Triathlon swimming made easy

by Terry Laughlin

  Consider this: Even Ian Thorpe or Alexander Popov, who swim as efficiently as a human can (gliding 25 yards in as few as six or seven freestyle strokes), use — at best — 10 percent of their energy for propulsion. More than 90 percent is consumed by wavemaking and other inefficiencies. What about athletes who take 22 or more strokes per 25-yard length? They may be spending as much as 97 percent of their energy making waves.

  If you're one of the countless triathletes who find swimming exhausting or frustrating, it's a virtual certainty that drag, not your fitness, is to blame. It's drag that limits human-swimming speed to 5 mph or less, while some fish hit 50 mph with seeming ease. Fish are so much faster because evolution has shaped them to minimize drag. Arm-thrashing, leg-churning humans are almost as ideally designed to maximize drag. And no matter how conscientiously you streamline, just the fact that you swim "like a human" still creates a huge amount of water resistance. But a strategy like one that already works well for you in cycling can make a big difference.

  I've enjoyed cycling for about 40 years, and have always had a general understanding that I could ride more easily when I was tucked over the handlebars than when I was "tall in the saddle." But I didn't fully appreciate how powerfully drag could influence cycling speed until I read that relatively little of a cyclist's energy output actually makes the wheels turn; most of it is spent pushing air out of the way. Thus, as every triathlete knows, a great deal of cycling speed can be created simply by lessening air resistance, instead of laboring to build leg power or aerobic conditioning.

  I recall precisely when I realized drag must be an even bigger factor in swimming. In 1978 in Midlothian, Virginia, I began coaching at a pool with an underwater window. The first time I climbed down to watch my team during a set, I was spellbound by a graphic picture that had eluded me all the years I'd watched swimming from above. Watching my swimmers push off the wall, I could see that the tightly streamlined ones traveled a looooong way before they began stroking. They really looked like fish in an aquarium — so long as they were in streamline. The moment they began pulling and kicking, they worked much harder and moved much slower.

  Those who maintained a sleek shape could cover up to eight fast and easy yards before they took their first stroke. Any swimmer not tightly molded into a torpedo shape lost speed so dramatically that they looked exactly as if they'd run into a wall. And they had. To a poorly streamlined body, the water is a wall. I understood, in that instant, that the primary thing limiting how fast my swimmers could go was not the workouts I spent hours devising, but the effect of drag on their bodies. Clearly the most valuable skill to teach was streamlining — not just on the pushoff, but the whole length of the pool.

  This was a logical conclusion, based on the fact that water is over 800 times denser than the "thin" air that costs cyclists such a stunning amount of energy. In a medium as thick as water, the payoff for reducing drag at even the slowest speeds can be enormous. And water gets "thicker" as you go faster: Drag increases exponentially as speed goes up, so the payoff for avoiding drag also increases exponentially the better you avoid it.

  Why Water Is a Wall

  Boats, cars, and planes avoid drag best when they are long, sleek, and tapered. Humans can enjoy a moment or two of that as we push off, but as soon as we begin stroking again, most of us revert to blocky and angular shapes. (Seeing these shapes for the first time on slow-motion underwater video is an incredibly revealing moment for students at TI workshops.) Fast swimmers maintain the most streamlined position as they stroke; slow swimmers do not. This is the most important distinction between them.

  But drag isn't just some general retarding force. There are three distinct forms of drag, which you can avoid better by understanding them. Two can be minimized by changes in technique, one by changing your suit.

  1. Form drag is resistance caused by your human-body shape. As you swim, you push water in front of you, creating an area of higher pressure. Behind you, your body leaves a turbulent swirl, creating an area of lower pressure. Higher pressure in front and lower pressure behind creates a vacuum that, in effect, sucks you back. (That's why drafting off other swimmers — or cyclists — feels so much easier. The low-pressure area trailing the swimmer in front of you sucks you forward.) Form drag increases as the square of your velocity. Thus, twice as fast means four times as much form drag.

