Eliminate Your Fear of Open Water Swimming

I heard a surf coach that I've learned quite a bit from. He says, whenever you're nervous out there, make a fart noise. And his clients are like, what are you talking about? He goes, make a fart noise. It's impossible to be tense if you're making a fart noise. And so I think it's like, you could do that out in the water, you know, you could do the same thing. And if I'm ever out there and, you know, it's maybe it's kind of, kind of big and waves going to just break in front of you, like, so if I'm out with a friend and we just, I'm just like, oh, look at this one. And like just sort of being, being silly out there and it's just like, oh, okay, it's, it's fine. So you can take a lot of that stuff into the, into the open water swimming, which is why I think we're talking about surfing, not the fact that we just probably think about it every day.

This podcast is brought to you by Trivalo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivelo Coaching, Jared Donnelly. In today's podcast episode, we welcome back our favorite swimming expert, and that is Brenton Ford from Effortless Swimming. He's someone whose opinion and advice around swimming technique analysis and stroke improvement is one we hold in the highest regard. We always love having him on. I think this is the third or fourth episode he's been on with us and he always provides such great insight. That's because he has just such a wealth of experience coaching so many athletes individually with their stroke improvement, with their technique to basically help athletes swim faster. And swimming is one of those frustrating sports where the harder you try, you don't necessarily swim faster. And so that's why this technique side of things is so important. Dad, as always, we love these chats with Brenton. We love having it on. We love his thoughts on swimming and the answers he gives.

Yeah, another great episode coming up and his insights into open water swimming and the relationship with technique and your actual fitness training, the ratios between what time should be spending on both and your confidence in the open water and things you can do, little tips. He's got some great coaching ideas on how to manage your anxiety. And let's face it, anybody who's ever done an open water swim has going to have some anxiety, whether it's 1% or 100%. We're all in that in there somewhere. And he's just got really a wealth of experience and some of the stuff that he's been able to do for our particular trivelo athletes has been, we are really appreciative of because some of the people have improved out of sight using his methods. And we want everybody out there to get a little bit of a piece of what Brenton can offer. And that's why we do this podcast, because we want to help people improve their, their ability on race day. And Brenton certainly does this with his swimming technical advice, which is fantastic.

So in today's episode, as you just said, we really focus on the open water and overcoming that fear. Techniques you can do to overcome any anxiety you have, as well as how to approach the technical side of open water swimming versus how you're probably swimming in the pool. Plus a lot more questions and, and conversation around just swim technique, form analysis and ways to improve yourself. So we hope you enjoy the episode. Here is the episode with Brenton. All right, Brenton, welcome back for the third or maybe fourth time to the podcast. It's great to have you back on.

Thanks for having me. I love being on your podcast and as we were chatting earlier, I love working with you guys and your athletes. I think you attract great people. So thanks for having me back on.

Awesome. We are, we're going to get straight into it and we want to touch on this topic that brings a lot of fear to a lot of triathletes, and that's a lot of people, just in general, not just exclusive triathletes, and that's swimming in the open water. So I want to ask you straight off the bat, how do you tackle the fear of open water swimming?

I think it's like anything that you're afraid of. Start small and just gradually work your way up. So I've had swimmers who have been afraid to get into the ocean or any body of open water. And what I've suggested to them is just go somewhere where you might be waist deep and swim along the shore for 50 meters. Start small and work your way up. Rome wasn't built in the day. It takes time to get comfortable and it takes time to get the skills to feel comfortable and be able to race well. So I think just start with whatever you're comfortable with and have a partner there to begin with as well, whether that's a coach or a friend just there to support you. So, uh, yeah, you don't need to to take over the open water swimming world on the first day, just, just start small. And I think a good place to start as well is even just getting comfortable being around others in the pool. If you can do some pack swimming or you can even just swim side by side, just get used to having other people around you because it can be a bit confronting when you first experience that in the open water, it's a funny one.

I saw some Instagram videos of guys whacking the back of some swimmers in a pool to give them that feeling bumped and hit from side to side. That's going to the extreme, obviously, but I really take on board. It is really helpful to swim with people, not only for the safety side of it, but sometimes you don't have that opportunity to get some friends along. And when you can actually try to use that group dynamics where you're getting a practice at trying to swim towards one boy and seeing who can get there first and feeling like being bumped. Is that something you would, you would be kind of recommending?

Yeah. Every time we lead into summer here, the group that I train with, we do do open water races and some do triathlons. So most normally Friday mornings or Wednesday mornings we'll do some pack swimming where there might be five to 10 of us in a lane and we'll start at the flags and then we'll all go off together and we'll be going fast and we might be three across in a, in a lane and we're just getting used to swimming next to each other and occasionally people will come out maybe cupping a whack to the head or the, or the body. We try and not hurt each other, but sometimes that, that happens. But it's just getting used to being in that, in that group. And if you can get comfortable having other swimmers really, really close to you and you can learn to adapt your technique to be able to swim when others are very close, then that helps a lot. And one adjustment that I see people making or good swimmers making is if they're really close, you may not be able to stretch out as much because you might have feet in front, so you might have to even go a little bit wider. Maybe you will have to come over a little bit straighter over the top of the water or a straighter arm recovery. So just making these adjustments to your technique, it doesn't have to be, you don't have to swim perfectly when you got others around. You just need to be able to keep your tempo and keep the speed and just make these minor Changes to your technique that just allow you to kind of stay on feet or stay in the group, but it won't necessarily look pretty.

So I think it's a really good point to dive into a bit further because guys are always asking me, should I be swimming with really great technique in my own channel, or should I be jumping on the feet of other people where I'm going to be compromising my technique? What are your thoughts around that?

You can save up to 30% of your energy by drafting. If you're sitting directly behind someone, it can save 30% of your energy if you do it really well. And in the triathlon, look, it can be hard to do it that well because people are moving around and they may not be staying on course. But it is so worthwhile sticking on someone's feet. If they're the same or slightly quicker pace than you or you want to take a bit of a breather, it's worth doing. So if you can. If you can do that. I'd say go for it if you know the person in front of you. So occasionally, if I'm racing open water, I'll know my other competitors around me and I'll know who it is in front and I'll know whether to trust them if they're going to swim straight or not. But if I'm not sure who they are, I'd still want to be sighting and looking at the buoys and making sure I'm going straight. But if I trust them, I'll usually just have my head down and just follow their feet. And occasionally, maybe every 30 strokes or so, just look up and check where I'm. Where I'm going. But it's definitely worth sighting if you can sight off the feet. That's what I'd normally be going for. You can, you can. Sorry, if you can sight. If you can draft off the feet. I was about to say you can draft off the feet. That's ideal. You can also draft off the hip, but I find it's a bit harder and you don't get as much pull. So I'd normally recommend going on the feet if you can.

That. That bubble, that bubble, look, you get under the water from the kick. That's a really good sign, isn't it, that you're in line with someone's feet. Talk about the bubbles.

Yeah, that's a great point. So you'll see bubbles from people's feet as you're swimming behind them and you don't have to look up in sight completely. Like we talked about you can just look forwards a bit, check where their bubbles are and just make sure you're sticking to those. And you'll also feel them on your hands as well. If you find you're whacking their feet, try not to. Sometimes it can't be avoided. But don't try and slow them down or annoy them because they're going to slow down or just get really paved off as a result. So try and avoid hitting their feet if you can and just feel for the bubbles with your hands, look forwards a bit if you need to and, and just follow those, those bubbles. And it goes against standard advice of look down and don't look forwards. But in open water swimming, some of these things you need to adjust and, and like we talked about, getting a little bit scrappier with your stroke and not trying to be perfect, but just trying to be effective in the open water.

