Shownotes

Swimming Technique

03:31 -

• Swimming relies heavily on good technique, even more so than cycling or running. When my technique is off, I end up fighting the water and wasting energy.
• But once I get the basics down, swimming feels smoother and more enjoyable. It does take some focused effort at the start to reach that point, but after that, training becomes more fun and progress comes more easily.
• The way I break swim technique down is into five key principles: breathing, body position, alignment, rotation, and stroke mechanics.
• Starting with breathing, this means exhaling fully and continuously while my face is in the water, combined with a well-timed inhale that does not disrupt the rest of the stroke.
• The timing of the inhale is often difficult, and newer swimmers, myself included, may struggle with continuous exhalation, which creates a feeling of breathlessness. This is why breathing is the first area I need to master, as it underpins everything else in my swimming.
• Next is body position. In swimming, the main goal is to reduce drag and move forward efficiently. For beginners and triathletes, lowering drag is often harder but more important than trying to push harder. The key is to stay as horizontal as possible in the water.
• I picture the back of my head, hips, and heels all lined up at the surface. To help with this, I look straight down with a relaxed neck, and sometimes add a slight forward angle. A steady, gentle kick helps keep me balanced. I also use a front-quadrant style, keeping one arm extended in front, which helps lift my body and keeps my legs from sinking.
• Alignment is the third principle. One of the best analogies I have come across comes from Brenton Ford’s Effortless Swimming channel, where he describes swimming along “train tracks.”
• My hands should always follow straight lines aligned with my shoulders, never crossing inside or drifting outside. Alignment also means keeping my hips and legs straight, avoiding snaking through the water or scissor kicking. The goal is to keep everything streamlined and tight.
• Rotation is the next key point. It helps with breathing by letting me turn my face out of the water, and it also boosts my power by using my core and lats instead of just my arms. If I feel my lats working after a swim, I know I’m doing it right.
• I like to picture climbing a ladder with big gaps between the rungs—each reach needs a full stretch and a natural turn of my body, just like in swimming, where rotating my core sets up a strong stroke.
• Finally, stroke mechanics. The swim stroke is typically broken into three phases: the catch (initial setup), the pull (from setup to around ribcage or waist level), and the push (from there until the hand exits the water near the hip). Although many detailed techniques exist, the essence of effective stroke mechanics is simple: push the water backwards.
• In the catch phase, my goal is to position the palm and forearm to face backwards as much as possible, rather than downward. This is often referred to as an “early vertical forearm.”
• Creating force downward only lifts the upper body while causing the legs to sink, which increases drag and slows me down. When I apply force backwards, I move forward efficiently.
• Advanced swimmers often describe this as anchoring the hand and forearm in the water and propelling the body past that point. While this is useful to understand conceptually, the most actionable cue for me is to always push the water backwards.

Common swimming technique mistakes

13:00 -

• I tend to make mistakes when I forget these basics: holding my breath, not exhaling enough, losing my horizontal position, letting my hands wander, skipping rotation, or pushing water the wrong way. Progress in swimming really comes from sticking to these five principles and making sure every move helps me go forward.
• One of the most common mistakes in swimming is mistiming the inhale. I may come up too early, but more often I wait too long and end up gasping for air. Another significant issue is sinking legs, which create a huge amount of drag.
• This can happen if I press downward with my arms instead of backwards, but also if I allow too much time without a lead arm extended in front. That shifts my center of mass toward my hips, causing my legs to sink.
• Scissor kicking is another common problem, usually caused by crossing my arms over the midline. For example, when I enter with my right arm, if it veers left across the line of my head, I am likely to scissor kick as a result. The same occurs in reverse on the left side. There are countless mistakes swimmers can make, but these are among the most typical.

