there’s no way that time is right. Because I had originally set a goal for 27 minutes and I was thinking there’s no way I’d swim in the sub 24, you know, on this race. Anyway, later at the end of the race, I looked at the results and realized that I had swam a 2345. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. My guest today is Trey St. John and we’ve been working together for the last

couple of months in the lead up to an exterior event that you recently did. You’ve had some pretty good improvements over the last few months with your swimming. I wanted to get you on the podcast to talk about that today. First of all, welcome. Can you give the listeners a little bit of a background on your swimming, on your racing and what’s happened in the last few months? Sure. Yeah, not a problem. So I can give you kind of a little bit of background on some of this, but so mainly I worked a desk job probably for about the last 15 years or so. I really haven’t done,

I wouldn’t say anything structured or, you know, mainly it was like two days a week if that running. And that was about the extent of the exercise. And then probably back in 2019, I had a friend who tried to convince me to do a triathlon with him. So I started that process,

started running a little more consistently, started to work on some structured plans. But, you know, for the, I guess the main part, I really only did any kind of major exercise, biking, running, sports, things like that back in middle school and high school. So really going into college and then most of my work career, I really have not been that involved, you know, heavily in a lot of sports. So anyway, you know, going into 2019 with my friend, trying to convince me to do this triathlon, I decided that one of the things I really needed to do was to also start swimming. So just to kind of give you a little bit of background on my swimming, I really, you know, I knew how to swim. But beyond that swimming, even just in a, you know, 25 meters in the pool was a challenge. So it was easy to get out of breath and, you know, feel uncomfortable. But I probably swam maybe one time every two months or so,

up until maybe a couple of months before the original event, which was going to be back in 2020, which obviously got canceled due to COVID at the last minute, it’s about three weeks out and they canceled the event. So around that time, I’d done a couple of open water swims

after doing some of the pool swimming, just trying to make sure that I could actually finish the race. And I would not have absolutely would have failed the open water swim part of it. There’s no question in my mind about that. So I realized that I was in trouble and that I really needed to do something, you know, big, make some big changes. So of course, my big change was starting to swim one time per week, which later proved to not be sufficient either. And one of the biggest things I will say though, is that I ran across your feedback Friday videos. And so I really started to focus on the feedback Friday videos and trying to understand a little bit better about, you know, where some of my areas were that I needed to improve on and swim it. And I made some pretty minor improvements. I feel like

one of the big things I did too was video every single swim. And so that way I could kind of compare to what you were saying on the feedback Friday videos versus, you know, what I had on my footage. And so basically every day when I would ride, I had your videos on repeat, you know, and that was how, you know, on the trainer, that was how I would, you know, try to train myself on some things. But I really do feel like probably one of the big things that helped me leading up to the last couple of months, probably starting in January before the race this year was I had a recommendation from a friend to do bands like dry land exercises. And so I did a lot of bands, a lot of strength work, just trying to build up my ability to, you know, not only have a little bit more mobility, but also on the strength side. And I actually started doing that between five and six days per week. And I was only swimming

one day a week, up until January of this year. And then I started swimming three days a week, three to four days a week, starting in January. Because even though before that I was swimming in one of my friend’s pools, it was only a 10 meter pool. And in November it got down to, let’s see, I guess, about 13 degrees Celsius. And so that was a little bit hilly for me. So I actually stopped swimming from November to January. And then in January, I joined a local YMCA and started swimming in one of their pools. It’s a 25 yard pool. So I was swimming, like I said, three, four days per week. I got to where, so in January, I was swimming somewhere around at 212 per 100 meter pace. If I don’t know that I could have finished a 1500, you know, 1.5 K swim, even in January. And so, but I do feel like the fitness was there, just I didn’t have enough of the structure and technique to be efficient. You know, a lot of it, I think even

