by Coach Suzanne | May 11, 2026 | Swimming
100% human written, no AI
1) Wash your face with cold water only!
-I’m totally 100% serious about this. if nothing else wash your face with cold water only between now and the race. In studies of cold/ice bath submersion for ankle sprains, the first cold exposure was ranked something like 8/10 in doscomfort. But each oen after that dropped quickly even with no change in the water temperature.
By days 3-5, plunging an ankle into ice cold water rated about a 3-4/10 in discomfort
Just getting yourself exposed to cold water makes a significant difference in how your body perceives the cold. It becomes just a sensation, rather than something uncomfortable. In turn, your stress hormones will be lower and the first 1 or 2 swims more enjoyable!
2) Start taking cold showers this week!
-Again, ‘m totally 100% serious about this. Once you get used to washing your face in cold water once or twice, go for the cold shower! You can start warm, and then go to cold when you finish or do it the other way around. or just go cold from start to finish!
Understand that your skin is a sensory organ. It’s feeling COLD not pain. But those pathways to your brain are shared, so dedicating time to this helps training your nervous system to expect some cold and that it is OK! It may spike your adrenaline briefly, but you’re much much much better having this happen at home where you can simply step out of the shower, than during your swim on race day morning!
3) Warm up before the swim
Physically warm up your body and muscles by doing land based exercise before you get into the water at all. You can do this with our without your swim gear and wetsuit on, but it’s easier to get your swim stuff on before you get sweaty. You will also retain the generated heat by having your swim layers (wetsuit for example) already on.
Do jumping jacks, burpees, a run up and down the parking lot several times and get your heart rate and breathing elevated. This gets blood circulating to your body, gets your heart exposed to the increased blood flow and competition hormones (adrenaline) that anticipate some exciting event is coming up and will help prevent the same heart rate / adrenaline spike from happening once you are already in the water
4) Bring a thermos of warm water
This one is hard too coordinate just right but bring a thermos of warm water with you and pour it inside your wetsuit just before you swim. Neoprine is designed to hold warmth on the inside of the suit, so a warm water bath can pre-warm the inside so that any cold water seeping in is less impactful.
Do you have any other tips for cold water swimming? Let me know what works for you or if any if these tips helped !!
by Coach Suzanne | Sep 4, 2024 | Swimming
Triathletes come from a variety of backgrounds, and swimming is often the most challenging discipline for many. While some swimmers move through the water smoothly and efficiently, others seem to struggle yet were determined to improve.
For those who are new to swimming, it can be a tough discipline to master. Even for experienced swimmers, swimming efficiently—using as little energy as possible—is crucial, especially in triathlons where conserving energy for the bike and run is essential.
The Importance of Swimming Efficiency
Swimming fast doesn’t necessarily mean swimming well. The key to swimming efficiently lies in reducing the energy you expend in the water, which directly impacts how much energy you’ll have left for the rest of your race. It’s not about who was a high school swim champion or who has the fastest sprint time—it’s about who can maintain a strong, efficient stroke throughout the entire swim leg, leaving enough in the tank for the bike and run.
Understanding Drag and Its Impact
Why are human swimmers so inefficient? The answer lies in understanding the types of drag that affect your swimming. There are three main types:
- Form Drag: Caused by non-streamlined body parts like your shoulders, legs, and arms. When these parts are out of alignment, they create resistance that slows you down. The good news is that form drag is the easiest to correct by improving your body alignment in the water.
- Wave Drag: This occurs when movements or strokes create waves and splashes, reducing your efficiency. If you hear a lot of noise or see water splashing around you, that’s wave drag in action.
- Friction Drag: This relates to the surface over which the water flows. Wearing baggy swimsuits or not streamlining your body creates more friction, increasing drag. Opt for swimwear designed for minimal resistance to improve your efficiency.
Think of aquatic mammals like dolphins or seals—they glide through the water with minimal effort because their bodies are perfectly streamlined for aquatic environments. By contrast, humans lose significant energy to drag, making efficiency even more critical.
