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The Self-Coached Swimmer: TRAINING FOR OPEN WATER

Posted on: Friday, 15 July 2005, 03:00 CDT

With summer comes warm weather, and with warm weather come numerous opportunities for open water swimming.

At first glance, open water swims can play on our insecurities:

* You're swimming in the ocean? Perhaps every time you rotate your head into the water after taking a breath you're looking for sharks!

* How about lakes, ponds and nvers? They can conjure up images of snapping turtles, snakes or something like the Loch Ness monster... maybe even an infectious little bug!

Fear not. The water is a much safer place to be than riding a bike along Route 1A or running down Main Street. Land sharks are far deadlier.

If you are a competent pool swimmer, open water should pose no special challenge...except, perhaps, the challenge of overcoming your inhibitions.

In open water swimming, it may be a little harder to navigate, but that is easily fixed: stop every once in a while and look around.

How about swimming in a straight line? Why worry? You are doing this for fun and exercise, anyway.

Is the water choppy? No problem. Simply breathe to the side away from the wind.

However, there is one thing you should never do: never swim alone. Make sure you are accompanied by another swimmer or a spotter in a boat. Also, it doesn't hurt to wear a bright colored cap.

HOW TO PREPARE FOR AN OPEN WATER SWIM

Your normal interval training in the pool should be adequate for building your cardiovascular conditioning for an open water swim, but there are other things you can do to prepare for such an event.

Since there aren't any black lines on the bottom of a pond or ocean, you'll first need to practice swimming straight. Balancing your stroke is the key. Try swimming 25 yards (in a pool) with your eyes closed. You will notice you tend to drift to one side-usually the side you breathe on. Then you will tend to overcompensate. This is natural.

Learn to balance your stroke until you can swim the entire length of the pool with your eyes closed and stay in the middle of the lane. (Hint: you can open your eyes at the end of the lane.)

Also, you will not be able to do your flip turn every 18 strokes. To learn to stay horizontal, try using a rubber stretch cord with one end strapped around your waist and the other end fastened to the starting block.

As you swim down the lane, the stretch cord will provide increasing resistance. Your job is to swim far enough so that the cord provides enough resistance for you to swim in place. Now you can practice swimming continuously. Swim in place for 5-10-minute intervals.

Lastly, you may tend to lose your feeling of speed in open water swimming. If you get caught in this trap, a normal reaction may be to try to swim faster.

If so, watch out! You are probably swimming pretty fast already, and you do not want to bum out. Keep the nice, smooth rhythm you practiced with the stretch cord.

SAMPLE WORKOUT in preparation for an open water swim

WARM-UP

* 1,000 free pull

SWIM

* 6 x 25 free on 1:00 with your eyes closed

* 15 x 100 free on 1:30/2:00

(Try one length of each 100 with your eyes closed.)

* Swim in place for 3 x 5-minute sets with a stretch cord

(Do not overexert yourself. Swim hard enough to maintain a slight tension on the cord. Rest in between sets for 2 minutes. Or, if you do not have a stretch cord, swim for 15 minutes non-stop.)

When swimming open water races, never swim alone. Make sure you are accompanied by another swimmer or a spotter in a boat. Also, it doesn't hurt to wear a bright-colored cap.

David Grilli is a "player/coach" of a group of Masters swimmers in Londonderry, N.H. He is also the head coach of the RAYS age group swim team. He's been coaching for over 10 years and is ASCA- certified.

Copyright Sports Publications, Inc. Jul 2005

Source: Swimming World and Junior Swimmer

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