finding out from you, some of it was kicking and some stroke related things as well. So anyway, starting from January through about the time that I hooked up with you on the training, I made some improvements, but it just really wasn’t fast enough for the goals that I wanted. I really wanted to qualify. That was one of the big pushes. I knew I could do it based on my bike and my run times, but I just knew my swimming was awful. And so I feel like I had a lot of the fitness in place from doing the bands, especially so many days a week. But I just didn’t have any of the experience or the technique. Interestingly enough, from watching your feedback Friday videos, I felt like I had a really good idea of what I needed to change. But then after working with you directly in the coaching side of it, I realized that there were actually some simple things that you were focused on that were very different from what I was trying to focus

on. And I feel a lot of it. Can I ask what they were? The things that you thought coming into working together that you should work on or at least straight away? I’m sure that some of the things really are issues that I probably will need to address that you and I will find out soon. But I think too, the way that you lay it out, it’s just very simple, right? It’s very specific on something very specific and simple that I need to focus on. So one of them being that I don’t have enough mobility in my feet. And so I’m kicking or I was kicking extremely hard. And interestingly enough, I did a kick set to determine that I had zero forward propulsion from kicking. So the harder I kick, the only thing I’m doing is wasting energy.

And so it was interesting to hear some of your videos and to learn from you about really it was more about balance and maintaining that streamline as opposed to trying to kick hard and get that forward progression. Because one of the other big things I was doing is I was bending my knees real heavily, bending big time, almost 90 degrees at the knee. And I noticed one day in one of my videos that when I did that, I actually stopped 100% on my forward momentum when I bent that knee like that. And so it’s like I’m swimming at a decent pace. I’ve been my knee at 90 degrees and I’d stop. And then I’d go to kick and I’d start moving forward again. And I’m sitting here thinking, why am I even kicking? So just some interesting things that I was able to find out on that. But yeah, I do feel like probably the two to three months leading up to the race, when you were really focused on some of my breathing and my arm

dropping and some of the real specific, I guess, easy but technique related things, I started to see much larger improvements. So while I was at 212 per 100 in January, I think I got down to somewhere around like 147, 148 somewhere in there, closer to around the time that you and I started doing the coaching. And then for the race, let’s see, what would that convert to for the speed that I was swimming? It was a,

so it was like right around a 136 per 100. So that means I probably shaved another, was that 10 to 12 seconds per 100 off just in two months, was some of the changes that you had me make right before. So, but I will be honest, so going into the race, I was a little bit concerned. I still felt like you and I had been talking about some of my breathing and my stroke and I felt like in open water that I don’t know if I wasn’t relaxed 100%, but I would go, I’d get to the point where my heart rate would really skyrocket. And I would start to not breathe properly. I think what I was probably doing is trying to push my head up too high and then I was thinking, trying to push with my arm. And so then I would show the race you’re talking about. Yeah, or even doing some of the open water swimming. Yeah, before the race. And so probably the two or three times doing open water swimming before the actual race,

I would choke on some of the water. And I know I sent you a message about that, you know, which was one of my biggest concerns. Hey, am I going to get in the middle of this race? Think that I’m moving at a pace that I want to move at and then have a major problem with some sort like that where, you know, potentially it impacts me or maybe not even finish the swim. So anyway, so you and I went through some of the things you thought I should change, then the Wednesday before the race, I had the opportunity to swim with an ex pro up there in the lake that we were going to do the race in. I felt pretty good, you know, everything. I worked on some of the sighting techniques that you told me about. I worked on some of the breathing techniques you told me about. And I felt pretty good about it. After the swim, I thought it was kind of funny, but I was swimming a much faster pace than I thought I was swimming at the

time that I was following the pro. But anyway, it made me feel a lot better about the race. So morning of the race or really actually on Wednesday, that same day, they said or made a change to the race and they said it was going to be a time trial as opposed to a mass start. And so that was unexpected. We thought it might happen just because of COVID regulations. But the last second they changed it. So I made the decision that since I wanted to be or have less people to pass on the bike, that I was going to try to be the first person in the water, whether that was a smart decision or not. I don’t know. I know that there were several people that, you know, ran me over after I first jumped in the water. But I do feel like it gave me a better position. But nonetheless, so that morning, I did line up and I got to be the first person in the water. So one of the things I did right before the race was I used a different pair of goggles that