Tailoring Your Swimming Goals to Your Ability
To improve your swimming, it’s important to set goals that match your current skill level. Here’s a general guide:
- Fundamental Swimming Goals – Improve Efficiency: Focus on maximizing streamlining, minimizing fatigue, imprinting correct neuromuscular programming, and creating a stroke that is sustainable over longer distances and faster tempos.
- Intermediate Swimming Goals – Develop Gears: Work on stroke counting at various speeds, learn to adjust your speed by varying your recovery rate, and practice choosing and executing a specific stroke count.
- Advanced Swimming Goals – Add Fluency to Your Gears: Practice changing pace with fixed stroke counts, create speed by combining longer strokes with faster tempos, and use a tempo trainer to improve your form across a range of speeds.
When Does Speed Come Into Play?
Speed is a natural concern for many swimmers, but it’s important to understand that fitness follows the skills you are working on. For novice swimmers, focusing on time-based goals without a solid foundation of technique can reinforce bad habits. Instead, focus on balance, streamlining, and relaxation. As your efficiency improves, so will your speed.
For more advanced swimmers who have developed a smooth, efficient stroke, incorporating speed work with a focus on form can help build fitness and speed. However, even the most advanced swimmers benefit from continually refining their technique.
Ultimately, speed is the outcome of focusing on form, efficiency, and skill during training. By making these your priorities, you’ll find that your times improve naturally as your stroke becomes more effective.
by Coach Suzanne | Aug 31, 2024 | Swimming, Triathlon
The Challenge of Swimming Straight for Triathletes
For many triathletes, swimming straight in open water can be one of the most frustrating aspects of the sport. Despite strong fitness and training, even a slight deviation from a straight line can lead to significant time losses and extra fatigue during a race. While pool swimmers can rely on lane lines to guide them, triathletes must navigate without such aids, making stroke efficiency and alignment even more crucial. One of the main culprits of swimming off-course is the “crossover effect.”
Understanding and Correcting the Crossover Effect
The crossover effect happens when your hand crosses the centerline of your body during the stroke. This is a natural tendency due to the way our shoulder joints are oriented and how we use our arms in daily life—reaching forward in activities like typing, driving, or even shaking hands. When this habitual movement pattern carries over into swimming, it causes your strokes to push water diagonally instead of straight back, leading you to veer off-course.
This misalignment wastes energy and slows you down, but the worst part is that it often goes unnoticed until you see it on video or feel it during a swim. The result? Your hard-earned speed is lost as you zigzag instead of cutting a clean path through the water.
To correct the crossover effect, practice aligning your arms during the recovery and entry phases of your stroke. Imagine your hand extending not directly in front of your chest but slightly to the side, aligned with your shoulder, and parallel to an imaginary lane line. This adjustment might feel strange at first, but it helps keep your momentum moving forward rather than sideways.
Techniques for Staying Straight in Open Water
In open water, where visual cues are limited, it’s essential to maintain straight swimming to conserve energy and stay on course. Beyond correcting the crossover effect, here are some additional tips:
- Use Bilateral Breathing: This allows you to balance your stroke and avoid favoring one side, which can cause you to drift.
- Practice Sighting Regularly: Incorporate sighting into your training so it becomes second nature. Lifting your head briefly to check your direction can prevent you from veering off-course.
- Core Stability: Strengthening your core helps you maintain a streamlined position in the water, reducing the likelihood of wobbling or drifting during your swim.
By addressing these factors in your training, you’ll be better equipped to swim straight in your next triathlon, saving valuable time and energy.
You may enjoy…
Triathlete Magazine: Mastering Open Water Swimming – A comprehensive guide on improving your open water swim, including tips on sighting, stroke technique, and swimming straight.
by Coach Suzanne | Aug 30, 2024 | Swimming, Triathlon
The Importance of Lowering Your Stroke Count
Why would you want to lower your stroke count? Simply put, if your stroke count is too high, it can indicate inefficiencies in your swimming technique. But how do you know if your stroke count is too high?
