Swim Smooth: How To Use This Book

Book Extract

The Swim Smooth Complete Coaching Programme for Swimmers and Triathletes covers the very best methods from the Swim Smooth coaching system and is used as a comprehensive resource to develop your swimming, or that of your swimmers if you are a coach. You can read it from cover to cover or use it as an ongoing reference as your swimming improves and as you work on different areas of your stroke technique and preparation.

As with everything Swim Smooth, we have tried to keep the technical jargon to a minimum and made our programme as easy to understand as possible, keeping things in a form you can easily apply to your stroke. The graphics and pictures have been selected to be engaging and insightful, and lead you through the topics as if we were coaching you face to face. If we start talking about ‘smiley faces painted on the palms of your hands’ or ‘kebab sticks running down the length of your spine’, we are doing so as a simple way of translating the complex biomechanics of an efficient freestyle stroke into something you can easily apply to your own swimming.

In the book we make extensive use of such ‘visualisations’ to simplify areas of the freestyle stroke that many swimmers have historically found quite hard to interpret. Swim Smooth has a very visual coaching style and we know that our swimmers love this approach and find it a refreshing way to learn. Even if you are at an advanced level in your swimming, you will find our approach motivating and you will really benefit from decluttering some of the thought processes involved so that you can become more focused and take your swimming to the next level.

From time to time we will recommend equipment and training aids that we find significantly benefit the swimmers and triathletes that we work with on a daily basis. We have been fortunate enough to have tried most of the swimming products on the market – some great and some not so great – and you can be assured that anything we feature gets our full seal of approval and is well worth considering for your own swimming – see Chapter 3. Please do not feel the need to rush out and buy every product we mention; the tips and techniques in this book will give you significant grounds for improvement in their own right without the assistance of these additional tools.

A Quick Overview
Let’s run you through the structure of the book:

• We kick off in Chapter 2 with an introduction to freestyle swimming and cover some of the terminology and conventions we use in this book. If you are new to swimming you will find this extremely useful and it will help you make sense of how swimmers and coaches talk about swimming. We then go on in Chapter 3 and take a look at some of the training equipment you might use and how to select the right tools to assist you in the best way possible.
• Next we will take a look at the Swim Smooth philosophy of ‘The Three Keys’, which are: 1) Stroke Technique; 2) Swim Specific Fitness Training; 3) Open Water Skills. These Three Keys form the outline structure of this book and as we will explain, working on all three elements of your preparation at the same time will give you the best improvements in your swimming. In fact if you have been swimming for a while and hit a speed and efficiency plateau it is likely you have the balance wrong between these three elements of your preparation.
• Stroke Technique (Key 1) takes a close look at each area of the freestyle stroke and how it should be performed. We will clear up a lot of misconceptions or things you might have read on the internet that date back 15 or 20 years or even earlier! Within this chapter we will show you how to improve each area of your stroke so that you become more comfortable in the water and become faster and more efficient at the same time. If you have primarily focused on reducing drag up until now you will find the section on developing your catch and propulsion particularly fascinating.
• Next we have a dedicated section on developing your stroke rate. This is an area that many intermediate swimmers struggle with and can be key to improving your stroke technique and performing well in open water. Even if you are a relative beginner, developing some rhythm in your stroke can be the key to improving your comfort levels and confidence swimming in the great outdoors.
• Then we move on to our fascinating Swim Types system – showing you the six classic ways in which people swim freestyle, including the distinct personality that each Swim Type tends to have. This is a great way to bring all the sections of the book together into a simple step-by-step process for you to follow (Appendix B) that is highly tailored to your individual needs.
• Before leaving Stroke Technique we will take you through a special feature showing you how to perform a video analysis on your own swimming and how to identify common flaws in your stroke. Referring you to the right section of this book we will highlight how to work on and fix those flaws, making your swimming more comfortable, more efficient and faster too. Very highly recommended!
• Swim Specific Fitness Training (Key 2) shows you how you should best train for distance swimming events such as open water swims and triathlon. Fitness from other sports rarely carries over very well to swimming, and developing your aerobic fitness in the water will make a huge difference to your comfort and speed in the water. It will also help you to sustain a better stroke technique as you swim and so improve your efficiency too. This section works in tandem with Appendix C, which contains hundreds of combinations of training sessions for you to follow.
• To complete the section on training, we examine specific flexibility and conditioning work to improve your swimming posture and also avoid injury. The exercises in this section perfectly complement everything we cover in Keys 1–3 and will be essential if you suffer from any pain or injury during or after swimming.
• Open Water Skills (Key 3) explains how to prepare for open water swimming so as to have a confident, comfortable and fast race! Removing anxiety, drafting techniques, sighting and navigation are all included in detail. You can develop and practise these skills in the pool as well as the open water, in fact there are some advantages to doing so in the pool. Don’t leave this until near-race day, you should practise these skills year round, they are that important!

Key 3: Open Water Skills should form a key part of your swimming preparation.

Appendix A contains explanations and pictures of the Swim Smooth drills – showing you exactly how to perform them and which areas of the stroke they develop. You will find this very useful as an ongoing resource as you develop your swimming.

Appendix B covers the stroke correction process for each of the Swim Types in turn. These consolidate all of the information from this book for you into a simple step by step process to follow for your individual Swim Type.

Appendix C contains a library of training sessions for you to follow in the pool as recommended in Key 3. Need a technique session or want to train your aerobic system? No problem – there’s 5,100 possible combinations of sessions to follow so you will never get bored!

 

© Not to be reproduced without written permission from Fernhurst Books Limited.

Swim Smooth is written by Adam Young & Paul Newsome. A former age group triathlete and swimmer, Head Coach Adam Young became a partner in Swim Smooth in 2008 and heads up Swim Smooth's coaching in the UK. Adam is the brains behind Mr Smooth, most of what you see of Swim Smooth's websites and the forthcoming Swim Smooth app. Paul's life in competitive swimming started at the age of 7. At 17 he was introduced to the sport of Triathlon and switched to elite triathlon competition. He joined the UK's World Class Potential program at Bath University whilst studying for his Sports Science Degree. During this period he became British Universities Triathlon Champion and came 11th at the World Student Games. At this time Paul discovered his real passion for teaching and coaching, finding that he loved sharing his knowledge with friends and training partners. After graduating Paul began full time swimming and triathlon coaching in Australia and in 2004 launched Swim Smooth.