I was having problems sighting because on the one stretch, it was about 750 meters from buoy to buoy. And so I was having problems sighting and being able to see all the way down to the far buoys last second switched my goggles as to which ones I was going to use during the race. So anyway, so I line up, I’m first person ready to go on the water thinking I’m a fool

for wanting to be the first person in. And so I go to jump in. The first thing that happened was my goggles fell off. So of course, I had to stop, put my goggles back on, took off again, realized after about four or five strokes that they were still full of water. So I had to dump the water out of them again, finally got them clean. And I was swimming and probably within about 15 seconds or so, I had three different swimmers go completely over the top of me.

So of course, that was a little unsettling, you know, just never having done an open water swim like that in a race. But probably I would say about 200 meters in or so is about when I finally convinced myself to calm down and focus on the techniques that you and I had been working on, you know, everything I’d trained on in the pool, all the open water training. And I finally got my heart rate to stabilize and everything went really well from that part forward. I really felt like I was, you know, doing a lot of the things you and I had talked about as far as high elbow and, you know, just trying to make sure I’m not looking at the sky that I’m looking horizontally across the water when I’m breathing and not dropping my arm too much and all that. And so I was just really hyper focused on a lot of the technique the whole time I was swimming, you know, and I remember one of the only other things that really came up

was just thinking how long the swim was, even though it’s the shortest part of the triathlon. You know, it just seemed like it was forever. But nonetheless, I made it to the end and jumped up on the bank and took off towards transition and never looked at my watch. And as soon as I ran into transition, I looked at my watch and it said just over 24 minutes. And I remember thinking, what did I mess up? How did I did I not start my watch at the right time? Or there’s no way that time is right. Because I had originally set a goal for 27 minutes and I was thinking there’s no way I saw 24, you know, on this race. Anyway, later at the end of the race, I looked at the results and realized that I had swam a 2345. So I was blown away. That’s unreal. No, I was able to do that. So but I do, you know, I would certainly say, you know, probably the three big things that I would attribute to that would be one, the consistency,

right? So starting in January, swimming consistently three to four times a week. I was swimming my pools and yards, but I was swimming in the neighborhood of 3000 yards every time I swam. I started using some of your structured training. So my swimming was a lot more structured as far as what I was doing instead of just aimlessly swimming around.

But the outside of the consistency and the structure training, another, you know, big piece of that was that I was able to do the strength training with the bands and focus on technique while doing that. And so I felt like I had a lot of the strength that I would need in the appropriate muscles to be able to swim. I just didn’t have the technique. You know, I didn’t have the experience and balance and everything that people who’ve been swimming a lot longer would potentially have. So I feel like that was another, you know, really big thing that helped me. And then of course, I’d say a coach just because, you know, having you being able to look at some of the things that I wouldn’t identify on my own, I feel like really made a big difference too, just because, you know, I had a second set of eyes and somebody who was experienced, you know, which I will admit, I was very hesitant at first to use the service just because you are, you know, outside of my area. I want to try

to find somebody locally, but I couldn’t find anybody locally. And, you know, I really needed to do something. And so after I signed up for your service, one of the main reasons why I did it was just because you have worked with so many triathletes and because you have worked with so many people that are in a similar situation, right? A late adult onset swimmer as opposed to somebody who’s been swimming their entire life. So I feel like, you know, combining all those things together, I feel like that, you know, between the consistency, the strength work and having the coach, I feel like really made a big difference. Yeah. Oh, there’s so much there that you’ve mentioned that I want to go into. And I think for your first ever open water swim, race and triathlon, that is, that’s really impressive. And like it’s, I find the first time you do anything, but there’s so much that you learn, you take away that you can apply next time,

