If you’re about to breathe to the right, press down on the water with the right arm to lift your head up slightly and then immediately rotate to breathe to the right hand side. With practice you can perform this in one fluid action, keeping your stroke rhythm intact and minimising your head lift. Don’t worry if you don’t see ahead clearly the first time. Sight again and gradually a fuzzy picture of where you are going will become clearer. How often you should sight depends on how straight you can swim. One of the best ways to improve your open water swimming is to develop your stroke so you swim straighter without any corrections. A focus on drills that improve your alignment in the water will make a big difference here, and help remove any crossover in your stroke. We like to use fins for alignment drills, kicking on the side with the bottom arm outstretched. Swap sides every 25m or so. Traditionally coaches have used such drills to work on your body rotation but here the focus is on drawing the shoulder blades together to straighten up that lead arm so that you track ‘gun-barrel straight’ down the pool. Another way to improve the straightness of your swim is to learn to breathe bilaterally (to both sides). Bilateral breathing helps naturally maintain your stroke symmetry, which can make a real difference to your open water results. Plus, the capability to breathe to either side can be a great tactical advantage in open water, allowing you to keep an eye on competitors and swap breathing sides to avoid chop, swell and bright sunshine.
IMPROVE YOUR DRAFTING SKILLS Did you know that drafting another swimmer can save you up to 25 percent of your energy expenditure when swimming? This means that you can swim behind or to the side of much faster swimmers and be towed along. Or you can sit behind a competitor and stay fresh, before out-sprinting them at the end of the race. If you watch elite open water racing you’ll see that the winner of the race very rarely hits the front until the final 50m. Great open water swimmers fully understand the benefits of sitting to the side or behind other swimmers, and are extremely adept at drafting. There are two classic drafting positions you can use: immediately behind another swimmer on their toes, or close to the side of them with your head around the level of their belly button. Drafting to the side of another swimmer takes a lot of skill and requires you to be very close to them, but the drafting benefit is even greater here than behind. The best way to practise these critical drafting skills is in the pool with your squad or some friends in an empty lane. Try swimming in a group of three, with a lead swimmer in the middle and the other two just off to the side. Take it in turns to swap positions and gradually ramp up the speed until you’re starting to race each other. If you do get dropped from a side position, don’t give up – try and get on the lead swimmer’s toes. If you are an experienced pool swimmer who’s transferring to open water racing then you might find it a real challenge to become comfortable swimming in close quarters to other swimmers. At first it feels quite claustrophobic, and you may find the occasional knock off-putting. That’s normal but, by practising these skills as part of your winter training routine (we recommend once a week), you’ll soon become used to this form of swimming and start to really enjoy it.
Sight forward, just before you turn to the side to breathe
Breathe in towards the person you are drafting off to go faster
THE BIGGEST MISTAKE IS TRYING TO SIGHTAND BREATHE AT THE SAME TIME
If you are aiming to race well in open water next season then don’t make the mistake of neglecting your open water skills over the winter – they really are essential. Improve your stroke and sighting so you can swim arrow straight and become accustomed to seeking out drafting opportunities whenever you can. Remember, clear water is the last thing you want when racing in the great outdoors, as you’ll miss out on the significant benefits of drafting. Introducing some of these ideas into your training is a lot of fun and adds variety. Here in Perth we run a specific open water skills session in the pool all year round; it’s a lot of fun and our most popular session of the week. ∆
TRAIN ONLINE Check the Swim Smooth website (
swimsmooth.com) for a wealth of free articles on how to improve your swimming. Our animated swimmer ‘Mr Smooth’ shows you what a great freestyle stroke looks like. Also, don’t miss the innovative Swim Type system, which helps you understand the best way to work on your stroke. Find out more at:
swimtypes.com
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