Pool Workout

Let’s get back to that familiar black line at the bottom of the pool.  Here’s a pool workout that works on different speeds and VO2 Max output.  Swim with a partner or friend and take time to observe him/her swim.  You will see what his/her stroke looks like under the water and peer review will help  not only to correct their technique but yours as well.  Take the following 6 x50’s as an opportunity to work on the tips and help build a more cohesive stroke.

We end with a dedicated cool down to bring your heart rate down.  By the last 25 you should be floating down the pool.

 

#	Distance	Stroke	Interval 3
1	600	S/k/p by 50	10:00
8	50	des 1-4 x 2	1:00
10	25	peer review (1 positive, 1 negative)	1:00
6	50	taking into consideration the pointers	1:00
4	100	Free	1:40
1	100	Free	1:20
4	100	Free	1:40
2	100	Free	1:25
4	100	Free	1:40
3	100	Free	1:30
4	100	Free	1:40
4	100	Free	1:35
4	25	moderate pace	0:35
3	25	slower	0:40
2	25	slower	0:45
1	25	float	0:50

Let’s #GetHiitOn!

Open Water Series: Gear Checklist

What’s in my OW bag.

Beach? Check. Open water? Check. Swim suit? Check. Ready to jump in? Not quite… You read through the introduction (link) and think, yes, let’s definitely swim in an ocean or lake! Awesome! Let’s go through what you’ll need and the first steps (literally and figuratively) to getting in.

Key supplies

• Swimsuit
• Goggles
• Towel
• Sunblock
• Wetsuit (optional)
• Cap (optional)
• Mirrored goggles (optional)
• Chapstick and Vaseline (optional)
• Water bottle (trust me!)

For the most part, you have your normal swimming stuff. The main differences come from the list of optional supplies.
Wetsuits are great if you’re susceptible to cold water and also provide additional buoyancy if you’re nervous. But, for the most part, if you’re putting in 3000 meters (or yards) in the pool you should not be too nervous about the distance. There are different types of wetsuits so if you’re looking into getting one or renting one definitely take your time to find one that fits what you’re looking for (e.g. sleeves, sleeveless, shortie, full body, etc).
Since we’re just starting out having a cap is a great tool to have. I’m bald and I still usually wear one when I swim open water. There are a few reasons for this.

1. A brightly colored cap will stand out in the water making it easier for spotting from land, other swimmers in your group, and more importantly boaters and jet skiiers.
2. A good portion of your body heat escapes from your head so wearing a cap will help to keep you warm. Heck, double up on caps if you want (tip: put on a cap then goggles then the other cap to prevent losing your goggles to the murky depths).

Mirrored goggles are also extremely helpful since they essentially act as sunglasses-they reflect the sunlight which makes things easier to see on a bright day. I find that Speedo makes a great pair that have suction cups around the eyes for added protection.

Chapstick and vaseline are more for the ocean and less for lakes though they might also be helpful. Vaseline spread around the armpits and legs (and, if you’re wearing a wetsuit, around the arm holes and leg holes) will help prevent chafing and irritation. Chapstick is essentially the same but for your lips. Just be forewarned that once you have vaseline on your hands, if you touch your goggles they’ll get blurry.

Finally, the water bottle. When I swim in the pool I don’t usually drink water during practice but only after thus I don’t carry a water bottle around with me at all times. However, if you’re swimming open water (especially the ocean) having a fresh swig of water is super refreshing.

Getting the briny salty water taste out of your mouth will refresh you at the end of your swim. Trust me.

Let’s #GetHiitOn!

HOW TO: “HOW MUCH DO I NEED TO SWIM FOR – X – OPEN WATER DISTANCE?”

http://loneswimmer.com/2013/05/17/how-much-do-i-need-to-swim-for-x-open-water-distance/

Via LoneSwimmer

With the Northern hemisphere open water season getting underway, and temperatures in many locations edging around the magic number, (10C/50F) , open water related questions inevitably arise as each year brings new swimmers and more triathletes.

