Shownotes

Brenton's background

00:38 -

• I am a swimming coach based in Australia, working primarily with triathletes who want to get faster and more efficient in the water. I run clinics across Australia and camps overseas, and work with a large number of athletes online.
• For the past 15 to 16 years, I have dedicated myself to understanding freestyle technique and finding the simplest ways to help people improve, coaching everyone from complete beginners through to professional triathletes.
• Coming from a pool swimming background, I used to believe every swimmer should be working towards the same ideal: smooth, polished, clean technique.
• What changed over time was the recognition that triathlon places different demands on a swimmer. You are in open water, often in a wetsuit, dealing with conditions that are rarely flat or predictable.
• The idea that swimming needs to look good no longer held up as a useful measure. Swimming can look scrappy, and depending on the conditions, that may actually be appropriate.
• The result has been a much broader and more flexible approach to coaching technique, one that fits the real requirements of the athlete rather than an idealised picture of what good swimming is supposed to look like.

A hierarchy of needs for freestyle technique

03:37 -

• I like to think about technique improvement as a hierarchy of needs, because it gives you a clear game plan and a checklist to work through.
• At the base is breathing. If you are not breathing correctly, you will start to fatigue after 20 or 30 seconds. From there, I look at building the frame of the body, which covers head position, posture and legs.
• Then comes rotation, followed by recovery, entry and reach, and finally the catch and pull. Timing ties everything together at the end. That is the order I follow when running clinics or analysing someone's stroke.
• The most common breathing problem I see is people who inhale but then only exhale about 10% of the air before breathing in again.
• They are never fully clearing the carbon dioxide, just topping up on stale air. The fix is a light exhale through the nose or mouth as soon as the face returns to the water, with the biggest exhale happening as you turn your head to breathe.
• A swimmer at a recent clinic could not make it past 30 metres without stopping, and that was the entire reason why. Once she regulated her breathing that way, she could swim well beyond 50 metres.
• The opposite problem also exists. Some swimmers are taught early on to blow bubbles immediately and forcefully.
• If you exhale everything right after inhaling, there is a moment where your lungs are empty and you start to feel the absence of oxygen. The goal is to hold the air a little and release it just before the next breath.

Building the frame of the body

07:50 - 

• Once breathing is under control, I focus on helping people understand that the lungs provide most of their buoyancy.
• When you hold the body correctly, with length through the torso, an open chest, and engagement through the core, the buoyancy in your lungs will naturally bring your hips and legs up. 
• I use a drill I call the ball float to teach this. You take a breath in, tuck into a ball, and feel the buoyancy lift you near the surface.
• Then you extend your arms forward and legs behind in a long, flat position. From there, I get swimmers to push off and swim 25 metres as relaxed as possible.
• Almost every swimmer who carries unnecessary tension in the water starts to let go after that exercise. When they do, they move more freely and realise they do not need to kick hard or work hard just to stay horizontal. The effort can go into moving forwards instead.
• The kick is not primarily about propulsion. Even a very good kick contributes relatively little forward momentum. Its real role is balance and stability. I think of it like having the ground beneath you when throwing a ball.
• On land, you push off the ground to generate force. In water, there is no stable surface, so the kick out behind you provides a counterbalance that helps you rotate to the other side and gives you something to press against during the catch and pull.
• When swimmers understand this, they stop kicking so hard, their heart rate drops, and the rest of the stroke frees up. That is what building the frame of the body is really about.

Kick tempo and stroke rate

12:20 - 

• The opposite problem also exists. Some swimmers hear that the kick contributes little propulsion and effectively stop kicking altogether, letting their legs drag behind them like passengers.
• The kick still needs to be active, even if it does not need to be much. For many athletes, particularly in open water or in a wetsuit where buoyancy is higher, a two-beat kick is enough. You might only feel a small flick of the foot with each stroke cycle.
• For athletes pushing towards front pack speeds, around 1:30 per 100 metres or faster, a more active kick becomes necessary.
• A four-beat or a combination of two, four and six beats may be needed to sustain those paces. Someone like Lucy Charles-Barclay will shift naturally between a two-beat and a four-beat depending on her pace or which side she is breathing to.
• The kick is largely reacting to what the rest of the stroke is doing. If someone is already kicking correctly, I prefer not to draw their attention to it, as thinking about the legs tends to disrupt the rest of the stroke.
• Dependent on stroke rate, that might also influence what kick is suitable. With a stroke rate of 50 strokes per minute, a two-beat kick might lead to constant deceleration, whereas a six-beat kick might help maintain momentum.
• Around the low 70s is where either option could work, but well into the 60s, a six-beat kick would be the recommendation regardless of speed."
• That is a good mental model and I think it holds up well. Stroke rate and kick pattern are connected, and the lower the stroke rate, the more the swimmer risks losing momentum between strokes without the support of a more frequent kick.

