Welcome to episode number 218 of the effortless swing podcast on this episode I was recently a guest on the keys of podcast and they have a podcast called healthy to 100 and I was a guest on there for two episodes and this is the first episode that they published on their own Show and I thought it’d be great to be able to just publish this on our own podcast because I think a lot of this information You really enjoy it’s pretty much going back to basics with freestyle with swimming and we look at what matters What’s worth knowing what’s worth doing when it comes to freestyle? so I hope you enjoy this episode now if you’re listening on perhaps iTunes or Spotify if you haven’t left us a review That’s the one thing that I ask of you to do because when you leave us a review That helps us get bound by more people when they’re searching in their podcast app So if you haven’t left us a review I would love it if you could do me a favor and just leave us an honest

Hopefully positive review of the podcast. So thanks very much for listening and here is the episode It was with Tim Deppman from Kaiser and keys is a physio and a gym based in Australia. They’ve got it a bunch of Locations around the country and I’m a big fan of what they do. So I appreciate them having me on the show and Yeah, go check them out healthy to 100. Here’s the episode Welcome to the effortless swimming podcast to show that helps swimmers and triathletes love the water become a better swimmer and live a better life Here’s your host Brenton Ford

Thanks and Ford. Thank you very much for joining us on healthy to 100 But I’m really looking forward to this chat today being a bond-eyed boy and getting out in the water this morning going for a swim I need some help with my swimming technique, mate. Well, hopefully you’ve come to the right person. I appreciate you having me on Tim Brenton before we get started lots of our listeners really keen to hear more about Swimming but can you just give everyone a little bit of of your background for us, please? Yeah, I started a really young age in the water my granddad used to run the mall swimming pool in Victoria And so I was always around there when I was growing up and then my so he was a coach My dad was a coach and he coached me when I was a teenager and mum and dad run as learn the swim business at the moment And I somehow I don’t know how fell into coaching and

Started I started coaching when I went to university So I was coaching there at Melbourne Uni for I think two years and really enjoyed it And eventually started a business in that area where I started running clinics and looking to focus mostly on underwater filming and technique and now work with with adults to help them swim faster and a bit more efficiently But as a as a kid I made a few national age group finals So I did alright there, but I just love the coaching side of it and I’ve done that for the last 15 years now And I wouldn’t want to wouldn’t want to stop either. It’s just I’m lucky that I get to marry my passion of swimming Along with also, I think running a business and helping a lot of people just become better swimmers So yeah done it for quite a while now, but it’s it’s funny how things happen I never planned that as a kid to start coaching But now you just gravitate to what you love and I’m glad I get to do it

Brenton, I’m glad you eventually there got to a little bit of your success As a swimmer, I thought you were just going to completely gloss over it and I was going to have to pull you up So you are a swimming coach today, but you’re you’re a national level elite swimmer before you got to that so Tell us a little bit about what was what was the peak of your career? What was the achievement from an elite perspective that you’re most proud of? Yeah, my best result was fifth in the 400. I am at at national age championships and

The reason for that the reason why I think that was my best success was I had this time in mind that I wanted to do And 12 months out. I started visualising it Almost every day and I put the training in put the work in and when it came to the the final at nationals I

I was about half a second off that time but like everything pretty much came together what I visualised for for that race and So I was really proud of proud of that and Yeah, and and then after that I went on and I was just off olympic trials was about point one second Yeah point one of a second off qualifying for olympic trials, but Yeah, and then I started I did a season of triathlon as well where I built up and did a full-on man as a Bucket list thing to tick off before I had kids and really enjoyed that as as well. And so I broke the I broke the age group swim record in that in that event over in New Zealand And I definitely went out pretty hard in the swim for the Ironman and probably burnt quite a few candles Before the bike and the run but my ego was on the line there So I yeah, I went pretty hard in the swim with a about another nine hours to go in the race But I didn’t care. I still won the swim out of a couple thousand people and was proud of that and then just suffered for the next nine hours

