Swim skill development · EnduranceworX

Swim skill development

A visit to the local pool can often make us wonder when we see someone effortlessly gliding up and down the lane. How do they do that?

Chances are that swimmer was a competitive swimmer as a child, but not always. Beth Potter advised me a few years ago not to waste my time trying to build swim improvement into the Tri Club juniors - just get them to join a swim club. Thankfully I ignored her and we have just had 2 more of our youngsters make the national squad - neither of whom have ever been at a swim club. Two youngsters swimming 1:50/100 now down to the 1:15/100 level. This, I think, is significant as over the last 5 years all of the other 8 that made the national squad all swam in clubs.

Before I go on, there is no special sauce or magic bullet just the simple art of aquiring skill through purposeful, repetitive practice.

In 1993 Swedish psycholgist Anders Ericsson conducted a study on elite violinists and found that each of them had accumulated around 10000 hours of practice by the time they were 20. The 10k rule was popularised in Malcolm Gladwells book ' Outliers' and he drew on examples from sport and other activities such as chess to further show the benefits of not just practice but purposeful, deliberate practice.

Young swim club swimmers then lets say from age 8 start swmming. Typically they swim 5 or 6 days a week, often dong double days. That equates to 20-25k of swimming a week or say 8 hours of actual swim time. 50 weeks of the year by the time they are 18 years old that comes to only 4000 hours!

As adults looking to improve to that level which is club level, not elite then to accumulate 4000 hours would take far longer than 10 years. Let's use me as a relatable example. I had never swam more than a length of a pool at any speed until I was 27. That feeling of exhaustion reaching the wall spent and out of breath after a single length, oh yes its etched in the memory.

So what do we have to do to aquire higher skill levels? Practice on its own won't cut it as typically we have no idea what it is we are supposed to practice. We have to learn first what to practice then go do that purposefully. Practice on it's own doesn't make perfect - it makes permanent.

You can nowadays use lots of resources to 'see' what you should be doing but its far more effective to get someone to show you. Triathletes typically are kinesthetic learners so you need to understand the mechanics then go practice moving in the 'right' or effective way. It's superbly frustrating!

The most common thing though is people somehow think they can improve by doing very little. My fav question is always how often do you swim? Ask yourself and answer honestly. On average over the course of a year its probably once or twice a week. Lets be charitable and say its twice - in the pool for 60mins and swimming maybe 40 of those minutes and potentially some of them thoughtlessly. So again charitably, 80 mins of purposeful practice. 66 hours annually.

The recipe then and being a bit practical about it - is a minimum, yes minimum of 3 swims a week where you are focused on improving your mechanics - consistently.

If you can't or won't do that - the chances of you being a substantially better swimmer are almost nil. Let me close with an example of someone who has put this into practice over 3 years.

@Beppo Buchanan-Smith

has regular (normally monthly) 121 sessions and swims 3 or 4 times almost every week. I looked back - first recorded TP session was at 2:44/100. First CSS test 2:24/100. He has worked at it and his pace has indeed improved, typically knocking out 3k sets with an average 1:45 to 1:50. On friday we saw a 3 in the number for the first time averaged over the full set.

Not an overnight success but 3 years of consistent, purposeful, thoughtful practice.

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Swim skill development