Training the Kick for racing options

17:05 - 

• The kick helps eliminate dead spots in the stroke, which is particularly noticeable in swimmers with a longer, more traditional technique.
• Something I have found useful when speaking with elite swimmers is that many of them train a more demanding kick than they actually use in races.
• Sam Short, the 400 metre world champion, and an Olympic swimmer I spoke with here in Australia both described working on a consistent six-beat kick in training, even though neither would use it in competition. 
• The goal is to build kick strength and capacity, so that a four-beat or two-beat kick in a race feels easier and more controlled. The same principle applies to stroke length: training a longer, more powerful stroke develops strength that you can then draw on when you need to lift your rate in a race.

Rotation

18:40 - 

• The primary reason to rotate is to allow the recovering arm to come over the water comfortably. A flat swimmer has very little shoulder mobility in that position, making recovery awkward and inefficient.
• Beyond that, the right amount of rotation helps you get into a good catch position, engage the lats and chest through the pull, and add a little extra length in the water.
• For the triathletes I work with, the target is 30 to 40 degrees of hip, torso and shoulder rotation together. Viewed from the front, that is the angle between the back of the shoulders and the surface of the water.
• Going beyond that, towards 90 degrees, tends to unsettle the legs, compromise the catch and disrupt balance.
•  A coach I learned from put it well: you want to rock side to side, not roll. The hips are the engine room. Everything else flows out from there.
• The most common fault I see is over-rotation on the breathing stroke. A pro triathlete I was working with this morning was rotating his shoulders to around 70 degrees every time he breathed, leaving his arm straight and getting no purchase on the water at all.
• He had previously been swimming in the front pack and was now coming out of the water five minutes down. That over-rotation on the breath was a significant part of the reason.
• The first thing I check is where the swimmer is looking when they breathe. Looking too high or too far back makes it very hard to control rotation.
• From there, I focus on building patience with the lead arm, keeping it extended a little longer to support the body through the breath.
• The drill I find most effective is single-arm freestyle with fins, stroking with one arm while the other stays by the side, and breathing to the opposite side from the stroking arm.
• It is a difficult drill to do well, but holding that extension in front forces you to find balance and stops the over-rotation from happening.

The catch and pull

23:30 - 

• The catch is the setup phase of the stroke. The goal is not to power forwards at this point but to position the hand and forearm so they are facing mostly backwards, giving you a full arm of water to work with.
• The most common mistake is being too straight and too narrow with the arm out front.
• A coach gave me a simple way to understand this: the elbow needs to go out to the side, and the fingers need to point away from you. 
• When the elbow stays too narrow, it drops, and you lose the catch position entirely. A lot of people never bend their elbow much through that movement at all.
• We work on this through drills, one of which we call the short dog, which gets the upper arm and elbow moving out to the side and builds the feel for that position.
• One thing worth knowing is that when you first get into a proper catch, it can feel like you are not holding much water, especially if you have been used to pushing straight down with force.
• That downward pressure can feel powerful, but it is not taking you forwards. A correctly set catch may feel lighter at first, but if the arm is pointing in the right direction, that is what matters.
• The other common mistake is overpowering the catch. The stroke should build from slow to fast. Out front, you take a little time reaching and extending.
• Through the catch, you begin to accelerate, and you continue building through the pull. It is not an explosive effort from zero. 
• It is a gradual increase, perhaps from 30 or 40 percent effort to 60 or 70 by the back end of the stroke. The real power phase begins once the hand passes under the shoulder, where the movement shifts from a pull to a push as the body moves over the hand.
• Something I have been working on myself over the past several months, which came from a camp with Shandran Rubendal, who won the 10-kilometre open water race in Paris, is the role of the shoulder blade through the stroke.
• At the start of the catch, the shoulder blade slides up along the ribs. Through the mid-section of the pull, it needs to come down and back so that the lats can engage.
• Many swimmers are rounded and internally rotated through the shoulders and never access their lats at all. Focusing on that movement helped me qualify for the Australian national open water time at 38, something I had not managed before.
• I worked on the same thing with a professional triathlete who had been dealing with shoulder pain, and after some dry-land work to get the shoulder blade into the right position, which took longer than you might expect, the mechanics of her stroke changed considerably.
• Even at the front pack level, there is often room to improve that part of the stroke.

