A lot of times we focus on just the arms in swimming, but body position and head position are just as important. The placement of your head and your hips have a huge impact on how your body moves in the water. One fun experiment is to move your head up and down on successive 25s in the pool. Tuck your chin all the way to your chest and then slowly bring it up to the point where you are looking at the + at the far end of the pool. You will really feel your body move in the water and your hips will drop causing more drag.

This same effect can happen with breathing. Ideally when you breathe you turn your head perfectly on its axis to breathe right or left. If you bring your chin to your shoulder or up and away from your shoulder this will cause your head to turn a bit and your body will follow.

We will use a drill kicking with your head in the water to work on head turning.

We also will focus on some breath work patterns in the swim and for open water swimmers we will do a quick sighting practice. The most efficient way to sight it to lift your head and then turn into your breath all in one motion.

Finally we will do breathing by alternating sides. It is always important to practice breathing both directions, both as swimmers and as triathletes, it is important to be able to see where you competition is! It also helps balance out your stroke.

 

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Warmup

300 swim
100 kick
200 as 50 scull straight arm/50 swim followed by 50 scull windshield wiper/50 swim

HR Set

400 swim

100 kick with arms extended and board in front of you – head in the water breathing to one side then the other

200 drill as 25 right arm only/25 left arm only/50 swim/25 catch up drill/25 head up swimming/50 swim

Heart Rate Set:

6 x 50 descend 1-3, 4-6 on :10 rest

 

Main Set

Two rounds of:

2 rounds of:

300 breathing pattern changing every 50 – breathing 3/5/3/7/3/5 – if you cannot breathe every 5 or 7 keep it at 3 to learn to breathe well to both sides on :15 rest

2 x 100 steady on :10 rest  – focus on steady breath in and out during these 100s

200 as 6 strokes up/12 kicks under water on :15 rest

4 x 50 as 25 fly/25 free, 25back/25 free, 25 breast/25 free, 50 free on :10 rest

100 easy with 1-2 sights per 25

 

Warm Down

100 build with arms extended and board in front of you – head in the water breathing to one side then the other

200 warm down