It's a really opens a Pandora's box of of things that we want to talk about today in terms of open water swimming versus how you're training in the pool. I wondered if, if siding from the feet was a new technique I hadn't heard of, but I'm glad you clarified it. But yeah, I want to, I want to stay on this theme of kind of open water swimming and tackling this big task because it is something that we see a lot in our own athletes and we just see a lot in the general triathlon world that there is that fear there and the fear of the unknown and there's so many things to start thinking about exactly what you started saying, which is, you know, your form might change, you might have to be scrappy. There's all these things that are different to how you normally train in the water, but just as an overall kind of mindset around the open water. You come from a swimming and surfing background so you're very comfortable out there. I love taking it back to that almost basic principle that you started with of just go as small as necessary for you to start. So if that means swimming in knee deep or waist deep water to start with and that's, that's all you can do. 50 meters to be comfortable, that's a great starting point and then just gradually build from there. But what else do you think you could do to kind of understand the mindset around the open water and just not seeing it as this big, vast, scary kind of ocean, that can be really intimidating.

Yeah. One of the things that I've had a few athletes feel when they go to the open water is they look at it and go, I, if I'm 50 meters out to sea or in a lake, there's nothing, I can't touch the bottom. And so that means I'm just, I could be in trouble. I could sink straight down to the bottom. No one's going to find me and that's going to be the end of me. And it's a somewhat rational fear if you, if you don't have that experience, but you, you will, you can float, you will float out there. And so I think just getting comfortable being out there and knowing that, look, worst case scenario, especially if you've got a wetsuit on, you can just sort of lie on your back and look up and you might do a bit of a kick and a bit of a skull, but you'll be okay out there. So I think the, the fear a lot of people have is they'll be out there and they're just going to struggle and sink. So just, I've had a few swimmers. I said in your race, and these are quite new to open water swimming. I said, in your race, if you panic or you're not feeling comfortable, you can just roll over, go on your back, get your breath and then just keep going. And a few of them have done that and it's only taken them one or two races to be able to move on and go, okay, I'm actually fine. But sometimes you just need that safety net, especially in your first race or two. So I think that's one fear that people have. But you will float out there, especially with a wetsuit. A few other things is just getting comfortable in your surroundings. So you don't need to swim out and go to the pole and just keep swimming and doing 40 minutes non stop. Let's say you're at Elwood down in Melbourne and you want to swim out to the pole, swim out to the pole and then just duck down, go to the ground, see the bottom, see how deep it is and just get comfortable being out there. Because I think a large part of being comfortable in the water is just knowing that when you're relaxed, you swim better, you float better, and that you can be relaxed out there. And I see a similar thing with surfing brought that up before, where when people are out there and they're new, they're really panicked and they're tense and they're just trying to race and rush everything. And then the best surfers out there, they're so cool, calm and collected that they just make it easy to get onto the waves and they're just very, very relaxed with everything that they, that they do. So we want to try and take that into the open water and take that into our swimming where we can just be, be relaxed out there. And that doesn't just happen straight away, but it's something that we can develop over time.

So, Brenton, the key word there is natural fear. And I think that that's really important for people to understand is that it's not a small thing going out into the open water and potentially swimming a K or two out to sea. You are in a big, vast, open bit of ocean. It can be dark sometimes. If there's cloud cover overhead, it can make the water look very gloomy. So I just want to kind of stay on this and talk about some potential more techniques to tackle that natural fear. And I don't know, I personally, when I'm swimming or surfing, take a bit of a stoic approach and just go, well, it's out of my control. If there's anything happening out here, I can't really control it. So I just have to control what I control. Just try and keep myself relaxed and go about it that way.

Yeah.

What other mindset kind of tricks or tips do you have? Anyone trying to get through this very natural fear of the open water?

Yeah, it's great, great questions. So we talked about just building up and getting more comfortable and just pushing yourself each time. A story that comes to mind is another surfing related story. I was out surfing the other day and surfing at this peak and there was about five or six of us and there was this one other guy to the outside. And when there's a small group of you, everyone's kind of taking it in turn so that the person closest to the peak will take off and catch the wave and then the next person goes. So you're kind of just waiting in, in line, at least when there's a small group anyway. And there was this one surfer who was a little bit more timid, a bit more scared, and probably not just not, not confident enough to sit with the group and just work his way along the line. And he was missing out on all the waves. Cause it was only breaking in this one, this one spot. But if he'd been confident enough to sit with the group and just let everyone sort of take turns, he would have caught a heap of waves, a heap of really good waves. And I think. And the reason I tell that story is because I see a similar thing happen in the open water in triathlon where people are a bit too reserved A little bit too timid and so they just swim to the outside and they miss the feet, they miss the pack and the group. Now I get it if it's, if it's early days and you're just starting out, but once you've got some experience under your belt it is, you can just get so much, such an advantage out of being in the group and just having the confidence to say, you know what, I'm not going to be a victim today. I'm going to sit on someone's feet, I'm going to put myself amongst it. I might get knocked around a little bit, but that's just part of it. But no one is out there trying to swim over the top of you. You do get the odd idiot out there, but most people are pretty good about it. So if you have just got the confidence to just say, look, I'm going to be a part of it, then you're probably going to have a much better, better race. So I think that's, yeah, there's a similarity I saw between surfing and then in some open water swims as well. So it just takes the, I think that decision to be made sometimes self seeding in races.

What's, what's your opinion on where, where swimmers should start and, and go through? You know, someone who's really skilled as a, you know, should be at the pointy end. Someone who's an intermediate and someone who's a beginner. What's your advice categories?

I'd be curious to hear your opinion on this as well. I think like I'd say most people that I've given advice to with it, I'd say just seed yourself up a little bit from where you think you can, can be because we do find a lot of, often a lot of the slower swimmers, like I'd say mid pack swimmers will go at the very front and they're just like clear water. This is, I can have a good swim here and look, they've got every right to do that and you want to, you want to be able to use that to your advantage, I guess. So I think a lot of people can, can do pretty well by just seeding up a little bit from where they think they would, would generally be. You do get a bit more, more space if you do go further back. It just depends if you're comfortable swinging past people. It's all right. But I do find I've had some swimmers who have just gone a little bit too far back and they've just been swimming through people and having to, you know, just. Just deal with too many people. So I think just try and push yourself up a little bit from. From where you're comfortable. I'd be curious to see what you guys like to recommend to your athletes.

Yeah, that's good throwback. I definitely think you're better off being equal or being passed than. Than being the passer. I just think that's more. More disruptive. If you're continually running into the back of people, then I just think it's breaking up your rhythm. And if people are banging into you, going past you, I can cope with that because at least I'm not having to slow down. If you run straight in the back of someone, you're gonna have to look up and then deviate. So I'm a big believer in pushing at your level or fractionally above so that you're not gonna be that person who's in the way all the time. But definitely so you're not getting slowed down by having to change a stroke and look up. That's my. What do you think, Jordan? Yeah.

Yeah. Agree with both those sentiments. I think that's. That's the most logical and common sense way to do it, and it's also kind of handy. I would prefer to be, even if I'm being passed by better swimmers coming to T1, kind of being able to see where everyone is. Whereas I don't like, you know, going into T1. And I've started at the back, and then there's just chaos. Cause there's hundreds of people around, and you can't really tell who's part of your race or who's not. So I'm thinking about the rest of the race as well. And from that perspective, I think something to think about with racing as well is that everyone's in the same position, so everyone's experiencing the same conditions at the same time. And that actually is really comforting. We had a local race here over summer where just on one of the days, the conditions in the water were absolutely horrific. It was as choppy as you can get, and a lot of people were panicking, which is fair enough. You know, it was really, really rough conditions. But the good thing about a race is you're surrounded by a lot of people, which, again, is comforting because everyone's going through the same thing. There's a lot of lifeguards around. There's a lot of kayaks around. And so if you need to in a race, there's that option there just to kind of hang on. But do you remember that race dad, it was one of the 2XU series where it was just.

