5 tips for your swimming sessions
Everything is in the title! Today, I’ll give you 5 exercises to integrated in your swimming session, to become faster and stronger. 💪🏊
1- Swim backstroke: Even if, during the race, you will only swim front crawl,swimming backstroke will help you to develop your gainage, muscular strengthening, the quality of your kicks as well as the pull of the arm in the water. Backstroke is a real asset to progress in front crawl. For the most courageous, you can also swim the butterfly. The only restriction concern the breaststroke: leg mouvement can be rough for your knee joint.
2- Do some kick:Triathlete will always hope that the water temperature is good to wear the swimsuit. It’s true that the goal, for a triathlete, is to keep energy on the legs, for the bike and running part. However, a good kick is important to stay stable i the water,and reduce the body’s resistance in the water. (The famous « leg in at the bottom of the water »). In addition, the propulsion provided by the legs remains non-negligible.
3- Swim with hand paddles:Every triathletes have already use a pair of hand paddles.So it will be not difficult to integrate in your swimming session. But, you need to use it well. With a bigger surface in the water,you will work on the quality of the hands in the water and the profitability of the movement of each arm. The goal would be to take your time to « move » a maximum of water and increase your body’ speed. Take your time, look for the right angles of support to push, then slide and seek afterward to transcribe this without pads.
4-Do shorts sprints:The shortest distance in Triathlon is 750m. So, why working on short distance. The only reason is to be able to get away from the « washing machine » in the beginning of the race, in addition to give you more power! More generally, working all distances is the key of training. In swimming, working at maximum speed can create a « margin » and allow the body to be more comfortable on lower speeds.
5-Do « non-stop » work: One of the specificity of triathlon is the monotony of the effort. No turn to be made to revive or avoid to « falling asleep ». So, it’s interesting to integrate in your preparation (especially if you prepare Long Distance Triathlon)some ‘non-stop’ session in the pool. (In distance or time, it’s up to you to find an exciting challenge to make the exercise fun). It will help you to find your right pace, to learn to manage this effort, and work against the monotony which can make you slow down.