn’t really have underwater cameras how would you know how you’re swimming and I think that’s one of the biggest blockers we used to have a guy come in in a scuba like wetsuit scuba scuba tank and this big bulky camera and he would sit on the bottom of the pool and film us and then we’d look at it on this grainy tv screen and he’s like yep uh like I and I can’t remember a thing from it like I just don’t think I benefited

at all because we didn’t really have anyone to compare it to and like couldn’t really see very clearly at all so that’s a little fun yeah but um amazing and I mean also at the top level right you still see records being broken and I mean all the time right there was the Michael Phelps era and you thought oh my god this was like exceptional and now all his records are broken almost so it’s crazy what’s also happening there well and even with like the super suit era was 2009 there was the world championships in it was Italy in 2009 and something like 29 of the 32 world records got broken at this meet because they had the super suits and it’s just like oh like this is this is crazy and then I think the next year they got rid of them but most of those records have actually been broken there’s very few remaining records so which is incredible like that that people are swimming faster than they did with these like latex suits that set you so high in the water and

like just had no friction whatsoever so yeah it’s pretty amazing what people are what the swimmers are doing these days so nice to to see how it’s going to change in the future okay so let’s go to the last part of questions it’s on fire questions for you very quick and there’s only one short answer possible and let me start with the first one are you ready all right I’m ready

so favorite stroke freestyle uh what’s your least favorite stroke butterfly no Sam wouldn’t be happy I just can’t do it uh open water or pool oh pool nice but like a painful answer so it’s too hard to give one it’s like it depends but I’ll I’ll say pool because that’s what I swim in the most um breathing left or breathing right left a most memorable race uh 400 I am as a 15 year old I visualized this race like for 12 months and I pretty much at the time I visualized 12 months later whoa nice um what’s your fastest time for one and a half k uh 17 something 17 20 I think it might be wow super fast uh what’s the what’s that pace for the 100 meter there might be one uh one oh 12 it might have been like 109s I think amazing one day I’ve never hit the face even when I do sprinting uh favorite pool you’ve ever swam in Andrew Boyd Charlton in Sydney right on the water um right near the city it’s just like just beautiful spot to swim um how about

the best place you’ve ever been for open water swimming or like your favorite spots for open water yeah all right the oh it’s so hard the Galapagos was pretty incredible so I’ll say that and then in Australia um I love swimming at Nusa the yeah their spot in Australia I reckon nice the triathlon and hot spot yes yeah and what’s your maybe what you already answered that in the previous question but what’s your favorite effortless swimming camp that’s different from the previous question yeah and there’s only one right answer is it the melodas Galapagos or Thailand any camp that you’re on all right I thought oh that’s so loaded that question the money you got off well nice that’s that was smart cool that was it thank you so much Brenton for joining our podcast today was really really interesting diving into the technicalities of swimming thank you so much for joining my pleasure thank you I appreciate you have me on and um

and love the work that you’re doing and it was was great to meet you in the metal dives and hopefully in Europe next year if I can get my stuff organized so um yeah I appreciate you have me on thank you so much it was a pleasure thank you thanks for listening to the effortless swimming podcast if you’d like us to help you become a faster more efficient swimmer go to www.effortlesswimming.com

The post How Anyone Can Become A Great Swimmer with Brenton Ford appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

Have you ever felt like you know what to do, but you’re just not sure how to make it happen? Whether you’re an athlete looking to unlock better performance or a coach wanting to make lasting impact. Today’s episode is for you. Our guest is Nick Winkelman, author of The Language of Coaching, a groundbreaking book on how the right words can transform how you move.

Train and perform. Nick has worked with elite athletes and coaches around the world. And today he’s sharing the secrets of using cues, analogies, and storytelling to spark real lasting change. In this episode, we’ll cover how the words you hear or tell yourself can supercharge your improvement. Why using the right cues can make your stroke smoother, your technique sharper, and your training more effective, and the power of storytelling to break down barriers, shift mindsets, and help find your edge.

And it’s not just for coaches. This is about understanding your own journey. Nick’s insights will help you spot what’s holding you back and how to focus your energy where it really counts. Whether you’re looking to shave seconds off your swim, find more confidence in the way that you’re moving or performing, or learn to enjoy the process of getting better.

This episode is packed with a heap of takeaways that you can use in the pool and beyond.

02:16 The Start Of Language of Coaching

Get in touch with Nick

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

Change your technique and swim a smoother, easier freestyle with the Effortless Swimming membership:

In terms of, of when to say it, if we go through the technical piece, I give you the cue and let’s say, you know, you’re doing a full length of the pool and you do a few repetitions and then you come back, especially if I’m giving a cue early on, I just want to check and challenge early on just to make sure I don’t let anything run on with the athlete that might be misinterpreted or unproductive. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that helped swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Have you ever felt like you know what to do, but you’re just not sure how to make it happen. Whether you’re an athlete looking to unlock better performance or a coach wanting to make lasting impact, today’s episode is for you. Our guest is Nick Winkelman, author of The Language of Coaching, a ground breaking book on how the right words can transform how you move, train

and perform. Nick has worked with elite athletes and coaches around the world and today he’s showing the secrets of using cues, analogies and storytelling to spark real lasting change. In this episode, we’ll cover how the words you hear or tell yourself can supercharge your improvement while using the right cues can make your stroke smoother, your technique sharper and your training more effective and the power of storytelling to break down barriers, shift mindsets and help find your edge. And it’s not just for coaches, this is about understanding your own journey. Nick’s insights will help you spot what’s holding you back and how to focus your energy where it really counts. Whether you’re looking to shave seconds off your swim, find more confidence in the way that you’re moving or performing or learn to enjoy the process of getting better. This episode is packed with a heap of takeaways that you can use

in the pool and beyond. Alright, Nick, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me on here. It’s been hard to organize the right time zones here with you being in Ireland, me being in Australia, but we managed to make it work. So I appreciate you finding the time. Yeah, well, hopefully the lack of the effort it’s taken to do this is in contrast to the effortless swimming, which is the namesake of this podcast. So hopefully make it good here. Well, I wanted to start with where does the interest for you in the language of coaching? Where does that start for you? What sparked your interest in it? You know, I’ve you go back and you look at a lot of different things. I think I’ve always I’ve always had an interest in language and communication and connection. My mom would have said I talked too much as a kid. So maybe that’s where it started. I think I think when it came to coaching, I had an early an early experience with

you can call him a mentor. And he was he was just a personal trainer. And I was I was learning to get my my early cut my teeth doing personal training myself on my way to being a strength coach. And I would I would shadow him. And it was interesting at the time, you know, I’m just I’m taking everything on board. I’m learning about strength training methodology and movement and all the things that kind of go into developing the body. I’m in school at the time. And I remember watching him. And at the time, what stood out is the programming, you know, he would do bench press on Monday, he would do biceps and triceps at the end of the work. He would do all the same normal things programmatically as the other coaches as the other trainers I would see. But he seemed to use language differently. He seemed to really be intentional. And he was a funny guy. And, you know, he would he would make a lot of jokes. But he

was very purposeful in the moment before the movement in saying one thing, and really encouraging the client, the athlete, whoever to focus on that. Something about that moment, that was, you know, gosh, I was probably 2001 2002. Around the time I was doing that, it stood out it stood out to me. And as I progressed through my career, I think that just kind of stood in the background. And as methodology and biomechanics and all the core sciences, theologies that we learn in human performance, started to become standard operating. In terms of my experience level, I found myself saying what’s next, looking for what’s next. And it kept coming back to coaching, and language and how we communicate. And what was funny is when I would ask coaches now we’re talking, you know, 2007 2009, hey, how do you get better at coaching that kind of would look at me so I like what do you mean, which I thought was interesting by itself that there wasn’t a

common understanding of what that question even means. And well, gosh, you know, you read books on strength training on methodology on program design, like no, no, no, no, not about you know, what to do about how to do it. And again, I get this puzzled look, I’m like, literally, you stand in front of people and you talk all day long, how do you get better at that? Like, oh, okay. Well, that’s the art of coaching. Yeah, you just got to practice, you know, there’s no science there. And I wasn’t, I wasn’t satisfied with that. I felt there was and as it turns out there is and hopefully we can talk a bit about that. It’s that’s so interesting. My when I was 19, 20 years of age, my dad said, there’s this guy that I’ve gone to see. He’s a he teaches teachers how to teach. And he’s seen him years ago, like a decade before this. And so he said, like, go to New Zealand where he’s doing this talk, his name’s Rich Allen,

and just go to this three day course and see what you think. And that course was just struck like a light bulb just turned on. And I was like, wow, okay, now I’ve really see what coaching is about. And some of the things that he talked about at that course was similar to some of the things that you talk about in your in your book with cues, using stories, analogies, and it just like it just opened my mind up to what’s possible and how to coach. And it sounds like a very sort of similar realization that like, yes, you got the science, you got the technical things that we all generally know about. But the art of it is is what is I think is really interesting. What were some of the the early things that you started to pick up and take on board and learn in your coaching career? Yeah, so I’ll never forget it was like a lightning bolt hit me when the realization that this was important to smack me in the face. And I was I was coaching probably 10 10 American

football players at the time, preparing them for the NFL Combine. And you can kind of imagine I’m standing on the side of a track. And we’re just doing a basic acceleration warmup. So we’re doing our marching or skipping patterns, dry land type type work for probably many of your listeners. And I have, you know, 10 of them out there. And I all of a sudden just have this this sense, this out of body sense, like I’m watching myself coach, I’m observing myself coach in real time. And I was listening. And I was like, wow, I’m saying, I’m saying a lot of things. I’m talking about, you know, put your drive your knees up, push the ground away, stay tall. And I’m feeling myself with this, you know, I’m saying all these great things, I’m checking all the biomechanical boxes, everything, you know, my interns are getting carpal tunnel, writing down notes of everything. I’m saying this is great. And I’m like, who am I talking to? All of them are moving

simultaneous. I’m yelling out more things that even if they were going one at a time, that any of them could focus on. And even if what I’m saying is accurate, they couldn’t focus all on on at all at the same time, even if they could, I don’t know which things are working and which things aren’t. And so I realized I had no mechanism to really understand the direct as best anyone can impact of what I said, how I said it when I said it on their learning process. Granted, you know, the physical work itself, the physical act of practicing any skill does most of the heavy lifting. We know this. So athletes, especially ones earlier on in their development, are going to get better just by doing activities, independent, or maybe even in many cases, despite the coach. And so I really wanted to tune in to how my role was actually making an impact beyond just designing an environment. And so it was in that moment that I

started to get curious about what to say, when to say it, how to say it. We all know that the same message delivered with a different tone, a different energy, a different way of words either directly, indirectly with story or not changes the feel, even if the core message is the same. And so that whole space just kind of exploded into me. Now, still, if you were to come watch me coach and I have 10 people out there on the field doing marching and skipping. Yes, I’m actually still talking most of the time. But now I realize a lot of what I’m saying is to energize the group for crowd control. I don’t necessarily associate setting a vibe setting a feel and yes, that has an impact. But I’m able to dissociate that from what I’m trying to communicate in a moment to actually make a meaningful change in a movement. In those cases, instead of everybody going together, I might waterfall start them and have them go one at a time, give me myself an opportunity to

say maybe one little sound bite to each. And so ultimately, I started to come into contact with I like music. So if you think of kind of like a DJ soundboard, I started to understand what are the dials to dial in my coaching, to really meet that person where they’re at in that moment to make the most impactful change. I love it. Let’s let’s dig into some of those things that the what the how the why so in terms of cues, you’ve got internal external cues. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between the two and when when to use the different kinds? Yeah. So, so let’s do a few let’s do a few definitions because I think when when you talk about anything what you omit at times people think you are bi omitting it implicitly saying it’s not important. And so let’s go ahead and name a few things outright. We’re talking about communication. It is a huge space. We can’t cover it all. And so the way I like to

think about communication when it comes to coaching is we have our interpersonal communication skills kind of what you and I are doing right now, right? We’re connecting. We’re getting to know we influence motivation. We are extracting information about a person. We’re sharing information about ourselves. Right? It’s it’s it’s the humanistic side of interpersonal communication. Many many courses and books on that. We’re and it’s critically important and everything we’re going to talk about depends at least in part on being an effective communicator generally. What we’re going to specifically focus in on you and I is what I refer to as movement communication. How I use language to specifically communicate to an athlete how to move better. And so that’s where we’re going to focus our time. And so when we look at movement communication then we’re talking about the specific things that we can say influence a movement pattern

and we’re targeting even within that more specifically the moment before the movement. The thing that we’re offering the athlete to think about while they move such that we have the hope that they’ll not only move better in the moment but through the process of understanding the moving better in the moment that will help them learn and transfer those skills to whatever the task is. Whether it be swimming, biking, running, or in my case rugby at present. And so within there this idea of a coaching queue as you rightly say Brenton is I like to think of it as a continuum and it’s a continuum in that I’m trying to have them approach the movement through a lens. So think of it just like you’re going to get glasses you’re trying to give them the right prescription. The right lens with which to look at, feel, examine, and execute the movement. And so you’re right the words oftentimes used here are internal queues and external queues. I like to use a bit of a

thought experiment to explain those and then we can unpack them. And so the thought experiment goes something like this. Imagine you’re you’re in Las Vegas and you walk into a casino and you see this big sign you know let’s make a bet athletic version like okay this is interesting I’m an athlete. You walk in you see a you know a 20 meter track to your right you see an attendant on the left. You walk up to the attendant you’re like what’s this about it’s like very very simple. We have a card here with three queues we’ll call it a queue card and you’re going to read each of these queues and you’re simply going to make a bet on which queue if focused on is going to allow you to run the fastest 10 meter time. You’re like okay I used to do a bit of running in my day I’m going to give this a go. And so you read the first queue and the first queue says okay when you’re sprinting focus on rapidly extending your hips. Folks on rapidly extending your hips so

you’re kind of closing your eyes you’re imagining okay what would that be like you know line up on on the line you’re in a two or a three point start folks on rapidly extending your hips okay how how fast is that going to let me be okay when you read the next queue focus on rapidly pushing the ground away right okay those are kind of similar but then when you start to notice it in your body they do land differently folks on rapidly pushing the ground away. Now I’m sure Breton for you and the listeners you already have one that you didn’t choose it shows you and I think that’s an important thing already to say and if you choose as you you can’t forcibly make yourself like one thing over another you know if you like apple pie over cherry pie you can’t all of a sudden force of will of nature your nervous system to say no I’m going to go with cherry pie no it picks you but then there’s one more and you read the final one fitting for

an Australian audience and that is imagine there is a rattlesnake right behind you beat the bite beat the bite or maybe maybe a brown if we want to add the venom level up and so we have we have three different queues that point at the same thing a b and c so Breton for you which one if you were the one making that bet do you think allows you to run the fastest 10 meters that would be it probably be the third one the third one so most people the vast majority nine out of ten are going to select c in that example if I then said c was gone and you can only select a or b which one do you choose b b okay and so I have I’ve unpublished data we did this with over a hundred athletes or over a hundred college students half of which were athletes half of which were not and we gave them kind of those scenarios and we see just intuitively systematically people choose answers that are more in line with the b and the c so so what’s the difference well the the a example folks on

rapidly extending your hips right it is what we refer to as an internal focus it’s because you are focusing on something internal to your body inside your body so that’s limbs it’s joints it’s muscles typically biomechanical speech that describes what a pattern should be the second you leave the perimeter of the body and we say things like drive the ground back or beat the bite all of a sudden now we’re not asking anyone part of the body to do the heavy lifting we’re treating the body once again as a whole symphony as a oneness and we’re giving it a singular attentional focus which in this case is outside the body so we refer to it as external the third example with the the snake is technically an analogy it’s figurative right it’s moved as if a snake was there even though a snake is not literally there so I oftentimes refer to that as a figurative external cue it’s still external in the way you are mentally orienting yourself

is in terms of something outside of you even if it is not literally there and as I’m sure you and I will get into not only do we find intuitively we’re pointed to external cues and analogies we’re emotionally interested and find it more memorable when it’s an external cue and specifically an analogy but also when we go to the evidence our intuition is not betrayed we would see that objectively those states of mind also tend to result in better movement performance across a whole domain of measures that we can get wow that’s very interesting and so is there ever a time there that you would use an internal cue with someone so this is the this is the big this is the big question everybody wants to know you know so listen any coach knows that you will use a whole host of of language when when you coach my big thing is moving your coaching effectiveness from chance to choice it’s knowing the impact of your language

it’s having the mechanisms to see it reflected accurately in your athletes performance and knowing how to use that as a feedback loop to update and course correct the way you you teach and so when we look at that I’m going to say categorically here it’s an and not an or okay we do not need to kick internal cues off the block okay they can they can stay in the house the key thing is to understand the difference between internal language and external language in terms of the impact it has on a movement and so to do that I always like to to present this back when I’m when I’m when I’m answering this question so Bretton for you have you ever had the experience as a coach or as an athlete where you hear or have said the following I know what to do I just don’t know how to do it yes yes okay it’s the perennial problem it’s the perennial problem for athletes now I don’t know the level you work with or your audience work with but for me for the most part I’ve worked with

professional and elite level athletes but I also coach my my children’s sports team so I get to work with that level as well and what I find especially at the elite level and it’s no different at the younger levels is these individuals don’t have a lack of understanding of what needs to change in terms of skill execution and especially that the sports right you know the swim the bike in the run these are highly technical biomechanically predictable patterns of movement and yes there is individual variation but ultimately swimming looks like swimming running looks like running cycling looks like cycling within a very fixed bandwidth and so what we find then is internal language tends to be our go-to currency when we describe biomechanics right this needs to be there this needs to be there so on and so forth this amount of flexion this amount of rotation at this time point before the water through the water on exit so on and so forth brilliant

so internal language describes what should happen but Bretton where oftentimes fails is it does not lend itself to the energy flow and dynamic nature of movement so it tends to fall short in explaining how to do something now granted with an elite athlete or an athlete that’s very in tune with their body you might be able to say hey you need a little bit more elbow flexion and they can go ahead and solve that but for me that tends to be the exception not the rule and that’s not not the the check I want to cash at the bank it’s going to bounce as often as it gets cashed in and so if I want a more dependable mechanism that’s where external cues start to come in and so forgive me because I’m not a swimming coach I don’t want to falsely try to use those examples so let me stick with the running sprinting example hopefully people can relate to it if I say something like I want you to rapidly extend your hips it’s not a misstatement I do

what athletes when they run fast do rapidly extend their hips so that in itself is not false the challenge is if all I think about is just extending my hips it’s like going to a symphony and having the volume turned up on the flute section higher than all the other instruments it’s just not going to sound good it’s not going to harmonize and so this is why I like the idea of a symphony and the fact that what does a symphony require requires a conductor and that conductor is a singular point of focus for all of the instruments to bring a harmony and oneness that gives this experience whereby right the sum total is greater if you would than the sum of the parts same thing for the body and so now when I bring your attention to push the ground away it allows the entire joint muscular network to work together as it should it needs to to achieve that outcome and so ultimately that results in something being more

effective and so long-winded but it’s important to take people I think on the journey to understand how we arrive here if I’m working with an athlete especially if I’m trying to make a change to something and especially if this is an athlete an elite athlete understands a lot about their body I’m going to respect them and say hey this is what we’re looking to change and it usually is going to be using internal language now I’ll have the dot dot dot to do that to do that I want you to put on these pair of glasses I want you to focus in this way and that’s where I’ll introduce the right external cue push the ground away or the right analogy beat the bite and just systematically do that as I identify errors and I look to correct and ultimately course correct them what I really like about that is that I find a lot of the athletes I work with they want to they want to understand because I work with a lot of intermediate level athletes maybe people have been

swimming for one two three years they don’t have a lot of experience that’s probably the majority of who I work with and they want to understand the what to do let’s say we’re talking about rotation perhaps they’re over rotating as an example and we sort of show them this is how much we need to rotate side to side so that that’s helpful but then giving having the cue the so that okay this is what we want to do but so that we can do that we need to have this in mind this cue this analogy whatever it might be so I find that a really good good approach and my next question there is particularly with these elite athletes like you’ve got the analogy that you’ve you’ve got for them how often are you repeating that to them like it’s at is it a multiple times per session is it like a once a week like obviously it’s going to change but of course and and going back to my mentors this is this Britain is where the art then

comes in and it’s art because there is no objective consistent universal answer right there there’s always an answer but that answer can only be born out of the context that you’re in and so for me I like that I like the term you know what’s what’s your what’s your heuristic what’s your cheat code what’s your shortcut to figure out you know to speak or not to speak to coach or not to coach that’s what we’re asking here and for me in a very pragmatic way is the queue continuing to work without having to repeat it you know and the power of observation comes in here so you know I’m working with you on a skill we code we define it you understand okay this is technically what we’re looking to change and let’s just say Brent not everybody needs the the internal technical description you absolutely have some people that want it but I’ll be honest if if they’re not overly attached to understanding everything inside the under the hood of the bonnet

you know then I’m not going to flood their mind with unnecessary information the ironic thing is when we’re on a podcast we’re talking a lot but the actual expression of what we’re talking about brevity needs to be your best friend it literally is saying the most with with the least because we know that our attention is like a funnel right and it can only handle or a spotlight there’s many analogies for this it can only handle so much information at once and so with the best will in the world and the best intention we can oftentimes author what we’re trying to avoid by giving too much information so we’re trying to give we’re just trying to give the right amount to the athlete and so in that regard I think that’s just an important thing to recognize as a coach that how much we say is critically important in terms of of when to say it if we go through the technical piece I give you the cue and let’s say you know you’re doing a full length of the pool

and you do a few repetitions and then you come back especially if I’m giving a cue early on I just want to check and challenge early on just to make sure I don’t let anything run on with the athlete that might be misinterpreted or unproductive and so I give the cue understand it yep I might have them repeat it back to me what does it mean to you how does that feel depends on how elite they are right how experienced they are there’s a bit of dialogue and then they go do it and now I watch when I watch I’m this is where your coaching experience your biomechanical eye matters I’m looking to get a sense is the cue assuming they’re focusing on it which is which always is an assumption is it working you know you use the example of of rotation am I getting the lift I want out of the water am I getting the extension I want through the push in the run am I am I getting the power you know or the body position on the bike whatever it might be

and if I feel yeah I’m getting some of the change I’m getting some of the essence that I want then I’m gonna have the athlete say how did that feel to you so I observed the outcome I want to know what what the lived experience of expressing that was like for them did they feel a change they either say yes I did no I didn’t or I’m not sure and you get a lot of I’m not sure okay and if I get an I’m not sure did it feel bad like no it didn’t feel bad felt different I was okay difference okay difference okay you know what I saw is looked like we’re getting a bit more lift what do you think about giving it another go for a few more reps yeah let’s give it a go perfect and then I might let that then once I’ve done the check and challenge I’m going through what I’m referring to here I talk about as a coaching communication so Q do debrief Q do debrief I you know we queue or we coat we co-create the Q they do it and then we debrief when we’re debriefing

I’m trying to figure out one of three things which is what I just described that do I repeat the Q do I refine it which means I just tweak the language a little bit maybe from an external Q I go to an analogy or I go from an analogy to an external Q whatever or do I retire it you retire a Q if it’s kind of like the peanuts walk walk walk from the parents they just hurt it too many times lacks its potency or it backfired it did not work it made them worse or didn’t give them a good vibe a good feeling it just wasn’t a healthy mental state for them to execute and we just go through that cycle again and again and so I take early on I probably give them multiple boosters of the Q just to make sure it lands that we get the right dose and then once the dose feels to be at the right level and you tweak it a little bit just like if you’re going to a doctor then we let it we let it ride and we and we watch it and we just check in

every so often and again if you’re working with a group versus one-on-one these things are going to change the biggest cheat code is and it sounds simple is it working is it are you connecting what you said in the intended change that’s meant to be the echo of what you said is it actually happening if it’s not then skillfully figure out a way to come up with the next best Q you know or the next best drill or both to start to institute the change or recognize that hey maybe this thing isn’t changing because it’s not subject to being changed by coaching language you know no q can magically give you more hip or shoulder mobility no q can magically make you exponentially stronger right so if you have a physical impediment to progress this is me putting my strength coach hat on then i need to get those speed bumps those barriers out of the road and so it’s not trivial that actually really effective intentional connected

coaching in the absence of its effectiveness when you’re going through a process like we’re describing it actually can inevitably point to actually the solution might not be available to me directly in the pool or directly on the track there might be additional work i need to do over here which is why having a sound physical program and assessment program at times is is the best friend of a coach that happens a lot in swimming they’re just like overhead range is a big one and the catch this movement here is just as you know a lot of adults can be very stiff through through there through thoracic spine as well so yeah that’s that’s a really important part of it the other thing then is like how do you like keeping the the mental i guess the mindset of the athlete like how do you sort of keep them at that level where they’re not getting down on themselves so let’s say you were trying to q you’re working on a few different things but it’s just not clicking like if

you ever have one of those sessions where nothing seems to stick and the athletes just getting maybe down on themselves like is this ever going to change what do you do there and when’s a good time to to give like the feedback and give that positive reinforcement again where i think we’re starting to venture into the in the art side of it and i say that because you have for one you have people who have different if you want to call personality if you want to call it learning preference all of these characteristics right vary across individuals for anyone who’s coached knows that oftentimes the same you know three different athletes who have a similar error you might need to have three slightly different approaches you’re not not catastrophically different but slightly different approaches to to get the same point across so that’s one thing to say but then we’re also variable creatures from day to day we rock into a session we’re

tired we didn’t eat enough food whatever it might be interacts then with our personality with our learning preferences and so the amalgamation of that is what we see on a day to day basis and some athletes some individuals are very stable and you know what you see is what you get all the time and then we have others that are all over the shop and then everything in between you know one of my favorite quotes is you never step in the same river twice finally you never meet the same person twice even moment to as you said a session could start well they get frustrated and they lose the plot we see that with some athletes who they they can go high high and low low and back again in the same session so we have all these different individuals that we’re working with and sometimes the different individuals are the same individual how do you deal how do you deal with that I like to refer to this generally as what is what kind of learning mood

what kind of learning mood is my athlete in today I only recently came up with that because you know people type of learning styles which is a bit of a misnomer learning styles suggest that you preferentially learn better one way over the other it’s just simply not factual which is a surprise to a lot of people what it what’s more correct to say or what is more accurate would be learning preferences meaning you tend to more readily deploy attention in a complete manner when information is presented visually or analytically or experientially it’s not that you can’t learn in the other ways especially if those other ways are made to be more effective so someone who says I just like to experience things if they’ve only ever had very analytical coaches in the way they communicate let’s say a lot of technical information a lot of internal queuing that athlete might say oh I prefer just to do it well they prefer to do it because they actually didn’t understand or like the

way the person was verbalizing information if they then meet someone who uses a lot of analogy a lot of what I would refer to as verbal demonstration when you give analogy it’s very easy to visualize and feel what that visualization would be like as if I did it and all of a sudden the experiential athlete says oh actually I don’t mind being coached I don’t mind hearing language he’s just I was you know I was eating cherry pie and I wanted apple pie okay and so now I got the apple pie now okay I can learn this way so it’s all to say that people can learn through varied mechanisms and so on a day-to-day basis if you come to me and you are highly anxious you know you’re just you just and you just want to move you just got to get into it I can I can tell that your patience for information and thoughtful discourse is not going to be high today then likely in those sessions I’m going to get you moving and I’m going to coach on the fly I’m going to coach on the fly using

simple language I’m going to use languages more energetic push push drive snap let’s get long single words high high or right energy I should say and I’m going to keep you going and I’m going to try to build the plane in flight and I’m going to energetically match you if you seem to be in a place where you have the space and we’re trying to make a technical change then again I might introduce a little timeout so like when I’m coaching my daughter’s basketball team I took 30 second timeout so I’m already pre-qualifying it’s going to be short 30 second timeout boom boom boom boom boom okay we’re back into it so even how I frame that we’re going to pause and we’re going to talk about things it’s as best I can in a sporting context it puts boundaries on how much I’m going to say and it allows them to know that hey I’m going to have to only focus my attention for a short window of time and then I’m going to get back at it

and so if you’re to come watch me coach I use very tactics and it’s very felt because even in the session I might feel that hey I have their attention I’m going to I’m going to say a few things we’re going to try a few things but then as the session goes on I wanted to become more active more coach on the fly and it doesn’t mean that I’m not being purposeful and intentional but if I’m coaching on the fly I can’t use a lot of detailed information so that the coaching tactics I use when we’re in flow if I was on the side of the pool and they’re actively swimming I can still coach while they’re moving but what I’m saying and how I’m saying it is very different than if they’re on the pool’s edge and I’m going through a few things where we’re trying to make robust technical changes usually if they’re in motion I’m just tweaking the dials on my on my soundboard here right I’m not I’m not trying to put in a new track

I’m not trying to play a different song I’m not trying to give a different cue I’m using things they’re familiar with and making slight modifications that are not intentionally demanding it’s one of the things that you also mentioned the book and you sort of referred to a bit here is the storytelling aspects and one of the ways I’ve had to I’ve found that I can get across to my kids to get them to listen to me anything to do with swimming or even just other things it’s like I say I talk about a different person said this so there’s I’ve got a friend of mine who’s a swim coach and I said his nickname is Big Sam I said Big Sam said and they know he’s a good swim owner good coach I said Big Sam said that if you do this certain movement in freestyle that like that’s what all the fastest swimmers do and then it’s not me telling them what to do because I can not get them to listen to me when it comes to swimming so

just even like that like that is a bit of a story or something that someone else has said sort of takes it away from them being told what to do and I really like that because then they can sort of derive the meaning from that story what they want and it’s not me saying you need to do this so what have you found with with storytelling if you found a similar thing where it’s like people can they sort of take a step back and those barriers or those walls go down and it just allows them to sort of take on maybe a new way of thinking about something or a new approach with whatever you’re trying to teach yeah I think a good a good story allows you to find the meaning in the story right it isn’t necessarily or the moral of the story it’s not necessarily directly stated it’s it’s indirect and therefore a story is like a present that you get to unwrap as it unfolds and only you then get to and so there’s this sense that

even though you told the story they are the one that has the aha moment and that has this sense of curiosity and learning and learning is what learning is a gift if we think about it it is a gift because to learn something means I have something that a moment prior or a day prior or a week prior I did not and so in quite a literal sense it is an offered gift and what a story does a good story has the gift of the aha of I get it I see that and because I found it there is a sense of ownership of autonomy if not possession and that I now possess the secret that was told in this story and in doing that it feels I think good coaches are stewards their servants and their gift givers and the gift is the opportunity to extract the learning because we can’t forcibly right you can bring a horse to water you can’t make him drink but you can put salt in the oats that’s what we’re doing i’m putting salt in the oats

what we’re trying to create offers that encourage certain behaviors but we can’t ever we’re not puppet masters forcibly tell them so I think when you just say do this you take the intrigue you take the curiosity you take the memorability you take the journey you take the aha away a penny doesn’t you know the penny can’t drop for me if I’m the one as the coach dropping the penny every time you know I can’t I or I’m the one trying to click on the light know they have to have the penny drop they have to click on the light or they have to have the light clicked on so to speak and what you’re pointing to in a in a psychological sense is the value in the importance of perceived autonomy perceive that I have causation in my journey that I am authoring my success that’s really important to us as humans to really important because we see a dissociation with outcome if we don’t feel we were actively involved in what it took to get

it and this can leave athletes who for example have a coach that overcoaches them that they’ll they’ll blame the coach at times now I’m not saying that’s an effective mindset to have because the coach is probably doing the best they can but a coach that coaches in a way that really puts the player the athlete in the driver’s seat through using tactics like you’re saying I think gets far more out of the player far more out of the athlete far more ownership and effort and so for me autonomy equals attention autonomy equals attention the more perceived and that’s the keyword perceived autonomy not that you know the I’m not I’m not having them write their own programs necessarily there’s an expertise they’re coming to us for but the more perceived autonomy they have the more attention that they deploy to what that autonomy creates in them because they feel they are the author of it and if I author it I value it if I value it I pay

attention to it because I pay attention to it I believe it’ll lead me to a better place that’s that’s such a good way of explaining it it’s and it’s such a just such a powerful way of getting getting that yeah that that ownership getting the message across and it’s something that I’ve when it’s done well I’ve found that it’s made such a difference in the in the way that I coach in there and the lessons that people take from it now we’ve gone for for about 40 minutes here so I really appreciate your time and I’ve got just one more question in terms of the book so this thing is a this thing is a beast that is it is a massive book what what did you what did you learn in writing the book because this cannot have been fast it could not have been easy to do uh like what what came out of you having to sit down and write all of this stuff down that was up probably just in your head I can only imagine what what goes into it

I don’t know if anyone’s ever asked me that Britain that’s that’s a great the this is going to sound silly but you you hear you hear authors especially fictional authors which I’m actually working on a fiction book I’ve been working on it for a long time the book in a way writes itself and you’re you’re waiting that’s why it’s a long process at times you know it’s like you’re co-authoring the book with your with your many selves because each time you go back to it and you reread something you reread it with a fresh set of eyes new experiences again you don’t step in the same river twice there’s many authors even though there’s one name on the front of the book there’s many authors I can tell you that the Nick that was writing in the fourth year and it took about four years to write the book was not the same Nick that started it the table of contents when I started it was not the final table of contents that you now find in the book and so there are

there that are in that book that came out of the creative process of having to put words on a page so there are now models that I use in my coaching that I learned in writing the book not because they didn’t exist already behaviorally in what I was doing but I had to necessarily put them into words put them into a framework now there’s not many of them but there there are critical aspects of that book that only in the act of writing it and having to tell a story did I learn how to tell that story better and in doing so it actually writing the book made me an even better coach which is was it was just such a joyous a joyous process to to go through hopefully I think next year I’ll start on the second edition of it which I can’t even believe it you know the book’s been out for for nearly five years now it’ll be five years in May of next year but we’ll start working on on a second edition and I’m really excited

to uh to go through albeit it’ll be a different journey hopefully an easier one but the journey again because it uh it’s a learning but the key thing for me is you can’t write a book on coaching let alone coaching language that doesn’t honor the principles the book is about and so for and I’ve had people say this to me for someone who takes the time to go through it what they’ll find is I wrote the book using the same principles the book is about and that’s I’d like to think one of the reasons why it’s been it’s been fairly well well received I try to use story but you’re right the first component of it it’s it’s still meant to be an industry standard text on the topic so it doesn’t shy away from going into the detail in part one but the second someone gets to part two and part three we try to get into the fun stuff and focus on how to do this not just what underpins it the first thing I noticed there was

like a start of each chapter and and throughout the books like story story story there are lots of visual aids and like the don’t know if you call them key cards and stuff but like lots of visual aids and uh yeah like you you live what you preach which is yeah which is always what you want as an as an author right so Nick I’ll really appreciate you jumping on the podcast I love this stuff and like just to someone I can’t remember who it was but someone recommended you and they said get in touch with with Nick because he he’s really into the the language of coaching which I’ve talked a little bit about on the podcast over the last couple of years but I’ve learned a lot today so I’m looking forward to applying some of the stuff that I’ve picked up so appreciate that anyone who is listening grab this book the language of coaching you find on Amazon you can grab it through your website as well which will include in the show notes anything you’d like to sort of leave

with the audience if they are a coach or an athlete anything that we haven’t covered so far no no I think the biggest thing I would say when it comes to this topic is you know looking listening and just just being aware of the echo of your coaching in the way your athlete moves and the way your athlete responds if you’re if you’re in tune with that everything we’ve talked about even if you had never listened to this podcast will inevitably reveal itself to you naturally so that’s it coaching is a two-way street to make sure it is a two-way street fantastic Nick thank you again thanks Brent all the best thank you so much for having me 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 Art & Science Of Coaching Swimming with Nick Winkleman appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

I’m thrilled to bring back Bobby McGee, a legendary endurance coach with a knack for unlocking an athlete’s full potential. But before we dive in, let me tell you a story about one of Bobby’s transformative experiences.

