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 third and final part of this three-part series with Brent Best. As you will have heard on the last couple of episodes, we’ve talked a lot about the EO swim better. And before we get into the episode, I want to let you know about an exclusive offer that EO is providing for our podcast listeners. So the EO swim better is like a power meter for your swim, which measures both the force and the path of your hands through every stroke. And it provides a unique insight that can improve your technique and efficiency in the pool. And we know that leads to faster swim times. So if you want to know more, head to eolab.com. That’s E-O-L-A-B dot com. And the first production runs already sold out, but they are taking pre-orders now

for delivery in June. And the exclusive offer for our podcast listeners is when you use the code Effortless at checkout, you get your first 12 months free on a single gold license with any handset purchased. So use the code Effortless at checkout for your first 12 months free on a single gold license with any handset purchase. And that will save you 200 Australian dollars, around 150 US dollars, depending on which currency you’re purchasing in. So you can head to eolab.com and use the code Effortless at checkout. All right, let’s get into the episode. It’s a really common one that I see usually on the breathing stroke as well. The thing that annoys me is that, say, a finger-dragged drill or sometimes you get people just over-rotating trying to look good. Yeah, you see a video on Instagram and it’s like, oh, this looks good. I’m going to copy that. And I had someone email me the other day and they said they’ve had issues

with their shoulders. They said, I’ve been trying to rotate a lot more just to take that pressure off my shoulders. And I’m like, man, this is doing the opposite probably to what you’re thinking because if you are too far on your side and you’re trying to get a good catch, that is going to put a lot of strain on your rotator cuff. That is going to jam you up. So you’re probably better off just backing off some of that rotation from what you’re trying to do. And it’s probably something else in your stroke that’s actually causing issues with your shoulders as long as it’s not something underlying. So I think there can be a lot of advice out there that will actually go do the wrong thing. It will send you in the wrong direction and maybe cause more issues with your shoulders. So that’s one that I’ve seen quite a bit of. Yeah, and look, if you want to try it out, try it out. And then get something on your end, I guess I’m going to have a look at it

and then see how much worse it’s going to swim when you’re doing it. If you don’t believe it, don’t believe me. Believe the video sitting in front of you. That if you want to try some stuff out, try it out. But get there at these devices and get someone to watch you or something and talk to you about how much worse it is. Where I think it’s come from, and I think it’s important to know where it’s come from for me, Brenton, because my history goes back into… So I’m not just talking about pipe hormones. My history goes back into adjuvant swimming, learned to swim, and master swimming, which is where I started, is that we want… And we’ve got a history of having really good high recoveries and we want to be relaxed. But more isn’t better. This is a really nice position right here. We don’t need to be here. More is not better there. We don’t obviously want to be all the way out here, but we don’t also need to be in there.

We need to find the position that’s relaxed and going to be in the best power position for you. So you need to work on it and find that position and where it is and don’t be biased by what feels familiar just because you’ve been doing it for a while because someone taught you a while ago a stroke that’s going to make you look more pretty or sell or learn to swim programming because it does look beautiful and learn to swim and you’ve got a whole bunch of kids swimming high all by a bit. Does it serve you? It might serve you, but if it doesn’t, don’t follow up just because it feels familiar. It’s a good one. More is not better. Quite often at clinics I’m trying to get people to do less of the thing that they’re trying to do, whether that be rotation. Sometimes it’s actually reach. Sometimes people try it. They know that you should swim long, but they’re reaching too long and pushing too far back. So more is certainly not better in that case.

You just want the right amount. So that’s a good thing to remember. I actually had a guy on the weekend at a clinic and he has a better high elbow catch position. Now, if we define it as sort of elbow forwards, like vertical forearm, a better catch position than I’ve seen with many of their elite swimmers and triathletes that I’ve worked with. But because he was overpowering the catch and rushing it a little bit and the shoulders were rotating a bit far, he wasn’t able to translate that into the same sort of speed. So what I was explaining to him and trying to get across and I guess sell the idea is that look, your catch is incredible. You can probably back off that effort that you’re putting into the catch and even how much of that high elbow position that you’re doing and you will actually be faster because you are going to be better balanced. You’re probably going to feel stronger and then things will be moving together

a whole lot better. So, and there’s not many swimmers where I’ve actually had to say that because it’s quite a unique flaw in the stroke, I guess. But yeah, and I said it’s one of the more challenging things to develop is a really good catch and you’ve got that. So now we just need to adjust some of those other things so it can all come together and it’s probably going to feel easier to be going faster. So I see it a lot with a lot of swimmers that I deal with that their elbow is too high or too long in their stroke. It annoys me because it’s a shoulder injury waiting to have there’s an optimal amount there as well. If you haven’t got good range in your shoulders, getting into a good high elbow position is going to destroy your shoulders and take away from your power. So there’s an optimal range there too. You’ve got some people that are very flexible and very well connected that can probably sit up a bit higher.

