It felt like a plateau there until I started getting some of that feedback from the effortless swimming and then really getting the right body precision. 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 Carsten Weber. And Carsten and I started working together in the last one to two months. And the reason I wanted to get you on, Carsten, is because you’ve had a pretty significant improvement in your swimming in the last two months. So I want to talk about that and then also sort of what got you into swimming because you weren’t, I think it was a few months ago that you said you could only do 25 metres in about a minute. And it’s improved pretty significantly since then. So I think it’s good to share what you’ve done because I know a lot of other people

are probably in the same boat. So first of all, welcome. And what’s your sort of background into getting into swimming? Sure. So I’ve always enjoyed swimming in terms of, I did a lot of diving when I was a teenager. I grew up in Denmark and I’ll live here in Austin, Texas. But back in Denmark, I was always breaststroke and it was diving. So I never did any freestyle. And then for the last 10 years or so, I did very little swimming at all. But now I’m signed up for an Ironman in September of this year. And that includes swimming. So I’ve been out there, started swimming back in September and September of this year is when the Ironman is, so that has been great. In terms of what got me into the Ironman, that’s an interesting story where on Father’s Day of 2019, I was down at the coast here in Texas and trying to learn to kite surf and was out there a couple of hours. And then when I came in, I just started feeling really crappy.

It’s like a lot of pressure on my chest. I was wondering if I pulled a muscle or if I had somehow swallowed some seawater or something. And it turned out it was a heart attack. I never in a billion years would have guessed that it was a heart attack. My wife came back to the beach, she’d been out for lunch, she’d just got back and put the kite down. I sat down. I told her I just don’t feel right. And it got worse and worse minute by minute. And she’s like, I’m taking her to the ER and I’m like, okay. And we’re driving from the beach. She said she’s just seen one of those little emergency rooms, a little local one. So she’s driving from the beach, she’s trying to make a decision. Should she go to the big heart hospital that’s about half an hour away or should she go to this little local dock in a box that’s two minutes away? And I’m glad she made the decision to go to the dock in the box or I wouldn’t be here

today. I mean, it was by the time I got to the ER, I could just, I mean, or the little emergency room, I could just barely crawl in there. And there was a nurse there that immediately recognized that it was a heart attack and just started the treatment. And a couple of hours later, I was transferred to the big heart hospital and I got a stent put in earlier that same year. I’ve done two ultramarathons, so I’ve done a lot of running. I was in great shape. And the surgeon there said, if I hadn’t done all that running, if I weren’t in that kind of a shape, I just wouldn’t have made it the kind of heart attack I had was in the widowmaker. And there’s a 2% survival rate for what I have. So I’m lucky to be alive and did six months of recovery, full recovery. And my cardiologist said, no restriction on exercise. In fact, the more the better. And I’m thinking, the more the better. Okay, let’s go for an Ironman. What could be better than that?

So that’s the motivation. That’s why I’m here. And that’s why, you know, wanna prolong my life. Wanna have more years with my family. So that’s where that’s what started this. And so then you decide to enter an Ironman. And what was your swimming background before this? Because had you had any experience swimming at school or anything like that? Mainly just diving and just but not a whole lot of swimming and back in Denmark. It was all breaststroke. I mean, that was so popular. So that was what I stuck with. And I basically never did any freestyle. So back here in September of last year, when I started training for the Ironman, that was really the first time in decades that I did freestyle. And I remember when I joined Epilept Swimming, you asked me what do you want to focus on. And I said, well, since I haven’t really done it in forever, I want to focus on not getting any bad habits. I mean, I’m starting to scratch.

It literally did take me a minute to get from one end of the pool to the other, 25 meters. And I was so winded when I got to the other side. I was kicking with my feet like crazy thinking that’s where all the propulsion comes from. I’ve since learned that is not the case. And but that’s really how it started out. And and I really liked the idea of being able to do the video recording and going in on a very detailed level and and adjusting things that really appealed to me. And what did you think when you when you first got in and started swimming, where you struggled to make 25 meters? Was it like, oh, boy, like of what have I got ahead of me? Or was it something where you thought, OK, this is this is just a starting point and I know I can get better? I was so comfortable with breaststroke that I thought about I’m just going to do the Ironman with breaststroke instead of freestyle. And then I started looking at the times and it’s like, no, I got to learn.

