Fix Your Swim Stroke Now with Brenton Ford

This podcast is brought to you by Trivelo 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 Trivalo Coaching, Jared Donnelly. Today on the podcast, we have a recurring guest that we've had a few times, a very good friend of Trivelo now, and that is Brenton Ford from Effortless Swimming. Brenton and Effortless Swimming are world leaders in swimming coaching online. Got one of the biggest swimming coaching channels on YouTube and, and as a business, they actually have access to such a vast range of swimmers, age group swimmers, pro swimmers, elite swimmers, that they have experienced and seen how to improve their swimming technique and swimming times. And for that reason, it's why we absolutely love Brenton, why we love having him on the podcast and getting his advice on the best things that he's seeing, that what can help improve you the fastest and the really the best bang for your buck in terms of swim changes and technique changes. So another great chat with Brenton, Dad. We always enjoy it.

Yeah, he's a fantastic coach and I'm learning so much from him. And all the listeners and those who have been through his clinics from the Trivalo point of view, are doing better than they ever have. And he gives us again some nuggets. We really hone in on some really key aspects of drills and technique and, you know, really important things that the listeners should be implementing into their swimming training and, and it's full of it. So I'm, I'm really excited to hear what he, the nuggets that he imparts on everybody in this episode. So it was, you know, it's really one worth. If you want to improve your swimming, this is something you should be listening to.

Absolutely. Without further ado, here is Brenton Ford from Effortless Swimming. Brenton, welcome back to the podcast for think a third time. Now, you've been a very busy man over summer, now that COVID lockdowns have finally ended, you've been doing a lot of clinics, you've been seeing a lot of people and you get the chance to see a wide range of athletes. So we want to know straight off the bat, especially recently, over this whole summer of doing a lot of clinics, what are the common patterns that you're seeing at clinic and what are the common things that you're seeing that people could really learn to improve on straight away, just from what you observe?

Yeah, it's fairly similar that it's Been the last couple of years. But what I normally find is it's not a matter of effort for a lot of triathletes. A lot of them are putting in the effort in the pool as long as they're in the water a couple times a week. It's more just a matter of there's some technical things there that are holding them back. And I think one of the first ones that I see, one of the most common ones is the timing of it, is the ability to just be a little bit patient out the front with the arms as they're reaching forwards. So many people are just used to spinning, the, spinning their arms over and starting to catch really soon. So I think having that, that trust in yourself to give yourself a little bit of time in the, in the reach phase so that you've always got something in, in front of you. And I know for triathletes they're not looking to have this long Ian Thorpe sort of stroke necessarily, but too many of them are just dropping straight down. So they just never make the most of that most efficient position when the arms out in front. So I'd often start there is just looking to try and get front quadrant, meaning always having something, something out in front. I mean, you guys probably see that a bit too, don't you, when you. Even if you go to the pool and watch a few people swimming, it's a pretty common one.

Why is that necessarily a problem, not being front dominant and having something out there all the time?

It's a problem because it throws off the timing. Because if you' already moved your arm down and you've completed your catch early, then it's not very well connected with the rest of your body. So normally your hips and your shoulders will still be on the side and the arms already completed the catch. And so there's no connection from your arm to your body. And in swimming, I mean, in everything we've got to be connected and a big part of that is the timing. So if you can take that little bit of time reaching forwards out in front, then it gives you that little bit more time to then start rotating your body back into the other direction. So by the time your arms in that, in that catch position, which is where you start to really apply more force and power, well then it's going to be connected up with your, with your actual body. Because if you're just pulling through and it's not connected to your body well, it's just kind of wasted, wasted effort. So that's why you can see Someone swimming so quickly and making it look so easy, it's because their timing of the stroke is very good.

One of the things that I've noticed in a lot of the video analysis is if you can see the difference between a really good pro swimmer and just an average. An average guy or girl who's in the water really trying to improve is if you slow the footage down, there's sections where there's nothing in front of their head. There's no actual arm in front of the head, so they're actually up, you know, half a second where you're leading with your head. Is that something that's common that you see in the video analysis?

Yeah, we've got groups like, we keep it to six people per clinic, and there's times where four or five of those people will not be in the front quadrant at a certain point in their. In their stroke. So it's a really. It's a really common one. So, like a good trigger word or cue for that, I think can be fingers to the front. So when you enter, just think, okay, I want to get my fingers to the front, pointing to the front of the pool before you start moving your arm, arm down. And it's good to go back and forth, like, do too much glide, too much catch up, and then do no glide whatsoever and then just find that sweet spot in between. I think it's really good to be able to contrast the too much of it, too little of it, and then find that sweet spot. But oftentimes people don't allow themselves to experiment enough with those things or maybe make mistakes and go too far one way and just give yourself permission to do that, it's a good way to. To find that balance.

What would be the gold standard? Because when you, like you're saying when you look at the pros and how easy it looks because of their timing, it doesn't look like they're hanging out there at all. They're basically hitting and then bang, they're straight back. And their stroke rate looks quite high. But for the average punter, you try that and you're kind of thrashing around a bit or you're gliding too long and you're actually going a little bit too far. So. So how do you actually get to that sweet spot and how are the pros doing it and making it look so easy?

Yeah, there's. It's different for each person. And to be fair, not all elite swimmers are front quadrant every stroke. Like, if you look at Gregorio Palchiniri, who won the 1500 at 2016 Olympics. He's not front quadrant, he's just off it on one side, but the other side he's got really good timing. Now, you wouldn't necessarily want to train, to train that in someone or teach that in someone, but there are certainly exceptions there. But most of those good swimmers are front quadrant, even if it is just a little bit. So you can have a stroke rate of 90 strokes a minute, which for those listening, that's quick. It's really quick. And you can still be in that front quadrant. So it's quite a small amount of time spent reaching forwards. But it's. Yeah, it doesn't look like much, but it's just got to be enough, really. That's all we're sort of looking for.