Imagine this, a room filled with some of the world’s top Olympic coaches from sports as diverse as gymnastics, field hockey, and bobsledding. Bobby found himself immersed in conversations that challenged his perspective and sharpened his skills. And it wasn’t just about technique or training plans. It was about understanding people on a deeper level.

And this experience opened Bobby’s eyes to the power of emotional intelligence in coaching and performance. It’s something he’s applied ever since. And in today’s episode, Bobby shares some of the lessons he learned in that room. How understanding yourself and your coach can unlock new levels of performance and trust, and why mastering pacing strategies is crucial for success, and how fine tuning your mechanics can help you move more efficiently.

It’s a fascinating conversation filled with a lot of actionable advice, and whether you’re a swimmer, a runner, a triathlete, I’ve got no doubt you’ll take away a lot from this episode with Olympic run coach, Bobby McGee. Let’s get into it.

03:39 Coaching Concepts

Get in touch with Bobby:

https://www.pendolaproject.com/runform

https://www.bobbymcgee.com/

https://www.instagram.com/bobbymcgeerunning/

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

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she taps into is something that I’ve been very, very sort of conscious of since two years before Tokyo. And it’s that thrive mentality. And, you know, it comes up later, but it’s that we used to believe as coaches that the highest level that we can get an athlete to mentally is mental toughness, right? And that they need to be resilient, and they need to be robust, and they need to be really tough to handle the training and the intensity of the race and so on. But there’s a level above that, right? And a number of people have started doing research in this regard and understanding that and even going into it from a very specific coaching approach. And that’s the thrive mentality. So it’s the mentality that the harder it gets, the more I love it to the point of if this is not hard, I’m not going to perform. Welcome to the effortless swimming podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better

swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Welcome to the effortless swimming podcast. I’m your host, Brenton Ford. And today I’m thrilled to bring back Bobby McGee, a legendary endurance coach with the knack for unlocking an athlete’s full potential. But before we dive in, let me tell you a story about one of Bobby’s transformative experiences. Imagine this, a room filled with some of the world’s top Olympic coaches from sports as diverse as gymnastics, field hockey and bobsledding. Bobby found himself immersed in conversations that challenged his perspective and sharpened his skills. And it wasn’t just about technique or training plans. It was about understanding people on a deeper level. And this experience opened Bobby’s eyes to the power of emotional intelligence in coaching and performance. It’s something he’s applied ever since. And in today’s episode, Bobby shares some of the lessons he learned in that room, how understanding yourself and your

coach can unlock new levels of performance and trust. And why mastering pacing strategies is crucial for success and how fine-tuning your mechanics can help you move more efficiently. It’s a fascinating conversation filled with a lot of actionable advice. And whether you’re a swimmer, a runner, a triathlete, I’ve got no doubt you’ll take away a lot from this episode with Olympic run coach Bobby McGee. Let’s get into it. Alright, welcome to the Effortless Swimming podcast. Bobby, welcome back. This is episode number 363. And the last episode you’re on was episode 20. And I don’t do more than one a week. So it’s been a long time between drinks, but it’s great to have you back on. Oh, it’s fantastic to be able to talk to you again. You know, I have one athlete that I used to help with the run, but she’s a collegiate runner. So she needed help with the swim mostly. So every time I see something of yours on social

media, I blast it off to her. So you’re in my mind probably a lot more often than I’m in your mind. Well, I appreciate that. I mean, we do make a lot of content and I just love to put that stuff out there. And I know in terms of the coaching side of things, like we have a fairly similar philosophy from memory last time. And one of the reasons I wanted to get you back on was to not only get your take on some things running, but I think we can draw a lot from other sports. So even if you’re a swimmer listening to this and you don’t do any running or triathlon, I find you can take away a lot from that. And before the podcast, we’re just chatting about that idea. And you said that you went to an event with other Olympic coaches from all different sports and got together and sort of shared ideas. Could you talk a bit about that and what you took away from that get together? Absolutely. You know, during the various quads, especially when I was

formally involved with Olympic teams, we would often bring in mediators for the coaches because, you know, in triathlon, you have this situation where the coaches are private and the Federation has to, you know, keep all the athletes going and the coaches going and they can get a little out of hand, you know, things get a little complicated. And what they found was, is if they bring in a coach, a high ranking coach, a successful coach from another sport altogether, they provide a perspective that is a lot broader, a lot more 30,000 foot, a lot more 10,000 meter kind of view. And that helped a lot. And then the United States Olympic Committee started a program called the NTC LEP. It’s been around for a while, but it basically brings in national team coaches. So I was really, really privileged working with, you know, gymnastics coaches who’d won multiple gold medals at multiple games and bobsledding and all sorts of other

sports, field hockey, the whole nine yards. And we did this protracted, very in-depth, very

intense, you know, workshopping over multiple years. And I found that to be probably the greatest coaching insight accelerator that I’ve ever been part of, you know. And as we were talking about before, I think that the thing that was most valuable for me was the whole concept of analyzing both athletes and coach with an analysis tool. We just happened to use disc, which is very well known, the DISC thing, but, you know, you have strength finders and you have a number of other of those tools. So then you analyze the athlete’s style, the athlete’s approach, how the athlete sets about their craft, and then you do the same thing with a coach. And then what was so useful with that was is then the athlete and the coaches, they share that information. And when you talk to me about coaching philosophies and stuff like that, I’ll show you how that comes into play. But funnily enough, as impactful as that was,

a coach understanding how an athlete thinks and an athlete understanding how their coach operates, the thing that really pushed it over the tri-line for me was the whole concept of emotional intelligence also being evaluated and being brought into play. And so we had these wonderful sessions where you could have a coach that would coach Usain Bolt and Serena Williams with a certain approach, but wouldn’t be able to coach, say, Kobe Bryant, who was a more cerebral individual in the same way. You’d have to coach him completely differently. And we discussed examples like that. And then we went into the details of our own athletes and our own sport. And I found that to be overwhelmingly useful in terms of how I approach coaching and my athletes now. And for the athletes who would do that profiling, what would be the outcomes of seeing the way that they maybe learn and respond best, the ones that they don’t like?

The way that they don’t like being coached, what were the outcomes there once they started to understand that a little bit more? Yeah. So the first thing would be trust, right? I think it was quite recently I read that Bill Belichick, the old coach of the New England Patriots, was saying that he was a numbers coach. He was an outcome coach. It was all based on results and Ws and stuff like that. And he was a very average coach at that time of his career until he figured out that he needed to take this approach, understanding each individual in his team and coaching that individual to their approach, right? Did he start becoming successful? So I would say the initial thing is it’s trust based in research, based in the athlete going, okay, this coach has a certain way of doing things. I understand why he does things that way. I know how to ask for him to communicate with me or her to communicate with me in a different way. And the coach also knows that I’m not a visual learner,

I’m a tactile learner, right? So when it comes to skills coaching, I need a lot more hands on work than somebody else who gets it when they see an image and they can go for it straight away. So that’s where it helped me the most. It creates a level of honesty, right? Because you have to be very vulnerable and very open to be able to go and do these analyses anyway, right? It’s a pretty extensive process if you do it properly. And when the athlete does it, they start to realize, my coach is doing this as well. And if my coach is doing this and I’m going to get the same information, now the whole thing opens up. It’s just so much quicker to get to the heart of what’s required for successful coaching. Yeah, very true. And what did you learn about yourself in that process? I was, I had a couple of moments, I must say, especially with the emotional analysis, right? Because I’m an older individual and I’ve been coaching a certain

way for many, many years and I’ve been successful, right? And so you get this kind of

understanding that if something’s not working, it’s probably lying at the foot of the athlete. It’s probably an athlete mistake. You just have to get behind that to realizing, no, no, no, I would just completely blowing this approach. And I wasn’t approaching the athletes correctly in any way, shape or form. If I wasn’t being successful, that athlete, right? So the idea is that you broaden the type of athlete that you can work with, right? So this thing is I work best with kids or I work better with male athletes or I work better with female athletes. That all goes out the window. No, I work with athletes that I understand. And so if you have a principal based and an approach that is with a moral compass, you will run into an athlete that doesn’t feel the same way about you. They might be into drugs, they might be this and might be the other. And it’s so much easier to say, you know, this is not going to work. You’re not going

to get what you want. And I’m not going to be able to work with you. And so it makes that whole process much more transparent. You don’t anguish about the fact that you’ve got an athlete with a VO2 max of 90, and they’re going to rule the world. But you just don’t want to work with that athlete because you just, you’re just not, it’s obvious on paper it’s not going to work. So you can, you can turn them down. Yeah, yeah. One of the stories that comes to mind there was we ran a camp in, I ran a camp recently overseas and we were doing some all out 50s getting times. And one of the summers she was, she didn’t quite crack. I think it was 40 seconds. I think it was 40 seconds for the 50 or whatever it was, 50 seconds. And she was pretty down on herself and being hard on herself. And she was a bit upset about it. And then the next day, one of our coaches, Sam, he like gave her a bit of a pep talk and said,

look, I’m going to coach you. And this was an adult said, I’m going to coach you like I’d coach one of my kids. This is what I want you to do. And then we’ll get up and we’ll go on all out 50 from a dive and we’ll see what you can, you can pull out. And so he got it warmed up properly. He gave her a talking to in terms of like, all right, this is what this is how I want you to do approach it. And long story short, he did a, she did like 45 seconds, broke that time by like five seconds. And she was over the moon about it. And everyone got behind her was cheering. And to me, that showed like, like that style, that sort of somewhat hard ass approach is not the way that I’ve typically coached. But it’s not to say I couldn’t do it. And that I know, maybe I should pull that out at times when necessary for the right person. So to me, that was a little bit of an eye opener, you know, that sometimes I need to get out of my certain style of coaching and be a little bit tougher

for people who like that and who need that. Yep. Yep. No, I’ve never been a real slave driver coach. So I on paper, I was less successful as a high school junior coach than I ever was as an elite senior coach. And the reason was for that was that, you know, I was working with individuals in an education setting. It wasn’t about performance. It was about education through application. And I think that that’s what happens. And nowadays, when I go back and I work with a bunch of juniors, especially a bunch of say 13, 14, 15 year old boys, and they just not even capable of being in the room. And I will go to the coach who invited me and I will say to the coach, look, what we require here is education. And what you might have brought me in here was for performance. But that’s going to be down the line with this particular group. You know, and so working with that group, trying to get those boys to be vulnerable,

right? Especially if they’re girls mixed in is a different story. And so if I had to, if I only had one crack at that kind of scenario, I would basically say to the coach, this is what I suggest. And I don’t think that I should come in here with any kind of technique session or even any kind of training session. I would come in here and start discussing these concepts of vulnerability and trust and and process and discipline and things like that way before we get into the nuts and bolts of trying to break two minutes for the 800, you know. Yeah, yeah, interesting. And that’s then when you get that trust, you get that buying, then everything’s going to happen a whole lot quicker, right? You’re not going to be banging head against the wall for the next two years. Exactly. Well, when I started off coaching African runners with huge amounts of potential, I found it took these athletes a long time for them to trust me as a white guy. But then

once they could trust me, right? And they saw the performances and there wasn’t any glitches with the prize money or anything like that that could lead to some sort of misunderstanding. Then I felt there was too much trust. I knew too much about too many other things that I really didn’t need to know. You know, so that was also an interesting thing, right? When people trust you, you know, I’ve been in combat and I’ve been in the military, right? And they say, you know, the person who shares a trench with you, I was in infantry, right? And a person who’s side by side with you under that immense level of pressure, right? They will be your friends and your connection for life. And it is like that, right? I’m in my late sixties and the two buddies that I was with, closest with are still some of my best buddies, right? We can be away from each other for two years and then we back for 30 seconds and we straight back into it. There’s that complete and

utter trust, you know? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We’ve sort of delved a little bit into it, but in terms of your coaching philosophy or philosophies, what are some of those key things that you’ve developed over the last 30 plus years that you’ve been coaching? Some of those real go to philosophies or principles that drive the way that you do what you do? Yeah, yeah. So coaching, running mechanics and even in the in this technological world, coaching, running differently to how long course coaches, coach athletes, I’ve done a lot of inventing of terminology and approaches because they didn’t really have a name. And then in going into the worlds of psychology, not necessarily sports psychology, but even in sports psychology, there’s not a lot of work done ratio wise in endurance sports, right? It’s mostly in team sports and teamwork and skill sports and things like that. And so it wasn’t until I attended this course that I came across some research that explained to me why

I do things the way I do things. And so I would say that my first approach in coaching, which may be cost me some medals, right at the highest level, but my first approach is humanistic. So I coach, the athlete is the compass in my process. So the athlete says, I want to do this race and I want to do this and I only want to run X amount of kilometers a week and I only want to do this and I only want to do that. And they’re 50 years old and they’ve got all this experience. I’m going, yeah, we’ll work around that. But the athlete is the whole process that I design when I’m working with an athlete is definitely humanistic with the athlete as a compass. The second part of my philosophy and I also learned this from a mentor coaches that I cannot as a coach give anything to an athlete. And it takes an amount of pressure often it puts the owners on the athlete. My job is uncovering. You have a certain potential that I

can see that you might not see. I can see the gold inside you. And it’s all surrounded by a bunch of shit, right? And I can grab the gold and I can shake the shit off. But I never put the gold there. And I think that’s a good way to approach it that your job is to help people uncover the best athlete that they can be from that perspective, right? And then I think the last thing is not want it for the athlete. Rather work on the fire that they already have so that you understand what it is that they want and then go after that. You know, I had a coach mentor who’s passed away now too, but he said basically your first year is you’re a teacher, right? And then as the athlete trusts you and as you guys see success as the athlete see success that same mentor taught me it’s not about we it’s it’s the athlete, you are the coach you can’t do what the athlete does, right? You’re a lucky one you you’ve got a beautiful swim stroke. So you

you know, you can say you can say that I can’t run a sub four minute mile. So I can’t say that. But it’s that that that concept, right? Of where you follow their lead, you know, but they’re the ones that are going to want it. My first great great athlete, when he went to his first major championships, he was a mess because I had I had made him too dependent on me, right? He needed me around and this was in Japan and I was in South Africa, right? And and he was, you know, a man from Africa would never travel internationally. And this was his first experience and he needed me there desperately. And that was a coaching error on my part. He should not have needed, right? And so this mentor coach said to me, thereafter, you become a mentor and even more of a handbrake, you know, you become you hold the athlete back. They are often rolling and your job is is one of mentoring and eventually you just become a sounding board. And so I have a number of athletes that will check in,

Gwen’s an athlete like that. She doesn’t need my daily expertise. She’ll shoot me every now and again, she’ll shoot me a text or a question or she’ll pull me up and she’ll say, well, what do you think about this? You know, so you know, that that’s probably how I built my philosophy now because I certainly can’t build my philosophy on content because in endurance sport approach is changing all the time. Science is exposing errors that we made 10, five years ago that we were we were coaching incorrectly, right? That what you mentioned there with with Gwen, for example, obviously within an athlete that is like much more sort of mid range, midfield or like, say your weekend warrior, for example, there’s so much that they can learn from you. Now, that’s not to say that the elite level Olympic level athletes can’t but obviously that’s a very different dynamic. So what would you say the main differences are between the two

and how those like Olympic level athletes will work with you and what you can impart or how you help them compared to say your weekend warrior triathlete, for example?

Yeah, I think with a weekend warrior or an amateur athlete, you can add so much more nuance and dimension. When they say, I don’t know what went wrong and you offer them two options, they choose the one maybe where they’re not responsible for that, right? It was the heat or it was a heliac course that I thought I hadn’t prepared for that and so on and so forth. But I think if you start to add nuance, they start to understand in their training, right? You always have those two types of athletes, those that hopelessly overestimate what they’re capable of and then those that are hopelessly too timid, all right? And that’s the fear of failure, fear of success that you learn in sports like 101, right? So I think with the amateur athlete is so often, right? You will see that they completely committed to their sport, right? And they show up and they disciplined and so on. But when you ask them the most basic questions

about the sport, they can’t answer those questions. Yet they dentists or lawyers or engineers, they’re very bright individuals, but they’ve seated over all responsibility to the coach, right? And not understanding that the more they understand about their process, the more self-efficacious they can be. And I love that word self-efficacious because it helps with all sorts of things, free race, anxiety and all those sort of things. But I think for the age group athlete is for them to delve into their sport as students, not to become experts, but just to remain inquisitive. Because very often those same questions that the elites ask a lot, the age groupers ask more often. What happens if I do more? What happens if I add two more quality workouts or one more quality workout a week? And they go and experiment with that. And yet the answers are apparent. We have the experience to say, okay, this is a sensible progression rate. If you master this, then we go there, all right? And to explain to

them that you can achieve unbelievable things, but you can achieve them in three or four years. You cannot achieve them within one season. And if you do so, you’re going to make that process six years instead of four or three. And so I think that’s what they can learn. I’ll have two blocks of questions before I start with an age group athlete. And the one block is, how much time do you have available? If somebody says, I want to do X on this amount of commitment, then you can do the math, right? But if somebody says, I think I can run sub 33 for 10K, and you say, well, how much do you run a week? Well, 19K a week is a good week for me. And you go, maybe it’s not going to happen, right? But so that’s the first question. What kind of time do you have available? If you want to do an Ironman in nine hours a week, yeah, it’s doable, but don’t be looking for nine hours. It’s not going to happen, right? And then similarly, on the other side, what are you capable of doing?

What is your true lifetime base of work? How much work have you done on a consistent basis so that we can start you over at a certain point? And those two often differ, right? You’ll have somebody who’s in their fifties, they, they’re a little bit more financially secure, they can give some more work to training, but they’ve spent, you know, 25 years behind a desk. And while they might have been a good high school athlete or even a good student athlete at university, they, they’re going to need four or five years to get their legs underneath them so that they can trade. Otherwise it’s just going to be breakdown to breakdown. I’ve got so many athletes that I start with, right? That are lost when their break phase comes, because they say, I’ve never had a break. I’ve either been injured and be forced to break, or I’ve been ill, but I’ve never had a real break. I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m so fit and now you’re telling me to take a break.

Going on to that point in terms of injury with so, I mean, because a lot of people that like that I know, for example, in their thirties, forties, a lot of them will have this aspiration to do a marathon. So it’s a big bucket listing for many people, myself included, when I was in my twenties. And one of the things that always seems to crop up is over training, going too hard to, to early and injuries come up because it’s such an impact sport and they just increase that load too much. So what, what advice do you normally have for people? Are there certain, certain things that you have them either look out for or make sure that they’re not doing too much of or too little of? Like, what’s your, your view of the landscape there with running injuries for the age group? Yeah, you, you did, you did have me go down a little side road there, right? So it’s very different if somebody wants to run a 10k or a half marathon. The marathon is a whole different ball game. I had a gal talking to me on the phone

yesterday or the day before, right? She’s done an iron man. She’s done multiple 70.3s. And, you know, she wants to do a 50 miler, right? 80k. She said, I had this amount of time available and so on. And I had to break the news to her, right? That if you haven’t run a marathon and the marathon of the bike doesn’t count and she said, well, why does the marathon of the bike not count? I can cover 26 miles. I said, yeah, but you’ve got your legs are so fatigued and you are so beat up after 112 miles, 180k on the bike that you cannot hurt yourself by running a marathon. There will be other limitations other than, you know, your leg strength, your stride length will be so short you’ll be putting yourself down way softer because you don’t have any proprioception, et cetera, et cetera. So there’s a difference between wanting to run a marathon and wanting to say run a half marathon or a 10k really, really effectively.

You can get away with a little bit more if they want to run a half marathon, right? But with a marathon, there’s not only the question of the mileage and how long it takes to get to that mileage. There’s a reason why you can’t take a half marathon time and predict a marathon time without looking at volume, right? You’ve got to add that volume to the equation. Otherwise, you can’t figure it out, right? And that number is normally somewhere 60 miles, 100k a week. If you want to run a marathon anywhere close to what your half marathon or your 15k predicts, you’re going to have to be running in that range of 90 to 100k a week. And that’s a big ask for most people, right? Then there’s one more thing that’s very interesting there. And it’s the hardness factor, right? So you might even do six, eight, 12 weeks of, you know, six, seven, eight hours of running a week, right? Which should be enough, right? But it’s that hardness that’s the only event, right? That and Iron

Man, where you cannot go out and run the full distance in training, not for 99.9% of the time, right? Of the population, you cannot go out and run 42.2k. It’s just not doable, right? And so it’s always, there’s always a fudge factor. And that’s what people don’t understand. It’s that hardness. So what I do is I start off with a very, very dense walking approach. So lots of walking, you might do a half an hour in your first start of buildup, you might do 30 minutes of running, and then do a 90 minute hike or a two hour hike. And that’ll build up until you can run for two hours, but you still got to be able to go and then hike for another two hours, especially if you want to run four hours for the marathon, right? So it’s not just the quality and it’s not just the frequency that adds up to the 90, but it’s the hardness to be able to operate other side of 18k, 20k, 25k, to be able to still keep going at the pace that you’re capable

of. And that hardness factor is the hardest one to coach. So, you know, that’s the difference between the half and anything longer than say 15 miles, 25k, that’s a different kettle of fish altogether. From my own experience, it’s been that 30k mark. That’s where it’s always come apart. It’s, yeah, you can set your time to it, you can set your watch to it. But you never ran 90k a week, right?

No, no. I think in the lead up, no, I didn’t, not at that time. Not consistently. You know, everybody can throw in a 90k week, but six weeks, seven weeks, eight weeks in a row of 90k a week, that’s a big ask. I reckon. And that hardness factor you’re talking in like the athlete’s ability to push, like that’s, that’s what you mean by that hardness factor. Yeah. And the tendons and the ligaments and that ability to understand, like Sebastian Koh’s father said, it doesn’t matter where Seb is. I want him to know he can run a 55 second quarter, no matter what’s going on, right? And it’s that ability to run whatever the pace is, you know, whether it’s five minutes, okay, or four minutes, okay, to run that pace, no matter how you feel. And there’s a deadness that you need to get used to that most people feel in the marathon. And they say, okay, I’m, I’m done. And they not done. And they need to visit that place of deadness with accumulative weeks of running for a long period of time.

Does not have to be fast, where they say, okay, this is the marathon. This is how it feels. It requires an intense amount of focus and incredible ability to withstand this sensation that I’m feeling that the normal human being will say, I’m cooked. You’re not cooked. It’s just going to take a monumental effort. And the only thing by doing that is, is, you know, you’ve got to be in the kitchen all the time and the kitchen is 18 miles, you know, or 30 K. Yeah. I mean, no, no different to long distance swimming, right? It’s like, you just need to have those Ks in the arms. You need to have some of those really long boring sessions under your belt.

And so often you’ll do one of those sessions and maybe six K into a 10 K session, you might feel like, Oh, I am done here. But getting nutrition in, make sure you’re hydrated, you might find by the seventh K, you’re coming out of it, you might start feeling better. It happens all, all the time. Maybe those last four K might, might just hurt. But as long as you know, you can, you can get through it. And even if you’re feeling like absolute frat, you can still push on and get through it. Like it’s, yeah, to the ability to, to withstand those long, boring workouts that are sometimes on your own, it’s solo. That’s, I think that’s when you really sort of find yourself too. It’s, it’s in those workouts. And it’s, that’s where you can get the confidence that when it comes race time, you’re like, Yeah, right. Like, I know I’ve been here before, I can push, push through this. Exactly. And you know, that, that’s the hardness,

right? In that, probably the most famous of all running novels, once a runner, there’s that scene right where he has to run 4400s. And then it starts to get really, really challenging. And he notices his coach in the trees, right? And he finishes the 4400s and he’s wasted, right? And then his coach says, now you have to do another 40. But I’ll do them with you. All right. So now there’s this impetus. Okay, the coach is going to do them with me. So they do another 40. And then it starts pouring down and starts getting dark. And it’s slushy. It’s a dirt track. And the coach says you have to do another 40, but I’m going home to dinner. And it’s, it’s that that’s, there’s nothing physical about that workout. It’s just all mental, right? It’s just managing their sensation. So sometimes when I look at these, now that ultra swimming is, is an Olympic sport, right? You swimming 10ks open water. And I look at a workout like four,

four by four K, you know, in the pool. And I go, Yikes, you know, it’s just.

Well, I had at Sham Brown Rivendale on the podcast, she won the Olympic gold. And she, I’m going to get it wrong. But I think she did like 136k in the pool in a week in the lead up to the Olympics. Like, oh my God, that’s, that’s a lot of swimming. And she said she felt like pretty good after it. And it was that week coming out of that, I think they went into world champs straight after it or something. And like she said, coming out of that, like, I felt good. And I knew when I was racing, but like, I’m going to smash these girls because I have done the work. And I know what I can hold in training. Like it’s, it’s that week where you just get smashed. That yeah, she, she just had that the mindset that helped her win world champs and then win Olympic gold. Yeah. You know, that’s in running, there’s that understanding, right? That if you do really, really well in a very long distance, like a marathon

or longer, in the two week period after that, your system is so primed with that amount of work that you took to get there, as well as that race itself, proving to yourself, that people go and run shorter distances and they break records and they break their personal best, they go run like a 10 mile or what they’re going to run a half mouth on. And they just smash it, you know, and then it’s two weeks after they’ve, you know, run 80k or something like that, that happens too, for the same kind of reason, right? But with her, what she taps into is something that I’ve been very, very sort of conscious of since two years before Tokyo. And it’s that thrive mentality. And you know, it comes up later, but it’s that we used to believe as coaches that the highest level that we can get an athlete too mentally is mental toughness, right? And that they need to be resilient and they need to be robust and they need to be really tough to handle the training and the intensity of

the race and so on. But there’s a level above that, right? And a number of people have started doing research in this regard and understanding that and even going into it from a very specific coaching approach. And that’s the thrive mentality. So it’s the mentality that the harder it gets, the more I love it to the point of, if this is not hard, I’m not going to perform. I need this to be so ridiculously hard. And that’s a principle that Naseem Taleb, the venture cap, no, not a venture capitalist, he was, he was, I don’t know what he does, but he’s created a concept called anti fragility. And one of the things that he said about anti fragility is that if you become anti fragile, you have to be really careful that you don’t hurt people because you become so monstrously effective, right? And so what she was saying, she was saying, I’m just going to crush everybody. Nobody’s done this amount of work. I love

this kind of work. I feel fantastic. I need this to be the hardest race possible. And everybody else is going to die. You know, and that’s the drive mentality is that you have no chance against the person that’s anti fragile, because the harder it gets, the more smack you talk, the worse the conditions are, the tougher the pace is, the better you do because you’ve convinced every cell in your body that that’s what you need to be your best. And you can’t be the person like that, you know? Yeah, that’s right. And that came across a lot chatting to her on the podcast too, it’s like that underneath you can just tell like she’s a real, like real fighter. And it’s like, that’s what it takes to win, win gold. It’s like, that’s what a mentality is. It’s great to say, as like, we’re watching the Olympic trials for the Australian, the Australian swimmers. And yeah, with some of the races, there’s one of the girls we’re

watching and she, she won, she got first, so she qualified. And in her interviews afterwards, it was like, she was pretty, she was disappointed with how she went. She thought it could have done better. Like she wasn’t happy, but she’d made the team did what she needed to do. And my wife was like, like, she’s, I don’t really like her the way she’s coming across here. And I thought, like, I’d totally get you. But I think it’s that personality. That’s why she’s so good, because she’s not happy with the performance. And she knows what she’s capable of. And, you know, you’ve just got a for me, like, I just appreciate that kind of mentality, because that’s what it takes to win sometimes. Yeah, I don’t throw people under the bus. And I’ve been coaching now this my 45th year, right? So I’ve got to meet some amazing characters, you know, Olympic gold medalists, Olympic champions, and, and have some good sit down chats with them. And the honest truth is that those that I end up clicking with and

we really get on really well, and we have a lot of fun together, they not winners. They’re just too nice. You know, there was a, an all black rugby captain, his name, you might not remember this, but his name was Colin Meads. And he was the captain of an all black team that didn’t win a lot. And his biography was called nice guys come second.

So you’re absolutely right, you’ve got to be, you’ve got to have that killer mentality, you know, and when I’ve been, you know, on the road at Olympic Games at World Championships with the athletes that do well, they are killers. They are. And it’s just, it’s just the way it is, it’s just the way it is. And you just can’t access enough of yourself to be a nice guy as well. One of the nicest guys I ever met in the sport was David Murcroft. He was the first guy to run 13 flat for 5k. And you know, David was in the Olympics. He was a fantastic miler, everything like that. But he never won the big one. And I know he was sick when he had a chance to win the big one. But he was just too much of a nice guy to just have that killer instinct about him, you know. If I lesson learned be an absolute asshole, that’s yeah. Yeah. Well, at least if you’re right, if you’re competing for gold, right? So yeah. Like the Kiwi approach, right? There’s a big difference between being an asshole and being

a dickhead and they have a rule, no dickhead. So that’s good. Now, shifting onto another topic here in terms of efficiency in running and technique. So when you’re looking to refine technique for runners, what sort of ways do you identify the inefficiencies in their stroke, in their stride? Yeah. Yeah. No. And sure, to bring it over to stroke is interesting. So I attended a conference just by way of answering this question, great question, where it was also the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and they brought in all the top endurance coaches and some of the top athletes, right? So I’m trying to think of who this swimmer was that was there. She was a multiple-time Olympian, multiple-time gold medal winner. That’ll come to me. But either way, what struck me in this conference as a global was that the cyclists foremost and then the running community were way more scientific and on top of altitude training and and bloods and and all the biochemistry and that kind of thing

than the swimmers were. And I asked myself the question, why is that the case? You know, and I know running is an old school sport and swimming is an old boys club sport too, right? And I asked myself, but what’s the difference between the runners and the swimmers? And it came down to what I see so often in triathlon. That technique and strong mental capacity is more important in swimming. You see more varied physiological approaches than you would see in running and cycling. That’s almost like more formalized, more set. A lot of the top runners and the top cyclists are doing similar things physiologically, but the swimmers are all over the place, right? So it’s clear that technique is so much more important in the pool than just sheer engine size, right? And you see this all along. So what I wanted to say is that swim coaches are probably more from proficient at teaching technique because swimming is not a first language sport.

You weren’t born in the water swimming, right? But running is primal, right? So you you were born to run so that you could get away from trouble or to catch food. So when you’re looking at technique of runners, the demands of competition

and the demands of the sport are actually superseded by the anthropometry of the runner when it comes to mechanics. So some people, you know, the Kenyans have short torsos and they have long legs. So they have a big back kick, right? And they also have,

you know, longer femurs and they have longer Achilles tendons, right? So there’s a reason why they run like that. The Ethiopians are built a little bit more like Europeans, right? So they have bigger calf muscles. They have a more piston like running style. They’re more muscular. And so that’s the determinant of how they run. So when you’re working with some of these mechanics, you’ve got to remember that running economy is five parts of physiology and training and only two parts, mechanical and neuromuscular, right? So not that either or less or more important. But if you do a comparison in the world of exercise scientists and biomechanists in running, you’ll find that the exercise scientists outnumber the running mechanics by about 100 to one. There’s not a lot of people that you’re running biomechanics. For that reason, people are born to run a certain way. So my approach is to look at those two components and saying, I’m trying to make this person more economical.

It’s sell them more about speed than it is about economy. That’s so, so you, if you look at the two sides of the stride, right? Is the front end of the stride where they hit the ground to mid stance and then the next, you know, from mid stance to full extension. And that front end for most amateurs is about protection and about safety, right? So I’ll find myself sitting with an athlete that’s sort of sub elite, right? So a female athlete that runs 240, 245, which is now sub elite for a marathon runner, right? For a female marathon runner. Because if you don’t run sub 230, you’re not making a shackle and you probably need to be running sub 220 as a woman. If you want to make any kind of living, right? Now that they’re running 209, right? Or one gal ran 209. Wow. Okay. So that’s, so an athlete would be struggling with something. The PT would say they’re not flexing their knee enough. And I’m saying they flexing their knee too much.

