Mastering swimming is something that is possible to do very quickly if you are willing to swim regularly initially. This blog is about doing the most important things to master swimming. A friend of mine who was new to triathlon and highly motivated to improve, it must be said! He started swimming and trained regularly with two of Ireland’s top junior swimmers for approximately six weeks. By the end of the six weeks he could swim at about 80% of their speed over a half an hour to forty-five minutes! These were two guys who swam for hours most days of their lives. I think that is amazing and if you are new to swimming and want to master it quickly, please know that you can so keep reading!
The fastest way to master swimming, if you’ll pardon the pun, is to immerse yourself in the process and commit to swimming a few times a week if possible. Swimming is weird - it can be mastered quickly! When the technique is learned and understood and panic is eliminated (swimming mastery) you can really punch above your weight in the water. The same can not be said for cycling or running because both of those disciplines require ongoing hard physical work to maintain fitness levels. Swimming just requires the ability to swim perfectly and not panic to be able to swim in an elegant and almost effortless way. Said another way, if you stop running for six weeks then your endurance and speed will decline sharply but with swimming, when you master it, if you stop for six weeks then you’ll slow down and struggle a bit with the distance but you’ll still be able to safely do the distance without too much bother if you have mastered the technique.
I relearned to swim in my early twenties and I’m really glad I did so because it has paid dividends in my triathlon racing times, it has strengthened my heart and lungs immensely but best and most surprisingly of all, I now find swimming a great way to relax and unwind. I often use swimming as a recovery session after a hard cycle or run or just for fun.
On the first day I started relearning to swim I was able to swim a grand total of six lengths. However, I had to stop at the end of each length, and sometimes I had to stop mid length, gasping for breath. I found swimming exhausting. Six lengths swimming felt like the equivalent of a six kilometer fast run. The entire six lengths were performed anaerobically (with me heaving for breath before, during and after the swim).
Today, ten years later, I can swim three or four kilometers (120-160 lengths of a 25 m pool) non stop. I’m not an elite swimmer by the standards of triathlon or swimming but I’m a master swimmer (if that makes sense!) A mile (64 lengths) takes me about twenty-six minutes. I compete in long distance triathlons so I need my body to be fresh and ready for a cycle and run even after a long swim - this is a key part of the mindset that makes me a much stronger swimmer than I should be for the amount of time that I invest in the water. I need to focus on being very relaxed and not exerting myself to much to avoid building up lactic acid before my cycle and run.
My strategy for learning to swim was to model success. Every time I unashamedly got into the pool I got in a lane behind the fastest swimmer I could see and I copied their stroke as much as I could. (I quickly learned swim etiquette and how to stay out of their way.) When an opportunity arose to talk to them after their set then I would always ask for a tip or two if they had time. I was initially frustrated because they just kept telling me to relax which felt like non-advice but I later learned what they meant.
Below is a brief summary of the tips I was given by elite and master swimmers and some tips I learned along the way myself. You will notice that the first half of the list focuses on relaxation, breathing and mindset. The reason the list is written like that is because relaxation is the most important part of swimming. Being relaxed is the key to swimming well and mastering breathing and mindset are the ways to be relaxed. I found that the better the swimmer’s standard who I asked for advice the simpler their advice was and it always boiled down to ‘Relax in the water as much as you can!’ These tips are designed to help you to know how to relax in the water!
How do I Relax in the water?
- The goal: Be able to enter the water without panicking
Practice keeping your heart rate and breathing rate low and under control. Your heart rate and breathing rate are ways to monitor how relaxed you are in the water. Water temperature effects the heart rate do don’t worry if you normally jog at 150 beats per minute but your heart rate is completely different in the water. Water feels very unnatural initially. Think of what a fish does when it is left out of water - we respond similarly when put in water. We gasp and start to freak out!
When we enter the water our bodies sense the different state and naturally start to react. That reaction, for most people, is panic unless of course we start thinking about relaxation before we even enter the water. I suggest never jumping into the water to avoid sho
cking the body. You can practice controlling your heart rate in the water without every swimming. This can be done while minding a child in the water etc.
- The goal: Be able to hold your breath and exhale underwater without panicking
When we start to swim we suddenly become very conscious of our breathing. Breathing is normally completely subconscious so it is naturally for breathing to feel a bit strange when we start thinking about it. Test out different types of breathing techniques as you swim to see which suits you. Breathe on the left only, right only, to both sides every 3 strokes. There is no right or wrong initially. The right way is the way that keeps your heart rate down and makes you feel most relaxed.
Try breathing explosively underwater as you exhale and then try exhaling slowly and consistently to see which suits you better. The latter suits me as it keeps me more relaxed and I feel like I’m constantly either inhaling or exhaling rather than holding my breath.
- The goal: Make sure that what you think about keeps you relaxed as you swim
Think about slowing your heart rate, think about lying on the beach, think about gliding, think about anything that relaxes you! I find it hard to switch my mind off and just think about my technique but at the times when I do my swimming really improves. Just thinking about a basic aspect of your stroke like your glide or your pull through the water can prevent your mind from panic during a rough outdoor swim or during a race if you are getting bumped around a bit.
- The goal: Focus on the process rather than the distance or time
Do sessions where you consciously don’t swim for a time or count your lengths. This helps to focus on endurance and helps to keep your mindset on your technique rather than the details like what length you are on. You can also warm up by focusing on time rather than distance. Do occasional swims where the goal is just to swim continuously for 5 minutes, 10 minutes… 60 minutes. I’m often amazed at how many triathletes stop regularly for a break/chat. That might make sense occasionally but let’s not make the mistake of conditioning our bodies to expect a break during an endurance event!
- The goal: Optimise your effort by gliding on each stroke
Ensure you have a little glide at the end of each stroke. It feels counterintuitive if you don’t normally do it. Gliding is a bit like how great cyclists hug their bike to avoid wind resistance. Gliding maximises the work that you are already putting in and therefore saves effort but the momentary pause also helps to maintain relaxation.
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