Fish out of Water
Giving my First Swim Lesson
Although I’m not a fish—at least not compared to my fitter, broader-shouldered endurance athlete friends who swam competitively through high school and college. I was a record-breaking 12-and-under breaststroker for Glenhardie Country Club; however, I gave it up after eighth grade to focus on baseball. I remember Charlie Zettel, my GCC swim coach, saying, “Baseball’s a spring sport”, encouraging me to spend my summers in the pool instead of on the diamond. I’ve always had a fondness for the water, probably because I got positive reinforcement from it as a child. Odd that I’m scared of the ocean (sharks), but I digress. After college, my beaten-up bodybuilding body benefited from the low-impact, whole-body exercise, but that was just a bonus.
What I love about swimming is that it’s one of the few places on Earth where screens can’t reach you. My phone doesn’t ring. My eyes can’t wander to the big TV playing CNN or CNBC the way they do at the gym. My eyes can’t wander at all actually, they stay locked at the bottom of the pool or the pond, ‘prisoner of the black line’ to paraphrase Joni Mitchell. It’s just the rhythm of kick, stroke, breath over and over ahead in a kind of wonderful, active meditation.
As a triathlete, the swim is the area I have the most room for improvement. Even though I racked up a bulletin board full of gold medals as a kid, I had lost most of it over the years. Even though I had the muscle memory, I had a long way to go as a masters athlete, especially if I wanted to compete at a world-class level. With the exception of the past two months—after taking a much-needed break post-Kona and injuring my shoulder shooting hoops with my buddies—I’ve been swimming three times per week since 2021. Sure, I’ve missed some workouts due to travel, conflicts, and illnesses, but I’ve stuck with it.
With swimming, technique is incredibly important. Sure, form is key for bike and run development too, but all athletes—especially ones who come from sports like baseball, football, and wrestling like me—realize that you unfortunately can’t muscle your way through the water. More effort doesn’t always mean better results or faster splits. Bigger biceps aren’t going to help you be more hydrodynamic or aerodynamic. Hard to hear, I know.
With swimming, it’s important to develop a relationship with the water, as weird as it may sound. We need to be comfortable in the water, in an environment that may seem foreign to us as beginners or after taking an extended period of time off. Hopping in, splashing around, and doing a few easy strokes or laps is not wasted time. Not all who wade are lost. Confront the fear. As the saying goes, “Dive in.” Or safely slide in, that’s fine too. Just get in. These are concepts I communicate to athletes I coach.
This weekend, I had the privilege of giving a swimming lesson—the first one I’ve ever given (other than to my dad)—to a 30-year-old woman I coach named Jenny. Jenny is getting ready for the Boulder 70.3 in June and is new to triathlon and swimming. And as any swimmer knows—or quickly learns—there’s a huge difference between being able to tread water, stay afloat, and not drown and having a fast and efficient freestyle stroke.
Jenny has been swimming ~4,500 m/week, broken up into three sessions. Before she even got in the water, I led her through my typical pre-swim (and pre-race) routine of dynamic stretches, as she informed me she typically just hops in and begins. The workout we did was 1,500 m and consisted of an easy warmup to get the blood flowing, drills to improve technique, a main set with a pull buoy and paddles to build endurance and strength, and a short cooldown to lower the heart rate and clear lactic acid.
The most obvious inefficiency I noticed when watching her was that she wasn’t fully pulling. She would catch the water in front of her head, do half a stroke, exit around her hips to recover, and repeat with the other arm. She was working harder than she needed to and not getting the most bang for her buck. I broke down the different parts of the stroke and gave cues that encouraged her to give attention to each. For the rest of the hour, we focused on getting her to complete her pull through the water to maximize her propulsion per stroke.
While there were multiple changes we could’ve made, I was careful not to overwhelm her with too many improvements to think about. I’ve learned that if we try to apply multiple technique changes at once, we’ll likely not do any of them, at least not as thoughtfully as we would just focusing on one at a time. Set an intention for each workout or even a given set. If you add in multiple variables, you won’t know which is moving the needle.
This set, focus on fully pulling through the water, your thumb nearly grazing your thigh, until your hand exits the water. Don’t let your arm cross your body or the black line.
This set, focus on maintaining your kick and body position, driving from your hips and upper legs instead of your feet.
Most age groupers are time-crunched weekend warriors who have to squeeze in their training before clocking in, on their lunch break, or after work before dad duty. Because of this, there’s a tendency to optimize each minute and get the workout done no matter what. However, to make changes, both in and out of the pool, we must slow down and be deliberate. As the military saying goes, “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.” If you’re short on time and need to cut something, trim the main set, not the warmup, drills, or cool down.
Swimming, relative to the bike and run, is the shortest portion of a triathlon. As a result, people tend to double down on the bike or run, where the most time can be made up. As a decent, not great, triathlon swimmer, I won’t argue with that logic; however, it’s critical we still develop skills and fitness in the water. Even if you hate swimming and have only seen marginal gains over the years, understand that training the swim will allow you to get on the bike feeling more fresh and throw down a stronger run. At the end of the day, if you had a good run, you probably had a good race. Triathlon, especially long course, is about energy conservation. It’s a war of attrition. It’s not about who goes the fastest, but who slows down the least.
While I captured videos and photos of Jenny in the water to review, it was obvious she gained more from my live feedback. Not only did she benefit from the hands-on work, I gained valuable hands-on coaching experience that got me out of my comfort zone. I had to break down concepts I’ve internalized and normalized over multiple years in the sport, step by step. It reminded me of the “Explain it to me like I’m five years old” idea. If you can’t teach it, you don’t really understand it. While I instructed most of the workout from the pool deck, there were times I got in the water to show Jenny drills and how something should look. While not all coaches are athletes themselves, it’s obvious that athletes learn a lot by watching coaches demonstrate. I prefer to walk the walk and practice what I preach.
Next time, we’ll continue to develop her stroke, but also introduce bilateral breathing, sighting, and maybe even some flip turns! But as I said, one thing at a time…
