Effortless Swimming with Brenton Ford

This episode of the Get Fast podcast is brought to you by Tribalo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. You are joined, as always, by your host, former Australian Ironman champion, Jared Donnelly. And I'm Jordan Donnelly. In today's episode, we've got a special guest with us, Brenton Ford from Effortless Swimming. So when swimmers and triathletes want to get faster in the water, it's not often a matter of training harder. Fitness can only take a person so far. In swimming, the most effective way to increase speed and endurance is actually by improving your technique. That is a blurb from Brenton Ford himself, former national swimmer and elite swimming coach, winner of Australian National Masters Swim coach of the year. And he realized that the traditional coaching methods that he'd been taught growing up for swimming didn't actually work for a lot of swimmers, especially those without a swimming background. So he founded Effortless Swimming, a way to work with and share the methods that he'd had success with with a larger audience from around the world. So we were very excited to have Brenton join us on the podcast today as he helps triathletes from around the world improve their swim technique to have a more enjoyable swim experience in a race. Dad, did you enjoy the chat?

I certainly did, Jordan. The passion that Brenton shows for his, for his job as a swimming coach and technician really came across. And ironically, I swam against his dad as an 8, 9, 10 and 11 year old junior swimmer. And yeah, it's the six degrees of separation there was quite funny the links we had. And he grew up in the same town as I grew up in and yeah, just a really keen and enthusiastic approach to swimming. And a lot of people really struggle with the swimming in triathlon. It's the hardest leg because it's so skill based. It's a skill acquisition. And you know, as Brenton explains so eloquently, no matter how fit you are as a swimmer, if you don't have employed the right technique, you're not going to get the result you want. And we need to pay attention to our technique. And yeah, it's great to have such an expert on the podcast and really get across some really good tips that'll give you an extra second or two per 100 meters instantly. I can guarantee that some of the things he said were really golden and they seem obvious, but when you hear it from an expert who's coached thousands of people along the journey, it's really good to see that most swimmers are Struggling with the same thing. And it's just a couple of tweaks here and there that'll enable you to get that little bit of more out of your swim in the triathlon.

Absolutely. We hope you enjoyed as much as we did. Without further ado, here is the interview. All right, Brenton, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much for joining us.

Hey, thanks for having me. It's been great to catch up with you guys, albeit virtually, but, yeah, looking forward to it.

Yeah, definitely. You are in Melbourne, but we're still kind of in a situation where we. It's a bit hard to catch up with everything happening. But we are very glad you've joined us. And I want to get straight into it. I want to launch off the bat and just go straight into the first question, which is what can help our triathletes? What is the most common correction that you make with triathletes, for example, with their swim technique to help them get improvement straight away?

Yeah, it's a good one. I mean, there's certainly a couple that stand out, but I might just go to one that comes to mind. So last. Last weekend, I was running clinics, and I'd say probably four out of six swimmers of every clinic that we had, they were starting the catch too soon. So one thing that I see, particularly with people who haven't swum for a long time, is they feel like when they enter the water, they've got to start pulling straight away, because it's like, I got to get going. I've got to get that propulsion happening. But if they don't have that point where they're reaching forwards before they start the catch or start pulling through, then they swim very short. And it's just. It's kind of like this treadmill that feels very hard to get off. So one. That's one of the things I work with a lot with triathletes, is just getting them to be a little bit longer at the front of their stroke and sometimes a little bit longer at the back. It kind of plays into a really common one is, which is a crossover, which I'm sure you guys will have seen. Everyone knows about arm crossing over and getting this sort of fishtailing happening through the water. But I've actually found recently, at least in clinics, is a lot of people are just going in, going too deep, and they're not long enough out the front. So that'd probably be the one that I would go to at the moment.

That's a great tip right off the bat. And if the listeners learn one thing today that would be a huge advantage. And look, we get all sorts of standards of swimmers in our triathlon group. And one of the questions I always love to ask someone who's really an expert in the field like you are, is, is there no hope for the worst swimmer out there? Can he improve? You know, we've got that. Got that swimmer. And, you know, they call themselves like rocks or bricks or. And they're forever just training their house down, but they're just not improving. Is it possible for someone to do all of that and not get better?

Yeah, it's so common. And I feel like attitude is a massive part of anything you do, but definitely swimming. So one of the funny things that I find when people come and see me is if they've come from the uk, particularly if they've come from England, they'll say, I've come from England, so I'm not a very good swimmer. And that sort of attitude going in, it's like, well, just wipe that from your vocabulary. And then think of it as, I'm not that quick yet, but I can definitely get faster. And had a swimmer on Sunday who, he learned to swim a month ago and he wants to qualify for Kona. And if you had a look at his footage and he would say the same thing is, you would think, what is going on here? Like, this isn't really swimming. This is. What do you call it?

Yeah.