Yeah, I'd be interested to hear Brenton's advice on this because I had a couple of our athletes say to me, I don't want to race today. And that's how high their anxiety was. And I tried, I was actually in the race so I was trying to be the calming voice. And I had some anxiety as well because there was feeling come surf and there were points when, when I was warming up where I was on the bottom of a trough of a wave and, and then you know, you're about to lift your right arm out of the water and then the wave hits you and it's basically crushing your arm without you being able to get a stroke in. So. So, you know, these are the sort of things that I was trying to say to them before we started was, you know, expect that you're going to be thrown around a little bit and just try to relax as much as you can. And, and you know, that is the way you're going to. As Jordan said earlier, everybody's in the same position so everybody's got the same anxiety. It's just not you alone. What are your thoughts, Brenton?

Yeah, that a race that comes to mind. It was the Melbourne Ironman in. I'm going to get the year wrong, but I'd say It was like 2011 or 2012. I went down to watch a friend race and this was the year that it was. They halved the swim course because it was just this 60 kilometer an hour wind and it was, it was wild out there. It looked like a proper surf beach down in, in Frankston. And I was on the pier just going, oh my God, this is amazing. Seeing like a thousand people go in to these conditions where like as a, as a swimmer I'd be going for this is like it's gonna be a challenge. It'll be fun but it's gonna be a challenge out there. And I posted that video to, to YouTube the next day and like people from the race were saying just like I, I did 200 meters and got out like it was, it was um. And there's a few people who are actually cutting the course and rightly so everyone else was pretty pissed off about that. But so you're going to deal with these, these conditions if you're doing enough races and a few things that, that you may need to do to make it a bit easier on yourself is some like, I've had races where I've had to breathe every, every stroke A couple of times because you might miss your breath. You might. Cops cop some water. So it's like, okay, next stroke I'm going to turn to the right and then, then breathe and I might get it. So I might go like breathe left, right, left. So you're going to have to take a few more regular breaths if it's, if it's hard to take care. I also find it a bit easier, at least personally, and I find a few other swimmers have found it the same. You almost have like a more one sided approach and it's almost like split tempo in a way. So one stroke is going to be a bit longer, the other one's going to be a bit faster. So it's more just like, you know, left, right, left, right, left, right, rather than a really even one. So that way you can kind of bash through the waves a little bit easier and it's not pretty and just sort of really using your upper body to kind of throw yourself forwards a bit more. But they're some of the changes that you often have to make. And as you said, sometimes you're going to cop a wave and you won't even get your arm out of the water and you're okay, well, let's try that again. But yeah, look, if you can just get that, if you can get that experience out there, it can't. Like there's, there's swimmers out there, there's triathletes out there who look at that and go, this is going to be a lot of fun, you know, so you can have that, that mindset. It's just a matter of getting used to it and I think taking a different perspective on it because look, worst case, if you're experienced enough, worst case, look, stop, cough up the water that you've taken in and get your breath and just go again. No one is there saying, oh, that person stopped for five seconds, you know, what, what are they doing? No one's going to see you. And everyone's worried about themselves. So I think you can have a. It's the way you approach it, the way you think about it can really make a difference.

One last anecdote I do want to touch on. It's another surfing example, but the best surf in the world. John. John Florence. I was watching a video interview of him and they were filming him at his hometown, which is one of, if not the most dangerous surf break in the world, at Pipeline. And he was explaining his paddle out and it's a pretty tough paddle out. You've got to have A lot of experience to get out, you know, insane 6, 8, 10 plus foot waves dumping on your head with, you know, half a meter really shallow water dumping onto reef brake. It's, it's really extreme. And he was explaining to the camera in very casual terms. He said, well, I should paddle out there because that's the safest way out through the rip. But he said, but it's just a long paddle and I get really sick of it. So I kind of just like to go through here sometimes. And you go out there and he says, you just kind of cop a few waves on the head and then you kind of just suffer a little bit. And then you get out a lot quicker though, and you watch him and he paddles out to these monstrous waves just dumping on his head. And it's one of those ones where he's getting dumped, he's under for a while and he's coming up and sucking up for breath. Then he goes, another one. And he does that for five minutes and he gets out the back and he's so relaxed about it and he's just kind of. His attitude is, yeah, it hurts for a bit and I'm in a bad position and I get dumped on the head. I'm out of breath, but I get out there 20 minutes quicker than the long paddle out I'm supposed to do. And that really shifted my attitude about the ocean because it's like, if you can just relax and know that, oh, I'm getting absolutely dumped here and I'm getting pounded and it's not good, but I will get up and I will get some air. And granted, he's had a lot of experience, he grew up in these waves. But I think a lot of us can take that because most of the time we're surfing in worst case scenario, some choppy water. We're not out at a really dangerous wave like Pipeline. So that anecdote really helps me a lot. When you're panicking a little bit, you go, well, if John, John Florence can kind of get pounded on the head like that and choose to take that option, then I should be okay.

Yeah, I love that. And I heard a surf coach that I've learned quite a bit from, he says, whenever you're nervous out out there, make a fart noise. And his, his clients are like, what, what are you talking about? He goes, make a fart noise. It's, it's, it's impossible to be tense if you're making a fight noise. And so I think that's like, you could do that out in the, in the water. You know, you could do the, the same thing. And if I'm ever out there and you know, it's maybe it's kind of, kind of big and the waves going to just break in front of you. Like so if I'm out with a friend and we just, I'm just like, oh, look at this one. And like just sort of being, being silly out there and it's just like, oh, okay, it's, it's fine. So you can take a lot of that stuff into the, into the open water swimming, which is why I think we're talking about surfing, not the fact that we just probably think about it.

Every day on that point though. It's, you know, the next level of that is even breaking it down further. And I'm telling a lot of our athletes who have that high anxiety and especially in Iron man, it's a long, it's a long swim. You know, it's nearly 4K and even half Iron Man's almost 2K. Yeah, it's okay to swim 400 meter blocks and do breaststroke for five seconds. What's your, what's your thoughts on that?

Yeah, absolutely. And we mentioned this at the start of the podcast. Like if you need to just roll into your back, float, get your breath and go back like it's, it's kind of like in your half Ironman or your, so your half marathon or marathon in a, in an Ironman, do the, what people are doing, the walk run. It's like same thing. If you need to do that in your swim, go for it and you, your shoulders will get a bit of a rest. Or if you roll over and do some backstroke as well. Feel free to, feel free to do it. Especially in the early days if you've only been swimming for six months or 12 months. Yeah. You might not have the confidence or you feel like you have the strength or the fitness to just race the whole way. And it's probably going to be the case because it takes a while to learn this stuff. There's no quick fixes with, with anything. It all takes time to do it. So I think it's a, it's a good approach just to not put that pressure on yourself to have to race for 3.88 ks, especially for your, your first Ironman. And I've done one, one Ironman and I, I pushed the swim hard and too hard. I paid for that on the bike and the run. But yeah, I, I could have been smarter about it and gone a little bit Easier, and I should have, in hindsight, I. And so no matter sort of how much experience you've got in a particular sport or whatever it is, you're going to learn things along the way. So don't put too much pressure on yourself to get it all right, especially if you haven't.