Brett said I love an Ironman story and and Teopo’s a beautiful Ironman I could talk about that all day, but I didn’t want to touch on your elite experience because I love the idea that you’ve come from an elite background And I want to ask you how many training sessions you were doing and stuff like that But that you’re you’re taking those lessons and applying them to your your weekend warrior to your average Joe and that’s such a big part of this podcast is I firmly believe that the training principles that applied to you as an elite swimmer Apply in a diluted fashion obviously for time and cost reasons and all those things, but they apply to I treated a patient earlier this morning who’s Focusing on the open water series up here in Sydney and I’m sure that’s kind of the everyday person that you’re looking after So just just quickly When you’re at your peak, how many swimming sessions how how many strength sessions you’re doing per week?

How many hours do you reckon you’re devoting to your performance? Yeah, so when I was training full-time and racing in national level it was It was eight or nine swim sessions a week with I think we’re doing three gym There so it was it was pretty full-on and this is all with school and there wasn’t many times where I fell asleep in class and got pulled up on it And and but now obviously it’s a bit more about coaching in those sorts of things so at the moment I swim three to four times a week and When I’m in my normal routine try and do two two gym sessions and along with that I’ll I’ll do some run-ins and that sort of thing as well But I think for you know for people who are probably working full-time. Maybe they’re semi-retired Yeah, I train with a lot of people who are in that stage of their life And yeah, definitely some of those principles that the elite swimmers Uh incorporating into their their training

They certainly apply for for those that that might be swimming a couple times a week and not competing at that level But they’re still doing it like the the open water series up there in sydney So I think one of those principles is just consistency Swimming’s one of those things where if you take if you would be swimming a couple times a week Usually and you take one or two weeks out The first thing that you’ll notice when you get back in is you tend to lose that feel for the water that that people talk about and Swimming’s like like no almost like no other sport where you just lose that that feel for it pretty quickly compared to say Running or or maybe riding like yeah, you might lose a bit of fitness in those ones But swimming you just tend to um, it feels like it takes another week or two to get back into it so consistency is really important and also just um managing your Your load and your Your work throughout the the week so

The swimmers that can just be consistent with it and not have one huge session within the week and they Will then be so fatigued or they might injure themselves because they’ve just gone too hard in the one session and then they’re out for Maybe a week It’s those that can just sort of manage their their load throughout those those sessions that tend to to do really well So it’s um, I’ve certainly been there where I’ve wanted to go really hard in one session I blow up and I injure myself and and then I’m out for a little while so it’s um, you know, just making sure that you

In tune with your workload throughout the the week And then just I think technique as well and that’s obviously what I Specialized in when I’m coaching but With with technique at like swimming such a technical sport that without without that then it doesn’t matter how hard your work You’re going to be You’re probably going to be working a lot harder than you need to and one of the biggest complaints I get from people is particularly I work with triathletes and they’re Super fit super fit and then I’ll say I’ll keep getting passed by this guy in the next lane who’s like He’s got 30 kilos on me and he does not look fit at all and I know I’m fitter than him But he just glides past me and it’s a frustration that they have So it’s just it’s technique that that really comes down to it Yeah, I’d love to touch on that and for everyone listening we’re going to do two podcast episodes We’re going to talk a bit about technique now and then we’re going to come back to some of the

wider training principles of swimming afterwards Technique as a physio Brent and it’s so interesting Seeing swimmers and talking to swimmers about that experience that you just just mentioned there Because the thing that worries me is well for that person Who is swimming slower and probably inefficient is probably the description we would both use Is where are they then overloading their joints or which part of their body are they overloading because that’s going to be the one that breaks down So let’s start with with an example, mate. Like your average your average swimmer You know wants to improve their speed and their efficiency a little bit. So they might be let’s say they’re 50 They come to see you What are some of the common Technique problems that that you come across and that you see on an everyday basis Yep, so there’s there’s quite a few that that stand out the first one I’ll start with would just be head position. So if someone’s swimming and they typically have a sore lower back

