Swim Smooth: Clean-up Your Stroke!: October 2016

Friday, October 28, 2016

Get Inspired And Improve Your Swimming - Join A Squad!

If you have a swimming background we're sure you'll understand the value of training in a squad. Not only do you have a coach watching over you, developing both your stroke technique and your swim fitness but the group environment is motivational and inspiring in equal measure. Training with like minded people of similar ability is incredibly motivating and rewarding.

For those reasons squad training is very much part of the Swim Smooth coaching philosophy but what if you have never swum with a group before and perhaps feel nervous of doing so? Don't be! Any good squad - and particularly Swim Smooth squads - cover a huge range of abilities from the top guns blasting up and down the fast lane through to those new to swimming in lanes 1 and 2.

Each session will be adapted for the different lanes to give them stroke input and fitness challenges set at the perfect level for them - even those who have only been swimming freestyle for a few weeks!

To give you an idea of what you are missing, here's SS Coach Bart Rolet's squad in Montreal:

Fenella Ng's in Hong Kong:

Rob Kwaaitaal's in Nijmegen, Netherlands:

And Gabriella Minaříková's juniors in Prague:

If you can swim 100 to 200m of freestyle without stopping then you're ready to swim in a group. Don't worry, there will be plenty of other swimmers of similar speed there too and you'll soon learn a few tips from them as well as the coach. :)

We have squads all over the world and we've included a full list for you at the bottom of this email. Get in contact with your local Swim Smooth coach and join your local squad today!

Swim Smooth!

SWIM SMOOTH SQUADS WORLDWIDE

Aus/NZ/Asia

Hamilton, New Zealand - Mon-Tues-Wed-Thurs-Fri mornings and Tues-Thurs evenings
Perth, Australia - Mon-Tues-Wed-Fri mornings and Tues-Thurs evenings
Perth, Australia - Friday lunch and Saturday morning
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Tues-Thurs-Sat-Sun mornings and Tues-Wed evenings

UK

Lancaster, UK - Sunday evening
Abingdon/Woodcote/High Wycombe UK - Tues-Wed-Fri mornings and Mon-Tues-Thurs evenings
Richmond, UK - Wed-Fri evenings
Felixstowe, UK - Saturday mornings (starting January 2017)
Doncaster/Tadcaster, UK - Tues-Sat mornings and Wed-Thurs evenings
Moulton/Corby, UK - Mon-Wed-Thurs-Fri mornings (seniors) and Mon-Tues-Wed-Thurs evenings (juniors)
Acton, UK - Mon-Tues-Wed-Thurs mornings and Tues-Thurs evenings (club membership required)
Swindon, UK - Fri mornings, Sunday afternoons and Tues-Thurs evenings

Europe

Prague, Czech Republic - Juniors: Mon-Tues-Wed afternoons
Prague, Czech Republic - Seniors: Tues-Thurs mornings
Harelbeke/Kuurne, Belgium - Mon-Wed-Sat mornings
Nijmegen, Netherlands - Thursday morning
Alicante, Spain - Tues-Thurs afternoons and Mon-Wed-Fri evenings

North America

Chicago, IL - Mon-Wed-Fri mornings
Mount Pleasant, SC - Mon-Tues-Thurs-Fri lunch time and Mon-Fri evenings
Montréal, Canada - Mon-Tues-Wed-Fri mornings and Mon-Wed evenings

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Validating A CSS Test Using Red Mist

Here's something Paul Newsome tweeted recently:

Swim Smooth didn't invent the concept of Critical Swim Speed (CSS) but we like to think we had a lot to do with making it popular. CSS training helps you determine your fitness level and set your training paces so you get the biggest fitness gains for distance swimming (e.g. triathlon and open water races).

The CSS Test

The first thing to do is to swim the CSS test consisting of a 400m/yd timetrial and then a 200m/yd time trial. You can enter the results on the CSS calculator on our website here:

http://www.swimsmooth.com/training.html

Or use the more sophisticated version in the Swim Smooth Guru here:

https://www.swimsmooth.guru/csstest/

The calculator spits out your CSS pace per 100m - which should be roughly the speed that you can sustain for a 1500m timetrial. From there you can set your pace in different training sessions, ideally programmed in a Finis Tempo Trainer Pro for maximum accuracy and feedback as you swim.

If you repeat the test you can also track your progress over time, for example: (kudos to Dan H for this great improvement from 1:55 to 1:33 / 100m over the last year):

Much kudos to Dan for this great improvement from 1:55 to 1:33 / 100m over the last year

However... one problem with the CSS test is that it is very sensitive to your 200 and 400 times, and requires you to swim two well paced timetrials that are representative of your current fitness. Fatigue from other training sessions can play a role and if you're not an experienced swimmer it can be easy to start to fast and then blow-up, or start too slowly and underperform. If something like that goes wrong, your 200 and 400 times will be off and the calculator will give you an inaccurate CSS pace.

Validating Your CSS Test Result

One solution to this problem, as Paul mentioned in his tweet, is to take your CSS pace (say 1:45 /100m) and within 5 days use it to swim a classic Red Mist session using a Tempo Trainer Pro:

4x 400m at CSS pace + 6 sec /100m
3x 400m at CSS pace + 5 sec /100m
2x 400m at CSS pace + 4 sec /100m
1x 400m at CSS pace + 3 sec /100m

Or if you're not quite up to that yet, swim this as 10x 300m instead - known as "Pink Mist"!

