Not everyone who does triathlons is a strong swimmer, but there are ways to increase your speed in the water. Speed is determined by distance/stroke and tempo. Therefore, covering more distance per stroke and increasing the speed of those strokes will in turn enable you to go faster.
To determine your distance/stroke, count on average how many strokes it takes for each length of the pool. Count each arm stroke as 1. For a distance swimmer 18-22 strokes/25 yd pool is a good goal to set. So how do you decrease this number?
- Decrease drag
- improve your body position - make sure head, body and feet are all parallel to the surface of the water. Don't drag your feet lower than your head.
- point your toes - reduces drag and increases propulsion. Do ankle flexibility exercises and incorporate fins in your workouts will help with toe point.
- strengthen your core for better stabilization - hmmm, isn't this a topic discussed in an earlier post?
- Increase propulsion
- Improve your kick - toe point and strengthening your legs. Fins and kickboard swimming will help with both
- Improve your "catch" - Make sure you are "catching" the water correctly (anchoring the hand and forearm after entry into the water) and pulling your body forward. This is more efficient than pulling the arm back through the water. A very tough concept to grasp but oh so rewarding when you get it right. Check out the many videos online demonstrating the correct way to "catch" or ask a swim coach to look at your stroke.
- Increase tempo
- Reduce rest between intervals
- Swim with a group - as with cycling, swimming with others will push you to go faster
- Incorporating a metronome will force you to keep a specific tempo (see Feb 20 Post)
Hope this helps you get more speed from your swim stroke.
Enjoy the ride...or swim,
Sheri
No comments:
Post a Comment