which you’ve obviously gotten, you know, it’s like wearing a new pair of goggles that you’ve never worn before. Like that. I knew better, but you know, just I made the same mistake before too. It’s just like, you know, you’re in the race, you’re about to race, you’re in the zone, it’s just like, I need to just kind of in a bit of a rush. And so look, I’ve made that same mistake too before. But there’s, yeah, there’s a lot there. And I think to go from 212 to 136 for the race is really impressive. And we’ve seen your times are going really nicely in training, they’re continuing to come down, which is, which is great. And you’ve mentioned as part of your goal, the next, like the big goal would be, can you get your swim under 20 minutes? And it’s, for me, it seems like there’s, there’s absolutely the, there’s, you’re able to work towards that, because there’s so much potential there because you’re so new to it. And, and you’ve had such a big jump already. So it’s,

like, I can’t think of too many people that have done as well as you have in such a short amount of time. But as you said, those, the consistent training helps three, four times a week, doing the distance that you’re doing, like that makes such a difference just that alone. The bands are great. And you’re talking about using a TheraBand to work on some of these, like the catch and that sort of thing. Is that what you’re referring to? So actually, it’s kind of a variation of how some people use the bands. These bands are actually attached to a door frame. And I talked to a guy who actually took paddles and connected the paddles to the bands. So I actually put my hands in the paddles and then actually focus on doing the catch. And, you know, really, I stretch them far enough to where it’s under a huge load. So it’s almost like doing real high speed sets with paddles on in a pool. But you can do it at a slower pace under tension and focus on a lot of the technique while you’re doing it.

So I feel like I was able to build a lot of strength by doing that. Yeah, that’s that’s good. And I think if there’s someone listening, that kind of stuff can help so much because if you sometimes it’s hard to get this stuff right in the water, and if you can’t get it right out of the water, then it’s probably not going to happen in the water. So something like working on your catch and developing that strength with the paddles, like it takes you 10 minutes, you just you can do those exercises at home. You don’t need to get your bay design. You don’t need to go to the pool. It’s it’s easy to do. So it’s it’s I think that’s like because if someone you know if someone was to watch your videos and look at your catch, they wouldn’t say you’ve really been swinging properly since since January. It’s it’s really good. And I mean, I think it’s your right arm that’s like it catches looking excellent. And then on the left arm, it goes a little bit deep and straight because we’re

working on not over rotating. But it’s it’s really impressive. So for someone listening, like doing some either Thera bands or with the paddles and practicing that high elbow position is is really, really worthwhile doing. And I’ve got this five minute Thera band warm up. I don’t know if you’ve seen that in the inside of the membership, but it’s like a five minute warm up that goes through internal external rotations, reverse flies and that movement with the catch. And if you get that movement, the catch right out of the water and you start to train it, it’s it’s very helpful. And one of the things that I I learned from a previous guest on the podcast, he works with with people who have been through a stroke. And he says that one of the ways that you can enhance the like the uptake of of a new motor pattern is to either do things faster, so that like the faster you do something, the the more the I think the neurons sort of switch on and allows you to develop that motor pattern

or under a bigger load. And so there you’re talking about, you know, you’re putting a bit of power through it. So that’s your load. So yeah, it’s those two things that can help speed up the process of learning this new movement. So it was just interesting to hear you hear you say that and start actually a little bit closer to the door and get the warm up in just to make sure I don’t hurt myself, you know, pulling with a lot of tension. And then I’ll take a step back and do a little bit more and then eventually step back until I feel like I’m under a load that, you know, is the way I equate it is in my triathlon training. A lot of times they say lower reps higher weight, just because you build a lot, you know, better connected tissues and tendons and injury resistance. And so it’s kind of working up, you know, obviously, I didn’t start by going back as far as I could and pulling as hard as I can on the band. Otherwise,

