I wanted to ‘fix’ my stroke. I was having shoulder pain when I swam, and I wanted to make it go away.
However, it is not a break-fix proposition.
If you aren’t making the intervals that you used to or can’t swim as far as you want, or have pain, it has considerably less to do with being ‘broken’ and much more to do with a lack of adherence to the process of continuous improvement.
This can be hard to accept. It was for me. I wanted my stroke to be ‘fixed’ so that I could be ‘done’ and go back to what was familiar.
But there is no ‘done’ in the process of continuous improvement. And what’s familiar may not be serving you.
The SwimMastery Way exposes the spiral of learning. You are where you are, and there is nowhere to go but up!
Is what someone said to me this morning at the pool when I mentioned that I want to get better and that’s why I take notes in my notebook.
I started when I was young as well, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have room for improvement!
Everyone has room for improvement.
What’s your goal?
If your goal is to swim everyday because it feels good to be in the water, then great!
If your goal is to swim your first 400 meters, your first 1500 meters, or your first 10 kilometers, or even your first channel crossing, I recommend engaging in the process of continuous improvement.
If the answer is, “no,” keep doing what you’re doing.
If the answer is, “yes,” continue reading.
“How do I improve,” you ask?
Learn how to learn.
With accountability and focus, you can improve at anything. Washing dishes. Folding sheets. Making bread. Playing an instrument. Learning to sew. Knit. Tie knots. Shoot basketballs. Do yoga. Speak another language. Change a tire. Hit a baseball. Run. To name a few.
And yes, swimming. Your swimming will improve with accountability and focus.
Am I propelling myself forward in every stroke? Or am I going side to side? Or up and down?
What is the purpose of this piece of equipment? What will happen to my body in the water when I don’t have it anymore? Does it inform my swimming? Or do I have to relearn my body in the water without it?
What do you measure to gauge progress in swimming?
If you beat the send off times for the set that you did yesterday, do you know how you beat them?
If you swim further than you did last week, do you know why?
Measuring the wrong thing can give a false sense of progress. Just because you swam further than you did last week or faster than you did yesterday, can you reliably repeat your performance?
Other than waking up and going to sleep each day, there isn’t much that I do consistently. However, since learning The SwimMastery Way, I have become obsessed with the idea of habits.
Especially motor habits and how they contribute to making progress in the water.
Swimming is unique in that it is a lifesaving skill. Tuning into each shape that you make with your body presumes that you have calmed your nervous system (which may be telling you to hurry and get out of this medium in which you cannot survive). Even if you are comfortable in the water, do you find yourself racing to the other side?
It is what happens in each stroke that matters.
But if you take your attention to your hand or your feet, or what your head is doing, you lose track of the whole body. It is the whole body that we want to lever over top of the water.
It sounds simple because it is. Once you understand the motor habits that you need to develop to lever yourself over the top of the water, you can do so across any body of water, anywhere in the world.
The other day I was at one of our beautiful mountain lakes in the Cascade range of Southern Oregon. Towering over the water with remnants of winter spotting it’s back, the view of nearby volcano, Mount McLoughlin, takes my breath away.
I welcome the crisp, clear water here at Lake of the Woods, a natural lake, versus the reservoir where we usually swim. Amid the pandemic year with all of my swims cancelled, I savor my once a week lake swims rather than push distance or duration. Sometimes I time a shorter swim, but I often feel aimless and let someone else set a course. On this beautiful morning in this beautiful place we set out to swim with no firm goal in mind. After about 1500M we find ourselves floating and chatting, interrupting the morning quiet. I feel calm, connected, so incredibly grateful.
After our swim-float-chat I decide to inflate my SUP and play around above the water with a second group of swimmers. Once I haul the inflated board lakeside I realize that I’ve forgotten one important piece of equipment — the paddle. For a minute I ponder leaving the board onshore and setting out for another swim, then it hits me: I actually have two built in paddles, one on each side!
I knew I wouldn’t be catching any waves, but today I would paddle like a surfer. At first I struggle to keep up with the swimmers and I reconsider doing what I know — swimming! Then I decide to play with my paddles. Instead of just my hands, what if I engage the whole surface area from my elbow to the tips of my fingers? I start making better progress.
I caught up with a few of the swimmers and glide past as I keep my elbows high and engage the water with each paddle stroke. Flying across the surface of the water, I realize that being on an inflatable board was like having the best posture imaginable! My paddles easily lever the board over the water.
I often see swimmers drop their elbow and sweep their hand close to the body, petting rather than engaging the water — and who can blame them, this is an easier path!
Note where force is being placed on the water in the top picture versus the bottom picture.
Practice bending your elbow as soon as you can, and pushing as much water as you can, behind you. Use the entire length from your elbow to your finger tips as your paddle. Keep your elbows up to lever yourself over the water. Swim aware; notice if you drop your elbow and ‘pet’ the water.
I invite you to try paddling while laying on a board if you have, or can borrow, one. It doesn’t allow you to sweep under your body and gives you a great opportunity to practice keeping your elbows up!
With all of my work and personal events getting tossed this year, and 3 months of social isolation with a 3 and 5 year old under my belt, I’ve gone through several rounds of mentally coming to grips with: what do I do now?
With regard to my swimming, most recently I’ve settled on speed work. Since I’m not building distance for any specific event, I’ve decided to let go of my one long training swim a week and focus my swim time on maintaining efficient form as I increase speed. A mantra that I developed to translate efficiency to speed is “reach with your hip”. It sounds funny, but it brings awareness to exactly the the right place. Think about “reaching with your hip” to drive yourself forward with each stroke!
