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. The Effortless Swimming Podcast, my guest today is Michael Ryber. Michael, welcome to the podcast. Oh, thank you. So I got in contact with you a few weeks ago now and I said, look, I’d love to have you on the podcast because the improvement that you’d had after the five day catch change was pretty outstanding. And I thought it’d be great for you to share what has made such a difference for you in that time because I couldn’t quite believe it when I read your comments at the bottom of it. So for those listening, could you give people a bit of background on who you are, what you do and how long you’ve been swimming, that sort of thing? Yeah. So I started rather than late swimming like 30 years ago when I was 30 and I was in a swimming squad.

We met once a week. It was for grown-up, of course, and it focused on just getting the exercise and then improving a bit your technique. So at that point I wasn’t even able to crawl like 24 meters. I had to stop and breathe, but I got the breathing and stuff under control. Okay, but that was 30 years ago. It was a different swimming technique you used back then. The is stroke was the big thing of the time. And yeah, I became a father and I had to travel a lot with my work. So after a few years I stopped. And then I had my exercise from biking and from running and then I picked up again swimming only recently. I’m skydiving too. And then as I had an accident in 2017 where I broke my right ankle, then I had to go through a recovery with physiotherapist retraining. And part of that retraining was getting back in the pool because you’re not loading any of your joints when you are in a swimming pool. And so that was to regain some flexibility.

But yeah, I could still swim the call and that’s fine. But yeah, got the exercise. Then number of other health issues. So it turned out I could no longer bike. I could no longer run. And I gained a lot of weight as a result of that. So I, on doctor’s advice, got back into the pool. But living in Denmark, even the pools can be quite cold. So it’s not like such a pleasure going in the pool. But I started up, had a few runs and then COVID came and closed all the pools. And there I was back at square one. And then May this year, the pools opened up again and I could start swimming and I found out that if I came in the day, not in a swimming squad, then I had access to more heat and being able to do this on my own time as I was working from home. Then I could arrange the time as I wanted it. I could go in the middle of the day to those sessions. So there was not a lot of people and meaning more space in the lanes.

And that was just comfortable starting out about 450 meters and then gradually growing it to 800. And but still, when I look around, I see, man, you are slow. You might get some good exercise, you might get your heartbeat up. But everybody else is almost faster, even those doing breaststrokes. So I said, OK, this is great. It’s a life change for me. I was biking four to five hours a week and I had to do something else. So yes, I really enjoyed swimming now that I could come at my own time. So I really wanted to do that. And since I know I’m going to be doing that a lot and yeah, things happen in 30 years, I better revisit my swimming style. And so that was where you first started maybe looking for a way to get faster, was it? Is that when you sort of came across the catch? Yeah, so now we are in August, where I had my 61 year birthday and I got a present from my daughter, which was swim smooth, which I’m sure you know.

It must have been something of a vital at that time in Australia. But my experience from skydiving is that using video, you can really learn a lot faster than just reading a book and then trying to do what that book describes. And then when I looked around in YouTube, I saw different videos and different people trying to teach you the style. I started in a swimming squad in September and then I came across effortless swimming. And I mean, I like the Australian way. I like the laid back, relaxed approach. No big promises, just nice, sympathetic people. And then I joined the catch challenge. And I had already at that point trying to work in some of the changes that I had read. But following it, getting it step by step really made a huge difference for me. So I was able to take it slow and focus on the technique. I know that I shouldn’t do just laps and laps for endurance or whatever because as long as this technique is not the right technique,

I will just be practicing some wrong strokes and get some bad habits. I ran into a shoulder injury because that catch is really so different from what I tried before. I had some inherent failures like crossovers that exaggerated the shoulder injury. So I had to stop for three weeks. It turned out try and find out some guidance. What do you do when you have an injury? And I mean, if you ask physiotherapists, they say, don’t swim at all if you have an injury. If you ask hardcore trainers, they said, get on with the job, get in the water. You lose your feel for the water being out of it. And then you can start all over again. So I found a middle ground. I was a physiotherapist in swimming in the US who recommended that you can continue as long as the pain is mild. But as soon as it gets like an oing and never train if it’s hard pain, it will keep you in the water. It will keep your feel for the water. Do more kicking if it’s a shoulder injury.

Do other exercises and then go slow on don’t do max and any of that. And that’s what I did. And over the course of four weeks, thanks to the course, I got some corrections in the stroke. And now I have no pain from injury or exertion or anything. I’m off to swimming for hours a week. So it’s great. That’s a great result. And I get it quite more often than I would have expected a couple of years ago. There’s a lot of people who do have some injuries caused by their swimming or they get it when they swim. And I’m quite amazed at how often it just comes down to their technique. So that’s a really good thing to hear. Do you know what had caused it? Were you trying to get a really exaggerated catch or was there something there that stood out to you that you changed? I mean the first real eye opener was when I took your advice and shot a video even though it was a bad video. Then it struck me what I actually did compared to what I thought I did.