I wouldn’t have been swimming during the race. You know, but just building up to it and eventually getting to where I could put it under a lot of load. So it is interesting to hear you say that, you know, that that can help. Yeah, absolutely. And for you, when you first when you first joined and you said you’re hesitant to join just because you want someone locally to work with. When I first started coaching online, doing analysis online, my initial thought was, I don’t know if this is going to work, whether people can actually improve by sending in videos regularly and me providing the feedback, but I’m going to just try it and hopefully it is, it does work because my only experience was working with people face to face at clinics and that sort of thing. But I actually found that in many cases, working in the way that we were working, we send a video once a week or every fortnight. And and I’d give you something

simple to work on this sort of process actually works better for a lot of people because they get the they get to go back there in in their own pool, their training and there’s no distractions. There’s not a coach standing over them looking at every single stroke. So they tend to relax a bit more and then they keep that that focus very simple. And so that way, I’ve actually found the results to often be a lot more effective because it’s over a longer term, but it’s also yeah, just gives us somewhere a lot more sort of time and space to be able to implement the changes. How did you find that process of doing this online as opposed to in person?

So like I said, I was actually looking for somebody locally. I couldn’t find somebody that

I felt like was going to allow me to meet the goals that I was trying to meet. So interestingly enough, I was actually looking for that exact same thing locally, where I could just send my videos to friends or different people who could analyze some of it and tell me. So anyway, when I started looking at your membership, I thought, well, why not? Right? What’s the difference? What’s the difference? Let me send the video to people here versus anywhere else. And so yeah, I thought it was great, you know, just because being able to send it to you. Like I said, I get some good simple feedback and what and, you know, check out these 10 different things and work on all this at once. It was more of yes, I understand there’s more to unpack and more that we need to work on, but this is the number one biggest opportunity you’re focused right now. So focus on this. So it was great because then I would take that and add it to my card for what I was going to do at the

pool for the next week. And I would incorporate that into a lot of times my warm up and then try to also focus on it towards the end of my swimming. I mean, not that I wasn’t focused on the whole time, I would just use more focus towards the end, especially when I was fatigued to really pay attention to that technique and, you know, doing things like you were saying, don’t make sure you’re not looking at the ceiling, make sure you’re looking across the, basically I try to look at the lane rope instead of looking at the ceiling when I’m breathing. And that’s how I knew that I wasn’t over rotating when that was one of the big things that we were looking at. And for you as well, since we started, what’s your awareness in the water been like compared to say back in January? So when you’re swimming, do you feel like you’re much more aware of when things are right and when they’re wrong and how has that changed for you? Yeah, I know I certainly do. I will say, and I’m sure a

lot of people feel this, every now and then I’ll swim that one interval that’s significantly faster and you want to go back and look at the video and try to determine exactly what you did differently. And most of the time, there’s no difference. It’s the same stroke rate. You know, I mean, I say there’s no difference, but I’m sure if you looked at it, there’s some small little change. But that’s a lot of what I found, you know, working with you, especially over the last two or three months is that while I don’t see a big change or I don’t notice anything large, a lot of times it’s just the small little things that, you know, sometimes you have to over exaggerated a little bit. But for the most part, some small little changes can actually make a huge difference in the times. I’m really starting to see that now, even after the race, you know, the last week, you know, making just some small changes based

on some things that we’ve talked about that I’m really focusing on more now, just because I’m not hyper focused on open water swimming and doing, you know, trying to prepare for the race. So yeah, that’s interesting. A recent guest that had on was Chung Wan and he had a similar improvement with working together. And those are one of the things he mentioned was that he’d look at his videos, we couldn’t really see that difference, because they’re so they’re really minor oftentimes, but when you slow it down enough and you and you sort of know what to look for, like it’s they’re there and it’s these little it’s 1%, 2% changes over the time,

