Supercharge your swim sessions! On today's episode, coaches John Mayfield and Jeff Raines provide 18 swim tips to help you make the most of your training sessions and prepare for race day. John and Jeff cover pacing, stroke rate, pool sets, goggles and more! This episode is packed with helpful information including everyday tips about swim tools and protecting your hair and skin from the chlorine, and race-specific tips about wetsuits and open water venues.
TriDot Podcast .095
18 Tips to Supercharge Your Swim
Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let’s improve together.
Andrew Harley: Hey folks! Welcome to the show. It’s a swim episode today! Our coaches are locked and loaded with 18 swim training tips to help us get the most out of those swim sessions. Joining us for this conversation is Coach Jeff Raines. Jeff is a USAT Level II and Ironman U Certified Coach who has a Masters of Science in exercise physiology and was a D1 collegiate runner. He has over 40 Ironman Event finishes to his credit and has coached hundreds of athletes to the Ironman Finish Line. What’s up Jeff?
Jeff Raines: Hey Andrew, I’m ready to dive in today.
Andrew: Yeah you are.
Jeff: You know what. I think that even for me that was almost too much of a dad joke.
Andrew: Too far.
Jeff: So how about this? You know, let's say that the swim portion of any triathlon is the shortest, quickest part of basically any triathlon, but it’s arguably the most important discipline of the three. So I’m excited to give some insight on swimming today. So let’s do it!
Andrew: Next up is Coach John Mayfield. John is a USAT Level II and Ironman U certified coach who leads TriDot’s athlete services, ambassador, and coaching programs. He has coached hundreds of athletes ranging from first-timers to Kona qualifiers and professional triathletes. John has been using TriDot since 2010 and coaching with TriDot since 2012. John, we’re talking swim today. It’s going to be good, right?
John Mayfield: Always good. Always good. Going to be good.
Andrew: I'm Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People, and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always we'll approach the show like any other workout. We’ll roll through our warm up question, settle in for our main set conversation, and then wind things down with our cool down. Lots of good stuff, let's get to it!
Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.
Andrew: It just feels right to warm up for this swim main set with a swim warm up question! Worldwide there are rivers, lakes, reservoirs, oceans, seas, gulfs, and pools in which we can enjoy a nice invigorating open water swim. Gentlemen…if you could walk right out of this podcast recording, toss on your favorite Speedo, and hop right into any body of water for a swim where would you choose to go? John, what do you think?
John: So for me it would be a Texas hill country river.
Andrew: Any specific one, or just in general?
John: There are several great options; the Frio, the Guadalupe, Cumol. There’s lots of good ones.
Andrew: Gosh, you are Texan to the core.
John: I really am and for me that’s my happy place. That’s my serenity on those Texas rivers floating in a tube, hanging out under the cypress trees. It’s what I did as a child. A lot of our family vacations were to the river and I still do that with my kids and I’ve got a lot of special memories along those Texas rivers. They’re gorgeous, nice, cold water. Crisp, refreshing, and it’s kind of like an endless pool. You can get in a great workout and never really go anywhere. Just swim upstream and take in the little sights; little fish and that sort of thing. Kids playing and folks coming by on their tubes. I don’t know that I’ve done that workout, but that sounds like a pretty great workout.
Andrew: Would you do the workout and then immediately after float the river?
John: Absolutely.
Andrew: True Texas special.
John: I think I talked about it on one of the podcasts. There’s a great after party at a race in Kerrville which is on the Guadalupe River where they have tubes and you’ve crossed the finish line and you grab a tube and you jump in the river and it’s one of the best after parties at any race.
Jeff: They actually, at that race, give out an inner tube in your packet pickup. Your swag is an inner tube so after the race you have your own tube ready to go.
Andrew: That is so smart. That’s maybe the smartest thing I’ve ever heard in the triathlon industry, period. Full stop. Jeff Raines, where would you throw your Speedo on and go swim at right now out of the front door?
Jeff: Well first off I only own one Speedo, but anyways. I always thought the Dead Sea would be really cool. More so just because of the unique aspect. We could even say that most triathletes usually kind of pray for a wetsuit legal swim even though wetsuits are designed to keep you warm, but many rely on their buoyancy to get them through the swim portion maybe successfully. So because of the Dead Sea’s super high salt content it’s basically impossible to not float and they even say that it’s impossible to actually swim there because if you’re in the water you’re swimming without even trying. I just thought it would be really cool to actually go out there and feel that super unique buoyancy aspect and then try to swim in it and see if I’m faster. But they also say that because of that super high salt content the bottom of the lake will cut your feet so you have to wear booties.
Andrew: Well also, don’t swallow any of the water. I’m an accidental water swallower when it comes to swimming and man, you take a swig of that and you’re going to be pretty parched I imagine.
Jeff: Yeah.
Andrew: So for me, my answer here…and I’ve talked before about racing 70.3 New Zealand and the lake there is just gorgeous. It’s a volcanic lake, crystal clear water. You can see all the way down to the lake floor and I would kill– I would love to just go back there. I wouldn’t literally kill somebody, don’t give me that look Jeff Raines. I would love to go back to New Zealand and swim in that lake. I told my wife when we were visiting New Zealand, I was like, “If we lived in this town, if we lived near this lake, I would be out here open water swimming every single day of the week.” Because it was such refreshing water. Another place though, honorable mention, that looked really cool. I’m sure everyone has seen pictures of the Bondi Icebergs Pool. There’s a lap swimming pool adjacent to Bondi Beach, Australia. It’s a salt water pool and the waves that are approaching the shore of Bondi Beach in Australia actually spill over the wall into this lap pool and it’s just the most picturesque pool you could ever imagine. That just looks like a really different pool swimming experience. So honorable mention to that. That would be kind of unique to try swimming at.
John: Combine pool swimming and open water swimming.
Andrew: Yeah, literally. Yeah, it would be super cool. Hey guys, we’re going to throw this question out to you, our listeners. Make sure you are a member of the I AM TriDot Facebook group whether you’re a TriDot user or not. It’s just a great community of triathletes who are talking swim, bike, and run every single day and you will see this question posted today. If you could leave wherever you are right now and jump into a body of water for a swim and you could pick any body of water in the world, where would you most want to swim?
Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…
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Andrew: Unless you’ve signed up for a really super weird triathlon event, your race will start with you swimming a certain distance through a certain body of water. As such, we all find ourselves spending a few hours each week working on our swim form and fitness. To help you make the most of that time in the water we’ve got 18 swim tips for y'all today. Now, I do want to say this for this episode. I consulted with many of the coaches in the TriDot family just to gather as many helpful tips as we could and today Jeff, John, and I will be talking through them one by one. So, without further ado, Coach John Mayfield, what is our first swim training tip for today?
John: Like so many of our tip-based podcasts the number one is do the right training right. This is something we say consistently over and over. Results come from doing the right training right and it’s particularly pertinent for swimming on both sides of that equation if you will. It’s about doing the right training. So that means doing the right types of set, the right types of drills for you. That’s one of the high marks of TriDot is prescribing swim sets specifically for each individual athlete based on that athlete, based on their opportunities for improvement. Basically those sets and those drills are going to be prescribed specifically for each athlete to maximize their gains on the swim. Then the other side of the equation is you have to do that right training, but you have to do it right and it’s particularly important with the swim. So like when it comes to drills, you can do the right drill, but if you don’t do it properly you’re not going to get the benefit of doing that drill.
Andrew: And doing it properly is in like really focusing on the intention of the drill. Making sure you’re not just kind of getting through it, but you’re with intentionality doing it correctly.
John: Proper execution is key and then even focusing on the intent of that drill. So what is this drill trying to teach me? What behavior or what movement am I learning from this drill and really concentrating on that. So doing it right, doing it with intentionality, and then that’s where those gains are going to come from.
Andrew: I think a note there too John, is– say just for example a drill I like doing and prescribed frequently is the fingertip drag drill. So if I’m told by TriDot to do fingertip drag for either a 25 or a 50, I make sure…Say it’s a 25 so I’m going one direction doing fingertip drag drill, when I swim the other way even though I’m now swimming normal freestyle, I’m still thinking about the part of the form that’s being reinforced by that drill.
John: And there are a lot of drills that are prescribed in that way. It’ll be either by 25 or by 50. It will say fingertip drag and then free and that’s the intent of that. One of the most perhaps dramatic is like a fist drill where you’re taking your hand out of the catch and you’re having to rely on your forearm. You’re having to engage your forearm, make your forearm big to really provide that pull. That’s that most immediate, dramatic feel. You hit the wall, turn around, and now all of a sudden you’re swimming with your hand again, it feels like you have a massive paddle on and that’s what you want to feel on everyone. So again, it’s reinforcing that behavior, learning it, and then implementing it. This is super easy to do. The right training is there. It’s on your TriDot training program. Then doing it right is easy as well. We have a tremendous resource of videos of explanation. Every drill that is prescribed within every session has a video demonstrating how to do it, so just be sure to check those out, learn the drill, and do the right training right.
Andrew: Coach Jeff Raines, let’s move on to swim training tip #2.
Jeff: You know, I think you said it spot on in kind of your intro, right? We spend so many hours each week focusing on our form and our fitness. We tend to just go through the motions. Maybe preseason, we’re nine months out from that A race and so maybe that first month tends to be allocated to some of the form corrections or stuff like that, but as we get further and further into the season, but also even further and further into each workout I would say that half way through a lot of workouts a lot of people kind of just start blending those paces. If we have six different pace zones, everything kind of just flows sometimes into that same pace. So I would just say kind of know what your weaknesses are and try to focus on those and correcting your form inside of the sets. If you’re supposed to swim a 400 in 8 minutes, don’t just swim a 400 in 8 minutes. Maybe you’re going to focus on breathing to your non-dominant side inside of that 400 or something like that. So you can kind of have a workout within the workout, correcting your form inside of the set. A lot of people really only focus on their form in the warm up or in the drills and then they just go into the main set. So being intentional throughout the entire workout is key.
Andrew: Yeah. We talked on a podcast episode with BJ Leeper and Elizabeth James, the book Atomic Habits came up. In that book there’s a concept called habit stacking and it’s kind of the notion of you can work on two things at once and this is a prime example of that. While you’re getting the fitness from swimming that 400 in a certain amount of time, you are also improving your form by focusing on a certain aspect of your form within that 400. So you’re really getting double for your money for that 400 or for that particular interval. So that’s great Jeff. Big fan of that. Jeff, let’s actually– looking down the list let’s go to you for #3 as well. What is tip #3?
Jeff: Knowing your body of water and the current and the direction. Is it salt water? You know, the type of water and the body of water that you’re going to swim in. You may have a lower stroke rate swimming downstream with the current. You might have more body roll, a lower stroke rate so you can still swim fast, but conserve some energy. Or maybe you’re swimming in an ocean and maybe race morning nine out of ten years that A race you’ve got coming up in six months it white caps and it swells. So if you have a super low stroke rate and a huge body roll you may get swept backwards kind of like John was saying swimming upstream in the Guadalupe. So knowing your type of water and adjusting your swim style day-to-day getting ready for that. Rivers, lakes, oceans. Are they loops? Are they out and backs? Salt water or not? Then the temperature of all of that inside of it. Are you going to have a sleeveless wetsuit? A sleeved one? There’s also a thickness scale of those wetsuits. So if it’s barely wetsuit legal, do you want a super thick wetsuit? Are you going to overheat? Stuff like that. Then if it’s not wetsuit legal, are you going to use a swim skin or not? Are you going to use buoyancy shorts even if it is wetsuit legal? Are you going to choose to use buoyancy shorts in that race? I think a lot of triathletes tend to kind of rely on the race being wetsuit legal and so I think always plan for the worst, but hope for the best. Even if nine times out of ten that race is wetsuit legal, you still need to be an efficient and good swimmer without a wetsuit.
Andrew: I’ll kind of take this and apply it to training, Jeff, because I’ll use my friend John Mayfield here as an example. At the time we’re recording this podcast, he has…we all have Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon coming up. So that’s a 50-ish degree water swim. We will want sleeves on our wetsuit. So John, you actually prefer a sleeveless wetsuit to a sleeved one traditionally, but you know you have that swim coming up and so you and I were recently in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho swimming with some athletes there before Ironman Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and you opted for your training sessions in the lake in Coeur d’Alene even though in that temperature you would have preferred your sleeveless wetsuit. You knocked out those training sessions in your full sleeved wetsuit knowing what race you had coming up, right?