And that was the first feedback you then gave me on the members call. I mean it’s like pulling all the curtains that you’re swimming right there. There’s no middle layers of interpretation. It’s just hard facts. That’s what you do. Like it or not. But if you accept that and that’s the first step in learning is accepting where you are then you can do something about it. And there I could see I still had the crossover in the first video that I shouldn’t have. And I thought maybe that it was over exaggerating the catch that had caused that pain. But why only in one side and not in the other? You would think you were symmetrically the video proved otherwise. It’s really an eye opener. So that’s like one thing. The other thing was that I was ramping up my swimming. I was like three times a week and one was with the squad and then I had like two sessions where I could do the five day catch challenge. But then with the three weeks pause then it took quite a while to complete those five days.

And then again you advised three to four times in the water and then it comes back to me from my skydiving learning experience that when you do skydiving typically you would go every other weekend do a few jumps. So over a couple of months you would progress. But you would expect to progress and then stagnate and then progress maybe fall a little back. So you have your progression is not linear. It’s up and little down and then up and small jumps. But what I did back then was that I got a new experience. I took a one week vacation at a training camp just focused on this where we got in five jumps every day. We do feedbacks from every single jump. And the instructor he is excellent and he could identify himself with each individual jumper go into what does that particular jumper need right now to adjust. And I have never experienced anything. I was just growing and growing and growing and growing continuously for five days.

No, it was a week to five jumps a day but a full week. And what it taught me is that it’s better to do a lot of training and get feedback and improve it like identify that experience. Because then you don’t get those fallbacks and jumps that you otherwise do if you only every week and maybe skip the training and so forth. 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 while you’re swimming distance pace stroke rate. They’ve got it all and the swim data is displayed on the Google lens and you can customize the display to see the metrics that you want to and I was worried that it was going to be distracting. But you can literally see through the display the metrics always there but you have to choose to focus on them.

It’s really impressive and it makes hitting intervals or any kind of specific training much more manageable and achievable and the goggles track at all. It’s automated so from the time you start your session to the end of the swim you don’t have to press any buttons in between. It automatically tracks everything. Form also works with a bunch of the best pro athletes out there including Lionel Sanders, Sarah Crowley, Hannah Wells and Olympic champion Usama Malouli to name a few. These form goggles are for all types of swimming too. One pair of goggles and you can use them in the pool, the open water, you can use them in swim spars and endless pools too. So the same pair of goggles can be used in all of these different environments. The battery life is incredible too. One hour charge is 16 hours of swimming time battery life. And you can have the display on either your right or your left eye. The goggles themselves come with anti-fog solution that’s used in dive masks.

So it’s great in terms of quality and there’s a protective case with a nifty drainage solution. So after you swim you can store them safely. And while the goggles connect to the form swim app on your smartphone too they all sync with the form app. And then you can review all of the details of your swim. And you can see what other swimmers are up to in the form swim community as well. I’m a big fan of these goggles. I was really impressed when I used them and I use them for the vast majority of the sessions that I’m currently doing. 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. And there’s many similarities in skydiving and swimming. Because in skydiving you use your arms to adjust and feel the wind as you travel 200 kilometers through the air. And then by maneuvering you can move around in the air.

So there’s a lot of core muscles you use and getting up on the air, getting that feel and having the feel for the air. So there’s a lot of really using your entire body and to feel the air. And that’s that feel you lose if you don’t jump regularly. And it’s the same in the water. I mean you get that feel when you extend your arm to see if it’s in the right position before the catch. And when you feel the catch where you actually get a hold on the water, it’s feeling. And a few days out of the water and I feel am I not doing it right? But then I do the free recommended drills there. First the 616, then the doggy scoop and then the YMCA. And then I know, okay, I got it. I got it. I know what to do now. Let’s focus on the next thing I need to train. But just like in every training to kickstart that feeling, okay, I’m there. Yeah. There’s a couple things there. The first one is when you first started, I haven’t sort of mentioned this yet.

So what was the improvement that you had from when you first started to when you finished the course of that couple week period? Yeah. I mean, if my 100m times, they were when I really went forward like 230, 230 seconds. And then after the catch challenge, I mean, I got a time of 135. And last week in my swim squad, we don’t do timing regularly, but every now and then we do. And there I had a time of 131. So it’s absolutely unbelievable how you can knock off one full minute. To me, it’s like, uncomfortable that it’s even possible. But I’m just getting hungry here. I’m really how I enjoy. But I mean, I have no hurry. I mean, I have the rest of my life. This is part of my life now. So I do it to lose weight. As I gained so much weight, I was and I’m still overweight. But I lost 14 kilos since August. And I only have 10 more to lose before I can say that I’m back to my weight before all those health issues kept me away from my biking.

