Off-season swim plan

In my last post, I talked about the swim video I got so I could analyze my form and figure out some areas to focus on in the off-season.  I identified 3 things I want to focus on:  not over-rotating, improving my catch and improving my kick.

Identifying problems is one thing.  Fixing them is another.  To start, I broke my training into three phases...

Phase 1 - Form phase.  This is about 2 months long and the focus is form.  All short repeats (less than 200 yards) with longer rest periods.  Lots of kicking.

Phase 2 - Base phase.  About 3 months.  Higher volume, less form work but still working on form.  Repeats will be a little longer, but still mostly short intervals.  Rest intervals will tighten a bit. Not as much kicking.  

Phase 3 - Race specific phase.  This goes through the race season.  Trying to maintain gains made in phases 1 and 2 but lowering volume to increase bike/run volume.  Maintaining speed but adding in more endurance work and some longer repeats and open water work.  Rest intervals tighten up a bit more.

I also bought a few new swim toys to help me work on form....

 Ameo Powerbreather Snorkel.  I've read about the benefits of training with a snorkel many times - mainly, by eliminating the need to turn your head to breathe, you can focus on other aspects of your stroke  like the catch, symmetry, body roll, head position, etc.  I bought a center-mount snorkel a few years ago but didn't like it so I never used it.  Slowtwitch wrote about the Powerbreather recently and it sounded like an improvement over the center-mount snorkel so I ordered one.  They're also good for kick sets.  I'll be using this a lot in phase 1 as I work on form then I'll use it mainly in my warm up and cool down to continue working on form.

 Finis Alignment Kickboard.  No more kick sets with my head above the water practicing bad body position.  This board forces you into a streamlined position so you're kicking with good form.  It works best if you have a snorkel so you don't have to lift your head to breathe.  This will get a lot of use in phase 1 as I focus on my kick.

Fins.  To work on ankle flexibility and strengthening my kick.

Finis Tempo Trainer.  I love this thing.  I use it for pacing and stroke rate sets.  I probably won't use this until phase 2 and definitely in phase 3.  










So those are my training phases and the swim toys/aids I'll be using.  I plan on getting video a few times if possible to make sure I'm making progress with the form work.  I'm also thinking about signing up for a few masters swim meets this winter for motivation.  

To test my progress I'll be doing the occasional 1000 yard time trial.  I've done those in the past, so I have prior times to compare.

I started my swim phase with video last week and then a few days working on form with the snorkel and kick board.  A few days ago I did my first 1000 yard time trial to set my bench mark.  I surprised myself by swimming it in 13:17, which is a 2 second PR.  I was expecting something closer to 13:40 - 13:50.  It's a good surprise, but it makes me wonder.  Did I improve already?  If not, why have I been swimming some of my slowest open water times in years this season if I'm capable of a 1000 yard PR?  

I suppose it doesn't matter.  All I can do now is focus on improving my swim in the pool and then try to make that speed transfer to the open water next year, which has been a challenge for me in prior years.   

Swimming: Suck Less in '17

If you want to improve your swim, get some video.  Seriously.  The last time I got video was late 2011 when I did a swim focus that off-season. That was the last time I made progress in my swim.  It's actually gone backwards a bit the past couple of seasons.

To start my off-season, Courtney went to the pool with me to get some video with the GoPro.  My plan was to analyze the video using Kinovea (great, free software for analyzing video, measuring angles, going frame by frame, etc.) and find two or three big form flaws to work on.  I don't want to try and work on too many things at once.  

2016 on the left.  2011 on the right.  My left arm has improved, but still a lot of work to do.

 I watched a great webinar from USA Swimming on rotation so that was on my mind when analyzing the video.  I over-rotate, especially when I turn to my right to breathe.  I'm not as bad as I used to be - I used to rotate almost completely on my side - but I'm still over-rotating.  I'm starting my pull with my left arm too soon and I'm rotated too much.  Then when I rotate back to my stomach, my arm is pulling under my body, which is not an effective pull.  You can see it very clearly on the right image above from 2011.  The one on the left is from 2016.  It's better, but I'm still missing out on a lot of my pull by over-rotating. My hand should be below my shoulder like the image below. 

An image from the webinar showing good rotation.

   Above is an image from the webinar showing good rotation (about 30-35 degrees) and a good catch.