The timing question that you raised, that is the key, isn't it, really? It's all about getting things in the right order and spending enough time and not too much time with each sector of the stroke. And we're trying to be really analytical here and not too analytical that we're confusing the people listening. But the timing is one of the key things that's going to improve your speed, isn't it?

Yeah. I think one of the ideas we brought up last time on the call was that slow to fast, for most people, they probably come into swimming, they don't sort of know the idea of your movements being should be slow to fast. And for a lot of people, that can be the thing that will help them get to that next level. So when you reach forwards, you go through your catch that should be a little bit slower than you are at the back, because once you've gone through your catch, well, then you should accelerate through the stroke a bit and finish a bit quicker out there at the back. Again, not too much, but a little bit of that slow to fast. And that's when you actually get this really good hold of the water if you're just gradually accelerating through. And I've had swimmers that I work with just online with our stroke analysis and sometimes they finish really slow out the back and like they slow down and there's just no momentum generated, there's no propulsion really generated there. But as soon as they make that change to accelerate through, they're like, oh, my God. Okay, I get it. Like they could have perfect shapes and technique and movements in the water, but if they're not actually accelerating through, well, they're not going to, they're not going to feel much from it.

Oh, is that the same principle in terms of that when you're thinking about slow to fast where you want to. Like you were saying before with trying to over glide for a little bit before you come back to that sweet spot is the same thing. Try and go really quite slow and then really quite fast to exaggerate that slow to fast approach and then practice getting that sweet spot. Is that what you recommend?

Yeah, it's, yeah, play around with it and it's, it's quite, yeah, it's quite minimal. The, the difference in, in speed as you go through it and you don't want to have like sometimes like we talk about the power phase in swimming is really, it's like once you've finished your catch and you're kind of moving your hands under the, under the shoulders, that's when you see this peak in, in force. So sometimes people will just try and like really just force that so like they'll muscle their way through that part. But good swimming isn't, isn't overly, you're not overexerting yourself at any point through the stroke. So. But it is good to just like practice that and then it can help you find that, that middle ground.

It's really obvious when you see a 40 kilogram young 12 year old swimmer with no strength and muscle absolutely get the timing right and there's a guy who's next in the line, just got all the muscles that he, you know, the beach muscles. But, but it's all to do with the timing and the technique, isn't it, that you just can't brutalize the stroke. And it's proven with the fact that you kids have no developed muscle like an adult yet they can swim so fast.

I get quite a few people who, they'll come to a clinic because they're frustrated that they're not getting quicker and they might be really fit but they've, they're getting lapped by someone who's either like very overweight at the pool, got a big beer gut, or young kids who are, you know, half their, half their size. It's that, it's that frustration of like, I know that I'm fitter, I'm stronger than the next person, but why am I going as fast? And it's just, yeah, it's all about technique and that efficiency of, of movement. And when you watch someone do anything, well, whether it's running or riding or swimming or surfing, like the movements are very, there's not a lot of movement going on. It's, everything's quite, yeah, it's very subtle. It's very, very Efficient, so very fluid. It's a matter of, yeah, doing. It's a matter of doing less, sometimes less, less movements. And so, yeah, just, just trying to work towards that rather than trying to come over really fast, rip really hard. It's like, no, just quieten it down and it might actually be a bit easier and faster.

So at risk of you repeating the same core principles that you talk about very often and if you want to know the core principles that the most common things people need to fix, you can go check out Brendan's five Day Catch challenge. We highly recommend it. But what other, what other things are you seeing as common patterns? Because you could almost say that most triathletes are doing a bunch of the same thing wrongs. You're not, you're not going to many athletes that are outliers where there'll be some athletes where they're doing something quite specific or quite unique to them, but majority of us are doing the same thing. So what else is there to look for in terms of common patterns that are really going to help create some big changes?

I've been looking a bit into the breath timing lately. I've been doing a bit of work with a guy, Brandt Best, who was, he coached James Magnuson to two world titles in the 50, 100 freestyle a couple of years ago. And so I was talking with him and he's worked with elite swimmers for a number of years and he's sort of heavily into the swim scene and one of the things that he said he always looks for is breath timing. So start to look at that a bit and it comes up quite a bit actually with a lot of triathletes. So breath timing, as in many people will breathe too late in freestyle. And too late basically means that if you're going through your catch, if you finish your catch on one arm, let's say it's your right arm and you're breathing to the left. If your head's still out of the water and it's not back down by the time you're in that catch, your breath timing is probably too late. So if you go through any footage of good swimmers in slow motion, you'll see their head is pretty much back down after a breath by the time they've finished their catch or just past it. Because if your head's still off to the side at that point, while your hips and your shoulders are probably off to the side and you're not going to get that connection from your catch to your, your body because there's this disconnect through that, through that chain. So I've been looking at that quite a bit. So a good way to think of when you should get the breath is pull yourself into the breath. So if you breathe into the left hand side, as your left hand is pulling through and it's coming underneath your shoulder, that's when you want to start to turn your head. And that way you can get your mouth out of the water. By the time your hand is still finishing that stroke out the back, then you've got enough time to get the breath and bring it back down with that. With that catch arm. So to keep it simple, you basically want to try and get your head back down by the time you finish your catch. And not a whole lot of swimmers do that. And you can actually, if you, if you go through footage someone swimming slow motion, you kind of see like, yeah, you can see that point where they're disconnected and if their head's soft to the side, it's not until they get their head back down where you see this, like, nice drive and connection through the water. And often for many people, it's only like 15, 20 centimeters out the back because that timing is off quite a bit. So I think that breath timing's a really good one to start with. So pull yourself into the breath is quite a good cue to use if you're not sure whether or not you're turning your head at the right time.

