Swim Training
SWIMMING BEYOND THE BASICS
How to get faster once you’ve mastered the fundamentals
By Marty Gaal
Once you are comfortable with freestyle swimming fundamentals —keeping your face and head in the water, rhythmic breathing, breathing without lifting your head out of the water and swimming continuous laps — it’s time to step up your level of challenges.
WORKOUT STRUCTURE& INTERVAL TRAINING
When you go to the pool, do you just jump in and swim laps? That is good for aerobic fitness and exercise, but it’s not swim training. Break your workout into several swimsets, where each set has a purpose.
Your main set (about 50 percent of the workout) should focus on a specific physiological system — aerobic endurance (long sets at 70-80 percent effort),muscular endurance (mid-distance sets at 80-90 percent effort) or anaerobic endurance (short, fast sets at 90 percent effort and higher).
Breaking workouts into sets with rest lets you focus on your stroke and improve your technique.
KEY TECHNIQUE MECHANICS FOR IMPROVEMENT
Your biggest technique improvements will come from improving your reach/extension phase of the stroke and improving your pull/catch mechanics.
When you reach forward, your hand should enter the water at a comfortable angle in front of that shoulder (so the shoulder does not feel constricted) but not directly in front of the head or midline. From that point, you extend your arm forward to the point where your lat muscle is as stretched out as you can make it. You should extend directly forward, not forward and down. While you are extending with this arm, your body also will be rotating as the opposite arm completes the stroke. Ideally, as your hand reaches the apex of its extension, your shoulder should be under your face and extended as far forward as possible. Your torso will be close to being on your side (rotation). This improves hydrodynamics at this point in the stroke by presenting less surface area to the water. I advocate rotation as a result of good forward arm and shoulder extension as opposed to pushing the body from the same side hip, which has a negative effect on the pulling power of the opposite arm.
When you initiate the pull, make a conscious effort to shrug your shoulder/ rotate your shoulder inward and forward, which will help keep your elbow up and out. This aids in putting your hand and forearm into the high elbow catch or early vertical forearm position. This position creates the most surface area from the earliest position in order to increase the total force per stroke you can exert on the water, thus pulling your body forward as quickly as possible. You can pull easy for distance sets or pull with lots of effort for short sets, but you should always be working on this technique.
EXAMPLE 2,000-YARD WORKOUT
WARM-UP SET: 4x100 easy on 20 seconds rest
DRILL/TECHNIQUE SET: 6x50 drills on 20 seconds rest
KICK SET: 4x50 kick with board on 20 seconds rest
MAIN MUSCULAR ENDURANCE SET: 5x200 moderate hard (85 percent effort) on 30 seconds
REST COOL-DOWN SET: 100 easy
32 USA TRIATHLON SPRING 2011
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