Tug Boat to Speed Boat
I grew up around water. Most summer’s in my childhood, my mom would drop my brothers and I off at the local pool first thing in the morning and not pick us up until closing time. It got to the point where the pool staff would be worried if I did not show up and once called my home to make sure I was ok. As a logical progression I joined the swim team, volunteered as an assistsant swim instructor, became a lifeguard and taught swimming lessions the moment I was old enough. The only problem was, I hated staring at the black line on the bottom of the pool and had no real motivation to swim and train hard or even consistently for that matter. As a result of this history I am a good swimmer by general standards, but average in the triathlon world.
So the question on everyone’s mind…how do I get faster? When I began training for triathlon it had been several years since I had done any kind of structured swim training, I had played water polo in college, but that was not the same as “swimming.” As I got reaquainted with the water and that ever so entertaining blackline I found I was muscling my way through workouts. I took the popular newbie tack of “the faster I moved my arms the better!!” Well as you can imagine this didn’t work very well or for very long.
A training buddy of mine and former all-american swimmer in college, took pitty on me and decided to help me out! The first thing we did was go back to basics and rebuild my technique, although I have know this for sometime now, I am still amazed at how mechanics trumphs all in the water. For the last 4 years I have been working on my technique and performing drills almost every time I get in the water.
I also recently attend a swim clinic by Doug Stern, one of the great swim coaches in the country. Aside from the ab workout I got listening to his stories and thoughts on life I learned a lot about my stroke. A picture is really worth a thousand words, as I had not seen a video fo myself swim in a very long time. Doug gave me several aspects of my stroke to tweak and practice. Although it was, is, and will be at times a frustrating process I had fleeting glimpses of a stroke here or there that just felt really good, but then was gone. Initally my times in the pool got slower and the frustration mounted, but those glimpses of a perfect stroke began to occur more frequently. Before I knew it my times began to drop again and now I am swimming faster with less effort!! Don’t get me wrong I still have crappy swims at times and I still need to be EXTREMELY cognizant of my mechanics with every stroke, but I’m getting there.
Here are some drills I recommend, Distance Per Stroke (DPS) – try to glide
Having just swam a PR at Ironman