And that raises another issue on exactly the timing of the breathing is if you're in the open water, you're still having to sight and timing that sight every so often and getting the head in the right position so that you're not ending up with your head out of the water for an incredibly long period of time, every 10 strokes.

Yeah, the site, it's really interesting. I was working with a guy who qualified for World champs, just gone, and he said, oh, look, my swim times have come down, it's going really well. But my open water times, they're just, they've stagnated. It's a pretty, pretty common one, like where you'll get. You might get the results in the pool, but it doesn't translate to open water. And one of the first things that we look at there is, well, how's your siding? Like, are you slowing yourself down because of how you sight? And there's a lot of triathletes that are just lifting their head up for a few strokes and then bringing it back down. They're not using the sight and breathe method, which I think is Just, it's just so much easier and it keeps the rhythm of your stroke where you don't have to break your rhythm. You don't need to swim for several strokes with your head up. It's just a quick look forwards, kind of like crocodile eyes. And then on the next stroke you turn to the side and breathe and just look up sight and breathe. Effortless swimming. There's a video on YouTube if you're wondering what that is, if you're listening. And that can just be so much easier. And that might save you 5 seconds per 100, might even be more if, if your sightings are a struggle. And it's so easy to practice that stuff in the pool. You can just throw in one or two sites every 50 meters. If you, if you do need to practice it leading, leading up to a race. But it's one of the things that, yeah, many people I, I think don't know what they do with their sighting. They just look forwards. But yeah, if you can change it to sight and breathe, at least most of the time it's, it's just such an easier way to go about it.

If you're coaching just a triathlon group, would you put that into the program? Okay, we're going to do 10 by 50 and we're going to sight breathe at 25. If it's a 50 meter pool obviously, but, or maybe at 12, at 25 and at whatever the next 34 or whatever the next section is. Would you do that in the program?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Especially leading up to race season. You might do it a little bit in, you can do it whenever obviously, but definitely eight to ten weeks leading into the start of the season would be a good time to start practicing it like that. And some, some pack swimming, just replicate the stuff in the open water which is, you know, is difficult to do when most squads probably aren't doing any open water sessions. But just if you can replicate that stuff in your, in your pool session, even wearing a wetsuit to get used to that at the start of the season, it's, it's just so beneficial because open water can feel like a different sport sometimes to, to swimming in the pool. So if you can just get used to it as best you can, it's, yeah, it's, it's very useful. And have you, what have you seen with the, with your athletes with that kind of thing? Are you adding in some siding and some open water stuff?

We, this is something we've spoken about and we, we really wanted to know from you because we haven't put specific sighting drills in really any of our programming. But I was saying to dad, the fact is that all of your racing is siding, so should we not be actually doing siding as part of our natural stroke every single training session, not just doing it in the lead up to the race? You know, should every single one of our pool swims, should we just be practicing our stroke with siding? Because I personally notice that my stroke changes once I start siding out in the open water. So what's the point of practicing my stroke one way in the pool, then doing something different out in the open water? So I'd love to know your thoughts on that and whether it's something that you should just be doing all the time.

Yeah.

I think there's two sides of it. One is it's good to. Can be good to practice every session, but you. You probably don't want to be practicing it throughout the whole session, because I. I think a part of it is when you're not siding, it's easier just to get into the rhythm and flow of things and, and work on that, that fitness and endurance and. And swim strength. But it's a good skill to be. Pardon me, be able to. Yeah, to. To do at least, you know, maybe you do a little bit in the. In the warmup, even for if it's half your sessions, just to get used to it. And I know when I take time out of the open water, which has been a bit over the last few years, it's like it takes a little while to get used to it again. So I think it's a good one to include at least for some of your session every now and then.

So, on the breathing topic, and I'm really glad we're talking about this, One thing that I feel like myself and other athletes you struggle to translate with is when you're doing breathing drills, for example, or stroke drills where you're using a snorkel, again, you're really practicing good technique with the snorkel, but then once you take the snorkel away and add the breath back in, the technique goes out of the way. So how do you get this balance of, you know, doing the drills, which we know are so effective, using the snorkel and then managing to keep your stroke the same once that goes away?

Yeah, it's. In our clinics, we use fins and snorkel for the majority of it. And so often people are swimming really well. They're feeling really good at the end of those drills, and then as soon as they take the fins off, they take the snorkel off. It's like, okay, I'm sort of back to where I was. So it certainly takes time to be able to transfer those skills across. But they are really good tools to use because obviously the snorkel takes out the breathing. So you can just focus on what your arms are doing, you can focus on your head and your body position and so just kind of. And we recommend doing drills primarily in your warm up. Just starting to maybe wean off. It's over the course of a few weeks or a few months. So maybe you do half your drills with some equipment on, maybe half of it without. So just start to take the equipment away. But I think it's also good just for most people to practice the correct breathing, as in turn to the side, don't lift your head up too high. So just breathing to the side rather than lifting too high, looking behind them and being able to do that quite quickly rather than lingering off to the side with the head, which is a fairly common one. So a drill I've given quite a few swimmers recently just to help get used to that is kicking with fins on, holding a kickboard in one arm with one arm and having your other arm by the side and you just kick face down in the water and then you turn to the side and breathe. And you try and do that quite quickly and just get used to that sort of breathing because if you can get it fairly fast, you feel comfortable with it, then it's going to be much easier to do when you swim. Whereas for many people it's kind of like a big gasp of air or it's a big turn of the head. Just like make it, make it look like you're hardly, you're hardly even turning to breathe. Like someone would hardly recognize that you're. You're getting it. And then it's going to be much easier in your, in your swim stroke.