John: Yeah, and I kind of go back and forth, but yeah, for me it was important. That was actually a new suit; the first time I had worn it. Where I swim the lake temperatures are literally close to 90 degrees, so I couldn’t even do 100 in a wetsuit right now. So for me that was my only opportunity to wear that new suit prior to race day. I bought it back in the off season and the first time I’ll be using it will be in August. So again, I probably should have– but had I gotten into the cold water back in January, February it probably wouldn’t have really translated well to a race in August. So yeah, I wanted to make sure that everything fit right, it felt good. I was able to test the fit and getting it on. So yeah, it was a great experience, great suit, and a good swim.
Andrew: Yep, no that’s great. And actually tip #4 looking down the list and this is totally coincidental, but tip #4 is a little bit more about wetsuits. John Mayfield, do you want to tell us about that one?
John: So wetsuit selection is important for several factors. Primary consideration is what is the water temperature and what does that mean for you? It has to be comfortable. There are a lot of athletes that suffer from just discomfort in a wetsuit. They feel constricted. Oftentimes it can invoke a panic attack. So make sure that the suit is comfortable and that comes from the suit fitting properly; making sure you have the right suit for you. When you put it on outside of the water it should be quite snug. It should be quite difficult to get on and some people just have a hard time with that. One thing to know is that when you get in the water it is going to feel a little bit looser and that’s why it needs to be tight when you’re out of the water. If it’s comfortable when you’re out of the water it’s going to be too loose when you’re in and then it’s basically going to just become a drag suit that’s now counterproductive instead of making you faster. So find the brand that fits you right, fits you well, that you’re comfortable in. Then something that’s very important is getting the suit on properly.
Andrew: I kind of learned for mine. I use the DeSoto T1 wetsuit. It’s a two piece wetsuit. John makes fun of me for it, but it’s fantastic. I’ve learned putting it on, John, if I don’t have a neoprene weggie I’ve not hiked that thing up quite enough and I’m going to have some shoulder resistance because of that. And at the point that I have a very slight neoprene weggie, I’ve worked it up well enough and I’m going to feel nice and loose in the shoulders and I’m going to be really good once I’m in the water. So you kind of learn your own wetsuit. John, it was really fun, another Coeur d’Alene story, we were just there. There on the beach in Coeur d’Alene you taught an athlete how to put on her Roka wetsuit and she had not realized that there’s actually X’s on that particular wetsuit model...
John: Numbers.
Andrew: There’s numbers that are supposed to go in certain places and so once you have that number over your knee or over your elbow or whatever it is that’s when it’s in the spot that it’s made to be. So check your wetsuit manufacturer. They all have different ways of doing that, but getting it on correctly is going to make you faster and far more comfortable.
John: And that was great. So yeah, the Roka’s do have knee, elbow, and shoulder 1, 2, 3, and again it’s designed to show you where it should be. And it’s going to vary for everybody based on leg length and arm length, but you should know where it falls on you once it is. What happened was she was standing there on the beach about to jump in the water and I noticed the shoulder number was well down onto her arm and she thought the suit was on and I told her, I was like, “We really need to work this up.” And for her it was just one of those lightbulb moments of like, “Oh my gosh! This is what it should feel like? This feels so much better!” So that’s just a great point, where had she gone out like that thinking that her suit was on properly, she would have experienced a lot of resistance in her shoulder which would have made her shoulders fatigue that much more. It was an Ironman so she was going to be out there for 2.4 miles. No one wants to swim 2.4 miles with extra constriction and then of course the other option would be when it’s not wetsuit legal, go with the swim skin. That’s going to provide a little bit of compression. So basically it’s going to make your body a little bit smaller. It’s a very small percentage, but it’s going to be beneficial in the water. It’s also going to be smoother than the kit that you’re wearing. So there’s fewer seams, it doesn’t have pockets, all that sort of thing, so it’s going to make your kit that much more smooth or that much more hydrodynamic to move through the water.
Andrew: Would you use that in training as well, or is a swim skin just for race day?
John: Umm, I will practice with it largely in open water, but I won’t overuse it. Those are expensive. They do have a lifespan on them, so it’s not particularly advantageous to use in practice other than just being comfortable in it. Again, you don’t want to try anything out for the first time on race day. Really, I would say that even renews. So even if you used it last year, if you used it last July and then went into wetsuit season, next July you need to get familiar with it again and make sure it still fits. Make sure it’s still in good working order. As often as need to, but not all the time.
Andrew: So I’m going to take #5 because I actually– I really like running shoes and goggles. I just buy way too many of both of those. I love trying different goggles. There’s so many different fun shapes and colors and they are 20 to 30 bucks a pop typically. I just love trying goggles and so I’ve used a lot of different brands over the years, a lot of different models over the years. A common thing that triathletes do, particularly if you’re more of a novice swimmer or newer swimmer and I certainly used to do this is we tend to think tighter is better. We tend to think if we tighten those straps down it’s going to keep water from getting out of the goggle. What happens is if you go too tight, it kind of causes the goggle to pinch in on the outsides and kind of pooch out on the insides and water is able to get in kind of on the inside of the lens where your nose is. So it’s not always trying to ratched it down as tight as you can. There’s kind of an appropriate tightness that you should be shooting for.
Jeff: I usually tell my athletes that if you get out of the pool and you go into the locker room and look in the mirror and there’s these deep rings around your eyes…
Andrew: Like you haven’t slept in years.
Jeff: Yeah, yeah and your first hour at the office at work you’re going to have those rings then nine times out of ten that is because those goggles are indeed too tight and so you should not be seeing those rings.
Andrew: Another thing I’ll say about goggle selection is I kind of also compare it to bicycle saddle selection. Don’t rule them out before you’ve given them a proper chance. There have been goggles that I’ve hopped in the pool with and I’ve knocked out a couple hundred and for some reason I just can’t seem to get that goggle to not leak in one or both eyes and I rule it out and I set it to the side and say, “Oh, this doesn’t fit my face well.” I’ve found over time that sometimes it takes a couple pool visits to really figure out how that goggle interacts with my face.
