it was just a real struggle to get to a kilometer. And now like I really look forward to jumping in the pool and I honestly feel like I haven’t got that slow down point anymore, like I can just power through and yeah, get through a kilometer a lot easier. 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. This is episode number 189 and my guest today is Nick Owens and Nick’s based in Sydney and he’s recently had a pretty big improvement in his swimming. So Nick, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me, Brent. It’s good to be here. You emailed me, I had a look at the date, it was early May and you said that you’re one kilometer times average between 19, 20 minutes and you said, I’d love to get down to 17 minutes for okay in the next 12 months.

And then just recently, so like a month later pretty much you said I did a, I did a 1702, I believe it was. And so it happened pretty quickly. So I wanted to get you on the podcast to share what you did to have such a big improvement in such a short space of time because the downside to sharing something like this is sometimes people might feel like this is the normal people can just drop two minutes, three minutes from their times, but I think there’s obviously some things that we can take away from it. So where are you at a couple of months ago? What’s your swimming background? And then what have you done recently to change it? Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, so in terms of my swimming background I came to swimming very late.

I don’t think I really kind of got into it until I was in my 40s. And I was working on a show in Melbourne at the time about four or five years ago and I was swimming maybe three or four times a week. And I’d do a kilometer and at a time and I was doing okay back then. And then I stopped swimming for a while and then I’ve recently got back into it. And I suppose for the past year I haven’t been able to get any faster. So I’ve been sitting around like 19 and a half, 20 minutes per kilometer. And I just wasn’t getting anywhere. And then I can’t remember how I came across you but I may have been through a friend recommendation and I had a look and I saw that you had the five day catch challenge for $10 and I’m like, well look, can’t hurt. Give it a go. And so it just coincided with having six weeks off work.

And so I thought, I’ll give it a really, really good go. I’ll swim every day. And that’s what I did for about four or five weeks. And all the drills combined with swimming every day I just saw a rapid improvement.

Did you feel the difference when you were swimming so much quicker? Did your strike feel any different to what it used to? Yeah, it absolutely did.

I’d always felt like I wasn’t really very effective in my swimming. Four years ago, I kind of got down to like 17 and a half but I always felt like I was out of breath and that I was just kind of motoring half the time. And it felt like I was going nowhere. So I really, really noticed the difference from kind of day one with the catch challenge, thinking more about the stroke, the way my hands entered the water. And I don’t know, it just kind of really clicked quite quickly. Yeah. I’ve had that feedback a bit because the first module’s on the entry and getting that right. And I’ve had that feedback from quite a few people that that has been one of the things that’s really changed their strike. So what were you doing previously where perhaps it wasn’t, you weren’t entering right and it led to less of an effective catch and pull under the water? Yeah, absolutely. I think, look, I think I just wasn’t getting much pull in my catch.

And I think I was,

I saw someone doing it the other day. They were like, they’d swim with their lead arm and their other arm would follow in almost straight away. So it just wasn’t very effective in moving forward. Like, I think from the hand entering the water to the catch was way too quick. And that’s why I kind of felt like, just kind of, yeah, I needed to stretch out the time between each stroke, which I hadn’t really been aware of before. And so, the catch challenge, really kind of focused on that, elongating your arm as it comes through the water and just the simple thing of the angle of your hand to get rid of all the bubbles that helps you kind of lose all that drag. So, yeah, I guess it was just kind of focusing a lot more on what I was doing rather than just,

Yeah, and just trying to figure it out. I guess, had you had any instruction previous to going through the catch challenge? Not at all, no. And I think that was probably a large part of the problem because, you know, I mean, you jump in the pool, you think you can swim and you can swim, but you’re just not really swimming effectively. So I found it really, really, I don’t know, it was really inspiring like having that coaching because it just kind of makes sense. The things that you said and the breakdown of each part of it, it really made sense, the mechanics of it and how it all fit together to then, you know, equal the whole stroke. So, yeah. A quick note from our sponsor. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Form Swim Goggles. With these goggles, you don’t have to look at the pace clock anymore or be one of those swimmers in the pool always grabbing for their watch. With Form Smart Swim Goggles, you can see all of your key metrics