If you find that session hard but do-able then you know your CSS pace is accurate. But if it's way too hard or too easy then you can adjust your CSS pace slower or faster to compensate. We call this process "tweaking" and we have bespoke tool for it within the Guru (Pro subscription required):

https://www.swimsmooth.guru/tweakcss/

Then repeat the Red/Pink mist session again a week later to see how it feels.

With a little experience it's quite easy to judge where your CSS pace is and tweak it up or down as you go along. You can do this yourself but the Guru makes it very easy and allows you to track your progress over time, showing you exactly how and when you've improved - which is hugely motivating:

So the next time you swim the CSS test, validate it using a longer session such as Red Mist and be confident you're at the right starting point to take your swimming forwards.

Swim Smooth!

Friday, October 14, 2016

Reece Barclay - First Age Grouper Out Of The Water

We hope your enjoyed the coverage from the Hawaii Ironman World Championships in Kona last weekend - as always the Ironman team delivered a fantastic event and the live web-broadcast was first class!

Swim Smooth swimmers had some fantastic results on the island, including Emily Loughnan and SS Coach Fiona Ford who have both recently featured on the blog here and here #add links#. Emily's result was perhaps expected as she's been dropping in phenomenal performances all year but Fiona's was a little bit more of a surprise as she's only just recovered from terrible injuries sustained in a car accident. Form is temporary, class is permanent Fi!

Fiona in the lava fields

First Pro and fastest swimmer overall with a fantastic swim of ##:## was Britain's Harry Wiltshire:

##add pic of harry at swim exit##

What does it take to lead out this strongest of fields? A stroke packed with rhythm and perfect for open water swimming: http://www.feelforthewater.com/2012/07/stroke-every-swim-coach-wants-to-change.html

Also see our detailed study of Harry's stroke in The Guru here: https://www.swimsmooth.guru/video/lk/harry-wiltshire/

But the performance we really wanted to feature on the blog this week is that of Reece Barclay - who was first age-grouper out of the water last Saturday:

Reece (wearing Huub of course) took out the age-group swim in ##:##

As you might expect Reece has a significant swimming background, swimming at Hatfield swim club in the UK with PBs of 22.9 seconds for 50m freestyle and 52 seconds for the 100m - very quick indeed.

We met up with Reece during Huub Design testing at the Best Centre in Mallorca in June and had an in depth discussion about his swimming. If you have a swimming background yourself then this will be of interest to you. There's no doubt Reece is seriously fast over short distances of 50/100/200 in the pool but perhaps hasn't reached his (extremely high) potential yet over longer triathlon swims. To use Swim Smooth terminology, he had a fantastic sprint "petrol" engine but hasn't yet fully developed his endurance "diesel" engine.

This contrasts significantly with his fiancé Lucy Charles who is the complete opposite (for the full story on Lucy see our blog post here). Lucy is not especially quick over short distances but can sustain an incredible pace over longer open water swims. In fact despite her 100m PB being nearly 10 seconds slower than Reece's, she can easily beat him over 3.8km. Or should we say *could* easily beat him, because times are beginning to change...

The focus of our discussion with Reece in Mallorca was to get him to use Red Mist sessions to work on developing that diesel engine. Reece has incredible top end speed but the rate of drop-off in his performances over longer distances is significant. Red Mist sessions focus on developing that ability to sustain a strong pace over distance which is key to great triathlon and open water swimming. After just few months training the results are really beginning to show.

Reece finishes!

Here's what Reece had to say about his swim to our head coach Paul Newsome after the race:

How did it go? Great! This was a very tactical race Paul! You would be proud...

The swim was crazy rough on the start line. People jostling for position. My plan at the start was different from other races I've done recently, I remember you saying start off slower to preserve myself and stop myself from red-lining too early. However at this race I needed to get far enough away from the bulk of the field so I put on the burners really hard for the 1st 300m. I had pulled a significant gap of about 25m over everyone by the 1st buoy such is my sprint speed. However for the next 1000m I could see that there was a pod holding the 25m gap behind me so I decided to let them bridge across and use them to catch some draft.

I recovered a lot waiting for them to catch me and even more once I sat it with the pack. They were all strong swimmers. I felt really in control of the pack and was dictating the pace from the turn buoy at half way. The pod was too big for my liking so I decided to play a game putting in some real hard digs every buoy, this working perfectly as the ones struggling to maintain the pace got popped out the back and the pod had thinned to just a few by the final few 100m.

The pace really ramped up towards the end but I knew that if I just held my position the front line then none of them would out sprint me. I went for it with 50m to go and only one of them managed to stay with me by sitting on my hip.

The red mist session have been key! I've managed to bring my threshold more in line with my speed but still feel there is so much more I can give. The fact that I can pull a 25m gap over 300m over the best agers in the world shows that I still have the potential to swim allot faster. It's a work in progress but I'm really pleased with how it's improved so far.

Guru Pro subscribers can find out more about Red mist sessions here and following them here.