Topics specifically related to open-water swimming
I read an article on the American Swim Coaches Association (ASCA) website a while back. It’s written by John Leonard, the head of ASCA, and it’s a response to an email that he got from a coach about practicing with good swimming technique. His response highlighted the importance to coaches…
I was thinking of a set of drills and focal points that I could use in the first month after my MAF test. Total Immersion has embraced the 2-beat kick and integrating the kick with the body rotation. Kick cadences is something that I have never done. Since I come…
For those not familiar with the Chicago open water swimming scene, the Big Shoulders 2.5K and 5K open water swim is one of the big open water swims in the Midwest. My mentor, Terry Laughlin of Total Immersion Swimming sent me an email a week or so ago saying that…
One of the best ways to improve your freestyle is to incorporate “fist” swimming into your practices. Of course, you would never know this because all of my swimmers groan or mutter profanities under their breath whenever I assign it at swim practice. If you read most triathlon books or…
Want to become a faster swimmer and enjoy swimming more? Start by figuring out how to swim effectively in the water rather than immediately trying to build up your training volume. The reason that it’s more important to focus on how you swim rather than how far or how hard you swim…
One of my clients sent me a link to an article in Triathlon Competitor magazine called Do you know your Ape Index? The article talks about how arm length can affect your cadence — short arms yields a higher cadence and long arms yields a lower cadence. He asked me if…
If you are blind like me, swimming has always been a little challenging because I couldn’t see the pace clock, other swimmers, the practice on the board. Since I’ve started to do more stuff in open water with my team in the last 10 years, it’s…well…game over out there. The…
We had a great turnout for the Big Shoulders 2.5 and 5K open water swim this past Saturday September 12th. In the 5K division, we had 12 swimmers compete and we had 4 swimmers place in the top 50 overall — Tim Carlson (13, 1:01.02), Justin Chiles (18, 1:02.03), Rob…
One of the most common comments we get from our clients who know how to swim but just can’t turn it into a fitness activity is: “I get so out of breath! I can run a marathon, but I can’t do two lengths of the pool.” The swimming literature commonly…
I am in Ft. Lauderdale, FL this week for the 2009 American Swim Coaches Association (ASCA) convention. I saw a thought-provoking talk yesterday by Melon Dash of the Miracle Swimming Institute. She was speaking on the absolute necessity of adult swimming lessons to overcome adults’ fear of the water and…