And the one is they’re not flexing it enough is a safety thing. It’s a cushioning thing. And flexing it too much is an anti-performance thing, right? They’re dissipating too much elastic energy. They’re dropping their center of mass too much. So what I do is I highly individualize, but when I designed Runform with Matt Pendola, what we try to do was we try to find the major factors that the average runner needs to work on. What are the minimum range of motion requirements? What are the minimum strength and power components? So, when I was going through these questions, that whole question of the difference with swimming being a strength activity, right? It’s an endurance sport, but you need to be really stable and you need to be really strong to hold on to that water and to pull the water not peripherally, but with your core, right? Whereas in running, you don’t need to be strong. You don’t need to be bulky. You don’t need to be big,

but you need to be powerful. You need to be explosive. And that explosiveness, you’re going, okay, but then they sprinted, right? And so, no, no, sprinters can only hang on for nine seconds if they’re males and 10 seconds if they’re females, right? And so, it’s that ability to instantaneously stabilize a joint so that it can load elastically. And that changes the whole reason for you doing strength work to prepare you to do power work, right? And so, watching the next five to 10 years, even just the next five years, the whole approach to conditioning for runners will be isometric holds and plyometrics. That’s going to be the way to go in terms of conditioning. So, this whole conversation started with injuries, right? And injuries in running are typically because of overuse, and they are because of overuse in swimming as well, except running has this eccentric contraction, right? So, you stabilize the joint

as hard and make it as rigid as you possibly can so that the tendon and the muscle and the connective tissue can load, right? If you use something like steroids, sure, you’re going to make the muscle strong, maybe even make it more elastic, but you’re going to make the tendons brittle, right? So, now, you’re going to be counterproductive. So, those athletes are going to break down, right? So, I view each athlete individually, and I’ll view the front end based on having asked them what injuries do you typically get? So, how can I improve that front end so that they don’t get injured? How can I partialize their strike? How can I economize their strike so that their ground contact time is reduced so that the stresses on knees and hips, if they are heel strikers and stresses on arch and ankles, if they are mid-foot strikers, are reduced? Then, from a performance standpoint, I’d look at the back end. It’s like,

how can I get them to be more elastic? How can I get them to have more momentum? How can I let, you know, reduce their ground contact time? So, I’ll view it from those points, but generally, speaking when somebody says, let’s do a course on biomechanics, and I just did that for Ironman University. I’m very excited about that product. It took us a very long time to get to that point, but I want them to actually come to a session. I’m going, oh, this is a great athlete for us to pay attention to X or to Y or to Z, right? And so, if I had to say something more specific, right? So, let’s say a swimmer comes to you and they’ve got a lot of shoulder problems and they got a really, really long stroke, right? And it’s very, very slow, and they can, you know, their stroke per distance is fantastic, but their shoulders just can’t manage the load, right? And so, you would increase their cadence, decrease their catch to protect their shoulders,

right? So, I do the same thing in running. Or this person has got wonderful long levers, but they just, they’re all over the place when they’re coming through the water. They need to get stronger. They need to be more stable. They need to, you know, be able to hold themselves in a better position to utilize these long levers. So, it’s definitely then comes down to individuals, but if people have a solid dynamic mobility drills that they do before quality workouts and after bike rides and after swims, the post swim stuff is easy, right? Just return elasticity, move away from strength, and then just minimize plant deflection and just get them back to dorsiflexion. Those are the post swimming things that I would do so that they would be able to go to running more safely. So, it’s very, very individualistic, and I know I’ve touched on a bazillion things and people are going, wait, wait, wait, say more about that. But,

you know, that’s just like a little overview. It’s a great answer because you’re tied in

why, you know, like why you’ve got that approach. And it’s, it’s really interesting just in terms of the, with running, obviously, like the biomechanics, yep, it’s important compared to swimming, you know, water, 800 times denser than air. So, just the, the form, the technique is such a factor there. And that’s, that’s why I’ve got a, got a job doing what I’m, I’m doing because it’s, it can feel like a hard medium to move through sometimes. Would you say that swimming then is in general that people have got maybe not enough emphasis on the conditioning side, or there’s room to really like look at that even, even in running and in swimming or just what would I see the overlays or just in swimming? So if, you know, like swimming, we know it’s very technical. And look, I know a lot of the coaches are very good on the conditioning side of things. Some of those elite coaches. But would you say that like maybe that’s,

that’s an area where swimmers could look at more because maybe we focus too much on the technical side of things? Yep. You know, the law of holism says that no link on a chain is less important or more important than another link on a chain, right? So I would answer it like that for a start. But I would say that in my experience, and I’ve had the wonderful experience in swimming, right? Because I’ve never been considered an expert, but I’ve got to work with so many swimmers because they came to triathlon, right? So they were brilliant swimmers and I got to learn from them while they were swimming, but I never got to intervene or anything like that. I would just sponge it in, right? And so I would say as a general rule of thumb, A, seeing runners trying to come to the sport of triathlon and learn how to swim and be watching absolutely awesome long distance swimmers come to the world of triathlon, I would say a key factor, not a primary

factor, but definitely a key factor is optimal range of motion. I just think generally in life, life works against the swim stroke in freestyle. And so I think if people, and I’m talking about loaded mobility, I really don’t, I’m not a fan now of mobility work in any way, shape, or form unless it is loaded. So the idea that if you want to lengthen your pecs, you’ve got to load your pecs, right? And you’ve got to teach them how to move eccentrically, right? And I watch you stretching your pecs. Same, the same with lats, right? And the same with the pronators, with the fingers and stuff like that. It’s just, when you see an elite swimmer doing something funky with their arm, you could probably always get back to some sort of injury or some sort of habit or some sort of drill, right? That they over learnt or that they needed to accommodate with. I mean, he’s laughing. Some, some time ago, I was working with Flora and

and Rodafie and she was saying that the athlete that I work with, Victoria Lopez, the Brazilian athlete was saying, I just need to get over this niggle in my hip, you know, and and Flora said to her, does it hold you back from training? She said, no, no, not at all. But I know it’s there. And so Flora said to her, if you get rid of it, tell me because you’ll be the first elite athlete that’s gone through a career without a niggle because we’re all either swimming or biking or running with something going on. It’s never altogether clear, right? So that’s a good lesson again, you know, but I would say probably that loaded mobility, which for most amateur swimmers is actually strength.

You know, very, very primary. And I think that that technique and strength and the ability to hold positions and shapes and forms that the skill goes hand in hand with the strength, you need the strength, then you need the the mobility, then you need the skill. So most people swim the way they do because of a deficit in that domain, not because they don’t have the brain to be able to execute the movement, they cannot execute the movement. You know, that’s what the TPI from Titleist discovered in golf, right? The reason why golfers make such poor swings is not because they’re not athletes and it’s not because they’re not skilled enough and not because they don’t understand what they’re doing. They cannot get into that position. You know, I can’t pick this arm up without this side completely slipping away and falling underwater. You know what I’m saying? I can’t swim with my core and keep my midline straight. I then become the longer my stroke is, the more I

air through the water. All of them range of motion issues. Yeah. Yeah. So, so common. It’s anything overhead like thoracic mobility, often through the hips as well. Like there’s there’s a lot of things that and that can be holding people back. And especially it’s not that funny, but like the yeah, you think of what you need as a triathlete. Well, okay, for your kicking, you want to be pointing your toes for running. Well, you want that to be stiffer the better almost. So you’re kind of fighting that battle between the between the two. Yeah, I asked Tommy is the fairest. He’s he’s a beautiful backward freestyle swimmer. You know, he’s multiple times Olympic qualifier as a swimmer, right? And he’s brilliant swimmer in the sport of triathlon. And I said to Tommy, you know, I wanted to do a video of him swimming freestyle, the going backwards. And I said, how do you do that? He says, I just plant a dorsiflex my feet. That’s all I do.

I kick as hard as I can and I go backwards.

You know, so that’s just a graphic illustration of how that works. And when you look at

people that give exercise to to octogenarians that work with old people, that’s the biggest challenge is everything above the shoulders. You know, that kind of movement is impossible for people, you know, even now I think I’m reasonable. But if I stand against a wall and I put my pelvis against the wall, and I put my back against the wall, there’s no way I can get my head against the wall without lifting my chin up. And that’s the critical piece that I need in my swim stroke. So yeah, it’s fantastic when you can see that as a movement specialist, right? And I’m always fighting against I do what I call anti swim drills and anti bike drills, right? Just because they are so impactful to the run. And so you can imagine running is a disaster. People have been running miles and miles and miles with good running posture and they get in the water. They are just a disaster from a bone density perspective and from a range of motion perspective, they even worse.

Can you so by like anti swim drills, anti bike drills, as in like one like drills that you you’ll do for running, but it’s going to make you worse in the water. Is that right? Yes, exactly. Exactly. So PTs hate triathletes, right? Because triathletes don’t have enough plant deflection and they don’t have enough dorsiflexion. So many have too much plant deflection and no, you know, dorsiflexion at all and vice versa with runners. Runners can’t point their toes, no matter how you try. And so it swings and roundabouts for triathletes. Yeah, absolutely say that. Now, I know we’ve gone on for quite a while here on just a couple of the topics we had planned. We might just go through the next couple, maybe some sort of fire questions if you don’t mind, Bobby. I’ll try and answer in single sentences. You can go more if you like. But yeah, once we get chatting, we don’t stop. So in terms of breathing technique for running, is there anything that you teach your athletes?

So breathing, especially with the internet, right, has become a bit of a woo-woo subject, right? But what people need to remember, we’ve got something called a free bot singer complex in our basal brain, right? And it’s in charge of breathing. So if we need to run away from trouble, it’ll set us up for fight or flight, it’ll, it’ll elevate our breathing rate, make sure they’ve got enough oxygen, it responds to all those needs, all right? But we also know from exercise science that you have ventilatory thresholds. And that’s why swimming is such an hypoxic sport, because you can’t, you can’t follow your ventilatory thresholds. You can’t breathe when you want to. You can only breathe when your body’s in a certain position, right? And so breathing as something that’s moved out of that autonomic field, which is that free bot singer complex that I’ve spoken about, into, no, you have to breathe when your face is out of the water, as you’re going to drown, right? Is already an indication

that you need to work on your breathing when you swim. But I really believe that from a central physiological point, and I’ve got two influences in this case. The one is Matt Pendola, Premier Strength and Conditioning Coach that designed the Runform program with me. And then the other one is a guy by the name of George Dallam, that was a very top Olympic level triathlon coach, right, who did research on nasal breathing for endurance runners. And he did, he did some nice eloquent little studies on that. So, you know, nasal breathing forces you, you’re getting less air in at a time. It causes your overall effort to go down. You can’t run fast if you’re breathing through your nose. You can train yourself to run fast. So that, that’s the part there. So, you know, when you’re going from one step, one breath, which is your VO2 max, right? Two, probably two steps per breath would be your threshold. But these elite runners can take six steps per breath, right? In and out. So that’s the

physiological part of that component. You can work on that. You can learn to make that Bruce Lee-esque kind of approach where you can, you can start manipulating your breathing. It’s very effective. But from an orthopedic standpoint, there’s some interesting stuff coming to the fore, right? You are exposed in terms of hurting organs or hurting your SI or hurting your lumbosacral joint if you always breathe out and land on the same foot. And you always do, unless you train yourself to breathe asymmetrically. So a lot of these de-stress breathing mechanisms are about keeping your exhalation longer than your inhalation. So for example, you go out for a run, you breathe two breaths in, two steps for a breath in, three steps for a breath out. Now you’re always landing left foot and then right foot and then left foot and then right foot. So now you’re stabilizing one side of your body that’s been unstable for a long time. And I think if people

experiment with that, they’ll be really pleasantly surprised. And because you take so many steps when you go and run, it becomes habituated like that. Just two in, two steps in, three steps out. Two steps in, three steps out. So I walk mostly for my aerobic exercise. So I can get to a point where I’m five breaths in, six breaths out. So now I’m taking 11 steps. I’m always starting off left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot instead of always on the same foot.

And within minutes, you are under control. And you guys do the same in the pool. Two strokes and then take a breath and then four strokes and then take a breath. You can mess around with that. Or you could go two strokes, breathe left, three strokes, breathe right. And I think that you will find some really interesting things coming to the fore that are positive. Never thought about that, Ronnie. That’s so interesting. But yeah, never considered. The only thing I’ve considered is, you know, nasal breathing versus mouth breathing. It’s like, very interesting. It’s actually like, I asked Ash Delaney, he coaches Carl Chalmers and he’s a guy who I grew up with and he was a backstriker. And I asked him a question about breathing in backstroke. And now, oh, actually, like, you know, in backstroke, you’ve got your face out, just, I’m sure you just do it like breathe whenever you need to breathe. He’s like,

well, actually, you know, it’s like, maybe you’re going like two strokes in, two strokes out, or you’re breathing each individual stroke. So there’s a, there is some strategy to it. And there’s different ways to, to approach it. So you know, three thresholds. Yep. Two and one. Yep. So you’re swimming a 50 backstroke. There’s just one, one, one, one, one. And that’s what athletes do too, right? Is just they breathe every stroke. So, you know, when you’re not breathing every stroke, then you’re hypoxic. Unless you’re going super easy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it’s, it’s a very worthwhile thing to get into because I think I’m going to make a big difference because breathing is tied to fight or flight. When you tell people to bilaterally breathe the first time, they panic.

Okay. And they panic for a good reason. They can’t get air. And what’s right at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is air, you know? So swimming is right at the very heart of people’s survival instincts, you know? So it’s a, it’s a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, whenever anyone asks about, you know, what breathing pattern should I have? The first answer is always, well, as much as you need to, to start with. Like it’s don’t restrict that because you’re being told to breathe every three for the sake of it. So exactly. Right. Yeah. Sorry. That was not even close to a brief answer. That’s all right. Now in terms of a stroke length and stroke rate, so in swimming, it’s like those two things that we can adjust to increase our, our speed. Do you look at something similar? In running, stride length and cadence? No, absolutely. Right. So in running, the mathematics of speed is your stride length multiplied by your stride rate. Absolutely. Right.

But again, running is a first language sport. So you can’t just tell somebody your cadence is too slow. Right. Because then if they manufacture a faster stride length, they’re going to get hurt instantly. They’re going to get hurt. But even more importantly than that, not that getting injured is not important. But even more importantly, the economy goes for out the window.

Right. So you become hopelessly uneconomical if you are jogging along at 160 steps a minute. Right. And you now just move it up to 170 steps a minute. Just, you know, five on a side. You move it up. You’ll start breathing harder. Your heart rate will go up. You’ll feel uncomfortable. You won’t be enjoying yourself at all. So when you work on cadence, you have to work on other factors. Right. That lead to you improving your cadence. So the first thing to understand about cadence is cadence goes up when you go faster. Cadence goes down when you go slower. Same thing in the pool. Right. All right. So as you tell somebody to speed up, their cadence will come up. Right. They start turning the motor over quicker. But when you fatigue, right, and people lose their form and they don’t have a body awareness that they’ve lost their form when they run it, the quickest way for them to regain some modicum of performance is to address the things that they can talk to. Right. If you say to

somebody, go harder, well, I’m an athlete. I’m going as hard as I possibly can. All right. So that’s not a useful piece of information. And the lactates at, let’s say it’s at 6.2 millimoles if they really, really skilled at pushing themselves. Right. They can’t go harder than that. Right. So you’ve got to give them information that will help them regain speed or regain the form that they had up to that point in time. So I work, I’ve got three key principles that I work on. And I used to call it how to turn a bad day on the running corner around. Right. Now I call it the, I call it the Goldilocks drill. Right. And it’s basically, you know, you’ve got to get your posture in attacking mode. So in other words, you’ve got to get your torso ahead. It’s not really ahead. It’s almost ahead of your, of your ground contact. Right. So in other words, you want that forward lean. And I do that mostly with the chest. I connect the chest to the pelvis. So instead of the chest

being backwards and the head being backwards and the pelvis being anteriorly operated, I want them to bring the pelvis back, but I don’t focus on that. I want them to bring the chest down, get a balance between the back and the front. Immediately their cadence will go up. And I use a simple cue. I’m saying where you’re looking. If you’re looking above the trees, if you’re looking into the sky and you’re up here and you’re really straining, all you need to do is look down and your cadence will instantly come up. And the best way to do that is another term that I learned from Matt Pendola in this world where we make up terms, right, is set it and forget it, which is blow out. Now you’re pushing your cyphoid process down. You’re balancing out your chest, your ribs are no longer flaring. You’re not backing into your diaphragm at the back. You’re balancing that out. You’re creating room for your diaphragm to operate. Cadence comes up because of that momentum and because of that

comfort level, right? And the next one is your kinetic chain. It doesn’t matter how hard you try and move your cadence up. If you’re carrying your hands below your waistline and your elbow angles are open, that’s the length of your lever is going to determine how fast you move your feet. That’s what the kinetic chain does. If you move this hand backwards, the opposite leg will be moving backwards, right? And if you swing that lever through with long arms and people confuse this in sprinting, all right, then you’re going to slow your legs down. So you long arms, extended elbows, slow cadence. You’ve got to pick those elbows up. And then the next thing is from a momentum standpoint, you have to pull your elbows back. You can’t be lifting them up in the front. You have to pull them back. That improves your posture and that improves, you know, all of the physics of that whole process. And the last one, and in my opinion,

the king is running is not reaching. Running is driving straight down. But because of momentum, straight down is underneath and away. But your thought is get the feet down, then the knees will come up. The foot strike will soften, but more important than anything is that your cadence will go up. And your stride length will get longer because now your foot’s on the ground without breaking, it’s pulled out the back and your stride length becomes longer where it should become longer. So big time. So in terms of stride length, mid foot strikers or forefoot strikers will have a longer stride length than a lower cadence. They’re more springy, right? And generally people that run on their mid feet, their power to weight ratio is very high. They normally very light individuals with long, springy, sinewy legs, right? So they’ve got a lot of spring. But that means you say you can’t be an incredibly successful runner when you’re a heel striker,

but your heels are closer to your center of mass, all right? So it’s easier to lean forward when you’re a heel striker, okay? They will have a naturally higher cadence, all right? But they’ll have a shorter stride length. And when it comes to stride length, stride length again is determined by speed, all right? But the stronger, the fitter, the higher your level of mobility, the more you can extend your hips backwards, the longer your stride length is. But those two are very, very much intertwined. You can’t be taking giant steps and have a cadence of 100. That’s never going to work, right? All right? But you can have giant steps and have a cadence of 180 or 185, 186, right? When, when I worked with her at a peak show, her stride length was 184, so 92 steps per foot, right? But her stride length was 1.74 meters. So it was massive stride length, right? I had other girls that were trying to make the Olympic team, they

had a cadence of 220. All right? So they were taking 110 steps a minute. You normally see this with small individuals, like the Japanese girls all have this very, very high cadence, because they’re very short individuals with very short legs. All right? But their stride length is only about a meter, 1.2, 1.15 meters. So they taking shorter steps, much faster. But if you do the math, you can get them to be the same. So there’s, you know, there’s girls that run, who haven’t seen one at that level for a while. But there’s been lots of girls that run 219, 218 for the marathon that have a cadence of well over 200. Gebre Selassie was right on 200, you know? Bekele was 196, 198. So the thing to look at with cadence is, what is your cadence at a certain velocity? And if that cadence falls off and you’re trying to sustain the same velocity, you’ve gone into a very un-economical phase, you’re going to start falling back. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, that’s right. So

a lot of parallels there with what you need to do and how you can approach it as well, like the set and forget. It’s like, all right, head position, similar thing, chin comes forward, head comes forward, ribs flare out. It’s like, no, let’s just switch that on, set and forget. I like that. And yeah, and then that can, that’s going to make a big difference. So really interesting. I’m going to go for a run today or tomorrow. And I’m keen to, keen to try those things. Okay. Yeah, that’d be good. Now, in terms of let’s talk about pacing and energy conservation. What’s, there’s sort of general rules of thumb for people when they’re approaching a race like a marathon in terms of how they should go out or does it depend on the athlete? No, the approach is, is definitely one that has to be commensurate with their conditioning and their training. In the old days, a common mistake we used to make with the marathon is we do the quality work, we do the mileage, but we wouldn’t do enough

neuromuscular work at race pace. So that’s very important. So that tempo runs, you can train tempo early on in a phase as a physiological principle. So tempo is the poor man’s lactate threshold, right? You do those tempo runs, but they don’t need to be much more than 60 minutes. You can even do five times eight minutes, six times 10 minutes, that kind of thing. But when you are getting ready for the marathon and you’re going, okay, I need to run six minutes of K or I need to run five minutes of K for the marathon, you need to do protracted running, fatigued and unfatigued at that pace. You need to myelinize your running pattern at that pace, because otherwise you are uneconomical on race day and very, very fit if you don’t do that, right? So at altitude, it’s a problem for me, right? So you either have to use supplemental oxygen, all right, so that people can run at that pace for protracted periods of time, or I have them run on very slight downhills where they can run race

pace, but they’re running slightly downhill. Not as good as supplemental O2 because their mechanics change slightly, but that becomes really, really important that they run at that kind of pace. The next thing that becomes important with pacing, and I teach this to triathletes, I’ll literally have them run, they 10K runners or even 5K runners off the bike, I’ll have them run like 10, 200s without a watch on, okay? Flying start, run through the finish, and then break it down. Let’s say they want to run a 15 minute 5K, that means they need to run 36 seconds for every 200, right? So flying start, run a 36 second 200 with lots of rest in between, but you’ve got to hit 36s, you’ve got to feel 36s in your brain and in your legs and in your body. So you’re literally teaching them how that feels. The other component that is hard is to realise when you’ve tapered for a race, you’re super springy, you’re super ready to go, you’re

super energetic, and your perception of your pace is way off versus getting up in the morning, forcing down a cup of coffee, you exhausted, you got to go to work later in the day and you slog your way through a six mile at the perfect pace because you can’t go any faster, right? So it’s really a zone to run, right? Now you’re fresh, you’re excited, the adrenaline’s going, there’s people around you running fast, you don’t know if they run 30 minutes faster or 30 minutes slower than you for a marathon, there they are and they’re going fast and I’ve got to keep up, right? So what I teach there, there are two things that are important. One is there is no banking in running, just like in swimming, there’s no putting pace in the bank,

all right? It’s just the interest rate is minus 14. The harder you go out, the slower you will go at the end, it’s just, that’s the bottom line. And it’s a mental thing too and I learnt this as a track coach, right? Again, let’s go back to the 5000, you have to run 5000 meters in 15 minutes, that’s your goal, you’re physiologically ready to do that, you’re mechanically ready to do that. You run the first 234, you run the first lap in 68, all right? You’ve got four seconds in the bank and this goes on for eight or nine laps but each lap you’re losing a bit more time. So by the time you get to lap 10, all right, you’re running 74s, which is two seconds too slow but you’re right on time. But the coach who’s not experienced says you’d stay right there but the trend has been slowing for 10 laps. So staying right there means slow down a bit more.

All right? So I teach something that I call a crescendo mindset. If you want to run five minutes of K, the first Ks need to feel, to be five minutes, they need to feel like six minute Ks and then they will be five minute Ks, right? And then in the middle, a five minute K will feel like a five minute K. But pretty soon, 75 to 90% into that run, a five minute K will feel like a four minute K. So your mindset has to be crescendo for your pace to be even. It’s got to get harder and harder to hold the same pace. And so the trick is go out easy. Lorraine Moller, the famous marathon runner from New Zealand who won the bronze medal in the 92 Olympics, her coach used to say to her in a marathon, go out at what feels like the right pace and then back off that. And that’s really good advice because what feels like the right pace is nine times out of 10, hopelessly too fast. Yeah. Yeah. That’s great advice. That makes me think of the

the half Ironman that I did a few years back. First K was like 340 or 350. And I’m like, wow, that felt like 430 or five, five minutes back right off here. That’s, that is not going to be sustainable. And, and I mean, the same thing happens in those longer distance events too. It’s just like, you’ve got to make it feel very comfortable. You’ve got to keep that heart rate under control because. Yeah. And then the other thing is your mindset changes, right? When you start struggling, you say, I just want to finish this. All the plans for a pace go out the window. And that’s wrong. You’ve got to be antifragile saying everybody else is now just hanging on and saying, let this be over. Let me just get to the finish. You need to be racing. When you get to 30K, you need to say the race has just started. I had this fun adventure for 30K. And now the next 12K is where the race is. Now I switch on. Now everything

starts to happen, but you have to practice that mindset. One of my favorite workouts is that

easy 30K and then a 5K time trial. That’s perfect for marathon training. You can’t do it every week for sure, but you can do that a couple of times in a season. You go for your long run and then at the end of that long run, boom, you’re on a little time trial.

And that gives you a much better idea of what you capable of in the marathon. Definitely. One of the things that Andy Donaldson said, he’s broken two world records in marathon swimming, very good distance swimmer. And he said in the six weeks leading up to a marathon swim that he’s going to do, what he tries to do is just get very efficient at holding 112 pace per 100. A lot of his session is just swimming at that pace that he plans to hold for the swim. And I know one of the mistakes I made when I was training for a marathon swim I did a couple of years back was my longer swims were, especially leading up to the race, they were too slow. I was probably swimming 125 pace, I reckon, and it should have been, well maybe even 125 to 130 possibly, and it should have been more at the round 120 or slightly faster. Like I just went too slow and paid for that, paid for that race day. Yep. Yep. So yeah. So I like the idea of no, there’s no banking

in a race. So yes, that is so true. And when you see someone trying to bank that time, you always see them pay for that later on. Exactly. Exactly. There’s no way it works ever. The best, the best I remember there was in the 10k at the Rio Olympics in 2016, an Aussie swimmer Jared Port was out by himself. He was like 200 meters ahead and then with about 2k to go, the group just swallowed him up. But it was awesome. It was like, man, if you could have pulled that off, it would have been amazing. But yeah, the group just swallowed him up from there. You can hold it. Yeah. And I remember that swim very well, because the night before, the entire swim course was blown away. It was blown onto the shore and the buoys got buried under the sand. The pontoon got buried under the sand. They had to dig it out. I think they changed the course slightly because of it. And I remember in the women’s race, there was a

hectic finish for the lower medals. I think one girl hit the side instead of the top and lost the medal because of it. It was a great open water race. I was sitting in the hotel watching it on TV because it wasn’t as easy to watch on the beach. But the beach was literally 150 meters away. I could have watched it on the beach, but I watched it on TV right there.

It was pretty choppy too. I don’t think you would have been able to see much.

Yeah. Now let’s have a look here. So we’ve actually talked about a lot of the other things that I had listed here. Maybe to finish off with visualization. Do you ever use that with your athletes? Yeah. No, no, I do. I work very closely now with a very, very fine sports psychologist by the name of Cory Rife. And I’ll just say the name here. He wrote an incredible book recently called The Transformational Power of Pure Intelligence. And I can highly recommend that people go and read that. But Cory doesn’t like to use the word visualization because we all visualize in some way, shape or form every day of our lives, right? What he likes to talk about is mental rehearsal. So you formally visualize yourself doing the race and the processes around the race. And this is what the scientist Albert Bandura came across in the 70s, right? Came up with this concept of self-efficacy. So you visualize the training that you have done,

what the processes were, and what the processes are that you’re going to require in the race, and you add in the timing. So you actually mentally rehearsing. So it’s like going to address rehearsal in your head. You’re doing all the things that you would do. It sounds like semantics, but it makes a big difference, right? So now you can say, okay, if something goes wrong, this is what it looks like. And this is how I’m going to respond to that. All right. But generally, if it goes, well, this is what I’m going to do. This is what I’m going to do. It gets people out of their heads in terms of self-confidence. I need my ego needs to feel ready to do the race. You know, you’re going, I am ready. My body is ready. I know how to execute the bits and pieces of this race. I know how to start. I know how to dress myself. I know how to eat. I know how to travel to the event. And I can see all those things happening in my head,

and I can see myself doing them effectively, right? And so when I go into the race, I’m not thinking about, don’t let yourself down. Don’t let your coach down. Don’t let your folks down. Don’t make a fool of yourself. Don’t make this mistake. Don’t make that mistake. No, you’re thinking about, you have the skills and you need to execute the skills, and it helps a lot with pacing, right? It’s like you looking at your watch saying, I can’t run the whole race at this speed. So you’re using your brain and you’re going, I know what it’ll look like if I run at this speed because this is not sustainable for me. This is great for 10K. Can’t do a half at this speed. You know what I’m saying? So that whole concept of whatever you do must be seen as rehearsal. And the more realistic you make it and the more sensors you add to it, the taste, the sight, the sounds. Swimming is big with taste, right? And swimming is big with smell. There’s a very different smell when you go to a lake swim

than when you go to an ocean swim, right? So if you do all your open water training in a lake and you do all your majority of your training in a pool, and it’s a heavily chlorinated pool, when you show up at the ocean, there’s the connections aren’t being made. People don’t know what it is to swim and salt. Their body position is off. They’re floating higher. They haven’t rehearsed it. So to me, from a visualization standpoint, I would change the word to rehearsal. I would formalize it. And even with swimming, I would put a watch on it. So start visualizing yourself doing a tough set in the pool that your sendoff is, I don’t know, 115s or whatever the case might be, right? And then you start your watch and you close your eyes and you stop your watch when you touch the wall. And if those two match, now your imagery is involved with your body clock as well. You’re starting to feel and it’s easy for swimmers to do because if they swimming

properly, they can count their strokes. And when you count in your strokes, there’s no way to be more present and in the moment than that was one stroke. That was two strokes. That was three strokes. So the only way I finished my long course race was I was left out alone. I stood on the beach and we were told you swim out until you can’t see the shark nets anymore underneath you. Then you turn left, swim all along the shark nets, pass two piers and then make a left turn and then you finished with your Iron Man swim, right? And I’m out there on my own. The only way I got through that swim was two things. Sharks always get caught on the inside of the shark nets. All right, I’m on the outside of the shark net. So they’re going to pass me by, all right. And the other one was counting strokes. That was 100, next 100, next 100, next 100. If I’m losing count of my strokes, I’m losing focus. Get back to focusing on my

stroke count, you know, makes all the difference in the world. Yeah, that’s,

I like the timing aspect of it too. It’s like if you can, if you can get really close to it, then, you know, you’re visualizing it really well. And previously, as like growing up when I was competing at a national level, we would do quite a bit of it. And I got 400 medley, you know, I got within, I’d say about 10 seconds of the actual time there, most times by the time I was ready for race season. And it’s, yeah, very, very good tool. What was the name of the book again? The name of the book is the transformational power of pure intelligence. And his name is Corey, C-O-R-Y, right, R-E-I-C-H. Gotcha. Yeah, right. Excellent. Well, Bobby, thank you so much for your time and for being back on the podcast. I’ve picked up a lot from that. I love chatting to someone with the experience and the breadth of athletes that you work with and constantly learning, not stuck coaching the same way you did 15 years ago, I’m sure.

So I really appreciate you being on the podcast and sharing that. For those that are listening, where’s the best place to get in touch with you? You’ve mentioned Runform as well.

Where can people find that? Yeah, they can just look up Pandola Training and they’ll find Runform on there or they’ll find Runform on my website, bobbymugi.com. We are linked straight through to that. All right. And then I haven’t done much on Instagram. I do a lot of interacting, but I haven’t written a lot on Instagram lately. But that’s Bobby McGee running. On Instagram. Fantastic. We’ll put that in the show notes as well.

We’ll put all those things in the show notes so people can find it easily. Thanks again, Bobby. Appreciate it. All right. Take care, man. Lovely to see you again, 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 Lessons From An Olympic Coach with Bobby McGee appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

In today’s episode, I’m speaking with Dudley Duncan, a seasoned coach and author of The Art of Swimming and The Game of Racing. Dudley has spent years refining his approach to swimming and he’s sharing some incredible insights that will help you improve both your mindset and your technique in the water.

We cover stroke mechanics, the power of visualization to boost your performance, and strategies to build confidence so that you feel stronger and more capable every time you swim. Dudley also talks about how to balance hard work with mental toughness, giving you practical tips to stay motivated and achieve your goals.

Whether you’re training for a big race, or just looking to swim smoother and faster, this episode is packed with ideas to help you take your swimming to the next level. Let’s dive in.

02:22 How Did You Get Into the World Of Swimming

Purchase the book: https://www.dudleyduncan.com/

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

Change your technique and swim a smoother, easier freestyle with the Effortless Swimming membership:

Try PILLAR today, head to pillarperformance.shop and enter code EFFORTLESS for 15% off, or for any North American listeners, enter the same code at TheFeed.com.

Watch the episode on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/qm3WoESs0SI

I’m related to kayaking a little bit because I’ve kayaked a fair amount and you can gain much more power in the kayak if you concentrate on the side that you’re pushing on. So if you just gain purchase with the paddle, the paddle holds the water and you push on the other side, that movement will give you much more power than just to pull on the paddle. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. I’m your host, Brenton Ford, and in today’s episode, I’m speaking with Dudley Duncan, a seasoned coach and author of the art of swimming and the game of racing. Dudley has spent years refining his approach to swimming and he’s sharing some incredible insights that will help you improve both your mindset and your technique in the water.

We cover stroke mechanics, the power of visualization to boost your performance and strategies to build confidence so that you feel stronger and more capable every time you swim. Dudley also talks about how to balance hard work with mental toughness, giving you practical tips to stay motivated and achieve your goals. Whether you’re training for a big race or just looking to swim smoother and faster, this episode is packed with ideas to help you take your swimming to the next level. Let’s dive in. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. My guest today is Dudley Duncan, the author of the Art of Swimming and the Game of Racing, Reflections of a USA Swimming Club Coach. On today’s podcast, I want to chat about several topics that I think will be useful for adult swimmers and triathletes to improve the performance of their swimming and get your take, Dudley, on things that you believe would help this type of swimmer because you’ve been around the pool

for many, many years and I think having to condense your thoughts in a book and spend the time sitting down, writing and editing and refining your thoughts gives you a lot of knowledge and wisdom to work from aside from all of the years that you spent on pool deck. So welcome to the podcast. Thanks a lot. It’s great to be with you. How amazing we can talk this way across continents. Well, you’re over there in Florida. I’m here in near Melbourne and I appreciate you jumping on the podcast and just to sort of kick things off. Where does swimming start for you in your life? How did you originally get into the world of swimming?

Well, I guess my first thing to say is I failed beginner swim lessons. So once I failed, I was committed to doing better from then on. But also my father died actually when I was 11. And my mother moved us to a community that had a swimming pool. And the idea of that was so that we would have somebody taking care of us in the summers while she was working. So got started swimming there, went to military school and swam there, you know, during this during this swimming season, finished high school, coached a little bit before I got drafted into the service, which was late 60s. So rather than go in the draft, I joined the Air Force and I fell into a situation where I was stationed in Fayetteville, North Carolina at an Air Force base there. And I was my career field was changed from radio operations to security police.

I was investigating vandalism at a Colonel’s house on the base. He had five kids and most of them swam. So they needed an assistant coach at that time for the club team on the base. And so I raised my hand and said, I can do that. And by the time I was through doing that, I was committed to life of coaching. And I went to college, majored in fiscal education, was coaching the club team while I was in college and one of the families paid for a graduate assistantship so I could stay on another year and just kept coaching from there.