I can't remember what someone said, but it's like graceful drowning or something like that. But because swimming, so technical and in some ways a bit different than your swimming, than your bike and your run, is that you can certainly put in all the effort in the world, but you're not going to get the same returns as you will with the other two sports because it is so technical. So I think it's. You can absolutely get faster no matter where you're at. But the problem that a lot of people have is they just don't know what it is that they're doing wrong. And sometimes they've got some concepts that they may have sort of taken and run with and it's not working for them. So, like, an example of that is like, a really common one, is people think, I need to bilateral breathe, right? So it's like they get told, you need to breathe every three. You need to breathe to both sides because that's what makes you balance, that's what. What you need to do. But often people aren't suited to that. Some triathletes are better off Breeding every two. And you need the oxygen. If you're short on oxygen, good luck trying to race a nine man swim, things like that. And then there's other concepts that people just take a little bit too far. So that's what I think. Obviously, just video analysis makes a massive difference for the individual. And if you don't have someone like myself or you guys that look at them, even just get someone to film you on your phone and have a look at what you're doing, because it is very technical and the difference between what you think you're doing and what you're actually doing. I don't know anyone who swims exactly like they think that they do. So it's not until you actually see it that you get that understanding. So, you know, with the stuff that we do, like I've run three and a half hour clinics and we do filming at the start and at the end. And look, it takes, I couldn't make it really any shorter, I think, to get the. Give everyone the sort of the full information of what they need and just kind of reprogram their thinking about their swimming. Because, you know, I've run squads before and you can give a tip here and there, but it's very difficult to make many changes just with one line, you know, or just a little bit of feedback here and there. So I think that it's worthwhile deep diving into their technique and just kind of having that bit of an overhaul.

That's a great answer. And look, it leads on to what we were going to talk about next, which was, you know, the importance of actual video analysis and getting a person to understand what they look like and the feel they have. And it's often a big question in swimming is, oh, I've got the feel, you know, the swimmer's feel. Explain that a bit.

Yeah, so I've heard it go both ways. Right, so like you feel for the water is kind of that. That concept of being able to keep pressure on your hand and forearm as you're going through your catch and your pull. That's what we'd refer to as the feel. And like reading Brett Sutton's stuff, he says that I've only seen like two, two triathletes who've ever had feel for the water in his whole coaching career. I kind of see it. And look, he's, he's obviously an amazing coach. He's worked with elite triathletes and he knows what he's talking about. The other sort of side of that would be though, is that with swimmers who will come to me, who. Most of them are just age group triathletes, they're not looking to make Kona. A lot of times they just want to swim faster and exit the water with a lot less effort. And we get them to feel the water a whole lot better by just improving their ability to improve their catch and pull and just get their timing right and that sort of thing. So I think there's two different meanings there in a way, because you can certainly feel like you're holding much more water and that you're much more effective with what's happening underneath the water compared to what you were doing before. So, again, I think it's one of those concepts that can be a bit confusing. And one of the most confusing topics is a high elbow catch, right? Like, I used to think high elbow meant elbow right up near the surface. That's a high elbow catch. And then it wasn't until I was coaching for a couple years where I actually realized, man, that's not actually what they're talking about. So we sort of teach a. Teach a little bit differently and have found that to make a big difference with swimmers who were trying to be very shallow with their catch.

What do you teach them instead, if you don't mind us asking, or is that one of the secrets of the trade?

I couldn't tell you. Yeah, I don't hold any secrets. I just kind of give it all away because I think there's certainly an element of, well, people will sort of hear things, and then it's a different story on implementing that and being able to make that a part of their stroke. So look, with a high elbow catch, right? The way I will explain it when I'm working with someone is we'll have a look at some underwater footage of someone so swimming from the side, and then I explain the catch. So I say the catch starts when you're at full extension out in front with your arm. If you can see this, and then when the fingertips are pointing down to about so like almost 45 degrees, so that hand, forearms just move down a bit. Now, in that position, if we draw a line from your shoulder down to your fingertips, if that elbow is above that imaginary line, that would be considered a high elbow catch. And then another way to think of it is an early bit like a vertical forearm. If the elbow is below that imaginary line, it'd be considered dropping the elbow. And when you look at that on the camera, you can see the biggest difference is the hand and forearm in a high elbow Catch is facing back behind you which will help you move forwards. And with the dropped elbow obviously that's going to be pressing down. It's not going to do much to move you forwards. And sometimes that concept alone makes a huge difference with people if they've been trying to be really shallow with the catch. And it did for me because when I first got filmed quite a few years ago I was very shallow with it and it just wasn't allowing me to get as much power as I can now because I was just too shallow with where my arms were.

There's a lot in swimming as a technical sport and it's a real, it's almost a skill acquisition sport, isn't it? Compared to riding and running where fitness is a major thing. You still need to have good technique on the bike, you still need to run with good form. But if you don't have any of that really good technical side in swimming, no matter how fit you are, would you say it's fair to say that you're going to stay the same, um, and there's going to be minimal improvement unless you actually pay attention to the skill and the, and the technique of swimming?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's. And like an example of that is the same guy I was talking about who was gracefully drowning on Sunday. We, he was kind of all over the shot body was going everywhere and he's a super fit guy. That morning he'd run 28ks and I think he'd done a, maybe a bike ride as well like he super fit guy but was just working so hard to get. I think it was like 2:15,220 pace per hundred and then just by tidying up a couple of things and knowing what he was doing wrong and what he had to change. Then he sent me a message this morning and he's down to, I think it's like 158. He did a 1500 meter swim and like it's no surprise when you actually see the difference the before and after. But it just really came down to, to improving his techniques. So in terms of how do you go about it? Cause there's so much going on when you swim and it's even like for me it's so easy to overthink it. I like to. We've kind of got these five core principles on our website where it starts with breathing. So if you're hyperventilating or you're panicked in the water, there's no hope with anything else. So we've got to get the breathing Right. And the first thing with that often is just making sure that people are exiting the right way. A lot of people breathe out through their mouth and it kind of leads to this panicked type of breathing. Whereas if you can exhale primarily through your nose and have this trickle of air and then a bigger exhale where you clear the lungs as you're turning your head, that's a much more comfortable way. Because if you are just breathing in and then straight away blowing everything out, you're going to feel gas pretty quickly. So it starts with breathing. Then we just work on body position and balance in the water. So just starting to get horizontal instead of what, with the legs and dropping? Yeah. And then we go on to rotation and rotation and recovery. And then after that we go into catch and pull, and then we go into kind of the rhythm and timing of the whole thing. And that's kind of like the dance element of it. That's the. That's where the art of it really comes in. But if you follow that sort of step by step way of approaching it, that's a pretty good way to keep it simple and know the right thing to focus on at the right time. So you could almost go, look, my breathing. Sweet.

