It has been years since I have been swimming in a pool and I went for the first time on monday!

A friend of mine has asked me to enter a 400m open water relay race with her (400m each person) . I did the 400m in the pool in roughly 9 mins. This is slower than average right?

I am trying to work on a smooth stroke and getting used to breathing every 3rd stroke left and right....

What time shall I am for?! It's gonna be open water anyway though so bound to be slower? Will be in a calm sea...pretty much no waves at all apparently.

excited and nervous at the same time!! I have a small fear of the sea... no waves is ok though I think...

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Hi Jo

9 mins for 400m isn’t too bad at all. Maybe you should look at getting it down to minus 8 mins (-2 mins per 100m). I wouldn’t bother too much about the bi lateral breathing (every 3rd stroke) technique. At this stage of your swimming you will need all the air you can get, so every 2nd stroke on your most comfortable side should do. However, practising a few strokes frontcrawl with your head up out of the water would be useful. You can get some extra air, look around you and sight your destination.

As the swim is 400m, train for that distance; be sure to throw in some 100m sprint sets. Don’t be tempted just to swim as far as you can each session break it down to useful sets. Maybe one session each week you could look to doing a longer slow swim concentrating on your stroke technique.

If you want to swim smooth the Total Immersion method may be useful

Welcome to Total Immersion

Swimming Teaching and Coaching from Total Immersion - Swimming Instruction UK

Good luck and keep us posted on your times

Thank you Zanshin! I shall try some 100m srpint sets next time and see how that goes. I'll have a peep at those links too, thank you

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9mins is fine.

i'm a TI convert too but it has taken several months of focus and drills to improve my stroke by that rather deconstructionist method.

i suspect in the short term, more training for distance endurance and having a think about weaknesses in your stroke and how to improve them would have the most benefit.

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Can't agree with this, distance endurance isn't going to give you speed on a 400m swim. to many swimmers 400m is short/middle distance and can be classed as a sprint! you wouldn't train marathon distances for a 10k race. long swims do have their place but not in the short term.

for sprint endurance try swimming 10x100m going every 2 mins 30 seconds or to start with every 3 mins. so if you swim the 100m in say 2:10 you get 50 secs rest then swim the distance again. you would be going off on 0 mins, 3 mins, 6, mins, 9 mins.........

How long have you before the event? if you don't have long don't try and change your stroke too much. You obviously have a decent enough stroke to do the 400m in 9 mins. If you want to carry on with your swimming and improve then stroke work is a must.

I swim TI (front quadrant) method for long swims but for sprints i revert to a fast arm turnover and, for short sprints 50 to 100m, a 6 beat leg kick.

this was based on the comment the opening line being:

if she can do 9mins from scratch with no specific training, just swimming regularly is likely to see the time come down.

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all the more reason to concentrate on shorter distances than longer endurance swims. You will appreciate, being a swimmer yourself, it takes time to build up to a level of swimming fitness and competence to swim long swims. It would seem that Jo's natural swimming ability is very good and, I do agree with you, that any swimming will bring her times down. However, with time constraints it is better to train smart for the event.

I do agree with you on the TI's deconstructive needs when learning the front quadrant method. I don't know about you but I found all the drills quite frustrating and gave up on them after a few swims. I prefered to learn it as a full body thing

I believe Jo's swim is on Friday (12th)

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of what month ?

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total thread diversion then...

yup as an engineer i very quickly understood and bought into the mechanics of TI (for example my training partner just cant get her head around correct kick timing with rotation, but for me its intuitive mechanics)... actually being able to adapt to the theory is another ball game!

we used swimshack in loughborough with an endless pool, some of the analysis and details seen with the various camera angles threw up issues i am fairly sure would never get spotted by a poolside coach.

the drills can be frustrating but eventually fit together as a progressive development to full stroke.

anyway, enough rambling... ive got to go for a swim.

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Thanks Rich!! the number was right but the month and day are diffferent! July the 12th which would make it a Sunday! So I have 1 month. .. I also have a lot of runing to get in for a 50k trail race on July 5th LOL!!!

Actually I have a race every weekend starting from June 21st

June 21st = 20k hilly run
June 28th = up and down a mountain run (and walk on the steep bits haha) 10k...but very steep and very tiring!
July 5th = 50k trail
July 12th = 400m swim!!
July 19th = half marathon - but a fun one, going in costume and get to drink wine in the race too hehe!

hmmmm... over doing it a bit???


Thank you for the tips!

I'm not too familiar with the TI method...what exactly does TI stand for? lol

I suppose as 400m is a short distance so I will concentrate on 100m sprints and getting an effeicient stroke. I will try bilateral breathing (just cos I like the thought of being able to do it) and also try breathiing every 2nd stroke and see the time difference.

Zanshin, when you do 400m do you breathe bilaterally because you are used to it or do you change to every other stroke on one side?

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Hi Jo

TI = Total Immersion = the links I posted.

I've never got on with bilateral breathing I breath every 2nd stroke. However. on a short sprint e.g. 25 meters I might only take one breath. if you can master BL breathing it would be to your advantage; especially in open water swims.

interestingly my TI coach doesn't advocate bilateral..... the ability to breath to either side as desired (handy for open water.. sighting.. avoiding waves) yes but not bilateral persay.

breathing every 2 allowing more breaths.. more oxygen.
in TI theory (i think!) breathing shouldn't unbalance your stroke at all so it shouldn't matter when you do it.

he also claims that barely any of the pros at the olympics were doing bilateral in the pool.... im sure there were some extra qualifiers as to which distances but can't remember!

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You told me 12th June! I thought that was a little close to be asking about training etc for!

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www.richardsimkiss.co.uk
'The minimum requirement to achieve something is to believe that it's possible'

Many swimmers think you need to breath BL to balance the stroke. However, like you say, a good TI stroke is well balanced and breathing on either side shouldn't unbalance it.

I breath every 2 'cause I neeeeed oxygen