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Swim360 Coach

@swim360coach

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We help adults with no swimming background to swim easier and faster in their next triathlon or open water event.

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How fast are you with a pull buoy and no kick?

If you struggle using your upper body only when swimming, you have something there for major gains.

The more you can develop upper body efficiency, the more energy you save over long distances in the open water.

Kicking is hard work and takes a lot of time to improve.

The 4 Step Fast Freestyle program walks through the whole thing. Link in bio. by @swim360coach

Triathletes get told to breathe to both sides. For the swell, for the sun, for swimming straight.

Most people have a good side and a bad side. Trying to even them out usually gives you two mediocre sides instead of one good one.

Breathe every two to your strong side. Keep the other side available for the odd breath when you need it.

I've swum open water in every condition you can think of and never once had to switch sides for a whole swim. You adapt the breath instead. Slightly higher, slightly longer.

If breathing both sides genuinely makes you swim straighter, keep it. That's the one reason worth it.

Some rules are only rules because someone wrote them down. by @swim360coach

Most adults who come to me apologise before they get in the water.

They tell me they're slow. They tell me they're not a real swimmer. One woman told me she'd been swimming for eleven years and still felt like a fraud at the end of the lane.

None of that is technique. But it changes how you swim, because it makes you rush.

Nobody is watching you. They're thinking about their own stroke. by @swim360coach

For years I fixed whatever looked worst.

Someone's kick was a mess, so we worked on the kick. Their catch was dropping, so we worked on the catch.

Most of them got a bit better and then stopped.

What I had wrong was the order. A sinking body makes the legs do a job they were never meant to do. Fix the kick first and it comes undone the moment you stop thinking about it.

Position first. Always.

The 4 Step Fast Freestyle program walks through the whole thing. Link in bio. by @swim360coach

Next swim, pick one thing. Your lead arm sitting under the water rather than on it will do. Swim 4 x 50 slow, thinking only about that. Then on the last 50, exaggerate it. Put that arm deeper than feels right. Most people find the exaggerated version is the one that actually feels like something.

The 4 Step Fast Freestyle program walks through the whole thing. Link in bio. by @swim360coach

When you drill rotation you go right over onto your side, further than you'd ever swim, because an exaggerated position is the only one you can actually feel. Then you dial it back to something like 45 to 60 degrees when you swim normally. The exaggeration isn't the target. It's how you find the feeling.

The 4 Step Fast Freestyle program walks through the whole thing. Link in bio. by @swim360coach

On land you always know where your body is. The ground tells you. In the water none of that is there. Nothing presses on you. Nothing tells you which way you're pointing. So your sense of your own stroke is the least reliable information you have. This is why swimmers feel long when they're short. Why they feel flat when their hips are a foot under. The feedback you'd normally rely on isn't available down there. by @swim360coach

One swimmer worked through the four steps. Practicing the skate timing improved his 100m time from 2:00 to 1:52, whilst feeling smoother and more relaxed. That was just on the fourth session. Four steps, in order. Each with the drill, the workout, and the footage of what it should look like.

The 4 Step Fast Freestyle program walks through the whole thing. Link in bio. by @swim360coach

Fins off, buoy in, balancing on your side using your front arm and your lower core. No legs. That one humbles people. Most roll straight over the first few goes. The drill is doing its job. You only find the muscles that hold you there by failing to hold yourself there. It decides whether your position survives the back half of a race. Balance that comes from kicking hard disappears the moment you are tired. Balance that comes from your core does not. by @swim360coach

Most adults think the first drill is too basic for them. Kicking on your side with fins does not look like the thing that will take twelve seconds off your hundred. You have been swimming for years. You understand. Here is why it is in there anyway. You cannot work on a position you are not comfortable in. Most adults have never spent any real time on their side in the water. So they try to build the rotation and the reach on top of a position their body is still bracing against. Nothing sticks. Get comfortable there first and everything after it becomes easy to work on.

The 4 Step Fast Freestyle program walks through the whole thing. Link in bio. by @swim360coach

Get comfortable on your side. Just that. Most adults have never spent real time there. Then transition side to side, staying straight through the change. Then balance on your side without your legs holding you up. This is the one people skip, and it's the one that makes the rest survive being tired.

The 4 Step Fast Freestyle program walks through the whole thing. Link in bio. by @swim360coach

Body position is what sits underneath. Get it wrong and your catch work, your kick work, your timing work all pay you back almost nothing. You're bolting a bigger engine onto a shipping container.

The 4 Step Fast Freestyle program walks through the whole thing. Link in bio. by @swim360coach