you know, over months that really start to add up. And one of the things I wanted to say as well is a thing that you that I think was so beneficial that you did was going to the open water, practicing that practicing the sighting before the race. I’ve had a few a few summers recently just asked me I’ve got races coming up because they’re they’re all starting in the States and it’s coming into summer. So what should I do beforehand? And I think a couple good things can be if you can’t get to the open water, do some make sure you practice your sighting in the maybe in your main set, just maybe look up twice a lap and get used to that, maybe wear a wetsuit for a couple of sessions as well just to get used to that because it’s going to feel a little bit different than without. But the best thing you can do is just get in the open water if you have that chance and if you have the chance to swim with other people, you might

practice swimming close to each other, maybe drafting and just get familiar with that that again because it’s been a long time out for so many people that that you know you just want to you want to go in prepared and nothing beats the real thing because I feel like open water is like that it’s like the fifth strike you got fly back breast and free and open water is that fifth strike it’s it can feel quite different in there so getting that that experience beforehand is is helpful and did you did you feel like confidence wise it obviously helped but did you feel like it helped you on race day as well just with the stroke and getting used to it? I do absolutely. Yeah so I’m kind of laughing when you’re talking about practicing and getting prepared in the open water just because looking at some of my first GPS tracks for some of the first open water swims preparing probably a month before the race I’m all over the place you know zigzag

and I’m obviously not inciting but once every 20 strokes or something like that I can tell that I was all over the place and so the more that you know you and I were talking about siding and the more that I actually got to practice it the straighter I was able to swim actually one thing I noticed during the race is in the longest leg that 750 meter leg between the two buoys at one point I felt like I was way off to the left of the main pack the main group of people and I couldn’t figure out why and then I realized it’s because everybody was following each other rather than siding looking at the boot so there were about 25 people off to the right and one guy was actually way off almost swimming on the bank and when I looked up I was actually in line with the faster pack ahead of me but there was this whole group of people like 20-25 people off to the right that were just following each other and they weren’t siding you

know so to your point actually being able to get out there and focus on that siding and pay attention to swimming straight one other thing I did is before the race too because I didn’t have an opportunity to get an open water as much as I wanted to is I would actually close my eyes when I was swimming in the pool I would only open on when I went to go for a breath or to sight and so at least that way I could just really focus on paying attention to you know pretending like I was siding off in the distance I felt like that kind of helped because you don’t realize how much hysterical I’m on the bottom of the pool to swim straight yeah that’s right exactly right and that’s someone who’s asked me this this morning and they mentioned about like they’re having trouble with their siding and you know what what should they do and I said all right let’s start let’s practice it in training leading up to this this race this weekend

but if the main thing is like you’re better off swimming straight and siding more regularly than siding every 20 strokes and veering off course because if you swim 10% further let’s say in your 1500 meter race you swim 150 meters more that extra 10% if you’re swimming at two minute pace that’s 12 seconds per 100 extra that it’s going to take you basically so all right you’re two minutes from that well you’re swimming two to 12 essentially because of the the extra distance that you’re doing so if you can get just comfortable with your siding and you can sight with that that sight and breathe method where you don’t look up too high you just kind of go crocodile eyes you turn the head to the side after the breathe you can just really make it a part of your stroke where your rhythm and your balance isn’t affected and that way you can I think I was reading your comments like laser like you cut it like a laser it’s you can be so

straight with with your course and you can really just save so much time that way and it sounded like that’s that’s exactly what happened which look at you’re probably the first person in the world to to do that on their first open water swim but I guess it’s that’s the practice that’s helped you do it here maybe it was luck I guess we’ll find out in September yeah that’s right well I appreciate you jumping on it’s it’s been great to hear a bit more about your your story and where you’ve got to now and I’m looking forward to next couple of months and just seeing what we can bring the the times down to because yeah it’s just it’s on this really great trajectory and there’s still a lot of stuff that we can obviously do in the in the stroke which we’re seeing and that’s that’s exciting so thanks very much for being on and yeah look forward to continue working with you yeah absolutely thank you I appreciate it now

look forward to hitting that 20 minute mark let’s do it yeah thanks right all right awesome thank you thanks for listening to the effortless swimming podcast if you’d like us to help you become a faster more efficient swimmer go to www.effortlesswimming.com