I think it's a really good point you've just made. And, And I would put you in, in a triathlon in the elite category as a swimmer, compared to your biking and running. And you're trying to make. You're trying to make. You're trying to make the most out of your strength, which is your swimming. And so your obvious logical thought process is, well, my swimming is my strength, so I'm going to go for it. But it's not a swimming race, it's a triathlon. And one of the legs of the race is swimming. And even if you're really competent swimmer, you still need to treat the actual racing side of it with respect.

That's so true. Yeah, so true. And for me, there was ego involved in wanting to be the fastest swimmer there and stuff. There was partly that, too. But you. It's just so true. And I, in my lead up to the Ironman, I was swimming four to five times a week, which was way too much. I could have got away with two, and I could have done another three, two or three bike sessions, and that would have probably, I reckon, made me 20, 30 minutes faster in the bike had I put more time into it rather than maybe a minute or two faster in the swim. So, again, hindsight's. Hindsight's great. And I think at the time I probably knew it, but I was like, I don't care the swims what I enjoy, and that's what I'll do. So. But if I were to do it again, that's what I would change. And that's why it's helpful to have someone like, you know, like you guys who've got that experience. You can have an outside view and. Yeah. And just not. Not make those. Those mistakes.

I could see dad shaking his head just then when you said four or five swims. He's going, oh, no, it's far too much.

It's way too much. But it's what I enjoy.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. That's part. That's a whole part of the process and journey as well. And. And I know Dad's response to you would be, okay, well, what do you want to get out of this? What you want to enjoy? Or do you want to get the Best result, because that's often what the conversation is with the athlete. And it would have been an interesting discussion between you two, I think, because your answer might have been, no, I want to just win the swim.

But I love it now, Brett, I love now, Brenton, that you're saying I would have been 20 minutes quicker had I just spent, you know, two more sessions a week for 10 weeks instead of being one minute quicker.

Oh, yeah. So. So much so. Like, it was just. I was. Yeah, first. Aside from some of the pros, I was the first on the bike, and then it was just this steady stream of people cycling past me. And I had had Bevin McKinnon, who I knew because it was over in Taupo, and he made some comment as it was coming, like, up towards me, and I was like, who is that? And it was Bevin who was the first one there. And I was like, oh, man, this is gonna be a long ride. So, yeah, good. Good times.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's a good segue into kind of moving from the mindset of open water to the. To the technique and the skill set of open water. Because you mentioned again at the start of the podcast that open water swimming can be scrappy and it can't. It might not be pretty. It's definitely not as smooth sailing as you get in the pool. So what kind of technique differences can we expect and try and train for when we're thinking about the open water in terms of siding, in terms of form, what are the. What are the key differences we need to be aware of?

Yeah, good. Good question. If the. If where you're swimming in the open water, if it's like a lake and it's really still, your technique's pretty much the same. It doesn't really have to change compared to the pool. But if. If you do get some chop. So some of the things that. That I try and do and I try and get my athletes to do, I think the recovery tends to change a bit when you get a wetsuit on. There's some restriction through the shoulders, so we want to come over sometimes a bit higher, maybe a little bit wider, and sometimes a bit faster over the top. So it's a bit more of a carefree recovery and getting the hand, just get it in the water. Because if you are trying to come close to the body and have this really nice high elbow recovery with this perfect entry look, you're wasting time and you're going to get thrown around. So just get that hand and just get it over. So quite Often you'll see, you'll see like the hand will come a bit higher, higher than the elbow I should say, over the water. When you're swimming open water, so that's often a change there. And sometimes you're going to have to start the catch a little bit sooner as well. So rather than gliding out the front having these long strokes, sometimes you're going to have to just pretty quickly get into that catch just to keep that propulsion going and not have any dead spots in the stroke because otherwise you'll just again be throwing around, thrown around by the, the waves in the chop. You kick will sometimes change too. So depending on conditions, again you're, and you got a wetsuit on, you kick off and isn't doing too much. I like to kick. I'd have a fairly continuous kick. But if it's, if I have to have a wetsuit on and I'm swimming at 70 to sort of 80% the kick's not doing much at all. But when I pick it up it does, does come up a little bit more. And then like you're obviously going to sit higher with a wetsuit as well. So that way you can kind of get your stroke rate up a bit more. You don't have to worry as much about head position either. You've got that for you. And then we just really want to get used to those skills. So those open water skills of siding, of drafting and just being in a pack and so sometimes your recovery needs to be a little bit straighter so you're not whacking people. And we talked about some of these things at the start as well. But just getting those skills down and you can do that in the, in the pool for the most part if you don't have access to, to open water, which I know a lot of athletes don't until, until race day. So Eddie, I, I find, I think it's like the, the fifth stroke in a way. Those sort of open water skills and that change in stroke. And when I was, when I did my first open water race as a 13 year old, I was against my, a friend of mine. So we're in this team triathlon. We both did the swimming and my friend, I was faster than him in the pool. I beat him in every race and he got me by like three minutes in this open water swim over like a K and a half. And I was like, I was almost insulted. I'm like, what, what is this thing about I don't like open water swimming? It's, he shouldn't be beating me and, and someone mentioned, someone mentioned siding and drafting and as a 13 year old I had no idea what, what that was and I was just like, okay, that's, that's great. And then obviously as I start to do a bit more when I was 19, 20, figure out what that stuff is, but I had no idea what I was, what I was doing. So even if you are a strong swimmer, if you haven't got those skills, you, you're missing out on a lot. So if you're a, not a natural swimmer or you've only just started swimming, if you can have good skills and you can swim straight, you can have an advantage in a way over those pool swimmers who haven't got those, those skills. So it's important to, to develop them and just get used to being in the open water.

The black line on the pool keeps us straight and out in the ocean it doesn't exist. And how often should you be looking for that buoy up the road sort of thing? Is it something you should be doing every fifth stroke or 10th stroke or what's your go to?

Yeah, I think I'd normally change depending on how choppy it is basically. And if I think I'm keeping a good course, if it's quite choppy and it's hard to tell, I'll be every five to seven to nine strokes, like pretty regularly. And then if I feel like I'm taking a good course or I've got a pretty good sense of where people are in front of me, it might be 20 strokes. It could be, it could be 20 strokes or more. But typically I'm trying to cite every five to nine strokes if there's no one to follow and there's a bit of chop. So because if you think about, you know, I've looked at people's race things on Strava and it's like if you're something 10% extra in a, in an Ironman, well that's like, that's another 3.8, so 380 meters. So that's, that could be another, almost eight minutes on your time for, for a lot of people. So if you can swim straight, it is going to save you a lot of, a lot of time. So I think that takes almost top priority. Just swim, swim straight and sight, sight enough. And if you're doing that the sight and breathe method and we've got a YouTube video on that, if you look up, sight and breathe effortless swimming where you sight and then turn your head to the side, you can sight without really losing any speed, without changing your rhythm. We do a test in, in the lead up to summer where with the squad that I train with, we will do a set of eight or ten one hundreds every second. 100 that we do. I'll get them to site, I think three or four times in each 50 meter lap. And we're going fast for all these hundreds. They're on two minutes and the best swimmers will lose maybe half a second to a second when they're introducing that siding. So if you can get to that point where there's almost no time difference when you're siding regularly, then you're doing it really well and that's a good test to do. If you do a repeat set of hundreds every even one site three to four times each 50 and just see how much speed you lose and if it's more than, than a couple of seconds, then you might just want to work on that sighting technique.

Should you introduce more kick when you actually lift your head up? Brenton, do you think so that you keep some speed going? What are your thoughts?

