Triathletes often ask what they should focus on to improve their swimming. In no particular order, here are 10 steps to improve your swim in a triathlon.
1. Time in the Water If you find swimming is your toughest discipline, it is important to maintain a feel for the water by getting in the water at least every other day. This way, your body maintains its awareness of being balanced in water.
2. Hand Entry Slice your hand into the water at your goggle line and drive it forward. Many swimmers attempt to keep their hand in the air for as long as possible by reaching the hand out before entering into the water, but it is actually more efficient to go through the water with your hand as you rotate from one side to the other.
3. Head Position Keep looking straight down when swimming freestyle. It's important to keep your head down with only a small part of the back of your head out of the water. Also, as you rotate through the water, try not to move your head with the rest of your body rotation.
4. Pull In freestyle, your hands should pull all the way back past your hips. The last part of the stroke before recovery (arms coming out of the water) should be an acceleration behind you, and not up out of the water.
5. Minimize Kicking Try minimizing your kick as you train for swimming. Most people will kick extra hard to make up for lack of balance in the water. Minimizing your kick will allow you to improve your balance, as well as conserve energy.
6. Training Intensity The best way to measure your training intensity is to count your heart rate immediately after each swim. Add a zero to this count, and you will have your approximate exercise heart rate per minute.
7. Slow Down to Improve Your Stroke Technique is more important than any other aspect of swim training and by improving your stroke, you will be faster in the long run.
8. Stop your arm from crossing over A bad habits in swimmers is crossing the arm over to the opposite side on the pull. Breathing on your left side results in your right arm crossing over, breathing on your left side results in your right arm crossing. Often times this happens when one goes to breathe, but may also be a result of over-rotating. To avoid this, make sure your head isn't moving with the rest of your body, and try to pull more in a straight line (still bending the elbow) and ending the pull on the same side you started (i.e. right hand slices into the water, pulls back and hand ends up near right hip).
9. Strengthen Your Lungs To make breathing easier, add hypoxic training sets to your swims. For example, do a set of 4x100's breathing every 3-5-7-9 strokes by 25, with 15 seconds rest in between each 100.
10. Work on Your Weakness As a triathlete, you should spend the most time working on your weakest of the three disciplines. For many this is swimming. The same concept applies to any single discipline like swimming. Spend the most time working on the weakest part of your stroke. If balancing on your side is an issue, do some kicking drills on your side. If moving your head is a problem, focus on head position most of the time.