Cool.

Check that off. Move on to the next thing.

I really liked your five core principles. I wanted to ask you about that on this podcast and I wanted to ask you about that second one, the rotation. Because there must be a fine line there between trying to get the rotation right and then not fall into the trap of crossing over like you were talking about before.

Yeah. And look, when I first started swinging, I was watching. I was probably 13 years old. Ian Thorpe came out with, this wasn't a DVD then, it was like a VHS T. And I used to watch that. And I saw he rotates a lot. And so I sort of took that. As you got to rotate to 90 degrees, it's almost rolling side to side. And then when I actually sort of looked into it a bit more, now, it's more like a rocking side to side. And there's a swim coach, Carlin Pipes, who made that distinction. I sort of took that from her, is you want to rock side to side, Think of that as about 45 degrees rotation through your shoulders as opposed to 90 degrees. So it's. Yeah, that way you can keep your strike rate up because it's going to take you so much longer to roll to 90 degrees. And plus trying to get a good catch if you're that far on your side and that arms out in front it's like it doesn't matter how good your flexibility is, it's going to be very difficult to get a good catch. So the concept that I quite like with this is skating from side to side. So when I was coaching on Saturday, I was driving to the pool, there was a guy about my age, he had his rollerblades on, he was just as, as free as a bird roller skating along. And I thought that was. I hadn't seen that for so many years, I thought it was quite funny. But that's the kind of concept or the comparison I use with swimming is when you are going from your right arm to your left arm, it's sort of like skating from your right side to your left side, because someone on rollerblades or ice skates isn't going back and forth really fast. It's just they've got that little bit of travel time. And so with a bit of a rock side to side and that concept of skating, that's when you can really feel like the effort comes down a whole lot because it's almost like you've got this point of rest in a way. Not like you're stopping and pausing, but that point where you feel like that's easy. And it's a big difference compared to that, that treadmill that we were talking about before.

Yeah. And what you've said is so true. And you can really feel it when you, when you do your warmup, your first 50 meters, you feel like you are an Olympian. And then it's all downhill from that point onwards because you've got the right technique, because there's no fatigue in the warm up, you've got some ideas of how you should be swimming. And then as fatigue sets in, the stroke falls apart because you don't have the fitness to hold and maintain what you know you should be doing. Would that be a fair assessment?

Yeah, absolutely. And even that first, I don't know if you guys are out of the water for a long time over that second lockdown, but that first 50 for me felt great. And then after that was all downhill. And it's the same like most sessions usually. So one of the big changes that I find newest swimmers make is that, and you've probably found this, if you've had athletes come to you, is a lot of people think of their swimming like they're running is like, I'm just going to go for a run, I'm just going to go for a swim. I'm just going to go, okay in the pool. And there's no change in speed, there's no break in between. It's just going for a swim. But when you actually break it down, you give yourself intervals and rest times and all that sort of stuff. You get that time to reset, get your heart rate down and then you can just kind of focus on your stroke again. So with the wrong programming or no programming at all, you often find that people are just, they're stuck in this one zone and there's no change in speed. Their technique falls apart after the first couple hundred meters. And it's a very hard task to try and keep a good stroke and improve your technique with that. So just even the right programs can make a huge difference.

Yeah, that's so true. And look, so that leads to the next question is, you know, how much time in, as a triathlete we've got so many hours of training on the bike and running and swimming. How much time in the pool would you recommend a triathlete should spend focusing on his drills as compared to his fitness?

Yeah, it's a great, great question. A really common one. And I think because, and I know you guys are definitely about, you know, time management with you got your family first, everyone, most people got a job. So it's hard to fit in however many sessions a week they're doing with all three sports. So, and I'm the same, like I don't want to go and do an hour or an hour and a half of drills once a week. Like to me that's just not very inspiring. So what I state of swimmers who come to me is like I'll prescribe them drills as specific to what they need to change. In your warm up, you might do between 200 meters to 400 meters of some drill swim work and that's it for the session. So that might be say 200 meters of 25 drill, 25 swim. And we mix in the swim in between. So you kind of get that link between what's the purpose of this drill, what's it focused on? And then you can link it to your, to your stroke. So it doesn't need to be a whole lot. But if we think of skill acquisition or if we think of changing a motor pattern that we've got, it's no good doing something once a fortnight because it's not going to change that motor pattern. We've got to be consistent with it. So in order to be consistent with it, I say every session or nearly every session, do your 200 to 400 meters of drill swim work as party warm up, it'll set you up really nicely for the session and then you can hopefully maintain that better or slightly better technique into your main set.

And do you see those motor changes happening quite quickly? I mean, that example you already provided of the graceful drowner who has wiped off 20 seconds quite quickly, that is quite a quick skill acquisition and improvement. So that gives hope for a lot of people that you can wipe off some time with some changes pretty quickly.