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To find out more about the form swim goggles, go to formswim.com and you can use our coupon code effortless at checkout and save $15 off your order. Back to the podcast. What were some of the things that you picked up and you learned from there, from the challenge that you hadn’t heard before and then you’re able to implement it into your stroke and you like had that switch where you’re like, ah, okay, that makes sense and I feel it. Well, I really, like I don’t think I’d effectively kind of use my lats to really pull me forward. I think it was all kind of arm work before. And so that really kind of struck a chord. I hadn’t really heard of the power diamond before and that kind of opening your stroke to bring your lats into being effective. So we made up that term, so it’s no surprise that you haven’t heard of it before. Yeah, that’s what I hadn’t heard. And I sort of adapted that from, there’s a former Olympic coach and swimmer,

Gary Haring from New Zealand, who mentioned the shape that you want under the body is like a diamond. And then I sort of took that and we called it the power diamond because it’s really one of the most powerful parts of your stroke. But it’s a very good visual way to think of how you want to be under the body because a lot of some of that we’re working with in clinics and online, that pulls straight through with a straight arm. And it’s very much sort of upper shoulder and it can really load up the shoulder. Whereas with that bit of bend in the arm, you tend to sit, set yourself back into the lats a little bit more. Yeah, absolutely. And it’s funny you should say that too because I’ve been complaining months ago, like at work saying about how my right shoulder had been really, really sore. And this friend of mine who’s also a swimmer, they’re like, oh, well, that’s a really common thing from swimming. And since having done the training with you

and going through the drills and everything, like my shoulder is fine now. So it’s really helped take the focus off, just the arms and shoulders doing the work and splitting it to your back, which is like your biggest muscle set there is. So, yeah, it was really, really, it was quite eye-opening. Like to think, wow, I’ve been swimming this way for years and it’s so ineffective. So yeah, it was a good realization. Has it changed your enjoyment of swimming at all?

Absolutely, yeah. Because it was, like I did enjoy swimming before, but it would, I’d often get in the pool and after like 300 meters,

to me it felt like the lactic thing kicked in and I’d just really struggled. And sometimes I’d be like, oh, it was just a real struggle to get to a kilometer. And now, like I really look forward to jumping in the pool and I honestly feel like I haven’t got that slow down point anymore, like I can just power through and yeah, get through a kilometer a lot easier. So yeah, I’m definitely enjoying it a lot more.

And I think progress is a big part of that too, right? Like you’re improving something and you can see that there’s hope to get fast and you have a few ideas on what that can be. And it’s really motivating when you have that progression in front of you because no one likes to stand still and be stagnant with their times, right? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And it is one of those things that’s an easy thing to do to just go, oh, to just kind of plot along.

But it’s like, yeah, you’re never gonna get anywhere doing the same thing over and over. So yeah, it was really good to do some coaching. Yeah, I’ve found that in other areas of life, like with swimming, I’ve done it for a long time. So I’ve kind of got that understanding, but when it comes to say surfing, which I didn’t do as a kid, when I’ve got some coaching and I’ve got a couple of ideas and they’re easy to remember, like some good cues like power diamond, for example, some good cues in surfing I’ve found have really helped. And then the same thing goes for sort of other areas as well. So yeah, it just takes a couple of simple ideas, I think to really give you a lot to work with, especially if you’re coming from no coaching whatsoever. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like I’ve never done swimming drills before and it just, I mean, it makes complete sense to kind of get that muscle memory built in to each part of the stroke.

And yeah, it was really, really effective way to kind of get it in your brain and then transfer it to your muscles. So yeah. And I think the consistency would have helped as well. If you were swimming every day for five weeks or six weeks there, like I’ve got no doubt, obviously that’s gonna help too, but yeah, no doubt the technique will be a part of it too, but it’s really those two things, isn’t it? It’s technique and then it’s the consistency and the training that you do when you put those two together, that’s where most people tend to see some really good results. Yeah, absolutely. Like it was, the swimming every day, like it was so easy to see the gains coming because, you know, like swimming alternate days, yeah, it just felt like shifting along at the same level. And this was a really good way to kind of build on each day with each set of drills. And yeah, it was very effective. How did you structure those workouts?