We're definitely in agreeance with all of you said what you've said so far. Just can you just talk to the listeners a little bit about the importance of the drills? And I feel as a coach that I'm getting kind of some resistance about it and not seeing the value in. And I do have a lot of swimmers who've come from squad swimming as a junior who were doing lots of drills in their training. And the common comment I get is, oh, I don't want to do drills. I've done that my whole life. You know, I just want to swim. I just want to get fitter. In the pool. But you know, we've had many, many examples of people who've watched your videos and put those video into practice in their, in their sessions, and they have improved incredibly. So can you just talk to our listeners about where you think the drill sits in the scheme of your swim program?

Well, I coached a masters squad for eight years while I was sort of starting effortless swimming. And most of those master swimmers were, had come from a competitive swimming background. Many of them were pretty good as juniors, as teenagers. And, and I got a fair bit of pushback from, from them as well. So. And probably I get it less so from triathletes or people who are new to, new to swimming. And I think it's partly because they're just like they did drills as part of their squad. There was no explanation of how to do them properly, why they're important and what they're actually focusing on. So to them it's just like, well, it's, it's like what's the point of doing that if, if there's no actual reason reasoning behind it? So the first thing that people need to get clear on is how do I actually do the drill properly? And there can be quite a bit even to a simple drill like sidekick. You know, most people do sidekick wrong. And so if there's an explanation of, okay, what do I need to do to do it right and what's the purpose behind it and why does that actually relate to something that I'm trying to improve? Well then you'll get a lot more buy in, I think to it. So yeah, it's just a lack of understanding in many cases. And I think it doesn't need to be a lot because to change habits. And there's a great book which you may have read, Atomic Habits, which talks about how you can basically, if you're looking at a goal that you want to achieve in 12 months, rather than trying to break that down into, okay, well, in 12 months I want to get 10 seconds faster. So in six months I need to be five seconds faster. Well, no, if you break it just down into what are the actual things that I need to do on a daily or weekly basis to get there, then that's a much better way of thinking about it. And so a good thing to do instead of just like thinking I need to get five seconds faster in six months is okay, if I need, I need to improve my technique in some way. So I need to do a couple of drills just in my warmup each session. And it's that Frequency that'll get me there, not the time spent doing drills. So three hours of drills isn't as good as like five minutes of drills three times a week. It's that frequency that'll actually change those, those habits for people. So yeah, it doesn't need to be a whole lot. And I think sometimes people are burnt out on drills because they've done so much for so long. Whereas, yeah, it doesn't need to be a huge amount of them.

We know that you're a big advocate for it because you have such a wealthy library worth of drills which you've graciously, you know, partnered with us and allowed our Tribalo athletes to use, which has made a massive difference. And I guess, dad, you really want to get the point, the point across that you are absolutely not saying that everything has to be draw focused and that it has to be a boring swim session in that regard, but you want to get the point across and I guess you'd want to see if Brenton agreed that you need to be spending adequate time. That's a really brilliant point as well as adequate frequency. That's what you're trying to say, right, dad?

Exactly. And I think Brenton's answered it. And you know, if it's good enough for guys who are, who are winning events to do drills, then you know, the majority of us are not in that standard and therefore it's, it's, it's so much more important that we do that if it's, you know, if it's good enough for Olympic champions to do drills. Well, the everyday swimmer should be doing drills.

And I find people often get to that point where they've worked, they've trained, they've worked as hard as they can in the pool, they've got their fitness up and then they hit that block where it's like, okay, now it's my technique that's holding me up. And so that's the point where then there might be more of a buy in with the drills. But why not just avoid that and work on your technique as you're going because you're going to be at the pool anyway. And if you include it as part of your warmup while you're not really, it's not additional time that you're having to spend, it's just it can be part of the warm up where rather than 850s of swim, it might be 8 50s of 25 drill, 25 swim. So it's nothing necessarily extra that you've got to do. It's just a Part of what you're doing and it's unlikely that it's going to work against you, unlikely it's going to make you slower. So why not give it a shot?

That's a really good point that you've made is you know you can get as fit as you like in the pool and in the open water swimming, but if you leave your technique as it is, you're going to stay the same almost, aren't you? You're probably not going to progress unless you do something more about your technique because unlike riding and running, there is a small percentage of technique in those sports. But swimming, it's a skill acquisition which needs to be learnt and incorrect practice will only reinforce the same speed. Get your fitness level to a point and then you need to change something about your technique to actually allow you to go faster. And if you don't do that, like we talked about last time, as a golfer who goes and practices eight hours on the driving range and he's got a massive hook, if he doesn't actually change the swing to get rid of the hook, he's going to keep hooking on his match days. That's kind of frustrating to see that people don't grasp that concept, that great to be fit in the water, but you won't go faster unless you change something about the way you're swimming to allow you to actually be faster.

And, and you'll hear it more from the elite level swimmers, like your Olympic swimmers. You'll hear it more from them about technique. They're always thinking about it and they're just looking for 0.1 of a percent change. And there's a good video from Caleb Dressel recently who's the fastest 1500 freestyle in the world at the moment. And he's just, he's so attuned and so switched on to how his stroke is feeling and he's just trying to find ways to, to improve his technique. And that's in a, in an event that lasts 21 seconds. Like it's just, for him, it's just so important. And yeah, and, and like people think, you know, you can just swim fast and you're always going to be like that, but these guys are just even more dialed into that, that stuff. Not, not less than, than your average person.

Water biomechanics, I mean, is, I mean, what's the, what's the word? It's not, it's not aerodynamics in the.

Water, but what's the hydrodynamics?

Hydrodynamics maybe. And that it's so complex. You know, you think about how complex aerodynamics is on the bike and how much testing goes into it. And. And Brenton, we were talking about surfing off air, which we both love. And in that sport, there is just so much going into shapes of boards and shapes of fins and how that affects the water. And the resistance against the water is so complex because especially out in the open, open water, the water's always changing. And so you can see how important this is to try and get that right and why the professional swim is obviously in a. In a pool environment, it's a bit more controlled, but they are looking for those minute changes that can give them that 0.1 or 0.2, because through the water, every single movement that you're doing will either increase that fluidity that you have or decrease it and create more resistance. And what you always speak about, more drag and drag, and you've really got to pay attention to that because you're either making it harder for yourself or easier for yourself.