I did apply for two jobs, which I failed to get. One was at the university where I was going. And the other one was at this place about a couple of hours up the road. And I didn’t get them. So I went down to a junior nationals and was handing out resumes on the deck. And I happened to get a job with a coach named Jim Montrella, who was a 1972 Olympic coach and worked with him for 10 months before I went back to Virginia. Actually, so that job was here in Viral Beach. So that’s the connection that brought me back here eventually. But it was 10 months and he really changed my consciousness, I think, elevated it. And one of the jobs that I did not get fired the guy that they hired instead of me. And they called me and asked me if I come back. So I came back, went back to Virginia and coached there from then on. And in terms of that, I would have coached a lot of swimmers over your over your time. I know one of the things that you focus a lot on is their personal growth

and development of your of your swimmers outside of the physical development and strength development, which I think is a huge, a huge part of developing any athlete, especially one that’s going to be able to stick around long term. And it’s going to be able to have the mental, the mental toughness to be able to race well and train well. What were some philosophies or strategies that you developed over time to help with that personal growth side of things and develop that in your swimmers?

Well, I think one really important thing, it’s a chapter on it early in my book. It’s on developing team consciousness. And I think it’s very important to educate people all along the way to develop that team consciousness. And hopefully that team consciousness will be an elevated team consciousness as well, where you’re really trying to improve yourself to whatever level you can reach. And that starts with imposed discipline. Of course, when you’re kind of letting everybody know what you want and how you want them to do things, but if you present it well and you educate well, then I think there’s self-discipline that comes out of that eventually. And that’s what you want is ideally is a team where the discipline and the approach to swimming is building on itself. And the swimmers, the parents, the community are all committed to what you’re doing with that team consciousness. And from then on, it can grow.

It’s slow growth. Generally, I think it takes about three years to actually change a consciousness of a team. And so it’s probably a decade of time before you get them to where you want them to be on the basis of self-discipline rather than imposed. How did you set the standards with your team early on? Do you get everyone together? The parents, the swimmers, sit them down and talk about these are the standards. This is what we require or is there a different strategy that you would use?

Yeah, there’s a fair amount of talk that starts out with the swimmers, of course, dependent on their ages and with the families as well because the families are a very important part of it and the coaching staff as well. So when you’re all kind of coming together and everybody understands what you’re intending for

the team itself and for the groups within the team and for the individuals within the groups, then you have a pretty strong basis to work with.

And then how do you go about pulling people back into line? There’s always swimmers who like to push the boundaries of beard or maybe aren’t fitting in with the team consciousness. What were any sort of strategies or maybe examples of times where someone wasn’t quite playing ball? Yeah, a good example, I guess, is the beginning of practice, to start practice.

I always wanted to start the practice with the group all there and to start the groups with take your mark, go a really great start to start the practice. So there would be swimmers that would not do a great start or lag a little bit, not be on time, those kinds of things, think it was okay, be average or whatever. And I tended not to accept that. So the least you could do is start practice on time and have a good start to my command. And if you did that, the practice was great. And if you didn’t do that, you weren’t in the practice. That was the day you would miss.

I wasn’t loud about it or anything. I just called it out that if somebody was late, I said, come back tomorrow. Somebody did a poor start or wasn’t paying attention.

Either have them do it over, have the group do it over or talk to them about it. Inevitably, I wanted to win that exercise. Is that something that you had to develop over time? Not assertiveness, but that willingness to commit to standards? Or is that something that you found you had straight away when you started coaching?

Probably took about a month to get everybody to where they were

doing what I wanted them to do in the beginning. You know, once everybody understood that it was necessary to be on time and to do that technique well, make it a difference maker in a race potentially, then yeah, it wasn’t too hard to do after that.

And in terms of pushing athletes, I think Swimmers have got to be one of the hardest working athletes on the planet with the amount of training they do, some of the sessions that are involved with it in the early mornings, those sorts of things.

How did you find that balance between pushing athletes to their limit, but not going over the top where they suffered mentally as a result of it? Yeah, it’s really an important element with club kids, especially and I guess with adults too, especially at a master’s level, a lot of them are coming back to swimming and they’ve had a wide variety of experiences with different coaches and that, you know, so yeah, it’s something that you just

have to attend to sort of the way that you do yourself as a coach. So I mean, you’re there the same hours, if not more, probably more. When I owned a business, it was a lot more.

But yeah, so the important thing I think is to keep it in perspective, to understand that it’s not always. I mean, you hear Swimmers describe what they do, they’ll go like, you know, we practice every morning and every afternoon and we do dry land and, you know, we practice and go to meets on the weekends and, you know, we don’t have time for anything else. And that’s really not the case. It’s not quite true. So you have to keep it in perspective. There are periods of time where you’re doing that kind of training possibly.

The one thing that makes you appreciate it is if you don’t have the pool time and you don’t have the opportunity to do it, you start worrying about whether you’re going to perform or not. And I’ve had that situation too. So yeah, but you keep it in perspective. You don’t feel sorry for yourself. Talk to them about that. There’s no need for it. If you want to be competitive, that’s the nature of the competitive development as you come along. So yeah, I think it’s just a matter of, you know, you’ll have an individual or maybe even a few that are feeling sorry for themselves, you know, and not responding the way you want them to, and you pull them out and you go, you know, you’re feeling kind of sorry for yourself. You need to cut it out. You know, if you don’t want to do this, you can go home. You don’t have to. Nobody’s forcing you, you know, but if you want to do it, then do it well. You know, so that’s kind of the approach that I use.

And going on to stroke mechanics and developing that in athletes, what was your philosophy in developing good technique and efficiency with swimmers and marrying that up with the hard work as well? Because they’re both really important. You can’t have one without the other. But sometimes I find that can be a bit of a challenge because you want to get the work done. You want to train them hard. But we also need to make sure that the technique is up to scratch as well. So what was your approach there and philosophy in developing that?

Yeah, so the first thing that we would do is to create a system of nomenclature or terms that we used, you know, to be able to swim well. So the first one is balance. And we define balance as a leveraging process rather than, you know, the head altogether doing it. So we want the head in line with the spine, but the balance points surround the lungs. So you can press in at the balance points that surround the lungs that, you know, depending on where you are in the stroke, and it sort of leverages the lower body up. So you don’t have to, you know, like lift the head for breath or pull yourself up for breath or over kick, you know, to keep the body up. You can leverage yourself in the water. It’s kind of counterintuitive. Most people do have the instinct to lift the head or press downward on the water to be able to

get themselves to breath. But if you learn to balance well, then you can do it without that. We generally start balance on the back for new swimmers. And new swimmers would be people I haven’t coached before as well, even if they’ve been swimmers for a long time. But we can find that balance pretty easily pressing the back of the head and the back into the water and feeling the hips and the legs come to the surface. Likewise, if you’re in balance and then you lift the head or lift your body up, you’ll feel your body go down. So, you know, balance is a very important element. We have a statement that we make all the time, which is a longer vessel is faster than a shorter vessel. And we show them how if they’re balancing on kicking on their backs, and they rotate to the side, keeping their arms at the side, and then lengthen the arm, then right away, they can feel the difference in speed. So a longer vessel faster than a shorter vessel to the extent that you

to the extent that you can make it as long as can be dependent on the stroke.

And then it’s the third thing is to coordinate the hips to that recovering arm and that lengthening arm so that it’s driving that part of the body forward. Swimmers tend to instinctively pull on the water, you know, think I’ve got to pull hard or pull fast. But we take the other side to try to create efficiency and speed as well as we can without the pull being the primary factor. We do talk about feel for the water, you want to hold the water again, purchase on it, and then let it move at the speed of your hand or your hips and your body to create that that efficiency and timing. As long as you’ve got the hips in the right place at the right time and you initiate the movement at the right place at the right time for freestyle, we do that in what we call the front quadrant. And that’s as you know, you’ve got the

the arm that’s lengthened out in front of you and you wait until the recovery comes to the entry point and then you’re in the front quadrant and you put it all together right there.

I’m related to kayaking a little bit because I’ve kayaked a fair amount and you can gain much more power in the kayak if you concentrate on the side that you’re pushing on. So if you just gain purchase with the paddle, paddle holds the water and you push on the other side, that movement will give you much more power than just to pull on the paddle. So I liken it to that and they seem to understand that. And then the last thing, and once you’ve got yourself balanced and timing, then you can start working on the combination of stroke length and stroke rate to find the optimal balance between the two for speed. And that takes a while for some swimmers, not so much for the really great swimmers naturally, which is probably about 2% of people. But the 98% of us, you know, take time and if we forget about it and go back to our instincts, we’ll lose it as well. So it needs to be reinforced. I just want to go back to the

kayak section that you’re talking about there. So for those that are that are listening to the podcast, you’re saying if you’re kayaking, you’ve got your paddle, let’s say on your right side, it’s in the to the right of you. And then you’re talking about on, so you’ll let the left side of your body trying to drive that forwards or you’re talking about the right side. So yeah, so most people will just pull on the paddle, you know, right and left or right and left. But if you rather think about putting the paddle into the water at the place where you put it, and rather than thinking about pulling on the paddle, you use your hip that’s on the other side and that arm to push the paddle forward, then you create and generate a lot more power. Likewise, too, you can feel the length of vessel, too. If you have a longer kayak, it moves faster than a shorter kayak. I have a 19 foot and a 13 and a half foot. And I had I lived on a reservoir in Virginia, and it would take me two hours to

kayak from one end of the reservoir to the other and the 13 and a half foot, it would take me an hour and 40 minutes and an 18. Yeah, interesting. That’s a great analogy with the kayak, because obviously, I say that a lot when I’m coaching with swimmers who have very little connection in their stroke where the arms are moving through, but it’s not connected to the body. And trying to train that and develop that in people who don’t have a swimming background as a kid is one of the challenges that we work on people with and hopefully help them with. Are there any particular drills or strategies you had there to help them with that side of things?

Yeah, like with freestyle, we’re starting on the back and then rotating to the side and kicking, and then we’ll do what we call a triple switch where without a breath, we’ll go three strokes and try to feel that movement in the three strokes and then go to breath because breath usually interrupts things. So it’s a little bit easier if you can take a few strokes and then get your breath. And then once you get your breath started again, regain your balance, then three strokes. If it’s backstroke, we like to watch the recovery too. I believe in visual awareness. And if you can see what you’re doing and you have a purpose, then you can develop timing a lot more easily than just trying to feel it. So for backstroke, we’ll focus on the recovery arm as it’s coming over and try to time the hips so it’s moving with the recovery arm as we see it come through our field of vision. And that really creates a timing and we’ll do

a similar thing, a three kick switch, or we’ll do single arm where we’re turning the hip and rotating and seeing the recovery arm, that kind of thing. Yeah, with breaststroke and butterfly, we want the hips high as the arms are extended, you know, so that’s kind of our starting point. And then a lot of it has to do with first getting the hips in the right place at the right time, but the second thing is breath. So with butterfly, you don’t want to interrupt the flow of the stroke by having a high breath or lifting the chest up to breathe, just extend the chin to the water surface, you know, and try to keep your line going with the rhythm of the stroke. And for breaststroke, it’s most important that you breathe as the arms are coming on the end sweep so that it naturally the end sweep brings you to the breath, you’re not lifting the head to get to the breath, you’re taking the breath as your arms bring you to it. And then the other part of timing

in breaststroke is to try to get the feet to recover as the hips are moving downward. So it’s not you pulling your feet up, it’s letting them come to you as a result of the hips

depressing in the water. So once you’ve got the timing on it, it’s really,

it feels miraculous really, you know, because breaststroke I think is the hardest stroke to time. Well, we do drill in the deep end, we call seahorse, where we’ll just lay flat, you know, with the upper body flat on the surface of the water and the head down and the high knee sort of the butt at the surface. And then we’ll let the arms sweep out slowly and then take a fast end sweep, drive the hips and just feel the feet come to you, you know, the recovery of the feet. So you’re not, you know, having to work to get them up, they’re coming up on their own. 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 the 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 Zach 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. And you mentioned you sort of like to train things visually. In terms of

visualization, was that something that you used with your swimmers in their race preparation, in their stroke development? Yeah, it is a lot, quite a bit really. We used to, I’ve done a lot with it, had some interesting stories that go with that too. It’s really a powerful element. I had, we did, going into a YMCA Nationals, I was coaching a team that was YMCA at the time, and we did visualization for five minutes before every practice for a season, you know, the short course season going into YMCA Nationals. And I did it five minutes and I would call out every 30 seconds and I would have them, you know, ask them to visualize.

We of course get into a relaxed state first and, you know, have it very quiet and everything. So, it was all set up to visualize. And we had some interesting things happen. I had a boy that wanted to go under two minutes for 200 a.m. And he visualized 158 all the time. And he was like a 205, 200 a.m. or, you know, so big drop. He didn’t actually break two minutes. He went two minutes plus. But he got under the flags right at the end of the race and his freestyle stroke just stopped for a, you know, just a blink of an eye. Yeah, you could see him, his stroke interrupted because that’s where he had visualized that to happen. That was pretty cool. And yeah, another swimmer had actually made the Olympic team and swam in Australia. And when she made the team Olympic trials, she said, you know, she swam for Auburn. She was swimming for Auburn at the time. But she had been with me from eight to 18 years old. And she had done a lot of visualization

stuff. And after she made the team, she called me and she said, I just got to tell you something. And she goes, I really, I swim every single race, the preland, the semifinal and the final exactly like I wanted to swim it. And I made the team and I didn’t know if I would make the team. And it didn’t matter really, as long as I swam, my race is the way that I had visualized it and thought about it. She goes, I thought about that race every day for a year, just in my mind. And so I made the team. I was happy. So then I got into the Olympic procedures and also we went, you know, from Indianapolis to California to Hawaii to Australia. And I was with all these heroes of mine that I had known growing up and stuff. And we were getting all this uniform and everything. She goes, it happened so fast. The next thing I knew, I’m walking out for the semifinals. And I realized I had not thought about this race even one time, that whole time. And she said, I would then

announce me, I was put taking off my uniform. And I was more tired at that moment than I was all the way through Olympic trials. I never felt that. And she didn’t swim well. She went out, she said, I was dead tired at 75 meters. She says, just because I didn’t pay attention to what I was supposed to do, you know, and they did a visualization at Auburn. So, you know, she was used to it, but the Olympic staff or whoever she had coaching her, I don’t remember who it was, during the preparation for the Olympics, didn’t do it. You know, and she didn’t think about it. It’s pretty fun. I remember when I was 15, we were doing a lot of visualization, usually once a week. And I would visualize swimming the 400 medley at Nationals. And I wanted to go, I think I wanted to go a 441. That was my goal. And I ended up swimming a 443 in the finals at Nationals. But that was a big stretch from what I thought up was possible. And I think the visualization for me, just when I was in the race, I’ve

been here before. I know what to expect. I know how it should feel, how it should look. And I found it’s such a useful process in my training and in my development. I would go to bed as well a lot of nights and just kind of picture or visualize parts of the race as well. And in a session, if it’s like a breaststroke set, I’d be picturing myself in that race again, just trying to put myself there as much as possible. And I credit the visualization to having my best result ever in the in a competition. Like it was just it helped help that much. And it’s something that as an adult, you know, we have other responsibilities and things where I don’t don’t really visualize much these days. But it’s something that I should, I think, you know, it’s just sometimes we just get distracted by by other things. But it’s just so so powerful when I think back to when I have used it previously in life. It’s been very beneficial.

Yeah, I think I think it needs to be combined also with your goal setting. So when your goal setting that needs to be very detailed, I think. And you need to know, have a good idea at least for how you want to swim the event, you know, ultimately, whether you want to build the event and split it or whether you want to, you know, take it out fast and hold on, or whether you’re going to just flow with the race or whatever. But you need to practice that way every day, I think. And that sort of strengthens the visualization as well. You know, as if you’ve got that firmly in your head from your practice, from your deliberate practice, it’s things to like, you know, you’re going to really try to win the turn, you’re going to be great underwater, you want to take, you know, eight kicks underwater, whatever, you know, you need to be doing that, you know, in your practice. And when you’re doing it in your practice, and then you visualize on top

of that, and you see it in your mind, the two go together, you know, so they come out a really dynamic duo. So it’s been, I think, you know, really gives you a good effort, you know, when it comes to race time. And even things like knowing, thinking about how you’ll maybe feel in the moment, what you’ll be wearing, what you’ll be smelling, what you’ll be seeing, just trying to make it as visual as tangible as possible. And adding those other elements in too can really help as well. And I did a, I did a couple of talks recently to some schools. And I, like just on sort of just I’m talking about effortless swimming and things like that, like different career paths for people. And this is, this is out of my comfort zone. I can talk freestyle, I can talk swimming all day, but talking about something that’s kind of a bit different, I was quite nervous about it. So I made sure to write everything down, rehearse it several times and just picture myself giving this

talk and just just rehearsing and practicing. And so by the time I got there, it pretty much went to went to plan, because I’d rehearsed it and, and it kind of visualized what it, what I hope it would, how I hope it would go. And, and then like it, and it was quite fun. It was quite enjoyable. But anytime where I have not prepared, it’s just like, it just, it doesn’t go well. It’s just, it’s not a fun experience. So yeah, it’s stuff that can be used in, in other elements of, of life as well. And I think I just have to remind myself, you know, whatever, whatever those goals are that I’ve got one year, three years out, just remember to like visualize them too. Because yeah, it’s easy. I think it’s easy when you’re in the system, you know, you’ve got a coach there who’s helping you guide you through this. But then when we, we don’t have for someone else to kind of answer to or giving us direction, that’s when it can,

can fall the way a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. It’s a very powerful tool when used along with everything else you’re doing. And in terms of developing confidence in, in swimmers and, and in athletes, how, what are some strategies that you’ve used for to help develop that in, in swimmers? Because you can see when someone’s on fire, like an athlete who’s on fire, let’s like Leon March on, for example, like he just, he was on fire at the Olympics. When someone’s got that confidence in themselves, they, they can really perform well. But then, you know, people can go through the opposite of that where they’re just really struggling to get up and race and hit their times. Was there any sort of strategies that you would use to help develop that confidence in your swimmers? Well, yeah, I think the first one is to learn to think about what you want, not what you don’t want. So a lot of swimmers, I mean, it’s probably

human nature. Some people will tend to, you know, think about what they want to happen and focus on the positive. And others will be afraid of what they don’t want to happen. You know, unusually, if they’re concentrating on the wrong thing, then that’ll affect their performance, you know, they’ll be, you know, sort of holding back, so to speak, because they’re thinking about the wrong things. And did you ever see the movie Point Break? Yeah, the, the, yeah, the original one? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So there’s a point in the movie where, you know, Counter Reeves is, he’s going to jump out of the airplane, they’re flying an airplane, and he’s going to jump out, he has to jump out. And he’s standing at the opening and Patrick Swayze says to them, don’t think about what you’re afraid of. Your worst fears will come to, you know, come true if you do. Think about what you want, you know, and I thought, golly, well, that’s profound, you know. And so he goes ahead and he jumps out of the plane,

everything happens, you know, as it happens. But that’s really, I mean, that’s really what it’s all about, you know, you can’t be afraid of what you don’t want to happen. You just have to keep your focus on what you want. Everybody can do a start, everybody can swim, everybody can do a turn, everybody can finish, you know. Usually people don’t have any fears when they’re swimming against people they know are slower than them. And they don’t really have much fear when they’re swimming with their equals and they know it, you know, but when you’re swimming with people you don’t know or you think might be faster than you, that’s when it comes in, you know. So you got to, you know, keep your mind on what you want. And the other thing I think is important is how you deal with failure. And it’s necessary to fail.

Everybody’s going to fail at one time or another either in practice or in, you know, a meet or whatever. But I think of failure as a positive attempt. You know, if you’re trying to do what you want to do and you can’t quite do it, you know, for one reason or another on a given day or, you know, you’ve tried a number of days and it’s not happening. All of those are really positive attempts that allow your body and your nervous system to release itself to a higher level of performance. And you have to kind of go through that. And we call it overcoming neurological inhibition. It’s just your body kind of having a governor on it, like for a car or something, you know, and you have to overcome that. And it’s going to probably require some failure for that to happen. It’s not a negative thing. It’s a very positive thing. It’s just depending on how you perceive it. A coach that he does a little bit of coaching it out at our camp.

So Gary Hurring, he would talk about the pit of discomfort that you go through. Whenever you make any changes to your stroke, you’re going to be in this zone and this place that it’s uncomfortable. It’s awkward. It doesn’t feel good. But if you persist long enough, you will come out the other side of it having changed those habits and improved your stroke. But just knowing what to expect when you’re looking to make those changes can help you stick with it and push through because we just it’s like a rubber band. We just want to kind of go back wants to go back to its original shape. But if you just continue to stretch it and be comfortable doing that, then it’s going to stay stay stretched out for afterwards, right? So it’s, yeah, it’s something that I think is good to let people know about as they’re going to go through any any stroke changes or they’re looking to develop themselves as a swimmer.

But it’s kind of like climbing a mountain with a yo-yo. They’ll be ups, they’ll be downs. But if you just continue on, that trajectory is going to be in an upwards direction. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. I really believe in that and try to help my swimmers believe in same thing. And in terms of advice you would give to say new new coaches or so even if it’s not coaching, but just some a couple of lessons that you look back on your your career with that you’d want someone to know if they were starting out in that in coaching. Well, I think to research and to study and learn as much as you can is the most important thing. And it’s been my observation, not only of a lot of coaches on the deck, but myself as well, that when I was not very knowledgeable, I tended to be a lot more emotional in how I was acting on the deck and that. And I recently was described as being a man who seemed to be stoic when the

swimmers were swimming. And I didn’t really think about myself that way. But I think that the more you know, the more you’re watching, the more you’re studying the performance as it happens. So, you know, when you’re trying to cheer them on when you’re younger and you don’t know very much. And by the time you’ve got some years of experience and some knowledge behind you, then you’re watching the performance to see how those things are playing out. And it’s a busy time because you might have, you know, three people in the water and you’re watching their mechanics, you’re watching the flow of the race, you’re watching the time on the splits, you know, you’re watching turns and what happens in and out of those and the finish. And there’s a lot to pay attention to in a given race. And oftentimes you’re watching more than one person. So there’s really not a lot of time to run up and down the deck and cheer for

people. You know, they know, they don’t hear it anyway, you know, they know you’re doing it maybe, but, you know, if they’ve seen you do it with other swimmers or whatever. But for the most part, it’s a waste of time, I think it’s better to study and then to have something to give them, you know, some important feedback afterward. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely agree. Well, Dudley, thank you so much for being on the podcast. For those that are listening, we’ll link to your book in the show notes, The Art of Swimming and the Game of Racing and it’s available through Amazon and we’ll link to your website there. So Dudley, thank you very much for being a guest. Anything we haven’t covered so far that you’d like to add?

No, I think the questions were really excellent. And, you know, we talked about things that matter. The book is obviously a lot more detailed. The information is, I think, of a broader nature than just competitive swimming, things like team consciousness and deliberate practice and the mental game. We have a saying, no brain, no game, you know, that we use all the time. So I’ve written all over the place, you know, so, I mean, it’s things that really apply in other fields other than swimming as well. So yeah, I hope everybody will enjoy reading it. Awesome. Thank you very much, Dudley. Talk to you soon. Appreciate the time. Thank you.

The post The Game Of Racing with Dudley Duncan appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

Welcome to this week’s episode of the Effortless Swimming podcast. My guest today is four time guest, Tracey Baumann. On this episode, we’re talking about the speed equation, your combination of stroke length and stroke rate, and how to find that sweet spot for whatever distance or whatever effort you’re doing.

This is really the art of it. This is the art of swimming where we want to develop good technique, but then in order to swim faster, we need to make sure that we maintain that technique. but we consider the stroke rate side of the equation. So on this episode, Tracy and I talk about how to find that sweet spot, some sets and some ways that you can practice this and find this in training and some ways that you can develop gears in your swimming.

If you find that you’re stuck and you can’t get faster and you’ve only got this one speed that you’re always stuck in, how can you actually go about developing those different gears? So let’s jump into the episode with Tracey Baumann.

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I think what is fascinating and I think the more people that see what happened, we posted on Instagram a little interview and some shots of you swimming and stuff, is that there’s everybody can always learn something and I think having you in the pool was so great to see that there’s always something to find and you could get in the pool with me for the next 30 years and we’d always at least find something to work on to improve on and I think that’s it’s such a great way to feel because there’s never any end to this journey you know I get it sometimes and I have the coaches look at me and you know I’m like you know I’ll play and yes I need to do that 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 welcome to this week’s episode of the effortless swimming podcast my guest today is four-time guest Tracy Bowman on this episode we’re talking

about the speed equation your combination of stroke length and stroke rate and how to find that sweet spot for whatever distance or whatever effort you’re doing this is really the art of it this is the art of swimming where we want to develop good technique but then in order to swim faster we need to make sure that we maintain that technique but we consider the stroke rate side of the equation so on this episode Tracy and I talk about how to find that sweet spot some sets and some ways that you can practice this and find this in training and some ways that you can develop gears in your swimming if you find that you’re stuck and you can’t get faster and you’ve only got this one speed that you’re always stuck in how can you actually go about developing those different gears so let’s jump into the episode with Tracy Bowman welcome to the effortless swimming podcast my guest today is someone who’s been in

the podcast three times before this is the fourth time Tracy welcome back to the effortless swimming podcast lovely to be here again thank you for inviting me back we’ve just got back from me visiting you up in Brisbane at your studio there we did a bit of what you did a bit of coaching in the endless pool there which was which was terrific be good to talk a little bit about that session the setup that you’ve got and then what I want to get into after that is something that we didn’t get to cover in the third episode of our series which is the speed equation stroke length stroke rate how do we find that sweet spot in between and how do we start to move the needle on either of those so that we can ultimately get faster so let’s just talk about that well that session there so I came up that’s great swimming the pool for about an hour and just had you doing some filming and coaching on on my stroke which was really bizarre because I do it

all the time for other people and then to be on the other end of it it was just weird and I found myself smiling and laughing underwater because I’m just like this is just this is such a bizarre thing to be getting at myself so and maybe what did you what did you first notice when you’re watching me swim just about aside from how good I looked when I was swimming you know just aside from all of that not yeah of course I think I think what is fascinating and I think the more people that see what happened we posted on Instagram a little interview and some some shots of you swimming and stuff that there’s everybody can always learn something and I think having you in the pool was so great to see that there’s there’s there’s always something to find and you could get in the pool with me for the next 30 years and we’d always at least find something to work on to improve on and I think that’s it’s such a great way to feel because there’s never any end to this journey

you know I get it sometimes and I have the coaches look at me and you know and I’m like you know halfway and yes I need to do that I didn’t notice that so I think it was just another reminder of this whole journey to mastery which is why I named my company it is that by definition you never reach it and that just really stuck out when you you got in the pool swim absolutely beautifully and yet when we dialed it down and looked at the timing and stuff we could find things that could make you feel even better in the water yeah it’s uh what I what I really liked about it was obviously just having someone give me feedback because I’ve seen myself swim a bit here and there I noticed a few things but it’s so good to get someone else to to look at it and the first thing that you notice was my well my breath timing was a little bit late and so I was lifting my head a bit and it was just throwing the stroke out in particular my catch on my right side

which I I sort of had a feeling about like I sort of felt like and I’ve seen it before that my catch when I breathe is often just not very good and uh but I yeah it’s something that I just hadn’t really been told or sort of noticed myself when I’d seen it um do you want to talk about maybe the what we went through there just to help yeah work on that and what was what is really fascinating is that you know when you when you watch somebody swim you know you first of all kind of go big picture and then you you’re able to zone in and what I kind of do is I do a kind of big picture scan zone into where the what’s happening and then scan out again and kind of see the direction of energy so the movement that the swimmer is is making and that was really um with your um breath it was really obvious how it was diverting your direction of the energy that was kind of the first thing that um I really noticed and in the endless pool it just accentuates

eights it because obviously you’ve got the currents like having your own little studio and inbuilt you know scientific experiments so you know when when we notice that and then we make the changes not only did I see more fluidity in your stroke but you felt less bumpiness in your stroke so both from what I was seeing and what you were feeling as we changed the timing of that breath because yeah it was almost like you would you were performing the stroke and it was I mean I’m exaggerating a lot because you’re an excellent swimmer but just as as a way of thinking about it you were performing the stroke and then going oh yeah I know what it is I forgot to turn my head to the breath kind of thing and as soon as we pointed that out and got you to go earlier earlier earlier still you could feel the fluidity in your stroke within the current and so it kind of gave you I I think the confidence to know that that was

improving your your your technique and therefore direction of it yeah what I noticed there was when I did get it I could really tell it just felt in sync felt very in tune and very smooth and I also felt like my catch was just a lot but was a lot better that just happened naturally when I got it right and the other thing I noticed too is I did have to exaggerate it a lot and I talk about that with a lot of the swimmers when we run clinics is is a great chance you’re gonna have to dial it up two three five times how much you think you need to to make the change and that was certainly the case with just turning my head before and I don’t know if I got this exactly right but this is kind of what stuck with me is the the head leads the hand or the head leads the arm there’s something along those lines that you use so so what you want to what you want to try and do and it’s it’s always interesting when coaching people is making sure that the words

the words that I say are not going to cause any long-term problems so I have to be really mindful of what I’m saying because as you rightly pointed out it often has to be a purposeful exaggeration to begin with because it’s so different I mean how many hundreds and thousands of strokes have you taken in the past doing that breath timing and so we have to go wacky to to break the kind of interrupt the pattern if you like however a pattern interrupt has to be something that’s going to interrupt a pattern but not cause a problem so you know what what I always do is because what we want to make sure is that the the turn of that head is going with the whole body rotation so we want to try not necessarily connected up to arms because that goes outside in and we want to make sure we stay coaching from the inside out so what we want to do is time it with the rotation but I give so so what like I did with you is I get you to exaggerate exaggerate

more exaggerate more and tell me how it feels and then you’ll tell me which one felt the best and I think with you um the earlier still was the one that was better so you didn’t you had to go quite far and then eventually you you’ll be able to back off to just early and eventually it’ll just be what what your stroke is but timing it to the rotation is going to keep you connected as you go through this kind of almost recalibration of your spirit level is kind of how I just and the other thing that I was doing was looking a little bit far behind me instead of going to the side and when you have me work on it the first breath that I took you stood where you wanted me to look and yeah and I remember you waved and I was like that made me laugh but I’m like damn it like I remember that I like you got me that that that really made it stick so like so that’s it just that in itself I thought was a really yeah it’s just such a useful way of having me remember it and actually

no I know where to look as well yeah it’s a really great thing you can do in like if you’re doing workshops as partner people up and have them just do sort of six strokes three breaths to one side and have them walk next to each other and show a number with their fingers so it could be two four five whatever and then they have to stand up and it just just keeps the focus but it also gives them a way to observe the other person as well so if they’re doing the fingers they’re observing what the other person is and then they have a go and look at the fingers it’s just some lovely fun ways you can help people to know where they’re going and where they should be going and then the other one was or the other sort of cue or phrase you used was fingernails forward from from memory yeah so do you want to talk a bit about that that and what the the purpose behind that was yeah so the reason why I was getting you particularly and you know each

each one to one lesson is going to be personalized and so for you I could see that your right catch wasn’t as effective as your left catch so your left catch is amazing as this most incredible pathway and the right catch you were slightly collapsing at the elbow going wide and you know long-term that’s not going to be great for your shoulder but it’s also not as effective so as I was sorting out the breathing timing I was just wanting to take the streamline if you like along for the ride so that we could maintain the joint mechanics as you recalibrated your your breath timing because obviously you know the brain is always connecting what’s happening all the time and if we move one thing then the other one that’s kind of like going well what does that mean for me and so giving it a job means that you keep everything going together so I had you doing that so essentially you know from if you’ve read the book it’s

essentially maintaining the middle and in your case middle and right trident prongs so that we maintain the whole unit going forwards during that breath so that it can tap into the perfect um catch mechanics once you’ve done the breath yeah that’s it yeah yeah it was and it was it was really good and when I got it all sinking together like there was some some strokes that just felt really really good and you just flew through the machine right like I was on the button going whoa I can’t keep up with you yeah being able to just make sure you’re going to actually see that you’re going faster because you can set the speed was a was a big one and I mentioned this before our call but um there’s been moments in some sessions since that where the stroke has felt really really good and yeah so I’m excited to just keep working you know working with those couple of things and then just seeing that seeing where that takes me so it’s

and it’s just so funny being on the other side of it because like it’s been a couple weeks since our session I’ve had some swims or parts of sessions where I like well okay this is feeling great other ones where I’m just it’s not quite clicking because I’m maybe fatigued there’s a lot of people in the lane or it’s just it’s one of those sessions but it’s getting more consistent and like it’s just it’s not it’s not going to happen all the time so of course yeah and how’s the breath stroke going because we popped a little brushstroke in there because you mentioned that you were having a little bit of pain have you managed to do any of that just that pain gone hopefully yeah yeah no so with the breath stroke occasionally I would get some pain in my most of my left shoulder in the out sweep and what you noticed was I was turning my hands out too much and putting too much pressure on in the out sweep so the the phrase you used was like like flattening out a

tablecloth yeah tablecloth which was which was a really good visual cue for me and it’s been been really good since so it’s like I’m starting to get used to that I don’t really do much time stuff with breath stroke but in terms of like pain no there’s nothing there and I’m actually applying that to my butterfly because typically my fly yeah typically my fly I think I just put too much pressure on when my hands are overhead or above my head so I’ve just been yeah just reducing that and trying to only really put the pressure on once my hands are a bit below my shoulders yeah fantastic so um yeah that was yeah very very helpful so I appreciate that it was really no worries anytime let’s get into the the speed equation so when you when you think about something when you talk about something it can be very simple if we go it’s just a combination of stroke length and stroke rate so let’s just improve each of those and we’ll be going faster which is true

but there’s a lot more that that goes into it what’s how do you sort of typically look at the speed equation and what’s your approach to it so the first thing that I do is I add one more metric to the speed equation so I have stroke rate stroke count SPL and so let’s I we tend to talk in words tempo and SPL strokes per length and then something we call RPE rate of perceived effort and it’s the the combination of those three the best possible combination of those three for any given distance that everybody’s looking for and once they’ve got those then the byproduct of that will always be sweet speed because it’s a maths equation but we have to bring in RPE to that because otherwise it might not be sustainable depending on what what the distance is that you that you want to swim yeah so that uh rate of perceived exertion very important fact of it and how what are some common mistakes or pitfalls that you

see when people are considering each of these different parts of it well I find it fascinating is and you you know I think just in life in general we often feel this you can I can say to you you know and ring a ring of rosies or something to you and whatever I say to you is going to go through your filters or your patterns your this and you might hear something like come to you don’t just have to know I don’t know and and and I find it really fascinating when we start talking about metrics in in the pool that that really happens a lot so I can say so what I want you to do is I want you to find your best possible stroke um SPL for for the length and at your fastest possible tempo with your best RPE and we’re going to find that magic number and we’re going to work on it and all they hear best possible SPL and they go to the pool and they do everything to try and get down to zero guys no we don’t want to get down to