Improve technique

14:20 -

• The fastest and most effective way to improve technique is to seek professional help. This could be through private lessons, which is how I started. Even a few affordable sessions made a huge difference, setting me on the right path.
• If private lessons are not an option, joining a swim squad with a good coach is another excellent choice. Although I would receive less individual attention, I would still benefit from consistent feedback and from observing and learning alongside other swimmers. Training camps can also be transformative.
• At the camps we organize with Scientific Triathlon, every participant receives swim video analysis, individual feedback, and on-deck coaching in every session. Camps are not as regular as ongoing coaching or squad training, but they provide concentrated learning opportunities.
• Progress can also come from building awareness. Watching videos of skilled swimmers is valuable, with resources like Effortless Swimming being particularly helpful. Recording myself, even with a smartphone, allows me to see what I am actually doing compared to what I think I am doing. This contrast between perception and reality can reveal clear starting points for improvement.
• Drills are another tool, though they must be used deliberately. A few that I find especially effective for beginners include stroke counting, which increases awareness of efficiency; the fist drill, which emphasizes using the forearm to push water backwards; 6-1-6 or 6-3-6 rotation drills, which improve body rotation; single-arm swimming, which helps with alignment and stroke mechanics; and breathing drills, where I vary the pattern to every two, three, four, or five strokes to refine my breath control.
• Sculling drills help develop feel for the water, while the water polo or Tarzan drill, where I swim heads up, can improve stroke rate and mechanics.
• I try not to do drills just for the sake of it. Some drills are more helpful than others, and they only work if I do them right and know why I’m doing them.
• It’s just as important to go back to full-stroke swimming right after a drill, so the improvements carry over. Drills by themselves won’t make me better, but if I use them with a clear goal, they can really help my technique.
• When it comes to drills, I find it far better to focus on a few purposeful ones that I can perform well rather than trying to do everything at once. A small, effective toolkit is far more valuable than throwing in every possible option without direction.
• For many beginners, equipment can make a big difference in getting the most out of drills. Fins or a pull buoy, for example, allow me to concentrate on the drill itself and on refining my technique without worrying as much about sinking legs.
• A snorkel is another excellent tool because it removes the challenge of breathing, allowing me to focus entirely on stroke mechanics. That said, a snorkel does come with a learning curve, and it may not be necessary right away. It depends on how quickly I adapt to it.
• Still, I recommend incorporating it sooner rather than later, as it can become an invaluable tool in my training toolkit.

Building Swim Fitness

19:18 -

• Once I have established a foundation of technique, the next step is to build swim fitness. This does not mean swimming endless steady laps without structure.
• Instead, it means designing workouts around intervals. Intervals do not always need to be hard; for beginners, the most effective approach is often shorter intervals at a slightly higher intensity—more medium to fast swimming and less slow, continuous laps. This is far more beneficial not only for fitness, but also for maintaining good technique under fatigue.
• Repeats of 25, 50, 75, or 100 meters with short to medium rest are excellent starting points. These allow me to swim with proper form while still developing endurance and speed.
• As I improve, I can gradually extend both the length of my intervals and the total volume of the session. By contrast, one of the main mistakes beginners make is focusing too much on long, continuous sets—such as 2,000 or 3,000 meters at a steady pace—while letting their technique deteriorate. This is counterproductive for both fitness and efficiency.
• Another common error is taking rests that are too long, or failing to stick to the planned rest periods. Often, this happens because I have not paced myself properly.
• If I swim every interval too hard, I am forced to extend my recovery, which makes the entire session more anaerobic than intended. The goal is to sustain quality work on relatively short rests, with enough intensity to create adaptation but not so much that I cannot complete the set as planned.
• A further mistake is neglecting intensity variation. My training should include a mix: some easy swimming, plenty of moderate efforts, and occasional hard intervals. Finally, I must ensure that I progressively increase my volume over time.
• Staying at the same session length—such as 1,000 to 1,400 meters—will quickly lead to a plateau. As my fitness improves, I need to extend both the distance of individual workouts and my total weekly volume in order to continue developing.

Swim Session

22:02 -

• While technique should remain my primary focus as a beginner, in reality every swim session I do can and should combine both technique and fitness. A good structure is to include technique work early in the session after a short warm-up, and then move on to a main interval set where I aim to apply that same technique under fatigue.
• If I only focus on technique without developing fitness, my form will collapse as soon as I get tired. Conversely, if I build fitness without technical skill, I become efficient at swimming poorly. The goal is always to combine both: efficiency through sound technique together with swim-specific fitness.
• For beginner triathletes, a typical workout has three to four parts. First is a warm-up, second a technique-focused section, third a main set for fitness and technique under fatigue, and optionally a short cooldown. Personally, I don’t consider a cooldown essential, but in swimming it can be useful, even if it is just 100 to 200 meters of easy work.
• Here is an example of a structured beginner workout totaling 1,300 meters. The warm-up consists of 200 meters, starting with 100 easy using fins, followed by 100 easy with a pull buoy. Then comes a set of four 50s on 15 seconds rest. Each 50 consists of 25 meters of a drill followed by 25 meters of full-stroke swimming. In this case, the drill is the fist drill, and fins are used to maintain body position so I can focus on stroke mechanics.
• Next is another set of four 50s, again on 15 seconds rest, combining 25 meters of a drill with 25 meters of full stroke. Here the drill is stroke counting, aiming to reduce the number of strokes by one with each repeat—for example, 25 strokes on the first, then 24, then 23, and finally 22.
• The main set follows: four 100s with 10 seconds rest, swum at a moderately hard effort with steady pacing, hitting consistent splits. This is followed by four 50s, also with 10 seconds rest, at a slightly faster pace than the 100s while still maintaining consistency. Finally, the cooldown is 100 easy with fins.
• This workout is simple but effective, blending technique and fitness in manageable distances with clear structure, and is an excellent starting point for a beginner triathlete.
• Another important consideration is how workouts are executed. In traditional swim training, intervals are often structured around send-off times or cycle times rather than fixed rest periods.
• For example, a set of 10×50 on a one-minute send-off means that if I complete a 50 in 52 seconds, I rest for 8 seconds before starting again. If I swim it in 48 seconds, I rest for 12. This system works well in squads because it keeps everyone in a lane synchronized.
• When training alone, I can instead structure sets around fixed rest, similar to running or cycling. For example, 10×50 with 10 seconds rest ensures the same recovery regardless of pace. Both methods are valid, and I should be comfortable with each—especially if I join a squad, where the send-off system is standard and usually managed with a pace clock on the wall.
• Although I often use a watch, I need to be careful that it does not become a distraction or interfere with others in the lane. Common mistakes include stopping before reaching the wall to pause the watch or blocking other swimmers while checking it.
• If I use one, I should do so discreetly, ensuring it supports my training rather than detracts from it. Ultimately, the pace clock is an excellent tool and often sufficient, but a watch can be used effectively if I manage it properly.