They did. There's a coaching organization in the States called the Race Club, which is run by a guy called Gary Hall Senior, and he's ex Olympian and I think Olympic coach. And they did this test where they've got a machine that will basically pull you along and they can also measure the drag that's created at the same time. They did this test where they had a swimmer go into streamlined position with their toes pointed. So just your traditional classic streamline off the wall. They tested that. Then they did the same thing and they got the swimmer to point their toes to the bottom of the pool. So, like, if you had really stiff ankles, terrible ankle flexibility, that's how you'd probably be kicking. And they found that there was 41% more drag, more frontal drag created from just the feet or the toes pointing down, nothing else. And it's like, that is. That's a huge amount more. More drag from just the toes pointed down. So you can see there how just these minute changes can really start to. To make a difference, particularly if it is reducing drag, which is kind of the first thing we want to. Want to look at before we move on to the propulsive part, which is the catch in the pool.

So on that note, something I'd love to get your thoughts on is when you go to the pool, it is. You can see the difference in buoyancy between swimmers and the. Whoever's on top of the water is just. It's just flying along and the people that are sinking a little bit and creating more Drag. And it's often the. The more muscular men compared to the potentially lighter children, or even people with more body fat, tend to be more buoyant. And that's the case with wetsuits as well. So how can you fix that buoyancy and how can you get yourself higher in the water?

There's certainly a difference between people. Where some people are naturally they'll sink more. So there's no denying that there's a difference there. And I mean, even myself, I've got heavy legs in the water. I can't get myself to float in the water where everything's up at the surface. But it's not a reason why, it's not an excuses to why you can't swim faster. There's ways kind of around it. So I think the first thing is how you hold your body. If there's no tautness through the body, then you're just going to sink. And the other flip side of that too is when you're relaxed, you actually float better, whereas if you're really tense, well, then you going to sink like a rock. So first of all, you've got to relax. If you've got that natural fear or panic when you're in the water, then we'd probably want to start there so you can relax. But then once you are relaxed, we need to add this little bit of tautness through the body. So that's keeping your chain from your head all the way down to your toes, somewhat taut and rigid in a way where it's not like this wet noodle going through there. And so we talk about this as tall and proud posture. Brace your core like someone was going to hit you lightly, you'd switch that on. And you also sort of need to squeeze your butt cheeks together a little bit. So engage your glutes slightly and that way you've got this tautness through here. Whereas then when you're lying face down in the water, you can put a little bit of downwards pressure through your chest, because your lungs are where your buoyancy is. So you can apply a little bit of downwards pressure there to push down. And that's going to help bring the, the back half up. And it's a very fine line between going too much and not enough. Kind of like the other stuff that we've talked about, there's that sweet spot, but that's how most people can find that, that balance. So a good way to perhaps start with that would be just a front kick drill with both arms out in front of you, so hands are directly out in front. You got a snorkel on, no fins, and just kick really lightly and play around with those couple of things and see if you can get your head, hips and heels at the surface. Playing around with those, those couple of things. And if you can get that there, well, then you can start to implement that into your, your actual swim stroke and maintain that balance.

Should. You're talking about this buoyancy factor and the. There's a really good point. You said your head, hips and ankles sort of trying to be out of the. Out of under, underneath the water. Is there any point where your head should be submerged? Is it an advantage to get your head not on an angle, but in the same line as you're talking about the tautness, but to get that head lower, is that going to help with bringing your feet up or is that not actually happening?

Yeah, to a certain point. I think too many people think that the only way to get my legs up is it's all about head position. So I've seen people burying their heads underneath where like 10cm below the surface of the water and they're swimming almost underwater and it's really hard to get a breath from under the water. So as long as you've got your head in the right position and you'll see most good swimmers have actually got just the top part of their head actually out of the water and they're looking either straight down, but usually just slightly forwards. For most people, that's. That's more comfortable, that's. That's easy. So as long as you've got that there, then, you know, more times it comes down to the stuff that I've just, just mentioned. So head position certainly plays a part and many people do look too far forwards with their, their chin forwards, but if they've got it, got it right, then it's probably, probably something else. So. But you don't. Yeah, you don't want to swim with your head completely submerged because it's just. You've either got to lift up really high to kind of breathe or you've got to turn really far to breathe. So I've seen some coaches talk about get your head all the way under, but it's just. I find it quite awkward for most people and you don't really see that.

At the top level when we're talking about the, the technical side of swimming. And I want to relate this a little bit to the fitness side. So there's no denying, no one's disputing, you need to be fit in the water. If you're a triathlete or if you're just an endurance racing swimmer, you just need to have really good fitness. No different to a runner or a bike rider. But what we're really asking here is in the training sessions, should you be combining both the endurance and the speed work at when you're possibly going to swim with poorer technique as you get tired? Say you're doing sets of 4 by 500 meters and after 200 meters of every 500, your stroke goes back to its old stroke because you're not fit enough to hold the stroke. Are you better off whilst you're learning the new techniques for your stroke, just doing shorter intervals all the time so you can hold the correct form? What's your thoughts on that?