Yeah. And everyone's different. So, like at another clinic I ran on Saturday, there was two swimmers there. One, he had a very high cadence. He, he's a fast swimmer. He's swimming like 115s to 120s. Really quick swimmer. But he just didn't have enough kind of reach and extension. So he wasn't quite front quadrant, like, he was just starting his catch a little bit soon. And so we're looking at making a change just to kind of get him out the front a little bit more, get him out the front of his shoulders. And for him making that change, I think, and we talked about this, is going to make him slower for the first two to four weeks. And then for the other swimmer who was doing a similar thing, but just had a sort of different style for him, I think his change is going to result in getting faster straight away. So the thing I like to make clear now to people when I work with them is don't worry what happens for the next two to four weeks. Look at it more like six to eight weeks down the track, because that's going to be a better representation of your actual improvement in speed with those changes in technique. Because when you change something that you're doing and you're not used to it, it's going to feel awkward and uncomfortable. And I used to think, especially when I first started coaching, I thought any change that someone makes that's in the right direction will make them faster and it will feel good. But it's not the case because it's just different to what they're used to. So even the most ugly technique can feel good for someone. And when they get a better technique, sometimes it's not going to actually make them quicker straight away. So it really just depends on the. The individual. And if they can put up with that uncomfortable feeling for a few weeks, their new normal, that new stroke becomes their new normal and it starts to feel good eventually.

It's exactly the same as the bike, isn't it, dad? Yeah.

And look, I was thinking while you were talking, the analogy that I always kind of try to use with people is as a golfer, if you were so determined and motivated and went out and practiced eight hours a day, hitting ball after ball, if you practice the wrong swing, you just. The eight hours is almost wasted. You've got to practice correct technique and not incorrect technique. And it does take time because you've done it for so many years as a young kid, swum in a certain way, whether you were taught properly at the start or whether you just made it up to survive from drowning. You've got these traits that you've kept and it's not easy, is it, to change those straight away. So you need to give yourself time.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And like, I think having the expectation of how long it will take to improve helps and the sort of the. What would you say, like. And I also used to think you, when you're changing your stroke, you want to try and get every single stroke right. Like operate at that speed where every single stroke is correct. But kind of speaking with people who work in rehab with like, people have been in car accidents and that kind of thing, the kind of benchmark that they look at or what they want to get to is 7 out of 10 strokes. So you can in that respect operate at the speed where you're getting seven out of ten strokes, right, Roughly. Because otherwise you don't sort of reinforce those patterns as quickly as if you're operating at that 7 out of 10. So it doesn't mean you need to do a month or two months of just really slow swimming just trying to change a technique. Now you can actually get some speed going and that's actually going to help you and help you make those changes quicker.

I'd like to ask you. Sorry, dad. I'd like to ask you further about that kind of mental approach with expectations, because as with everything, the mindset side is so key. And you made a really good point before about people coming with certain beliefs and those beliefs really don't help them. So you're trying to get rid of those beliefs straight away. But a lot of the language, if you're not used to it, if you're a beginner, the catch and pull, even the five core principles, if you've never heard of those things before, can be quite overwhelming. Do you approach that mindset wise at your clinics or in your videos? With so many things to think about, it can become overwhelming for the athlete?

Yeah, it definitely can. And that's when someone's overthinking the stroke. You can see it like they're very robotic, they're very mechanical and there's not much fluency and rhythm to the stroke. And so what I try and have someone leave with when I work with them is maximum three things to focus on. Ideally, like one or two is great, but two to three really is what it often comes down to. And so I work with a lot of people online and so they'll send me their videos. And I had someone send me a video last week and they sent me like a whole bunch of just stuff that they were thinking about with their swimming. I was reading through it, I thought none of this is related to what's going to make you faster. So that's my role as a coach, to be able to just go look with this stuff that's relevant, but it's not going to help you go faster. So if you just focus on these two things which are relevant to his technique, that's going to make the difference. And so hopefully with that, then he can go ahead and focus on that and just simplify it. Because if you're up in your thinking brain when you're swimming, you're going to miss your timing, even if it's by point one or point two. And you particularly see that like in all sports, for example, or like tennis or something like that, where if your time is out and you're overthinking it, that is the critical point where you are going to win the game or you're going to lose the game. And it's really no different in our sports in a way. I mean, it's endurance that's a little bit different. But particularly with swimming, if you're up in your head, then, yeah, it's just not going to happen. Swimming is very much a feeling sport. And so what I often do at clinics is that like in the drills, great, be in your thinking brain because you want to make sure that you're making these technical changes. But if you're too much up there when you swim, it's not going to happen for you. So just try and go by feel, use that feeling brain and just be in the zone, be in the moment as much as you can.

One of the things that leads on from that is I get a lot of swimmers who want to swim with flippers on all the time because their reasoning, which sounds okay, is that I want to practice good technique, swimming fast. And what's your view on that?

