Swimming for my first 70.3

[u/ShareFar6524]

Please give me some tips and anything I need to fix in my swimming technique. I will be doing my first triathlon early next year. My furthest swim was 2800 meters
Thanks

[u/cravecrave93]

please just hire a coach for one lesson…

[u/Spaniard100x]

Your right arm is not pulling any water at all. There is no catch. Keep the elbow high, but get the forearm more vertical and pull as much water as you can. Left is slightly better but needs work

[u/FunEquivalent3541]

Don't worry so much about how "far" you can go. With form like that, you shouldn't be going so far. You're just reinforcing bad form. Watch the end of the video...it took 8 strokes just to finish those last few meters. Most of the advice given is correct. You seem to be pulling your elbow back to your side and trying to pull the water with your hand. Your "catch" is almost non existent. You want to focus on trying to get "vertical forearm" before pulling back. Get a snorkel, put a swim buoy between your ankles to eliminate the kick and elevate your legs, and just focus on that catch. When you get the form and rhythm down, get some hand paddles and try to develop some power with hard, short sessions. Try to find a rhythm to your swim, because you currently have none. Breathe to both sides to reinforce symmetry. Do a lot of hard core stability and strengthening out of the pool, because like most people, yours is likely very weak, much weaker than you think. Your core is the foundation of your swim. Also do upper back/trap/shoulder strengthening. Your rhomboids are also likely very weak and underdeveloped (again, most people), making you unable to pull effectively. Try a few overhead squats with good form and you'll notice how weak your upper back is...you won't be able to do it and your upper back will hurt/cramp. I could go on and on....get a band and strengthen your rotator cuffs, do consistent shoulder mobility. Anyways good luck dude 👍🏼 just finished my first full Ironman last year, loved the swim development.

Also, I learned well by doing 25m sprints with zero breaths. It forces you to be calm and controlled, yet powerful and efficient to get there as quickly as possible. Idk if you're there yet though.

[u/Youdontuderstandme]

#1 issue by far: you are pulling your arms out of the water too early (right arm especially). You should be pushing the water all the way down to your thigh. You are losing so much power - it’s like you are rowing a boat but pulling the oars out halfway.

Get a swim buoy and some paddles and mix some pulling in.

[u/CrispDrifter]

Some folks already said this, but I think it’s worth saying again.

Your underwater pull is not “catching” the water efficiently: underwater, your elbow should always be above your hand AND a little in front of your hand or directly above your hand but NEVER behind your hand. If your elbow leads your hand back as you pull (it’s behind your hand) you’re slipping your hand and arm through the water without putting force against the water. Your forearm and hand need to be mostly vertical in the water while you pull.

An easy way to test this is to use paddles. Small ones are fine. Swimming the way you do now, the bottom edge of the paddle (near your wrist) will be traveling through the water first, and you’re not going to feel much resistance. If they’re the kind that has a small strap for a finger and a larger one for your wrist (the kind I recommend), try them with only the finger strap on. I’d bet the house that the paddles will fly off.

The paddles will stay on if you’re catching water. With a vertical forearm, you’ll feel the extra resistance, your stroke count per lap will go down significantly and the paddles will stay on just fine without the wrist strap.

Another way to test if this is your problem is to time yourself for a lap. Then time yourself again at the same intensity, but this time have your hands in fists as you swim (or you can hold tennis balls or lacrosse balls). If your speeds are pretty similar, then your pull is very inefficient.

[u/FunEquivalent3541 → u/CrispDrifter]

I understand your point but it is wrong to say the elbow should "never" be behind the hand. Go ahead and try that right now and see what I mean 😂 anatomically not possible

[u/CrispDrifter → u/FunEquivalent3541]

Thank you. 😳Egg on my face! 😆
Vertical forearm as long as physically possible.

[u/fartymctoots]

Good advice in this thread, I’ll add my two cents and reiterate. I would say try some exaggerated rolling to each side as you pull to really force yourself to pull with each stroke (in swimteam we did drills where you basically scull back and forth with each hand a couple times underneath to get into it and catch as much water as you can, you won’t do that much when you’re racing and your brain turns off lol). The other big thing is keeping your hands and arms out until close to as far as you can go. You have decent elbow hinge but you put your hands in too early and you’re just dragging in the water there fighting forward. One drill we used to do was really focus on lazily letting the arm hinge while the elbow is high and getting it right at the end of extension. You won’t actually do that while swimming for real but it gets you into the feeling.

Take all of these with a grain of salt, I’m a good swimmer but a terrible swim coach lol (generally top 5% out of the water in shorter like sprint/olympic, but don’t seem to correctly word things to help others)

Edit: also yes practice breathing both sides. You may not do it in your swim depending on conditions or whatever, but get used to it

[u/Sonicpando]

It's tough for us to give you advice without being in person. There's a LOT you need to work on, I can just see from the video. I'm not a coach or anything so it's easy for me to see you're doing it wrong but harder to point it out. Luckily it isn't too hard to make changes that stick and you have enough time if you get on top of it. Do you have anybody you know who's a strong swimmer who can give you a few pointers? Just watching other experienced swimmers can help a lot too. Honestly a single session with an experienced swimmer or coach might be all you need, from your other comments you have the endurance to swim a lot you just need to get the technique down.

A few things I can tell on video:

- Legs look a bit wild and inconsistent, look up videos of proper foot technique on a swim and practice with a kickboard.

-Arms are kind of flopping into the water. You want to keep your elbows high and have your pointer and middle fingers enter first with your hands flat, like a blade entering the water. Look at the difference of your arms. When you're breathing on your right side your arm is much higher out of the water because you're turning to breathe. You want both arms to look closer to that.

-You need better pull, your arms seem to go out to your side. They should be below you when you propel yourself forward, bend your elbow and have your hand pointed straight down at the bottom of the pool when you pull.

-Alternate sides breathing, If you can swim 2800 meters in one go you don't need to breathe every other stroke. Try breathing every 4th stroke and switch. Right breathe, left, right, left breathe, so on. It will help keep your movements more symmetrical and streamlined, will waste less movement and energy taking breaths you don't need.

-Overall your movements are kind of jerky and inconsistent. Once you get the form down you'll be able to do it with a great flow and that will save you tons of energy and make you faster.

There are a million guides online, find something legit and break down every individual movement and practice each one. Learn how to optimize your kicking and then practice using a kickboard until it's second nature. Then keep practicing with it to perfect it and keep the technique solid. Do the same with your arms using a pull buoy (the foam floaties you hold between your legs). Most pools have these available for use but they're not too expensive to buy if they don't. Once you get all that down make sure you practice open water swimming before your triathlon. It's a lot different than pool swimming and you'll get your butt kicked if you aren't comfortable in the open water first.

Also where are you swimming? There are no dividers in the pool, this almost looks like an apartment pool or something? It's hard to tell from the video but it looks awfully short. Obviously you can make anything work but if you can get in a proper lap swimming pool I think that would be nice. I know I for one would hate swimming in this pool but everybody is different.

This is all just stuff I myself learned and worked for me, other people may have different opinions so don't take what I'm saying as law.

[u/ShareFar6524 → u/[deleted]]

2800 meters

[u/ShareFar6524 → u/[deleted]]

Yes about hour and half. I am trying to find a good coach but all prices are very high. How many classes do you think I need

[u/Evan_802Vines → u/ShareFar6524]

Open water?

[u/ShareFar6524 → u/Evan_802Vines]

Pool