Swimming Faster by Moving Less

If you're a typical swimmer and want to improve your speed, you should take a good look at your kick.  Most MOP and BOP triathletes bend their knees too much and let their legs spread too far apart to be decently fast.

Objects that move well through a fluid have a tapered tail.  When you're bending your knees and spreading your legs like you're running, you create a low pressure pocket of drag behind you that is actually trying to pull you backwards.  You want your tail-end to be more like a barracuda, not like a jellyfish.

A great way to fix this is to keep your legs straight at the hips and knees, together, and kick from the toes instead of the knees.  In fact, the ultimate indicator that you are doing it right is that your legs are straight and the joints of your big toes keep barely tapping each other as you kick.  If you can do that, your legs are tapered off and now you are streamlined.

When you fix the kick, what you will notice next is that you start wiggling all over the lane, hips going side-to-side with every stroke.  What this proves is that you were previously spreading your legs to balance out your learned out-of-balance technique.  You were basically swimming spread-eagle to swim straight.  When you brought everything in line, your twisty form revealed itself.  Not good, right?  

When you can to the legs-together-with-big-toe-joint-tapping freestyle without wiggling down the lane like a water snake, then you've officially got it.

Enjoy!

Keeping the Rubber Side Down

The most likely way to ruin your training is to get injured.  The fastest way to get injured is to wreck on your bike.  

There is one simple tip that can make or break (literally) years of training and racing - Put your weight on the outside pedal when taking a turn.

If you rest your weight on your butt, evenly on the pedals, or on the inside pedal at all, you greatly increase the risk of the bike shooting out from under you if the tires start to slip.  

On the other hand, if your weight is on the outside pedal, you have mechanically leveraged the outside of the bike so that it tends to right itself, not falling flat under you like a piece of plywood.  Tires slipping simply send the bike out a little wider instead of suddenly surfing your Cervelo into the nearest hedgerow. 

You can practice this often.  Take a turn, put all your weight on the outside pedal, and let your butt hover over the saddle.  You'll quickly realize that you can take corners much faster and safer, especially ones with a little gravel and wet pavement.

Enjoy!

Eliminating Arm Drag while Swimming

I was working with some local future Ironmen last night at the pool and thought I'd share a tip that I gave one of them.  Here goes: 

This swimmer was letting his arm dip low in the water before engaging in the pull - Pretty typical stuff that lots of us do (especially me) when not paying attention to form.  I told him about how doing so creates a lot of drag as the top of the arm pushes against the water.  I told the story about how I distinctly remember watching the Texas A&M swim team practice and how their arms were extended practically parallel to the water's surface after entry.  (Honestly, I was in the water three to five hours at a time training to swim across Lake Tahoe, so I didn't have much else to do.)  They swam so "flat", it really stood out as something fast swimmers do and we should try to emulate.

To illustrate the point, I hopped in the water and pointed my arm down at about a 30 degree angle, asked him to do the same, and then we both started walking forward.  The drag against the top of the arm was so tremendous, it even surprised myself!  

To eliminate this drag and swim faster, make sure that your arms and hands are flat and parallel to the surface of the water during the arm entry, glide, and pre-pull part of your stroke.  Enjoy!

Bringing Back the Compact

I put my spare compact crankset back on my tri bike this weekend and thought I'd share the results.  A compact crankset is a relatively new creation (2003) where the cranks have a set of 50/34 chainrings instead of the normal 53/39.  

How does this behave in the real world?  Having a smaller chainring in the front means that you can climb hills without struggling, almost as if you have a triple chainring.  Also, both front chainrings being smaller means that there is a smaller effective gap in the rear cogs, making for finding that perfect gear a little easier.  

For triathlon, the upside is huge.  You can maintain an ideal cadence much more of the time instead of blasting your legs being in too big of a gear, which happens often.  You also can spin up hills more easily with the newfound low gears in the back.  I was able to climb the local steep grade at 95 rpm instead of the low 80s, which was really helpful.  When you leave the bike and start to run, you will be able to run much better not having ground your legs to a pulp in a low gear.

What you lose is top-end speed.  A 50-12 top gear is a few mph slower than a 53-12.  With the 50-12, I found that my top speed was around 33 mph at 96 rpm.  But in triathlon, you aren't trying to "break away" from the pack for a sprint finish or jump a gap like you are in classic road bike races, so you don't need massive gears for those huge jumps in speed.  Triathlon cycling is a consistent and even effort, so how often would you be going 33 mph anyway?  There is the case of downhills, but wind resistance becomes so strong and the percent of gain for effort spent is actually pretty small.  You might find your time spent going downhill over 33 mph is best used coasting to give the legs a break.  In any case, you can change your cassette out for an 11-to-whatever-you-need-anyway.

Mechanically, there's also another advantage - You gain most of the benefit of a triple-chainring crank without the weight and also without the added complication and cost of the triple front shifting setup.  In fact, a compact crankset actually weighs less than a double.  Nice!

If you are riding a road bike for triathlons, you should take a look at the front chainrings and see what the numbers say.  If it's not a compact, your biggest gains on the bike might come quickly by swapping it out for one.

Podcast-"Interview with Rich Roll"

Click HERE to listen to the show!

Join us as we talk with Rich Roll; an Ultraman racer, health and wellness advocate, and author of Finding Ultra.

After that, Mike Ricci and I talk about strategies for me to win (or maybe just survive) Ironman Texas.

Megan joins us after Mike to tell us her recipe and more entertainment.

The show wraps up with yet another epic installment of The Training Log.  

Make sure you check out the Broken and Beautiful blog http://brokenandbeautiful2011.blogspot.com/ 

to help support the team's fundraiser drive for St. Jude's Children's Hospital!

Want more?  Hop over to the Zen Masters Area for the full training log, the solo interview with Nate Pearson, and much more!

Enjoy!

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