Yeah, yeah. So with flippers, I mean, let's say we're working with triathletes, I will often recommend warm up with flippers that can Be pretty good in most cases because look, if someone's starting at 5:00 or 6:00 clock in the morning, they're probably not very warm and a lot of people aren't doing like pre training warm ups. So nothing wrong with warming up with fins because it's going to ease your shoulders into it and I quite like that. You can do some drills a bit better with fins, but yeah, if you are wearing fins, it's not very close to what you would swim like, especially in a triathlon, I think. So, like I wouldn't. We don't normally do much at all with fins in the main set. Obviously there's different purposes for it. But yeah, I think warmups good. But yeah, not so much for a main set because I mean, you guys I imagine do quite a bit of pull boy work. Pull boy paddles. That stuff's great for strength and it kind of simulates a wetsuit a bit, especially with a pull buoy in or double pull buoy. So you want to replicate those conditions, but there's nowhere that you're going to be wearing fins for and it just makes it. Yeah, the stroke changes a lot without fins.

That's such a good point and I'm glad that the listeners are all hearing that message. Look, one of the things with fins too is it's really fatiguing on the legs and you're already going to have a day where you're going to be rock riding and running using your legs for the majority of the time. So in your opinion, you want to get a nice efficient balanced kick rather than one that's propelling you along in an endurance event like swimming.

Yeah, it's really funny because a lot of people, they have the concept that they like, they'll come to me and they'll say, I don't kick much when I swim and it's a really big bad thing. But it's like, no, it's especially doing triathlon, it's going to save your legs. That's a good thing. And we don't want to be kicking really for propulsion unless you're doing your 50 or 100 freestyle or if you're a competitive swimmer, really, if you're a triathlete, it's more balance and timing. So keep the kick fairly small. I like to talk about like a bucket twice the size of like a garden bucket. Keep your feet within that bigger bucket so it doesn't come too far outside the line of your body. And then he'll should be breaking the surface every couple of kicks, but turn the effort down to like a 2 or a 3 out of 10. If it's up around a 6 or more, that's the first thing that is going to gash you. And you obviously find that with beginner swimmers as well. It's like the kick is providing the propulsion and that's why the heart rate goes to 180 after 25 meters. It's just, it's the kick. It's no different if you're like an elite swimmer. If an elite swimmer is kicking super hard for 100 meters and their arms are going easy, they're going to be just as gassed as the beginner swimmer. Maybe not quite as much because they might be a bit fitter. But yeah, it's the legs that will tie you out the quickest.

That's brilliant. Thank you. I'm really pleased to hear that as well. So we've got a few concepts about legs in swimming out of the way. One of the things that that leads me to is triathlon is an outdoor event. How much time would you recommend an average swimmer in the pool and outdoor swimming?

Yeah, obviously it's individual, but I think it's good, especially in summer when you can. In summer here in Victoria, for example, if you can do an open water swim once a week, that's going to make a huge difference. It feels like the fifth stroke in a way. Open water skills feels like a different stroke. So you want to go in with some confidence knowing that you can handle a little bit of chop other people around you because your anxiety is certainly heightened when you go open water. And if you look at the elite open water swimmers, they'll do 10 sessions in the pool, one session in the open water. So I think it's a pretty good rule of thumb to follow. Not 10 swims, but like whatever, two in the pool, three in the pool and then one open water when it's coming up to race time. And if you don't have that, if you can't get to the ocean or whatever, if you can do it in a squad, like just get some of those open water skills happening, you're siding. If you can swim in a group and that sort of thing, just try and get those skills. And if you're not comfortable in the open water, like if you have a panic attack, which a lot of people do when they first get in, is the way to overcome it is to start with with the easiest form of it. So that might be like going down to here in Melbourne, like maybe going down to Elwood or Brighton beach, staying where you can stand up, going with a friend and just starting there and then just progressively increasing the difficulty of the situation that you put yourself in.

That's a really good point. The anxiety level is really high in triathletes and you know, one of the reasons is because they don't practice open water swimming and they're in the pool the whole time, the safety net of, of a bottom of the pool and decides to hang on to. If you do have a panic attack, which, you know, in the open water, if you're not used to doing it, you're going to have this foreign feeling when come race day, I've seen guys not swim at all outdoor and then go and do a triathlon without doing any outdoor swims. And of course, what happens? They absolutely have a panic attack. So the question is, when you're swimming outdoors, you know, the athletes, should they be doing just continuous endurance swimming? Should they do some intervals, should they do some sighting to boys? And the next extension to that is how should you swim your stroke? Trying to keep your direction in the right focus. And yeah, really, that's the main thing I'm keen to hear from you.

Yeah, it's really interesting to look at the Strava data after a race. So you look at the most recent one I looked at was a little while ago, but I think it was Challenge Melbourne. So it was the half distance race and some people could have saved four to six minutes on their swim time just by going straight. That 1900 swim turned into 23, 20, 400 meters with some of the people that I was looking at. So if we think of that alone, you need to train so much or you need to put a lot of effort into your swimming to save that much time over the course of 1.9. So if we can just get that sighting right, that is going to make a huge difference. So I think a lot of times people don't sight enough. Some people will go like 20, 30 strokes without looking up. And if you have a tendency to swim off course, you're definitely going to go off course. So one of the things that causes people to go off course is a crossover. It's probably one of the most common ones. So if your left hand is coming over and crossing over, then quite often we find that that will press out and that's going to turn you off to the right. So a crossover on, let's say right arm will lead you to go left. So if you know that you drift off to one side, it could be because of a crossover. And in terms of siding, obviously depends on the race, but. Yeah, and depends how many people around, that kind of thing. But I think most people should be sighting anywhere from like every seven to say seven to 20 strokes, depending on the conditions. And if you can do that without breaking your rhythm, then that's obviously going to be a massive benefit. So most people, when they first start open water swimming, their sighting technique is head down, then lift up for a bit and then go back down and obviously the legs drop. It's hard work. If you can get the sight and breathe method happening, it's going to be so much easier and you'll just find it fits into your natural rhythm and style so much better. So the sight and breathe method that I normally teach is when one hand is reaching forwards, that's going to be the hand that will sort of support you. Then you want to lift up, aim for crocodile eyes, like eyes just above the surface or just high enough where you can see the boy or wherever you're going. Then turn the head to the side as that other arm's coming over and breathe and then go back down. So it's literally sight forwards on one stroke and then breathe on the next stroke. And you'll find that you can do that without losing much speed at all. And that's really the key. Whereas if you're just lifting your head up, you'll probably find you slow down quite a bit. So that's often the method that I like to teach. And look, they're both sort of valid ways to sight. Sometimes you'll look up for three strokes and go back down. But I think from my experience, most people don't know how to do that sight and breathe method. And it's really, it makes a huge difference once they get it. And it takes like five or ten minutes of practice to get it. So if you know that you can't do it, that could be five, ten minutes, really well spent.