Jeff: Yeah, and I’ll even say that you go spend 25 to 50 bucks on a pair of goggles and you swim 100 and it leaks, before you throw it away, a lot of times the swim cap is underneath the rim of the swim goggle, sometimes people just simply need to trim their eyebrows, or maybe they’ve got a long hair that came out of the swim cap…
Andrew: That’s getting in the way.
Jeff: Yeah, that’s getting in the way. So if you’re someone that wears your swim cap lower or you have longer hair or maybe you don’t have a five-head. Maybe you’re a three-head forehead type person that maybe you want to get a smaller lensed goggle. If you have a smaller head or a smaller face a big lens might tend to ride up towards that hairline a little. Stuff like that.
Andrew: So long story short, give your goggles a chance. Do some tweaking with them to see if they’re a good fit for you much like you would a bike saddle. You wouldn’t rule out a bike saddle if you go for one ride and it feels uncomfortable. You might play with the fit or the tilt or a couple things before you rule that out. It’s kind of the same with goggles. Coach John Mayfield, let’s move on to swim tip #6.
John: Dryland tubing. So this one is a no brainer. It’s a resistance workout that really reinforces proper technique while also building strength and in just 10 to 15 minutes per session you can be very, very productive both in learning and reinforcing proper technique and strengthening those swim-specific muscles. So huge proponent of that. It simply just works and it’s super easy to do. It’s 10 to 15 minutes probably ideally three times a week. It’s great to do immediately after a swim session to help reinforce that muscle memory, so especially throughout that session, your technique and your form has declined through fatigue, but if you hop out of the water and do those sessions that are going to reinforce proper technique, it’s going to help offset that muscle memory. So basically as your form deteriorated throughout that swim session, you were learning to swim with that poor form. So hop out of the pool, do that tubing, and then reinforce that proper technique and that’s going to really help you maintain and build good technique.
Andrew: Yeah, I also use this. My TriDot prescribed swims are Monday and Friday. I like doing the tubing in the middle of the week as well just for some extra work on the swim form. For anybody interested in learning more about this we do have podcast episode 35 is The Year Round Benefits of Dryland Swim Training. So podcast episode 35 talks more about that and kind of point people in that and then we also have a video on YouTube that kind of shows proper form and how to do it the right way. So I would point people to those two resources. Let’s move on to swim training tip #7. Jeff Raines, what is it?
Jeff: #7 is about pacing. Learning how to pace and it kind of ties back into being intentional in tip #2. First of all it takes time to perfect your swim pacing. Now, because water is denser than air– so for biking and running our resistance is moreso coming from and against air, our swim zones tend to be a smaller window. So the difference between let's just say a zone 2 and a zone 3 might be 8 seconds. You have an 8 second window pace per 100 before you fall into another zone whereas running it might be, you know, a 90 second window from zone 2 to zone 3 let's say. So it’s kind of harder to get a decent TrainX score swimming arguably than some of the other disciplines, but anyways. What I find as far as pacing and being intentional and all that is the timing of the stroke.
Andrew: So you’re talking here about how important it is for us to learn how to pace ourselves properly. All of my TriDot workouts, they’ll have certain intervals that are supposed to be in zone 2, they’ll have certain intervals in zone 3 and zone 4 and a lot of people really struggle with keeping those paces separate and we end up doing the entire swim at a very similar pace. That was hard for me when I came on structured training with TriDot. Because it’s kind of like having bike gears, right? I just didn’t have the different gears in the pool to have the easy sets be easy and the hard sets be hard, and that’s when we start improving is when we keep the easy stuff easy and the hard stuff hard. So that’s kind of the tip here, correct? Is just to make sure you take some time, but really work on differentiating what your zone 2 pace in the pool is and what your zone 4 pace in the pool is and really try to nail those intervals correctly, right?
Jeff: Yeah, and I think that’s why these Form Goggles are becoming very, very popular. On the bike we have instantaneous feedback. We can adjust our effort and our pace, speed, our power in real time per second. But in a pool we have at least 25 yards until we can get to the wall, look at that descriptive data then make adjustments going forward. So we’re not looking at a watch face every millisecond. Our face is underwater and so we don’t have that same feedback. So I think the form goggles are helping close that gap, but perfecting your zones swimming tends to be harder than biking and running for many.
Andrew: Alright, Coach John Mayfield. What is swim training tip #8? Ocho?
John: Drill, baby drill. Drills are critical. Drills are very important. They serve many functions, primarily reinforcing– as we mentioned before– reinforcing a very specific part of the swim stroke and doing them over and over properly is going to reinforce that and allow you to adopt that into your normal swim stroke. So as we mentioned, doing a 25 with the drill and then a 25 free really focusing on implementing that drill into your swim stroke. As we mentioned from the get go, it’s not only critical to do the right training, but to do it right. So we want to make sure we’re doing these drills properly and make sure you’re doing the proper drills for you. As we mentioned, TriDot is going to prescribe those drills specifically based on each individual athlete, but know that not every drill is going to be beneficial for every athlete. In fact, certain drills will be counterproductive for athletes. So an example we were talking about is you said previously you had a dead spot in the front of your stroke that you were hanging out too long in that front quadrant, weren’t starting the high elbow pull soon enough, so a very common swim drill is the catchup drill which is going to reinforce somewhat of that dead spot. So for you in that time to be doing catchup drill would be counterproductive. That would be reinforcing what in that case would be a negative behavior. So again, it’s about doing those drills, doing them properly, but making sure you’re doing the right drills for you.
Andrew: Yep, so doing the right drills right. Doing the drills that are applicable to you which TriDot already does such a great job of making sure that we have the right drills for ourselves so it’s just going to the pool, being intentional with them. Great stuff John. Coach Jeff Raines, what is swim training tip #9?
Jeff: This deals with kind of your pool toys. We like gadgets, gear, and so yes in a triathlon we typically only have swim cap, goggles, wetsuit, but for training there’s all sorts of toys.
Andrew: Yeah there sure is!