YMCA Drill

29:32 - 

• A drill I have been giving a lot of athletes recently is one I made up called the YMCA drill. You kick on the spot for five seconds in each of four positions.
• The first is arms straight out in front, just below the surface. The second is the high elbow catch, held still. The third is what I call the power diamond, where your hands are directly under your shoulders and your elbows are wide.
• Viewed from the front, the shape looks like a diamond. In that third position, the key is to open through the chest and draw the shoulder blades down and back together. The fourth position is the exit, with the thumbs resting on the thighs.
• It is a strange-looking drill, but the reason it works is that the oncoming water pushes against your arm as you hold each position, so you have to resist it.
• That resistance helps your body learn where it needs to be. By the time you roll into a full swim afterwards, the positions feel more familiar. There is a video of it on YouTube if you search YMCA drill effortless swimming.

Slow to fast and front quadrant timing

31:31 - 

• The slow to fast principle is also connected to timing. For middle to long distance swimmers, I always want them swimming front quadrant, meaning there is always an arm in front of the head.
• Being a little more patient and slower through the catch phase naturally supports that timing. The reason it matters is that as one arm is coming over the water in recovery, it carries momentum and weight.
• If the arm in front catches at just the right moment, those two forces couple together and the stroke flows. If the front arm is rushed, that connection is lost and the timing falls apart.
• A large part of why experienced swimmers can hit 1:15 or 1:20 per 100 metres without looking like they are trying hard is precisely because that timing is so well developed and those movements are working together efficiently.

Timing and creative freedom in racing

35:10 - 

• Rhythm and timing will naturally shift depending on pace, race distance and conditions.
• Once a swimmer has a solid foundation and is hitting reasonable times, one of the things that can hold them back is trying to be too perfect.
• I worked with a pro triathlete who had no swimming background and had put a lot of effort into being very precise and mechanical with her stroke. 
• It looked good, but she was consistently just off the front pack.
• Part of what she needed to work on was giving herself permission to let go of that perfection a little, allow her stroke rate to come up and be slightly less front quadrant when racing. 
• Open water does not lend itself to a robotic stroke.
• That sounds counterintuitive when you have been working hard on technique, but at that level it is about giving yourself some creative freedom with how you race, not dismantling the foundation you have built.

Speed versus stroke appearance

38:20 - 

• There are swimmers who send in videos for online coaching and whose strokes look like they belong to someone swimming 1:25 or 1:30 per 100 metres, but who are actually swimming closer to 1:50.
• In cases like that, the problem is usually a lack of connection. The catch shape may be good, but they are not transferring that movement through the shoulder, into the body and through the rotation. The shape is there but the force is not going anywhere useful.
• Part of the fix is the shoulder blade mechanics described earlier, letting it rise through the catch and drawing it down and back through the power phase.
• But there is also a simpler issue: some swimmers are just too gentle overall. They hear that they should relax and let things flow and take it too literally.
• They never allow themselves to actually put effort in and end up stuck in a gear one or two below where they need to be. Good technique and real power have to work together. One without the other will always leave something on the table.

The importance of purposeful drills

41:15 - 

• There is an important distinction between the kind of relaxation you want through your body generally and the effort you apply during the active phases of the stroke.
• Being relaxed does not mean being passive through the catch and pull. Those phases require real force and tension. The two things are not in conflict.
• On drills, my recommendation is 200 to 400 metres of drill and swim work at the start of every session, built into the warm-up.
• You are warming up anyway, so using that time to work on a specific part of your stroke sets you up well for the main set and builds awareness around what you are trying to do.
• The more important question is not which drill you do but whether you know why you are doing it. A lot of swimmers have done drills like 6-1-6, front kick or sculling many times without ever being told what they are supposed to achieve or how they connect to the full stroke.
• Take the 6-1-6 drill, where you hold one arm in front, one by your side, kick six times on your side, take a stroke and switch. There are probably ten different things you could be focusing on within that single drill.
• One reason I might give it to someone is to correct a crossover, where the arm crosses the centre line on entry.
• In that case, the focus is simply on keeping the hand in line with the shoulder both when holding the position and when switching. Without knowing that, the drill is just movement without purpose.
• For anyone training in a squad, ask your coach for one or two specific things to focus on. If you are coaching yourself, film your stroke and pick one thing you can see that needs work.
• Then be patient with it over six to eight weeks. The drill matters less than the intention behind it.