zero we’re finding it’s it’s got to be a combination of all of them and equally so you know if they hear the word stroke rate and then they’re in in the pool just trying to up their stroke rate and but nothing else is involved in that equally one will cause over gliders and the other one’s going to cause cause spinners and we don’t want either we want that beautiful happy medium in the middle where we have people with who are swimming with perpetual motion at their they’re at their most efficient and therefore hopefully they’re fastest once they get their math so I think that’s the biggest common error I see when people start working with this stuff yeah I think I think it tends to always skew to people trying to increase their stroke length like if they just always like tend to go too far with that how to swim at a clinic on the weekend and he he was an over glider he was he was rotating way too far he was losing his balance each side because he was

of the opinion okay I need to get my stroke count down as low as I as low as I can and when we just sort of got rid of that misconception then he start like he’s like okay this is how much we generally want to be rotating side to side we don’t want to go so far where you’re losing your balance and your legs are playing and such a better stroke like just and it floats so much so much better and he actually ended up traveling further with each stroke because he wasn’t losing his balance right yeah yeah so um that’s yeah that’s usually where it’s uh where it tends to to go first and in terms of like a minimum stroke rate or tempo is there sort of a magic number where like okay this is this is just too low and we always just want to look at bringing it up because I have seen people who might have a stroke rate of like 40 two individual strokes 43 individual strokes per minute but they just lose so much speed and momentum that they’re like we kind of

have to work on that first yeah do you sort of have a magic number there or anything that you think of again the magic number is individual and because everything and and you can’t even go by height or wingspan because you know every single person’s body makeup is completely different they have a longer torso shorter legs longer feet shorter feet shorter arms you know whatever it is that they have that they bring to the table is is just personal to them and so so it’s very difficult to put out some kind of generic charts and say oh you should fit within this because often people don’t necessarily fit within it and then we’re sort of almost putting them into a container that doesn’t allow them to actually be the best swimmer and the fastest swimmer that they can be so the way we always practice it is if you’re always working on stroke count and tempo with a tempo trainer then you can’t ever go too slow or with a too low stroke count because

the beat of the tempo trainer will work we always work on mode one so that we can that in order to minimize these risks and if you’re always doing that you can’t go wrong you can only get better so if you just do one of them in isolation then you then you can create errors but together it’s really difficult to create errors because you’ve got accountability with one or the other keeping you on track so to speak this podcast has brought you by great ocean wetsuits an up and coming Australian performance wetsuit brand for triathletes and open water swimmers the wetsuits are designed and tested in Melbourne Australia for fast easy and enjoyable swimming for athletes of all levels they’re worn in and raced by Olympians triathletes and open water swimmers from all over the world and you can currently get 20% off either the gold or silver wetsuit models using our own code f at 20 at checkout at greatoceanwetsuits.com

and no matter where you are in the world if you’re in Australia, the US, Europe there’s free shipping worldwide so get yourself a great ocean wetsuit I personally use the gold model of the wetsuit it just depends on what your goals are I know you’ll like them in terms of sets and things like that is there a certain is there a particular set or style of set that you would use with people to help them work out where that sweet spot is depending on the effort and distance yeah so there’s not a particular one so I have here I was talking to you earlier this this book that I created with a colleague of mine and Pam and we created this set book this is a book of 12 sets with all different things and you can just see baby as I’m showing here the different color coding are pointing to different parts of the metrics different types of metrics so what we’re doing the whole time is we’re working through we’re working people through all of the metrics and we we work on

six we’ve got six metrics that we that we work on all together and we want to make very well-rounded swimmers and the only way to do that is to obviously work on the technique as a whole and then work on all the metrics as as a whole so we have we have baseline test swims we have higher low tempo threshold kind of things to find out where their their tempo ranges for now find out where their stroke count ranges are for them and then the idea is is that whatever sets they do from there on in is about learning how to push those ranges because obviously the bigger the range that they can use on both the stroke count and the tempo with rpe always as a measure the faster that they are going to be able to swim because it is just a math equation and so when you’re talking about having them swim with a bigger range talking in terms of like both right like 60 strokes a minute up to 70 strokes a minute but also like being able to not spin the wheels but just be able to sort of

shorten your stroke a little bit and just maybe put a little bit less pressure on the water and then taking longer longer bigger strokes with a bit more power that sort of thing is that what you’re referring to yes so so absolutely and like I say we always use the tempo trainer on mode one so we always talk about seconds per stroke so we’ll take you know for some of my clients you know and it’s very dependent on the person i have them swimming anywhere from 0.85 stroke every 0.85 seconds to anything to 1.7 and everything in between and counting their strokes and some can’t do that range some some have a very small range to begin with and and the whole thing is is how low can you go how high can you go and how can you push those barriers with with the RPE because there’s so much to learn at both ends of the spectrum you know I had a lesson with well not a lesson we just went for a swim with a colleague the other day and they were like oh I don’t want to do these

really slow tempos like I can do fast tempos why would I do slow tempos so I went that’s always a challenge for me if someone questions them like well let’s have a go have a go and then let’s have a have a conversation so we went through the low tempos I got it going down to to 1.6 165 17 and it was fascinating all the the the parts of her stroke that suddenly be she became much more aware of them because she had more time but also it’s harder to maintain your body position at the lower tempo so it highlights where the errors are that this the faster tempos mask so so at the lower tempos we can learn lots about our whether we are actually connected inside or not because if we’re not we’re not going to be able to do them and the RPE is going to shoot through the roof to be able to maintain the correct stroke length and equally so at the faster tempos it also teaches me stuff because if I suddenly put the tempo trainer on it I don’t know

let’s just say for argument sake one so that’d be 60 strokes per minute and my stroke count goes through the roof then I know it’s somewhere at that tempo I’m spinning wheels and I need to go back to my synchronization points and figure out what that is so that I can learn how to do a better stroke count at 60 strokes per minute and watch the RPE come down as a result yeah we we have a set that’s that’s 700s and basically going through I think off the top of my head I think we start at maybe 56 strokes per minute and then we ramp it up or maybe we start at 52 but then we ramp it up by four and so you end up being around like quite high like 84 88 strokes a minute towards the end which is very high for most people but like and just sort of charting it charting the the effort charting the times and the stroke counts and like you can you can see it when people when people hit there hit the top of it the efforts way up there but the strokes are way up

there and the times are either the same or they might actually be getting slower because they’ve really started to often they’re slower yeah yeah and so it’s quite interesting just to track that and to see where that point is that they do that they do drop off in terms of the the tempo trainer what are you using on mode one instead of mode three the reason is is because then my clients or the people who are working in this way can make changes on every single stroke they take because they know what is happening so what I so a couple of things I challenge my students and my swimmers to do is never they’re never allowed to use the watch so they’re not allowed to use stroke counting on the watch they have to count in their head and they have to get so great at counting in their head that they can push off and they can recognize tiles on the floor and know where they should be at that time and know whether they have to make adjustments in their stroke

in the moment and the only way that you can do that is if you have the tempo trainer on mode one and telling you exactly at what point you should beep and you’ve got you’ve learned your stroke count then you’re much more able to change things while you’re going so for example we we do some sets where we say to the swimmers okay I want you to do the same stroke count for the next 10 50s whatever you have to do and you’ve got five seconds rest so I’m putting a rest period in there for example you have to maintain the same stroke count and so what do you have to do in your body and in your stroke to be able to maintain 10 50s on this tempo with five seconds rest on for 10 v’s and they get so good at being able to do that because they’re in the moment often I find when when we’re setting the tempo at something like 50 you know 56 or something they get that it’s they’re getting the data afterwards that they’re not getting the data in the

moment because it’s because the equation is the other way around so that’s the reason so we can make changes during the lap and not just afterwards yeah gotcha and then in terms of say stroke rate changes for open water swimming changes in conditions do you teach your swimmers anything in relation to that or is it more just about like finding finding what fits in the moment like because like I personally find in the open water if I’ve got a wet suit on and I’m in the ocean I’ve got that extra buoyancy I tend to have my stroke rate come up more more more than it does in the pool for say a one kilometer two kilometer race um are you sort of training anything with that or are you just sort of letting it happen once you you start to master that in the pool yeah so I think what we try and what we try and teach the swimmers is to learn how to have different gear gears we call it gears and we give them the different gears

so that when they go into open water situations or race situations they know exactly what to do to tap into those different gears that they may or may not need for example if the water is a bit more choppy they definitely might want to up the stroke rate a little bit and back off on on the pressure on the pressure that they’re applying and they know how to do that um so for sure we want to give them lots of different strategies to be able to deal with different situations I also do a lot of coaching in the open water where I’m coaching the student so obviously they they’ve done all the technique work and they have an idea of tempo and stroke count and and stuff and then we teach them how to work with the water you know if the waves are coming this way we do we swim into them along them around them back from you know with them behind us and stuff and really have them learn how to go with the water rather than try and climb over it so and then we can bring the tempo

into that as well because if you know if the waves are sort of more loping then the tempo will slow down if they’re a little faster you need to speed it up so you can fit into the rhythm of the water so you’re kind of being with the water so that’s a lot of fun in the water camps yeah and it can feel like a fifth stroke in a way the open water swimming and just getting used to getting used to that so it’s you just I find you just can’t be the experience in open water swimming like you just need you need to get out there and do it and get used to that because very there’s not you just can’t do it in the pool it’s just so so different now in terms of developing gears I think that’s one of the like once someone’s got the fundamentals down I think that the ability to be able to change speeds and have more than one speed is just so critical to any sort of progression with your fish swimming yeah so are there types of

like a particular set that comes to mind or a way of approaching that for people yeah um so so we have a couple of sets that that we um tend to build on for for swimmers around gearing one is and this is another reason why we use the tempo trainer on mode one is because if I can if I can start say for I’m going to say come in a 50 meter pool and I’m going to push off and I know that my usual stroke count in it in a 50 is 37 strokes just picking numbers out of a hat and I’ve got the tempo trainer on let’s say keep it some keep the math simple is on one one second per stroke I know that if I can then swim that next lap because I’ve made some changes in my technique um you know any of the changes that I know is going to give me a little bit more stroke length than I can then hit the wall in 36 strokes then I already know I don’t ever have to look at the pace clock I already know I’ve swung that length one second faster because the

tempo trainer’s on mode one it’s telling me I know because I know because of my stroke count and then if I was to push off from all and typically this is the case when you push off and you come back typically we tend to add a stroke and if I’ve lost focus or something and I suddenly do 38 strokes I know that I’ve swung the lap now two seconds slower than the one before and one second slower than the one previous but teaching teaching your student how to really recognize the power of being able to find your stroke count maintain your stroke count and play around with your stroke count at different tempos really get allows them the opportunity to tap in into the gears and then teaching them the sensations of what that feels like when they’re doing it with the tempo trainer take the tempo trainer away and make them repeat it without the tempo trainer and then they use the tempo as the trading chip on how on how to achieve the different gears

because obviously in a race or something they can’t have a tempo trainer and all the while we’re doing this you’re ignoring the pace clock like we never look at the pace clock because it’s just a maths equation I take one stroke less the same tempo I know I’m going faster I take more I know I’m going slower so we kind of we kind of work at it from the other way around so rather than making it all about the pace clock we make it nothing about the pace clock and work towards that being a by-product of getting better at doing these tasks if you like and you know this this is so much of this I was so lucky to learn from from Terry Lachlan for sure you know he was he was the most genius swimmer he could get in a pool and he could say what he was going to do for an hour session and he would just nail it the control and power he had over his mind and his stroke was second to none and my whole life is to try and impart that knowledge and

help other people to achieve what I used to observe Terry achieving it was it was hmm wow I love I do I love the simplicity of of that and having used like use the tempo trainer and then just just stroke count to to get them to almost switch off from thinking about the the speed part of it because one of the things you mentioned on an earlier podcast is we don’t want to chase speed and that’s when people really start to shorten up and they get tense and they rush and they just don’t swim as well and so you know that just really puts them in their mind and in their body about what they need to do to get faster so that’s yeah that’s a really good good approach to it how often would you recommend someone do a set like that is it weekly is it every other week is there so again you know everything is is always I seem to say the same same answer it’s dependent on their journey so somebody who is just starting out learning the technique and there’s

you know if everyone watching this goes back to podcast number one then kind of spend some time working on that stuff and then podcast number two spend some time working on that stuff and then podcast number three I would kind of have them probably start doing some a few sets towards the back end of podcast number two and then once they’ve sort of started working on podcast number three that you and I have done that’s when I would get them to do regular sets so you know the clients that have done that been through that process they’ve really imprinted the new techniques I have them doing two to three sets a week with check-ins you know I do virtual coaching and we do check-ins once a month and I send them sets that I want them to swim over and over again to see where they’re at and push the boundaries you know and and and it’s so fun because never once do I talk about time and you know after a period of time and it’s

different for everyone I start getting messages going oh my gosh it doesn’t matter what I do I can’t swim a hundred slower than one you know than one piece and before they were kind of in the ways and it’s just like oh my gosh I can’t believe it so that’s that’s that’s the idea so you want to build up to be able to do this two to three times a week but starting slowly learning how to do it first like it’s all about learning how to focus the mind and then you can add in the difficulty as you become more attuned to it yeah my my next question was going to be on uh you know if that you get an intermediate swimmer they’re frustrated that they’re not getting quicker what yeah what can they do from there but by the sounds of it it’s well kind of if you go through each the technical things that we spoke about on these on these four episodes and towards the end of that you’re starting to to build in some of these swim sets

sets and sessions and work on those different gears but you really need that the foundation in place before that uh before we start to to look at doing those things. You can add in you can certainly start with stroke counting like having students start learning how to stroke counting in itself because I don’t let people use the watch because it’s meaningless until they can download it so having people learn how to stroke count in the moment is a skill in itself so I like to introduce that metric first because it also gives us a measure kind of gives us a measure of their starting point albeit without the other metrics to start off with and then you know once I can see that they they’re able to stroke count and maintain focus on a cue hard like not easy to begin with that’s that would be for me the measure where I can start work you know giving giving them the set so it will be different for for everybody because it will depend on their mindset largely

rather than their skill. Yeah and in terms of what you’ve learned over the years with this this aspect of it what’s what’s something that you wish everyone would know something that you think like people come into it I’ve got a little bit of an idea okay stroke length stroke rate what’s what’s something that you think most people don’t know but they should. I think that how important working on stroke length and stroke count is over looking at the pace clock I think if swimmers can could wrap when swimmers my experience shows that when swimmers can wrap themselves around that notion to let go of the pace clock then they start going faster and for some people that takes forever some people they can’t stop looking at the pace clock and some people can do it straight away if we could bottle that up and sell it I think people would go faster much much more quickly because we’re terrestrial mammals as soon as we try and go faster as

as you said people just go slower because they disconnect and they start pulling and kicking as fast as they can and just turning up the water and they just see the you know they just see bigger numbers on on the pace clock all the time so I think that would probably be the one thing that’s great one thing that kind of marries up with that too is something you mentioned on the last podcast that was like thinking about what moves me forwards like what like even with the kick and I’ve been doing a little bit of this in in our clinics is if we get someone who we go from a float into just a forward kick or a front kick and I might get one or two swimmers who are kicking and they’re not going anywhere perhaps they’re moving backwards yeah and then just having them think think about and explain well okay the thing that moves you forwards think of your the top of your foot when it kicks down and back that’s that sort of movement that flick is is actually sending you forwards and so

having them think about that and then the thought of okay I want to go forwards here it does something quite magical for a lot of people just like it’s pretty cool yeah that way yeah and you’re not chasing the speed that way but you’re just thinking about the the thing we actually want to do but we don’t actually think about it is going forwards it’s just yeah that to me was a big a big eye opener and a good way to get people to think differently about how they’re approaching this I mean and setting that intention it’s it’s the intention setting it sounds it sounds a little crazy but the intention setting of everything I do in the pool is because I want to go that way faster faster and more efficiently and safely like if we just remember that then everything we do becomes purposeful and not just something we’re trying to execute because we’ve read it in a book or listen to it on a podcast or something but all of these movements will move you forward if you intend them to and allow

them to yeah that was a really a really good one anything we haven’t covered so far that you think could be important to to cover on this topic there’s probably it’s probably done so I think I think we’ve done a really good overview I think what will be really interesting is to hear what questions this brings up with people it’s been so great over the last three podcasts to read the questions that people have been posting and I think it’ll be really interesting to hear the questions that come up from this podcast because that might spark more more opportunities for more discussions going going forwards but I think that’s a really nice sort of introduction I could speak for hours on on this topic and you know we could we could go into the nuts and bolts of of each of those and maybe there’s opportunity to do that in the future but I think for now that’s a really good overview of of some possibilities I’d like to say I

put a link to a book with a discount for you guys and for anybody I think at the moment in Australia located in Australia or UK we will post you one it’s not currently on ebook form but it will be at some point but for now if you’re in Australia or UK we can get those out to you so we can put a link maybe at the end great you’ll put that in the in the show notes if you’re listening and if you are watching this on YouTube or from Spotify or elsewhere jump on to the YouTube if you have any questions put that in the comments below and we can do another episode early next year and we’ll we’ll answer some of those questions whether it’s about this part or anything else from the other other episodes I think that’s a good way to cover off number five yeah there’s so many great questions in in those those last podcasts I keep meaning to find time to go actually and pull out some of the really like and that’s how I learn I learn from people asking

questions because it makes you think and there’s some really great ones in the the last podcast so yeah excited to see these ones Tracy thanks again for for being on love chatting with you and appreciate the the time a few weeks back in in Brisbane so we will put we can put that in the show notes as well just how fantastic to see you there so uh Tracy thanks again my pleasure thank you and have a lovely Christmas with your family thank you you too and thank you for all the opportunities that you’ve given me to be on your podcast this year it’s been so much fun really loved it I’m really glad we got got introduced because all these like opportunities all these like things are just like where my sort of coaching brain tends to go so I got just some of it’s intentional but some of it’s just luck and being introduced to different people and I’m really really glad that we did get introduced because I’ve learnt so

much from uh and ditto right back at you yeah me too awesome thanks Tracy thank you all right 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 Speed Equation with Tracey Baumann appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

This week, we are featuring some of the best bits from 2024. We had dozens of different guests on, and we’ve picked out what we think are some of the highlights, some of the best bits from some of those episodes. So it’s like a highlights reel for 2024.

And if you have listened to this show once or a hundred times, If you haven’t left us a review in the Apple app store or on Spotify, it would mean a lot to me. If you could do that, it helps us out and helps us get in front of more people. I’m looking forward to 2025. We’ve got some big plans for the podcast, our YouTube channel, and then also the clinics and the camps that we run.

So if you haven’t joined us on any of those things and you’d like to, you can head to effortlessswimming.com. If you’re in Sydney, we’ve added a bunch of more clinic dates for freestyle and fly back and breast. Through late December and early January. So if you are in Sydney at that time, come and check us out there.

And you can find that on our website as well at effortlessswimming.com. Let’s get into this week’s episode highlights from 2024.

01:18 James Lawrence

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

Hello and welcome to the Effortless Swimming podcast. This week we are featuring some of the best bits from 2024. We had dozens of different guests on and we’ve picked out what we think are some of the highlights, some of the best bits from some of those episodes. So it’s like a highlights reel for 2024. And if you have listened to this show once or 100 times, if you haven’t left us a review in the Apple App Store or on Spotify, it would mean a lot to me if you could do that. It helps us out and helps us get in front of more people. I’m looking forward to 2025. We’ve got some big plans for the podcast, our YouTube channel, and then also the clinics and the camps that we run. So if you haven’t joined us on any of those things and you’d like to, you can head to EffortlessSwimming.com. If you’re in Sydney, we’ve added a bunch of more clinic dates for freestyle and fly back and breast through late December and

early January. So if you are in Sydney at that time, come and check us out there and you can find that on our website as well at EffortlessSwimming.com. Let’s get into this week’s episode highlights from 2024. Our first guest is James Lawrence who completed 101 Ironman events in 101 days. I think that’s one of the biggest problems with the distractions of social media. It’s just drawing all of our attention. And it’s funny, I saw a hilarious thing online the other day where someone was like mindfulness. We’re now in a society and a time where we have to intentionally seek out and be mindfulness, meaning like inside of our own thoughts and contemplate and meditation. I’m turning 48 and the person doing the video is about the same age and they were like, back in our day, that was like going to the bathroom. Like you were you were mindfulness. It was like walking outside. It was like, I had to get from point A to point B. Like there

wasn’t anything to really distract us. And so we were mindfulness all the time. And the word didn’t even exist back then is because normal life in society by as a byproduct of it, you had to become mindfulness. There was so many opportunities and moments where you’re just like sitting by yourself in your thoughts, being mindful of who you are, what you’re doing, dreaming. Like, I talk about this from stage like as a society, we have forgotten how to dream. Because we’re so busy, fixated on what other people are doing. And we’re experiencing life through them that like we don’t we’ve we’ve we’ve stopped dreaming. Next up is Sharon Van Roevendale. This was recorded before she won gold at the Olympics in the 10 kilometer open water event. Yeah, I think so sometimes in a race, I have not I don’t have the guts to put the six kick in because if you didn’t use them a lot, sometimes they’re stiff. And then just my feeling says

you’re gonna lactate so much. So I’m training on it. I’m like, so I switched to Germany. And I have a very good kick because I’ve also kicked in France with the shoulder injuries and it kick sets and kick sets and other kicks. So my kick is really good. And I have still those sort of backstroke legs that are really strong. So we’re like, wow, are you not using it? And I said, Yeah, but when I learned swimming, it was like this dance, I went to crossover kick. It’s my it’s my dance. It’s my momentum. How do you want to do like a normal six kick? So when I do the normal six kick, I’m like in slow motion and I still don’t have the rhythm. I can’t find the momentum. It’s just something I can’t find. But when I do the speed now, there’s this sort of, it feels like a sort of motor behind that really kicks. So I’m super fast in sprints. And also when I build it, I can do the crossover and I build it to a six kick. But in the race, still after long distance, because I

can lactate on it, it’s still very hot with the six kick. But I have a very strong kick, even in Doha now, you can see that there is a strong kick in it. Just sometimes there is a six kick sometimes not. But I think I’ve worked a lot on my speed. And I mean, and on that kick, so that made me very strong. On the 5k, you can see that there’s very long strokes and looks almost looks like straight arms. But there is a lot of power there in the last 200 meters of that race. And that’s where I worked on for the last three years to get that also momentum with the kick and just yeah, the power in the arms and then passing the competitors. Next up is Holly Björkner who did her masters in shoulder injuries for swimming. What are the kinds of exercises would you often prescribe people just to develop that control through their those different shoulder movements? Yeah, so we’ve got another one and it’s called like the YTA.

So you’re laying in a like a prone position so laying straight down face like face and ground. And then you’ve got your thumbs like this and you’re going to go up until Y like that and you lift so it’s kind of squeezing the scapula together and you’re lifting your arms up into the air about 10 reps. And you go into the same thing with your thumbs out and you go into a T position and you lift up and you’re squeezing your scaps together. And then you go down into an A so your arms are beside you, maybe this far away from or about this far away from like the middle of you. And you’re doing that same kind of pulse and you do it 10 times. So you’re going to go in and out. Yeah, a fair few times just to really train from those scaps and they get them kind of moving in the right position. So that’s another great one that you can do before you then hop in the pool so that you’ve got that kind of my muscle connection to those scapules

because a lot of the time was swimming. It’s when you become a lazy swimmer that your shoulder starts to hurt. You kind of stop thinking about how your arms moving, stop thinking about if you’re pulling your scapula together, maybe you’re hunching over in the water, or you’re just throwing the arms into the water instead of kind of placing them in the water. And then that’s where a lot of injuries can start to occur because you just you start to compromise instead of using your muscles, you kind of start to use the joint. Next up is Jared Briffer. I’ve done some work with Jared on breathing and breath control. He’s a freediver and freedive instructor. And on this episode, we talked about how swimmers can utilize some of those techniques to their advantage. Now, what about some exercises either on dry land or exercises in the pool that would help swimmers feel like they can breathe more effectively, whether that’s not

needing to breathe as much or just feeling like they’re more relaxed and more comfortable in the water? What are some of those things that that we can do as swimmers? Yeah, I think I think at first, like it depends on your level, right? So like, if you’re starting at a level like, let’s say like that beginner level with CO2 tolerance, where maybe the bolt score is like 15 seconds or less. Okay, so do the bolt test. What did you get? Okay, 15 seconds or less. Someone in this range, they’re going to become breathless very quickly. So I would start off with like awareness of the breath. So trying to make sure that when they are breathing, they’re getting a full breath in and also they’re getting a full breath out. And just being aware of how often they’re breathing. Okay, so I’m trying to like make it more rhythmic and getting more familiar with like, you know, are they breathing every two strokes? Are they breathing every

three strokes, that sort of stuff. And then definitely like trying to focus on nasal breathing when they’re at the wall. So whenever they come to the wall, trying to focus on nasal breathing for the recovery is a really good one for beginners and people that are having trouble with this stuff. This is going to like, during the swim, you will have increased the CO2. And if you breathe through your nose at the wall, you’re going to maintain that higher level of CO2 for longer. And this is going to help to build up your tolerance to it. And then like any sort of kicking drills that they do, do that with your face in the water. So have your face in the water you’ll be on breath over a bit and then take breaths when you need to take breaths. But try not to do your kicking drills with the face out of the water. So that would be a really good way to incorporate those in for beginners. Next up is Dan Eisenhart, the CEO of Form

Goggles. You can only focus on one you can control then try and be inspired by something that you think, you know, is this training method that will that you can also adopt right maybe tweak it. But yeah, I couldn’t agree more, I think, you know, going forward, believing in yourself, of course, saying humble and open to input and feedback. But you know, nothing gets done unless you sort of act with conviction. You could just keep overthinking stuff. And, and the best thing to test whether you have a good idea or not is to actually go and do it. And then just start home, you know, low low ambitions, and then you can actually always add on to it with with customer feedback, right? And when it comes to products, of course, some, some products are hard to get to that minimum, minimal viable product level, right? Like our product took two years and years to develop. But we didn’t go out and launch a product that had all the features that we have

today, right? Even though back then we had envisioned most of them. And because we knew, okay, let’s start with something that we know is easy to communicate and measure and message around. And, and then we can go from there based on customer feedback. Next up is Dean Summers who swam 95.6 kilometers from Newcastle to Sydney. The articles that was written about the swim about that. What was it? 10, 10 plus hours where dark sky, it’s just you’ve got the Milky Way out there. The bioluminescence as well. What was the night time some experience like? Well, for the previous two or three years, I live on Cougis at night, you can see the sea, you can hear. I’ve been dreading is not the right word, but I’ve been a little anxious about a whole night swimming out in the ocean because it’s past the horizon from where I live. And I know soon I’m going to be out there in the water on my own with a kayak and it’s going to be a tough night. I

thought maybe I’ll get a full moon so I can see things, but the full moon wasn’t there. There was only what’s called a thumbnail moon, just a tiny slither of moon, but not enough to give any light. The sun was going down. The water was okay. It was just a little, a little bit of chop and a big lazy rolling swell. So that was quite okay. The kayakers were set. We’re all ready for the night time. I’d been in the water already for 12 hours, but I wasn’t feeling tired. I was feeling good. Okay, this is the next stage and I’m ready for it. Let’s do it. So the sun goes down, goes down behind the the mountains. I can see way off in the distance to the land side and it was getting darker in the water, but then all of a sudden night fell and the water just switched to black, just completely black. Okay, I’m ready to go the kayaks next to me and I’m looking up and I can see the milky way starting to shine and it was just

sort of at nine o’clock, I suppose you’d say an o’clock and it looked beautiful, but really, really bright. So bright you could read a book off I’d say. There were no other lights around me. We designed it in the back of the kayaks. We just put this tiny little red glowing light in the well of the kayak so there was no direct light. It was just a loom and that’s what I could follow. The big boat, the pilot boat was quite a way off, maybe half a kilometer away, so that had no ambient light to it at all. So it was just essentially me in the black ocean with a nice guy at night. Beautiful and as this milky way started to shine, all the stars started to come out too like little suns and so, so bright, so clear. I put my hand in the water soon after it got black and I was so happy to see bioluminescence and I don’t know if you swam with it, but when your fingers go it’s like shooting little stars at the end of your

fingers. It lights up these little pingy lights and they just all around you then your other arm goes in. Same happens there and you create a little cloud of stars that just gently as you move through the water, ping into your goggles and explode gently into your goggles in this beautiful bioluminescence color of blue and green and so you’ve got the milky way up here, you’ve got the stars that seem to be so low you could almost reach out and touch them and underneath you’ve got the bioluminescence giving a same sort of look as stars so no horizon too dark for that, but and there’s nothing on the horizon or you can see stars all around you. It was the most beautiful beautiful mind. 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 the 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 Zach Stubble to cook, Jan Frodeno, Ben Canute, Ash Gentle, Taylor Nib amongst a 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. Next is Tracy Bowman who we’ve had on the podcast multiple times and she is a swim technique expert. She has huge background and history in studying and teaching freestyle technique and I think this is probably one of the most popular episodes that we had throughout the year. I’ve used some similar sort of cues I’ve talked about like I just I’ve I have called it an open recovery compared to a closed recovery where we’re thinking like closed armpit we want we need open up or underarms under the water we need open underarms under the water at the front as well and that in terms of the like the momentum that you get over the water your arm weighs a couple of kilos and then when you’re swinging it around over the top you can really get good good momentum over the water and carry that through

it’s that free free speed and when you see someone who’s not getting it who throwing themselves off balance and they’re coming way behind their body like you really notice it and it just it does impact how well they flow in the water so yeah it is if you get it if you get it right you notice a big a big difference and I’ve I’ve tried to turn that thought of a high elbow recovery into like the point that’s high it’s like I think if the elbow is pointing mostly to the sky as you come through in that that middle part okay that’s that’s what I’d think of as a high a classic high elbow recovery but yeah certainly not coming literally high over the water with next up is Nick Jankowski from Mets performance the things we learned from Mellied Athletes are useful it’s because like they’re the best in the world and they’re like we’re finding ways to improve them if if those little things improve them there’s probably parts of that that we can take and implement to the newbie

who is then going to get significantly better as a result like it’s not going to turn you into a pro overnight and we some of the really refined stuff probably still we go okay we might not use some of that because that’s a bit advanced or complex particularly on the training side of things like I’m not going to ask a brand new athlete to go and do like fight like 30 seconds at 500 watts on a bike like straight out the gap like yeah you’re probably going to work our way to that but like some of the basic stuff is like just keep in a zone two like you keep in a zone two that is actually your zone two not just one that Garmin told you it’s like well we actually assessed it and here’s the marker and the threshold well you go and implement that for three months you’re going to be significantly better off so like that is kind of an overall principle is the way I approach it like it’s no like real one thing it’s it’s just embracing the fact that

yes sport sport science is is far bigger than just Olympic level world championship type stuff it’s like yeah it plays a big role there but what we can learn from those people is is just as important to then apply to someone who’s getting into it for the first time because if you can if you can train a little bit more effectively I can guarantee if you’re an amateur who’s got to work a nine to five and you go I can’t do 300k’s a week like a professional marathon runner can but I can do 50k’s a week well how do we make that 50k’s as effective as possible so that you can still rock up to work and not be exhausted and then get home and see your kids and not be exhausted like there’s other factors at play like best in the world sometimes all they have to worry about is wake up train eat sleep go again but yeah that’s where that the sports science side just helps dial it in a little bit you don’t have to go overkill but it’s just like

taking those little bits and and just really like trying to learn the little tips and tricks that’ll make you significantly better at your level with the realistic expectation it’s like okay yeah we can probably gain a fair bit out of this but it’s not going to mean it’s not going to turn me into a pro athlete and I don’t have to be a pro athlete to go and do it um but all I’m trying to do is find ways to get me better next up is Jamie Fuller from EO labs who designed and developed the swim better handsets which measure your force and direction most hand paths I see most hands pass I see go out come in and then go straight back your first move is in and then out a little bit so you’re coming in and then pushing back from here but there are nothing stands out here and it’s and there’s no that’s the other thing mate that everybody says to me is oh can you give me Kyle Chalmers hand path and I’ll just copy that it doesn’t work that way

right I mean we’ve all we all need to find our own hand path and whilst you know at a very surface level you might think well you know if I’ve just got to have my hand pushing back I just need it to be straight that’s not the answer either because it’s about how we how we switch on our muscles and the best place for our arm to go and our hand to move in order to be able to switch on the muscles in the shoulder and the arm and the and down on the lats that’s what gives us our power and drive and that combined with the ability to hold that water and drive the body that’s the holy grail next up is marathon swimmer and coach Craig Lewin I was going to ask in terms of the marathon swimming is it is it an important factor there is it just being able to hold your hold your stroke rate hold your tempo aside from when you need to pick it up like is that uh something that’s you’d sort of look at a little bit more rather than stroke length which obviously we can’t

measure in the open water but like is it is it tempo yeah I mean stroke rate is pretty important you’ll see a lot of swimmers will have their crew with whiteboards and one of the numbers they’re writing down is stroke rate I think it’s also a number that observers for colder swims will often watch because it’s a if it drops below if it’s dropping rapidly and the swimmer can’t pick it up it’s a sign of hypothermia and it might be time to call a swim but stroke rate is one because it’s it’s that consistent motion throughout the swim mainly because if you start getting stretched out too much or you start revving up and you’re slipping you know if you’re in salt water it’s less dense than a pool it’s more aerated so you you need the turnover because even if you had if you had a seam stroke rate in a pool or over water you’re not going to go as far with every pull in the open water because it’s less dense water because it’s

aerated because there’s chop as well so that’s why the stroke rate does does tend to matter but everyone’s different like you’ll see people like adam adam walker i don’t know if you’ve ever talked to him but he’s a ocean seven swimmer and he has probably one of the longest strokes i’ve seen and it works so like everyone’s different but you know for average average people it’s generally the stroke keeping that tempo throughout and that consistent three consistent these consistency throughout is going to be a really important factor in their success next up is sharon van rovendal and malisha johnson who got first and second at the Paris Olympics in the 10 kilometer open water swim i think for me it’s going to be very different to sharon because i was the underdog i was a dark horse i wasn’t in any predictions whatsoever like i i believed in myself that i could do it but i am still developing my open water experience so you know i just had

