Upcoming Swim Smooth Clinics / One to One Consultations:
New Forest Clinics
August
Full information here
Prague Kids Swim Camps
Enjoy Prague this August whilst your kids improve their swimming!
Full information here
New Lancaster SS Squad
Full information here
Lancaster UK, Video
Analysis Consultations
Full information here
Loughborough SS Squad
Full information here
Richmond & Wimbledon Sunday Workshops
Full information here
Acton UK, Video
Analysis Consultations
Full information here
Alicante, Spain
June Clinics
Full information: here
Swim/Tri Camps Alicante
September 2013
Full information: here
For more info on SS Certified Coaches see here |
If
you got the chance to try, how would you fair drafting on the feet of a
triathlon world champion? What if you'd only learnt to swim a few years
ago too? That's exactly what happened to age group triathlete Tarek
when he met 2006 Triathlon World Champ Tim Don on our recent Coach Ed Course in Loughborough.
Watch the footage of Tarek doing this, holding a phenomenal pace of 67 seconds per 100m:
Considering
Tarek only learnt to swim freestyle (with Swim Smooth) in June 2009,
that's fantastic swimming we're sure you'll agree!
Developing Tarek's Swimming
From the very beginning of his swim-life,
Tarek worked with our Certified SS Coach Fiona Ford
in Richmond, London. Fiona's done a fantastic job teaching him
freestyle from scratch and developing his swimming, to the point now
where he can sustain a fast 1:24 per 100m for 1500m.
To develop Tarek's swimming:
-
Fiona developed a stroke technique suitable for the environment in
which he wanted to swim (open water triathlon) and his height and build.
Tarek's stroke isn't perfect but you'll notice from the video that he
moves through the water with great purpose and rhythm to his stroke. He
has a great body position, a nice catch technique and good alignment in
his stroke. He doesn't fight the water at all.
- From an early stage of his development, Fiona had Tarek performing training sets with a focus on CSS training.
This is the perfect type of training for distance swimmers and
triathletes, and has allowed Tarek to develop a strong swimming engine
to sustain a great stroke technique over long distances.
- Fiona
worked hard on Tarek's open water skills and confidence swimming close
to other swimmers, including in the pool during the harsh British
winter. You'll notice from the video clip above how Tarek confidently
and quickly tucked in behind Tim and was comfortable staying there.
Despite Paul only giving him ten seconds warning before jumping in the
water, Tarek wasn't intimidated at all as he'd practised drafting
countless times before, albeit not behind a world champion!
Our Thoughts
If you've read our new book
you'll know that we call the three-prong approach of Technique, Fitness
and OW Skills, "The Three Keys". The secret - as employed by Fiona - is
to work on all three at the same time and all year round. Focusing
overly on one thing (e.g. solely technique or solely fitness) will
seriously hold you back, the swimmers who make the biggest gains and
reach their potential in the water have a balanced all-round approach
and do so consistently over a long period of time.
The
consistency of your swimming is extremely important, particularly when
it comes to developing a strong swimming engine. Train consistently and
your engine will grow but be inconsistent and miss sessions and your
engine shrinks again. A classic mistake athletes make is to over-train
and then blow-up, needing time off to recover. It's far better to train
slightly
within yourself but do so consistently for weeks and months on end,
your swimming engine builds slowly but it's amazing how swim-fit you can
become with consistent training.
Our third lesson to take from
Tarek's development is that you don't need a textbook or picture-perfect
stroke to swim very quickly indeed. If you look at nearly any elite
triathlete (such as Tim) or open water swimmer they don't have a
super-long Ian Thorpe style of stroke with a classic high elbow
recovery. That sort of stroke just isn't that effective in open water
and nor does it suit every swimmer.
Like all great swimmers,
elite open water swimmers have a high body position, good alignment in
their stroke and a great catch but they have a lot more punch and rhythm
than many pure pool swimmers. This helps them move effectively through
disturbed water, such as the wake created by another swimmer. If that
style of stroke naturally suits you, embrace it fully and make
the most of it. Don't let anyone tell you that you need to change it.
Thanks!
A big shout out to Tarek for letting us share his swimming with the world, find out more about him here and tweet him at @tmouganie
And
a big thanks to Tim Don for coming on our coaches course and allowing
us to take a close up look at his swimming. We are going to feature our
video analysis session with Tim in a future SS video production, as you
can imagine Tim already has a great stroke but even he needed a small
tweak here and there... Find out more about Tim on his website: www.timdon.com and twitter @trithedon.
Swim Smooth! |
