How To Improve Your Triathlon Swimming

Hi I'm Paul. This is Theo from swimminglessonslondon.co.uk.

We're going to give you a few tips on swimming today. You're more than welcome to contact us for any more information or to book a session.

Thank you. Hi! This is a guide on how to improve your swimming aspect on triathlons. The first thing to address is obviously any technical difficulties that you're having or any technical incorrectness that we need to correct first.

So first of all, we'll look at Theo swimming without any aid, we'll just have a look if his technique needs any improving, now Theo is a very strong swimmer, an elite level swimmer there's not much that needs to be improved but the main things in a triathlon is to keep a regular pattern that you can sustain throughout the distance that you've chosen to compete in. there's no point going all out and doing a massive/big 1500 meter swim when you can't maintain it. Sprint would be recommended for those who are starting in a triathlon, a smaller, smaller distance.

What we're now going to look at though is some training principles that can then be used to encourage the swim time to drop quite drastically. So were first going to do some overloading exercise on the upper body which is basically going to involve us crossing our legs together, not using the legs, imagining that the legs are tied together and just using the arms only to do a few lengths. Alright, what will happen is that the legs will start to drop a little bit and sway a little bit causing a lot more work beat down on the upper body.

So his legs have already dropped a couple of feet below the surface and (sounds like: they're) swaying on every one providing more and more drag. So this is the opposite of what we want to achieve when we're competing. But in training, this can overload our upper body and in essence give us a good upper body work out which can be achieved in the gym.

But, in the gym there's obviously a lot more exercise to be done and there's a much greater risk of injury. We're now going to do the opposite of version of that which equates to overloading the legs. So now we're going to do the leg version.

While holding a float against the water, 90 degree angle against the water, and kicking only, to breathe it's just the breaststroke breath. Okay so this is now providing maximum resistance at the front of the body. So overloading the legs on this occasion.

So on both of this drills we've used specificity on the muscle groups. To work them out individually. Again, this is the opposite of what we want to be doing when were competing.

When we're competing we are trying to minimize frontal resistance and drag. Another thing to be aware of when you're thinking about competing in a triathlon is you need to have different breathing patterns throughout the race or at least available throughout the race because you might swim very well the first 500 meters but then the last section of the race if you're running out of air you need to drop down to a faster breathing pattern without it affecting your technique too much. So this time Theo's going to demonstrate a free stroke breathing pattern which is useful when you're doing triathlon because it's regular you get to breathe on both sides (breathing), keeping an eye on what's going on around you while you're competing.

So we start off with four lengths with three stroke breathing then Theo will drop down to a two stroke pattern to simulate being tired towards the end of the race. Okay, and now two's, and now two's. So now he feels more tired, he'll be taking in more oxygen.

And the fact is that the longer the race goes on, the more aerobic capacity is required. An aerobic event, so the breathing has to be spot on and regulated in order to achieve a good time. If breathing stops at any point you won't get the good time you want.

The final drill we're going to go over in reference to triathletes is we're going to go over again a sculling drill. But held at a 90 degree ang