to you know i had to get an individual podium and i didn’t know whether it would be this year or in the years to come but that was my goal um but yeah definitely this race like sharon said it was uh i i enjoyed it um because we were battling the conditions of the course the environment not the the pack of girls around us so you actually just got to put your training on display in my opinion um and i think that’s that was how it showed in the end it was it was your training tactical your endurance your your speed all the things that sharon mentioned and you didn’t have have had the big pack of girls that you know that were holding or pulling you back or bumping into each other and yeah so i think you know it was definitely a race that i like yeah to get my first international medal individually at an olympics like it was unbelievable and obviously with australia being on such a different time zone the amount of

the public back home who actually got the chance to watch my sport you know sometimes it’s a bit of an underrated sport and um it’s just been fantastic the the support and the the messages and just even the people still today who are coming up to me and just talking about the the iconic swim that i did and yeah you know i think yeah it’s definitely been a bit of a journey i’ve done a bit of an alternative route as an australian swimmer to get to get here um so yeah it was definitely yeah a fantastic feeling on that finishing line like to like i’ve actually done it you know like my my my big decisions that you know might have been debated at the time like they’ve paid off so for me like it was like i only had the pressure that i put on myself going into that race i didn’t have anyone else’s pressure i don’t think even the commentary knew how i was until halfway through the race like i think i didn’t know what to say like my mum just kept saying i think

they handed him notes on you halfway through the race because suddenly all these facts came out you know so i had a very like a very different probably thing to what shine’s going to explain next up is beck keith who is a former professional triathlete and now triathlon coach whatever works is what happens under the water like you got to get it in the right spot what happens under the water is so important that’s where i was obsessed with your videos because i try to get videos of my athletes and i couldn’t have an underwater camera i was like watch this guy because this is a free thing the catch is everything and they look at it they’re like can’t keep my elbow up what’s the thing and i make them watch your videos because what’s happening under the water is way more important than over it it can look yucky above the water but it has to be like a strong pull through right yeah yeah it’s exactly right and i’ve got a similar approach where it doesn’t

matter what’s happening over the water as long as that’s not impacting you under the water in a negative way so it can be quite scrappy over the top and when i was the i did a season of triathlon i did it for one year just as a bucket list to do an Ironman and what did you do which one well i was booked in for Melbourne Ironman and this that was the year that they cancelled it so i had to i traveled over to Taupo and did it there instead that’s a lot too yeah the like i’m glad i did it though because the swim was mass start flat conditions in a lake and i had how tiny did you go like 49 or 48 or something uh 47.01 i did oh my god record that’s insane next up is Sandra Howell who has a background in swim specific strength and you know a general guideline that i tell all of my athletes and my clients is that like you don’t see any there there’s not any notable strength gains until about six to eight weeks

of consistent strength training and consistent strength training would mean you’re lifting at least twice a week not even once a week so if you’re just lifting once a week the amount of work required to see progress is going to take probably double the time right you’re just not building breaking down muscle at a consistent and steady enough pace to see change quick enough but if you’re lifting at least twice a week so maybe even three times a week you’re going to see those gains a lot quicker and so typically i tell my athletes you know who are consistent give yourself about eight weeks give yourself two months okay of being consistent stick to it keep progressing and then you’re gonna really see notable performance differences after that especially when you are consistent with it because the first you know one to two months of lifting a lot of that is just you know tearing down your muscles you’re just super sore super stiff all the time especially if you haven’t

lifted in some time right and so that’s you know and yeah so that’s the thing people think that oh i lift you know working out means i’m building muscle actually it’s quite the opposite you work out and you actually break down muscle that’s why you get sore you you get micro tears in your muscles so the more you train the harder you train the more you’re breaking down muscles you’re in more of like a catabolic state and so that’s where nutrition comes in right nutrition is the thing that helps build muscle it puts you in an anabolic state and that is what helps you rebuild your muscle helps with muscle protein synthesis is really making sure you’re eating enough protein for your particular physique you know for your body weight next up is New Zealand swimmer and coach laura quilter is how would you describe say a 50 sprint technique to someone one of those things that you’re feeling for or trying to achieve when you are

sprinting it’s it’s like calculated chaos in a weird way so you need to be performing with the most amount of aggression and power that you can but it has to be funneled through an effective mechanics and i quite like i think it was Cameron McAvoy he talks about the fact that swimming is a cyclical sport and basically as long as you get that one cycle correct all you have to do is replicate that for 20 to 30 seconds so when i started to change my stroke primarily it was focused on my hips staying a little bit more level in the water and a lot more rotation it through the upper body and the shoulders i did notice that in the early stages i’ve got quite limited thoracic mobility and that kind of felt like i was jammed up a bit so i did have to spend a bit of time on mobility as well to actually even swim like that and with the sprint style pulling a lot straighter under the water was a new concept to me and that came that comes with a whole lot of other

challenges i wouldn’t go tell most people to swim a 50 style because it does put so much more pressure on the shoulder which really emphasized the need to get a lot stronger in the gym so the three key aspects that i did start to train with i was using resistance training a lot more than i had formerly so that was you know your parachutes fins and socks which i’d never use i really like drag socks actually more than the parachute i actually really detest the parachute so a lot more resistance training a lot more work on the dive mechanics and then just that you know still hips with a big kick and the power coming through the shoulders and and with the socks so the drag socks for people listening it’s not just normal socks these are like special sort of swimming next up is cap matthews who got second at the iron man world championships in nice this year and i think again like i’ve one of the biggest things i’ve learned this year this is me summarizing my

waffley story is that i really love learning like the sort of psychology from books and then trying to sort of you know implement it in myself i guess um so yeah the book itself was called the reality slap from ross harris it was like um he also wrote the happiness trap which i think i tried to read and i was like not interested in it’s quite a big seller though and whereas yeah the reality slap was it’s about radical acceptance and again just like things like that like this i feel like is a self-development thing that i actually find really sort of fascinating which was sad um and then another book i was really at the time was called perform under pressure by kerry evans so again like reading them both or listening to one and reading one was actually really nice to sort of you don’t just get obsessed with one sort of fad like thought processing you can you can see um a bigger a bigger picture perhaps and like take different elements of it

so yeah i think that’s something that i’ve learned as a sort of again as like whole is like that ability to cope with unexpected um problems which sounds mad but it took a cough injury after the big accident um and i guess like yeah like being calm more calm in situations that are out of my control so for example in nice like having the the cramping issues i looking back on it i actually realized that yeah it was quite good that i was able to be like okay i’m cramping what can i do about it you know remove myself look at it from the outside assess the situation and i i think like you just sort of do that without realizing but those are the processing steps that these books sort of actually go through and i wonder whether i learned that from reading for example like ah okay so this is either my muscles aren’t strong enough or you know simple things but when you’re under pressure the cognition is often much harder to deal with and then obviously the emotion of it

all so yeah took on some fuel did a bit of walking did what i could just cracked on so i think yeah i think that’s a big sort of lesson that that ability to deal with um mishaps and next up is ryan evendon who worked very closely with andy donelson in terms of his strength training and ryan teachers and coaches swim specific strength in perth and it’s up to us as this s and c provider to manage their load so they’re not going into the next session soar because at the end of the day you’re only going to get better from what you recover from this is you know i’m an s and c provider who works with swimmers my job is to make sure they can swim in the water to the best of their ability every time they get in the water my job is not to kick people in the butt and make them soar for weeks in in my own way of trying to fulfill my own needs as an s and c coach to make myself feel relevant my job is to make sure that these guys get in the water

do and can continue to perform in the water yes sometimes they’re going to get soar and that does happen but that’s not the goal i don’t want anyone to be soar we have a rule with my gym program if they’re so if they do a session and they’re soar they’ve got to tell us because we don’t allow we don’t want it to happen twice we want to just make sure that they’re doing what they can and they’re maximizing every swim session they can do and there’s a lot of ways that you can do that one might be okay the volume isn’t very high the intensity wasn’t very high so what did you do in terms of recovery like how’s your nutrition what’s your sleep like did you hydrate effectively do we need to bring in some recovery aids just to help speed up that process for you or is this going to just be something that we’re going to have to take okay this happened this week we’ll make a quick adjustment for your second session in the week

and then we’ll come back to that session at same light and see what what happens because it might have just been it’s a lot of new stuff in the program the adaptation process was your body just freaked out of it but you’ve got to also go okay well we don’t want that to happen too often because then they’ve had two crap sessions that week oh in two weeks and i don’t really want that i want people feeling fresh because at the end of the day they need to swim fast in the water to get faster in the water they don’t need to lift heavy in the gym to get faster in the water necessarily it does help though gotcha so the reason you don’t want them coming or leaving a session a gym session sore is because it’s obviously going to impact their performance in the pool and if you’re doing that too much you’re just not going to get the gains from the from the swim what’s the risk reward ratio on that if that makes sense like

if i’m belting someone in the gym you know twice a week and they’re turning up every after every session they have with me to the next session in the water and they’re sore they’re going to have a crap session you know at least twice a week if they get 48 hours of doms they’re going to have maybe three crap sessions what ends up six crap sessions a week but maybe they only had one good session that week they’re probably not getting what they need out of those swim sessions 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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Are you struggling with the unpredictability of open water swimming? I used to hate every second of it, until I learned these tips, which completely changed the way that I thought and went about open water swimming. In this episode, you’ll learn how to transform your swimming from feeling anxious and uncomfortable in the open water, To feeling confident and at ease.

00:00 Introduction

Transform your swimming at a camp: https://effortlessswimming.com/camps/

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

Are you struggling with the unpredictability of open water swimming? I used to hate every second of it until I learned these tips, which completely changed the way that I thought and went about open water swimming. In this video, you’ll learn how to transform your swimming from feeling anxious and uncomfortable in the open water to feeling confident and at ease.

I’m Brenton and I used to dread every second of open water swimming until I learned these couple of tips. And I went on to break the age group course record at the New Zealand Ironman in a 47 minute swim. I help adult swimmers and triathletes improve their swimming, become more efficient through our online courses, our camps and our clinics. The first thing you need to know about open water swimming is the mindset. One thing that I got taught by Chris McCormack, the legendary Ironman athlete, was that you shouldn’t be a victim. Don’t be a victim when you go to the open water. The swimmers that are timid in their approach are often the ones that get swum over and are really uncomfortable. Now, I know it takes a little bit of confidence and proof that you can be comfortable in the open water, but having that mindset of I’m not going to be a victim can really help you have a lot more success. So you don’t need to be overly assertive or

aggressive to the other swimmers, but you’ve got to make sure that you don’t take a complete back seat because they are the swimmers that tend to get thrown around, pushed under the water more and don’t do quite as well in the open water. So that mindset piece is a really important one.

I’ve coached athletes who have swum 10 to 20 percent further than what they needed to in an open water race. And not only does that slow them down, but it means that they’re taking longer to do the race. They’re having to use a lot more effort and then sometimes they’re going to miss the pack on the bike if they’re doing triathlon. So making sure that we sight well and we don’t lose our speed when we do it is one of the most important things that you’ve got to develop as an open water swimmer. Now, the mistakes that I see people making when it comes to sighting, the number one thing is that they tend to lift their head up, take some strokes and then they put their head back down. And when they lift their head up and do that, their hips and their legs drop significantly. And it’s not only slows them down, but they lose their stroke rhythm. The way that I like to teach people to sight is to use the rolling breath or the sight and breathe

method. And that method is you should lift up and sight on one stroke and then you’re going to turn to the side to breathe on the next stroke. So it’s like a rolling breath. Now, you can see here in this video when Andy Donaldson is doing this, he doesn’t break his rhythm. You can hardly notice that he’s getting this look forwards as just a part of his stroke. And my benchmark, my way of sort of establishing whether or not someone’s doing this well is if you do a fast hundred and you get your time, then you do another fast hundred and you get your time, but you sight every 12 strokes. If you are within one to two seconds of that time from the first one, then you’re probably sighting and breathing quite well. So you shouldn’t be much slower than that when you introduce your sighting. Now, another way to sight is to raise your head a little bit. Think about getting crocodile eyes and take a few strokes where you’ve got to

lift your elbows up. You’ve got to increase your stroke rate, increase your kick to get a good look at where you’re going. That’s another way to do it if you didn’t get a very good look at the first time. So you can use these two types of sighting wherever you need to in your race, depending on what conditions are like, but we just want to make sure that we don’t lose our rhythm and we don’t slow ourselves down when we introduce sighting into our stroke.

A few ways you can sight better as well. One thing that’s good to do in a race is to make sure you do a course recce. You want to make sure that you know where you’re going. What does a course look like and are there any landmarks that you can line up with when it comes to doing the boy turns? So if you get a chance to do a lap of the course before the race, then you can see if the boys line up with anything on the shore and that way you don’t have a very small boy to look for. Because sometimes if it’s wavy and choppy and you’ve got the boys there, very hard to see. But if you can line up maybe a tree or a building or a landmark on the land, then you have a much better idea of where you’re going. So that’s the first thing that you will need to do. The other part of making sure you sight well is making sure you’ve got a good pair of goggles. Open water goggles are usually a little bit bigger with the lenses and I find

that to be quite helpful just to give you a bigger field of view and making sure that you either buy a new pair of goggles for the important races that you’re doing, but test them before you use them. But a new pair of goggles so they’re clear or just get a really good anti fog goggles so that you don’t have these foggy goggles where you can’t see anything. So something like the Maritania Hydro clear goggles are really good but goggles that either don’t fog up or sometimes I would buy new pairs of goggles for races. So I didn’t run into that problem. Some of the stroke changes that you might need to make when you’re going from the pool to the open water motto that I’ve got is higher wider faster. When you think about your arm coming over the top of the water, sometimes your hand needs to be a little bit higher than in the pool. Sometimes it needs to be a little bit wider because you might have a wetsuit on or you might not be able

to get as close to the body as you would in the pool and sometimes you got to be a little bit faster and a little bit more assertive over the top so you carry a speed over and just get that hand in. So higher wider faster is a general way of improving your stroke for the open water if you’re used to swimming in the pool.

The other thing you might note when you go from the pool to the open water, especially if you’ve got a wetsuit on, is you might find you kick a lot less. With the buoyancy of a wetsuit, with the buoyancy of salt water, often your legs don’t need to do too much, especially if you’re going at a slower pace or you’re doing a longer distance event. Generally you keep going to be there to support you, not to propel you. But in the open water and with a wetsuit on, sometimes you don’t have to do a whole lot with the legs, which is absolutely fine as long as they’re still working in coordination and rhythm with the rest of your stroke. That’s what you’ll often find will happen with the legs. For swimmers that like to breathe every two strokes when they’re swimming, I find that they tend to go for a little bit more of a loping sort of freestyle, where you’ll be a little bit longer on one side and a little bit shorter on the other.

It’s that loping or galloping sort of stroke that tends to work a bit better in the open water, especially if you are going fast. So if you find that you naturally gravitate to that sort of stroke when you’re swimming at speed in the open water, then lean into it and sometimes that can work really well. So it’s worth just practicing that and seeing what feels best for you and what feels efficient for you when it comes to racing in the open water.

You’re likely to have less glide as well. When there’s chop and there’s waves, you probably don’t have the same sort of time as you have in the pool. As you’re extending and reaching forwards in the pool, you don’t have anything moving around. So normally we’ll find that in the open water that you’re going to get into your catch a little bit sooner and you’re not going to have the time to extend out quite as much, especially for those shorter, faster events like a 500 meter swim or a one K swim or even maybe a two K swim. You won’t have the time to glide quite as much. Now, if you are swimming more marathon distance, the longer distance swims, then maybe maybe you will, but it really just depends on the event that you’re doing. But a lot of times people will get caught out by trying to over glide in the open water when it gets choppy. Now, not to say you can’t extend out, you look at someone like Andy Donaldson swing and he maintains his length

really well, but for many people, they just need to start the catch a little bit sooner than what they used to compared to in the pool. The other thing I see people doing when they go from the pool to the open water is they’re trying to be too pretty with their stroke. You need to allow yourself to get a little bit scrappy. Get that hand over, get it in the water. Don’t try and be too perfect and controlled with it when the conditions are not great. So allowing yourself to rate up to get your stroke up a bit, to be a little bit scrappy with it, that’s in a way to overcome those difficult conditions is to just move away a little bit from that classic perfect pool technique and just allow yourself to not be perfect, allow yourself to get scrappy. And the last thing there is is the stroke rate. Typically, people will increase their stroke rate compared to in the pool because in the open water, the water is typically more aerated from

people’s bubbles, from the chop and the waves. So it’s not as as thick, which means that you’re probably going to be increasing your stroke rate to account for that. And you’re probably going to be increasing your stroke rate as well, because with a wetsuit on and insult water, you sit a lot higher in the water. And that also just means that you can comfortably get your stroke rate up a little bit higher as well. So for me, my stroke rate will typically be about 10 percent higher when I’m going at the same speed in the open water compared to the pool. I’ll normally be a 65, 66 stroke rate in the pool, but then I’ll be around a 75 stroke rate when I’m racing in the open water for the same speed. And I find a lot of athletes similar with that. A question I get a lot is why am I slower in the open water compared to the pool? Now, there’s a number of reasons for that. The first one being you don’t have the walls to push off of.

You get a lot of speed and acceleration off the walls. Even if you’re not very good at your turns, you’re still getting some extra push from them. So that’s one reason why you might be a bit faster in the pool compared to the open water, especially if you’re in a 25 meter pool or a 25 yard pool. That’s lots of push-offs. That’s lots of speed that you gain each time you make a turn. That’s the first thing. The other thing is in the open water, you haven’t got any rests. You’re always going to be swimming. It’s continuous. And so sometimes without that rest or without those intervals, your speed is just naturally going to be a little bit lower. But then you’ve also got chop and you’ve got waves and you’ve got other things to deal with. So they are other reasons why you might be slightly slower. Now, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be just as fast in the open water as you are in the pool, taking into account with the terms, especially if you’re wearing a

wetsuit and you’re swimming in salt water. That extra buoyancy from those two things can allow you to be a lot quicker. For me, I did a wetsuit test in the pool and drown that I was significantly quicker wearing a wetsuit. So there are ways to make sure that you do swim faster when you make that transition, but I find it does take quite a bit of practice and getting used to swimming in a wetsuit, get used to swimming in the open water to be able to get to that point where your speed is essentially the same. One thing that it took me a long time to learn was how to draft. Drafting an open water swimming can save up to 34 percent of your energy. And if you can draft well, then not only will you be swimming faster, but you’re going to save a lot of effort as a result. Now, there’s two different ways to draft. One is on the hip, one is on the feet. Now, I prefer and I teach most of my swimmers to draft at the feet directly behind the other person

because this is where you’re going to impact the person in front of you the least. And this is also where it’s typically a little bit easier to draft as well. So drafting on the feet, try to stick as close to the other person as you can without constantly tapping their feet. If you’re annoying them, they’re going to get annoyed and they might look to retaliate as a result, but they are also going to kind of get a bit annoyed. So if you can just sit behind someone, avoid touching their feet as best as possible and just kind of sit in there without them knowing, then you’re likely to get a much better draft and pull along as you’re as you’re doing it. Now, you might need to adjust your hand entry. If you do get too close and you’re likely to hit them. So maybe you just got to be a little bit wider with the entry and extension. But you can save so much energy doing that. For example, in a pool, I used to train in a 25 metre pool and I could

I could do my four hundreds 15 seconds faster when I was drafting straight behind a faster swimmer. No extra effort. It was actually easier when I sat right behind him. And sometimes it can be even more than that. So it’s worth practicing drafting. Now, the other way is drafting on the hip and you can get a really big pool along drafting right next to someone. So your shoulder is kind of just behind their hip and you’re sticking pretty close to them because you can see when someone’s swimming, especially a fast swimmer, they have this wake coming off their hips. So it is very coming off it. You can almost ride that wake and get a really good pull along. The downside to that is that if you’re right next to someone, you can take their water, you can almost sort of pull through where they would be about to pull through so you can take their water and slow them down and it feels really heavy

if you’ve got someone drafting off your hip. So it’s good if you’re looking to maybe overtake someone trying to tie them out. But if you’re looking to gain an advantage, I think it’s better in most cases to try and sit at the feet rather than trying to slow that swimmer down, unless maybe you’re looking to finish a race and make that make their swimming feel really heavy. A big part of open water swimming is pack swimming, getting used to swimming with others around you. And this is something that takes quite a bit of practice to do. And with the more you do, the easier it’s going to get. Now, when you are swimming with other people around you, you might need to adapt or change your stroke to account for that. For example, if someone’s really close to you, maybe it’s hard to get your arm out comfortably. Maybe you can’t recover over the water as well as you normally would. So sometimes I’ll find you have to come over somewhat

straight, maybe enter kind of straight as well, or maybe you have to enter wide to avoid hitting someone. So you will have to make these changes to the way that you’re swimming if you are surrounded by a lot of people. And that’s OK. The main thing is do not stop. So let’s say someone maybe tries to swim over the top of you or they push you down. Don’t stop because if you’ve got 15 swimmers behind you, they’re just going to swim into and that’s that whole part of don’t be a victim. So just make sure you always keep swimming. Just a stroke if you have to and just get used to being surrounded by other people. Maybe you will cop an elbow. Sometimes that happens. People aren’t necessarily trying to to do that. But sometimes that will happen. So you just have to be prepared to be bumped around a little bit. Now the other part of that as well is if you find you’re really stuck with someone maybe in front of you, it’s OK to kind of roll over the top

of them, meaning let’s say someone’s here, you’re slightly behind them and you need to get over in this direction. You can kind of lift your chest up a bit and just slide over the top of their legs or over their hips to get across them. It’s a pretty common technique, especially if you’re going in towards a a boy turn and you need to change your position, you can get used to sliding over the top of someone. Now I’d suggest practicing that with a with a friend or someone that you know, but that is a very valid way to change your positioning, especially as you’re going into a turn. This podcast has brought you by Great Ocean Wetsuits, an up and coming Australian performance wetsuit brand for triathletes and open water swimmers. The wetsuits are designed and tested in Melbourne, Australia for fast, easy and enjoyable swimming for athletes of all levels. They’re worn in and raced by Olympians, triathletes and open water swimmers from all

over the world. And I personally use Great Ocean Wetsuits even before they became a sponsor of the podcast. I’ve personally found that the buoyancy, the freedom through the shoulders and the fit are the best that I’ve ever had in a wetsuit. So I highly recommend them and you can currently get 20 percent off either the gold or silver wetsuit models using our own code effort 20 at checkout. So enter the code effort 20 at checkout at greatoceanwetsuits.com and no matter where you are in the world, if you’re in Australia, the US, Europe, there’s free shipping worldwide. So get yourself a great ocean wetsuit. I personally use the gold model of the wetsuit. It just depends on what your goals are. So greatoceanwetsuits.com effort 20. Me at checkout, I know you’ll like them. The right equipment can make the difference between being a 140 swimmer compared to a 150 swimmer. So equipment that you might need when it comes to open water, a wetsuit,

especially down here in Victoria where where I live. So a good wetsuit goes a long way. The difference in the high level wetsuits and the cheaper wetsuits is typically the material that they use and sometimes the cups of the wetsuit as well. Now, depending on what pace you’re at and how seriously you’re taking a swimming in your triathlon, a mid-range wetsuit might be more than enough. So sometimes the mid-range wetsuits will have slightly thicker material, which means that they’ll actually last a bit longer than the more expensive wetsuits, because the more expensive wetsuits have thinner material, usually through the shoulders. So they’re more flexible, but they won’t necessarily last as long. So there’s a sweet spot there. And I think the majority of people can do really well with a mid-range wetsuit, especially one that’s designed well that has good freedom through the shoulders. It’s got a good cut of the wetsuit, something like

the Great Ocean Wetsuits Silver range is more than enough for most people. So make sure you get yourself a good wetsuit. When I’ve done testing between sleeved and short sleeve wetsuits, I’ve been a little bit quicker with the long sleeve wetsuit. I don’t know the difference that it makes for most people, but personally, when I have tested it, I’ve been a couple of seconds quicker per 100 with a long sleeve wetsuit. And my guess as to why that that is, is because you’ve got a little bit more thickness here. So you’ve got a slightly bigger paddle. You’ve also got a little bit more buoyancy as well. So it might just sit you up a little bit more. And sometimes the material on the inside of the arms can provide a bit of surface drag, so a bit more grip. So that’s why I think it can be slightly faster with a long sleeve wetsuit. But if you find that you need tire through the shoulders a lot, well, yeah, maybe better off going with a

short sleeve wetsuit. The other thing is a good pair of goggles. So making sure that you’ve got goggles with good view, they don’t leak. Make sure they’ve got some rubber around the outsides. So if you do cop an elbow, then you’re not going to finish up with a black eye and making sure that you’ve got goggles that’s got good anti fog to them. Or they’re a fairly new pair of goggles. So they’re not going to fog up because I’ve been in races where I couldn’t see where I had to go because I was wearing an old pair of goggles without good anti fog. And that just ruins the race because if you can’t see where you’re going, you might be seeing 20% extra when you don’t need to. If you prefer to breathe to one side, that is totally fine. But you might want to develop your bilateral breathing, your ability to breathe the other side comfortably and submit the same paces when you’re breathing to your preferred side because when it comes to open water swimming,

you never know where you’re going to be getting waves and wind and chop from. And if you are used to breathing on the left, but you’ve got this swell coming in and hitting you in this direction, you might have to turn to the right. You might have to breathe to that opposite side, at least for part of the race. So you don’t want to get out there and find that you just stuck because you can’t breathe to the opposite side. So it’s worth developing that skill as part of your swimming. It’s not to say you have to do 50% to your left, 50% to your right. For me, I’ll do 20 or 30% of my swim session to my non-preferred side, but the rest will be to my preferred side. So it’s a skill worth developing if you are doing any kind of open water swimming. One tip I learned when it comes to swimming in cold water is to if you can’t get in and do a pre-race warm-up, make sure you get some water and splash your face before you get in. That takes away that cold shock

that you’ll often get where it takes away your breath when you hit the cold water. So just making sure that you wet your face and wet your cheeks with that water before you get in and race. Just to get rid of that shock factor. And if you can, try to do some sort of land-based warm-up before you’re about to race, even if it’s like a bit of skipping or a light jog or some arm swings. Just something to kind of get the blood moving to warm you up that little bit before you go into this cold water. Now, if you’re doing something long like an English channel swim, well, that’s going to be a different type of event and you need to make the changes to allow for that. But for anything that’s a shorter distance and has some cold water, there are those ways to get rid of that cold shock factor. Depending on where you swim, there’s going to be currents and tides affecting the flow of the water. And we see this happen a lot here in Australia.

Many of our races are on open beaches or they’re in bays where there is a lot of current. So it’s worthwhile testing that out. If you can get into the water before a race and see which way the water is moving and maybe looking at the boys and seeing if they’re at an angle. So let’s say you’ve got a boy and it’s veering off in one direction. You know the water is flowing that way. Or if you’ve got waves of swimmers before you, you can see which way they’re getting pushed. So for example, the Nusa Tri a couple of years ago, there was pretty wild weather, pretty wild conditions and a lot of waves. And there was people who were leaving from the start line and trying to get out to the first boy. There was a heap of current going down the beach. So a lot of them didn’t even get to the first boy because they got swept so far. When it came time for the pros to race, they ended up running 150 meters down the beach, getting in at that point

and then they kind of got pushed across the first boy. But there’s nothing that they could do to swim at the same speed that the current was going. So sometimes it’s worthwhile just seeing what the waves are doing before you. And for a lot of the races here where I swim, quite often there is a bit of current. So I’m looking at which way of people veering when it comes to that first swim out to the boy. So knowing that, being prepared for that can help you place a lot higher in your swims than what you might used to be doing. If you’re quite new to open water swimming and you’re not quite comfortable amongst other people and in the open water, try to place yourself when you’re entering the water, just away from the pack, away from the masses. Give yourself five or 10 meters so you’re not getting slumber over the top of. Now, if you are looking to be competitive and have a good race, you wanna make sure that you’re positioning yourself

so that you can hopefully get to the boy first. But if you’re not very comfortable, give yourself some space, take a slightly wider birth until you get comfortable being amongst other people. Now, I’ve heard stories of people getting swam over and pushed under and things like that. It does happen, but the good swimmers, if you know you’ve got good swimmers coming up behind you, they’re not trying to swim over the top of you. They would prefer to just go alongside you or just go around you because that’s gonna make them faster. So they’re not looking to try and push you down and get you under the water or swim over the top. Now, yes, it does happen sometimes, but people aren’t always out for that. So just know that, all right, if you do hold your line, yes, maybe people will pass you and it’s likely that if you are getting pushed under, well, look, maybe they just saw you at the last minute. Okay, but just keep swimming, keep moving

and as best you can, try to not be a victim. Just keep it going and get your breath back if you need to. One thing that I find is good to know for people who aren’t that comfortable out there is if you get tired and you’re starting to run out of breath, maybe you’re starting to panic a bit, just roll onto your back. Just be on your back, have your head out of the water, have a light kick or a light scull if you need to, get your breath back, slow your breathing down and then you can go again. So, and that way you can also see what’s coming behind you. That’s a good way just to reset and start again if you find that you maybe got uncomfortable or starting to panic a little bit in the open water. When you’re finishing a race, you might be coming onto the beach and a good marker to know when should I stand up is roughly when your fingers start to hit the sand because that way you know, okay, well, that’s gonna be slightly shallower

than waist step and that’s the time where you can start to stand up and then start to run through the water. Now, if you’re more elite level, if you have a rough idea of where, the depth of the water, then you can start to stand up slightly before that and you can start to duck dive but that’s probably a slightly more advanced skill. So, when your fingers hit the sand, that’s when you should start to stand up for most people. Now, I’ve seen people slow themselves down by 30 seconds coming out of triathons because they start to stand up when they’re this deep and because they can see the bottom, I think, all right, I’m just gonna stand up, I’m just gonna walk through the water. If you can just keep swimming until those fingers hit the sand, you’re gonna be at the beach or at the shore much quicker. So, if you find yourself just wading through the water from here on, it’s too much, you’re probably gonna be a lot slower.

So, when you sit at the sand, that’s when you start to stand up. If you don’t have access to a lake or a beach and you can’t get to the open water much at all to practice, you can practice a lot of the skills that lead to good open water swimming in the pool. You can practice your sighting. If you’ve got friends or other people that you swim with, you can practice your pack swimming and you can also practice your drafting. So, a couple of things that we’ll do in the squad that I swim in is we’ll do a little bit of pack swimming, especially in the lead up to our race season. So, we’ll do something like 850s where we’ll get the slowest swimmers at the front, fastest swimmers at the back and we’re all going fast for that 50. Now, the lead swimmers have to try and keep their lead, fastest swimmers have to try and move through and just getting used to being really tight, having other people around and just making sure

that we learn how to adapt our stroke and change it with the other people really close. The other thing is drafting. So, a set that I love is what we call LA Freeway. So, we’ll do it in groups of three and we’ll swim 50 meters where the first two swimmers will push off directly behind one another. The third person will push off and then they’ve got to overtake those other two swimmers. They’ve got to make their way around. By the end of the 50, they need to have overtaken them and you get a really good draft at the start and then you get a bit of a draft as you’re coming up the side of them but then you’ve got to work really hard to get in front. But it’s a good way to practice drafting, practice swimming close and also just to get used to drafting from the hip and drafting from the feet as well. So, those things you can practice in the open water. Sometimes you can practice your boy turns in the pool as well if you take out a couple of lane ropes.

So, many of the skills you can get used to in the pool but the one thing you can’t get used to is those choppy conditions. That is where experience and practice really pays dividends. If you can get yourself to the open water once a week for six weeks leading up to your open water swim. That can make such a difference and if you’re not comfortable in the open water or you’re going by yourself just play it safe. Maybe you have to stick by the shore. Maybe you can’t go too deep but there are usually ways to get that open water swimming for most people depending on where you live. When it comes to race strategy and knowing how to pace yourself the biggest mistake most newcomers make is that they go out too hard. They get really excited and really nervous and maybe a bit anxious for the first two or 300 meters and they go straight to that top end speed where the heart rate is 180 when in reality it really should be 140 or 150 for the race.

So, the main thing that I like to make sure my swimmers do for that first part of the race is go out strong but we’re looking for easy speed. We’re looking to go out with good speed but keep that heart rate under control. If you feel like it’s, you’re starting to get too out of breath where you couldn’t hold this pace or you couldn’t settle the heart rate back down by the time you’re into the thick of the race then you’ve gone too hard. So, I want you to go out and just always think about keeping that heart rate just below that level where you know it’s going to be too much. So, just looking for that effort level and keeping it there. So, the first two or 300 looking to go strong and then as soon as you can just settle into that rhythm and tempo that you know you can hold for the rest of the race. And depending on whether it’s a triathlon or just an open water swim the speed will change within the race. In an open water race

you’re probably going to bring it home hard the last 100 or 200. So, you’re looking to have that extra push at the end. In a triathlon may not be the case maybe you’re just looking to be consistent throughout it and you might just want to bring your legs into the last 100 meters of the swim just to get a little bit of blood flying again so that you’re ready for the transition and ready for the bike. So, your pace and your strategy might change depending on the event that you’re doing but just make sure you don’t go out too hard. That is the number one mistake that I see most people making when it comes to their open water swims. If you want hands-on experience and coaching with your open water swimming come and join us at one of our swimming camps. We run them in the Galapagos Islands, Maldives, Thailand and the Whitsundays plus a bunch of other locations. So, I’ll put the link in our description below. Thanks for watching.

Here is another video where I talk about how to transform your freestyle technique in 33 minutes. 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 Everything I Know About Becoming A Strong Open Water Swimmer with Brenton Ford appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

Ryan Evernden is the founder of Formidable Strength and Conditioning, a coaching service that’s reshaping how swimmers integrate strength training into their routines. Ryan isn’t just any strength coach; he specializes in tailoring strength and conditioning programs specifically for swimmers, helping them power through the water with more speed and resilience while safeguarding against injuries.

02:19 Veering towards Strength Training for Swimmers

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I think people, when they’re trying to search for a range of motion, benefits trying to force it too much rather than letting it relax into the position. And once we have relaxed and we’ve got a bit more range of motion opened up, we’ll then apply some strength training to reinforce it. So the body then goes, sweet, we have this range of motion. Now we’ve done some strength training through this range of motion to make it feel safe, secure, and it learns that that is okay. So we don’t keep regressing backwards and we can kind of make better gains as we move forwards. I think a lot of the time, you know, people put these massive programs out there because they want to show their value. But showing your value is actually doing what’s best for each individual athlete and their circumstance and making sure that you can adjust their program and be flexible with your plan. 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.