Yeah, yeah, I think so. With, yeah, with that I find a few things that can sort of help you keep that speed is like lift the chest, use your hand out in front to help lift as well. So when it's reaching forwards going into the catch, you can just use that to help lift you up. And you will, yeah, you will sort of bring in the kick a bit more just to help you keep going a bit as well. I haven't, God makes me think like go. I need to think about what happens when I do that do that site. But yeah, the kick does come in that little bit more just to be able to keep you going and to help lift you up.

Shows how natural it is to you if you're doing it so unconsciously that you have to really try and reverse engineer and break down your own stroke. So I really like that concept of testing it in the pool because yeah, you don't really want to be, just be practicing one the one type of stroke in the pool and then never practice it and try and get in the ocean and do it. Would you recommend kind of practicing almost that, that scrappier form where you're, where you are bringing your hand out a little bit wider and hand higher than the elbow, which you wouldn't recommend as for a normal swimmer, would you recommend people actually train like that in the pool and kind of swim with the form that they plan to swim with in the open water or maybe do half half or just Introduce it every so often and also test that against, you know, their normal times.

Yeah, I think, I think it can be good to, to do at least a little bit of. And there's a girl that I work with in the lady that I work with in the States and she's been doing some faster 50s as part of her training. So in the States, they're leading up to race season now. And one thing that we've been trying to work on with her is just getting her stroke rate up a bit. So she was typically around, like, low 50s for her stroke rate. We're trying to get her up to the low, low 60s when she's racing. And by doing that, we've been doing some fast, some faster 50s with a bit of rest in between and even some fast hundreds, just getting her up to that stroke rate. And that's a good chance to be able to work on that scrappier type of technique as well. When you're kind of rating up, it's not going to be as pretty. Might be a bit more effort initially because you're in the pool and you don't have the wetsuit on. But I think that's a good way to, to do it. And if you, you know, and I think it can be good to even just wear the wetsuit in the pool few weeks leading up to it if you haven't had that chance to wear it, because otherwise it just, it feels pretty restrictive. And I know people who feel uncomfortable with it, you know, tight on their chest and they feel like they can't breathe just because they've either bought a new wetsuit and they haven't worn it until race day. Don't do that. Make sure you practice it. I've made that mistake with goggles, and I've put a new pair of goggles on and they didn't actually seal. And so for like two and a half K, I couldn't. I could only see out of one eye, and that wasn't, that wasn't comfortable. I came out and my eye was like, bright red. So just, yeah, practice, practice with the equipment that you're going to use in the lead up to the race. So is that something that you like your athletes to do, is to do some pool swimming with the wetsuit on if they can't get to the open water?

If there's, you know, some people are training all through winter to go to Kona, for example, there's just no way anybody in the southern hemisphere can swim in the open water. Unless you live in. You Know, north of the Queensland border sort of thing. So, so yeah, their only choice is to throw the wetsuit on now and then to get the feel of what it's going to be like. I just want to go further on that, that the stroke cadence, lifting the stroke rate from, from a, from a 50 to a 60 to a possibly 70. Where what do you do in the stroke? Do you, do you under the water? Swim, swim shorter with the reach and then pull through faster? Can you break down for the listeners where you, how do you get that cadence to go faster?

So it gets a little bit faster all around but we're at where it does go faster overall the recovery can be a bit quicker. So that's got no real impact on your, your hold for the water because if you try and just go faster by pulling harder and faster, that's where you'll, you'll slip. So we want to try and hold the water as, as best as possible still. So I think a bit faster in the recovery and enter assertively so you're speeding up there. And then you'll typically start the catch a bit sooner as well. So you won't take as long to reach forwards out in front. You're going to start that a bit earlier and you'll generally put a little bit more, when you pick up the pace, you'll put a little bit more pressure on the water a little bit earlier as well. So that's where that, that increase in rating can, can come in. And the best swimmers in the world, they can almost hold the same stroke count and increase the rate without much change in their actual stroke stroke count. Now that's not going to happen for 95% of people. That's what the best swimmers in the world can do. So we don't want to go from taking say 40 strokes in a 50, 50 meter lap up to 60 strokes. We don't want to just go go crazy with it. But it will, it will certainly step up and increase as you do increase the, the rating. So expect that to happen. But we don't want it to be night and day between like your 70 effort and then to your like 80 to 85% sort of race effort. So yeah, sorry, a bit faster than the recovery and just starting to catch a little bit sooner. But there's two things that I find can help with that. One is there's a fit, there's a certain fitness to it to be able to hold that rating and you're not going to be doing a whole session at that kind of rating. So start small, maybe do 25s 50s, just repeat it, getting used to it. But there's a certain aspect of fitness to that. And then the other one is just build it up gradually. Don't go, I mean don't even go from like 50 to 65 or anything like that. Just if you step it up one or two strokes per week and you maybe use a tempo trainer or use some form goggles, you can do it fairly comfortably if you just gradually work it up because it doesn't feel like too much. And a set that I heard from a guy that was coaching Lionel Sanders for a while in the swim, it's. I can't remember it exactly but basically he, he gets a tempo trainer and he has them do 4, 4 50s on, on the minute or the minute 30 at 90 strokes per minute, which is super quick and it's very hard to hold it and it's. And he says don't even worry about holding the water, you just, you're just going to turn the arms over really quick. So 450s on the minute at 90 and then I think they do four one hundreds with about 20 or 30 seconds rest and they step it down to 70 or 75 strokes a minute. So it's like go way above where it's like this is ridiculously fast. And then when you go down to 70 or 75 it's like oh, it's not too bad. I can actually hold that. So I think kind of going way above and below it's a good thing in many aspects of the stroke as well. It's just that exaggeration because then it just doesn't makes that 70 feel pretty comfortable.

That's a great example. Do you have any specific open water drills that people could think about to actually try on the pool?

So if you're with a group, we've talked about doing some pack swimming if you can. So try and go three across or two across and get nice and cozy with each other, get on each other's feet, just get comfortable with the group and you'll learn a lot about yourself and what you're thinking when that happens because that can be a bit unnerving for people. But get comfortable being close to others. We talked about the siding as well, which is pretty easy to practice there if not. Many races are a dead start out in the water so it's not really something you have to practice too often. But if I think to Ironman Taupo that was an in water start. So just practicing staying stationary. So you're you're horizontal in the water, you're sculling, your feet are kicking lightly but you're staying still and then gig starting from there. So if, if that, if your race is going to be like that, it can be good just to, to practice that a little bit as well. They're probably the, the main ones that we'd, we'd look to practice.

So last time we touched on kind of the concept of what's the optimal total volume of swimming because we do find the discussion interesting around, you know, Olympic athletes, potentially athletes training for 100 meters or a 200 meter event doing crazy volume of swimming. And it's just this culture of swimming, which is really interesting. Whereas you would never see a 100 or 200 meter sprinter in athletics doing the same sort of mileage, you know, 60, 80, 100 kilometer running weeks as a middle distance runner. For triathletes, it's a little bit different because most of the events are endurance events. So you do need that volume. And we just had Emma Jeffcoat of the podcast recently. She's swimming is her strength, so she obviously loves it. Plus she's coming back from rehab, so she's doing a lot of swimming, but she's swimming 20 to 25k a week, five sessions, potentially 4 to 5k each. So really high volume. So what do you think is the optimal volume for a triathlete? And we do want to break this down next, but if we're thinking about a half ironman or ironman triathlete, what do you think is the optimal volume to be trying to, to get into?

Yeah.

Really get them comfortable in the water.