So yeah, that’s amazing. Yeah, it’s just one of those changes in life that you have to face when you get older and get adversity in your life. And you just have to find out, accept that you are not what you were before, face it or suffer. And it’s tough, but you just need to find other ways to do what you want. And if you don’t, then you are heading for a car skip. Yeah, it’s tough. So you got it. So the swimming is really great. And I just joined now an open water team. And it’s mostly mature swimmers. Many are parents or grandparents already. So I feel that I fit in in that group. And this is really one of my goals. I always enjoyed swimming in the ocean. As my job took me around, I have been swimming in Rio de Janeiro at Cocacabana Beach. I’ve been swimming in the Philippines, in Thailand and always the ocean has been a big draw. It’s wild. It’s like wow. And combined that with my previous experience as a recreational diver.

Something I picked up in the Philippines. A lot of joy there as well. So I love learning. I can only recommend it. That’s really great. And one of the things that we were talking about before we jumped on the call was, you’ve said you were, you film yourself every two weeks. And look at the footage and review how you’re going and the things that you’re working on. And obviously that’s a big help to be able to bridge the gap from what you think you’re doing to what you’re actually doing. It’s amazing what you can learn from the video. I mean, even after the last feedback you gave me and I thought I corrected those issues. And then when I filled me just this Monday, I could see I’m not there yet. So I was a bit disappointed. But still then when I compared like what had happened over the past two weeks, I could see some improvements. Just not what I had in my head, imagine. So that continuous feedback is part of the learning process, really.

And it gives you something to strive for to make that perfect. But filming a video in Denmark in a public swimming pool. No, it’s so hard to get a permission because the people responsible for the swimming pool cannot allow other people to be in the frame. So I was able to make an arrangement with the manager that if I come early in the morning, use the dive pool that is not otherwise used. Then I would be able to record my swimming. And the way I do this then is by using a GoPro that I have a suction cup on so that it can be mounted under the water. And it’s only 12 and a half meter across in the dive pool. But placing the GoPro like in one end and then I swim in the middle of the pool back and forth across from the camera. Then I get footage that is sufficiently good that I can see what I’m actually doing and that I also provided for those reviews. And it doesn’t need to be amazing quality, does it?

Even there’s some cheaper cameras than a GoPro like Kaiser Bass is one. And they’re like $100, $150. And it’s not as good as a GoPro, but it’ll do. And for the amount of time that people are typically swimming, it’s so worth the investment just to get an underwater camera or get someone to film them. And find a way to get it done. Because as you were saying, you thought you’d corrected some things, hadn’t changed it quite yet. But with that feedback, it is just so valuable. Yeah, and that’s really the thing I like about the video that it allows you to identify those one-two key areas you should work on now. Because swimming is so complex that if you think about all the things you have to do, then you can focus maybe on the entry of the arm and the catch. But then you cannot at the same time focus on your hips, your head position, your breathing and your kick. So it’s like one thing at a time. And yeah, so it’s good to be able to say, okay, now this is what you should be focusing on.

And you sent your video in. So you’re one of our video members. And so just in our memberships where you have access to all of our courses and workouts and stuff. And every month I do a live Q&A where people will send their videos and I’ll analyze them on the call and give you one or two things to focus on. And that’s where you got that first analysis. Yeah, that’s great. I mean, it’s a great system. After the five day catch challenge, I joined the membership. I mean, it’s great. It’s really, I mean, Brent, the advice you give, it’s top class. Absolutely. I think it’s a great ability to give a swimmer what he needs to focus on instead of just telling him all the things that are wrong. Yeah, I appreciate that. I see like, yeah, I see the amount of feedback that some people are given. And it’s like, it’s too much. And I know from personal experience, if I’m trying to do, I can’t do three things. Two, sometimes I can do if they’re, if it might be like head position and like entry or something.

But it’s very hard to do more than two. So yeah, I think it’s the only way you can really get better is to have ideally one thing to work on at a time. Maybe two and just have that patience like you mentioned earlier. Because with that patience, you’re not trying to force your swimming. You’re just allowing yourself to relax, work on these changes and know that they’ll come. And that’s, that’s typically when I see people make the biggest improvements is when they’re not looking to rush it. They’re happy to go through the process it needs to be gone through in order to get those changes to become permanent. So I think that sort of attitude or approach is one big reason why you had the success that you’ve had so far. Yeah, also one of the things I noticed that at the end of a workout where I’m exhausted is actually where I had had the best feel for the water. And when I do my swim down, I often have that great experience of things coming to me in a way that I wouldn’t have expected.

