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Why a catch up stroke won’t work in open water

In General Triathlon, Simon Ward, Training of TTC (February 22, 2010 11:07 am)

Yesterday in Lanzarote there was a southerly wind and that meant swimming at our usual spot was a turbulent affair. The waves were about 1m high so getting out was hard and once beyond the breaks it was still pretty choppy. Several points that we regularly teach our athletes became all too apparent during the swim

1. A catch up style stroke doesn’t work in open water - a catch up stroke means that at some point during every arm cycle neither arm is applying force to the water resulting in a loss of momentum and if you are swimming against the tide or current, another swimmer interrupts your stroke or you get smashed by a wave, you will stop or go backwards. You need a fast arm turnover where one arm is always catching the water (known as power-on or kayak style) and you have to learn this in the pool, since this is where you will do over 90% of your training. Include regular sprints to develop a faster arm cadence and focus on catching the water early in the stroke and eliminating the glide at the front end. Drills which help you do this are; fists, single arm drill with non active arm by the side and swimming with a band around the ankles.

2. you have to be comfortable breathing to the left and right - when the waves are breaking over you as you turn your head to breathe you’ll get a mouth full of water unless you are comfortable breathing to the other side. In the pool, practice breathing left and right during your regular sessions. If possible learn to breathe bilaterally as this will help you to achieve a balanced stroke for when you do have to breathe to a single side.

3. If you are going to race in open water (especially the sea) it pays to spend a few days getting comfortable in the environment before the race – For the first few days you feel as though you are fighting against the natural flow. This example came to light during our swim. Unless its a flat calm sea the swell will move the torso and legs around quite a bit. The natural action is to fight to stay in a neutral position which takes more energy and eventually becomes quite tiring. After a few days of swimming you will relax and stop fighting this action but it will take a few days, so get to the event early if you have a sea swim.

Why am I telling you all this? Because it’s apparent that many of the coaches who teach triathletes to swim come from a pool based background and teach techniques which are just fine for pool swimming. Personally I dont think that these are as effective in open water but by the time the athletes gets to the open water race it’s too late. This could be one reason why many triathletes struggle to replicate their pool times in open water events (there are others of course but I’ll cover those in a future blog).

Thanks for reading and please do make comments, whether you agree with me or not.

Stay healthy & have fun

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