Welcome Effortless Swimmers to another week of Swimming News. This week we look at what to do if you are getting gassed quickly in your races. How to have more energy for the second half of your race. We also give you some sprinting tips that will help bring down your 50m and your 100m times, and we look at some ways to improve your kick without following the black line up and down.
00:30 – Getting “Gassed” Quickly?
00:58 – The Two Things All Good Sprinters Have Are…
01:18 – Three Ways To Improve Your Kick
02:21 – Is Scull Important?
03:23 – The Chopper Rescue Story
03:43 – 10,000 Fans Giveaway!
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These are the workouts we do in training (for triathletes and pool swimmers)
Getting “Gassed” Quickly?
If you find in your races that you are getting gassed quickly and you haven’t got that much energy at the back end of your race…it might be because you are not breathing enough. When I do video analysis for swimmers in our membership community, the swimmers that are having trouble backing up the second half of their race are usually breathing every 3-4 strokes. It is denying their body the oxygen that it needs to fuel itself for the second half of the race. If you try breathing every two strokes or a mixture of every three and two, then you might find you have more energy to finish off strong.
The Two Things All Good Sprinters Have Are…
If you want to improve your sprinting then let’s keep it really simple. If you have a strong kick and a high stroke rate (and you are able to maintain your stroke length) then you will improve your sprinting. Next time you are in training if you are thinking about having a strong kick and a higher stroke rate, they are two of the fundamentals of being a good sprint freestyler.
Three Ways To Improve Your Kick
There are a few ways to improve your kick without following the black line up and down. A few things that we like to do in training are:
- Vertical kick:Â Where you are in the water, you are upright you either have your arms crossed against your chest, your hands out or your hands in streamline position if you really want to challenge yourself. If you do that for a couple of minutes at a time you will find that your kick develops and becomes much stronger very quickly because vertical quick if quite challenging.
- Kick against the wall:Â You might go 60 seconds on, 30 seconds off. But for that 60 seconds if you do 40 seconds at a medium pace, 20 seconds hard that will tire you out pretty quickly and improve the strength of your kick.
- Partner kick: If you have a partner in the water grab a kickboard, someone goes on one side someone goes on the other side and you are kicking against each other trying to push the other person backwards. If you are doing that for 40-60 seconds at a time it is very challenging and very tiring but a good way to develop your kick.
Is Scull Important?
When I have new swimmers join the squad a lot of times they will ask why we do sculling, because we do quite a bit of sculling in our swimming training. There are two reasons why I like to do it. The first one is it works on good positioning for your catch. If you are doing a scull out the front then we are practicing the catch position for our freestyle, butterfly and breaststroke as well. Where you have a high elbow and your hand is lower than your elbow and you are just practicing that initial catch position.
That is one of the reasons, the other reason is it is good for practicing your feel of the water. When you are pulling through, if you are slipping through the water then you haven’t got a feel for the water. If you are practicing scull then you will you get a feeling for what it’s like to hold that water and move yourself through it.
A few keys with sculling if you look at the video is you want to keep your hand your forearm very straight so that you can hold water with that whole part of your arm, rather than just your hand. It’s a figure eight motion so thumbs up and then thumbs down as you sweep out.
There are two ways to improve your scull and improving your scull with improve your catch and feel for water in swimming.
Latest In Effortless Swimming Membership Program
This week in our swimming community I spoke about a massive mistake that I made last week in an open water training session that involved a helicopter rescue. Members of our program can login and see that now where I have put some details about a big lesson that I have learnt in communication when out in the open water.
10,000 Fans Giveaway!
This week we hit 10,000 fans on our Facebook page so I want to thank all of you who are fans of our Facebook page at facebook.com/effortlessswimming we have got a giveaway. Michael Klim has donated 3 MILK skincare packages for us to giveaway to our fans so head over to our Facebook page and you can find out more about that.