Yeah, there's, there's an argument for both of shorter versus longer and I think, you know, most people are going to do, do both somewhere along the, along the line. And I think it's when you're changing your technique, you'll usually break down a little bit earlier and you won't be able to maintain it throughout the whole session. So those short intervals can be really good to, to hold form. And whether it's 25s or 50s or hundreds, just taking that five or 10 seconds rest after each one gives you that reset and that pause to then go, okay, yep, I can give my muscles a bit of a rest and then I can go again and I can maintain that new technique or better technique. So I think it's a really good approach as you're changing your, your technique there. It's also good, I think to get to that point where you've like you're breaking, you're starting to break down, you're starting to break down and maybe you're, you hit that point and it gets a little bit messy. But you don't want to be training that too much. You don't like, you don't want to just be doing that for half a session because well obviously it's training, training bad form and yeah, you're better off just taking a bit of a rest and then then starting again. So like I'm a big fan of, of both and I'm a like I think for many people some longer intervals can be great, especially if they're doing half full distance. Ironman it's really important. But that said, if it's just getting sloppy and they're practicing the wrong thing, well maybe you're better off actually just shortening it. And you, I mean you do get a bit of resistance from people who maybe haven't grown up around the pool. They don't know what a, what a good swim set looks like. Whereas, you know, it is okay to do hundreds and two hundreds rather than just like a straight 1000 for your whole session. It's actually preferred to, to break it up. So I mean I'm sure you've, yeah, you' that with people and just educating them on what a typical swimmer would do. It's very rarely much more than a 200 or a 400 for most of them.

Something we like to think about and try and manipulate is the rest times though, because obviously the shorter rest periods that you can have in between, the more potential fitness gain you're forced to create. But at the same time you don't want the rest to be so short that you're actually not recovering properly and therefore your technique is continuing to be sloppy. So what are your thoughts on optimal rest periods for especially if you're starting to do long intervals like hundreds, two hundreds, four up to 400, 500.

Yeah, it depends on the, on the effort that you're, that you're, you're putting in, in the type of set that you're, you're looking to do. But yeah, like for when we are doing a more aerobic based set, those rest intervals are reasonably short. It might be like five or ten seconds for a hundred, might be 15 to 20 seconds for a, for a 200 and maybe 20 to 30 for like a, for a 400. But again, just depends on the, the effort that you're, that you're doing and what you're trying to get out of the, get out of the set. But I think most people seem to, I'd say most triathletes don't like resting too much because they're thinking, their thought is I'm losing my fitness, I'm going to lose the gain from this set. So just from my experience, I think think they can give themselves more rest than what they're giving themselves. Just. Yeah, from what I've seen. What do you guys find there?

Yeah, look, I agree with what you're saying there. And just so the listeners are clear, if you're swimming at a lower intensity then what you're saying, Brenton, is that the rest should be short. But if you start to swim with, we're asking you to swim at threshold or faster than threshold, then you need to give yourself more rest and 5 or 10 seconds over 400, if you're doing 4 by 4 hundreds, you're not going to Be adequately. If you're asked to swim at race pace, you're going to be struggling to repeat the efforts you need, you know, 30 to, to a minute. Would you agree with that?

Yeah, yeah, that's right. And I mean, I was talking to. Who was it? Dave Tilbury Davis, who's a tri coach. He was. He, I think he got this. I can't remember which coach he got it from, but he was saying like a good test set is 7, I think 71 hundreds with like race effort with 5 seconds rest in between. And he said like most people will blow up around three or four, maybe five one hundreds and if you can sustain that for seven at race pace, well that's like, that's a, a good sign that you're, you're really fit. And so that's only 771 hundreds with a short amount of rest. So yes, I think, yeah, most people, they, they need that, they need that more, more rest than less, especially if they're putting the effort in and yeah, just go. Most people aren't. They think they're just losing that fitness gain as a result of just staying at the wall. But yeah, you've got to let that heart rate come down, especially if you're doing any sorts of sprints or above race effort stuff.

And if you took the principle and related it back to cycling or running, for example, you wouldn't do some big cycling or running efforts and give yourself such a short break that the rest of the efforts becomes too sloppy. It's just not, it's just not the case. Whereas it can. And this brings me to kind of the next point. It can happen in swimming a lot. And in swimming there seems to be this culture of just more volume is better and more grinding is better and more time in the pool is better. And it's just how can I get maximum amount of volume? What are your thoughts on that? And you touched on frequency before with, you know, you need. The more frequently you can practice drills, especially with techniques, the better it's going to be rather than more time in one session. So what are your thoughts on frequency of actually swimming and total volume throughout the week and this culture of really trying to do more.

Yeah, there's always a balance between the two sessions. Minimum three for most people. I've just seen people who have gone from two sessions a week up to three. They've seen a big difference. And then four can be great as well. It just depends on how much time the person's got. But minimum three is what I'd suggest For most people. And you will see a difference if you're coming from two and yeah, just the, the volume. Like I mean even, even not so much now, but I certainly, a couple years ago I had in my head, you know, if I'm not doing at least 3k or 4k, and for some people it might even be like 5k, it's like if I'm not doing that well, I'm wasting my time. But there's just so much that can go into a swim session rather than just the distance. That's a small component of an actual swim session. And the distance that you do isn't. It doesn't dictate what you've actually got from that, that session. It's just, it's a small component of it. So I think there's part of that is good and some people will definitely improve by doing more, but I think better quality is the way to go, especially for a sport that's so technically important. Important is swimming where yeah, the quality of your session will actually make a bigger difference than just getting more, more volume done. So yeah, that's kind of my view on it.

I find it a little bit ironic that like exactly what you just said, that with a sport that's so focused on technique, you would assume that quality of session is more important. Yet the sports culture, and I'm not hating on swimming here, I just find it so fascinating that the sports culture is so much about quantity when the performance basis of the sport is about quality. I just find that really ironic.