That's a great tip. And what about drills in the open water? People that I coach always look at me strange when I say, you know, two or 300 meters to that boy. Take a couple of minutes rest, then swim to another point. Is that something you would recommend in, in your open water training?

Yeah, like if we're ever going open water, rarely will we go just without stopping at all. We're not like unless I'm doing a. Even then, like, yeah, if we're just doing like a long aerobic swimming, might just go continuous for a couple K. But really, yeah, we're going swimming out to a boy and let's say for it Al would there's like two posts. I think they're about 500 or 400 apart. Like we'll often do intervals between them. We might go like three pole to polls as like build within that lap or we might just do like progressively build one to three and yeah, just like almost making it like a pool training session in a way. And the other thing I find as well is like people get a lot more confidence out in the open water if they just sort of, they're out there, they're just sort of looking at their surroundings. They're getting comfortable just being out there in the ocean as well. So yeah, rarely we just do a full open water swim where there's no different efforts and if you don't have posts or boys to swim to, then we'll often do like stroke count one. So it's like 80 strokes just moderate and then 20 strokes fast and we'll repeat that five times. So there's ways that you can make your open water swims much more interesting and break them down where you're actually going to get a much better benefit training wise from it as well.

Would you recommend swimming with the wetsuit in the open water or getting some practice just with the speedos on as a sort of. Just to get the feel a bit better. And obviously the wetsuit is giving you buoyancy but would you have a ratio there?

These are Queensland problems, aren't they? Yeah, been down in Melbourne we don't often get the chance to go without the. But yeah, I think either one. Yeah, it really depends, doesn't it? I mean, because there is the chance when you go racing that you're not going to have a wetsuit on, but it's. So I'd say most of the time you probably want to have your wetsuit on to practice with it because it's a different feeling. You're tight through the shoulders, it restricts your recovery a little bit as well and it sometimes feels like it shortens your stroke. So you definitely want to do most shape water swims with a wetsuit. But you look if. And yeah, it just depends on where you are. But I think that I've found quite useful for freeing up your shoulders aside from getting a wetsuit that's a bit thinner through the shoulders. Like some of the entry level wetsuits are pretty thick and it doesn't matter, you know, it doesn't matter how much you try, you're going to feel quite restricted So I think it's worthwhile spending a little bit extra on a higher level wetsuit within whatever brand that suits you best. And the other thing that helps too is after put your wetsuit on and I got taught this. Who was it by? Yeah, just by some friends. Basically like bend over so I'll pull the wetsuit up my waist and gradually work it up, work it up. So over your shoulders instead of it being pulled down really tight, it's sort of, it's up here and that frees you up through your shoulders and through your lats. And then with the sleeves I try and just sort of pull it up towards my shoulders a little bit so that it's not. So it's not stretched so you can kind of fit your wetsuit once it's on in a way where it's going to change how much freedom you've got through the shoulders.

I wanted to ask you, Brenton, about sort of a similar topic in terms of different body types and biomechanics. I was watching a interview with an elite endurance swimmer, a guy who swam across the channel between Maui and can't remember what the other Hawaii island was, but awesome interview, you know, talking about really extreme 20 or 30 kilometer endurance swims. And he was talking about how humans are not biomechanically made to swim that well, especially compared to a lot of fish out there. We're really quite poor and very slow swimmers. And some people have much better biomechanics that they seem to fly through the water a lot better. You've given hope for a lot of swimmers. I can see you coughing there. I appreciate that you've given hope for a lot of swimmers that they can improve no matter what level they're at. But how do you think the role of biomechanics plays into it in terms of how differing body parts need to adjust their stroke or their technique, if they've got shorter arms, longer arms, better swimming kick technique, that kind of thing.

