TECHNIQUE
TIPS & TRICKS
POOL PLAYER
Star coach Sean Kelly tells Simon Griffiths about seven techniques you should add to your pool session to make you a better open water swimmer
“There’s no need to over complicate open water swimming,” says Sean Kelly – a relief to hear from him
as he’s coached some of the best swimmers in the country. His over-riding philosophy is the old favourite: keep it simple. “At the end of the day, it’s still swimming. Just because you don’t have a black line to follow, it doesn’t really change that much.” He did offer us the following tips and tricks on what to build into your pool training sessions to make the transition to the outdoors that little bit easier..
BUILD A GOOD BASE Open water races are generally longer than pool races so you need to ensure you’re following a good endurance training programme. That means sometimes doing long distance sets – say 3km or 5km of straight swimming, perhaps throwing in some bursts of speed along the way.
LEARN TO SWIM STRAIGHT
When swimming outside, there are no black lines or lane ropes to guide you. Swimming off-course can cost you valuable seconds. Try swimming with your eyes closed or with your goggles blacked out by tape and see where you end up. Many people swim to the left or the right. Once you know which way you’re veering off, you can work on the imbalances in your stroke to swim straighter. Count your strokes to make sure you don’t crash into the end of the pool, and only do this exercise with proper supervision. You can also do this exercise in open water, again only under supervision.
PRACTISE SIGHTING You can practise sighting in almost any front-crawl set. During a long distance set you could perhaps look up in the middle of each length while concentrating on keeping your profile as flat as possible (for more on sighting see ‘Swim Plus’ in issue 1).
MAKE A TURN Turning is a key skill in open water racing and can be practised in the pool with training partners. We use a technique where swimmers roll onto their backs while making a 90˚ turn. For a left turn you should approach the marker with your left arm making the final front-crawl stroke. As you turn, roll on to your back, take one backstroke stroke with your right arm, roll back onto your front as you complete the turn taking the next front-crawl stroke again with your left arm. Mirror this for a right hand turn.
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TRY SWIMMING WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED OR WITH GOGGLES BLACKED OUT BY TAPE AND SEE WHERE YOU END UP
LEARN TO CHANGE PACE Open water races are often won in the last 100 metres or so. Try swimming 1,500m, accelerating throughout – the first 500m should be steady, then a faster 500m, 400m at close to top speed, and a final 100m all out effort.
TRAIN AT RACE PACE It’s good to get used to swimming at race pace. If your event is 1,500m, training sets based around 100m work well. Swim between 15 and 30 repetitions off a rest interval that gives you a good rest – 30 seconds or so. Aim to swim each one at the pace you want to do for a 1,500m race. One advantage of swimming this type of set in a pool is the consistency of the distance and the environment, so you can ensure you’re hitting your speed targets.
FIND YOUR PREFERRED POSITION A lot has been written about drafting in open water swimming, about the benefits and best places to catch a ride, but some swimmers just don’t like it, and that’s fine. I coach some swimmers who like to be in front, others that like to sit at the back of the pack and some that like to tuck in close to the leader, and they’re all good strategies. If you don’t like swimming in crowds, then swim out to one side. If you’re good enough to be in front, get up there and do it. It’s really about finding what suits you. Practise swimming in groups in training, and experiment to see what works best. ∆
Sean Kelly is a Speedo Sponsored Open Water Coach. He was GB Open Water Head Coach for the multi-medal winning team at the Beijing Olympics, and is now head coach at the Stockport Metro
Intensive Training Centre, where he coaches Keri-Anne Payne and Cassie Patten. For more info visit
speedo.co.uk
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