Jeff: Paddles, pull buoys, fins, kickboards, snorkel, stuff like that. These typically are for added strength. So think of it as you’re in the weight room and you add another 25 pound plate on the bench press, right? That’s going to significantly change your workout going forward. So putting on fins is added strength. Putting on those paddles. So a lot of new swimmers tend to be eager to want to incorporate those toys, but I would argue take your time with those. Don’t rush into them. Perfect your form first and then add that strength later on because a lot of them can create bad habits and one of the biggest ones I see is the pull buoy and in all honesty, you should be faster without a pull buoy and even buoyancy shorts…you should be faster without a pull buoy than with one. So if you’re somebody who has kind of figured out that ah-ha moment like when I use a pull buoy it prevents my drag. I have a drag issue and that corrects it. People tend to rely on that pull buoy and maybe they’re doing 80 or 90% of their swim workout with that pull buoy on and that can tend to cause one to become more efficient at being inefficient and that pull buoy is a cast or a crutch.
Andrew: So it sounds like, Jeff, with the pool toys it’s very much just about using the tool for the right reasons and using them in moderation and not relying on them too much. So that’s a great tip. That’s good for us to know and actually it would probably be really beneficial for us to do an episode just on using pool toys correctly. So folks, hold onto your butts in anticipation of that episode coming out sometime in the future. I don’t want to side track us too much on that today, but that's a great tip Jeff. Thanks so much. Moving on to swim training tip #10. Coach John Mayfield, what have we got?
John: Critical. Practice open water swimming.
Andrew: Oh, yes.
John: So we do all of this work in the pool the vast majority of the time so that we can go race in open water. So the pool provides that unique opportunity for very structured training where there is a known quantity of distance between the walls; usually 25 yards, meters, 50 meters. It allows for a very specific set based on time based on intervals. The water is nice and clear so we can use that snorkel and see exactly what’s going on under the water. That’s all well and good, but if you don’t have proficiency in open water it’s largely all for naught if you can’t translate those gains in the pool to the open water. So it’s critical to practice in the open water. First off, the first concern is safety. There is risk in open water. So we want to make sure that you’re comfortable and you’re proficient in the water so that you are not a risk to yourself and to the other participants in the race, the safety staff, all of that. So make sure that you’re comfortable and that’s really going to set up kind of what’s next. Oftentimes athletes will jump in the pool and never have a panic attack. It’s very common for athletes to jump into open water and to experience some level of discomfort, or even a full on panic attack where they wouldn’t otherwise. There are athletes who have been swimming open water for years that all of a sudden for whatever reason, they’ll jump into open water and have a panic attack. So it’s about being comfortable and then learning to translate those gains from the pool into the open water. So it’s important to work on sighting which is largely the biggest difference in swimming in open water as opposed to the pool. There’s not that stripe to follow. Nothing will offset all those gains you’ve made in your swimming by swimming crooked. You don’t want to swim longer than you have to.
Andrew: Yeah, no kidding.
John: Swimming straight is critical. That’s perhaps the most important open water skill that you have is being able to do that and that comes through sighting often and then from there having quality workouts in there. Oftentimes what athletes will do is simply jump in the lake and maybe swim the perimeter or they’ll swim to the farthest buoy and back. It’s all one pace. It’s all just one time. As I mentioned earlier, the longer you go the more your technique and your form is going to break down. So we don’t do that in the pool. We don’t jump in the pool and knock out 3K. We break it down into intervals that we’re able to focus on specific things. Within these different intervals we’re allowed to rest. We’re allowed to refocus our technique and our energies so translate that into your open water swimming as well. It may be from buoy to buoy, but I would say break it up, be intentional in your swimming. There may be times where you go out a couple weeks out from a race or you want to test your fitness and go swim 1.2 or 2.4 miles. That’s one thing, but don’t make that every single open water session that you do.
Jeff: We tend to forget about or neglect those open water skills unless we’re in open water. We can do these things in a pool. Sometimes what I’ll do is in a 25 you go down and back and so I’ll just say, “Hey, I’m going to breathe to that wall for this next 300, I’m going to breathe to the same wall every time.” So what that is teaching me to do is to breath to both sides successfully. So there’s just little tricks you can do in being intentional in open water and in a pool.
Andrew: Yeah, I particularly like the point about being able to breathe on both sides. It came pretty naturally for me. I know for some people it doesn’t come very naturally to breathe to your weaker side, but when you get out there in open water and you’ve got maybe some waves coming from one side, but not the other, it helps being able to breathe on both sides in an open water, dynamic scenario. Tip #11. Jeff Raines, let’s hear this one from you.
Jeff: You know our swim sessions tend to be hour, hour 15 or less so we think, “Okay, I don’t need nutrition. I’m not going to pop two or three Gu’s or whatever.” But what I would say is don’t just bring a simple bottle of water to the pool. I would bring something with some sort of hydration, electrolytes in there. You’re not going to need a lot of carb heavy substances for an hour swim, but the convection aspects of the water across the skin–
Andrew: Ooo, we’re getting sciency.
Jeff: Yeah. The effects of that are almost three times greater in water than even air and so you’re actually dehydrating yourself swimming. So don’t do an hour 15, whatever swim workout without taking a drink or having something next to the pool. I like something, obviously like I said, something with some sort of electrolytes in there, but something that’s going to kind of taste good.
Andrew: Kind of gets the chlorine out of your mouth a little bit.
Jeff: Yeah, exactly. Actually it’s kind of interesting, your sense of smell, you can almost kind of smell or taste even underwater. It’s heightened in the water.
Andrew: Are you a dolphin Jeff? Are you part dolphin, part merman?
Jeff: I have these gills…these things behind my ears. No, webbed feet, what? No, I kind of tend to crave or be excited about that fruity drink that’s on the wall. So knowing that that’s there I’m going to take a drink every couple hundred. My 15 seconds rest I’m going to take a swig because you can become very dehydrated swimming.
Andrew: Coach John Mayfield, what is swim training tip #12?
John: So this one comes to us compliments of Dory from “Finding Nemo.” Just keep swimming.
Andrew: You know I love that Pixar John.
John: There are several things we can take from this. A lot of wisdom from the quote. First, just keep doing it. A lot of times swimming isn’t most triathlete’s favorite thing, but it’s one of those things that will come with time. It often does take time to make those improvements. Oftentimes swimmers will jump in the pool early on, make some immediate gains, and then kind of stall. It does take time, so just keep swimming.