That’s it for swimming news this week. We have more videos coming, more tips more articles, more ideas to help you improve your swimming. So stay tuned we will be back next week with another swimming news video.
Transcript
Read the full transcript
Welcome, Effortless Swimmers, to another week of swimming news. This week we’ll look at what to do if you’re getting gassed quickly in your races. So how to have more energy for the second half of your race. We also give you some sprinting tips that will help bring down your 50 and your 100 meter times. And we also look at some ways to improve your kick without following the black line up and down. If you find in your races that you’re getting gassed quickly and you haven’t got that much energy at the back end of your race, it might be because you’re not breathing enough. So when I do video analysis for swimmers in our swim prove membership community, the swimmers that are having trouble backing up the second half of their race are usually breathing every three or four strokes and it’s denying their body the oxygen that it needs to fuel itself for the second half of the race. So if you try breathing every two strokes or a mixture of every three
and two then you might find you’ve got more energy to finish off strong. If you want to improve your sprinting then let’s keep it really simple. If you’ve got a strong kick and a high stroke rate and you’re able to maintain your stroke length of course, then you’ll improve your sprinting. So next time you’re in training, if you’re thinking about having a strong kick and a high stroke rate, then they’re two of the fundamentals of being a good sprint freestyler. There’s a few ways to improve your kick without following the black line up and down. A few things that we like to do in training are the first one is vertical kick. It’s where you’re in the water, you’re upright, you’ve either got your arms crossed against your chest, your hands out or your hands in streamline position if you really want to challenge yourself. If you do that for a couple of minutes at a time, you’ll find that your kick develops and becomes much stronger very quickly because vertical
kick is quite challenging. Another thing you can do is you can kick against the wall. You might go 60 seconds on, 30 seconds off, but for that 60 seconds if you do 40 seconds at a medium pace, 20 seconds hard, that will tie you out pretty quickly and improve the strength of your kick and the final thing that you can do to improve your kick without following the black line up and down is if you’ve got a partner in the water, grab a kickboard, someone goes on one side, someone goes on the other side and you’re kicking against each other trying to push the other person backwards and if you’re doing that for 30 to 60 seconds at a time, it’s very challenging, it’s very tiring, but it’s a good way to develop your kick. When I have new swimmers join the squad, a lot of times they’ll ask why we do skull because we do quite a bit of skull in our swimming training and there’s two reasons why I like to do it. The first one is it works on good positioning for your catch.
So if you’re doing skull at the front, then we’re practicing the catch position for our freestyle and our butterfly and breaststroke as well, where you’ve got a high elbow and your hand is lower than your elbow and you’re just practicing that initial catch position. So that’s one of the reasons and the other reason is it’s good for practicing your feel of the water. So when you’re pulling through, if you’re slipping through the water, then you haven’t got a feel for the water, but if you’re practicing skull, you’ll find that you get a feeling for what it’s like to hold that water and move yourself through it. So a few keys with scaling, if you look at the video here, is you want to keep your hand and your forearm very straight so that you can hold water with that whole part of your arm rather than just your hand. And it’s a figure eight motion. So it’s thumbs up and then thumbs down as you sweep out. So there are two ways to improve your skull and improving
your skull will improve your catch and your feel for the water and swimming. This week in our swim-proof community, I spoke about a massive mistake that I made last week in an open water training session that involved a helicopter rescue. So members of Swimproof can log in and see that now, where I put some details about a big lesson that I’ve learned in communication when out in the open water. This week, we hit 10,000 fans on our Facebook page. So I want to thank all of you who are fans of our Facebook page at facebook.com forward slash effortless swimming. We’ve got a giveaway. Michael Clemes donated three milk skincare packages for us to give away to our fans. So head over to our Facebook page and you can find out more about that. That’s it for swimming news this week. We’ve got more videos coming. We’ve got more tips, more articles, more ideas for you to help improve your swimming. So stay tuned. We’ll be back next week with another swimming news video.