So you do that, like we’ve got that, obviously that suggested workout for each day. Did you then do your one kilometer after it? Like what did your training look like during that period? I didn’t, I probably should have, but I don’t know, one kilometer at the moment is kind of my cutoff point where I can kind of get to. I think if I’d have done the drills with a kilometer after I just would have been out for the rest of the day. So what I do is I’ll just alternate the days. So I’d run through the drills of say the day one catch and then the next day I’d apply it to the kilometer and then day two catch. And then I just ran through that for a few weeks. So yeah, for me that was the most effective way so that I could, you know, get the drills in my head, work through them and the next day then apply the stroke. So. Yeah, that’s a good approach. And that’s what I mentioned as well on there is that you don’t have to do it five days in a row,

follow this exactly. You might need to take some time between because you can’t swim. Most people can’t swim every day and sometimes they’ve got squad and that sort of thing. So I think that’s a really good way to do it. And it’s obviously ingrained those habits pretty well. So. Absolutely. Is there, do you feel like there’s, well, I was gonna say, do you feel like there’s hope to break that 17 minute mark? I mean, you’re two seconds off it. You’re probably gonna be busy with work for a little while but does that feel attainable somewhere in the 16 range now? Oh, it definitely does. I mean, I should caveat that 17-02 that was the fastest that I’ve done. And since then I’m kind of averaging between 715 and 730 which is still, you know, 10 seconds faster 100. So I absolutely think there’s room for improvement because I think that, you know, that’s one part of the swimming that I’m getting my head around is, you know,

the stroke and the catch. I think I can improve in my kicking and I think I’ve also like, I’ve never ever been able to tumble turn. So, you know, that could help improve things as well. So, but yeah, I’m definitely more positive like than a few months ago. Like I honestly felt like a few months ago, well, is this it? Is this as fast as I’m gonna get? Because I’m not getting any younger. So I thought, oh, well, maybe this is it. But no, definitely my goals are shifting and it would be great to get into the 16s anywhere. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it’s, yeah, look, maybe if you’re around towards like one 15 pesos or so, you know, maybe it might be this is it and it might be a slow decline until, you know, 50, 60, 70. But, you know, when you’re around the two minute mark, there’s always stuff you can do. And, you know, you’re getting into the, what is it, low 140s? I’m trying to think, yeah, under low 140s. And so those, you know, 130s are not too far away.

Hopefully. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, and that’s the thing. You’ve only worked on the really the catch part of the stroke. I had a previous guest who was on probably two, well, it’d be a couple of weeks when this gets released. But he went through the five core principle trainings inside our membership. And so like the first one’s on breathing and relaxing the second one is on finding your balance. And, you know, kind of takes you through the other aspects of the stroke. And he was going through that. And after the second one, he emailed me and this was after recording the podcast because he had a, I think it might have been like a 10 second per 100 improvement as well. And he emailed me and he said, oh, I’ve dropped another five or seven seconds per 100 going through once he was up to that second core principle. So there’s always stuff you can improve when you work on the other aspects of the stroke. And yeah, but I think the catch is one of the main ones

because it’s where you get most of your propulsion. So yeah, I think it’s fantastic that you’ve been able to make that improvement. And I appreciate you sharing this on the podcast because I love hearing stories like this, especially when you thought you’re a stark and you’re like, this is it, there’s nothing I can do. And you’re able to make such a huge improvement. So well done on that massive improvement. Oh, thanks so much, mate. And honestly, like thank you. All the tips, like it’s just helped immensely. Like, and it really is, it’s such an enjoyable thing to swim and it’s something anyone can do. So, you know, yeah, it’s great. Thank you. Ah, you’re welcome. Yeah, that’s a good thing about swimming, isn’t it? You can, I’ll say 80, 90 year olds, I mean, my Nan, who’s 92, she still goes to the pool a couple of times a week. So I’ve got no excuse if I’m, if I don’t get to the pool at least once a week if my 92 year old Nan is still going.

So yeah. That’s it. Keeps you young. It certainly does. That’s it. Thanks again for being on the podcast, Nick, and all the best with your swimming in the future. Oh, thanks so much, Brendan. It’s been fantastic. Cheers. 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.