Yeah, it depends how many times they're they're training and, and their level of experience. But let's say they got a little bit of experience under their, their belt. Like if you can get in, if you can get in three times a week, I think that that's a lot more than two. So you know, three times a week would kind of be the minimum. Yeah. Ideally want to have someone in the water and depending on where they're at and how long it takes them and all of that, like trying to get, if you can get like aim for about 3k a session, that's kind of a good number for I think for most people as a general rule. So if you can get in that like, you know, 8 to 10k a week, that's pretty reasonable and that'll take you a long way. But it just depends on the individual and just making sure you're doing the, the Right. Type of training as well and not, not overdoing it because I do see some swimmers, it's just all their training is, is one speed and it's good for that. You know, aerobic development, that's, that's great. But just doing everything at the 1, 1 speed, you just don't develop your gears to be able to go faster, to be able to back off. You're not really developing your skills. And I see it probably a bit with swimmers who are training in a, in a squad. Sometimes they're just comfortable sitting third or fourth in the lane and they're just on feet. And you don't really have to change your pace too much because you can just go along with the, with the group. So I see that happening a bit with squad, with squad swimmers. So, yeah, just doing some sets where you are changing your pace and actually making sure you're on top of that as well. Just being aware of whether it's on your Garmin or your form goggles or you're looking at the clock, just actually knowing what pace you're doing. Because if you're going to these training sessions, you're like, Yeah, I did 3K today, but I couldn't tell you what pace I did at any point and I couldn't tell you where I changed the effort. Yeah, you just, like, you're spending the time, but you're not really doing enough quality work there. So, yeah, I'd say depending on the person, 8 to 10k is pretty good for most people.

That's a really great answer. And look, a lot of people with their busy lifestyle and family and work, you know, they're going to have to choose how many bike sessions, how many run sessions and how many swim sessions. And obviously we talked earlier about your experience and, and the more time you spend on the sessions that are probably going to give you the most value in terms of improving your time is where probably most coaches like we do, we would, we would ask our athletes to swim at least twice a week, which for some of them, they're not even getting up to 4 or 5k a week. And if they can do a third session, we're really encouraging that, but almost not at the expense of maybe another bike or run session. So it's a really hard one for the athlete to hear advice and say, oh, I should be doing this. And then we get a running expert on and they say, oh, no, you should spend more time running. So I get that. And it's really good that you can actually say that you'll do okay with two swims, but you'll do much better with three. And that's really good advice for a triathlete. I think one of the things I wanted to dig deep on a little bit further was if you're doing those two or three sessions, which is, you know, in swimming in the swimming world, that's not a lot of swimming. So I think the listeners need to understand that that's, that's the bare minimum really, because we're talking to triathletes here and, and there will be some open water swimmers who would get some value out of, out of this podcast as well. But, but we're really concentrating on what value we can find for the average swimmer. And so the question is in that three, three sessions, what are your thoughts on the time spent swimming fast in those sessions as compared to the endurance work? So you know how we've got a polarized system where it's 20% of your time should be spent at high intensity and 80% should be spent almost at endurance. What are your thoughts from a swimming point of view?

Yeah, so on your first point, it's so individual and especially someone working full time and they might have kids, it's like, and you haven't got a whole lot of time outside of that to be able to squeeze in your training. So whatever coach is recommending to get the most out of it, like, go with, go with that. Because look, look, I swim three times a week and I've got, I'm not riding, I'm, I'm doing a little bit of running, but I've got, you know, and even then it's like sometimes I only get two, two sessions in and I haven't got all those other sports to train for. So just fit whatever you can in. And in terms of. Yeah, what the effort, the volume, that sort of thing should, should be. I, like if I was doing three sessions a week, I, I think two, like two sessions at kind of just like, you know, just under thresholds, really, really good. So more like it's a, it's aerobic, but that sort of top end aerobic for a decent part of it can be, can be really good. And that way you're swimming if you're using CSS pace or thinking like, yeah, like sort of threshold pace, you're swimming like just kind of just, just below it. And you might obviously do a little bit of that where it's a bit slower than that as well. But like those two sort of base sessions are really good for working on that swim Swim fitness because it's, it is a different sort of fitness to the run and the ride. Obviously. Look aerobically. Yeah, that's, that's the same. But your shoulders that like it takes time to build up the, the strength and develop the muscles and even like develop the blood flow to get used to going to those areas. Because is when you look at the Tour de France cyclists, it's like they got massive legs and it's because of all those years and all that, you know, all that development of the legs and like you've got these very efficient pathways in terms of like where, where the blood goes. It's the same thing with swimming where you've got to work that for your, for your upper body and that comes with, with time. And I think doing just two sort of good base sessions there is, is really important. And then for a third one, I think it's good to do some, some faster work. Whether it's 25s or 50s or even hundreds. One of the sessions I do with my group and they're more, they're more open water swimmers and a couple of triathletes, but we do on a Friday, call it a heart rate session, but repeat hundreds on two minutes where we're going at what we call best average, which is just as fast as you can hold across the set. So in total we might do anywhere from 10 to at 20 when we're sort of peak, you know, peak season 10 to 2100s on two minutes. There's often some recovery in between. But like we're going, we're going hard for those and it's, it's really hard work, but it's just really good I think for developing the speed. And yeah, it's like, it's, and that's a session that you take a while to recover from as well. But that's kind of that 20%, you know, more high intensity and a little bit of that can, can really go a long way for a lot of swimmers or triathletes.

It's, it sounds like a, you know, you know that I like the title of it, like a heart rate session. You know, it's a really value session for swimmers. But again it's, it's. Where do you weigh it into a week? Because as you're saying it's, it's something that takes a while to recover from and if you're trying to swim and then you've got a hard bike session or a hard run session the day before, the day after, you've really got to Factor that into, okay, how's this going to affect that? And that's what the nature of triathlon, you know, it's, you're trying to do three sports all at once and that's what the race is. So you do have to get used to it. But when you, we're thinking about this heart rate style training, or you'd almost equate what you're saying to VO2 work. Again, I'm always fascinated in how swimming has just always been different to running and cycling. But a lot of these sessions and a lot of the way they're generally structured is hundreds off, the minute 30 or something, or the minute 50 or the two minutes. And for a lot of swimmers that means they end up getting 10 or 15 seconds rest in between their hundreds. Which is the goal is that continuous swimming with really short break. But we would never get an athlete to do a two minute effort or a one minute effort on the bike or running and only have 10 or 15 seconds rest. VO2 work. We're really trying to match that rest to at least a one to one ratio, sometimes more. Sometimes you do a minute on and two minutes off when you're really trying to get that super high intensity working. So what are your thoughts on that? Can that be applied to swimming? And can you, I know it's pretty rare, but can you do some sessions where you go 100 meters hard and then really have one or two minutes rest to fully recover and do 10 repeats like that?

Yeah, a lot of the, a lot of the competitive swimmers will do, will do stuff like that, especially the sprinters like the 50, the 100 meter swimmers, even the 200 meter swimmers will, will do that. And I think most, most average person, they're not comfortable waiting at the wall for, for two minutes. They're going, I'm just wasting my time here. You know, what am I, what am I doing? And, and I know the feeling, you know, I want to go to the pool and have a really good, good workout and get the distance in. But there is a, there's a lot of value to those sorts of sessions where you are going almost as hard as you can and then just taking the, the rest. And I know a lot of, a lot of competitive swimmers at the elite end, they'll do whether it's like 50s or hundreds, but like a max effort 50. And they might do 10 of those on like three minutes or four minutes. Like you're only getting what, 500 meters done in half an hour, but after five or six of those, you'll find that your feelings really heavy and it's a good workout. So that stuff can I think, work really well because if you get like there's not many people who actually give themselves enough rest to be able to go full tilt for a couple of 50s or even 25s, like we just, we're not taking enough rest. But that sort of top end speed you, when you're swimming that fast, you kind of get the feel for what your body needs to do and what you need to do to be efficient in the water. Because anything that's slowing you down, that's going to be multiplied, you're going to really feel it when you're going at that top end speed. So I think it helps you just learn what you need to do with your body to be able to be efficient in the water and then that sort of stuff as well. It can be actually good for your aerobic development as well, those sorts of sessions. So I think it's good to, especially for people just to try see how you respond to it and only have to do 500 meters in half an hour and you can still have a good workout rather than maybe 1 1/2 or 2K. So take it as a win.

