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By Paul Regensburg of LifeSport Coaching
Aqua Sphere is teaming up with LifeSport Coaching to offer a multi part series of articles on ideal swim preparation for the upcoming triathlon season. Aqua Sphere, the “Official Wetsuit and Eye Protection” supplier of LifeSport Coaching, will together offer expert advice and include tips on training, tactics, and technical drills that can be used to see your best swim results this year. Workouts will also be offered in each article designed for the final 8 weeks of preparation before your event.
Tips in this series:
Tip #1 – Setting up for Success
Tip #2 – Specific Drills for the Open Water
Tip #3 – How to Draft like a Genius
Tip #4 – Final Swim Preparation on Race Week - coming soon
Tip #3 – How to Draft Like a Genius
Drafting is an essential element to a triathlete’s performance in open water swimming. The skill and art of drafting is to place yourself directly behind another swimmer, ideally one that is just faster than you, so you will be towed along in their wake. Like cycling, which creates an even bigger drafting effect, staying in another person's draft on the swim can create a slipstream resulting in an 8% efficiency gain that can be a 30s to 2 minutes time savings on a mile swim so it is well worth the small time invested in practicing this skill.
To become comfortable and good at drafting, practice drafting the swimmer in front of you in longer pool set where you have ample lane space. You can try a drill where you start with 4 swimmers in 2 lanes. All leave the wall at once side by side and you have to sort yourself into 1 lane by the time you get to the end wall. From here you will change the order of the swimmers by swimming to the front or back throughout the interval so different swimmers can lead the group. Continue this for 200-400 yards or meters or for 3-6 minutes. This will give you practice in experimenting with drafting in the following methods:
1. Hip
Position yourself approximately half way down the swimmer’s body beside you; with your shoulder parallel with leader swimmer hip – you want to be literally “surfing” in the wake created beside you. You may find that it disrupts your stroke, but keep in mind that swimming on the hip does slow down the person you are drafting, which can be a great strategy if you are struggling to stay with another swimmer.
2. Side-By-Side
Side-by-side swimming is the worst drafting scenario. It will not only slow you down, but also the person you are swimming next to. It forces the swimmers to “steal” each others water and they will hit each other arms far too often. Try to avoid this scenario but experiment with it to see how much it slows you down.
3. Feet
Swimming directly behind the swimmer in front, near their feet, is the most efficient way for two to three people to swim creating the least amount of drag in the water. You will not impede the swimmer in front of you as they create a draft in the water. Remember to keep your head down, keep close, and follow the bubbles created by the swimmer that you are following or it can be quite easy to lose sight of the feet. A little tip – try to follow strong, larger swimmers that don’t kick – the draft is much stronger.
When you are 4 weeks out of your race, get some swimmers together and head for the open water. Give these workouts a try to practice your drafting and tune up your open water threshold work:
Workout #1: Consistent Pace Set
Warm-up (10 minutes):
· Arm swings and stretch on shore
· 5 minutes of easy, loose swimming
· 2 minutes of building freestyle from ez to race pace
· 2 minutes of choice drills that make you feel the water
Main Set:
· 12 x 50 fast strokes with 20 seconds recovery. Focus on high stroke rate
· 2 or 3 intervals of 10 minutes at goal race pace with 3 minutes recovery. Use a landmark if possible
Cool-down:
Cool-down: 5-10 minutes ez swimming
Workout #2 - Descending Pace Set
Warm up: 600 (10min)
Practice race warm-up
Include 10 pick-ups (20 stokes fast / 20 strokes easy)
Main set:
· 2 x 300 (5min) with 60s R at steady building pace (80-85% effort)
· 1 x 600 (10min) with 2min R at mid race pace (85-90% effort)
· 2 x 300 (5min) with 60s R at starting pace effort (90-95% effort)
Cool-down:
5-10min easy, feel good drills
Look for the fourth and final article in this Series where we'll get into final swim preparation on race week.
Paul Regensburg is a senior coach at LifeSport and an Olympic, Pan Am Games, and Ironman Coach. He has coached athletes from beginner to world championship athletes at all distances. Visit LifeSportCoaching.com or contact coach@lifesportcoaching.com for more information or to get a great training program.
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