Believe it or not I do read an occasional book. No, it doesn't happen often and honestly I really don't read many "books," but I do often read many articles and studies. Some of the past books I have read include, Lance Armstrong's "It's Not About the Bike" (unfortunately), several triathlon training books and other nutritional books. But I would venture to guess since I have been out of college (5 years) I have read maybe 5-7 books in that time span. None-the-less, I have just finished a book - that's right, sound the alarms! With the upcoming Ironman next year, I knew that if I was to gain any significant amount of time in the race it would be during the 2.4 mile swim. I am a self taught swimmer. I never liked swimming and forced myself to learn when I registered for my first triathlon 6 years ago. I remember swimming at the Wisconsin Athletic Club in Wauwautosa (where I worked for a summer). I can only imagine how ugly my stroke looked from the deck. I would swim for 15-30 minutes which would consist of swimming 25 yards (one length) at a time and needing to take a rest after reaching the opposite side. My stroke was inefficient and slow. I continued to read online articles about proper stroke technique and watch You-Tube videos of proper swim technique. I would read and attempt every drill in the book. My stroke did improve thats for sure. But I always felt that my stroke was lacking even up to today. With the upcoming Ironman, which consists of a 2.4 mile swim (4,224 yards, 84.5 laps, 169 lengths) I knew that I needed to perfect, if not at least greatly improve my technique to not be completely gassed after the first portion of the race. So, to accomplish this I turned to a book published by a swim school out of out Australia called Swim Smooth.
Swim Smooth (
www.swimsmooth.com) is a very progressive swim school preaching the belief that there is not just one single proper stroke technique. They believe that there are multiple swim types and each individual person has traits of one or two (sometimes several) swim types. Swim Smooth has created specific programs and drills for each different swim type to become a more efficient swimmer. Swim Smooth has a very sweet website that I encourage anyone looking to improve their stroke. They even have a free program you can download to your computer called "Mr. Smooth," which is an animated swimmer that you can view from multiple angles and at varying speeds. The animated swimmer is depicted performing the "ideal stroke technique." This program is great to watch before a swim workout or after swim workouts just to see how you should look in the water. I like to watch the animation almost daily to know what position I need to be in during different phases of the free style stroke. Their website also has many great articles and forums to help improve your stroke technique.
Swim Smooth recently published a book about stroke technique called: "Swim Smooth: The Complete Coaching System for Swimmers and Triathletes" By Paul Newsome and Adam Young. I purchased the Kindle version for my iPad for $13.72. The book was one of the most complete swim books I've seen. Not only was it very descriptive, but it made everything very easy to understand. Writing a book on the specifics of a very technical movement is extremely difficult. Swim Smooth has created multiple metaphors and very interesting descriptions to make the difficult movements of the free style stroke pretty easy to understand.
As I said earlier Swim Smooth has 6 different swim types that they classify swimmers by. Granted not everyone can be classified under one single category. In fact most swimmers share multiple traits of more than one swim type. The 6 swim types include; The Arnie, The Bambino, The Kicktastic, The Overglider, The Swinger, and The Smooth. After reading the book, I would put myself mostly a slight Overglider, mixed with some traits of the Arnie and Smooth. I know when I first started to learn the proper techniques to the free style stroke I was 100% an Overglider. I was so focused on being efficient I would put prolonged pauses in my stoke (gliding) to take the fewest amount of strokes over a given distance. This inevitably causes you to nearly come to a complete stop in your stroke which is counterproductive when your thinking your being as efficient as possible. Over the past 6 years I have become more efficient and gotten rid of most of my pauses in my stroke, but still have a very slight pause. My body size puts me into the Arnie category and gives me some of the traits of a more muscular swimmer. I have a couple traits of the Smooth swimmer just due to the sheer amounts of swimming I have done over the previous 6 years.
The book also have a chapter completely devoted to video taping yourself and how to properly accomplish this for the best video possible. It also discusses how to critique your video to find specific areas of your stroke to improve. I took this advice and had a buddy of mine, Bob Zill (the same guy ran the Lakefront Marathon with me last month) come in to my gym and use my HandyCam to video several laps of me swimming. The video turned out pretty good. We taped 300 yards of me swimming, but we brought the camera in from outside and bringing it into such a humid room the lens was pretty fogged up for the first 3 laps we tapped. The video turned out ok, you can only get so much detail from above the water. Ideally I would like to get video from below the water's surface, which would give me some extremely valuable footage. But, regardless, I have what I have. The biggest thing I noticed was how much rotation in my head I have when I turn to breathe. Ideally, you should only rotate enough to catch a breath, which should leave one eye under the water and the second eye above the water. I have my entire face out of the water on most breaths.
The book describes many great drills to incorporate into your swim workouts. Since the Lakefront Marathon I have done minimal swimming as far as yardage of straight free style stroke. I have been swimming nearly every other day for a total of 1,200-1,400 yards (0.68-0.80 miles) each time out. With using suggestions in this book I have been doing a ton of drill work to improve my body position and stroke technique. Below is the workout that I have been doing to improve my technique which totals 1,400 yards. Granted this is a lot more drill work than what may be suggested, but I am still in my off season and want to keep my volume down over this time period. Once I start my actual training, my drill workouts will consist of less drills and more swimming, which has more focus of proper technique.
4x25 torpedo kick and f/s remainder
50 as Skull 1 15 and f/s 35
50 as skull 2 15 and f/s 35
2x50 doggy paddle
100 f/s
2x50 popov
2x75 f/s
2x50 broken arrow
2x75 f/s
2x50 6-1-6
2x75 f/s
2x50 unco
2x75 f/s
Before reading this book my average time to swim 100 yards was between 1:35-1:45. Over the past month of incorporating the techniques and suggestions from this book my time to swim 100 yards has dropped down to 1:25-1:35, which is a significant amount of time for only a month of stroke work. This improvement has left me extremely motivated and really looking forward to going to the pool, which wasn't always the case. I plan on continuing with the drill work and as soon as my Ironman training plan starts December 11th, I am going to use many of the suggested swim workouts that are laid out within the book. If your looking for a book to help with your stroke technique and can't recommend this book enough. It covers every aspect of the stroke and even discusses how to alter your stroke to be more efficient in open water (especially for triathletes!). I enjoyed the Kindle version which was easy to follow and still allowed me to highlight hey sections and was as easy to follow as a hard copy book. Even if your not a triathlete but looking for a different form of exercise and were too scared to try swimming, this may be your ticket to the pool you need.
No comments:
Post a Comment