A common question is some variation of:

I want to swim 1.5k/3k/3k/10k, can I do it or what should I do to prepare?

There are different answers for this depending on many factors:

1. What is your swimming experience?
2. What is your current swim training?
3. What is your open water experience?
4. Wetsuit or not?
5. Sea, river or lake?
6. How long do you have to prepare?

I have covered many aspects of these questions, such as getting started, essential rules of cold water swimming, basic skills, swimming in different conditions, etc. (The How To category has more of these).

• To swim any significant distance in open water the first requirement is regular swimming every week. This seems obvious but some people seem to think it isn’t. For almost any distance from 1k up, you should probably be swimming a minimum of three times a week. If your intended swim is over 5k, three times is probably not enough. Less swimming experience means that building up to regular swimming should be a longer transition as sudden increases will lead to a) injury and b) burnout.

• The second most important requirement, and one of the biggest mistakes beginners  make, is to not get sufficient or even any open water experience before the actual event. Open water is De Facto not like a pool. Every day is different: Winds blow (or not), from different directions at different speeds in different weather conditions. Water conditions change dynamically, even during events. **You MUST get appropriate experience beforehand**. You must practice your skills, especially sighting and navigation, but also pack swimming, rough water, fear, contact with other swimmers.

* **A wetsuit is NOT A SAFETY AID**.

Many experienced open water swimmers feel very strongly that people substitute wetsuits for training and experience. A frightening video that was pointed out by Evan on freshwaterswimmer.com of 2012’s Escape From Alcatraz. Watch it. Experienced open water swimmers view this video with genuine amazement at the ineptitude on display both of swimmers and safety crew and logically therefore of the organisation. This is a lumpy day by OW standards but certainly manageable for experienced swimmers. Even has also previously discussed the matter of wetsuits and safety in open water swimming and made the excellent point that while a wetsuit may confer some protection for INDIVIDUALS, in a GROUP of swimmers the use of wetsuits lessens overall safety because organisers use them as a safety crutch, so to speak. See also Phil’s comment on this point in the comment section below.  Swimming in rough water is something that requires practice.

YOU CANNOT SUBSTITUTE A WETSUIT FOR TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE.

Just because an event allows you to enter with your limited experience means nothing. Some just want your money. Events which have real qualifications requirement are not elitist. The organisers are experienced and aware of the dangers and attempting to reduce risk beforehand. As I’ve said before, safety decisions are best made outside the water. These are the *good events*. We all have to build up through various qualification levels to get into longer swims. This is the smart way to do it and organisers that understand this are to be trusted. Faking your qualification puts you and others in danger.

* You cannot safely swim 1k this week, 10k next week and do a 15k swim in the third week. Increases in training should be limited to an average of 5% per week. You shouldn’t go above this unless you have previous experience in ramping up swimming volume. That means if you swim 5,000 metres this week, in a month you will be swimming barely over 6,000 metres. You can prove me wrong, maybe, in the short-term, but in the long-term to do otherwise will lead to inevitable injury.

BUT HOW MUCH DO I NEED TO TRAIN?

There is no simple answer. However…

Endurance swimmers and athletes have a few rules of thumb:

• You can swim in a day what you swim in a week.

This is a reasonable guideline for medium to longer distances. I find it is most used from about 20k to 45k distances. If you are swimming these distances then you likely have your own opinion and may disagree with me. This is absolutely fine, since you know what you are doing and we all are different and I’m not trying to give an absolute rule. If you don’t have experience however, this is a reasonable rule.

This rule breaks down at the lower end. If want to swim 1k open water, you should be able to swim 1k in the pool without any difficulty and you should be swimming at least three times a week and more than 1,000 metres. If you struggle to swim 1k in the pool, you shouldn’t be swimming open water at all.

• You can swim 4 times longer than your longest training swim FOR ONE-OFF EVENTS.

