Good swimming in adult age is what everybody want, but if your parents didn’t take you to the swimming pool in your childhood, you’ll have it more difficult. When you begin to practice triathlon and you notice that good swimming is very important, especially in short-distance triathlon, where drafting is permitted in bike segment, so that the more forward you finish in swimming segment, the better your chances of catching a good bike group, it is crucial to improve your ranking, because the further back you finish the more possibility you will have that your bike group was slower, and that will cause you to finish with a big delay in minutes in the running segment.
Do you think you can finish the swimming segment at the same time that many of those rivals who trained swimming in their childhood? We think so.
It is true that there is a point of sensitivity to water that you couldn’t get, but it is not impossible, it’s just difficult. we (adults) have an advantage over children, we have enough ambition and motivation to stay focused on training, we will have an active practice that children could hardly have, 1hour of swimming technical exercises in a concentrate adult is equivalent to at least 2 hours of training on children, they take us much advantage, but we can overcome very quickly if we have perseverance.
It is necessary conscious training, that is, when we train, we have to be constantly thinking about how we move our hands, arms, feet, how to put the trunk, head … we cannot be thinking about what we will do after training, or about family problems, we need to abstract and I repeat «to focus», while we train we must forget everything, the pool must be a place of relaxation, enjoyment, effort and isolation, the goal is to improve , not to resolve other problems, you musn’t do swimming movements without thinking about them, if you want to get away, don’t swim the styles you want to improve, you may harm your style technique.
Also you need many hours, you have to stay very much time in the water, all you can, take advantage of all the openings you can to throw yourself to the pool, I personally like to get into the pool after some class to do sculling or leg kicks to improve my sensations , have a swimsuit and goggles always at hand, we was not born to be in the water and we have to practice a lot to get use to this environment, no matter if you have 20 minutes or 1 hour, get into the pool and practice, do not waste time and concentrate on your movements the little time you have.
With a coach you will go faster, a OET Coach shows you the way, they tells you the exercises you have to practice according to your weaknesses, and then you have to put conscious practice and concentration. We are now three OET coaches in the pool, David Estebanez, Laura Garay and a server. David is a crack, if you have any doubt ask David, he knows all about triathlon training and techniques, a great coach. Laura is irreplaceable, is a real expert teaching beginners, she has an instinct for it and we have learned a lot from her and from her classes.
Finally, you just need to do one thing, you have to learn to do drafting in the competition (positioned behind the feet to take advantage of less resistance), and the best way to do this is competing. You can do drafting with an opponent who swims 1 or 2 minutes faster than you in 1500 m, and to go with him, if you’re able to follow him for the whole swimming segment, this is the way we can compensate the sensitivity you don’t have if you didn’t swim when you were a child.
I hope we can help you get your goals with next post.