And there’s some people that are not very flexible and are not well connected and are not more balanced that can’t afford to do it. I’ve had athletes who have been able to really get into a very good position and I’ve had athletes, Jayne is probably the most notable of them that couldn’t. So here’s a high elbow position. I’m going to do the coach thing and stand up here. His elbow sat about there. And that’s as far as he went. Didn’t never get into this position here. Got into this position here. That was as far as he went. That was his high elbow. But that worked fairly well for him. And there was a bit of criticism around me. He’s nothing but his elbow high enough. Worked all right. And when he did try to push his elbow into a high elbow position, that’s when he got any shoulder issues at all. When he tried to get anchor too high or hold onto that position for too long. So I see it a lot. People are passionate and they want to do a really, really good job.

So they find it a high elbow is good. And more high elbow must be better. That’s just that advice. More of a good thing. You’ve got to find the optimal amount. You’ve got to find the optimal angle. And if you are internally rotating your shoulder and you are feeling shoulder pain, you’ve gone too far. Yeah, you can’t last long with that, when that’s happening. This is not, these are not loading muscles. These are loading muscles through your body. And if you hold that too high and you jam that, you’re power down on that too much, then you’re going to end up with all sorts of things. I’m no physio, but we’ve seen significant, like things like a labor tech will happen if you are trying to hold onto that and hold onto it took for too long. And then load a muscle that is meant to rotate the shoulder. It’s just an absolute trap. And I think it’s overtaught a little bit of what we’re also seeing and getting back to the device.

And we’re seeing less power through there because if you’re trying to hold onto that for too long, you can’t engage these muscles through here because they work, this one doesn’t work when this one’s working. So until you get down into here, you can’t add power to your stroke anyway. So you’re trying to hold up your high elbow up for as long as you can. Now as long as you can, isn’t great. Get the optimal amount of time where you’re getting that high elbow position and then you’ve got to really use your body because you can’t use your core if you’re up in this position either as well as you want to. You’re not connecting to your body. You’re actually not dislocating but you’re separating your shoulder from that connection all across your body. And we know that the power comes from your body and your arms are just the paddles. You can’t produce force with your hands. You produce force with attaching yourself to your body

and that’s where we get our travel. And that’s where we get our power. And that will get you 15% off your pair of form goggles using our special link formswim.com forward slash effortless or use the coupon code effortless at checkout. And of two things that I’ve found helpful for when I’m coaching swimmers is to let them know that the catch is not the power phase. That is the setup phase, that the catch is not where you’re really working hard because as you said, they’re not the muscles where you’re going to be strongest at all. It’s they’re the rotational muscles that you’re using. And then secondly, when I am showing someone, all right, this is what a good catch looks like. Now, don’t try and get that elbow as far forward as you can in that hand and forearm as vertical as you can because it might not be strong or comfortable for you. Anywhere in that high elbow range with the elbow slightly forwards, if we’re looking side on, that is fine.

There are a lot of swimmers, is speaking to James Magnuson. There are a lot of swimmers who are only just in that range and that’s fine. We just need to be anywhere in that range. Don’t try and overdo it. And I remember watching, so Shane Browner Wendell, this episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, Form Goggles. They’re more than a pair of goggles meet the world’s most powerful swim platform. See yourself improve with Form Smart Swim Goggles including a free one year membership when you purchase your goggles for only $228 US dollars. Now, they’ve currently changed up the offer where you can now get the goggles and you have that one year membership included for free. And then if you’d like to continue with the membership going forwards, it’s only 15 US dollars a month where you get access to their workouts, training plans and their custom workout builder. But you’ll always have access to the real time data of the goggles

so you’ll never lose access to that. So if you’d like to swim without stopping to look at a pace clock or your watch and get live metrics right inside your goggles including your time, distance, pace, they are right there in your goggles with Form Goggles. I’ve used these for over 12 months now and I’m a huge fan of these goggles and use them for a majority of my sessions and find them very helpful, especially for gauging my time, my effort and my pace. And I think it’s a very helpful tool for the majority of swimmers that I would normally work with. To get your pair of Form Goggles and save 15% off, use our link formswim.com forward slash effortless or use the coupon effortless at checkout. The Dutch open water swimmer, seeing some footage of her a couple of years ago now and this was about a year or two before she had a shoulder injury. And then I saw some fairly recent footage probably 12 months ago that she posted from the side

and a couple of years back, an extreme high elbow catch actually going past, so if we’re looking slide on, past 90 degrees. So it was, how do you think in terms of angle? So it was probably like 80, 85 degrees with her upper arm and her hand and forearm. So just ridiculous. And that’s not, yeah, it was like, no wonder. I just thought, how have you not been injured already when I saw that? But then seeing this more recent footage, still a great catch, but she’s not going to as extreme a position. And I don’t know personally, so I’m not sure of what her injuries are like, but I would imagine with that less extreme catch, she’s probably much better. And especially if you’re doing 100K weeks with such an extreme position, it’s just inevitable, but you’re going to get some shoulder injuries when it’s something like that. Yep, absolutely. It’s injury driven, it’s almost driven because if you can’t load that position,

this position, here’s a setup position and you’re loading from when you’re on your body, the more time you’re on your body, the longer you’re going to travel through your impulse. If you’re delaying that, then you’re delaying your power. And if we’re looking at our health curve we’ve been talking about, you’ve got less, you’re actually producing less power for a less amount of time. So you can get into a position that you think you want to be in. It just doesn’t, well, I can understand how people get there, but it just does not make sense to stay in there. Besides the injury, it’s a performance issue as well.