I got along this freestyle and.

And then, yeah, just very I’m an engineer by background, but just taking a very engineering approach. And I remember getting the snorkel on there. So I didn’t have to turn my head got the pool boys. I didn’t have to worry about the the sagging legs, which were really bad instead of being horizontal. I think I was more like 30 degrees or something when I was going through the water. But really to where just try and focus on one thing at a time, break it down that way. And. Yeah, I mean, I remember when it first started out, it was. I was, I think, 26 strokes or so to get from one end of the pool to the other.

I just counted the total strokes instead of doing the distance per stroke. And it was about something like 26. And I could get that down to 22 strokes to get from one side to the other pretty quickly. And then it just it felt like a plateaued there until I started getting some of that feedback from. From the effortless swimming and then really getting the right body position. And and that’s a more of the technique. And now last week, I just counted it and it’s it’s somewhere around 14 to 15 strokes per per lane. So it’s come from 26 to 15. And I remember one of the things I suggested was to do a some sort of time trial, so I said, all right, 400 time trial just to give you a bit of a benchmark of where you’re at. So we know if you’re improving or not. And I think you did a 750, I think it was seven minutes, 50. That sounds about right. Yeah, 400. And then. Yeah, that was again, I mean, that that was what, two, two months after starting swimming.

So that has improved quite a bit there. And and but it was still, I mean, in hindsight, even that was still, you know, with sinking legs. And then something happened to where I just always assumed that the sinking legs would only go away if you sort of made up for it with the arms and you were swimming so fast that they just naturally stopped the leg stops to rise. I don’t know that was my thinking or it was when I was kicking with the arms and you were swimming so fast that they just naturally stopped the leg stops to rise. Or it was when I was kicking with the legs, the legs were just not very effective. I was kicking a lot, but it was only giving propulsion like backwards if there’s no upwards lift. So changing it to where the kick help lift the legs and and also just move, move the hip enough to really sort of lift up the butt. I mean, that made a huge difference. And I think the last one was was just over for the seven minutes for for the last time trial.

Yeah, I think you said it was 707. And we after that 750, you said, all right, next guy might be set under 745. And then you jumped under that pretty quickly, which is which is awesome. And one of the things you mentioned about that you changed about your kick was you you made it feel like you were flicking a piece of dirt off your shoe as the downward kick, which I think is a really good analogy for for kicking because we want this downwards whipping motion. And that downwards whipping motion can help bring the hips and the legs up. So it’s a good way to to think about it. And I was looking back at your original videos as well. And one of the things that we looked at with it was it was somewhat short out the front. So there wasn’t much length and extension. And the stroke now where you’re reaching for the wall, so to speak, it’s so much longer and you get much better connection through the whole body with it.

And that as well can help bring the the legs up to. And and that’s what we’re seeing now, I think. So how does it feel your stroke and when you swing? How does it feel now compared to about a month ago or maybe just before you started with this? It I mean, if it feels a lot better, I still feel like I was for a long time, I was very much focusing on this distance per stroke where like gliding and doing effectively doing very slow strokes. And that results in just always being out of breath because it takes a while for, you know, I’m trying to breathe on both sides for symmetry. And if you just go too slow, I mean, that’s a long time between breathing. And so now I’m trying to really just speed it up a little bit and do the the cadence a little higher. And that has actually helped tremendously in terms of not running out of breath. So swimming faster made it easier in that sense. Yeah, and that’s that’s an interesting one, too, because I think like stroke counts

a good measure sometimes of your of your technique. If you just mean like a very easy 50 or a very easy hundred, you can get your stroke count and it’s an indication as to how efficient you can be in the swim. But it doesn’t mean that we always just want to sit at the lowest possible stroke count. Because as you said, sometimes it’s a long time in between breaths. And the other factor in your speed is your cadence as well. And we actually find that like for me, for example, if I try and hold my minimum stroke count, my effort on my heart rates up quite high sometimes because there’s quite a bit of power going into the stroke. I’m not getting as much breath and I can actually swim at say, let’s say instead of 26 strokes, if I swim at 32 strokes for a 50 and I hold a stroke rate that’s probably 10 to 20 percent quicker, I’m a lot faster and the effort’s a lot less because it’s like that sweet spot. It’s like gears on a bike.