When swimming at an easy pace, without adding much power, you should be able to glide through the water with relative ease. This ease suggests that you’re well-balanced and streamlined. Everyone has a limit where swimming any slower turns into a drill-like exercise, or where you start to feel like you’re sinking. The stroke count you achieve just above that limit is a good indicator of your efficiency.
Balancing Technique and Power
Stroke count, or strokes per length (SPL), is a reflection of two competing forces: water resistance and stroking force. To lower your stroke count, you can either reduce drag or increase power. In other words, you can improve your streamlining or boost your propulsion.
Here are some key concepts to help you balance the skills needed for speed in swimming:
- Streamlining vs. Power
- Flexibility vs. Mobility
- Slipperiness vs. Strength
Your ideal stroke count will vary based on your height and other factors. For instance, a 5’2? swimmer might aim for a lower-end target of 18 strokes per length, while a 6’2? swimmer might target 15 strokes. If you can’t hit these targets at any speed, it might indicate issues with streamlining or balance, essentially problems with drag.
As your tempo increases, the time between strokes decreases, your travel distance per stroke decreases, and your stroke count goes up. Identifying your upper limit—where you still feel smooth and in control—is crucial. For example, a swimmer might feel comfortable at 21-22 SPL in a short course yard (SCY) pool when swimming at a fast, yet controlled pace.
Control and Improvement
Being able to choose your stroke count at will suggests great control over your form. If your stroke count varies widely at the same sustainable pace (more than 2 SPL), this may indicate poor technique or a technique that isn’t well-ingrained. For example, swimming a 25-yard distance at 30 seconds with an 18 SPL is very different from doing it at 16 or 20 SPL.
The stroke rate ramp test can help determine your current comfort level, but it doesn’t diagnose whether your SPL and tempo ranges are ideal—it only shows what feels good right now. Remember, even if it feels good, there’s always room for improvement unless your technique is perfect.
To illustrate, a 5’3? swimmer might be equally comfortable swimming at 14 SPL or 22 SPL. However, the difference is in speed: at 14 SPL, they might swim 1:50 per 100 yards easily and relaxed, while at 22 SPL, they might swim 1:30 per 100 yards but get tired quickly. For a sustainable 1000-yard swim, they might maintain around 1:40 per 100 yards with an 18/19 SPL, consistently staying within that narrow range.
Finally, if your tempo remains the same, lowering your SPL—by either improving streamlining or adding efficient propulsion—will make you go faster. This is why lowering your SPL should be a key component of your swim practice and improvement exercises.
Drill Set to Lower Stroke Count
You can do this as written for a complete swim session, or decrease the drill repeats or distances to incorporate it as a warmup set for a longer swim.
Sculpt Your Stroke
Total Distance: (1100)
- Warm-Up: 200m easy swim
- Drill 1 (200): 4 x 50 m/yd Swim with Gentle Closed Hand (relaxed fist) for 25, then open hand for 25 (Focus on feeling the water pressure on your forearms during closed fist drill as well as open hand). rest 10 seconds between 50s
- Drill 2 (200): 4 x 50 y/m Swim with One Arm, other arm at side for 25, then swim both arms back. Focus on pausing during the extension to give your body a chance to stabilize before you start your stroke. Breath away from the extended arm. (Alternate each length; focus on balance and reducing drag). rest 15 seconds between 50s
- Drill 3 (300): 4 x 75 y/m as follows: 25 Closed Hand, 25 open hands, 25 swim with slow, deliberate strokes (Count your strokes per length and aim to reduce SPL for each 25). rest 20 seconds between 50s
Cool Down: 200m easy swim
Main Swim Set: Efficient Endurance
Total Distance: 2200 meters
Warm-Up: (400 meters)
- 200m easy swim (focus on streamlining and counting strokes per length)
- 100m kick with a board (maintain balance and reduce drag)
- 100m pull with a buoy (focus on maintaining a long, efficient stroke)
Main Set: (1600 meters)
- 4 x 100m at Moderate Pace (200 meters total)
- Focus on maintaining a consistent stroke count (aim for the SPL you practiced during the drill set).
- Rest: 20 seconds between each 100m.