Usually they’re going to be looking too far forwards with their head position and head positioning in swimming is a little bit different than what you might have been taught of Several years ago. I used to get taught you you should be looking straight down Like that’s the only place to look but there’s a range You should look at you can look anywhere from straight down to about 45 degrees in in front If you consider looking straight out in front as being 90 degrees. So zero to 45 degrees is kind of where we we want to be and When we do that we want to make sure that you’re lengthening through the back of your neck Like you’re sort of lengthening through your spine And imagine you’ve got good posture when you do it as well Because in that in that position, you’ll generally have good body position. So you’ll have your head and your hips up near the Near the surface there But head positions one that we usually start with because if you’re looking a long way forwards

Your legs are going to drop and then the amount of resistance or drag that that creates It’s very hard to overcome it. So head positions are a really good place to start with and then other people So Brent the people that come to see you I mean you just you just said you’re about your posture in the water now all of my patients think about their posture sitting and standing How many people have actually thought about their posture in the water by the time they come to you? I’d say probably no one unless they’ve heard it in a video that i’ve done or Yeah, they’ve had a coach tell them about it. It’s a funny one Isn’t like you would never really consider posture aside from maybe if you’re walking or You know sitting but yeah, it is so important in in swimming and you probably I mean you’d notice as a as a physio When you’ve got good posture your shoulder blades are in that position where you can Use those stronger muscles through your back and through your shoulders

And it’s the same thing when you swim with the right posture often We’ll find people will hunch over and they’ll round their shoulders in order to try and Power themselves through the water and pull themselves through But it compromises the the position that they’re in so they’re not often using their their lats and their That those muscles between their shoulder blades like upper and lower traps and and rhomboids and those sorts of things It’s hard when they’ve got that poor posture So it’s one of the first things that we cover when we are working with people is have that good posture And if someone is swimming with poor posture like straight away, they notice it They feel like oh, okay, this is actually a lot easier. I’m not feeling like I’m having to muscle my way through the water So it’s it’s not thought about much. But if you get that posture right and head position, right It takes care of like

The most of your body there because then you’ve got this little bit of tautness or tension through your body where You’ll be able to keep fairly stable Through your through your torso and hips and head and that way you’re going to cut through the water So much better than if you’re like a snake zigzagging through the water So those like basic things to get right. It makes a world of difference for those that haven’t got them in place So one more question on head posture then We’ve talked a little bit about open water series up here in Sydney Which would be the same down in Melbourne at the moment, but there’ll also be quite a few pool swimmers who are listening to this So Does my head position differ in the pool compared to an open water where I need to see and get my head above the waves Yeah, so you’re going to be Yeah, you’re going to what a site when you go to the open water So obviously going to look up and then turn your head to the side

So siding you’ve got to do it and your head will lift up then but when you’re not siding just make sure you keep the eye somewhere in that range and It depends on the person. It’s so individual with your head position There’s not one right position for everyone But I often encourage my triathletes and open water swimmers to look somewhere in that upper range Close to 45 because then you’ve got better awareness around what’s happening in front of you If you’re in the ocean you might be able to see someone’s feet if you’re close to them or Now you can sort of see what’s ahead rather than if you’re looking straight down So that’s where I encourage most people to go. So I don’t feel like you have to look straight down because You’ll often feel a bit more comfortable if you can look look slightly forwards and it’s certainly acceptable to be in that sort of range Yeah, okay. So I’ve got my head position right and I’m somewhere between

Directly down to 45 degrees forwards What’s then the next step in trying to build or correct someone’s technique Then another thing we look at is alignment in the water. So I’d say if I add 10 people come to me Five of those will be crossing over when they enter the water So as your arm comes over the top of the water and then your hand goes to enter it That’s what we call the or that’s the entry part of the stroke And about half the swimmers that I see are crossing the center as that hand reaches forwards out in front of them So it crosses the middle of their body So one of the things we want to try and do there is what we call swim on train tracks As in if you imagine you’ve got these train tracks that are in line with your ears Every time you enter the water you want your left hand to enter in line with your left ear And extend straight forwards out in front of you. So you’re following those train tracks