  Your body's size and shape determine form drag, and the best way to minimize that drag is to pierce the water or slip through the smallest possible "hole." You do that by staying in a balanced, horizontal position and by making sure any side-to-side movement is rotation — not snaking or fishtailing. TI Coach Emmett Hines puts it succinctly: "If you're perfectly streamlined — as in the pushoff — any motion will increase form drag." That means it's critical, once you begin swimming after the pushoff, to make your propelling actions as smooth and economical as possible. Concentrate, even as you pull and kick, on fitting through the smallest possible hole in the water, and you'll be on the right track.

  And, while swimming freestyle, you're at your sleekest when you spend most of each stroke cycle on your side, particularly in the brief interval between strokes. But doing that requires an impeccable sense of dynamic balance and side balance.

  2. Wave drag. Just like a boat, you leave a wake while swimming. Wave drag is the resistance caused by the waves or turbulence you create. As Hines quips, "Making waves takes energy — all of it supplied by you. "The bigger your wake, the greater your energy loss. Unlike form drag, which increases as the square of velocity, wave drag increases as its cube. So as you double your speed, energy spent on wavemaking increases eightfold.

  The key factor in wave drag is how smoothly you stroke. A rough, choppy, or rushed stroke increases turbulence, and turbulent water increases resistance. That's one of the reasons a long stroke is such an advantage: It lets you use a slower, more controlled turnover at any speed, which in turn means less turbulence, fewer waves — and less drag.

  3. Surface drag is friction between the water and your skin. No technique can change this law of nature, but you can affect how it applies to you by wearing the right suit. Shed your billowy boxers for a skin-tight suit, and just feel the huge difference it makes. Racers, as you probably know, also shave down, and on top of that may don special racing suits of Teflonlike fabrics to reduce surface drag further still. So slippery is the material when compared to skin, that an increasing number of elite (and many subelite) competitors now wear styles that cover more and more of the body. For the rest of us, however, a well-fitting lycra suit will do the trick.

  Tuning in to Drag

  Besides the drag-defeating strategies noted above, the simplest and best strategy for slipping more easily through that wall of water is to pay attention to it. Alexander Popov may be the world's fastest swimmer, but he often practices swimming "super slowly" at speeds where he can feel the resistance trying to hold him back, so he can figure out how to minimize it. Even without Popov's super-sensitive "drag antennae" to pick up signals, there are ways you can heighten your own sensitivity to it:

  First, intentionally create more drag. Push off the wall with your arms wide and head high. Feel the resistance. Then push off in the most streamlined position, and notice how much it's reduced. Use that "awareness training" in your regular swimming to recognize the ways in which the water resists you, and to the stroke changes — such as keeping your head in a neutral position — that enable you to feel less of it.

  Second, use your ears. Tune in to how much noise you make while swimming. Do you splash, plop, or plunk? Sound is energy, and the less of your mechanical energy you convert into noise, the more remains to move you forward. More to the point, anything that results in noisy swimming is evidence of inefficiency. Working on "silent swimming" is one of the best ways to tune in more acutely to how you're flowing through the water, and can help you improve your fluency.

  Third, use your eyes. Are there bubbles in your stroke? Goggles make it easy to te
ll, and marathon swimmer and TI coach Don Walsh uses his to observe one of the most available pieces of "swimming knowledge" you can have about yourself. In fact for a full year of practice, Don thought more about eliminating bubbles than about anything else and credits that focus with helping him complete the 28.5-mile Manhattan Island Marathon in 14,000 fewer strokes than his rivals.