So, yeah, and then another thing with those workouts, there’s never a swimming session that is boring. It’s just enjoyable always. So, I mean, compared just to doing laps and laps, I love working on the technique and getting this kind of feedback. It’s really great. I even consider joining so you could do more video analysis, but it’s not for my wallet. And you need to be a pro to put that kind of money down to sort of get you any time you want to have an analysis. But I’ll say the membership is great. It gives you some of that experience and the video feedback is the same. It’s just you have to wait for your turn once a month. Yeah, so you’re talking about the stroke analysis membership there. So that’s where people can send videos whenever they like and coach them on their stroke. And I had a guest on recently, so Guy Quest, who he sent his video through for analysis on the members call. And because he was struggling to make more than 50 meters without stopping.

And I gave him one or two tips and it made a difference to him going. Maybe like a hundred or 150 meters like he was. It took his heart rate down a lot. And then I’ve coached him for the last couple of months through the stroke analysis coaching. And now he’s taking a bit of a break because he’s going to be doing a little bit more running for the next three months and lead up to a marathon. But yeah, but so we work closely for that that time period. And so for people who are like really wanting to send a video each week or so on, that’s that’s who we usually get in. And but because you’re filming regularly and you know what you’re looking for at the moment. I think what you’re doing is, you know, is exactly sort of where you should be should be out at the moment. And the do you feel like you’ve got the same sort of feeling that you get from riding or biking that you now have in swimming? Or is that are you getting that sort of sensation of you getting as good a workout as you used to from riding?

Yeah, I would say even better. It’s done wonders to my feet and ankles. And my average pulse is about 120. Okay, it says nothing to other people, but it’s in the high intensity range of my. Yeah. So I even get close to my max pulse when I want to max out. So as an exercise, nothing beats swimming. That’s for sure. And at the same time, if I want to go aerobic, I can easily do that. I discovered that I have a speed currently around two minutes 17 seconds. If I go at that effort level, like 60% of full effort, then I can just keep going and keep going and keep going and keep going. And it doesn’t matter what it is. If it’s a 50 meter arm aiming for if it’s 150, it’s those two minutes and 17 seconds. So that’s a fully aerobic exercise. I can just continue with that. So if I wanted to go longer, which I sometimes do like 75 minutes on a workout, I could easily do that. And I hope really to bring that into the open water because yeah, that is really just swimming long distance.

And it should be enjoyable, but the water is five degrees here in Denmark at the moment. Yeah, a little bit colder. And coming from you on the cold side, coming from your skydiving background, I feel like the open water would be a good fit for you. Still a bit of excitement and maybe not as much of an adrenaline rush, but still a bit more excitement than swimming in the pool for you. So that would be a good combination. Yeah, yeah, I’ve joined an open water squad now and plan on swimming once a week and they have wetsuits that I can borrow. So I don’t have to like make an investment in a really thermal wetsuit when I’m not the size that I plan to be. So in the interim that is there. And I plan to take the good experience with the video with me into the open water by making some stuff folding underwater again with a GoPro camera. So that those in the squad who are interested in getting video, they can use that opportunity to learn how is their stroke when they are wearing a wetsuit.

How are they balanced in the water? How do they swim? Yeah, so… I think you become one of the favourites in the squad if you’re doing filming for people. They’ll be pretty happy about that, I reckon. So Michael, thanks for being on the podcast. Any final words of wisdom or what are your most looking forwards to in the next couple of months that’s got you excited about your swimming? Yeah, a bit of wisdom is that life is long. So just take your time and enjoy and then do the things that make you happy. And I always appreciated education and support others who want to educate themselves, sponsor some people in the Philippines where I live for five years through an education. And this is my education. So yes, I also like to educate myself. I think we can learn all life and life is long. So enjoy it. That’s a great way to finish up. When you feel like you’ve stopped learning, that’s when I think life would get pretty miserable from then onwards.

Because there’s nothing for me as a coach to come across someone, and it doesn’t really happen, but to come across someone who thinks they know it all and is not willing to learn anymore. And I think, and look for me, I reckon I felt like I knew the most when I was about 19 and I started coaching. I thought, I know how to do this, but that’s when I knew the least. So yeah, I think that’s a great one to finish up on. Michael, thanks for being on the podcast. I’m looking forward to working with you over the next few months and just continue to see your development and growth as a swimmer. Okay. Thank you, Brent. Take care. 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.