Execution and Pacing

29:03 -

• Beyond the logistical choices of using a watch or a pace clock, or training with cycle times versus fixed rest, the most important aspect of executing a good swim workout is pacing.
• I need to control my effort so that I can maintain the planned structure of the session. If I go too hard, I will miss rest intervals or compromise technique, which defeats the purpose of the workout.
• Quality must always take priority over simply accumulating distance or “ticking boxes.” For instance, it is far more effective to complete four repetitions of a drill with full concentration and proper execution than to do eight repetitions without focus, just going through the motions.
• Swimming demands a high level of mental engagement, and once my focus slips, the value of the training quickly declines. The right amount of work is simply as much as I can do while still maintaining concentration and technical precision.
• A final point on execution is pool etiquette. I must always be aware of others in the lane and respect the rules. This includes choosing the lane appropriate to my speed, following circulation rules (whether clockwise or counterclockwise), and, if only two people are in the lane, splitting it fairly. I should be mindful of faster swimmers who may need to pass and make sure not to block them.
• I must avoid swimming down the center of the lane, stopping in the middle of the wall or just before it, and pushing off directly in front of someone faster. These are basic but essential practices to ensure that everyone can train effectively and without disruption.

Equipment recap

30:46 -

• To quickly recap equipment, the essentials are straightforward: a swimsuit, goggles, and a swim cap. These are the non-negotiables.
• Beyond that, there are several useful tools that can support skill development when used with intention: the pull buoy, fins, snorkel, and paddles.
• None of these are magic solutions, and they should never be used as crutches. It is important that I understand why and how to use them so they serve my goals, rather than simply copying what others are doing.
• For beginners, fins are my favorite tool. They allow me to perform drills with better quality by giving a free lift that helps maintain body position while still letting me keep an active kick.
• The pull buoy can serve a similar role, although I find fins more effective for maintaining proper balance. The snorkel is another tool I value highly, as it removes the challenge of breathing and allows me to focus completely on stroke mechanics. The trade-off is that it requires commitment to learn and get comfortable with, but once I do, it becomes invaluable.
• Paddles, on the other hand, are the least important tool for beginners. They certainly have value, especially later on as technique and strength improve, but at this stage I believe other tools provide greater benefit. For now, paddles should not be my most frequently used item; fins, pull buoy, or snorkel will serve me better in building a strong foundation.

Key takeaways

32:27 -

• To summarize, technique and fitness are inseparable, but as a beginner I should place more emphasis on technique. The foundation of my progress depends on learning to move efficiently in the water.
• Second, I should only practice drills that I truly understand and can perform well, always following them with full-stroke swimming so that what I practice carries over into real technique. Simply going through drills to tick boxes is not the same as improving.
• Third, my workouts must be structured, using intervals and a variety of intensities. I do not need long intervals at this stage, but I do need consistency and variation between easy, moderate, and harder efforts.
• Finally, I should seek feedback whenever possible. Private lessons, video analysis, training camps, or swim squads all provide invaluable opportunities to refine my skills. Professional feedback accelerates progress and ensures that I am working on the right things in the right way.

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• Effortless Swimming Youtube Channel

• All swim-related episodes on That Triathlon Show