Ryan Evendon is the founder behind formidable strength and conditioning, a coaching service that’s reshaping how swimmers integrate strength training into their routines, helping them power through the water with more speed and resilience while safeguarding against injuries. Today, Ryan will share his insights on essential strength exercises for swimmers, how to prevent common swimming injuries and some truly inspiring success stories from the athletes he’s worked with. Whether you’re a competitive swimmer looking to enhance your performance or a recreational swimmer aiming to swim smarter and stronger, Ryan’s expertise is sure to provide valuable guidance. Let’s get into the episode.

Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. My guest today is Ryan Evendon. And Ryan, I first heard about you from Andy Donaldson when I had him on the podcast talking about his marathon swimming and he talked about how important strength training was and he talked about how important you were as a part of his strength training in the build up to those big swims and making sure he doesn’t get injured.

He can withstand those tough conditions over many, many hours. And then I’ve seen you quite regularly on Instagram and popping up in my feed and on a few other podcasts as well. So I wanted to get you on the podcast to talk about strength training for swimmers because it’s a component that is super important for anyone, but I think particularly as we get older, it only gets more important. So firstly, welcome. And how did you veer into swimming strength training for swimmers? Well, mate, originally I was a swimmer myself. So I was a 200 breaststroke swimmer. I got to about 6th in the country for the 200 breasts.

And I was often really injured. Like I got injured all the time and it was probably a lot of, a lot to do with over training, but my body wasn’t able to handle the loads that we were doing.

So I always thought I’d actually become a swim coach, like on pool deck coach. But when I was doing all my rehab and stuff like that, I kind of fell into the gym side of things a little bit more and thought I can probably make more of an impact here, trying to keep people in the water as long as possible and having them have a longer time period in the water. So that’s kind of why I fell into the gym side of things. From there, like for the last eight years, I’ve worked with swimmers in the gym. So a long time now compared to how long, you know, S&C for swimmers has kind of become popular in the last couple of years.

But it’s been a wild ride, man. We’ve done everything from, you know, in terms of formidable strength and conditioning, we’ve had guys go to the Olympics, but the guys that I think we’re truly passionate about nowadays is that older generational group that are trying to do more open water swims, the channel swims, and it breeds more into our philosophy of trying to create swimmers for life. And that’s through strength training for injury prevention to make sure they can handle more load in the water. And just enjoy it. Like I think a lot of the time, everyone gets so caught up in the performance aspect of things that they forget that, you know, this was something that everyone got into because they enjoyed it and they want to keep enjoying it for as long as possible. And you’re not enjoying it if you’re busted with a shoulder all the time. So, you know, as much as we don’t, well, we do do rehab now. We’ve just brought on a physiotherapist,

but as much as we’ve always been focused, we want to prevent as many injuries as possible through strength training because we believe that if you’re in the water, you’re going to actually get better at swimming. So our job is to keep you in there and build some capacity and the performance aspect of, you know, strength training for swimmers will then come from there. And how’s your philosophy evolved over the years that you’ve been a strength coach? Because I’m sure you’ve worked with a lot more athletes over that time. You’ve come across different demographics and people training with different goals. So I imagine your philosophy has probably shifted or taken a bit of a turn at some point. I think it’s probably more of a circular. I think we’ve started off just really focusing on nailing the basics.

Then, you know, you get caught down a little bit of a rabbit hole of, you know, all the stuff that matters, like, you know, the velocity you’re using in your strength training and all those kind of things. But then I think over the last two years, we’ve just come right back around to the basics. What’s, you know, ensure that range of motion is there. That’s the first one. And range of motion isn’t just stretching. There’s a huge component of, you know, being able to be strong enough to hold the range of motion that you need to worry about. Then from that point of, from range of motion, we want to look at stabilizing the joints so you can actually apply force. Because a lot of people, even, especially in the older populations, to go back to point one, they don’t get into the right position so they can never actually get the technical aspects that the coaches are trying to get them to have because they just physically can’t get in

without compensating somewhere else. But once we can get into those positions, we need to really make sure that they’re strong enough to be able to hold and maintain those positions as they’re pulling through their strokes and going through their races or their swims. So that would be the two main points. And then we can get whatever performance adaptations that we like through strength training and, you know, working on those other factors. Like, you know, there’s more specific aspects for me. Hmm. So is there a way that you assess someone’s mobility or their range of motion? Yep. So the first way that we probably look into that would be, you know, range of motion for the shoulder is quite important. Overhead range of motion is our number one

that we normally consider top of the… That’s the first one we’re looking at because if you can’t get your head up, if you can’t get your arms above your head in swimming, you’re in a bit of a pickle.

It’s pretty hard to catch them freestyle or swim any of the strokes if your arms don’t go above your head. So that’s number one. How do you assess that? Yep. So there’s a few ways we can do it. We use a bit of the vault technology for our in-house assessments, but for the online guys, we get them just to lie on their back, arms straight up above their head. So if you lie on your back, arms straight up and then you just fold those arms back. And if you can get your arms on the floor without your lower back popping up or seeing anything else change, we’re in a pretty good position there to move forward. So we can make a pretty clear assumption that that’s going to be…

You’ve got enough overhead range of motion there. And with that, I mean, I see it all the time with a lot of their triathletes that will come in from being on the bike and running. They’re very stiff through the shoulders and don’t have that overhead range of motion.

How do you… What are some ways to get started on improving that? Because I imagine it’s not about building the strength to start with. It’s about just expanding that range of motion and it’s probably starting very light. Like what is it for you that you would start to move on to from there? So we always start from the most proximal aspect and then we work our way out. So what I mean by that, especially if we take the shoulder, we work from the trunk, so your body, and then move out towards your limbs. So number one thing that we always assess if someone’s coming in with a very tight upper thoracic area, chest and back, is their breathing.

We probably solved more shoulder issues for just breathing mechanics, especially in older populations where they’re more likely to have more stress in their lives, where they start breathing for those upper traps a little bit more than actually having a full diaphragmatic breath. But that’s step one, because we’ve got to sort that out. If we don’t focus on that, everything else we try and do is probably just going to regress back at some point. So we start there. Then what we do, we work towards the thoracic spine. So that’s the top region of your spine just before you get to your neck. And we make sure you’ve got at least 10 degrees of range of motion there. If you don’t have that, your scap function, your scaps won’t function correctly. What is this next point that we look at? We look at scap functions. So we go, breathing is good, T spine is good, scap function is good. Then we’ll move actually into the shoulder joint itself

and we’ll look, okay, can you now get 90 degrees of glenal-humual joint range of motion there? And if you’re ticking all those boxes, it adds up to 180 degrees. And then we can go from there. In terms of how we manage that, we obviously do the breathing first.

What we generally see is if you work from proximal to distal, you solve a lot of issues going forward. So if we solve the breathing issue and that becomes a regular and normal thing that they’re doing, it will then relieve some of the tension going out. But especially with your triathletes and your cyclists, they’re generally very weak upper back because they spent a lot of time in that their shoulders are forwards because they want to get over the bike and hold that position. So just strengthening up that upper back is a huge component of the stuff what we would focus on. Things like band pull-aparts, your rowing mechanics, making sure that you’re actually getting your shoulder to move forwards and backwards while you’re rowing and you’re not just using your arm to do it. Making sure the scapula is gliding across that ribcage nicely and functioning well would be really good and building strength through that area. Once we’ve done that,

we see this kind of cascade effect of the range of motion starting to open up with, of course, some mobility aids and stuff like that. So if anyone is in my program, they know that we love a little peanut. So it’s the two tennis balls that are kind of put together, goes up your spine. Combine that, find the really tight spot, go for your breathing mechanics. That’s why breathing is also really important because it allows us to open up these ranges a little bit better.

And then we take it from there with some just breathing in that position, releasing it, try not to force things. I think people, when they’re trying to search for a range of motion, benefits try to force it too much rather than letting it relax into the position. And once we have relaxed and we’ve got a bit more range of motion to open up, we’ll then apply some strength training to reinforce it. So the body then goes, sweet. We have this range of motion. Now we’ve done some strength training through this range of motion to make it feel safe, secure. And it learns that that is okay. So we don’t keep regressing backwards and we can kind of make better gains as we move forwards.

It’s really great to hear you talk about your approach there because it’s so similar in the technique approach that we like to take. It’s start from the inside, move out from there. And it makes sense. There’s no point in thinking about what your hands or your wrists are doing because it’s connected to your elbows and your shoulder. And it doesn’t work that way. So you’ve got to start inside out. And just that range of motion, I think even if people didn’t build or increase their strength that much, but just worked on that range of motion, for many people, that’s going to help them swim a lot faster and more efficiently because being able to get into the positions is, I’d say for probably 40 to 50% of the people that I coach who come to clinics, they just can’t physically, or can’t simply get into those positions that we want them to. So really some basic stuff can go a long, long way. Yeah. We really see two types of people here

with this. So we have one side of the group that’s that. They can’t get into the position. And then we have the other side of the group where they can’t stabilize in that position. And they’re both problems. Everyone thinks about, I think a lot of the time, everyone goes, oh, you’ve got heaps of range of motion that should be great. But this is where we’ve got to find a balance. It’s all about balance with your body and performance and swimming. You can’t be one side or the other too much. You’ve got to meet somewhere in the middle to get that balance so you can get into position like you’re talking about. What’s a huge issue that we see in adult populations.

But you’ve also got to be able to stabilize and actually control yourself in those end ranges of motions and not go too far. You can’t overextend on a catch position and lose everything the same way that you would not be able to get into the position. And I think the way that you’re talking about swim technique, it’s kind of the same as what I came from. So before I got into S&C coaching, I was a swim coach. I was a swim coach while I was competitive swimming as well. And that was always the approach that I would take when I was taught to take is you’ve got to work its head position, hip position, feet position, rotation, and then work your way out. So body position is key. If you can float well, you’re solving most of your problems. So for us in the S&C side of things, it’s the same or it should be the same. If you can’t get them into the right position, they’re never going to be able to actually apply

any of the technical teaching or it’s going to be very difficult without compensation for them to apply the technical teaching that the swim coach is trying to get them to do. So I think that’s where we really worked. And it’s another reason why I’ve really loved working with older populations now because I feel like the impact we can make on those guys who are really tight and are really struggling to get in position and just feel like their technique is not going to get better. Like we have so many people come to us and say, I just, I will never, I’m probably never going to get a high elbow catch. And I’m like, really? It’s like, well, I’ve been trying for years and we’ve done all the drills. I’m like, mate, let’s assess, let’s see where your shoulders at and let’s go from there. And needless to say, they couldn’t get their arm above their head. And we go, okay, this is going to take some time because it takes longer to fix you.

Once you get a bit older, your body’s learned this position is comfortable here. It will take some time and your swimming might feel a bit icky, but stick with it because this is, we’ll get you, if you, if you can get it, if you can get your arm above your head, we can get this catch position. So we’ve just got to get your arm above your head now. Yeah, I love it. And in terms of the swimmers that are doing the longer distance events, even if it’s an Iron Man, maybe a Rotnest Channel swim, which is 20 kilometers. What approach are you taking there? Because it’s obviously not about that explosive power that we’re looking for. It’s about being able to be strong throughout the race and maintain it. Someone like Andy Donelson, for example. What’s your philosophy behind building the strength required for the longer distance stuff?

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Okay, so with this, this is a very interesting point because would you agree that if you could get faster in the water, your ability to swim longer distances will probably get better because you’ve got a stronger threshold? Yeah. That makes sense? Yeah. You know what I’m saying? So for example, if you’re holding a 130 pace, but you make yourself fast enough to swim a 120 pace, 130 becomes easy.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Or will it come in as long as you’re doing the training required for it? So that’s the easiest concept to go with. This is where I go with strength training. If you could, and we don’t really work in the world of what you can lift and stuff like that, it’s very much just watch the trend. But if you are lifting at this level, be like at a certain level before say, you could let’s put a number on it, even though we don’t really care about the numbers, you could only RDL 40 kilos before and now you can RDL 60 kilos.

40 is going to be real easy for you.

And you’ll be able to do a lot more reps at 40 than you would would have before when 40 was really hard. So the essence is really still, like we don’t necessarily go into so much of like the explosive jumping, throwing work that we do with the sprint guys and the pool swimmers and stuff like that. But we don’t cut it out completely either because it’s still important. Like we still need to make people,

speed is still what gets people across the line and a lot of these ultra marathon swims.

And something that has become very apparent to us, especially working with Andy and working with the other guys like Josie, Max, Robbie Bonsall and all those boys. You know, the ones that can get faster, give themselves less risks for weather and other things to come into play and ruin that swim for you. So speed is still even an endurance, something that I think very strongly

is very critical still. I think if you just try and become, I think if you just try to become this endurance animal, but you’ve got no speed improvement, I think you just leave yourself in a big risk window of like, okay, well, I could swim 40 kilometers, but if the weather turns bad, especially in rotto and port to pub, for example, especially port to pub because it’s a little bit later in the year, we see this all the time, the fastest, the cutoff time might come in and they might have to move that forwards because of weather conditions and stuff like that. So you can’t just sit back and go, okay, well, we just need to make them endurance animals. I think that’s an aspect of speed is involved. A lot of that is determined by the swim coaching side of things as well, but we need to help facilitate that by giving them the opportunity to have that extra strength and power at the disposal. And if we can make them a little bit stronger,

they then become a little bit more efficient at their previous bests, that’s going to help them a long way. But the main thing for these endurance guys is just making sure that they can get in the water as much as possible for me. And if we get them stronger, the stronger they are and the more balanced their body is, the less likely they are to break. As long as we’re managing recovery in terms of sleep, hydration and nutrition, well, that’s something that we’ve got to really focus on. And then the strength work that comes from that and that opportunity for them to become faster in the water because they get stronger, they have more disposable force that they can use in the water. They’ll feel better in the water, what will be a massive confidence boost. Their stroke efficiency will increase because they can pull more efficiently each time because they’ve had technical improvement because we can get them in range of motion.

But they’re also just stronger each stroke so they can then get on top of it. So I think I’ve seen this before, especially in the endurance sport arena where everyone’s just like, you just need to do high reps, high volumes, all these things. But I also think, well, that’s what they’re doing in the water anyway. So why don’t we take a little bit of a different approach and make them and work on some of the stuff that they’re not going to get in the water, strength, power, speed, and just give their body that opportunity when they do go in the water and that transfer when they do go in the water to be able to go a little bit faster in their training sessions and build a higher threshold. I think that’s kind of where we’ve gone in terms of essence for these endurance guides. And I think that’s why we have such a great success record. We’ve not just the elite guys because people are going to say that Andy is an animal

because he’s super fast anyway. But even the guys who aren’t as fast as Andy, they’ve had these improvements in speed in the water that have helped them because they can sit at that threshold that was a little bit faster, would have been too hard for them before for longer and get themselves across the line quicker.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And would you, in terms of fitting it in each week, where would you suggest people try and fit their strength workouts in relation to their swim sessions? Because I know personally, if I do a hard gym session Tuesday night, swimming Wednesday morning, I’m usually going to feel it. So I try to do it at least 24 hours before a swim session. Otherwise, I just come in feeling pretty heavy. And obviously it depends how much you’re training. But do you have a preference there and what have you seen work well for people? This is the hardest thing, I think, for a lot of swimmers, is how do I fit it in,

especially the older guys who also got huge work commitments and all those other things, right?

Because it becomes tough. You’re trying to balance your pool sessions that you have to do. You’re not going to get better at swimming without swimming.

The gym’s great, but if you’re not in the water, you’re not going to go faster in the water. So that’s your specific time where you get faster in the water. So where do you fit it in? How do you fit it in? And it really is a question of what works best for you. There is obviously my opinion in terms of what is optimal. I wouldn’t have you come in if it was completely up to me and you’re a professional athlete, yada, yada, yada. Well, we don’t work with professional athletes. I don’t think there’s many in swimming, but we’re not an institute or sport or anything like that. We work with the real people in the real world. And it’s just very tough. So what we try to do is we look at their schedule and say if they’ve got a double on a Monday, a single on a Tuesday, a double on a Wednesday, a single on a Tuesday, on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, they might do one swim on Saturday and a Sunday. For example, we might get them in

on a Tuesday, Thursday morning or the Tuesday, Thursday night just to balance it out so they are getting enough time. However, when we run into issues with that, especially with the guys who work, is like, you know, or they have families Tuesday and Thursday night, but they don’t only time to hang out with the family. So what do we do then? Well, we normally would pick the most, the lightest intensity swimming sessions that we can and try and pair it up with that. And it’s up to us as this S&C provider to manage their load so they’re not going into the next session sore. Because at the end of the day, you’re only going to get better from what you recover from. This is, you know, I’m an S&C provider who works with swimmers. My job is to make sure they can swim in the water to the best of their ability every time they get in the water. My job is not to kick people in the butt and make them sore for weeks in my own way of trying to fulfill my own needs

as an S&C coach and make myself feel relevant. My job is to make sure that these guys get in the water, do and can continue to perform in the water. Yes, sometimes they’re going to get sore. And that does happen. But that’s not the goal. I don’t want anyone to be sore. We have a rule with my gym program. If they do a session and they’re sore, they’ve got to tell us because we don’t want it to happen twice. We want to just make sure that they’re doing what they can and they’re maximizing every swim session they can do. And there’s a lot of ways that you can do that. One might be, okay, the volume isn’t very high. The intensity wasn’t very high. So what did you do in terms of recovery? How’s your nutrition? What’s your sleep like? Did you hydrate effectively? Do we need to bring in some recovery aids just to help speed up that process for you? Or is this going to just be something that we’re going to have to take? Okay, this happened this week.

We’ll make a quick adjustment for your second session in the week. And then we’ll come back to that session at same light and see what happens because it might have just been it’s a lot of new stuff in the program. The adaptation process was your body just freaked out a bit. But you’ve got to also go, okay, well, we don’t want that to happen too often because then they’ve had two crap sessions that week or in two weeks and I don’t really want that. I want people to feel fresh because at the end of the day, they need to swim fast in the water to get faster in the water. They don’t need to lift heavy in the gym to get faster in the water necessarily. It does help though.

Gotcha. So the reason you don’t want them coming or leaving a session, a gym session saw is because it’s obviously going to impact their performance in the pool. And if you’re doing that too much, you’re just not going to get the gains from the swim. What’s the risk reward ratio on that if that makes sense? Like if I’m belting someone in the gym

twice a week and they’re turning up

after every session they have with me to their next session in the water and they’re sore, they’re going to have a crap session at least twice a week if they get 48 hours of doms, they’re going to have maybe three crap sessions, what ends up six crap sessions a week, but maybe they only had one good session that week. They’re probably not getting what they need out of those swim sessions. So like pull it back in like, you know, let’s give you what you can handle at this stage and where you’re at with your life and what’s going on in the world and what can you, what can your body manage because there’s no point in wasting your time because you don’t have a lot because we’re on this schedule. There’s no point in me wasting your time,

giving you these massive gym sessions where I could probably get more improvement out of you in 20 minutes than an hour because that’s all your body is willing to give me at this point in time. But the best thing about the body is it adapts over time if you give it the opportunity to. So may start at 20 and we may build that up over time and we may need to drop back every now and again if you’re training spikes, that’s fine. But we can consistently just increase incrementally over a course of, you know, a longer period of time and we will get you to an hour and it will be fine and your body will be adapted to it and then you’re getting more out of it but your body’s actually improved and we’ve decreased your risk of injury what would obviously be very bad if you got injured because then you know in the water and then we’re modifying your gym anyway. So we’ve kicked ourselves in the face there.

So it’s just, you know, what is the reward from that risk? You know, if I’m not able to take myself out of it and say, what is the best for the swimmer? The best thing for the swimmer is for the swimmer to swim and be able to swim well. Also, their coaches stop sending like, don’t want you going to, don’t want their swimmer is going to an S&C provider when their kids always, or their adult swimmers always turn up sore the next day and they’re getting frustrated on pool deck going, why am I, why can’t you do a bloody aerobic A1 cycle?

I lift my arms above my head. Well, that’s bloody useful, isn’t it? Like, so, you know, it’s just, I think a lot of the time, you know, people put these massive programs out there because they want to show their value, but showing your value is actually doing what’s best for each individual athlete and their circumstance and making sure that you can adjust their program and be flexible with your plan. Again, I’m an S&C provider. I’m a supplementary service to these guys like a dietitian or a physio is. I’m not the primary thing that’s going to make them better. The primary thing that’s going to make them better is them in the water.

So my job is to make sure they can get in the water and swim really well.

And in terms of people who start with you, they’re quite new. What are some of the common misconceptions that they come in with?

Which one? It’s changed a lot. This is probably the thing that’s changed the most because when we first started, my primary goal when talking to coaches was this is going to be a benefit to your athletes, not something that’s going to make them slower because a lot of people used to think that. I think now that it’s evolved a bit more and people have caught up. So I don’t have to deal with that much at the moment. But one of the main…

Just trying to think of the most common one at the moment. We… I think we do such a good job in our positioning now on our website how we enter conversations with people that we don’t get a lot of that many objections once people have signed up. But I think one of the main ones is people don’t value the rest periods enough.

That’s probably resting…

Resting and recovery is probably the thing that we have to work on the most with people at this stage. And that would be in terms of people thinking they can just blast through their program because in the water a lot of the time it is just get your main set, talk to her. Here’s your cycles, away you go. You’re getting like 10 to 15 seconds, 20 seconds rest. Especially when you’re doing more endurance work or a minute maybe. We’re in the gym, it’s like, okay, well, we’re probably going to have a minimum rest of a minute plus because it’s a different style of working out and we need to deal with different things and stuff like that. So really getting people to understand and buy into rest periods is probably the number one thing I have to deal with.

We still get the question about

injury risk in the gym. And I just kind of say all sport has risk of injury. My job is to mitigate your risk of injury as much as possible by making you stronger.

But at the end of the day, you’re probably more likely to get injured at swimming than you are in the gym based on the stats that we’ve got and the people that have been injured with us. And the other one would probably what we talked about earlier in terms of like the endurance swimming thing, in terms of not putting enough emphasis on getting these guys stronger and pushing that threshold up a little bit higher so they can have a better performance in the water. I think that’s probably the main one. People still think that just being a robically,

being a robic animal is the way to go where I think having a bit more speed is a key aspect of that now. It’s interesting here you talk about the rest intervals or recovery intervals. I find it’s the same thing in the pool with endurance athletes. Whenever we do sprint sets, having them be okay with being on the wall for a minute while they rest up before they go a fast 50, right? Like it’s just like, no, we got to go. We got to go. It’s like, no, just let’s take this minute rest. Then we can actually go, you know, much, much faster and much harder in this 50 and actually hit a much higher speed and use a different energy system.

People just, they want to go to the pool, want to get their workout done, but if they can be okay with being on the wall for more rest, long-term it’s going to help them a lot. And obviously same thing for strength training. Yeah, I think it’s something that’s coming.

It’s coming around, I think. I think the only way this is kind of going to trickle down is the more coaches that talk about it and actually implement it.

I think as I’ve mentioned a few times, I think for these endurance athletes, speed is key.

Being fit enough is important, but I think you can get so fit and then you probably didn’t need to get any fitter. But if you got faster, you’d make your life for the hell of a lot easier getting across. And you need rest period for that to happen because otherwise you’re training the wrong adaptation.

And that’s, I think it’s great to hear because that’s the process that we take with our swim program because we also own a swim program as well is we’re going to train the specific adaptation and we’re going to do that. And speed is a big part of that. Endurance is a big part of that. Everything in between is a big part of that that you need. And there’s different levels to what athletes are. If you’re a master’s 50 sprinter, there’s something you’re doing different training than a Andy Donaldson training for Manhattan Island. But there still has to be elements of everything for everyone to get. It’s just the ratio of what you give them changes. And getting people to actually sit and rest is a huge one that I especially find with the trifle crew, the open water crew especially, because they’re so used to being in the water and just churning out kilometers that they don’t really take that step back. Good story for you.

I think you’ve had Josie on the pod before, yeah?

No, I haven’t had Josie on. Just Andy. Anyway, Josie is a great story. Josie also did Manhattan with Andy. So she was the fifth fastest overall now and missed out on the female record. But when she first came to us like five years ago, she was famous for getting her sets done in like 20 minutes. These are our long view sessions. And she would be done. It would be finishing the warm-up and Josie would be walking out the door. And it was two years ago, I think. Roughly two years ago where we kind of made that switch for her and kind of sat her down and went, look, you’re the fittest person in the program by far. You’re so fit. You’re always so fit. And I know that your thing that you hold on to is you’re like, I’m the fittest here. That will get me across the line. But you need to get faster now. So we need to change how you’re training. And she moved programs and the coach that she was with was obviously much into that as well

and saw that opportunity. And it’s great with the collaboration between S&C and the swim coach. And now she’s off crushing it. And she’s the first one to tell you, you know, speed is something that I want to prioritize. It’s something that you need to prioritize. Getting faster is important. It just makes your life easier.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And in this time, so you work with a wide range of people, how many times a week are the competitive guys, like the younger sort of age group swimmers, getting going to the gym compared to the older crew and do you have a suggestion or recommendation for most people? What would be a minimum for you for the age group triathlete? The minimum or maximum? Pretty much the same at the moment for us. And it comes, it’s realistically a matter of time. And the time dictates it too. It’s probably where we’re at for most of these guys. Majority of the athletes that we see with us, they’re on too.

You know, the way that I set up is works is, you know, we give you as many sessions is going to be best for you. So they could have four if we thought it was going to be the best for them. But most of the time, there’s no way they’re going to recover enough or have enough time to do that. So two is where we’ve sat with a lot of people. And a lot of the time, I don’t think you have enough time or the athlete is trained enough to go to free and get much of a benefit out of it.

Over like peak season with the like the open water season over here where people are doing open water events like every weekend, we go to free sessions. But the third sessions is a primer slash recovery session to get them ready for the weekend. There’s no real emphasis on trying to get them stronger or anything like that. It’s come in warm up, sit in boots, sit in your arm sleeves, do your recovery, make sure your range of motion is ready to go. And then a bit of priming work. So some med bull slams and stuff like that. And yeah, we do priming work for the open water guys as well, because it’s still important. Like you still want to have that go when you get there, right? So that’s when that competitive start of the year turns up, we go to free. But the third session is really like 30 minutes, just come in and do some stuff and they can do it at home as well. It’s a session that’s kind of designed that they can do wherever they most comfortable.

They can come in and do it if they want, they can do it at home if they want. But most of the time we sit around too

just because of the time constraints that we have because they need to be in the water more.

Yeah, yeah, makes sense.

Thanks so much for being on the podcast. I know you’ve got, we got based in Perth in Western Australia. But I think you’ve also got online resources as well. So what’s the best place for people to get in contact with you or your team and find out more about what you do? So you’ve got a few options here. You can just contact us directly through our social media. Instagram is probably the most accessible. I’m down as swimming under school strong. And then there’s obviously formidable strength and coaching. But the swimming strong is the one I’m going to be on most of the time. So that’s probably the easiest way to get in contact with us that way. Or head to the website. What’s www.formidablestrength.com.au and just put an enquiry there and the sales team will get to you. Good stuff. Well, thanks, Ryan. I’d love to see what you’re doing with. I think like having that niche of working with swimmers, purely swimmers is great because while general strength training

for people is important, I think there are some specific things that swimmers really need like the overhead range of motion, the thoracic rotation, like some really specific things that can go a long, long way. And I love your approach as well. So thanks for sharing some of that with me on the podcast. And anyone who’s listening to this, get in touch with Ryan and his team and we’ll put those links in the show notes. Awesome, mate. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.

The post Strength Training So You Never Get Tired with Ryan Evernden appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

What does it take to finish second at the Ironman World Championships? In this episode, I’m joined by professional triathlete, Kat Matthews, who’s not only a fierce competitor, but also a source of inspiration for anyone looking to elevate their performance. Kat opens up about the strategies and habits that helped her climb to the top, from staying consistent with her swim training, even while traveling, to making small technique tweaks that delivered massive results.

We talk about her mental approach to open water swimming, How she tackles the swim to bike transition, and the mindset required to thrive in tough race conditions. Kat also shares her journey of recovering from injury, and how it transformed her mental resilience. We discuss why creating a stable training environment, and dialing in proper nutrition, and learning to fuel correctly during workouts can make all the difference.

Not just in racing, but in life. Whether you’re a triathlete, a swimmer, or someone looking to gain a competitive edge, This episode is packed with actionable tips and powerful insights to help you achieve your best. So dive in and let Kat’s story motivate you to push past your limits.

03:02 Leading up to the World Championship. Keeping the consistency and structure.

06:59 Vo2 Sets.

09:13 Travel and Training Calendar.

10:44 No Pressure Swims.

12:48 Change of Pace, Feeling of Control.

17:02 Swimming From Inside Out.

19:14 Race Conditions.

24:52 Don’t Be A Victim

26:50 Openwater Stroke.

28:04 Bike Transition

33:00 Creating a Stable Training Environment

39:54 Fueling Correctly.

Follow Kat on Instagram

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

Change your technique and swim a smoother, easier freestyle with the Effortless Swimming membership:

Get 20% off wetsuits at Great Ocean Wetsuits with code ‘EFFORT20’:

Watch the episode on YouTube:

If you know you’ve done a really good set, you know, a few days before I try and be like, right, this is how good I am at swimming. And I focus my attention and confidence off that. I try really hard not to let any of those race swims affect my confidence. 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.

All right, welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. Kat, this is your second time on the podcast. I actually checked and it was all a little bit over a year ago that I had you on. So welcome back. And one of the reasons I’ve got your back is because you’re coming off a second place at the Ironman World Champs in Nice. So big congratulations. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks. It’s cool to feel like a regular. I mean, it’s only the second time, but to feel part of the show is pretty special. So thanks for having me again. Well, and actually another fun fact is that I think you’ve got like we sort of reposted a video that I think Ironman shared a view swimming. I think that’s had the most views on our Instagram. It’s had like five million views, that video of you swimming. So you’re a big hit in that in the Effortless Swimming World. So congratulations on that as well. That’s mad, isn’t it? I think like a smooth, smooth swim strokes is one of those sort of

like skiing or snowboarding, you know, when it’s like a sunrise or something. It’s that mesmerizing sort of goodness, I just call myself mesmerizing. Generally, in general, they’re like a mesmerizing good video just to watch, aren’t they? And I guess the playtime must be so high. It’s just such a lovely video of you swimming and like it just it looks so graceful and mesmerizing. It’s like, I think I can see why it’s had so many people watch it and share it and things like that. So yeah, I thought that was that was really, really cool. And talking about your Ironman World Championship race for the Ironman, I was looking at the swim times and I saw that you did a 49 minute swim. But oh my god, like that is that is quick. And that in the front pack with the top, I think 11 girls there, which which I thought she’s got to be stoked with that she’s got to be so pleased with that swim. Because, you know, out with the people who grew up swimming who come from that

swimming background and had a really good swim. So I want to dig into that a little bit, just to get your maybe what you’ve done over the last six to 12 months to continue to improve your swimming and what it took to make that front pack and maybe any differences that you had seen in your stroke or in the way that you’re racing. Because I know a lot of people can swim quite well in the pool, but I really struggled to put it together in the open water. I get that all the time with the people that I’m coaching. So in terms of the lead up to the world champs, was there any sort of change here training or how you were swimming or how was your swimming feeling leading into it? Yeah, I mean, it’s going to take us the full podcast of dissect isn’t it? But um, yeah, really happy with that swim. Firstly, like, it feels you don’t often get the rewards for your efforts. And that just really felt like a really great sort of cherry to have had. And you can’t, you know, lose that it’s not,

you can’t fluke swimming or anything like that. So I just feel really satisfied with the swim generally. And then coming into the race, I guess, I guess it comes off just the consistency of training. Ultimately, that’s, you know, that’s all we know that swimming sort of builds off. But I think maybe the sort of specifics of keeping that structure really importantly this year. So because I’ve raced, I think it was like my eighth or ninth race of the year already by the time we hit the world champs, I’d had one race before. And so every time you’re racing, you’re traveling, you’re finding a new swimming pool, so you’re losing a couple of days and then at least, I don’t know, three to six K of swimming that week, perhaps, depending on how motivated you are the day after the race to, you know, get back in the pool and things like that before you travel home. So it was really easy this year to have like lost

that consistency. And I think I just really forced it, like I made travel plans around the year. And specifically that summer, so I would have a swim in the morning before, hopefully before I could do a travel day, then I’d make sure I was forcing myself to swim before I traveled home, you know, just like keeping the consistency.

My biggest training partner here in Loughborough actually was traveling a lot as well with our other friend, Indy, because he’s coaching her now, Indy Lee, Sam Proctor. And so I lost a little bit of company. And I am, I guess quite proud that I maintain the consistency. So even though he wasn’t there, I was like, right, it’s Tuesday, I’m going to do VO two today. And I sort of really kept that structure and doing solo VO two is a bit sad. And you get a bit of, you know, a few weeks before the race, the lifeguard actually came over to me because I had to get out after the session, you know, just I couldn’t maintain my composure in the water. I’d finished the session. I was just having a little breather on the side before I did a, you know, another 400 meters or something to cool down. He’s like, are you okay?

So I pride myself on keeping the consistency and in the sort of intensity. And the same with, I guess, all through the different intensities of the swim. So that was the biggest thing for me. And then, yeah, I was just swimming really well before the race. So I was really confident, which is a bonus, I guess.