Capturing your technique on camera

46:05 -

• Almost every time someone comes to a clinic and sees themselves swim on video for the first time, they are shocked. They had a completely different image in their mind of how they looked in the water.
• I have that experience myself. The footage is just the first step, because without it you are shooting in the dark. If you can get a friend to film you from above the water at a pool or in open water, that is a great start.
• A suction cup and a GoPro mounted on the side or end of the pool is a good investment if you train alone, giving you both side and frontal views without needing anybody there with you.
• There are cheaper cameras that work well enough if a GoPro is not in the budget.

The nature of swim talent

48:00 - 

• Some people do have a naturally better feel for the water regardless of whether they swam as children. There will always be a spectrum of natural comfort and ability.
• But I have coached a large number of people who did not come from a swimming background and have reached a very good level regardless. In triathlon especially, you do not need to be the fastest swimmer in the field.
• Open water skills like drafting and positioning mean you can stay with someone who has been swimming since the age of four without necessarily being able to out-swim them in a pool.
• There are many examples of professional triathletes who never swam competitively as children and still make the front pack.
• Telling yourself that you cannot reach a good level because you did not start young is not a useful place to operate from.
• For those who do not improve rapidly, it is absolutely possible to reach a high age group level through a slower, longer process. In my experience, very few people get there in one or two years.
• For most, it is more like three to five years of consistent work, sometimes six. Getting to the high 1:10s or low 1:20s per 100 metres at threshold is achievable through that kind of grind.
• The athletes who get there most reliably are those receiving some form of coaching and technical feedback alongside the right types of training sessions.
• Some do manage it without that support, but it tends to take longer and requires a good natural sense of what needs to change.
• All of those things combined, time, feedback, and the right training, are what move the needle over the long term.

Swim frequency and distance

52:46 - 

• My rule of thumb for a triathlete who wants to reach a good age group level is a minimum of three swims per week, each at least 3 kilometres. More than that will obviously help, but that is the baseline.
• Swimming tends to have the lowest short-term return on investment among the three disciplines, but it becomes the limiting factor for a lot of triathletes as they move towards the pointy end of their age group.
• Making that investment early, even when it feels like the bike or run might bring faster gains in the short term, pays off over a five-year horizon.
• I have seen triathletes who needed a sustained block of four or five sessions per week just to push their swimming to the next level, after which they could maintain it on less. 
• A young triathlete I have been working with recently is a classic case: great on the bike, strong runner, but the swim was holding him back.
• He picked up an injury a couple of months ago that stopped him running, so we shifted his focus to six swims a week with a more specific structure, including VO2 efforts and sprint work with enough rest to go really fast.
• In a short period he went from holding around 1:14 or 1:15 per 100 on his VO2 hundreds down to 1:08 or 1:09.
• When he eventually drops back to four sessions a week and brings his running back in, he may settle at around 1:10, but he now knows that level is within him. Sometimes you need that concentrated surge to shift to a new baseline.

Structuring swim workouts

57:00 - 

• For three swims a week, I would structure it as one longer aerobic session, perhaps 4 kilometres with pull buoy and paddles, particularly if it falls after a hard run or ride. The other two sessions should include some intensity.
• One would be a solid threshold session, and the other would ideally be VO2 work, holding as fast a pace as possible over hundreds with enough rest to maintain quality.
• If the event being targeted changes the emphasis somewhat, but broadly those two intensity sessions and one aerobic session form the template.
• I also like to add a few sprints into the aerobic session, because triathletes tend to get stuck at one pace and never vary it, which limits improvement.
• The exact structure will always depend on how hard the bike and run sessions are and how well the athlete is recovering, but at minimum there should be at least one solid threshold session per week, and ideally two.

Intensity distribution across swim sessions

59:01 - 

• For my own swimming, I can only get to the pool three times a week and our squad trains Monday to Friday in the mornings.
• The sessions I can make end up being threshold, sprints and VO2, with no dedicated aerobic swim at all. That has worked well for me because I am getting aerobic work through everything else I do outside the pool.
• The broader point is that swimming recovery is genuinely different from running and cycling, and if you can handle more intensity across your swim sessions, it is probably not going to hurt. The aerobic base is likely being taken care of by the rest of your training.
• The exception is the athlete who is naturally glycolytic, with a high top-end speed that outpaces their threshold and endurance.
• Someone with a critical speed of 1:40 who can easily hold 30 seconds per 50 may actually need that aerobic swim more than a VO2 session.
• Those athletes are not especially common in triathlon, which tends to attract a more slow-twitch dominant population, but it is worth considering where your own strengths and weaknesses sit.