Andrew: Just keep swimming.
John: On race day…just keep swimming. If you encounter something that is a challenge, just keep going especially– it’s oftentimes other competitors that will be coming along.You’ll get a bump, you’ll get a kick, a punch. Just keep going.
Andrew: Don’t panic. Don’t fret about it. Don’t stop and look and see who did it. Just keep swimming.
John: Right. Because especially if you do stop oftentimes you’re going to get more because wherever that came from there’s more behind them. So just keep going. Adjust and do what you need to do to kind of regroup, but just keep swimming. Then this is something that I have used as a mantra as long as I’ve been racing. For me I simply have a hard time sometimes swimming for long periods of time. I guess it’s more so of a mind engagement kind of a thing. Lack of attention, loss of attention. I don’t experience so much in racing because there’s so much going on. I’m looking at buoys, I’m engaging with other swimmers, and I’m trying to do certain things. So it’s not as bad on race day, but man when I go and I do my open water swims, I know for me I oftentimes have a hard time just keeping my face down and just continuing to swim. I like swimming in the pool because I know I hit a wall every 25, but that’s something I tell myself, “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.” And it’s an acquired skill. The more I do it the longer I’m able to go.
Andrew: Yep, absolutely. Coach Jeff Raines, moving us on to tip #13. What have we got?
Jeff: Cold water swimming. John alluded to it a little bit earlier, but jumping into open water in general kind of gives us the heebie jeebies or hyperventilation. Even race day is different than training in open water even. This kind of brings us to a safety aspect and even in some cases life or death. We’ve heard of or seen of SIPE, swimming induced pulmonary edema. It’s something that is traditionally only seen with triathletes and it’s something that’s very specific to our sport. Just like John said you may swim open water ten times before that big race no issues, but then on race day there’s something about that anxiety, elevated heart rate, the adrenaline dump–
Andrew: The cold water.
Jeff: –the cold water and so a couple quick things and we’re going to move on to help you in cold water. First of all, before you get into the water, let water into your suit. That is a pet peeve of mine and I would honestly say 49 out of 50 triathletes don’t even do this. The whole point of a wetsuit is to keep you warm. It’s the whole point. Now triathletes, we tend to pray that it’s wetsuit legal because we want the buoyancy.
Andrew: For the buoyancy.
Jeff: But the whole point of a wetsuit is to keep you warm and the goal is to let water in so your body heat heats up that water and that water stays between your body and the suit and now keeps you warm.
Andrew: Yeah, and I’ve seen you guys do this on race weekends. So you literally just take water bottles and before you even get in the water you dump a couple water bottles down your wetsuit. You let some of that water settle in between your body and the suit. Some of it flows out from under your feet, and then you’re a little bit more prepared for that cold water jumping in.
John: This is one of my favorite tips and again I credit Jeff Raines for teaching me this years ago. It’s something that I’ve told tons of athletes and it absolutely works. It’s kind of like peeing in your suit. Everybody knows that. If you want to help stay warm–
Andrew: Eeeewww!
John: –you pee in your suit. Everybody does it, but this is kind of doing the same thing because again it is a wet suit. It’s not a drysuit. They are intended to be wet on the inside so what’s going to provide that warmth? Is your body warming that water? So it’s much easier to warm already warm water as opposed to jumping into that 65 degree water and then your body has to warm up that water. So, yeah. That’s one of my favorite tips, so thanks for that Jeff. I’ve used that myself and I’ve used that with lots of athletes over the years.
Jeff: Hey, you bet. It’s a game changer. Now with that being said, don’t flood the suit. Just enough to get wet and no kind of air pockets in there. But other things you can do in cold water, just real quickly here, is enter on an exhale. It’s the hardest thing to do. That long exhale…get that deep breath, let it out slow, and just kind of ease entry off that pier into the water.
Andrew: Don’t hold your breath.
Jeff: Don’t hold your breath because as soon as you enter the water a lot of people will gasp and inhale and that triggers that fight or flight, the adrenaline, maybe a SIPE symptom, something like that. It’s the hardest thing to do. Practice it, but enter the water– cold water– on an exhale. It won’t trigger the fight or flight. Ear plugs will help the effects of the shock of open water. Maybe you want to wear double swim caps to keep you a little bit warmer. A little bit more secure. Maybe even a thermal cap, right? If the water’s under 60 degrees some races require foot booties or a thermal cap, but if that cold water is going to shock you play around with some of those– swim caps, foot booties, and please wear them, train with them a few times before race day, but there’s definitely tricks you can do.
Andrew: Yes, a lot of options you can look into. I’ve certainly– usually the double swim cap is enough for me. You put one swim cap on then you put your goggles on and then you put a second swim cap on. It just keeps your head a little bit warmer. I’ve always enjoyed that trick myself. One last thing, this is more mental than physical. Jeff, those were all good physical tips, but there’s an athlete on the junior team I work with that she actually goes to University of San Francisco, she’s on their triathlon team so she’s training in the cold, chilly waters of San Francisco Bay from time to time and she doesn’t love open water swimming. She’s a fantastic swimmer, doesn’t love open water swimming and so what she told me, she was like, “I actually paint my fingernails a very fun, bright color because as I’m swimming I can see my hands and I’m in a place I don’t want to be in, I’m in water I don’t want to be in, I’m doing something I don’t want to do, but seeing those bright, fun colored fingernails painted just gives me a little moment of joy as I’m swimming.” And that really just mentally helps her out there in open water. So if you’re somebody who is prone to painting their fingernails, maybe keep that in mind for that next cold water, open water swim just to give you a little brief pocket of joy as you see that hand brush by your line of sight. So, let's move on to tip #14. We’ve got a couple more to march through here. Coach John Mayfield, what is swim training tip #14.
