Be A Better Swimmer With Zero Effort
If you want to get in your coach’s Good Books and set the trend in your swimming lane, while at the same time getting much more from your swim sessions, read on…
When I coach swimming for squads of triathletes that mostly didn’t have a squad swimming background, I have to control my quizzical expressions and reactions at some of the decisions I see being made. I shall explain some of my Golden Rules here, as they are not only valuable for turning a Beginner into a serious Age Grouper, but none of them involve prior experience, fitness, or natural ability – they are completely free of effort! (just use the old brain)
- Use the Lap Clock. (The thing that only has a second hand, usually black on one half and red on the other)
Look at the lap clock when you leave the wall and when you hit the wall. Every. Single. Time. Not only does it take valuable seconds to muck around with your watch [which makes the actual recorded time spent swimming FALSE] but when you’re not getting to know your own times for – say – 50m, 100m and 200m, you have zero gauge on whether you are improving or not. Yes, I hear some of you saying your Garmin can easily do that, but when I see people stopping their Garmins under the flags, or behind the athlete in front who is 2m off the wall, the time provided for the swim portion is utter nonsense. For the same reason, if you’re swimming 5 seconds apart [as most squads around the world do] you need to know that it takes about two seconds to look at the clock, drop the hips, and push off the wall. If you look at the clock right on your take off time, then drop the hips and push off the wall you’ve taken 7 seconds, and the next athlete is now right behind you. I love asking athletes what they do with the data when I see way too much reliance on pushing buttons (instead of listening to me Ba Haa!) and most of them don’t have an answer.
I was once coaching at my local pool – which was set up in 25m configuration – and I set the athletes off on a warm-up based on time rather than distance, sparing them the agony of counting laps. I made it very clear (based on the huge screen clock right behind me) when we would be starting the Main Set. One athlete failed to be at the right end of the pool when the rest of the lane started the Main Set, so I asked why they had not arrived on time. The response was “I can’t see the time on my Garmin when a workout is running”. There’s so much going on here, it really wasn’t funny at the time. The athlete had zero idea how long it would take to complete an easy 50m up and back, based on the clock that people in space could have seen. And apart from the obvious fact that – of course – you can see the time if you swipe left on a Garmin during a workout, this person was simply not paying attention. Don’t be the athlete that leaves their logic in the changing room, just because there is an adult on the poolside explaining what to do. Always have a good idea of your current times for different distances, and therefore whether you are getting faster. - Always Know Where You – And Others – Are.
There are lots of little rules within this topic, as it is the most common reason for gripes and grievances between swimmers! As I mentioned in ‘Don’t Blur Your Boundaries‘, swim sessions are unique because it is almost impossible to provide a lane for groups of people with the exact same level of ability. This means – to some extent – there will always be some athletes moving faster than others. This DOES NOT mean the faster swimmers get to do what they want; everyone needs to know where other swimmers are, predominantly for safety, but generally to allow people to complete a quality workout unhindered. The main thing is letting people pass you, and passing others safely. If you turn at one end and see another swimmer bearing down on you from behind, the next time you get to the wall, move over to far left corner (assuming a clockwise lane circulation) of the lane, and let them pass. Moreso, if you see there is a faster bunch of swimmers, don’t just let the first pass then push off right in the middle of the bunch; let them all through, then drop back and focus on your own pace and technique rather than going into the Red Zone to try and keep up. If you feel a tap on your toe, that means someone is behind you but you haven’t yielded yet, so make very sure you do soon.
Inversely, if you are the faster swimmer with traffic ahead, give the swimmer in front a couple of laps to realise that you’re there. Give them a chance to move into the corner at the wall, and then push off out of their way. If they fail to recognise the traffic behind, ONE little tap on the toe should make that point. Don’t spend 50m tapping them on every stroke, that’s a sure way to make squad enemies. I once saw a toe dislocated that way – bizarre!! If – and only if – the lane is quiet, and you know there are no returning swimmers on the way towards you, choose the safest time to overtake a swimmer that you want to pass. The worst time to carry out this manoeuvre is when everyone is using paddles. It’s pretty memorable when you get a stray, hard plastic blade in the knuckle, or the side of the head! If in doubt, wait. In some circumstances, the safest way to avoid traffic in front is to ‘cut the lap short’, and by that I mean don’t risk turning right next to someone slower in front of you, but instead get to the flags (I told you that would come back) and when oncoming swimmers are passed, move over to the offside of the lane and continue back from whence you came.
If at any time you need to take a rest, do so just like you would by letting another swimmer go ahead of you: in the far left corner of the lane. If you’re in a lane with an anticlockwise circulation, that would be the right hand corner. This leaves the centre of the lane (where the ‘T’ is!) completely free for turning swimmers. When you want to re-join the set, be mindful that you’re not blindly pushing off in front of people still with laps to complete. If you know they are about to finish, you can push off, but there is often little point if you’ll be up the other end of the pool when coach is talking to the other swimmers! - Getting Dropped + Turning Early
If you find yourself in a lane dominated by faster swimmers for some reason, you’ll need to be aware of ‘getting dropped’. No one likes this feeling in any of the three disciplines, but the benefit of only using 50m of water at a time, is that you can see your squad mates all the time, and – even better – quickly get back into contact if a large gap opens up. I tell any squads that I coach that if there is ever a gap of 25m or more (half a lap in a 50m pool, or full lap in a 25m) they have full permission to ‘cut the lap short’ and turn early. By that I mean that if the swimmer in front has started to touch the wall before you reach the halfway ‘T’ (there you are again) the lagging swimmer should do a couple of strokes, then do a U-Turn to sit back behind the swimmer in front, rather than go all the way to the wall. This way, no one is waiting in cold water for you to do the exact same number of metres that everyone else has. Let’s be honest, some athletes CANNOT STAND the thought of missing a lap or two (“My Garmin!!!”) but the truth is: if they are getting dropped that much they should either drop into a slower lane or just concentrate on their technique for the laps they are completing instead of obsessing over the wrong thing: the distance completed [badly]. It’s still the same time spent training, regardless of how many walls you touch, and the coach and other swimmers will thank you for “staying in touch” with the group. - Get to Know Your Swimming Pool.