Open water versus pool technique

01:03:30 - 

• Saltwater and wetsuits take care of most of the body position factors in your stroke, so you can focus less on those.
• In freshwater without a wetsuit, the reduced buoyancy means you need to be more mindful of head position and pressing the chest down to keep the hips up.
• A marathon swimmer I was supporting last week, Andy Donaldson, noticed exactly that during a 55 kilometre river swim. He was used to the buoyancy of saltwater and salt-water racing, and when fatigue set in his hips dropped far more than he was used to.
• In open water generally, and especially with a wetsuit on, the arm recovery can be higher, wider and faster. A wetsuit restricts shoulder movement, so the classic high elbow recovery may not be comfortable.
• Swinging the arm forward over the water a little quicker, a little higher and a little wider tends to work better. Stroke rate should come up, the catch starts a little sooner, and the overall stroke will be less precise than in the pool. That is fine. Being a bit scrappy is appropriate in those conditions.
• Sighting is one of the most common areas where people lose time, sometimes five to ten seconds per 100 metres, simply through poor technique.
• The way I teach it is to sight on one stroke and breathe on the next. You look up briefly on one stroke, then turn your head to breathe on the following stroke.
• This keeps the hips up and maintains your rhythm. Lifting the head for two or three strokes before breathing is the common mistake, and it costs a lot of speed.

The importance of drafting

01:07:20 - 

• Drafting is one of the most significant speed gains available in open water and one that is often underused.
• A pro triathlete I spoke with this morning mentioned that he simply does not like drafting because it makes his stroke feel like it is slipping, as the turbulence from the swimmer in front disturbs the water. 
• That feeling is real, but you are still going faster for considerably less effort. I have the same experience pushing off someone's feet in the pool. It does not feel good, but you are three seconds per 100 faster at around 80 percent of the effort.
• Getting comfortable with that sensation, and understanding that the slipping feeling does not mean you are swimming badly, is one of the more valuable things an open water swimmer can work on.

Drafting and preparation for open water

01:08:36 - 

• In triathlon, where the goal is simply to get to the end as fast as possible, drafting on the feet is the better option.
• Sitting on someone's hip is effective for you but it slows the person you are drafting off, as you effectively take the water they would otherwise hold in their catch. 
• On the feet, both parties are less affected. The rule of thumb is straightforward: if the person in front is holding the same pace as you, stay there.
• If they are going slower than you could manage on your own, move past them. In a rolling start where you are working through groups, moving in behind someone briefly as you overtake can also be useful, as they are pushing a lot of water ahead of them.
• Done well, drafting can be worth several minutes over a half or full Ironman.
• There are a few things worth practising in the pool before racing in open water. Practise sighting regularly, using the blocks at the end of the pool and aiming to sight every six to eight strokes using the sight and breathe method.
• If you train in a squad, push off directly behind someone occasionally to get used to drafting, and do some lane swimming in a larger group to get comfortable with people around you, touching your feet, swimming close.
• If you are not used to racing in a wetsuit, get two or three swims in with it on beforehand. It will feel restrictive and your stroke will likely change. Getting used to that before race day matters more than most people expect.
• The gap between pool and open water performance usually comes down to a few things: sighting, drafting, taking a straight line, and stroke rate.
• Beyond the technical side, a lot of swimmers are too precious with their stroke in open water. 
• When there is chop or waves, you need to be more assertive and allow yourself to get a bit scrappy. That does not mean abandoning technique, but it does mean taking the limiters off and attacking the swim rather than trying to replicate perfect pool conditions.
• One thing worth experimenting with in open water, particularly for those who breathe predominantly to one side, is a galloping stroke.
• Rather than an even tempo on both sides, the gallop involves a longer stroke on one side and a quicker stroke on the other, with the breathing side tending to be the longer one.
• Michael Phelps had a noticeable gallop in his freestyle, and Sam Short, when racing rather than swimming comfortably, shows a similar pattern developed from years of surf swimming in Australia.
• It is an uneven rhythm but it can be a very efficient way to swim in open water, particularly at race pace. If you breathe every two or every four strokes, it is worth trying and seeing how it feels.