This is a very old rule. The last part means that doing this in the absence of regular training means injury is more likely. You may get through it on grit but you won’t do it regularly.

So, I haven’t given you a clear answer. That because there is no single formula.

Open water requires training, experience and a realistic approach (because it’s dangerous and anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong).

Here’s a very loose training guideline that should help you swim your events comfortably, assuming you also have the open water experience. All of these assume one day of swimming open water per week from spring to your event. This is a much larger subject and this is very brief thumbnail sketch.

Target event: 1k. Swim 2k at least three times a week.

Target event: 1.5k/1 mile. Swim 3k at least three times a week, or 2k four times a week.

Target event: 3k. Swim 4k at least three times a week, or 4k three times a week

Target event: 5k. Swim 4k at least four times a week. Swim 5k once per week.

Target event: 10k. Swim 5k at least three times a week, but swim at least 4 times a week. Weekly target of 15k minimum.

Target event: 15k. Swim minimum of 20k per week.

Target event: 25k. Swim minimum 25k per week. There’s more variation here. Some  experienced swimmers like to train less for marathon swims. I’m not one of them and my own experience and what I’ve seen of others means I believe strongly that in marathon swimming you have to be trained for when things go wrong.

 

Let’s #GetHiitOn!

WANT TO ACHIEVE BIG THINGS WITH YOUR SWIMMING? START SMALL. HERE’S WHY.

via a post from SwimSwam.com

http://swimswam.com/want-achieve-big-things-swimming-start-small-heres/

Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national level swimmer based out of Victoria, BC. In feeding his passion for swimming, he has developed YourSwimBook, a powerful log book and goal setting guide made specifically for swimmers. Sign up for the YourSwimBook newsletter (free) and get weekly motivational tips by clicking here.

“Without water drops, there can be no oceans; without steps, there can be no stairs; without little things, there can be no big things!” – Mehmet Murat ildan

We tend to think of our swimming goals as big, sweeping outcomes. I want to win gold at state. I want to smash my best time by 15 seconds. I want to break the world record in the 200 butterfly.

To achieve our big-time goals many of us somewhat mistakenly assume that this means that we need to make huge, life-changing alterations to our training and lifestyle. These wholesale and overnight changes, while they may feel completely necessary in the moment, rarely stick once the initial surge of motivation and inspiration fades.

Another common misstep that happens when focusing only on the big picture is that we imagine accomplishing our goal will happen in one big, fell swoop. Anything short of this drastic and striking result is considered a disappointment or a failure.

In order to make big progress it is important to think small with your swimming. Here are 5 reasons that you should be seeking to create a daily climate of achieving lots of small wins, instead of chasing after the one big win:

1. Small steps and wins inspire action. Big goals are great to fantasize about, but when it comes to inspiring action they fall short. You might be able to look at the long term goal you have with fondness, but when asked where the first step is, most swimmers freeze up. The scope of what is required to achieve the goal is paralyzing. By focusing on small, realistic steps we avoid this paralysis, and insure that you are at the very least getting started.

2. Gets you into the habit of consistently succeeding. If success is a habit, than how do we make it stick if our big competition meets only happen a couple times a year? Simple – make it a daily feature of your swimming. Mastering the daily battle will empower you and provide the framework for feeling confidant and in control, especially helpful in warding off thoughts of doubt that spring up between competitions.

3. Encourages you to take greater risks. By achieving things regularly you grow belief in yourself and your abilities. With a track record of small wins in the rear-view you recognize that if you set out to do something, you can actually achieve it. With the confidence of seeing progress in nearly real-time, it inspires you to continue to stretch the limits of what you think yourself capable of.

4. Small steps allow for recognizable progress on days that are challenging. Some workouts you wish you could completely forget and rip out of your log book, never to be seen again. It can be easy to fall prey to the mentality that the workout was wasted, the day a wash. By making progress in some form or another, you are insuring that the mental whiplash of a bad workout is short-lived.