- 2 x 200m Descending Pace (400 meters total)
- Start at a moderate pace and gradually increase your speed in the second 100m while maintaining or slightly reducing your stroke count.
- Rest: 30 seconds between each 200m.
- 4 x 50m Focused Technique Work (200 meters total)
- Alternate each 50m between a strong, powerful stroke (aim for speed) and a long, smooth stroke (aim to reduce SPL).
- Rest: 15 seconds between each 50m.
- 2 x 300m Aerobic Effort (600 meters total)
- Swim at a steady pace, focusing on maintaining a sustainable stroke count and minimizing drag.
- Rest: 45 seconds between each 300m.
- 1 x 100m Fast Effort (100 meters total)
- Push your speed while keeping your stroke count as low as possible. This is a test of both fitness and technique.
- Rest: 1 minute.
Cool Down: (200 meters)
- 200m easy swim, focusing on relaxing and maintaining a long, efficient stroke.
Key Focus Points During the Main Set:
- Consistency: Maintain a consistent stroke count throughout the main set, aiming to stay within the SPL range you determined during the drill set.
- Efficiency: Emphasize smooth, streamlined swimming, especially during the longer intervals, to conserve energy while maintaining speed.
- Control: Use the descending pace and focused technique work to reinforce the ability to adjust your stroke rate and count based on the pace.
This main set is designed to build endurance while reinforcing the technical improvements from the drill set. It challenges you to maintain efficiency and control as the distance and intensity increase, ensuring that your stroke mechanics remain strong under fatigue.
Bonus Tip: Track Your SWOLF Score
As you progress through these workouts, you may want to track your SWOLF score. SWOLF, short for “Swim Golf,” is a metric that combines your stroke count and time to give you a measure of efficiency. A lower SWOLF score can often indicate more efficient swimming. By paying attention to your SWOLF during the main set, you can gain valuable insights into how well you’re balancing stroke efficiency with speed. For more on how to use SWOLF to improve your swimming, check out this this article.
References
- Chollet, Didier, et al. “The effects of an incremental protocol on arm coordination in front crawl.” Journal of Sports Sciences, vol. 18, no. 4, 2000, pp. 321-330.
- This study examines the relationship between arm coordination, drag, and propulsion in swimming, providing insights into how stroke mechanics affect overall efficiency.
- Costill, David L., et al. “Upper body power as a determinant of swimming performance.” Journal of Swimming Research, vol. 8, 1992, pp. 27-32.
- This paper explores the role of upper body strength and power in swimming, highlighting the balance between force production and streamlining for optimal performance.
by Coach Suzanne | Jun 20, 2023 | Swimming
Swim Straight! How to Master Sighting in Open Water
When swimming in open water, sighting is a crucial skill that allows you to keep a straight course and stay on target. Seeing the horizon is more than just looking up; it is also about minimizing disturbances to your swimming rhythm while spotting the horizon efficiently. We’ll discuss how to incorporate effective sighting techniques into your training routine in order to navigate open waters with precision in this article.
1. Quick Spotting:
You can spot your reference points while swimming by taking brief, quick glances forward without interrupting your stroke when you sight. As you continue swimming, let your visual cortex process the information while you glance forward and return your head smoothly to the water instead of holding your head up for extended periods.
Try this on dry land first when you arrive at your swim spot, whether it’s a pool, lake or ocean. First close your eyes and generally face a direction that has some interesting objects in the distance. This could be the buoys on your swim course, a marina, a parking lot or a group of people. Don’t study the area first before closing your eyes…that’s cheating! Close your eyes first and then rotate your body to facd the direction you’ve chosen, or you can have a friend help point you the right way, while taking turns.
You can also try this right where you are reading this article…when you’re ready, do NOT look up from your screen without first closing your eyes. Close your eyes THEN lift your head to face any direction that you know has some objects in front of you.
Now with your eyes closed, open and close them as quickly as you can and keep them closed. Don’t open your eyes, look around and close them again, you’re simply going to blink once, eyes open then closed again. With your eyes closed, you’ll have a visual memory of what you just saw even if you can’t identify specific objects. If you are doing this with a partner, describe what you saw. If on a swim course, you’ll probably want to identify the buoys right? Now decide what additional information you want to gather for your 2nd blink. Do you need to rotate your head a little to face a specific direction so whatever you’re trying to gather information about is more in front of you? Did you see colors but you’re not sure what the colors are? Did you see a car but thought there may be more?