  That number is no figment. Walsh actually calculated it, by having his boat crew monitor his stroke rate and compare it with that of other swimmers. He swam just as fast at 50 strokes per minute as other swimmers did at about 72. That means in the nine hours it took Walsh to swim up the East River and down the Hudson, he took something on the order of 27,000 strokes, while virtually every other swimmer in the race — including many who finished behind him — ended up needing about 41,000! That many strokes would have sent Don halfway around Manhattan again! Viewed another way, he got a "free ride" of almost 14 miles by being so slippery. If you could learn to slip through the water rather than battling it, you'll see far fewer bubbles, and there will be much less turbulence in your wake.

  Note: In 2002, inspired by Don's example, I swam the MIMS with a goal of beating Don's stroke count. I completed the 28.5-mile swim in 8 hours and 53 minutes at an average of 49 strokes per minute - for a total of just over 26,000 strokes. And with the mean stroke count for other MIMS racers between 38,000 and 29,000 strokes, I also saved enough strokes to swim halfway around the island again.

  Finally, imagine your body has a kind of shadow trailing behind you as you swim. Remember: You're creating a wake similar to that of a boat, and though it spreads a bit as it reaches your feet, it doesn't spread much. Consider that wake your shadow, and anything that slips outside it as drag. Your feet, for instance, may be helping you along as you kick, but as soon as they slip outside your "shadow," they increase drag.

  The Choice Is Yours

  You have a choice to make each time you arrive at the pool: Spend your time training hard and long to muscle up your propulsive force and inflate your aerobic capacity, or focus on trimming drag and reducing the energy spent making waves. A trip to any aquarium will show you the smarter path is the path of least resistance.

  Up to this point we've been focusing on good "vessel design," exploring all the ways to stay balanced, long, and sleek. Now that your "hull" is as efficient as it can be, it's time to tune up your engine to run with the same, smart efficiency.

  Chapter 8

  "95-Mph Freestyle" — Effortless Power from the Core

  So far, our strategy for mastering fast, fluent, "fishlike" swimming has focused on minimizing resistance — not on maximizing propulsion. But once you've conquered drag, you can create new efficiencies by learning to tap an effortless power source as you stroke. The good news is that the eliminating skills you learned to minimize drag are the same skills you'll use to maximize propulsion. You just think about them differently and apply them in different ways.

  Over time, all the counterintuitive things you've learned you must do in a concentrated way to be Fishlike — hiding your head, pressing your "buoy," lengthening your vessel — will gradually grow into habits. As they do, you'll be able to shift some of your brainpower to making your propelling actions smooth, controlled, and fluent. The first step is to learn to use your most effortless power source: the core body.

  You'll see the most persuasive argument for that by visiting an aquarium. Watching fish under water makes it clear that the best "engine" for propulsion in a fluid is the core body. Lacking arms and legs, fish can't propel by pulling and kicking; they use rhythmic body undulation or oscillation to move with stunning speed, grace, and ease. Watch from poolside (or on TV) at an elite-level meet and you'll see the world's best swimmers apply the same principle: The torso sets the rhythm and the arms and legs synchronize with it. Then watch lap swimmers at your pool. Most do just the opposite: arms flail, legs churn, and the core body isn't involved or works at cross-purposes.

  So, let's begin a whole-body tune-up of your power train, from the engine (your torso) to the propellers (your hands).

  The Kinetic Chain: Power from the Core

  It's only natural to think of our arms and legs as the "engine" for fast swimming. When we want to go faster, we instinctively work them harder and faster. And when swimmers devote countless yards to pulling with a foam buoy immobilizing their legs, or kicking with arms holding a board, they're reinforcing these instincts in their muscle memory. The shift from arm-dominated to core-based propulsion will take time, patience, persistence, and attention. But I promise the rewards will be more than worth it.

  If you really want to learn to swim like a fish, consider again how fish actually swim. They scoot through the water in a most uncomplicated way, by rhythmically oscillating or undulating the entire body, which produces tail-whip, and off they go. Fishlike propulsion for humans is based on the same principle: core-body rotation for long-axis strokes (freestyle and backstroke), undulation for the short-axis strokes of butterfly and breaststroke.