Every time you’re entering and reaching forwards And that way you’ll typically swim a lot straighter than if you’re crossing over And it can get rid of a lot of other faults in the stroke So that’s one of the things that we work with the swimmers who come to our clinics in the beginning is just Getting on those train tracks and and swimming straight Because yeah things just are a lot easier When you when you do that and the funny thing about that is if you do crossover And the way you can tell that is if you look forwards when you swim Have a look and see what your arms are doing as you’re reaching forwards And if they are crossing over and it’s it’s really common Then try to correct it to get them on those train tracks But when you go to change it if you were crossing over you’ve often got to exaggerate it to the point where you don’t believe You should be that wide like it’s like you probably see in like

Any sort of practice that you do that proprioception Sometimes isn’t great So we have to have swimmers just swim in a way where they feel like this cannot possibly be the correct thing to do but it’s just it’s because it’s different than what they’ve done for perhaps many years and Yeah, they get used to it after a couple of weeks But sometimes we have to get them to stretch those boundaries of what they think they should be doing Because it’s just different than what they used to and um takes a while to get used to it Yeah, absolutely. And so for all those listeners Who don’t know what proprioception is proprioception is about your body’s awareness of where it is in space So, you know, you might think that you’re not crossing over which brenton’s just described and then brenton shows you a video and you’re crossing right over So your Now left hand is getting in line with your right shoulder by the time I take the water and that’s

I suppose that’s the value of video analysis for technique. Like whether we’re talking Swimming or tennis or golf or or anything like you just need some feedback outside of your own body because you can Convince yourself that you’re doing something you’re not quite doing can’t you? Oh, absolutely. And it’s the thing about getting video, especially for swimming. A lot of people will They think about and go, uh, I don’t really want to see myself either in bathers Or I don’t want to see what my stroke looks like because like I don’t think it’s going to look pretty And so there’s a bit of hesitation there But I think it’s just like ripping off a bandaid might hurt a little bit at the start But it is it’s just worth doing because you can have such a huge benefit and improvement Once you actually just take a look at how you’re swimming and it’s kind of like When I went to um, I went to Kaiser maybe two or three months ago when I first started there. I did some testing and I was

One of the like internal external shoulder rotation. I did some testing there and um, I thought like yeah, swimmer. I’m gonna be pretty good at this I did the testing and it was embarrassing. I was like Like 40th percentile whatever it was like it was it was pathetic And I had an excuse hadn’t swum for a while because of lockdowns and stuff But let’s be honest. I probably wouldn’t change things much But once I actually, you know, I found out how poor I was with it Then I could get to work and start improving it and it was you know start improving a lot from where it was So rip that bandaid off And that’s one of the reasons that we wanted to have you on this podcast Brent And it is your approach to uh being database and being objective because a really big part of our philosophy at Kaiser is You know test things work out where they’re at and then try and address them, but Well, I look after heaps of golfers as well. So golf’s a really common sport. Um, just like swimming is for my patients

But golfers as soon as they go to their golf pro They’re on a video straight away and the golf pros, you know, drawing lines and they’re doing track man And there’s they’re looking at different angles Do you reckon it is just the idea of seeing yourself in Swimmers that people don’t want to do video analysis with swimming or is it Less known or why doesn’t everyone just accept it when they do in golf? Uh, I think it’s partly partly that like that under The underwater shot from the side like if anyone’s sort of self-conscious about their their body It’ll sometimes I can put them off a bit, but like no one really no one really cares about That, you know, if other people are sort of watching watching it. Um, but I think it’s just like It exposes that you’ve got areas to improve and sometimes if you’ve done something for a long time, you’ve Been happy with it. You know, you can it’s easy to just continue on that path

So I think that’s that’s part of it. It’s like knowing that you might not be perfect with where you are and it might mean it’s going to open you up to Something different that you might have to do and uh, yeah, so change change can feel hard sometimes So that’s that’s where I think it It comes from but then I do have a lot of athletes who come to me who they’re like I know something’s not right And I just want to fix it like just to help me because what I’m doing right now is hard And it’s not fast and there’s got to be a solution to it. So, you know, sometimes it’s about Being in a in a place where you just you’re not satisfied with it. Then you’re much more willing to Uh, yeah to take that step whereas if things that things are okay, it’s not enough of a frustration for you to Take that next step sometimes. Yeah, it’s a good point. So I imagine by the time I’ve corrected my head position and my arms are on train tracks that I’m creating a lot less drag in the water

I’m swimming a little bit faster. There’s a little bit less load on on all of my joints because I’m not fighting the whole time Um, what’s the next step that you look at in technique correction? Yep, well then

There’s there’s quite a few things that we do look at but the next Primary thing that we will often want to improve with people is their catch and pull And you can just think of that as what are your arms doing when they’re in the water? So the catch is like the first Third roughly first third of when the arm moves through the water and then the pool would be the rest of it And one of the most important things that we Want to work on is what we call a high elbow catch And I was talking about the high elbow catch because if you do any reading on swimming technique It’s on the first things that you come up and usually there’ll be a video of brenton ford associated with it

But uh, just describe everyone for everyone the high elbow catch Yep, so the high elbow catch in another Kind of term for it is early vertical forearm EVF You might see that come up if you look at it online and they’re not bad ways to describe it but I think it tends to confuse people a bit and get them trying to do the wrong thing so The the high elbow catch doesn’t mean that your elbows should be high in the water up near the surface That’s not what a high elbow catch is. It’s just this position in the water where Your arms out in front your fingers are pointing down and we want to have our elbow Forward almost like forwards. So our hand and forearm Is is sort of vertical in a way not completely vertical, but it’s it’s in that sort of direction So then your hand and forearm is angled in a way to press back against the water So it’s a little difficult to describe on a on a podcast. I’m much better working with video, obviously, but

Um The heart yeah with the high elbow high elbow catch to me. That’s the the 20% of the stroke That can give you 80% of the results or improvement for a lot of people So it’s a really important part of the stroke to get right And it’s not something that will happen overnight if you haven’t got it At the moment it certainly takes some practice But it’s a skill that really that it’s worth focusing on if you feel like you haven’t got much propulsion in the water And like when you move your arms not much is happening Yeah, getting that catch sorted is a is a really key one to to do and uh, yeah High elbow is an elbow near the surface. So don’t try and Pull through really shallow. It’s what I used to do as a kid. I thought oh high elbow Okay, it must mean up there without any understanding of it. Um, so it’s no wonder I didn’t get faster No, we’re trying to do that I guess for people listening the alternative one of the alternatives possibly would be

You know trying to swim with a completely straight arm the whole time And so your hand would end up really deep in the water and you’d be trying to use your whole arm for propulsion As opposed to predominantly your hand and forearm, which is what you’re describing Yeah, that’s right. Actually not a good way to to think of it is We want to avoid it What would be a dropped elbow catch where the elbow is quite quite low in the water And if you think of driving a car most people if you’ve got your 10 and 2 position with your hands on the steering wheel The elbows will be down sort of near your ribs somewhere down here there That’s like a dropped elbow position If you’re doing that similar position when you are swimming and so we want to go in the opposite direction So instead of having that 10 and 2 position imagine you’re like a like a p-plate up Driving down the main street trying to show off in front of people. You’ve got your elbow up in the in the other direction

That’s kind of what we want to do for our high elbow catch So it’s like a a p-plate driving position when we get that catch and that will get the hand and forearm in the right right position It’s a great description. There’s going to be plenty of people in the pool In the next couple of days thinking about driving a probably a vn commodore

Down the street when they’re 19 with a p-plate on and I imagine most yeah Like most of the people I work with they’re well past that the p-plate stage But you know, it’s okay to revisit that sometimes and get back to your childhood a little bit Renton I’ve got a couple of specific questions And I imagine you would get these all the time where people would say, you know, I’ve got shoulder pain

When I swim, uh, how do I fix my technique? And so I don’t quite want to ask that question because I’ve been asked it too many times myself and I think it’s unfair but as a as a generalization, um I imagine shoulder injury is a pretty common thing that you see and when someone does have a shoulder injury What do you look at as a coach? What are some of the things that people might be able to start doing? Yeah, there’s there’s probably two key ones that I’ve I see all the time and when people come to me and they say I’ve got a sore left shoulder Uh, I just I don’t know if it’s technique or not. Yeah, there’s two things that tend to stand out there When we look at it on the video It’s really obvious why they’ve got a sore shoulder because if you’re swimming like most people you might do one or two or three thousand meters at a time and that’s several thousand strokes or repetitions of the same movement and one of those things is

When people, uh, come over the water sometimes they’ll have their hand I think the best way to describe it their hand when it goes to enter will be up quite high and the elbow will be low so their uh, their hand is well behind their their head as they go to enter and that can cause a lot of Like it sort of jams up there up through their rotator cuff a little bit when the hand is So, yeah that up there and I know we’re on video here, but that’s sort of position We’re both with our hands up above our head at the moment trying to look at what each other’s point Which is not helpful to anyone at this point

so the So what we want to try to do when we enter the water is we should enter fingertips first And have at at that point have our elbow just above the water And then when you do enter and you’re reaching forwards try and get the hand down to about the same depth depth as your shoulder When you’re reaching forwards in front So that’s where we want to be but if we pause that with a lot of some as their hand is like up near the surface And sometimes above the water as well because only their elbow has entered and their hand hasn’t yet And so that’s a really uncomfortable position because those overhead movements As you know, you know that’s strong there and it’s just it’s not great for the shoulder So that’s one so we want to try and just make sure that they enter fingers first and then get the hand down to the shoulder depth Yeah From a physios perspective that position where you’ve got your elbow potentially entering the water first and your hand above it

is a end of range position for your shoulder and As a summary for most of your body your body doesn’t like Either being in an end of range position for a long time or going into an end of range position repetitively so that Dive or where you enter with your fingers first Makes a huge it’s a subtle but huge difference for your shoulder where it’s not taking it to the end of its range And dashing it against the wall all the time So I mean, even though i’m not a swimming coach, I can probably give some you know, biomechanical Background as to why that that would definitely cause shoulder pain makes sense Yeah, that’s that’s perfect because I like to hear it from your end as well because I I see it and I can help correct it but then You know as As what you do, what’s that? What does that mean for you? So that’s that’s interesting and that makes a lot of sense and the other one is

people over being too trying to overpower the The catch from from that position as well So when they’re on their side, they’re reaching forwards as they go to then start the the catch so start the hand moving Some people will try and do that with too much force straight away So again, they’re in that end of range position and they’re trying to muscle their way through that next part and As you said, it’s that end of range position. So you sort of compromise a little bit You’re not that strong and the thing about is you don’t really get that much extra You don’t get any extra speed from trying to rip hard when you’re there because I think of the catch. So that first Quarter first third as the setup phase when your hand’s moving through the water then after that as your hand is

Almost going underneath your shoulder there. That’s more the power phase and it shows when we actually look at when we measure the power of Of good swimmers is that’s where they apply the most force is like just in front of their shoulder and And sort of under that part. So use the catch as the setup phase and not the power phase Yeah, so don’t go too hard too early. So it’s they’re the they’re the main ones where we see injuries happening But that that’s super interesting. I’m definitely guilty of that second one Particularly on my left hand side. I feel like my left hand side’s a little bit weaker than my right. I’m right handed So I’m always thinking in my catch phase. I’ll just pull a little bit harder And I definitely am guilty of pulling from what you’ve just described a little bit too early in in that catch phase and it probably To be honest, it probably causes some irritations my shoulder I’m going to write that down and take note of that and and try that when I’m