And what does VO two set look like for you? Like what are those sets like where you’re doing them solo? Because I know the ones that we do, I do in a squad on a Friday, and there’s like 20 of us in there. And it’s easy when you got like someone to race and you’ve got other people there turning through it, it flies like, but it’s such a hard set. So yeah, what are those sets look like for you? Yeah, I mean, I base it off a session, like program session that I’ve been doing with Sam under IntelliTry. And it looks like a few 25s, a few fifties, the hundreds of the killers. And then it and then I go back to 25s, and then fifties. And I feel like that’s a really nice sort of way of doing it. And I guess I just keep the discipline of it’s off this time, just go, just go. And I started using if the clock’s not there right in front of me, I’ve started using like a clock in the goggles. And that keeps me focused, but I’ve only used those for a couple

of sessions in the summer. Obviously, before that is just desperately looking up for the clock. And I actually find it quite nice, like I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s like, desperately hard. But I much prefer it to 200s, which I did a few of, I guess, in the preseason, it was like six 200s for you to with a really long rest, but that in a 50 meter pool. And that’s, that’s the worst that’s worse I’ve ever felt. And I’m not sure I couldn’t do that without someone else. I don’t think whereas like fifties, even hundreds, you can thrash yourself. And it’s okay. Just yeah, it’s manageable. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And so I think that’s such a such a key thing is that you’re right that consistency in in swimming because you tend to lose the feeling of the water very, very quickly. And I think like personally, you know, for me, if I in the lead up to summer, if I’m doing some races, if I can get in the water five times a week,

then I’m feeling pretty good leading into the races. If it’s three times a week, it’s okay. But it’s just not it’s not nearly nearly enough. And especially with the amount of travel that professional triathletes do, especially yourself, you’ve had a pretty busy year. That’s that’s got to be such a tough thing to to keep is that is the habits and the training calendar. And so how do you manage to fit that into the to the travel? Like, did you just kind of look ahead and go, right? I know there’s a pool here. I’m going to be flying out in the afternoon. Like, was this did a lot of planning go into that? Yeah, I mean, it’s sort of simple. Like, um, for the T 100 races, we often have to be there for days before. So it’s like on a Tuesday. And I, I if it’s a, you know, a long travel, I can only swim at 11am generally, because it’s the public lanes. So I have to plan an afternoon trip or plan to have a, you know, a different airport that’s closer to a pool. So I can swim in the morning

or just scrap that and just make sure when I get there, because obviously America, like you get a time difference, like I just get in the pool that day. And I think I’ve got better at that. Like I used to travel and be so stressed out by the travel that I couldn’t tolerate training at all. Whereas actually, I now sort of want to swim. I think it’s a different mindset, perhaps of like, I know how good I’ll feel during the week or on race day if I swim. So I get this sort of secondary motivation, knowing that it will make me feel better, even though it’s a bit of a faff and planning it in. Yeah. Yeah, I am.

I, I’ve had a couple of camps recently. We had one in the Maldives and one in Thailand. And like, it’s not a huge flight. It’s like probably door to door. It’s probably 12 or 14 to 16 hours. But and the time difference isn’t too bad. But the first thing I want to do is just get in the water and swim. Because I think in terms of that, how your body just tends to

tense up and get a bit stiff from the travel, there’s nothing better than a swim just to loosen up. And I try to put no pressure on myself at all. It’s just like this. I’m just going to roll up and down times. I’m not even going to look at, but I’m just going to knock out whatever it is, like 2K or something. And usually it starts to feel really good towards the end of it. Did you find anything like that? Like, did you have any pressure to perform in those training sessions, or were they just like to roll the arms over? Oh, yeah, no, definitely no pressure. I think I actually, maybe during the week, I’ll have a couple of those swims anyway, which is just no, no pressure swims just like volume. And I think, yeah, definitely not necessarily before travel, I don’t give myself that courtesy. But after travel, and even the day after, you don’t know quite what that pulls like everyone’s sort of always this pull fast, this pull slow as well. So even the day of the

travel or the day after, even the whole race week, to be honest, like no pressure. If you know you’ve done a really good set, you know, a few days before, I try and be like, right, this is how good I am at swimming. And I focus my attention and confidence off that. I try really hard not to let any of those race swims affect my confidence. And if being more like maintenance, maintenance, maintenance, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean that I’m suddenly a rubbish swimmer because I can’t swim a 120, you know, I don’t know, 26 yard pull or something stupid. So yeah, definitely, definitely no pressure and just consistency. And also just race week intensity. You don’t have to do as much anyway, so you naturally feel better.

And in terms of your technique, is there anything in the last six months, 12 months that you’ve put particular attention on?

Yeah, so I know we talked about technique quite a lot in the last podcast, like with terms of like body position and kicking and things like that. And I think a lot of this year has just been the consistency. It’s a bit boring really that there’s no there’s less secret sort of big improvements. But I think we talked about head position, using the snorkel sort of body position, like feeling the water, kicking, I’ve definitely been a bit more consistent with my kick. You mentioned that I, you know, like, committing to an actual kick set, like with purpose and focus and intensity would be, you know, a good idea, or you said it on the podcast. And I think I’ve started sort of racing my, my friends in the swimming pool now. So

they’re a bit annoyed at that. But it’s definitely helped with, yeah, the change of pace. And I think maybe it’s not a technique bit, but it’s more like the intense, like, I feel like I have gears now in swimming, like, before it was just, you can just swim at intensity and like tolerate it. And now it’s like, Oh, okay, I can now go harder, and I can back off. And I feel like that is given me the control to be able to, well, it just that feeling of control to be able to recover, and not just die and just and then get worried about dying. So going too easy.

That’s a bit convoluted. So yeah, having the sort of technique, I guess, of being able to go harder and slower. And I think both our skills, not just being able to go faster, I think being able to swim slowly is also perhaps like a sort of a technique that you can learn as well. So we are like to be able to give yourself that time to recover. And yeah, sorry, maybe that was off tangent, the technique side as well. I think things like just solidifying, like hand entry,

and working on utilizing my lats and sort of coordinating my hip movement. I think things like that I have focused on as well. And I go through maybe, I don’t know, a few weeks at a time where I’ll be like, Oh, this is my my limiting factor. And I’ll then just focus on that for the two or three weeks until I get a bit bored. And I don’t feel like it’s affecting me anymore. And then something else will crop up and it’ll be like, well, I’ll have one bad swim where I feel like my core is weak and then I’ll be like, right, I’m going to now focus on my core for three weeks. So yeah, there’s this sort of the levering through lats and like the connection with the other hip. I think that’s something I’ve really worked on specifically on my left side. I think I’ve always sort of felt a bit weak on one side compared to the other. I think most people do. And I definitely think during some of the harder like VO2 or threshold sessions I’ve been doing, I’ve got out and

I’ve been like clutching my lats, like they’ve been so sore. And I see that as like such a success. Whereas I never, I would just get sore shoulders before. Massive lats.

You struggle to get out the door when you leave the pool at the area, working them that much. That’s that’s great. And I have quite a few swimmers who maybe come to a clinic or they come to a camp or something. And they say, Oh, I’m so like I’m really sore through my lats and kind of through like the back of the shoulder here as well. And it’s like, that’s great. Keep doing what you’re doing because they’re the muscles you want to be using when you’re swimming. And it’s interesting about what you say there about like you’ll focus on something for a couple of weeks, move on to another thing. I find myself very similar with that. Like I might hear an idea from someone and I’ll practice that for a while or I’ll feel like something’s just not quite clicking. So I’ll just I’ll put some attention on that. I think I’m very much the same with you. And and something that I’ve been working on just the last sort of week or so is is thinking about like you want to swim from the inside

out. I heard this from I think as an Australian coach, I think it might have been Dennis, Dennis Cottrell, who like coached Grant Hackett and Sun Yang, something like the really good distance freestylers. So you want to swim from the inside out. And in terms of the arms, I’ve been thinking about thinking about the shoulders, get those right in terms of the rotation, think about the elbows, and then it almost takes care of the hands in a way because, you know, swimming from the inside out. So the shoulders, elbows are closer to that than the hands. So I’ve just really been trying to work on shoulders and elbows, and then let the hips kind of just stabilise behind, let the legs stabilise behind and do that. And it’s been feeling really good. So I’ve just been leaning into that sort of leaning into that kind of feeling and sensation. And it’s working quite well at the moment. Because one of the things I’ve,

I think that sort of stuffed up my stroke over the last couple of years is since I started surfing and surfing more, my recovery and the way that I swim has gotten a lot uglier. And especially when I swim in the pool, I kind of feel like I just don’t recover over the water as well as I normally would. So I’m trying to like get that back a little bit. And I feel like this is helping. So yeah, taking these little like side quests and just trying different things and seeing how it affects the stroke and the times. And yeah, it’s a good way to discover I think what’s working for you and what’s not. And just working those kinks out in the stroke. Cool. You’ve given me the next few weeks of focus. I think it also keeps you interested in the sport, doesn’t it? Like that wanting to develop something like very small little things rather than thinking, I need to get better at swimming. It’s like, I’m going to focus on this. I think that that’s

especially when you’re doing this sort of longer term, or like you committed to doing it professionally, that you need those little things to like break up a season.

Yeah. Oh, that’s right. And it keeps swimming really interesting as well, doesn’t it? Because it can get monotonous going up and down the pool. But if you’ve got even one thing to focus on that might be kind of new, it can really help. And I want to dig into the race itself. So what were the conditions like? Was it fairly choppy out there? It looked quite choppy. Yeah, all week it had been really warm. So that’s the first point is that it was meant to be a swim skin, non wetsuit for pros. I think it was always going to be wetsuit for the amateurs. I’m not entirely sure what they’re cut off, but it’s always too high, I think. Same for us. It’s always too high. But it was sort of the day before someone mentioned, oh, it might be a wetsuit swim. It was a bit ridiculous, but it was then pretty certain if the temp, you know, it’s not going to drop overnight. It’s not going to increase overnight. So yeah, wetsuit swim, but very borderline. And I was really nervous about

getting too hot because I generally get too hot in a wetsuit, let alone at the actual borderline sort of limit for being illegal to wear one. But that’s potentially a caveat to some of this is that I think people think that the weaker swimmers benefit from a wetsuit fact like more than a better swimmer. But I don’t necessarily think that’s true. I mean, you’re way more experienced, but I think different swimmers and different styles benefit differently. It’s not just how fast you are. And I know recently that I haven’t needed, oh, I felt like I haven’t needed a wetsuit and my body position feels better. Whereas in the past, I definitely sort of use the buoyancy to help my hip position. But the actual conditions, I think I don’t think because it’s so dark in the nice race is only is you actually start right on sunrise. So you’re warming up in the dark. I don’t really remember thinking it’s super choppy or thinking oh, it’s really choppy. I don’t remember that. From the whole week,

I remember that as you get further out, it feels like it gets more choppy. But I think that’s just a classic sea swim. So I’m not sure I would say oh my goodness, it was super choppy because it to me, it just felt like a sea swim. But I think that’s the feedback is that it was really hard conditions. It also might have been that I was swimming in a pack and I definitely was not at the front of the race. So you naturally get a little bit of shelter from the front of the sort of conditions, I guess. And so yeah, I had a really good start. I think something that’s recently come to me is that I have earned to be at the front of the swim start. As in, I am trying to win this race. I’m going to be on the front line, even if I’m not the best swimmer, you know, it’s a very, very, very wide start line ish that you had to have. And therefore, if I want to be, I’m going to get to the front of this, no matter who’s just sprinted

off this sort of the beach to get to the open water start. So I made sure I was at the front, which was, it sounds silly and obvious, but I don’t like that sort of boistery get to the front element of the swim before the gun goes. And then there’s the

natural creep of the race. As in, there’s no physical start line. I asked at the briefing the day before like, where is the start line? And it was like, we’re sort of here ish between these two boys don’t don’t go in front. And I’ve had many experiences in the last couple of years where people just creep and it’s not penalized. And to me, that’s it’s not a good part of the Ironman pro racing. But again, like it was happening. And instead of being, you know, goody two shoes, Sally, I, I crept with everyone else. And so I don’t have any regret about that. That was just the nature of the swim start, which meant I got a good start. So I didn’t really notice too much about who was around me. Just that I felt really good, I felt really confident, it wasn’t super aggressive, which it has been in the T 100 races, in terms of speed, like initial speed and just like people around you, because it was a C so spread out, it meant that you could really find your own line in a way and just attack

as best as you felt like you could. So yeah, it started really well. And I think that’s pretty fundamental to most swims. This podcast is brought to you by Great Ocean Wetsuits, an up and coming Australian performance wetsuit brand for triathletes and open water swimmers. The wetsuits are designed and tested in Melbourne, Australia for fast, easy and enjoyable swimming for athletes of all levels. They’re worn in and raced by Olympians, triathletes and open water swimmers from all over the world. And I personally use Great Ocean Wetsuits even before they became a sponsor of the podcast. I’ve personally found that the buoyancy, the freedom through the shoulders and the fit are the best that I’ve ever had in a wetsuit. So I highly recommend them. And you can currently get 20% off either the gold or silver wetsuit models using our own code effortless20 at checkout. So enter the code effortless20 at checkout at greatoceanwetsuits.com and no matter where you are in the

world, if you’re in Australia, the US, Europe, there’s free shipping worldwide. So get yourself a great ocean wetsuit. I personally use the gold model of the wetsuit. It just depends on what your goals are. So greatoceanwetsuits.com, effortless20 at checkout. I know you’ll like them. Yeah, absolutely. One thing you mentioned there was the attitude or the mindset you had on the start line is I’ve earned my place to be at the frontier. One thing I remember Chris McCormack said a long time ago was don’t be a victim. And I’ve always remembered that. It’s like in the open water, if you let someone swim over the top of you or you get upset that that happens, then it’s your race done. You don’t want to be aggressive, but you have to be assertive out there. You have to take control because on the other side of that, it’s just not a way to swim well in the open water. So I think that kind of mindset goes really well for being able to be around people and just not take any of their crap

that they’re going to dish out at you. And whether that’s creeping at the start line, whether that’s trying to swim over the top, it’s like you have to be the assertive one. So I love that. That rings home for me with some of the stuff that I’ve heard of the years and really taken on board. And in terms of your stroke in the open water, you mentioned prior to the podcast that you feel like you’re pretty comfortable in choppier conditions. Yeah, I think another stereotype is that people think the weaker swimmers are going to be therefore worse in the choppier conditions. So it might spread out a bit more. But I don’t see myself firstly now as a weaker swimmer. But I mean like I have come into the sport also doing adventurous activities and being confident in the water. So I’m bodyboarding a tiny, tiny token bit of surfing. And so in Wales, in the UK, the waves are unforgiving and it doesn’t bother me. I don’t get any of the fear or the negative effects that

perhaps a weaker swimmer might get from that. So it actually felt really good during the race week to sort of practice in the sea and just to sort of feel the currents and feel the waves. And yeah, I don’t know, maybe it’s just luck. And I also don’t want to big this up too much because it might be that I now spend another 12 months of swimming quite poorly. And it was just a one off. On this race, I didn’t feel like the waves were a problem. But equally, my mindset was obviously so positive because I was in the front group, which to me is really cool. And it was a new and I was staying there and they weren’t getting away. And I so many times recently I’ve lost them on a buoy like a boy or I’ve looked up and I’ve got my sighting slightly wrong and suddenly I’m losing them. And that didn’t happen until I don’t know, maybe 800 meters or something before the finish, where I think there was a bit of a surge to try and

get the swim bonus, whatever some people have for getting out the water first. And I started zigzagging a bit and getting a bit tired. But I think generally my I was so focused on making sure that I covered every boy, every surge, you know, tactically, I just, there was definitely some luck there. But I think I worked really hard on staying present in that swim the whole time, maybe so much so it affected the rest of my race, who knows.

Let’s talk about the rest of the race. So talk me through the bikes. I think you were maybe 30 seconds down in the swim to the first the first person. But then like did it take long to bridge the gap? And then how do you how do you proceed for the rest of the bike? Yeah. So for the triathlon fans, I, yeah, I’d lost the front sort of feet or pack for that last little stretch back into the shore. And I was totally fine with that, I could actually see them getting out, which was pretty cool. And worked hard for transition and thinking I would be able to catch them quite easily. There’s about a 10k stretch, I think, to like on the seafront on the promenade to start before you start climbing.

And I thought it would be much easier to catch them. And I was working quite hard, but equally as an Iron Man, so I didn’t want to just destroy myself, because I knew the hills were coming. So it wasn’t, it wasn’t going to be necessarily an advantage to be with them for the hills, because I confidently thought I could overtake them anyway. So I was working hard to catch, but equally not doing what I would maybe in other flatter races. But I didn’t catch them until we’ve just until we got to the very base of these like spiky sort of hills to start the race. And then just overtook them. But I had, I then found out that Marjolaine, the French girl who’s very local to Nice or lives in Nice, she had been swimming with me as well, but she had somehow already got ahead. I still don’t really understand where she, how she went, and I didn’t see her at some point, I don’t know, transition maybe. And she was like miles ahead. So I was

like, Oh, okay, wow, fair play. She’ll be the Lucy for the day, you know, the character chase. And, and yeah, I just, I thought I was climbing really well. I was really conservative. I, I wasn’t pushing anywhere near the power I had hoped to be pushing up the hills. So it’s about two hours or so of like, sort of steady, some climbs flats climbing and

and yeah, I, I mean, I was fine, but I wasn’t doing excellently. I got told that Laura wasn’t catching me Laura Phillip. And then honestly, about 30 seconds later, she came flying past me. So I was a bit shocked by that. But equally, I didn’t have, I didn’t have the, I don’t know, I don’t know what it was. I, I didn’t go with her. I’d made the, I made the decision to not go because obviously at that point in time and you physically can, it’s just whether it’s appropriate for your pace, sort of model mindset at the time. So yeah, let her go ahead and then caught back up on the hour of the flat bit. And then she got a head on another bit of the climb and caught back on the descent. And so we came into transition together with that last 10k that I had, I’d been in front. I’m, I’m keeping this as like a well done cat. So ignore the statement of like, I pulled her along the flat bit into the headwind for that last 10k of the bike.

And why that’s important is because on the run, she was getting annoyed at me for letting her do the 10, like the headwind on the run. So I was like, I’ve just done a whole load of this headwind on the bike. So short-term. But yeah, it was very, very cool, if I’m honest. And I still, I genuinely talk about it with excitement for the future. I hope there’s more chances that coming into transition with somebody who I, I honestly believed I could outrun because I had twice already this year that I was like, in transition, I was going to run for the win. Like it was a dream already. So I think maybe there’s a bit of like crushing spirits there of like, you don’t, I honestly thought this was it.

It’s a marathon, obviously take it really seriously. And I felt really great. I was so surprised that my legs felt so good. And then I ran maybe about 15k with Laura. I started dropping off because she was getting really annoyed at me, like I said with the wind. So she put in a massive effort and I was like, sweet, you know, in a way I was like, she’s, she’s blown it. I always finished stronger if she, even if she gets two minutes out of me now, she’s now running sub 240 pace. There’s no way. Like I’m going to, I’m going to keep at this pace, which was like 240, I don’t know what it was, low 240s, which is what I had planned to run. And I genuinely still believe that I have, I had that in me in a different day. And then I, and then I got the most bizarre like episode of cramping, like lower back, then hamstring, then the other quad and then the cut. And so clearly, I just, I, I overestimated my ability

on the day. Anyway, came second, happy to be there.

Yeah, that’s, I mean, you also mentioned, prior to the call, like, you go from like, I don’t know if I can complete this thing to, okay, I came second, like that’s glad to get to the finish line. But that’s the thing about an Ironman, an Ironman, right? It’s just so, it’s just such a long day out that anything can, can happen. But yeah, what a great result. And in terms of the last six to 12 months, has there been any, any lessons that you’ve learned in the sport or in your training about yourself? Because we haven’t really spoken since the last podcast. So just curious as to anything that you sort of realized or reflected on in the last 12 months? Yeah, I think it’s been a challenging couple of years, generally. Two years ago, I had this big accident, and then I sort of got back into triathlon. And I think the last 12 months have been just as sort of challenging, but for very different ways. I had a really big calf injury in March in the first race of the season at T100 Miami.

And I am a bit embarrassed by this. Like it, it mentally challenged me more, I think, than that massive accident I had where I broke like multiple bones. So I think I like really, and it’s because, it’s because I couldn’t come to terms with the why of it. Like with, you know, some car hits you. Well, that’s why you’ve got a broken bone. But I couldn’t dissect anything from my training that suddenly I had this quite significant. And it was like a moderate calf, like muscle tear, but also into the tendon. You know, prognosis is like eight to 12 weeks off running sort of thing. Or a return to play for NFL players or something. That’s where the research is. And I think, yeah, that that uncertainty and lack of any insight or control really, really, I really struggled with. And I actually reached out to a psychologist

or a council of sports counselor about it. And the only good thing that have come in from that,

well, I cut two good things. One, I realized that I’m actually really good at processing on my own. And I don’t necessarily need to talk to anyone else, especially if they’re not quite the personality that fits with me. And the second one is she pointed me to she pointed me to a really good book. And I think again, like I’ve, one of the biggest things I’ve learned this year, which is me summarizing my waffley story is that I really love learning like the sort of psychology from books and then trying to sort of, you know, implement it in myself, I guess. So yeah, the book itself was called The Reality Slap from Russ Harris. It was like, he also wrote the Happiness Trap, which I think I tried to read and I was like not interested in. It’s quite a big seller though. Whereas yeah, The Reality Slap was about radical acceptance. And again, just like things like that, like this, I feel like is a self development

thing that I actually find really sort of fascinating, which was sad. And then another book I was reading at the time was called Perform Under Pressure by Kerry Evans. So again, like reading them both or listening to one and reading one was actually really nice to sort of, you don’t just get obsessed with one sort of fad, like thought processing, you can, you can see a bigger picture perhaps and like take different elements of it. So yeah, I think that’s something that I’ve learned as a sort of, again, as like whole is like that ability to cope with unexpected problems, which sounds mad, but it took a calf injury after the big accident. And I guess like, yeah, like being calm, more calm in situations that are out of my control. So for example, in Nice, like having the the cramping issues, I looking back on it, I actually realized that, yeah, it was quite good that I was able to be like, okay, I’m cramping, what can I do about it? You know, remove myself, look at it from

the outside, assess the situation. And I think like you just sort of do that without realizing, but those are the processing steps that these books sort of actually go through. And I wonder whether I learned that from reading, for example, like, okay, so this is either my muscles aren’t strong enough, or, you know, simple things, but when you’re under pressure, the cognition is often much harder to deal with them and obviously the emotion of it all. So yeah, took on some fuel, did a bit of walking, did what I could, just cracked on. So I think,

yeah, I think that’s a big sort of lesson, that ability to deal with

mishaps. And then I think another thing as well, maybe is that I, I feel like this is the first time in my life, that I’ve lived in the same place for more than two years, as my childhood, I was static, but throughout my whole sort of adult life, me and my husband, because if he’s been in the military, we’ve moved around every, like, six to, I don’t know, 24 months, like, often less than that. So for the first time ever, we’ve actually created a sort of, yeah, static training environment. And I think that’s important for me as a human, like as a person outside of what I do every day. It’s made me a lot more sort of, okay, so this is real life, you know, it’s not just like, playing at the sport or, you know, doing this every so often, like I feel comfortable in this environment now. And maybe that sort of self development, you know, like, who am I? What do I want to be as an adult? That sort of thing.

Yeah. And I guess alongside that sort of performance wise, we’ve created an environment that I can train like a training camp in. So having a full time swan, yeah, you know, I’m, I, we have a coffee, we chat about the day. And then I get on with the day, Mark, he sometimes often doesn’t join me for any of the training. But at 620 or 630 on the dot, you know, there’ll be a well, really well balanced nutritious meal. And then we’ll just hang out in the evening. So I think I’m in bed for 10 hours a day, back again, two or three sessions. I think it’s really sort of optimized that sort of side of performance as well. Which is the reason for moving here. And the reason for him, like leaving the military. So yeah, I think those are big things from this year. But I’m on it. I’m on one now. There’s, there is another thing. Go on. I’ll jump in afterwards. I think, and I don’t know when this really started, but I think I’ve started fueling

properly for sessions, which sounds mad because I’ve been doing this for four or five years. But I now like, don’t go to a swim session without at least 25 grams of carbs in my water bottle. And I think I’ve spent my whole life thinking that, oh, it’s just a swim. Oh, it’s just a swim. You know, like, I’ve already, I’ve already had at least 50 to, I don’t know, 60 grams or something of carbs that day in my bottles for the bike. So I’m not going to, I’m not going to drink more sugar during the swim. Whereas now it’s like every session is just as important. And if anything, the swim’s the focus of every day. It’s like quality swim, quality swim, quality swim. So yeah, fueling the sessions more. And that goes across all three sports, which means that I’m not coming off the back of a session being that hungry, which before I used to be sort of more hungry. And I think, Oh, I need an extra bit of car. I need

an extra size of toast before this or I need, I need an extra protein shake or I need, I don’t know, another, another meal or let’s go out for dinner because I’m really hungry. It’s like things like that. I am now eating much less during the day, but making sure that I’ve got the sugar during the sessions, which again, like sounds so simple, but it’s, it’s been massive.

It’s, it’s funny to mention that we had someone do a like an hour chat on our Maldives camp. She kind of used to be a, used to be a nutritionist has sort of moved into different areas now, but she just gave her a chat to the group and I’ve heard a lot of nutrition talks before and that sort of thing. But sometimes it like, it doesn’t click or like, for whatever reason, like you don’t take on board the information. And so she was talking about what to have before a session, during a session, after a session, as you know, some general rules and similar thing. Like I’ve started to have a little bit of food, a bit of protein before my swim sessions in the morning. I’ll have some electrolytes during the session and, but basically just fueling before after, before during and after, and I’m recovering so much better. I’m not starving at like 10 o’clock in the morning and I’m starting to swim a lot better

as well. So you’re right, it’s just like these simple things, like having a bit of home base, fueling correctly, like it’s simple, but it’s like, it’s so important, right? Like it’s just, it’s often the little things like that that makes such a, such a difference is not like these groundbreaking seismic shifts that, that, that make a difference. It’s the consistency and that sort of thing. So that’s kind of what I’ve, what I’m getting from these, these lessons that you’ve, you’ve learned. Yeah, definitely. And I think it’s hard. You always want to see what you can learn from someone else. And I think sometimes we want a quick fix, don’t we? I mean, sometimes always we want to fix or like a quick cue or what can you focus on? But I think it is just making the best of that situation around you and optimising for that. That’s a fad word of like, of those little things. And it, all it, all it takes, like, sure, some people don’t need to eat as much sugar because they’re, they’re eating a

lot more during the day. But then it’s like, well, what’s your choice? Would you prefer to swim better? Or would you prefer the meal out in the evening? And yeah, sure. Sometimes I prefer the meal out in the evening, but it’s just, you’ve got to find your own balance and like, optimise as you, as you want and need to throughout your life, I guess, to make those progressions.

Yeah. And I think as well, with like, with advice from other people as, as well, like I

advice that you get from other people is it’s only drawn from their experience. And so, like, it’s good to get different takes and, you know, hear what people have to say. But then at the end of the day, it’s just about you making a decision on what you want to action and just figuring out what works best for you because you could have someone who might be just as good and they’re not fueling in their swims. But for them, that works, right? Like, it’s just you’ve got to, you’ve just got to make a decision and decide what’s best for you. And one thing I’ve, I’ve learnt a lot from coaching is that I try to not tell people, like what to do. I like to give them either like give them some options from what I’ve seen work for other people and or like maybe use a story or an analogy and then they can just draw what they want from it. Because I know personally, if I get told, like, you need to do this, my brain goes,

I’m not doing that. Like, I find that getting told directly what to do is not that helpful, at least for me. So I think it’s good to just kind of give people options and just never say directly, you need to do this because more than likely enough going to do it. So yeah, just something I’ve learnt coaching over the last sort of 10 years or so. I don’t know what you’re like with that. But if I get told I need to do something, no, I’m not doing it. Just out of principle. Yeah, no, I think that’s fair. I think it depends on my mood. I’m often like, just tell me what to do. I don’t want to make any more decisions. But no, I think you get more out of it, especially long term, if you worked out that answer for yourself. Like, I, I, I feel like I’ve worked out, which is not, you know, clever, that I need to do X amount of swimming or I need to do at least a VO2 session. So therefore it’s in my control. I’m deciding this, I’m going to implement

this. So I feel like that empowerment is, is crucial rather than necessarily the lesson, like being told it. So yeah, totally with you.

Yeah. Kat, I said we’ll go for about half an hour. We’ve gone for about 45 minutes here. So I appreciate you sticking around and I love catching up and just sort of congratulating you first of all on your results. It’s so good to see you having that kind of result in your swim, especially. That’s what I’m really like. Yeah, obviously I love the swimming side of things. And we’re going to be able to catch up hopefully in a couple of weeks time. By the time this gets out, it’ll be about that November, I think. So looking forward to meeting you up in Queensland and catching up there. But thanks so much for being on the podcast again. It’s been great. Yeah, I’m really excited about the trip to Australia. Very cool to hopefully, yeah, meet you in person and actually get eyes on rather than me and my sort of sporadic, I don’t know if this feels right, this feels wrong. So yeah, thanks. And hopefully the podcast has

been useful for lots of other people as well. I’ve got no doubt. I’ve got, I’ve taken a lot from it. So thanks so much for sharing and looking forward to meeting you in a couple of weeks time. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.

The post How Pro Triathlete Kat Matthews Became A Front Pack Swimmer appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

Mitch Kibby is a professional triathlete who’s placed 16th in the 70.3 World Championship. He began his triathlon career without a swimming background, and has gone on to compete with some of the strongest swimmers in the pro field. This is how he did it.

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I’d much prefer just to connect with the water early and then focus on that channel that I’m pulling through and making sure that my hand is pulling inside the line of the elbow. 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.

Have you ever wondered how someone can go from very little swimming experience to becoming competitive in the pro triathlon field and consistently swimming under 115 per 100 in the Half Iron Man event? Welcome to our channel. Today we are diving into the inspiring journey of Mitch Kibbey, a professional triathlete and coach. Mitch will share how he was able to go from being a non-simmer to top 16 in the world at the Half Iron Man distance, focusing on the technique and the strategies that got him there. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to up your game, Mitch’s story and tips will show you how he was able to transform from being a novice swimmer to a pro level swimmer and competitor. Yeah, so anyone who’s spent time in the water with me coaching probably knows I’ve got a phrase for everything or plenty of cues, so there’s probably too many to reel off, but some of my favourite ones are balance before power,

and I think what I see quite commonly is we want to go in there and give really strong effort to our swimming, but we’re applying force before our body’s ready to control it, and that’s where we see energy wastage and inefficient technique, so balance before power is one of those ones that just allows us to control where we’re applying our force, and it’s a powerful thing for the swimmer to have in their mind because that balance component gives you the composure and the power gives you the control to know that you’re swimming on your terms rather than being dictated to. So the kick’s really important. I think for me it’s probably been one of the last pieces of the puzzle that I’ve pulled into my freestyle stroke. One of the important things that I consider is just the tension that you’re holding around your knees. I often find that if you can keep the knees tight together, that helps to connect through the core

and just bring the upper body and the lower body together, so holding a level of tension between the knees helps keep the kick tight, which also assists your stroke rate. I find that if you can keep the kick nice and narrow, the arms will turn over a little bit freer, and you won’t notice that same dead spot in your stroke as the kick splays and comes back together. So I think one of the really valuable things to work on is just your kick with a kickboard. While it can be quite different to swimming and kicking during the freestyle stroke, but I think just learning how to kick and basically how not to exhaust yourself with the kick is really valuable. So I think it’s really important to be able to breathe to both sides when you’re swimming. Not necessarily just for the mechanics of the right side versus left side swimming, but I think more so just for your composure. So I’d prefer to look at it breathing as managing the air in

versus air out balance. So that way it doesn’t matter what your stroke cycle is, whether it’s two strokes, three strokes or more. It’s much more about just being able to manage the pressure in your chest basically and being able to reset any time you need. So I think one of the problems is if you get stuck in a breathing pattern, quite often that means we’re going to hold our breath and that’ll end up exhausting us in the water. So having access to release that air either on the right side or the left side I think is really important. And for me, when I’m swimming it’s very much I’m just aware of what that balance is and I want to make sure that I can release and reset any side, any time. But typically in the pool I’d much rather breathe to the left-hand side and in the open water I’d prefer to breathe to the right-hand side where I find it a little bit easier to sight off that left lead arm. But I haven’t met too many other people

that have that same preference so if you are let us know in the comments. So I think it’s quite typical to rotate a little more to the side that you’re breathing on. So that’s something that I’m quite aware of. And if I’m breathing right side quite often I’ll try and drive that right side back through the stroke. So as I’m moving forward I’ll drive to reset rather than just trying to always lock out that rotation which again you will try and do. So long as you’re driving back through the stroke I think you’re going to find that you’re getting that sort of equal counter rotation on each side. So catch and pull are probably the two marquee terms used in swimming and it’s what we all want to focus on and I think for me the way that I would define it is certainly with the catch the starting catch position is really important so there’s many things that come into that which is your mobility and your posture in the water

but I think having a starting catch as high as comfortably possible or sustainably possible for you is really important so you can access that first part of the water and then it just gives you that little bit more to connect with at the top of the stroke. 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 a 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 and then I think what I’m really looking to do is have the fingertips trigger the movement so first part of the movement comes pressing the fingers down and then as I move into the catch I’m really mostly trying to get the channel that I’m pulling through to be as effective as possible so I think typically if you haven’t

given yourself time to set up through the catch you’ll end up pressing down and wide and then being left in a position that’s not as powerful through the pull phase so setting up through the catch is really important to stabilize this is where it’s balanced before power and then I think for me over the years I’ve spent so much time working both with TheraBands and SwimCords to try and get that movement of the elbow to get that fold through the elbow and so that’s something that I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about now because it should just be happening automatically I think you could probably always do it better but I’d much prefer just to connect with the water early and then focus on that channel that I’m pulling through and making sure that my hand is pulling inside the line of the elbow so if we’re pulling outside the line I’d say you’re moving someone else’s water so you’re going to be in a much more powerful position

if you’re catching inside the line of the elbows so I think swimming fast is something that hasn’t always been particularly natural for me and the way I’ve developed as a swimmer has been really developing that sort of aerobic style of swimming which is that more distance based sort of sustainable, continuous style of swimming so when I’m moving towards speed I’ve always had the tendency to muscle up a little bit and get quite tense in the water but one of the most important things is just staying free through the shoulders being able to relax and trying to keep that catch nice and narrow and a little bit shallower than what I feel like I need to so just making sure I’m folding and then I’m really just trying to trust that technically I’ll hold up and then really just work on the rating, the breathing your breathing rate needs to match your intensity so you can’t just be locked in a distance breathing pattern

when you’re trying to swim fast so really trying to make sure I’m releasing air fast enough and then keeping the chin tucked in and basically just going for it I’ve been really lucky to work with some great triathlon and swim coaches and I think one of the most important things they’ve taught me is just to understand the time that it takes to get what you want out of swimming for someone who would always really judge the day swim or sort of be a little bit too emotional about how I was in the water and I think they’ve taught me just to sort of take a longer term approach and just accept the bad days in the water just get through the set smile about at the end and just make sure you’re able to turn up the next day and go again the biggest lesson that I could share with any swimmer who’s starting out their journey is just to accept the amount of time that it will take and there’s no one swim set that’s going to give you a breakthrough

it’s really the sum of many that adds up and I think the company you keep in the water is so important so you need to find yourself a good coach find yourself some mates to swim with and it needs to be part of your lifestyle it’s not something that you’re just going to be able to do for a few weeks and breakthrough because the better you get the better you’re going to want to get so you’re always going to want more so it’s about making swimming sustainable and enjoying the journey

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