Repeat the blink again, keeping your eyes closed when you’re done. You can blink at a speed that allows you to “see” more, but remember that after you close your eyes, you continue to “see” what was there. If the lighting is bright enough you may even notice a literal impression on your retina after your eyes are closed. it takes several seconds for the cells on the back of the eye to revert back to their neutral state, and during that time, you’re brain is still getting the signal of what was imprinted on the retina.
Ok, try it a 3rd time and gather any additional information that you can. Finally, open your eyes and survey what is in front of you. How accurate was your minds eye after your eyes were closed? Keep this in mind when sighting. You don’t have to “see” or even “look” for navigational cues while swimming…just use your visual memory after a quick peek (or even a blink) during your peek above the surface and you’ll save energy and swim much smoother.
2. Identify Contrasting Elements:
Look for things that are easily distinguishable, such as bright orange or yellow buoys, fellow swimmers’ caps, tree lines, or areas where water meets land. Try to spot any contrasting objects in front of you first, then refine what you see on a subsequent sighting opportunity by focusing on a narrower target in the direction you are going to swim. Like the blink exercise above, you may notice that high contrast leaves an imprint on your retina after you close your eyes. You’re not only remembering what you saw…but even after your eyes are closed, you can still “see” what the retina was exposed to as if the scene were on the back of your eyelids.
3. Maintaining Proper Body Position:
Keep your mouth and nose below the waterline when sighting, ensuring only your eyes and forehead break the surface. Maintaining a streamlined body position keeps your head low and keeps your hips from dropping, allowing you to swim efficiently. Breathing can be incorporated in two basic ways after the sight. The first option is my preferred way – after sighting with the “alligator eyes” relax your neck muscles and regain your balance in the water by letting your face fall back towards the bottom of the lake / ocean. Then take a normal breath on a subsequent stroke. This reduces the amount of disruption in your balance and alignment since you have a chance to regain perfect body alignment after the sighting, and before the next breath.
The second way is best for people who already have good to great swim form, can take a breath in the pool (under still perfect conditions) with their goggles splitting the water surface and breathing behind your bow wave, and who do not have any neck injuries, chronic neck pain, disc issues or neck arthritis. After your quick “alligator eyes” peek, simply rotate your face away from your lead arm to take a breath before finishing that stroke.
Experiment with both ways to find what’s comfortable…but be willing to spend time finding out what’s not comfortable about your less preferred choice. Why? Because often what’s most comfortable in swimming is what keeps the head above the water the longest. This most often creates a poor body position with sinking hips and knees, and makes the underwater stroke portion inefficient. For that reason we teach all of our swimmers the “peek, stroke, breath” pattern, rather than the “peek, breath, stroke” pattern.
What’s your preferred way to stroke? Leave a comment below and let us know!
4. Timing and Rhythm:
You maintain a seamless and efficient swimming motion by incorporating sighting into your stroke rhythm.
You should time your peek at the same moment your lead arm extends forward, just before your catch phase. This allows you to relax your head back into the water as or just before initiating the catch. Trying to catch while you sight creates a “doggy paddle” or “tarzan” style stroke that is inefficient.
One incredibly helpful tip that works great for turning yourself into a sleek open water swimmer who is the envy of all around you is to maintain your torso rotation during your sighting. Instead of a flat body position while sighting, maintain your rotation to the side of the extended arm. This will lengthen your body, and allow you milliseconds longer to gather visual information. When you let your head return to the water, the weight of the head movement coordinates both the recovery arm and the catch occurring together, and you’ll maintain your speed.