A week ago I put this mantra to work timing myself for an 800 and a 1500 as part of the Open Water Virtual Grand Slam. These are distances that I haven’t timed myself at in years! And I had fun trying to increase my tempo and “reach with my hip”.
Mind you, part of my love of marathon swimming is not swimming fast so much as looooong. Both long in distance and long in stroke. But it has been interesting to experiment with ways to dial in different speeds and try to maintain efficiency. I like to use the analogy of having tools in your tool belt. Anything can happen during a marathon swim; it pays to stock up on tools.
How much do you “go through the motions” when you swim? Do you incorporate drills into your practice? Lately, I’ve decided to focus more on awareness and less on drills. The goal of drills is simply to isolate parts of your stroke and focus on what you’re doing. If you don’t want to take the time to slow down and actually focus, then there’s no point to doing drills. But you can easily tune in your awareness. No matter if you’re warming up, cooling down, pacing off your swim buddy, or sprinting. Swim aware. To better understand where to tune your awareness and how you can facilitate that with drills, try my self paced, virtual Efficient Swimming Basics course.
Are you new to distance swimming and wondering how train? Unlike pool swimming where training often involves swimming many times the length of your event, in marathon swimming, training focuses on cumulative yards over the course of a week. When I prepare clients for marathon swims, we focus on efficiency and incorporating tests of endurance into our training plan. Part of my Quickstart for Marathon Swimming program covers Efficient Swimming Basics to improve efficiency, as well as how to create a training plan to build distance over time, plus tips on mental preparedness.
Is your events calendar sparse this year? Since we can’t get together at the waters edge, join us for the Build to Marathon Virtual Open Water Swim Series to simulate marathon training by building from 2.5K to 10K. Together we can encourage each other to push a little distance and virtually share your local waters through the Facebook group. If you’re a seasoned marathon swimming, recruit someone who’s marathon intrigued and you’ll be entered in a special raffle!
We’re all in a Marathon now! With no end to the pandemic in sight, you may need some inspiration from people who make a habit of testing their ability to endure. Subscribe to Marathon Swim Stories on your favorite podcast provider or watch us on YouTube!
If you’d like to participate in an open conversation about inclusion in marathon swimming, we will be facilitating a discussion on Friday, July 10 at 3PM Pacific/6PM Eastern. We will provide topics to ponder and small groups to discuss them in with the hopes that we can identify some of our own blind spots when in comes to inclusion. The conversations will not be recorded. Email me for details.
Another beautiful morning at Emigrant Lake in Southern Oregon
I’m not going to tell you how to workout during isolation. I’m not even going to suggest that you have to! What I am going to tell you is that it’s going to be okay. Even when you could, you didn’t have to swim everyday. You didn’t even have to swim more than a few times a week. And in fact, you can have a huge break from swimming and still come back and do awesome things.
I’ve started and stopped swimming more times than I can count. Between schizophrenic interests, lack of access to water, demanding careers, and pregnancies, swimming has alternately been my primary focus and deep in the back pocket of my life: Swim, take a break. Swim for awhile, take a long break. Swim again. Take a longer break. Swim. So I consider myself somewhat of an expert on coming back from extended breaks from swimming.
Over a decade ago, I got back into swimming after years of wavering interest and fell fast in love with open water swimming. Then quickly caught the marathon swimming bug. Shortly after which, I got pregnant; once, twice, three times – and had a kid! Then another! Out of necessity, I adopted a minimalist training program that allowed me to be a big part of my children’s lives and still do enough training to complete several marathon swims each season. In the off season, I focus much more on my people than my swimming; requiring a welcomed swimming restart just after the new year.
Overcoming adversity is as much a part of being an athlete as training; we’ll get through this.
I swam through pregnancy, but with negligible intensity. After birthing, I had to take 6-8 weeks off at which point I still had a tiny helpless baby, so I could only do so much before I was consumed with guilt and/or completely engorged with milk. Suffice to say, after having a kid, I swam when I could, and sometimes I just couldn’t.
I’ve done it before, so I know I can do it again. You can too; you will get through this. We will get through this!
In 2017, I ruptured my ear drum a month prior to my scheduled crossing of lake Memphremagog – the doctor said I could do anything that I wanted… except put my head underwater. No swimming. None whatsoever. I went on, not to finish, but to swim 8 miles. That’s right, 8! With no time in the water or a stroke to speak of for a whole month. Do you know why I got out? It wasn’t because I was gasping, tired, and out of shape, it was because I was cold, uncomfortable, and felt like I was being a horrible mom leaving my extremely demanding one year old with a friend.
During this unprecedented time, challenge yourself to be with yourself; with your people. Sit, be still. Consider what’s going on here. Make things from scratch. Write letters. Consider your impact on the land. Sit on your porch. Wave to your neighbor. Learn something new!
Try being a kid again! Play, read books, color, paint, draw, explore, learn, dance, experiment, live each day to the fullest.
I’d love to say that I’ll get on the horse and finally do the dry land training that I’ve always intended. But the truth is, I’ll write my feelings in blog posts, play LEGOs, color, draw, and paint with my kids. I’ll dabble in dry land, when my kids and time allow. Get in walks, scooter, and bike rides around the neighborhood. Experiment and try things in the kitchen that I haven’t done in years. And devise and overhaul various schedules and routines that keep everyone in my family happy.
Any amount of dry land training that you can do, is great. But taking a break for a bit won’t hurt.
Until then, connect with us for Virtual “Swim” Practice on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 5:30 AM Pacific. We’ll talk about what’s on our mind, how we’re dealing with the situation, and maybe even visualize ourselves swimming! If you’re interested in an evening (PDT) Virtual “Swim” Practice, let me know!