I think one of the main frustrations that I hear, particularly from triathletes, which are generally slimmer, they've got a lot less body fat than maybe a 40 or 50 year old guy who swum since he was young and he's maybe been down at the surf club a bit and drink with the guys on the weekend and might have a bit of a belly. And the frustration from the triathletes is like, I'm so much fitter than these guys, but they keep overtaking me. And it's a valid frustration. It's like, why Is that the case? Well, I mean, definitely with a bit more buoyancy, a bit more fat, you're going to float better. But that said, you can still be a great swimmer with less fat on you, so to speak. And obviously wingspan, the strength's going to change a bit as well. So with longer arms, if you're taller, your stroke rate is going to be a little bit lower in most cases than those that have got short arms. If you're 5 foot 6, you're going to have to have a pretty fast turnover to compete with someone who's 6 foot 2. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you've got to use more effort as a result. Everyone's different, but you can swim fast with a higher stroke rate, let's say like 70 to 80 strokes per minute, and the other person swimming at, say, 60 strokes per minute. That doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to have to use more effort because it's kind of like gears on the bike. You've got the. You've got the big gear. If you're churning away in that thing, your heart rate can be right up at the near top, whereas if you just sort of drop down a few gears, apply a little bit less, it's a little bit less power to get it rolling through, then it's kind of the same thing in your swimming. If you just turn down the effort with that, then that's a way to hold a faster stroke rate. So you definitely do need to take that into consideration. And certainly the more taller, more wiry sort of people aren't going to float as well. So that just means that, look, you're probably just going to have to change how you swim a little bit. It may not be the case where you've got as long a stroke and as gliding sort of stroke as someone who's got a little bit more fat on them. So it is certainly individual. And that's one of the things that I certainly had to figure out when I started coaching was I thought everyone should be aiming to swim like Ian Thorpe or Michael Phelps, but that's not the case at all. And it's only just going to work against them if it's a different body type or even for a different sport, as, you know, like, there's not many swimmers who are swimming like the Ian Thorpe style in triathlon. It's much faster turnover, much more scrappy, and you just want to adapt to whatever races they're doing and the body type that they've got.

One of the things that I see. Is that one of the biggest common problems triathletes and look, just beginner swimmers have is just getting their feet, you know, not at that angle where it's dragging them. And I just see so many people have trouble getting their feet up. What are they doing wrong, Grenton?

Yeah, sometimes there's two things that normally play a part there. So one is some people just don't point their toes at all. Like they just haven't, I guess, thought about it. And so their toes just pointing down to the ground. So that's the first thing. Sometimes they just need to think about it and it can improve. And we've certainly seen that the other one, as you know, is just ankle mobility and flexibility through there. And some people have very limited. So it's. Look, it's difficult to change. And it's actually an interesting thing you bring up because there's. I'm speaking to someone next week exactly about this topic who did a PhD. He did a. Yeah, I think it is PhD on, I think, like plantar flexion or kick speed in swimmers and looking at ankle mobility and flexibility. And so the gist of it is essentially that there are some things you can do to improve that. And it's not necessarily the flexibility that plays the biggest part in someone's kick speed. It's the strength of their ankles and their feet. So we're talking about that next week. So I'm yet to discover exactly what those things are, but I'll have a better answer for you next week. So there are actually exercises that you can do to strengthen your ankles and your feet to help you with your kicking, but I can't share those with you because I don't know what they are.

Just an extension of that. How relevant is your head positioned in the water in contributing to where your feet are ending up? And we know equal and opposite reaction with. Is it worth really persevering and getting your head as low as possible with the water sort of hitting the top of your head? And, you know, you've got a lot of swimmers swimming with the water somewhere here and a lot somewhere there. Is that causing the feet to change position?

Yes, sometimes, but it's quite often not the case for many people that I work with. So my experience, I'd say like one in ten that's the case. It's certainly a factor, but there's so many different levers to change to help bring the feet up. So head position is normally the first one that we look. It's like that's Easy to fix. You can either just change where you're looking. And the main thing with head position and yeah, main thing with head position that I like to teach is you can look anywhere from straight down to what would be considered 45 degrees in front. So 2 meters, 3 meters in front. And if you're swimming open water with your head straight down, good luck about having any idea about what's around you. So most triathletes are better off looking somewhat forwards, let's call it one to three meters in front. But the main thing that we want to try and do is avoid like a kink in the neck, like a, an obvious angle from the spine to the head or to the neck. We want to try and look in that range, but lengthen the back of the neck. So I think my dad used to teach me, used to teach us. He used to talk about like, lengthen your back and get rid of those wrinkles in the back of your neck. And in a way you're kind of like tucking your chin into the base of your neck, like sort of in that direction. Go for a double chin, not to the point where it's harder to breathe, but just in general that's how you want to have it. And that'll take care of head position. But yeah, I think most triathletes are best off looking somewhat forwards and had some filming with Clayton Fattel and Josh Amber. Look at those guys and they're like, they're mostly just looking at 45 degrees. They're all pretty much there. And if you got a wetsuit on, it's not going to impact your body position whatsoever. So, yeah, that's certainly fine. And if we think about those things that contribute to, to your legs coming up, one of the main ones is a front. Well not being front quadrant. So if we think of, if you're looking from above, I don't really know what front quadrant really meant, but the way that I explain it now is if we look from above, we've got a bird's eye view of someone swimming and they've got their arms out in front. If we split that body into four quarters, the front quarter would start from about the head and go up in that direction. So when we look at someone swimming, we want to ideally always have just something, whether it's a hand or an arm, in that front quadrant. Now if you don't have something in that front quadrant, then like if you're lying in the pool with your arms by your side and just looking straight down, your legs are going to be the first thing to sink because you've got the buoyancy of your lungs, the air in your lungs and your legs will outweigh that upper body. So it's always going to sink. And so if you've got nothing out in front to almost like counterbalance your legs, then most of the time you're going to sink. So we generally want to try and work towards a front quadrant stroke or very close to front quadrant. Again, it's not hard and fast. Everyone should be front quadrant. But again, nine out of 10 people should have a front quadrant freestyle stroke.