There's a swimmer, Michael Andrew, and he's a U.S. olympian. He's, since he was about 12 or 13, he's done this thing called USRPT, which is ultra short race pace training. It's developed by, I can't remember his name, he developed by a coach and he kind of wrote out the protocols for it. And it's basically like you do a little bit of warm up but then your session is like it's 25s more maybe maximum 50s. And they're essentially all at race pace with a reasonable amount of rest in between. And he's done this since he was 12 or 13, I think, and he's probably 20 now. And so there was this whole question around is like, is this just how's this going to work? Especially compared to the, the volume base of most, most programs. It kind of went against the grain where it's like much shorter sessions and there's, but there's no like just junk miles or anything. It's all just race pace and he's like, he's one of the best swimmers that the US has got at the moment. And it's a case for doing something completely different. And I think most programs are now sort of going a mix of the two. Some of this ultra short stuff and still doing the distance and depends on the thing you're training for. But yeah, I think it's, it's, it's, it's interesting to see someone do something completely different yet still yield the same, if not better results and less injuries and all that sort of stuff too.

We talked about that so many times off air about far out. If someone who could just be a world leader in performance do something different and then you watch everybody follow because that we've, we've seen that with, you know, the classic example is the Norwegians. What they're doing in triathlon at the moment is just, you know, it's leading the world in a different way of.

Training and, and, and, and what's, what's that like? How are they doing it differently?

Yeah, it's, it's a tough one to summarize, but in short, they are definitely paying more respect to lactate levels and staying out of the middle chunk, gray area that we call it. And they're doing a lot more in zone two and then a lot more at race, race intensity and above. So they're staying out of that middle area where we would just, you know, everyday cyclists and runners and I'm not sure about this swimming program, but most of the time they're actually either doing a specific intensity session or they're trying to build their aerobic capacity and they're keeping their, by taking their blood lactate, they are making sure that they're not going in, sneaking above it. Would that be a good summary, Jordan?

Yeah, and they're really, the way I see it, or trying to summarize it, is they're optimizing their body so scientifically and structurally for the race that they're training for. So by the time they're getting into their kind of race ready phase, all their sessions are at their race pace. Not all their sessions, but their sessions are at the race pace or just at just under that, under that kind of threshold zone. And they are, yeah, really heavily lactate testing to make sure that they can handle that pace and their lactate is not going through the roof. And that allows them to be really confident on race day that they can hit these zones confidently, knowing they're not going to blow up. And they, they're even Lactate testing in the pool, which is crazy. They're finishing a rep, getting up out of the water and he's pricking their ear and it's pretty wild and, and they're doing something else in the pool with like a, some sort of biomechanical measure which is just, again, just pretty revolutionary. But they're just doing all these things that are so, so science based. They've got this whole team of sports scientists that are leading the way with every session and it's so different to what most of the sports used to, which is just, you know, training hard and training consistently and it's a bit more vague in the instructions. That's what we find so fascinating about it.

Is there an easy way to do lactate testing for the average person or is it not that easy to do in training?

There's no point measuring your lactate unless you've got a proper test to base it off. And to do that you do need the help of a sports scientist or someone to make sure that the test is valid, make sure that you've done it properly, make sure the results are recorded properly, and then interpreting that data is really important as well. So making sure you're interpreting that correctly, once you've got all that, that you could definitely get your own lactate measure. You can buy home kits and do it yourself at home. But once again, they're, they're relevant for only really specific sessions and not everyone is doing those sessions in their block. So if you're doing a hard VO2 max session, you don't even worry about lactate because you're just going as hard as you can. But what the Norwegians are doing, they're doing so many of these sessions where they're for running, for example, they're doing, you know, three by 30 minute efforts and they have to keep their lactate at a certain level for those, those 30 minute run or ride efforts. And so that's where the difference is.

Yeah. So if you've got, if you got a load of money and lots of people around you, you could get the sports scientists in to help you with your training.

The point that we're alluding to is that if someone has a breakthrough success and you know, Christian Bloemfeld won the Olympic medal at the triathlon, and two weeks ago he's just gone out and won the world championships at Ironman. So he's not only Olympic level, which is a completely different race to an Ironman under the same training, and, and they're setting a standard with with a slightly varied training method. And that's what we're trying to say here is, you know, we've forever, you know, for people who are swimming at Olympic level for 50s, for hundreds, for two hundreds, they're doing, as you just said before, 5K in the morning, 5K in the afternoon, seven days a week possibly, you know, and here we are. You've just given us an example of someone who's not doing that and getting similar success, which is a really great to see and, you know, there should be more of it.

Yeah, no, I think a big, a big sort of reason why I like the part of the USRP stuff is that it's. For many of the kids growing up swimming, they don't enjoy the long, the long kilometers. Some of them love it. Like I loved it as a kid, I loved the longer stuff, but I was an anomaly. I think maybe, you know, nine out of 10 kids probably just hate going up and down the pool. Whereas this, this shorter stuff, they're getting times every 25. It's very specific. They know what time they need to do. They can see whether or not they're hitting those goals and it's not boring for them. So I think it's a good thing to keep kids in the sport. And then you've, you'll, you know, if you've got more kids in the sport, then you'll hopefully see more success down the, down the line for, for the sport, but also just more world records and that sort of thing. So, yeah, I think it's, it's great to see people doing things things differently and, and that's a good example of it. Even Emma McKean at the Olympics, she had an amazing Olympics. She ended up reducing her swim sessions from like eight down to four or five. And instead of swim eight swim sessions, she was doing more gym work and she just was, she was so strong, she was so fit and she was just on fire and it worked incredibly well for her. And you know, she's getting, getting a little bit older and for her it was just. She needed that strength but she didn't need the swimming as much. And so it's. Yeah, it's good to Will mix it up and have good results.

Last question from us. Last topic we wanted to touch on is that for a lot of triathletes, especially here, the summer season has finished and they've got a decent break till their next race. There are definitely some races that they can do over this period, but some might not have another race for another three to six months that they're looking forward to. So how do you approach an off season in terms of swimming? How do you change things up? Maybe to freshen things up or to give a bit of variety or a bit more enjoyment moment? What are your thoughts on, on an off season for swimmers?

I think first of all, sitting down and just analyzing the last season can be helpful. So just pen and paper, what worked? What did I like? Where are the gaps or the holes in, in what I'm doing? And just using pen and paper and, and putting your phone in a different room. I know for me if I'm like sitting there with my phone there, I'll, I'll be there for five minutes and get distracted. So I, I think looking at, at that and just, just, just riding for, for 20 or 30 minutes and, and just seeing what opportunities might be in front of you for the next season. And then at the pool, you know, there's no pressure to perform, there's no pressure to sort of do anything. And when, when it's like that, it's much easier to enjoy being in the pool. So I, I quite like just wearing fins to most of my sessions, feeling very relaxed, trying some new things, doing some and a few different drills and just enjoy the feeling of being in the water. And when you're in that state of mind or that zone in the pool, you tend to swim better, you tend to improve. And if there's anything that you learn or figure out during that time where you're doing that, then you might be able to carry that into your season. So I think a time where there's no pressure or reliance on doing a certain set or certain times is a good time to just, just mix things up and try, try different things. So that's where I think you can start to have maybe more of a technical focus and, and it's okay to try different things because you're not going to harm your race. That might be in 9 or 9 or 12 months time.

We couldn't agree with that anymore. I don't think that's exactly what we would like to see in the off season. It's the same advice we offer for swimming, riding and running. Just taking that bit of pressure off from a, from a structured program. Anything else from you, dad, before we finish off?

No. As usual, Brenton's given us some really good things to consider and to implement into our thought process. And look, we don't talk a little a lot about the mental side of swimming. And the only other question I really wanted to ask Was I do get a lot of swimmers asking me how to overcome the anxiety on race day. They're surrounded by, you know, possibly, you know, a thousand people around them in the water, swimming over them, around them, bumping into them. A lot of, you know, a lot of them have this anxiety and fear of, of the unknown, I suppose. What advice would you give those swimmers who are experiencing that? And it's not a minority. I would have 50% of the people I coach who are in one form or another very worried about the swim leg of the triathlon.

Aside from getting used to being around others in the pool, if you have that opportunity, which is if you're not swimming in a squad or not can be hard, but just getting the practice with others around is good just to build up the comfortability in the water. But that aside, I think just control your breathing at the start line would be the, would be the first thing. And because your breathing is the only part of your autonomic nervous system that you can actually control. So for me, if I'm at the start line, I'm breathing through my nose. I'm going five seconds in, five seconds out. I'm just calming myself down and trying to keep the heart rate low in the beginning. And also if you can then do a pre race warmup, even if it's 200 strokes, just a pre race warmup will help you get more comfortable. Because if you haven't got your heart rate up before the race, then you sort of realize you notice this, whether you're going out for a run or swimming is like you haven't sort of opened up your, your blood vessels enough where if you just, if your heart rate goes up, you kind of feel this like, it's like really you feel like you just run out of energy. So if you can get your heart rate up a bit before the race, then that can overcome some of. And the other side of things is don't be a victim going into the, into the race. So you don't want to be aggressive with other people, obviously, but don't take the victim role where you're just at the whims of what everyone else is doing. You want to be the one out there who's in control or else other people are going to take you over and people aren't out there to try and swim over you. The fastest point from here to there is not swing over the top of someone. People are going to try and go around you and avoid you. But obviously it doesn't happen all the time. So if you just try and take that, take that role where you're in charge and do your thing. Maybe you've got to start off to the side. If that makes you more comfortable, that's okay as well. Or maybe you wait five seconds and let those people go. If it's a real issue for you, then you're not probably going to lose time if you, you let pebble go for five or 10 seconds and you just swim your own race. So there's strategies and tactics you can use there to make it a bit easier on yourself.

One of the things that I often tell each of the swimmers who really are struggling is it's okay to look up and give yourself five or 10 seconds. And I've even said roll over on your back, relax, take some breaths, you've lost 10 seconds. Roll back over and just take that anxiety focus away from it. Just to think that, right, I can control this myself. If I'm overwhelmed and not breathing properly, it's going to continue and get worse and you're going to actually swim worse. You're better off giving yourself 10 seconds every, and I've told them to do 10 seconds every 400. Just, I'll just swim for 400 and I deserve a little rest to have. And as you do each event, you will actually get better and better at that and as you practice that in training. So I know that's not helpful to your overall time by doing a 10 second break, but if it means you can actually get the focus away from the anxiety factor, it's gotta be helpful.

It's like walking through aid stations in an ironman. It's like give yourself that little bit of a downtime. And yeah, it's gonna add some time on but maybe it'll actually be better for you in the beginning. And I had a swimmer who did her first triathlon a couple weeks ago and she said similar thing happened, panicked at the start and was doing a bit of breaststroke and like her time was, was quite slow because there was that, that panic and it was her first race and you know, even no matter what advice you have in that first one, people are going to make those mistakes anyway. It's just, it's that rush of and excitement of the first triathlon. So just, yeah, just build on that experience each, each time and adjust as you go. Because I don't know anyone who's now their, their first open water swim and going, yeah, that was easy, that was great. And boy did I do a good time.

That's a brilliant way to finish. Great advice from you both. Thank you very much Brenton for joining us. If you want to find where he is it's effortless swimming on any of the social medias Instagram, Facebook or YouTube as we said earlier he's got a brilliant five day catch challenge that you can start. You've also got Brenton a new eight week course that you've built out is that correct?

Yeah which similar sort of structure but we focus on all the other parts of the stroke so I'd say do the catch challenge first first and then move on to the eight week course afterwards.

As always make sure you like this video wherever you're watching it or if you're listening to the audio make sure you subscribe. Subscribe anywhere you are listening or watching this. It really does help us. Brenton thank you very much again for joining us.

Thanks for having me. Enjoyed it. Thanks guys.

That's it for this episode and we'll see you next time. Keep on.