It is, honestly, it is misunderstanding, encourage everybody again. Not only, don’t believe me, go and try it out. And because it’s going to be, we’re kind of breaking a couple of myths of showing you a high elbow is a must. High elbow is important, but too high an elbow is not, but go and try it out and anchor on it. Probably the, and very, very simply, if there’s any physiognomy listening, I apologize because I’m not, and I don’t understand it as well as you will do, but if I’m trying to, if I’m doing a chin up, I can’t shrug and chin up at the same time. And that’s what people are trying to do by getting into this position. And then, so now all I want to load now, you can’t load, you can’t load from your body. That’s a very simple example. And please shoot me. More people who are professionals in movement, but that’s the way I like to think of it. And that seems to relate with the swimmers and coaches that I talk to about that.

You’ve got to load from your body. One cue that I’ve found has been useful for quite a few of the guys that I’ve coached is thinking of having a ladder underneath you and every time you enter your reach forward, you want to place your hand on a rung to that ladder and that in thinking of your body driving past where the hand forearm isn’t really moving back in an ideal world. So think of just placing your hand on a rung of that ladder as you’re going along. And it’s very hard to get your hand on that rung and move your body past it if you’re rotated too far. And you’re going to lose momentum if you’re spending too long in that catch phase or going for too much of an extreme position. So for someone who’s listening to this, see how you go with that cue of swimming on a ladder. And I’ve used that with quite a few swimmers and the results have been pretty good with it because sometimes I think athletes, they need a cue or something to be able to visualize

that can help them try and put some of these things into place. And I know you’re very good at coming up with a way for swimmers to be able to implement the change that you’re trying to make. And I really like that ladder one. Even for me personally, I’m not a good one to be thinking of. I love it. I think it’s fantastic. I mean, you can’t climb a ladder with your shoulder around your ear either. So my brain went straight away to have someone pulling on the lane rung. And I mean, they’d be dropping their elbow as well, but you haven’t got any power there. And it brings you to a drill I’ve worked with on a kid, who didn’t get the concept of something, a very good swimmer about three months ago to get this distance for a stroke. I did, I actually just roll them on their back with your double lung backstroke to get them the idea that they anchor and they move through the stroke to feel it. So they can then feel themselves travel

and they can roll over and feel that travel and their freestyle. It was unorthodox. It seemed to work. I also did it with an athlete who was a, who could do a good breaststroke start, wasn’t a breaststroke, who could do a good breaststroke start as to how they could feel through that power through their stroke. So if there’s any coaches out there, know where you want to get with your message and just keep on throwing cues that may work that may sell your message to your athlete because they don’t buy your stuff. But there’s plenty of ways around it. And you’ve got an out on deck with coaches around Queensland all the time trying to invent drills to find a way to sell to an athlete. I’ve almost started more recently providing the problem to the athlete and saying you need to travel more. Which drill would you use to get that, to give them responsibility for it, but also to get them investigating. And that seems to work pretty well as well.

So a million ways to skin a cat, but I think if we can get our athletes charge of it as well, I think that’s getting off track a little bit. That’s a really good way to get them to buy in.

Well, Brian, I said to you at the start, we’ll go for about half an hour. And you know, if you’re good for time, you said you’re good for time. And we’ve just rolled on to an hour. So I appreciate you being on the podcast and love chatting to you. And time seems to just fly because I’ve learned a lot from you. And I love to get your experience coaching for so many years, but working with just so many different athletes and different coaches and seeing everything that’s happening at the high performance level and down from that as well. So Brian, it’s been great having you on the podcast. This won’t be the last time. I think we’ll organize another one a few months down the track when you’ve had more experience working with coaches and athletes and the swim-better devices as well. Just to keep up to date because I know a lot of the clients who I’m coaching are using them and they want to learn what’s the best way to use this

to swim better, to swim faster. And we’re really starting to figure that out, which is exciting. Yeah, no problem. We’re just starting to scratch the surface. I mean, really, we just don’t understand how we can use these things. So it’s exciting for coaching, PD, understanding stuff that we’ve never been able to do before. So thank you, Brent, for being always, mate, it’s always good to chat. We could go on for hours and hours if we had enough time of the day, but we just don’t seem to. So thank you for your time too. 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.