This is part 1 in a series of blog posts where we ask important questions to successful coaches in the Vasa community. Here are their answers to an important question:
What separates adult-onset swimmers who actually get fast, from those who stay slow?
Coach Eric Neilsen:
“Proper technique would be the biggest thing that separates them. The 2 most significant limiters would be overall body position (drag) and swimming with a ‘monospeed pull’. I have had countless swimmers come to me with a big endurance engine but they work way too hard while swimming and do not get much out of it. Recently, I worked with an adult-learned swimmer who improved her time by 5-6 seconds per 100M as soon as she was able to eliminate her monospeed pull. Double-arm pulls, from either a prone or a supine position on the Vasa SwimErg, are one of the best drills to correct for this inefficiency.”
Eric Neilsen
TrainSmartRaceFast
Masters Swimming & Multisport Coach
https://coachericneilsen.com/
Coach Lesley Paterson:
“Those who work on a combination of speed/strength and technique (will get faster). My athlete, Tanja, was not a swimmer growing up. She focused on technique training and video analysis in the pool, Vasa SwimErg training for strength and quality speed work, with plenty of rest when at the pool. This allowed her to recruit the right muscles to fire and also the fitness to be able to apply it.”
Lesley Paterson
Braveheart Coaching
XTERRA World Champion (3X)
Co-Author of the best-selling book, “The Brave Athlete”
www.braveheartcoach.com
Coach Martin Hill:
“Those who we see progress most do so because they commit to swimming and do so consistently – week after week, month after month. The sessions they perform are specific to swimming for triathlons and develop aerobic fitness and muscular strength in the upper body.
Basic fitness is not generally an issue for those that progress slower, what lets them down is the lack of swim frequency, too much focus on long sets mixed with too much drill work.
Typically, we find that two swims per week are the norm with one being a straight swim of 2000-3000m. The other is then often primarily technique biased with a lot of drill work and maybe only 1500m. For those doing Ironman or longer distance open water swimming, that’s not even covering race distance over a full week!
Fitness, swim-specific strength, and enjoying the swim
We encourage adult triathletes (performing at any distance) to commit to at least 3 swims per week. Each session should be broken into sets, reps, and rest. Also, incorporate training tools that help develop strength and “feel” with the upper body – pull buoy and paddles. These not only make swimming more enjoyable (so the commitment is easier) but also enable fitness and swim-specific strength to be developed quickly.
We have found that the most effective way of training triathletes is to polarize the effort and we apply this approach across the swim, bike, and run training. Most of the training is aerobic (triathlon being an aerobic sport), or easy and has contrasting hard, strength-based sets. Very little, if any, time is spent at race pace/threshold/CSS.”
Martin Hill (Based in Alicante, Spain)
ASA Swim coach, Trisutto Certified coach
UK Strength & Conditioning coach, BTF L3 coach
www.mastersoftri.com
Click to read Part 2 – about the value of indoor swim training.
Want to Ask A Coach How to Swim Faster? Just submit your question(s) to Vasa Customer Service.
About the Coaches
Eric, Lesley, and Martin are among the World’s most respected coaches & athletes from the Vasa community. They also contributed to our ebook, Four Keys to Fearless Open Water Swimming. It’s excellent, it’s useful, and it’s FREE! Click here to get your free copy.