You don’t want to be sitting in that big, big gear the whole time. You want to go maybe one by week and just keep it ticking over all day, especially if you’re doing an iron man. So it’s about finding that balance. And it sounds like you’re starting to to find that balance with your stroke. Right. And it was it was surprising that going a little bit faster just made it so much easier in terms of the breathing and the pattern. Just at the sweet spot. Yeah, I’ve done some

outdoor swimming, it’s winter time here, so it’s with a wetsuit that helps tremendously in just terms of my sinking legs. And so I have done some iron man distance swimming the last one was in about an hour and 18 minutes, which is respectable. So it’s it’s not like I’m not in it to try and set any age group record. I mean, I’m just in it to try and finish it and and have fun with it. But that is a pretty decent time, I feel. And I I still think there’s a lot of room for improvement. Suddenly, we looked at something where the arms are not bent enough. Still, there’s still a lot of areas.

The big surprise to me is just how much of this is technique and not not raw power like if you’re running or biking, you can always power a little more here. There’s so much technique. Yeah, that’s yeah, that’s it. And it’s and sometimes if you’re brand new to a sport and need to anything like you just you don’t know what you don’t know. So and it’s really common with the kick. You know, you said at the start, you’re just kicking so hard because you felt like that’s where the propulsion should come from. And that’s what I think a lot of people they have they have the thought of when they first get started. But as you start to sort of work these things out and put them all together, swimming can be really enjoyable. It can be a lot of fun. And it can be, in a way, somewhat effortless. And when you get into that rhythm and that zone, it’s it’s just it’s really enjoyable. And that’s often where you improve a lot more because you’re having fun

fun with it, as you said. And I think that that approach where you’re not overly stressed about the times that you’re doing, you’re just there for the process and just seeing what you can what you can get down to. I think it’s a really good mindset for it as well. And to have that one 18 is again just another benchmark. Is yeah, is a great way to to then all right. We’ll see what we can get down to come September, because it’s nine months is a lot of time to bring that down. And if you were to get under under one 10, that would be really impressive.

Right now, that would that would certainly exceed my expectation. So that would be a great goal. Yeah. And I think that’s certainly possible. Just looking at looking at your videos every couple of weeks. It’s that’s the way I think it’s it’s heading.

And now that that would be great. So suddenly looking forward to that, I will say one thing that really helped me was what I talked about earlier, was really breaking it down and just try and get, you know, use the snorkel and and use the pull buoy. I mean, just do all these things in order to focus on one thing at a time. And I remember I was so proud when I when I did that first, you know, 100 meters swim in two minutes with my snorkel. And I send that in as my first video. And you’re like, that looks good. Now try it without the snorkel with the first feedback. But it’s still, I mean, that that helped me a lot. You know, break it down, focus on one thing at a time. It’s hard to change everything at once. Yeah, absolutely. And I think at the start, I might have said, like, we’ll keep it. The stuff that we focus on at the start might seem really simple. And so and often we don’t work on the catch at the very start.

And sometimes that’s kind of the sexy thing to work on, you know, is the catch and the pull, because that’s where a lot of the propulsion comes from. But if we don’t have these other things in place, like alignment and reach and rotation, then it’s very hard to to work on that. So I think it probably helps that you have this engineering approach to it.

By step, you know, just OK, I might be talking your language, which is which is helpful. Oh, yeah. No, definitely. And just break it down, count the number of strokes. It’s I mean, if you suddenly are spending one or two strokes less to get from one side and the other, you’re probably doing something right.

Yeah, well, thanks so much for for sharing the last couple of months on the on the podcast. Is there anything else that that you think would be helpful for someone listening or or something that you’ve maybe found in the last two months that that we haven’t talked about yet?

I know I would just say I like the videos. I particularly like the feedback Friday. It’s great to see somebody who is not an expert. And after a while, you can really you can start to pick up and say, oh, you know, I see another problem as well. So I think that those are very useful. Instead of only seeing the the elite swimmers. And other than that, you know, keep up the good work. And I look forward to the Ironman and hopefully reporting back a good time. Yeah, I’m looking forward to it as well. So yeah, thanks again, Carson. I appreciate it. Thank you. Have a good one. 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.