5. The accumulation of small things eventually will make a massive dent. Over the first few days and weeks of making consistent, small steps, you will make some progress. Not much, but a little. In fact, it might be so small that it is unnoticeable. Eventually, over time those small steps compound and create large, extremely noticeable change. For example, if you decide in order to improve your dolphin kick you’re going to commit to do 5 kicks off every wall you might not notice any improvement after doing it for one workout. In fact, you almost certainly won’t. The improvement may not become apparent for 2, or 3, or 5 workouts. But after a couple weeks, your patience will pay off when you notice a big improvement.

The bottom line is that you don’t need to completely revamp your life and swimming in order to start making progress towards achieving your goals. Keep it small, keep it consistent, and you’ll be crushing PB’s in no time.

 

Let’s #GetHiitOn!

Russian Twists

There’s Russian Vodka, Russian Roulette, and yes Russian Twists!

This baby focuses on the internal and external (layered on top of each other) obliques and the abs, which are important to connecting the movements of the arms and legs during freestyle and backstroke. The upper-torso rotational movements are similar to those performed during open turns for fly and breast. Russian twists will help to improve the speed of open turns.

1. Start in a bent knee seated position, tighten the abs, lean backward, and lift your feet about 4 to 6 inches off the ground all while holding the medicine ball close to your chest.

2. Rotate your torso right, center, then left.  Repeat a total of 20 times, 10 on each side.

You can also rotate and touch the ball onto the ground during the twist if your flexibility will allow for it.

Variations:

Feeling strong? Bring your feet up off the floor.

Feeling invincible! In addition to taking your feet off the floor, straighten and extend your legs, and keep them still as you twist the upper torso.  This position is super challenging! Remember to use your core to support you.

Let’s #GetHiitOn

Open Water: Distance Strategy

Sculling

Guest post by Coach Nate

Let’s discuss distance race strategy for a moment.

It should be obvious that unless you’re a Michael Phelps or an Alex Meyer, you’re not going to sprint a mile swim. Now, why isn’t this the case? Isn’t it all about how much effort you spend while in the water and not when in the race you spend it? Not quite.

So, how do you balance out your swim? The easiest method is to practice negative splits: trying to swim faster on the second half of your swim than the first half. The theory is that if you do so, the swim will be more even. But, you say, that doesn’t make any sense!- you just told me to swim faster on the second half. The dirty secret is that in a race, no one really negative splits (or else they should have swum faster); by putting more effort in the second half of the swim you counteract the natural tendency to punk out in the second half and hold back more in the first half, which is the correct way to swim.

This topic is much more nuanced than this article and I’ll be returning to it in the future. Suffice it to say, the negative split is one of the tools in your arsenal to rock the longer swims and it’ll benefit you in open water.

This workout focuses on a) keeping good form when you’re tired (to reduce drag in general) and b) picking up your pace at the end of a long swim (by negative splitting). Pick a base time as what time you think you could hold easily for 100m.

#	Distance	Stroke	Interval 4
1	300	Swim
4	50	Drill: focus on good form	1:10:00
4	200	Neg Split	Base + 0:10
4	50	Drill	1:10:00
3	300	Neg Split	Base + 0:05
2	50	Drill	1:10:00
2	400	Neg Split	Base
4	50	Drill	1:10:00
1	800	Neg Split	For Time
1	200	cool down*

*adding 100 if heart rate > 108 bpm.

Total: 4500+ m

Let’s #GetHiitOn!

Open Water Series: Getting In

You went through your checklist from above and you’ve got your gear on. Let’s get in! Not so fast…let’s take a look at the current. Again, it is important to stress not to swim on your own. Now, let’s acclimate ourselves.

Step one. Take a step.

Step two. Put your other foot in front of the other. You know where I’m going with this.

Really though, the first step is to actually get into the water. Take a few steps in and let the water wash over your feet and legs. Then a few more steps and pause. Repeat until you’re about waist or chest deep. At this point I prefer dunking my whole body under water but that’s just me. Another option is to bend down and put your face then whole head into the water. This is a good indicator of how you’ll feel in the water as you begin swimming.  Continue to wade out until you are no longer touching the sand. If this makes you nervous take a few strokes back inland and then back out until you’re comfortable. We’re not going too far from the shore since we’re just starting out. As we get more comfortable, we’ll go further out and then back onto the beach.  Now let’s get started.

The next step is to actually swim. Swim a few meters out and away from the beach and turn parallel. We’ll start with a few hundred meters along the coast then back to our starting point.  Congratulations! You’ve just swam open water! How did it feel? Exhilarating? Exciting? Heart pounding? Transformative? All of the above?

This is just the beginning. As we continue in this series we’ll incorporate additional elements to make open water swimming the fun and exciting experience it is!

Let’s #GetHiitOn!

4th of July – Quick Workout

Warm up:

Jacks – 1 minute

Sumo squat jacks – 1 minute

Mountain Climbers – 1 minute

Hold plank – 1 minute

Plank Jacks – 1 minute

Alternating side plank, threading arm under – 1 minute

Main set:

1.Burpee ladder set:

Part I: Burpees with no push up

10 burpees

9 burpees

8 burpees

7 burpees

6 burpees

1 minute jog in place, active recovery

Part II: Burpees with push-up

5 burpees

4 burpees

3 burpees

2 burpees

1 burpee

1 minute jog in place, active recovery

2. Squats & wall throws with medicine ball – 3 sets x 1 minute each

no rest

3. Plank walk ups – 3 sets x 1 minute each

no rest

4. Flutter kick with upper back off the floor – 3 sets x 1 minute each

no rest

5. Spider-man push-ups – 3 sets x 1 minute each

no rest

6. Tricep dips – 3 sets x 1 minute each

Your desired stretches to finish off the cool-down.

Happy 4th!

Let’s #GetHiitOn!

Abs Series: The Flutter Kick

The flutter kick is a popular and common exercise; swimmers are most familiar with the flutter kick/freestyle kick. This exercise primarily uses the the lower fibers of the Rectus abdominis (abs) and the rectus femoris (quads), it also engaged the (obliques) external oblique, internal oblique, transversus abdominis (side abs), and the iliopsoas (hip flexors).

1. Lie on your back with your arms at your sides.
2. Tighten the abdominal muscles, make sure your lower back touches the floor, there is no space between your lower back and the floor.
3. Lift your shoulders 4 inches (10 cm) off the floor.
4. Lift your feet 12 inches (30 cm) off the ground, keeping the low back on the ground.
5. Flutter kick for 60 seconds or until you are unable to keep the low back stabilized on the ground.

Question: What happens if I feel in it in my LEGS and HIP FLEXORS more so than my abs?

Answer: If you feel the the burn/work load  in your legs and or hip flexors a lot more than in your abs – it could be that the low back is arching, check your posture. You are no longer working all of the muscles simultaneously, mentioned above, and is being taken over by the hip flexors, meaning the hip flexors are trying to do the work for the other muscles . Remember to keep the low back on the floor, this keeps the abs sucked in.  Ready to give it a try?

Let’s #GetHiitOn!

Ab Series: V-UPS

V-ups strengthen and target the rectus abdominis (abs) through a wide range of motion, it is good for freestylers and backstrokers trying to improve the speed of flip-turns. Oh yeah, they are also very challenging!

Primary: Rectus abdominis (abs)
Secondary: Serratus anterior (wings),  external oblique (obliques), rectus femoris (quads)

For an extra challenge:

1. Regular V-up, hold the position
2. Hold the V-up, twist to the right with the medicine ball, try to hold the pose
3. Return to the center, twist to the left with the medicine ball

If you feel it in your hips (hip flexors) try the exercise with just body weight until you are comfortable working your way toward a medicine ball.

Look at her abs!

Let’s #GetHiitOn!