I was just going to say on that type of training with the intensity. As a runner and a bike rider and a swimmer, we're trying to get the best value across the whole sport of triathlon. So our philosophy is that we try to get as much high intensity on the bike because it's less impacting when we try to get our runners to run really hard, short, high intensity efforts. The risk factor is massive for injury and I'm actually really trying to get a lot of our swimmers to do a lot of VO2 swimming in their training because I want their cardiovascular system to be put under pressure. And probably not from a swimming point of view, but from a training point of view. The body doesn't care whether it's doing a hard, high intensity session, whether you're breathing hard because you're swimming hard or because you've run up a flight of stairs or because you're on the bike. It just knows that it's worked hard. And if you can do that and not have the impact on your legs. What are your thoughts on that philosophy? That I'm really trying to push? And we find that our runners absolutely can run well as long as their body's been able to absorb a load over a period of time where they're not actually running too fast, but they're training really hard on the bike and they're really huffing and puffing in the water from these VO2 type sets. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I think it's great because like you mentioned, it just doesn't have that impact on your body and provided your shoulders are strong and you're sort of fine with. You're fine technically where you're not. It doesn't cause you pain. You can go all out and get your heart rate pretty close to max in, in 50 meters. If you're doing those 50 repeats or 100 repeats, it's. And it's something that you can just do forever. So I think it's a great, it's a great approach. And I look back at the squad that I, that I've been sort of swimming with and setting some sessions over the last couple of years and we've started to do that a little bit on the Friday and then Wednesdays we do, we do sprints often with a, with a reasonable amount of rest in between. And when we've done those sessions where we're happy taking a bit more rest and having, you know, just not. It's not a huge session but we're having some very high intensity efforts of 25s or 50s like the whole squad swum really well when it comes to racing. So I think it's a really good thing to do. But it just takes a different mindset, I think and just knowing like having the athlete trust you know what you're doing and trust that they're still going to get a benefit from it even though they're resting at the wall for maybe as long as they are swimming. So it's about that education and is that something that you found with your. It's that education process just getting them comfortable not swimming for half an hour straight?

I would, I would say yeah, it's, it's almost like a, a game of convincing where you. And this is. And right. So you know, an athlete needs to believe that what they're doing is the best thing for them. But it's, it's really trying to convince an athlete of why they should be doing what they're doing and where the benefit is. And that's where for us a lot of what we're pushing is this swim stroke kind of analysis, especially with you and really spending time on that and not being afraid to spend time on that, even though it might be taking away from the potential volume of training. And that's where this game is, isn't it? It's kind of this balance of, well, you need to be doing enough endurance so that you fit enough in the water, but you don't want to just be swimming for 5, 8 to 10k a week with really poor technique and practicing poor technique, because that's just not serving you. So you also want to be making sure you're spending the time doing some stroke analysis. But we also want some VO2 working in there. But we don't want the VO2 work if it's with really poor technique again. So it's kind of this balance of getting all these things right, isn't it?

Yeah, it's this seesaw that we've kind of got to. Got a balance there. And that's the, that's the feedback that I get from so many triathletes about the swim compared to the bike and run, as, you know, it's just, you can put the work in on the bike and run, you can get those results. But the swim is so frustrating for them because it's just they're not getting fast. If they're necessarily. Even if they're doing the same type of training, you know, they're still putting the work in because their technique can, can hold them back. But if you just focus on technique and then you're not doing any of the aerobic work or VO2 max work, you're going to be limited with that as well. So you need both of them. And I think they're like, they're kind of equally as important as the other in, in swimming.

That's great because that leads to the next question, and can you, can you put a rough percentage on, in your opinion, for a triathlete who's only able to swim two, maybe three times a week? What ratio would you put on a training session between percentage of time spent practicing your drills and your swim technique as compared to the actual fitness part of the session?

Yeah, good. Good question. It's. So if you're, let's say you're not in, you're not in season, you haven't got a race coming up in the next next three months. For some triathletes I've, I've recommended, let's say that they've just finished their season, they're ready to just sort of just keep fit over off season. Go for like, it's okay to spend two months or three months where you're focused primarily on your technique, but that wouldn't mean doing 80% of your session as drills. I think just, just dabble some, some drills into your training, into your warmup and then maybe you just do some slower swimming where you're just focused on your technique. But when it comes to getting closer to the, the, to the season, I'm a big proponent. I say this all the time when I'm running clinics is just do 2 to 400 meters of some drills or drill swim, work in your warmup and just touch on those things that you know you need to work on and use some specific drills and then just keep those things top of mind when you're swimming because you don't need a lot. It's about the frequency, it's not about the volume of, of drills. So if we want to change technique, it's, it's muscle memory you've developed over time. And you don't change your muscle memory by going and doing three hours straight of drills. You change it just over time, over several weeks and by doing. Yeah, a little bit at a, at a time there. So I, I think just a small section in the, in the warm up tends to work pretty well. And I mean I've seen that with a lot of your athletes. I know in your planning structure of workouts you'd put like branch and drills, I think, and you know, just whichever ones are maybe prescribed from, from a clinic and, and that can work, work really well, especially if those drills are relevant to, to the person. And I think people who haven't, let's say they haven't done an analysis or they are, maybe they've been a swimmer as a kid and they've just been told to do, do drills, but there's no real purpose behind it. They don't know why they're doing it. Like, there's no. I can see why people get frustrated with, with drills, but as you know, from like having, having done the clinic and being coaches yourself, like, you know that when, when you've got a purpose behind a drill and it's like, okay, we're using this drill to work on your rotation and your head position. So if you have them in this correct position and you're doing this drill, that can translate really nicely into your swim. So when you've got that, that purpose behind it, it makes it so much easier to, to do the drills. Whereas if it's just go and do sidekick, what for? And they don't know what they're working on, it's like, well, it's not going to help with anything. So I think there needs to be a lot of education around the purpose of drills and why they're doing it to get that Buy in and get that belief that it's actually going to make a difference.

It's such a brilliant answer and I think that's why we love your work so much. And if anyone hasn't checked out Brendan's work, this is a great time to plug him and say that. Yeah, that's what makes your drills and your videos online so good, is that you give those reasons behind and it gives you triathletes real purpose as to why they should improve. I'm going to start to wrap it up here and I do want to kind of finish on a bit of a tough question to answer. And we've kind of asked you this before, but can you take us through potentially three of the most common swim stroke improvements in terms of what people could work on? And everyone's different and everyone needs to work on different things, but just generally, what are the three most common things someone could just work on straight away and start monitoring themselves to get improvement?

