Swim Technique

Pre-Season - Mastering Swim Technique for Triathletes
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Swimming in triathlons requires mastering efficiency while conserving energy for the rest of the race. In this post, we'll guide you through the essential swim technique elements every triathlete should focus on, along with drills to improve each area. We’ll also incorporate proven methods from TriDot’s Pool School™ to fine-tune body position and kicking efficiency, setting you up for race day success.

Key Technical Focus Points

Efficiency in swimming revolves around four key areas:

1. Optimal Body Position to reduce drag,
2. Coordinated Breathing Techniques to conserve energy,
3. A Strong and Technical Catch and Pull for powerful propulsion,
4. A Balanced Kick for buoyancy and core stability.

Let’s break these down further:

1. Body Position: Achieve FASST™ Alignment

Body position is crucial to reducing drag and maintaining speed. Using the FASST™ system from TriDot Pool School, here’s how to perfect your alignment:

• Flat hand at entry: Your hand should enter the water smoothly, fingers-first, with minimal splash to reduce resistance.
• Arm stretched out: Fully extend your arm forward before starting the pull to lengthen your stroke.
• Shoulder rotated 45 degrees: Rotate your shoulders as your body rolls to increase reach and power.
• Spine and head aligned: Keep your spine straight and head slightly down to balance your position.
• Thumb to thigh—palm up high: Complete each stroke by brushing your thumb along your thigh, ensuring a full follow-through for maximum propulsion.

Visualization Exercise: On dry land, stand facing a wall and visualize reaching for the ceiling! When you extend upward, notice how you naturally lift on your tippy toes, rotate your shoulders, and engage your core. This visualization helps you connect all the movements in the pool. In the water, imagine reaching for the wall in front of you to maintain this alignment.

Drill: Superman Glide with FASST™ Focus
Push off from the wall, gliding in a streamlined position while practicing FASST™ principles. Perform 4 x 50m with long fins, focusing on achieving ideal body alignment with every stroke.

2. Breathing Technique

Smooth, efficient breathing maintains balance and rhythm, conserving energy over long distances. Improper breathing can disrupt your body position and create unnecessary drag.

Focus Points:

• Breathe out underwater: Slowly exhale bubbles while your face is submerged, then finish exhaling just before turning to breathe. By blowing all the air out before inhaling, you create a negative pressure in your lungs, which facilitates faster airflow when breathing in  with less effort.
• Minimal head movement: When you turn to breathe, rotate your head just enough to clear the water, keeping your body in alignment. Bilateral breathing is preferred for triathlons, but unilateral breathing drills can help refine your technique on both sides.

Drill: Unilateral Breathing Drill
Swim 4 x 100m, breathing on one side per length, then switching sides each lap. This helps balance your technique on both sides, preparing you for bilateral breathing.

3. The Catch and Pull

The catch and pull generate the forward propulsion needed for a strong swim. Focus on catching the water with a high elbow and pulling your body past your hand.

With a high elbow catch the elbow remains higher than the hand during the pull phase. This position allows the swimmer to engage more surface area of the forearm and hand to pull more water, maximizing propulsion. As the swimmer moves through the pull phase, the "power diamond" forms when the forearm, hand, and upper arm resemble a diamond shape under the water. This shape ensures the swimmer applies consistent and efficient pressure, allowing them to propel forward with greater force while reducing drag engaging more of the larger back muscles instead. The bending of the elbow also allows to reduce the moment of force on your shoulder reducing the odds of getting injured.

Visualization Exercise: Over the Barrel:
Visualize catching the water by "reaching over a barrel" with a high elbow. The high elbow creates more leverage and reduces drag during the pull.

Moving the the hand in a straight line, shoulder width apart, parallel to the body towards the hip is the most efficient way to propel yourself forward. By keeping the pull close to the body, the swimmer channels more force directly into forward motion, reducing lateral movements that can cause inefficiency. This straight-line path also allows for consistent water pressure on the forearm and hand, ensuring that each stroke pushes the maximum amount of water backward, translating into better propulsion with less energy wasted.​

Visualization Exercise: Train Tracks
Imagine swimming over train tracks parallel to your shoulders, with your hands grabbing the track and pulling yourself forward, straight along those lines. Keep your strokes narrow and efficient, focusing on straight pull-throughs.

The recovery is a very important part of the preparation of the hand entry and optimal catch. Make sure you elbow drives forward first with a loose wrist in a linear motion from hip to front entering the water shoulder width apart (10 and 2 o'clock). 

Visualization Exercise: Paint the Rails
Consider holding a brush in your hands and painting the train rails you have just grabbed on to. Your fingertips barely touching the surface of the water. Enter the water with your fingertips first where your wrist is supposed to be at full extension.

Drill: Sculling Drill
This drill helps refine your catch by building awareness of water pressure on your hands. Perform 4 x 50m, focusing on small, controlled hand movements and proper elbow positioning.

4. Kick Efficiency

Your kick should support your body’s buoyancy and help balance your stroke, while minimizing energy expenditure.

Focus Point: Maintain a small kick amplitude (20-30 cm), with stiff legs moving from the hips and relaxed ankles. This keeps your legs closer to the surface, reducing drag.

Visualization Exercise: 1-2-3 Waltzing
Use your kick as a metronome. Imagine a waltz rhythm of 1-2-3. On "1," kick one leg down while initiating your catch into the pull and push on the same side. On the opposite side, start the hand entry and forward thrust. This coordination helps you synchronize your upper and lower body movements. On 2 and 3 the initial side will move into recovery, while the opposite side will glide and prepare the catch. A complete cycle turns into a 6-beat kick, or focus only on the 1's for a 2 beat kick.


Drill: 1-2-3 Waltzing Drill
Swim 4 x 50m, focusing on timing your kick with your stroke in this 1-2-3 rhythm. This drill synchronizes your legs and arms for a more balanced stroke.

5. EXTRA: Open Water Skills

The unpredictable nature of open water swimming makes strong sighting and navigation skills essential.


Focus Point: Regularly practice sighting, lifting your head just enough to spot landmarks while maintaining your form. This skill is critical in open water races. Try to prepare your swim by evaluating which larger landmarks you will target. Don’t forget you can sight forward, sideways to shore, your position to other swimmer, angles to the sun, sometimes even based on under water sand ripple patterns.

Drill: Sighting Drill
Incorporate sighting every six strokes during a swim. Perform 4 x 100m, sighting regularly while maintaining your stroke rhythm.

Conclusion

Mastering your swim technique is about breaking down each component - body position, breathing, the catch and pull, kick efficiency, and open water skills - and then putting them back together into one cohesive movement. By focusing on these key elements and practicing targeted drills, you'll build a more efficient stroke and see faster swim times come race day.

Don’t forget: It is the small daily steps that turn into positive habits, patterns, and beliefs ingrained in body and mind. Enjoy the journey!

BONUS TIPS COACH GLENN:

• Visualization is the most effective and efficient way to train. While you are thinking about the right technique, even on dry land, the muscle memory is reinforced, allowing you to train even out of the water. The strongest visualizations coordinate multiple technical elements in a simple idea.
• Ask us for a virtual video analysis or to join the Tridot Pool School nearest to you.

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