Summing a point to point with the the bond I sold easiest Friday morning Yeah, that’s interesting. It’s interesting, isn’t it? So and the other thing about that too is if you’re Out the front and you’re going hard Initially, you’re only going to be pushing down on the water with your hand and forearm So you haven’t quite got the hand and forearm angling back behind you So that’s the other reason we don’t really want to want to do it And you don’t want to be completely like boosts and relaxed with it You still need that little bit of and pressure with it. But uh, yeah, I want to back it off a bit Make complete sense because I imagine that everything in the swimming stroke is about trying to create forwards propulsion So if I’m just if I’m putting a lot of power when my palms facing down and it’s not creating any forwards propulsion I mean, not only is it too much load on my shoulder. It’s probably wasted energy as well

Yeah, yeah, exactly right and there’s one more that Comes to mind. I see it less often, but it can certainly cause some shoulder irritation is the recovery So when the arm comes over the top of the water we want to You a pretty common way to Think of that recovery as a high elbow recovery So you’ve got your high elbow catch which is in the water Another thing that coaches will talk about is like high elbow with your recovery Uh, all the way. I think of that is your elbow So the point of your elbow should be pointing mostly up to the sky as your arm comes over the top of the water Some people who aren’t coming over correctly their elbow will point behind them So almost towards where their feet would be as they come through and if you think about being in a horizontal position Uh, so on your side a little bit but with that elbow pointing behind you Very limited with your range and it’s again Just that rotator cuff it gets gets smashed as it goes through there

So that’s why we need to get that elbow pointing up and it’s just much much easier So that’s another one that can can cause it and it’s pretty common to see people Recovering with that elbow pointing behind them instead So we just need to get them to almost lead within the elbow Or think of like the efforts coming from the elbow as your arm comes over the top of the water And that will allow your hand and for them to relax a little bit as you come through Whereas if you feel like The arm’s coming over because of the hand like that tensions through the hand that often causes the elbow to point behind you

Shoulder injuries must be really common in swimming the other one I get a lot So one more question before we we Pause this podcast and go to our second one about or about training principles

Low back pain and technique Brenton Low back pains most common can musculoskeletal condition in Australia Swimmers aren’t going to avoid it. Although it is a very good exercise for people who do have low back pain So what have you got to tell us about lower back pain and swimming? Yeah, you’re probably you normally find it with open water swimmers more than a pool swimmer because they’ve got to look out To site so it’s really common there. So it’s often Either from looking too far forwards when you swim normally or it can just be from that that sighting So it can be a little bit hard to avoid if you are going open water because you’ve obviously got to lift up but the way I would try to reduce that pain or that Pressure through the the lower back is when you do sight, which is just when you’re looking forwards at where you’re going Try to first of all do the sight and breathe method of of sighting If you look up sight and breathe effortless swimming, there’s a video on youtube that that will explain it

But basically it’s like it when you do want to look forwards look up on one stroke And on the next stroke turn your head to the side to breathe Instead of maybe having your head up for two or three strokes Which is just a longer time in that position and it’s just it’s hard to work So you want to make sure you’re sighting the right way So sight and breathe is the easiest way to do it and secondly try and get that the head up by lifting through your chest rather than Perhaps keeping everything sort of straight and your hips have to drop all that pressure Going into the the lower back there So you want to sort of like arch through the the chest a bit more To take some of that that pressure off as you do look forwards

Yeah, and for people who are sitting down all day and then they go out as their sport Swimming as their sport. I imagine that Thoracic extension, which is what you just described as lifting up through your chest Like that becomes more and more of a challenge for people brexit. Thank you so much for your tips on technique For everyone who’s listening Stay tuned to our next episode have a listen to Brent and talk about some of the training principles Find out which pair of goggles you need to wear Whether you should be wearing a wetsuit or rolling out in your budgie smugglers How many times a week you need to train and also How you mix strength training with swimming training as well