That's a really helpful tip. And I really liked what you said about the neck position. Our strength and conditioning representative at Trivelo says the exact same thing with posture. When you are cycling or running, it's the exact same principle. You need to get rid of those crinkles in your neck. And he does talk about that. Almost create the double chin yourself and.

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

He said that's the most efficient way you should be walking, running, riding, everything you're doing. You know, if you're, if you're getting that kink there, then you're not really moving properly. So it's the same in, in the water and out of the water it goes.

Yes. And you, you guys probably said too, when you're coaching, is that you can often look at someone at, like, their, their posture and how they stand and, and even sometimes, like, by the nature of their work, like, if they're a builder, often they're pretty, like they're pretty limited with their range. If they're working at a desk, they're generally, like, rounded through the shoulders and you can have a pretty good sense of how they're going to do something because most things you do in life are going to carry over to the other things that you do. So it's. Yeah, if you can just fix your posture in general or just gradually improve it over a few months, it's going to help so many aspects of your sport as well.

Absolutely. One of the biggest things I've taken from this podcast is how important some of these little factors are that have nothing to do with your fitness in the water. And we speak about this a lot. And, you know, like you said, there's plenty of examples of people wiping massive time off their swim just by little techniques and even the little tricks we've spoken about. You know, if you've never spoken out, if you never swam out the ocean water, you are going to lose a lot of time by either swimming an extra 400 meters, like you said with Strava, even every seven to 20 strokes, if your sight is wrong and then your feet are dragging and you're losing a couple of seconds there, that adds up over a 1900 meter swim. So a lot of people could just fix their fix some time or a lot of time by doing all these little things and not even having to get fitter in the water, which is pretty helpful for a lot of people to realize.

Yeah, it's a nice thing to realize, especially when people have been banging their head against the wall and they just hit that plateau and they feel they can't get faster. There's other things that you can do to get quicker. And especially like generally my experience with most triathletes I've worked with is like they're doing the work, they're doing the training. Like they like to work hard, they love to smash themselves. And sometimes it's just accepting that, all right, you're doing that part of it. And now it just comes down to maybe being a bit smart about how you approach your technique and having that concept of you don't need to work harder to go faster as a result of just improving technique. And another thing that I've found really useful with this too is when you think of your catch, which is that part out the front of the stroke, let's say the first part, where you start to pull down, a lot of people try and overpower it, but if you try and overpower it, like from here, if you're just putting a lot of effort into that, you're just going to push straight down. It's like having no grip on your tyres. You haven't sort of connected with the road. So if you just use that as your setup phase, right, Set that up, get a good position and a good position somewhere in the high elbow range or close to it, then you can start to accelerate through and you've got that traction, you've got that hold of the water. So that concept can make a big difference from bringing the effort down for a lot of people who just try and rip straight at it when they enter the water.

That's such a good point. And that little tiny bit of advice you just gave then is really, I've seen, you know, 10 or 15 years of watching Jordan and his brothers and sisters at squad training and seeing guys brutalize the water, as I call it, where they are. They are really well developed, muscular, you know, heavy, strong guys, and seeing 11 year old, you know, 20 kilo girls gliding past them with no splash, beautiful technique to perfect balance. And these guys are just thrashing about and it's just that, you know, strength has nothing to do with it. It's all to do with technique. And for me, it's such an eye opener. And what you've said today is just, you know, you've summarized it beautifully. So we're really pleased with the tips that you've given our triathletes, and hopefully they're really going to put some of that into practice, into. Into their training over, you know, over the next period, I guess.

To finish, I would like you to tell us what. What is some ideology or just some things that you wish triathletes knew that would help them. You just, you want to get across to everyone with something that you think people need to know.

Yeah, I think we've covered a few of them for sure. Another one's probably. And the thing I've found working with a lot of people is when you enjoy your swimming more and when you've got something to focus on that you know is going to make the difference, it's so much more motivating to swim because a lot of triathletes, they don't look forward to going to the pool. One of the good things about the last couple of months is I think a lot of people have realized, oh, man, I actually do miss swimming. I miss the pool. I really miss that feeling. But if you don't enjoy going to the pool, if it feels like a grind, then just knowing what can make a difference and having some concepts like we talked about today to focus on, it becomes so much more enjoyable. And then you see Those might be 1 or 2 seconds improvement per hundred, and you kind of get addicted to that. You get addicted to that feeling of just the water flying past. You're getting more efficient, you're holding more water. It's a really addictive thing. So, yeah, to me, that's probably one of the game changers for a lot of people is when they start to love the swimming as much as they might love the bike or love the running, then they start to do more of it. And when you enjoy something, you tend to relax. And that's when you start to learn and start to just kind of. You're not as tense when you're doing it, and that's when you just get better results.

Perfect. Well, that's a great way for us to finish. Thank you very much for joining us, Brenton. It's really helpful. I'm sure all the athletes listening have thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm sure they'll probably have more questions based on that. So if you do have any questions please send us in and we'll probably pass it on to Brenton and maybe do a follow up. Q and A as always because that seems to happen with these guest episodes. But no thank you very much. It's been very insightful and hopefully have you on again soon.

Yeah, well thank you. I mean I really enjoyed chatting to you guys and obviously when you know your staff and like your sort of father son team and like my dad coached me for about 12 years I think it was so and we're both from down a similar area and yeah no I appreciate you having me on. I really enjoyed it and yeah love what you guys are doing so this was really, really fun. Thank you.

Thanks a lot Brenton. Really appreciate it mate.

Cheers guys. Finish there.