5. Utilizing the Underwater Stroke:
When sighting, use the latter half of your underwater stroke to minimize speed disruption. As your stroking arm is lengthening backwards, your lead arm extends just below the surface, just as you reach your peak rotation. This allows your eyes to pop up briefly without significantly affecting your speed. Be careful however not to use the pushing phase of your stroke to force your head above water, it’s simply a cue to help you time the alligator eyes. The same time your arms are moving in opposite directions your forward speed is still close to its stroke to stroke max. Use the momentum and the lead arm is a “wing” in front to help pop the head up briefly. This technique ensures a smooth transition between sighting and swimming, enabling you to maintain a consistent pace.
Conclusion:
Mastering the art of sighting is essential for open water swimmers wanting to swim the course without getting too far off track. By practicing the techniques outlined above, you can develop a sighting method that minimizes disruptions to your stroke while providing the navigational cues you need to complete your swim. Practice incorporating these skills into your training sessions to gain confidence and enhance your open water swimming performance. So, embrace the art of sighting, and conquer open water with confidence!
by Coach Suzanne | May 2, 2023 | Swimming, Testing, Training
- Change your thinking from strokes per minute to seconds per stroke. Instead of frequency, think period. This allows you to do faster analysis of your swimsperiments. 20 strokes @ .9 sec/stroke = 18 seconds. Vs 20 strokes @ 68spm = ?? (Can’t do that math in the pool quickly)
- You need to test/ train tempo in a measured setting before you can use it in open water since you can’t measure progress very well
- Since pace is the result of stroke rate x Stroke length, paying attention to those 2 variables will help you learn a lot about yoru technique without timing yourself (you can always multiply them to get the time, or look at your watch) But you can’t look at yoru watch until you’re done with a set, so learn to count strokes well.
- Each hand entry counts as a stroke (the watch is inaccurate, except for how variable you are, the actual numbers are not helpful)
Some experiments to start with.
Use a comfortable tempo (70 spm = .86 sec/stroke), and swim 2 sets of 3 x 25. (So 6 x 25 total)
No breath, right breathing only, left breathing only, repeat. Rest for 5-10 beeps between repeats
Count your strokes.
Be sure to start your first stroke underwater after a consistent # of beeps off the way (3-5 find out what’s comfortable, and be consistent so you can compare)
Progress to 50s if you can taking 1 breath per 50 plus 1 at the wall (open turn on all 50s for comparison) Count your strokes.
This is a fun simple experiment that will usually tell you what you may already know…that breathing reduces stroke length, and that one side is better / worse than the other. You may have to practice counting strokes before you can be consistent with yoru experiments. A poolside notepad with a ball point pen is great for tracking different things.
Now with data, you can create a hypothesis…
Example (after warmup)
Tempo .85 sec/stroke
6 x 25 as Breath Right only, breath left only, no breathing, repeat. Rest 5-10 beeps between repeats, 5 beeps off wall before first stroke. count strokes.
Stroke Counts by length:
| 1: 20SPL |
4: 21 SPL |
(Left only) |
| 2: 18 SPL |
5: 19 SPL |
(Right only) |
| 3: 17 SPL |
6: 18 SPL |
(No breathing) |
Results show left side breathing adds 3 strokes every 25 yds compared to no breaths At .85 sec/stroke, you’re adding 2.55 seconds / 25 yards due to the slowing down from breathing left. Over 1 mile that’s 2.5 minutes. Right side is better than left side, saving .85 seconds / 25 yards if you only breathed right.
You’ve learned a lot from this simple experiment.
Hypotheses:
- if I practiced alternate breathing I’ll save 1 stroke / length (as opposed to same side breathing). Test it!
- If I improved my breathing form I’ll save 1-3 strokes per length. Choose a skill, and practice incorporating it into your stroke with and without a breath. Practice without a tempo trainer ,then practice at a slower tempo (since thinking about your skills will take longer). Maybe add .15 – .2 seconds to drill with the TT and practice. You can repeat the test set above at this new tempo and while the stroke cont will / should be different, you can still measure the results and see if you’re improving without having to have a coach, video or time yourself.
This is just 1 test set and 2 ideas that emerge from it. There are infinite numbers of tempo sets you can do as part of improving your technique. Kirsten or I can share more, but try this one if you havn’t yet and see what you can learn.
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