John: Swim type. So, we’ve alluded to this a couple times. It goes back to doing the right training right. Know who you are, know what your opportunities for improvement are. TriDot is going to provide this information for you. There is a swim form diagnostic that is in your dashboard. You can go in and you can see, and what we have here is there are different types of these swim forms. They all have titles and I’ll say this that oftentimes athletes will get too caught up in the title and not move down to see what the description of that swim form is. So pay attention to that. Go and read it. Read those opportunities for improvement and also be aware that everyone has a composite of swim forms. No one is pigeonholed 100% into one swim form. Whatever one is displayed there on top is just your most dominant one. It’s actually a composite. You are a representative of multiple types of swim forms. Some athletes will have a very strong correlation to one particular. Others may be spread across four or five different ones largely equally and what those represent, again, are those opportunities for gains; what your tendencies are. That’s also going to determine what drills and what swim sets are prescribed for you.
Andrew: Yep, and just for a concrete example of that, John, you referenced me. So my swim type, at least my majority swim type on TriDot is I’m an overglider and so I went down and I read the description and it told me an overglider, you enter the glide phase of the stroke, your arm is out in front of you just resting on the top of the water right before you start the pull and you stall there. You referenced this earlier and I learned that from TriDot and I never noticed it until I read that description and I started realizing oh yeah, sure enough. Every time I enter the water and let that hand stretch out in front of me I’m not real quick to start pulling back. So I’ve worked on, having read that, initiating the pull a little bit sooner and my SwimDot started bumping, one dot, two dots, three dots, just from really raising the cadence and not overgliding as much. I never recognized that until I looked at that swim form that TriDot classified me.
John: And once again, Andrew is air swimming as he’s talking about this swim form.
Andrew: You’ve got to. Swim training tip #15. I’ll say this one. This is kind of our chlorine tips and Coach Elizabeth James actually was talking to me about this and something that she does is she will actually…most pools have some form of a shower that you can rinse off in before or after your swim. Take advantage of that. I used to do it on the back end. I never really did it on the front end. So if you take advantage of those pool-side showers before you get in the water it lets your skin, it lets your hair, it lets your suit even soak up fresh water instead of chlorinated water and it just helps offset the negative drying effects of chlorine once you're in the chlorine water. So before you get in the pool, after you get out of the pool, take advantage of that. Rinse yourself off and it’s really going to help the longevity of your suit. It’s going to help the condition of your hair and skin. Along those lines, a lot of people have found that there are brands that advertise shampoos that are specific to swimmers that help offset the effects of chlorine. So those are just some great ways to– you know we’re in that chlorine for hours at a time a couple days a week and so just be aware of those tips and ways to mitigate the effects.
John: Along those same lines, there’s a saying that says, “The skin is a sponge.” Your skin does allow passage back and forth and there’s a lot of nasty stuff in the pool water so that’s something to be aware of especially for those that swim a lot is that you may never swallow any water, but that doesn’t mean those chemicals aren’t going through your skin. So that can also help with that. Chlorine especially is not good for you, so that can help offset some of that chlorine.
Andrew: So John, why don’t you transition us from talking about chlorine to talking about goggles with tip #16.
John: So especially in open water, but it can be real annoying in the pool as well is when the goggles fog. I am a big proponent of a product that I found probably a year ago. They’re called Foggies. They’re from the same folks that make the Trislide lubricant that help get the wetsuits on easier. I always recommend those. You can get them on Amazon or from the company directly, but they’re little kind of like Handi Wipes that have– you wipe the inside, outside of your goggles and I have yet to have a pair of goggles fog up during a pool swim, open water swim– fantastic. They also work great for glasses and visors out on the road when you’re cycling. Another thing to help offset the fog is not touch the inside of the goggles with your fingers. Most goggles will come with an anti-fog solution on the inside. Now granted it does tend to wear out over time. Another one that Elizabeth gave to us was reminding the ladies to remove their makeup prior to wearing the goggles.
Andrew: Yeah, helpful. And we would not have known that.
John: I would not have thought of that. Then having a fresh pair for race day. So again, the chlorine and other chemicals in the water can break down the rubber and the seals so have a fresh pair that you’ve tested, you know fits you, you know doesn’t leak, but is in like-new condition.
Andrew: Coach Jeff Raines, what is swim training tip #17?
Jeff: Making sure that you’re aware of if your device has a drill mode on your Garmin. A lot of people kind of like to finish a run or any workout really and kind of pull up that average pace. You know, what was my average mile per hour and all that good stuff and a lot of people find that including their swim drills and those tend to be a slower pace. So maybe your fast sets are 1:30 type base interval or whatever for 100 and you’re swimming 3:00 per 100 on your drills and it’s bringing down that overall average. You know, we see that a lot. It’s kind of a game even. So a lot of people will skip the drills or rush the drills to have them be completed at a faster pace when that is not the intent of the drill. So what you can do actually is flip your watch, mid swim, into drill mode so that time, that interval is allocated into kind of a different pool; pun intended there. So it won’t affect that overall average stroke rate average and stuff like that if you’re kind of grading yourself.
Andrew: Yeah, and I use that on kick sets. I use that on like single arm drill when only one arm is going at a time and for drills it really is great. Garmin.com obviously can give you instruction on how to make sure your watch has drill mode set up.
Jeff: Absolutely. It was years after I had my Garmin before I knew that that was a thing.
Andrew: Yeah, same.
Jeff: So hopefully this helps many. Middle of the set just go to settings, drill mode, boom. Hit your lap, do your drill, come back, put it back into normal mode and get on to your main set. Lastly, just make sure your watch is set to the correct distance. If last week you swam in a meter pool and this week you’re in a yard pool and you forget to change that it really affects things. Then in triathlon mode in your watch on race day…
Andrew: Same thing.
Jeff: Most people swim in pool mode, training mode, and they’re used to that being yards or meters, but if on race day you don’t set the swim portion to open water using GPS or something like that it will affect your data. So make sure that open water race day triathlon mode does not include a pool 25 yard or whatever setting on there or it will throw off things.
Andrew: Yep, super great stuff. I’m going to shut us down with swim train tip #18 and I’ve heard Coach John Mayfield say this so many times, and I’m so mindful of it now and that is check the status and the condition of your swimsuit before you head to the pool and throw it on and make people look at you wearing that thing. Ladies and gentlemen, we don’t want to see any more of you than we have to and those swimsuits– that material can kind of wear out overtime so just take a peek at yourself wearing that thing and make sure that some of that fabric hasn’t gotten a little worn or a little thin. So check your swimsuit. Make sure you're replacing those every so often and stay decent out there people when you’re hitting the pool.
Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.
Andrew: There are many wonderful people working hard behind the scenes of TriDot to make your training experience the best that it can be and today I want to introduce our Podcast audience to TriDot athlete, Ironman finisher, and TriDot software engineer, Cory Gackenheimer. We’ll hear all about his experience in the sport and a little about how some of your TriDot features came to be. Cory, welcome to the podcast.
Cory Gackenheimer: Thanks for having me Andrew. Longtime listener, first time caller. I do love the content that you guys produce. It’s really fun and I listen to it every week.
Andrew: And I love the content you produce in terms of the TriDot app that I get to use every single day for my TriDot training. So we’re big fans of each other’s work and that’s great. So Cory, let’s kind of start here. How did you even get into triathlon in the first place?
Cory: Yeah, my first triathlon I was about 11 or 12 years old.
Andrew: Wow!
Cory: A kid’s super sprint and then I took about a 20 year break. Then I got back into fitness after getting very far out of fitness. I did some crossfit, crossfit endurance, and then I did Tri Indy in Indianapolis and had great success on a 1990’s steel mountain bike and after that several local sprints and Olympics and eventually led into my first 70.3 a few years later.
Andrew: You did tell us actually that race you did on that steel mountain bike, it was your first triathlon as an adult coming back from a 20 year hiatus and you won. What was it? The fat tire–
Cory: The fat tire division. Yes.
Andrew: Okay, so you were the fastest person on a bike with a fat tire, which I didn’t even know was a category.
Cory: Yeah, I may have been the only one.
Andrew: One out of one. Hey, it’s still a win, right?
Cory: That’s right.
Andrew: It’s like when you win your age group and there’s three people in your age group, it’s something. So Cory before you were on staff at TriDot, you were a TriDot athlete and an ambassador. How did you find TriDot in the first place and how did it go training for your first Ironman?
Cory: I started TriDot because a friend of mine said he was going to sign up for an Ironman and knew that I had done a 70.3 and I said, “I’ll do an Ironman with you. Sure.” And then he–
Andrew: Why not?
Cory: –he actually signed up so I was on the hook and so I had to find better training than what I had done in the past and TriDot was it. So I immediately went through the Preseason Project that year and enjoyed it so much, became an ambassador, and that led me to our first Ironman in Florida where I met–
Andrew: Yeah, where we met you.
Cory: –Andrew Harley and John Mayfield and the rest is kind of history.
Andrew: Yeah, one conversation led to another and we actually had a need on the software team and you had a skillset that matched the need and here we all are. So, love it. And congrats on your Ironman Florida finish. That was fantastic, obviously, to watch you do that. Did you enjoy that race?
Cory: Yeah, it was a really great day. That’s what I tell people. It’s a long day and you learn a lot about yourself and what you can do better, but there’s just nothing better than crossing that finish line.
Andrew: Yep, I believe it and hoping to join you in the Ironman Finisher Club sometime soon.
Cory: You’ll be there.
Andrew: So Cory our software development team is spread out all around the globe and it rolls deep with a variety of talents. You all have different skill sets that you bring to the team. What is your role specifically as a member of the development team?
Cory: I’m a full stack engineer which means I’ve kind of got my hands in both what you see when you use the app and all the algorithms that make it work for you. So I get to do a little bit of the cool new features behind the scenes and the cool new features on both the app and the website.
Andrew: There are so many TriDot features and the app usage that you’ve had a personal hand in engineering, just to give folks kind of a tangible example of how features go from ideation to integration. Something that you recently worked on was adding run power to TriDot. Tell us how that feature came to be.
Cory: Sure, yeah. Run power is something that folks have been using for their training and something that we like to do is make sure that we have the best data we can for our athletes. So wanting to integrate that was obvious to us. It helps us to optimize things so we needed to integrate it. Stryd is kind of the first to market, or most prevalent in that space so trying to get an algorithm that aligns with Stryd was first priority, but there’s also many others in the market.
Andrew: Because you use Garmin Run Power yourself.
Cory: I do use Garmin Run Power myself so it was actually somewhat frustrating when it wasn’t working at the time, but it’s great now. The thing with run power is it’s not like bike power where you’re measuring an exact force coming to a pedal or a crank. You have to find some way to have some sort of algorithm to estimate any given user’s or athlete’s run power that they’re emitting and with different forms and things it’s different and different companies have different algorithms. So, anyway, long story short; we take that algorithm and we make it as best we can to optimize and normalize it across devices.
Andrew: So whether you have a Stryd, whether you have a Garmin Run Power, or whether you have anything else that might come out in the future, your run power experience with TriDot is the same and normalized.
Cory: Correct. We’re collecting that data continually and continually trying to make it better and more performing as well. So that’s the nice thing about being able to have all that data is we’re able to continually improve.
Andrew: Yeah, very cool. So Cory before I let you go and I do think it would be super cool one day to have you and maybe another member of the dev team or two on just to talk more about how TriDot features come to be, how the app works, what you guys are working on. It’s fascinating stuff, right and very different from what we as athletes generally think about. We just fire up the app, we see what our workout is for the day, and we’re off and running sometimes literally, but before I let you go today, while I have someone with your super in depth knowledge of the app, it’s features, and what’s coming next. Can you tease any upcoming features or tasks that you’re working on right now?
Cory: I’m not sure how much I can divulge. There are some things that we’re doing definitely performance and scalability wise behind the scenes that are super exciting for me as a developer, but there’s also some really cool enhancements that we’re working on that make some of the manual processes that you do when you get into TriDot that should make them a little bit easier or more automatic and that stuff should be coming out soon, but definitely can’t divulge too much.
Andrew: Alright, that’s fair. The app is always evolving. It’s always improving and we’re thankful Cory for the guys like you and the other members of the dev team that are helping make our training better. So thanks so much for hopping on and telling us all about it.
Well that’s it for today folks. Enjoying the show? Have any questions or topics you’d like to hear us talk about? Head to TriDot.com/podcast and click on leave us a voicemail to let us know what you’re thinking. We’ll do it again soon, until then Happy Training.
Outro: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot podcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to TriDot.com and start your free trial today! TriDot – the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.