Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned triathlete, there are three concepts to being comfortable in the water. Here are three rules for every triathlete to help be a little more comfortable in the water...
Rule #1. Think like a kid. I know this seems cliché, but don't act like a fish out of water. There is an unbelievable amount of people who never learn how to swim when they are young. These people have a tendency, even with trainers and lessons, to be tense when they enter the water because they have fear instilled in the possibility of drowning. A tense body does not perform as well as a relaxed and comfortable body does. Swimming quickly requires the right combination of power, speed, and coordination of movements. This mechanical movement requires the body to be relaxed at a point in the motion so that it does not reach exhaustion as quickly. So if you are one of the tense ones, how do you learn to relax? Act like a kid, roll over on your back and float, kick softly, blow bubbles, anything that can bring you back to a calm state when you’re warming up for swim practice. These are helpful especially if you feel yourself reaching that tense point in training, or in the actual race. Relax and enjoy the freedom of the water!
Rule #2. Learn to feel the water. One of the reasons that technique is so important in the sport of swimming is that water magnifies the physical forces that act on us in air. Drag and inertia are particularly important laws that must be considered. The power that we generate to increase swimming speed depends greatly on our body’s motion through the liquid. We have to attempt to feel the pressure of the water molecules with our fingers as our hand moves through it. This is a hard skill to teach because each one of us may have a different ability to sense the changes in pressure as we pull our hand/arm through the water. No matter what level of sensitivity one may have in the fingertips. Before you can swim fast, you must learn to: a. Feel the small changes and pressure on your hands in the water. b. Figure different angles and positions of your arms that directly affect your ability to move through the water. c. Measure your results and find out what feels best to you.
Rule #3. Don’t coach yourself. Swimming is a complex element of a triathlon, but if you apply yourself and get proper coaching from trainers, you will be well equipped for this event. More times than not, even if you can meet with a trainer once a week, that can be enough to correct bad habits. The other reason you need to be coached in swimming, is that most of us have poor spatial awareness. In other words, what we think we are doing with our arms and legs and what we are actually doing can be and often are very different. Getting video images of your stroke, particularly underwater, may be the only way you will be convinced that what you are doing is wrong. No funding for a trainer? Find a solid and intense training and dieting plan and stick to it. Have friends come in and video tape your routines and then evaluate your form. Spend a certain amount of time each week devoted to improving your swimming skills by playing in the water, doing sculling drills and getting some good coaching. Getting faster in the water is not just about jumping in and doing laps. In fact, it is far from it.
Apply these three concepts and your swimming abilities will improve, how much is up to you.
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