Racing bravely in the swim

01:15:50 - 

• Something I see regularly is triathletes being overly conservative in the swim, holding back too much out of fear of blowing up on the bike or run.
• To some extent that calculation is real, but a lot of people take it too far and never allow their heart rate to rise above a very low threshold.
• Shorter races like Olympic and sprint distance are a good way to practise being braver with pacing, including in the swim, because the consequences of going hard early are much more manageable. An Olympic distance race can feel almost like a sprint effort throughout.

The Goggles

01:18:42 - 

• About 12 to 18 months ago I came across a new type of anti-fog technology that had only been around for a couple of years.
• I tried it on a camp in the Maldives and was genuinely surprised by how clearly I could see underwater. I had been used to goggles fogging after a couple of minutes and having to clear them constantly, and had always bought a new pair before every A race just to get a few swims of clear vision.
• That experience led me to look into developing goggles built around this technology, specifically designed to be comfortable for longer open water swims and triathlon racing.
• The reason standard anti-fog coatings stop working after five to ten swims is that they are applied as a surface layer after the lens is made.
• Touching the lens or not caring for it properly rubs that coating away.
• The technology we use embeds the anti-fog treatment into the lens itself. For the first few swims you do not need to do anything. 
• Eventually they will begin to fog slightly, at which point you just wet the lens, wipe the inside with a thumb or finger to clear any dust or residue, and they are good to go for the session. The coating lasts roughly ten times longer than a standard goggle.
• We tried hundreds of samples before settling on the models we now offer.
• The Strike is the one I use myself, and it is also what athletes like Kat Matthews, Kristian Blumenfeldt and Jelle Geens have been wearing. 
• The appeal is the wide field of view, the comfort for longer swims and the fact that it sits somewhere between a small racing goggle and a large open water mask.
• It is hydrodynamic without sacrificing visibility. Most people do not go out looking for better anti-fog goggles, but once they try them the difference is obvious enough that it tends to stick.

Choosing the right lens for conditions

01:23:50 - 

• Goggle lenses are rated on a scale from SW0, which is completely clear, through to SW4, which is dark enough to look directly at the sun.
• Most people are well served by a smoke lens, which has a mild tint without any mirror effect.
• If you are swimming in bright sunlight, particularly early morning when the sun is low and reflecting off the water, you will want something darker with a coloured and mirrored lens, roughly an SW3. 
• It is worth having two pairs: a clear or lightly tinted pair for dark conditions and a tinted mirror pair for bright racing environments.
• As an example, Kat Matthews raced Ironman Texas in a completely clear lens because the pro wave started almost in the dark, then used a purple mirror lens at Ironman Geelong, where the course heads almost directly into the sun.

Listener questions

01:27:35 - 

What does it mean to swim with your shoulders and what is the problem with it?

This likely refers to the difference between hip-driven and shoulder-driven freestyle. Hip-driven freestyle, where rotation initiates from the hips and travels through the torso and shoulders, is the more efficient style for middle to long distance swimming and is what suits triathletes. Shoulder-driven freestyle keeps the hips relatively still and generates rotation primarily through the shoulders. It can be fast and powerful but it is not efficient enough for a triathlon.

What is the most underrated skill or technique with which advanced athletes can optimise their performance and gain a few seconds on their swimming time?

The most underrated technique for advanced swimmers is using the lats through the power phase of the stroke. Getting the shoulder blade down and back at the right moment to engage those larger muscles is something many athletes, even at the front pack level, have not fully developed.

At what age is optimising performance not possible anymore?

It gets pretty late. I have worked with masters swimmers in their late 40s and early 50s who have still hit lifetime personal bests. The ceiling is higher than most people assume.

When swimming in a wetsuit I can keep good form with a four-beat kick, but in the pool I drop my legs and need a six-beat kick to keep them up. What is the best way to approach pool workouts when preparing for open water wetsuit swims?

The wetsuit provides buoyancy that reduces the demand on your legs. Training the six-beat kick in the pool is the harder option, and that is exactly why it is worth doing. You are building the fitness and strength to sustain that kick, so that when you race in a wetsuit, you can drop back to four beats and it feels easy. There is nothing wrong with that pattern. It is the same principle as training harder than you need to race.

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• Please support Effortless Swimming and That Triathlon Show by getting the best swim goggles on the market at shop.effortlessswimming.com. Use the code TTS15 to get 15% off your goggles, and get a free two-month Effortless Swimming course membership.
• Effortless Swimming website, Youtube, podcast and Instagram
• Technique improvement and swim training for triathletes with Brenton Ford | EP#320 - Brenton’s previous appearance on That Triathlon Show