  In an ideal world it wouldn't be necessary for swimmers to learn hip rotation. Rolling from side to side is already the most natural way for your body to accommodate the alternating-arm action of freestyle. Prove it to yourself by standing in place and moving your arms as if swimming freestyle. Roll your hips and you move freely; keep them immobile and you feel restricted. Because rolling is a natural accommodation, a freestyler must actually expend energy to remain flat (usually by splaying the arms or legs). This isn't usually intentional; swimmers remain flat because they haven't mastered side-lying balance. As soon as they become comfortable with sidelying balance — something not natural or instinctive in most people but which can be learned — they stop fighting themselves and roll more freely.

  Though coaches speak of hip rotation as a way to swim more powerfully, in truth it has an even greater advantage: As I explained in the last chapter, your body slips through the water more easily in the sidelying position. Remember: Techniques that reduce drag are always more beneficial than those that increase power.

  But as you become more slippery by learning the balance that frees your body to roll, you also gain access to an incredibly powerful "engine" for swimming propulsion: the kinetic chain, the same power source that uncorks 95-mph fastballs. A baseball pitcher's power originates in the legs and gradually gets magnified as it travels up the chain for delivery to his pitching arm to uncork a blistering fastball.

  The world's best swimmers know this instinctively. While inefficient swimmers use arms and shoulders to do most of the work, Olympic swimmers get their power in the torso and use their arms and shoulders mainly to transmit this force to the water. Great technique can be a great equalizer: Mastery of the kinetic chain is what allows Tiger Woods, for example, to drive a golf ball farther than rivals who are bigger and stronger. It also provides the power for nearly any kind of hitting or throwing motion.

  The kinetic chain is not a complicated concept. In fact, you probably learned naturally to use it, many years ago, on a playground swing. I hazily recall starting with vigorous leg kicking, which just made the swing shake a bit, but certainly not soar. But I can vividly recall how satisfying it was when I began to figure it out and experienced, for the first time, the effect of engaging every muscle in finely timed, coordinated action. If I leaned forward slightly, the swing would move back a little. As gravity pulled it down again, I helped it along by leaning back. Each time gravity reversed me, I added enough leverage to make it go a little farther. And farther, and farther.

  The most thrilling moment was when I reached the apogee of the backward swing, having figured out how to put all my muscle and mass into a perfectly linked series of arcs. The simple desire to go higher and faster taught me to pull on the chain with my hands and tighten my stomach muscles to link the tension of my backward-pulling arms to the stretching toes of my forward-straining legs, adding my power to the accelerating force of gravity. This skill, simple enough to be learned by any child, produced
a breathtakingly powerful swoop through space, with such marvelous efficiency that I could continue endlessly without tiring. Engaging the kinetic chain, when you get it right, can be an addictive experience. It's no less so for your swimming, when you learn to use it fully.

  Effortless power for fishlike swimming is produced in much the same way. Energy for the most powerful movements ripples through our bodies like a cracked whip until it finally arrives at its release point. In freestyle and backstroke, body rotation provides a big chunk of the power — as it does when we throw a rock, a javelin, or a karate blow. In all these cases, the legs and hips power the torso, which in turn drives the arm. In the body undulation of butterfly and breaststroke, the arms are powered simultaneously by a "force coupler" in which core muscles link hips and shoulders in the same way as when you're doing a pullup, double-poling on skis...or soaring on a playground swing.

  And linking your effort to the force of gravity, as you do on a playground swing, also works extremely well when swimming freestyle. The rhythmic body rolling, which sends power to your stroke, is aided by the same kind of gravity-assisted weight shifts you use in cross-country skiing and in-line skating. These weight shifts, triggered by the timing of Front-Quadrant Swimming, are fairly easy to learn by diligently practicing the "Switch" drills in the TI learning sequence. Here are the steps you can follow to link the engine of the Kinetic Chain to your stroke: