Perfect Your Race Day Swim Performance By Dan Bullock The race season is going strong and most triathletes will be looking to hit their key races. While it’s too late to make any major changes to your swimming there are a long list of things to be looking at to ensure you are as fast as possible. By checking a few key areas and performing at your best with the tools you have will ensure you are at your fastest come race day. Training And Technique There can only be minimal changes now since you are in the position that the bulk of your swimming is behind you. You are now swimming with the technique that will be raced with for the next few months and that you are comfortable with. You need to make the best of what you have but it’s worth checking a couple of items that can hinder progress. The scale of the leg kick is a key area that is often magnified with the addition of a wetsuit. Added buoyancy and an improved body position lead to a false sense of efficiency and people start to try harder in all aspects of their front crawl. Don’t undo the good that a wetsuit is doing by trying harder and creating more drag. When it comes to the legs, think of a pendulum effect and keep the movement at the point of origin (at the hip) tiny. Check your stroke is keeping you straight. There is no point in being fit and efficient and being the fastest 1,600-metre swimmer at an Olympic distance (1,500-metre) race. In open water only your stroke will keep you swimming straight. Sighting keeps you on course, but the more sighting you do the more you interrupt your natural rhythm as the head lifts and the legs sink. Get the ‘non breathing side’ arm checked since this is often the culprit when it comes to a straight- arm pushdown originating from the shoulder, which tends to push many people off course. Fixing this issue could be a long-term project. You could interrupt its negative effects now by training with a central snorkel more often to reduce the amount the head turns to breathe, which usually causes this issue to manifest. (link triathlete-europepetitor/2013/08/27/perfect-your-race-day-swim-performance )
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 11:50:30 +0000
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