Me.  Rotating too much.  Arm is too deep.  Not a good bend in elbow.

 This is me.  I'm rotated too much, about 60 degrees.  Because of that, I can't get my arm in the same position as the pic above.  I don't have shoulder flexibility like that (who does?).  My arm is too deep and my catch isn't very effective....and this is my right arm, my good arm. 

Another shot from the webinar.

 Above is a shot from the webinar showing a bad catch on the left and a good catch on the right.  I'm much closer to the image on the left.  The good news is that those images are of the same person 6 months apart.  There's hope.

So that's 2 things:  rotation and catch.  The third thing I found that I want to address is my kick.  It's actually come a long way since I started, but I still have some work to do.

Look at my left leg.  That's a lot of drag.

 Your kick is supposed to be tight. You shouldn't bend your knee that much.  I'm creating a ton of drag doing that.  I suspect it might be related to my over-rotation.  I think I'm kicking my leg out to the side for balance, so if I can minimize my rotation I think my kick may start improving as well.

So those are the three big things I've decided to work on immediately. I'm not going to worry about any other form flaws until I improve those three things.  I think, if I can improve those, I'll make some good progress.

It's one thing to find issues.  It's another to address and fix them.  In my next post I'll go over my plan to make improvements and my new swim toys I think might help.

Starting to plan my off-season

I'm still working on my race schedule and goals for 2017, but in the meantime I've been working on my off-season plan.  2017 will be my 10th year in triathlon.  I'd like it to be a good one, so I need a good plan for the off-season to address my limiters and take care of the things I feel have been holding me back...

Swimming

My swim was never strong, but it has gotten worse since my back injury.  I'm not sure what the deal is exactly, but I think a lot of it has to do with my left leg (that's the one that was numb for several months when I was injured).  That calf still cramps when I swim and I think that leg has a really weak kick right now and I suspect I'm not pointing my toes on that leg so that foot is creating drag. 

Other than calf cramps, I'm tired of giving up big chunks of time in the swim and playing catch up the rest of the race.  It's time to make some improvements.

Weights

This is mostly related to my injury, but also I think hitting the weight room this year will be good for me.  I think my back injury created some big imbalances that I need to address.  My plan is to do some light lifting to build a bit of a foundation and then do an 8-week block of heavy lifting to build strength.  Then I want to dial it back to a maintenance routine that I'll continue through 2017. I also plan on working in some plyometrics and speed and agility drills. I think those will be a good change of pace, and that stuff can be fun. Also, core work will be a big part of my weights routine.

Diet

My diet has gotten worse over the past few years.  I've gotten lazy and have lost a lot of the variety I used to have in my diet, and Ironman training has never been good for my diet.  I want to clean up my diet, cut out the sugar, add more variety and then see if I can keep that going throughout the season next year.  This will be the toughest change for me to make. 

Running

Running hard after my injury caused issues so I haven't done much intensity the past two seasons.  I think I've gotten to a point where I can handle higher intensity, and making sure I can handle more intensity will be a huge focus for me in the off-season.  I want to do track workouts again, run 5Ks, etc.  I'm thinking about doing a block of 5Ks this fall and maybe doing some indoor track workouts over the winter like I did several years ago.  I set a goal of breaking 30 minutes at Crazylegs back in 2008.  The closest I've come is 30:36 in 2013 so I'd really like to focus on that and see if I can finally check off that goal. 

Yoga

I felt like yoga helped me a lot last year so I want to get back into it and hopefully continue doing some yoga throughout the season next year. 


Cycling

Last on the list because it won't be a focus this off-season.  I'm going to back off for a while and focus on other things.  That's a risk because it's my strength, but I'm banking on it coming back quickly.  I'd still like to improve my threshold a bit for next season, but I have more to gain in the pool and on the run so I'm going to focus on that for a while.  I've never felt like a very complete triathlete with my bike usually ranking much higher than my swim and run so for my 10th year in the sport I'd like to finally become a more complete triathlete.


So those are the general things I want to work on.  Now I need to spend some time figuring out my plan, and then I need to execute that plan.  It's one thing to say I want to improve my swim (or whatever), it's another to actually pull it off.  To do that, I need to have a plan.  I'll post more details once I get them figured out.