Sounds silly, but I still come across people who don’t know the basics of how a typical pool is laid out. And why would they, if they’ve only just started coming swimming? First off, if you train in a competitive pool it will be 25m or 50m long. The lane ropes are solid yellow, solid blue, or two-tone colours generally (blue and white typically) but the 5m of rope closest to the walls will be solid red. There are flags above the water – also at 5m from the wall – so that people doing backstroke know that the wall is about to arrive, and to hopefully save head knocks. There will be an obvious line in the middle of each lane (black or blue) to mark the centre, and this line will stop 2m from the wall. This point is marked with an obvious ‘T’ shape so that those swimming on their fronts can gauge their turns on the wall. A lot of modern pools will have a similar, but smaller, T shape on the wall for the same reason. Our eyes have trouble judging distance on a plain flat surface, so tile grids and T shapes allow us to better know how close or far the vertical surface is.
Each lane is typically 2.5m wide, so an Olympic pool has ten lanes numbered 0-9. In competition, these outside lanes are not used, and typically labelled “wash lanes”. This also means that a 25m pool is often a perfect square. Travelling away from the wall, once the solid 5m of red finish, the two tone colours will be marked at 10m and 15m with red markers. If you’re in a 50m the halfway point will also be marked on the lane rope with a red marker and commonly on the bottom of the pool with one or two (if the pool can be spit with a boom) T shapes on the black/blue line. I know what you’re thinking: I’m not a pool racer, why do I need to know all that? Well… it’s not uncommon for coaches to use the markers on the ropes – or pool floor – to set the tone for the swim workout. For example: complete a 400m continuous tempo swim, but go hard off the wall for the first ten metres of each lap. Or complete a hard 100m interval, but try not to breathe within the first and last 5m of each lap.
- Marshal Up!
One of my favourite rules for those swimming in a group being coached by someone on the poolside: If the coach asks you to get into pairs or even three across the lane to practice open water bunch swimming, or get into pairs with one right behind the other to practice swimming on another’s toes, or anything that’s not simply swimming up and down on your own… don’t just stare at everyone else as if a the Hand Of God will somehow magically pick you up and put you where you need to be. If you honestly don’t know what the dickens the coach is talking about, ask… loudly and clearly so everyone else can hear the question and the answer. The odds are that the coach isn’t talking in a foreign language, and you’re only being asked to count to 2 or 3, so be the Marshal! get into position, and – to get maximum Weekesy Points – encourage the others to also do what you are doing. It’s quite mind boggling how those not used to a squad dynamic stare blankly into space like stunned mullet when asked to do something they very likely did at school when they were five. Some of my best anecdotes revolve around a lane of – let’s say 10 – people, wanting to quickly get some group 50m sprints done before the lane booking ends. The statement “I need five people queued up on the left of the lane, and five people queued up on the right so we can leave in pairs” has never been so confusing! By the time I’ve explained it three times, everyone has to get out 🙂 - Be Tom Hanks
No, that’s not a typo… I’ve seen Tom [and others] talk about simple manners that younger performers simply don’t adhere to: “Know the text. Be on time. Which basically means be early“. I love this, because it’s applicable to many walks of life, but in the realms of swimming it matters. In fact, to any of your swim/bike/run training sessions: the coach doesn’t want to explain the warm-up five times because people keep rushing in late. Within “Don’t Blur Your Boundaries” I mentioned that being selfish is part and parcel of becoming an intermediate athlete or successful Age Grouper. That means you need to treat your training like a part time job. Okay… part time job you don’t get paid for! Most age groupers have full time work, but if you can’t organise that in such a way that your training doesn’t suffer, you’ll constantly feel like you’re chasing your tail. So be honest with your boss, and give yourself ample time to arrive at training, ideally early to complete some dry land exercises before getting into the pool. It shows the coaching staff that you are committed, it sets an amazing example to your squad mates, and – above all – you’ll get a QUALITY workout done.
In addition to being on time [early], read the session programme before you begin. It’s very likely that somewhere at the end of your lane, the coach has either written on a white board, attached a paper programme to the start block, or has given you access to the programme online. If there is a written version somewhere in the vicinity of the lane, you have zero excuse to ask “what are we doing now?”. There aren’t many coaches who don’t go through each set before you start, normally with some further instructions on technique or pacing to think about, but if they are at the far end of the lane talking with someone else, while you wait, get familiar with what is happening next. Again, maximum points for those marshalLing up and explaining to the lazy folks who haven’t read the programme. It would be a rare and incredibly busy squad where you find a coach unable to explain the set before you all start, but there’s nothing wrong with having a vague notion as to what tools you need next, or where you need to be. Don’t be the athlete waiting for the coach to tell you to “grab your pull buoy and paddles” when it’s probably written about a metre from your head. I’ve seen many grown adults with very serious full-time jobs just bob around like ducklings waiting to be told the simplest of things!
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