Yeah, good. Good question. I think back to the clinics I ran yesterday, and it's pretty common among all the clinics that I've run. There's some really common things that tend to come up. And as common as this is, it's like head position and how you hold your body. So many people think they've got the right head position, but they don't. And it's that proprioception where we think we're doing the right thing. But when you actually look at it on the camera, the camera doesn't lie. So most people tend to look too far forwards. So we need to make sure we're looking 0 to 45 degrees, so maybe 1 to 2 meters in front. And just make sure you're keeping your neck long so you're not getting all these wrinkles in the back of your neck. And we don't want your chin to come too far forwards. So there's either. Either that or when people go to breathe, they tend to lift, like, look forwards and then turn their head and it puts them in this funny position when they're breathing. So that head position and breathing positions are a really common one. And when I think of developing the stroke, it's like building a house. You've got to start with the foundation, then you get the frame and the roof. And I haven't built a house before, but that's as far as I can get to. But with some. Yeah, so you're not going to start with the roof. And it's the same in swimming. You start with the body and the head. You get that, right, that's 80% of your body right there. So if you can just hold that correctly, then that's a great place to start. Second thing, with a lot of triathletes, I'd say rotation. Most, most triathletes are over rotating. They're really twisting their body. They're going to 90 degrees side to side. The alternative of that is people who are just swimming too flat, which is quite common as well. So just trying to dial in the rotation where you're going 30 to 40 degrees side to side. I like the thought of rocking side to side rather than rolling. And that way you can just, you can get a lot of power from that rotation if you do it correctly. But if you go too far and most people go too far when they take a breath, then you're going to probably splay your legs. You won't get much of a catch and you're going to be pushing down on the water. So the right rotation is probably the second one and then the third one, I'd say probably, just probably. Talking about the catch in the pool, we want to make the right shapes and I know we talked about that a bit on the last, the last one. But some things that often help there is in the catch. So the first movement where you finish reaching forwards out the front and you're moving your fingers down, use that as the setup phase. You don't need to power yourself forwards in the very beginning. So just in this, in the catch, use that as a setup and then you can accelerate through and put a bit more power into it. It's like if a car's just standing still and then they put the foot down, they're going to spin the wheels. And it's the same thing when you're swimming. If you go for broke straight away, you're going to slip and you're not going to have that traction. So just gradually build into it and it's so much easier in terms of effort to be able to just gradually build into it. I had a swimmer yesterday at a clinic who was, he was, he was going from a zero to a 10 straight away and he was gassed out after 25 meters. And then when he went from a, like a 3 to a 7 out of 10, he, his heart rate just came right down and he was so much more, more relaxed. So you just don't need to force things too much in swimming. You've got to stay relaxed to go fast. And even the elite sprinters, like the 50 meter sprinters, listen to something like Caleb Dressel, who in the last couple of years has been the best sprinter in the world, he just talks about staying as relaxed as you can, and he talks about watching videos of cheetahs when they're running, and he's looking at their paws and their. And their arms and their body, and they're so relaxed as they do it. So he try. And he tries to bring that into his swimming to stay relaxed. So I think that's a really good way to think about it.

It's absolutely a brilliant answer. Dad, is there any last question or topic you want to touch on before we finish?

Swimming is one of those unique sports that is so relatable to the skill and as you mentioned before, Brenton, where as a cyclist you can train really hard and get the improvements regardless of technique. As a runner, if you run a lot, you can actually improve. As a swimmer, you can swim to your heart's content and with poor technique, you'll stay the same. And that's one of the things that we've loved about working with you, is enabling our athletes who are really struggling in the water. And I don't think there's anybody that I've ever coached who's absolutely happy with their swim, their swim technique. And so we're always striving to get the best swim technique we can. And that's the beauty of what you're doing. And I don't hide away from the fact that I really want to promote your business to everybody in the world, because it's the one thing that will. Will help you become a better swimmer. And we've done your clinics, and we send all our athletes to your clinics all over Australia, all over the world. And the things that we know that you do well is you videotape our athletes, you point out three things that they can work on, and you give them an analysis, a video analysis of what the things they're doing wrong. They can see that clearly, as you said before, there's a purpose behind it then. And you give them the appropriate swim drill to do, because most swimmers will go, they know they've got a bad technique, they don't know what's wrong with it, and they don't know what drills to do. And this is almost like the complete answer. And for those of you out there listening to this podcast and are unsure about where to go next, this is where you should be. And as you will explain to us, you can do this just by sending a video to your business. And you don't have to go to a clinic. You can actually do it online. Just run us through that process.

Yeah, thanks Jared. I appreciate that a lot. And I love working with your athletes. They like come open minded and just willing to take on what I'm, what I'm talking about at the clinic. So I appreciate the kind words and, and for the athletes that you send to the, to the clinics and for the online video analysis. And so yeah, the two sort of ways you can, I guess I can work with, with people is we've got our clinics around Australia, in most of the capital cities and, and then I've got the online stroke analysis as well. So if you've got the ability to take your own footage, if you have a GoPro, that's, that's great. You can get underwater footage or even if it's just with a phone, some phones are waterproof but I, I don't trust some of them to go underwater. But if you can get that footage from the front and side views, then I can see pretty well what's, what's going on in the stroke. And I've had some of your athletes send videos through online either. Yeah, through the, through the Skillist app that we, that we use. And then, and I'll have a look at that video, I'll analyze it and just break it down and take people through what's going on, what they're doing well and then more importantly, what would be two to three things that's actually going to move the needle with their speed and their efficiency. And I'll give them particular drills to do to work on each of those things and more often than not I'll ask them to spend 2, 3, 4 weeks on one thing and then move on to the, to the next thing. Because I don't know about you, but I can't think about three things at once. One's hard enough, so just take it step by step. And yeah, that's how I work with a lot of people. And when I first started coaching, because I started coaching online a long time ago, probably, I don't know, 10 years, I'd say maybe eight years ago, I was doing online analysis and I thought, I don't know if this is going to work because surely it can only be done face to face and in person. But there's actually a benefit to doing it online because I'll provide the analysis, I'll say this is what I want you to do. And then there's no pressure of a coach looking over them or anything like that. They can just do it in their own time. They're relaxed and it's like, all right, I'm going to try this. And then often they'll send another video and it actually works really well. I was quite surprised by that when I first started doing it because I was just kind of rolling the dice. But it can work really well, just like remote coaching. But I think everyone's used to it now and you can get even better results in many cases with it.

It's so much more flexible to people's lifestyles as well. You know, you don't have to turn up to a certain squad session. That's a big limiter with squad training, is that, well, if you can't make that session, you can't join in, whereas, you know, people can. And especially we look at training pieces as an example, you can actually analyze the session better online than you can in person because it's such a waste of time for the coach and athlete, for the coach to stand next to you watching a session, you know, when you can just look at all the data, post the session and get way more out of it. So that's a great way to finish. Thanks again for coming on. We always love these episodes with you. And I did want to ask for the people not in Australia. You are doing some clinics around the world, is that correct?

Yeah, doing camps overseas. So we've got our Maldives camps in September, which I think we've got a spot open up, but they're sort of fully booked. But I intend to run those going forwards because they're unreal. And then we'll. We'll likely have a Thailand camp as well in October at Tanyapura there. So I haven't released that yet, but that should be coming up. And then perhaps even a Galapagos trip in May next year. So all chances to do underwater filming and analysis. But yeah, if you're overseas, this Thailand camp in October, we haven't opened it up yet, so that I think we'll have 15 to 20 athletes there. And I'll be there doing heaps of underwater filming and analysis. So if you can get to that, I'd love to have you there because we've run those camps for a couple of years and you can get so much out of it. Just that two sessions a day, heaps of feedback. And it's just nice being in the warmth as I sit here in the cold Melbourne winter.

So follow Brenton on all effortless swimming social media channels, whether it's Instagram or YouTube. And I think sign up to your mail list. That's where you'd probably announce it as well, right?

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me on. It's always a pleasure to be on your podcast. And, and I love the dynamic of you both on the podcast and as I said, love working with you guys and your athletes. So thank you.

Appreciate it. Brenton, thanks very much for coming on Cheers. Thanks everyone for listening, and we'll see you on the next episode.

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