Improving Freestyle by Practicing Other Strokes
A lot of swimmers believe that the only way to improve in the freestyle is by practicing freestyle. What they’re forgetting is that swimming is very much a technique sport, and a matter of getting comfortable and relaxed in the water.
By practicing strokes other than the freestyle you’ll improve your confidence in the water as well as become more buoyant and efficient.
In this post I’ll discuss some of the best strokes to improve your times in the freestyle as well as point some things out you can be conscious of that will help you isolate and correct weak points.
First off, when performing any stroke, you want to be conscious of how the water’s hitting your body. It takes practice but if you bring it into your field of consciousness you can actually feel the different spots on your body the water is pressing against. Of course, in order to glide through the water as fast as possible you want to have as little pressure points as possible. So by practicing the freestyle and other strokes with this in mind you can begin to fine tune your stroke mechanics until you have little to no spots where you feel pressure being exerted from the water.
A great stroke that helps swimmers get really comfortable in the water, which is fairly low intensity, is the breaststroke. Here you’re not going for speed, going fast isn’t going to improve your freestyle. What you want to do is try and streamline and glide through the water with very little splash or movement.
Once you’ve gone through the stroke, and kicked and resubmerged your head, you want to work on lengthening your body and shooting through the water like a torpedo. Staying long in the water will cause you to float higher and thus create less resistance. The best swimmers in the world are able to stretch their body out as long as they possibly can, and this results in utilizing less energy to propel themselves further.
Another great stoke to work on buoyancy is the back stroke. What you want to be conscious of here is keeping your stomach and hips high up in the water. It takes practice but when you’re doing it properly you’ll literally feel your torso float upwards about an inch or two. This same principal can be utilized in the freestyle. It’s a lot harder with the freestyle though because your face is submerged most of the time, but if you practice it with the backstroke it’s a lot easier to duplicate in the opposite position.
Biomedical Research Labortories market scientifically based nutritional supplements for endurance athletes including supplements for cyclists, runners, triathletes, and mixed martial arts. Visit http://www.epoboost.com to learn more about how EPO-Boost can increase VO2 max, running economy and endurance.
Patent pending EPO-BOOST ingredients have been shown to increase VO2 max and running economy in college athletes.
Increasing Arm Efficiency in Swimming in a Triathlon
Swimming is said to be a technique sport, much like golf or tennis. Often times the biggest and strongest swimmer is not the one to win the race, it’s the person who has the best technique. With any stroke, but especially front crawl, if you can combine strength with proper form you will surely be a force to be reckoned with.
It may come as a surprise to hear that there are a few common errors that many athletes new to the sport, and even some who have been swimming for a long time, fall victim to. In this post we will discuss some errors people commonly make with their arms, and what you can do to correct them.
Overreaching
1. The most common error is overreaching. You see swimmers young and old bring their hands way out directly in front of their head, basically the 12 position on a clock. This is extremely inefficient and causes you to bob up and down in the water as well as puts you in an incorrect position to start the next as aspect of the stroke. The proper hand placement is at 1 and 11, or if you were to draw a line straight out from each of your shoulders your arms should enter somewhere on that.
Overextending
Very similar to overreaching, but no less common, is overextending. For some reason swimmers think that if they reach out as far as they can it will make them a faster swimmer. This is somewhat true but what people often forget is that you do not want to do all of the reaching in the air.
A proper entry position is about midway between your shoulder and your fully extended arm. From there your hand enters the water and then you extend the rest of the way about 5 inches under the surface. The reason you do not want to do all of the reaching above the water is because it causes your front half to drop and creates a lot of up and down motion, which is extremely inefficient.
These two techniques are a great place to start fine tuning your swim. If you consciously work on these each time you swim you will find your times getting faster but with less effort. Work on these for a few weeks and then check back here again for another set of pointers that will knock off even more time.
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DS Carroll is a consultant for Biomedical Research Laboratories. Biomedical Research Labortories market scientifically based nutritional supplements for endurance athletes including supplements for cyclists, runners, triathletes, and mixed martial arts. Visit http://www.epoboost.com to learn more about how EPO-Boost can increase VO2 max, running economy and endurance. Patent pending EPO-BOOST ingredients have been shown to increase VO2 max and running economy in college athletes. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=DS_Carroll |
7 Top Tips For Running Your First Ironman
So you made the decision to race an ironman and you have been training hard for 20 weeks or so. Now its race day and you are waiting nervously at the start of the swim for the horn to go. Here are a few things to keep in mind throughout the race and to practice in training so that they are not a surprise when you finally get out there.
1. During the swim you are going to want to go as hard as you can for at least 400 meters so that you get a decent position to swim the remaining 3.5 kilometers. There is nothing worse than being stuck in the middle of the pack for the first couple kilometers because by the time you finally get in a rhythm the swim is basically over.
2. Look up every 20 strokes or so. Do not trust that the person in front of you is swimming a straight line. There have been pro triathletes who failed to look up and found themselves a few hundred off the lead pack because they were swimming such a inefficient path.
3. Wear your bike clothes under your wet suit and clip your shoes to your bike pedals. This will save you a couple of minutes in transition and will allow you to concentrate on more important things like putting on sun screen and making sure you have your sunglasses and nutrition.
4. Do not draft! If you are caught drafting it is a hefty penalty at first and if you do it again you are out. Make sure when you go for a pass you do it swiftly and never remain in another riders slipstream. If it is too close to tell then it is better to back off, you are not going to save any time drafting for a few seconds but you definitely will lose time if you get caught.
5. Make sure to hydrate and take calories and salt throughout the bike. Its obvious that you need to hydrate but many athletes often forget that they need sodium as well. Most collapses and end of race muscle cramps are due to a lack of sodium. So before you compete in the race make sure you have been supplementing with salt in your training rides and make sure you have plenty on race day.
6. Do not unlatch your helmet at any point during the ride. If you are caught with your helmet undone at any point on the bike leg its an automatic disqualification.
7. During the run you may want to walk through every other aid station so that you get a chance to thoroughly hydrate and take a few gels. You are almost done so the last thing you would want to do is run out of energy to burn.
Finishing an ironman will probably be one of the greatest achievements of your life. You should visualize the race as much as possible in training and come up with a strategy for every situation you can think of. With hard work and determination there is no doubt that you will complete the race and you will likely catch the triathlon bug in the process.
Biomedical Research Laboratories market scientifically based nutritional supplements for endurance athletes including supplements for cyclists, runners, triathletes, and mixed martial arts. Visit http://www.epoboost.com to learn more about how EPO-Boost can increase VO2 max, running economy and endurance.
Patent pending EPO-BOOST ingredients have been shown to increase VO2 max and running economy in college athletes.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=DS_Carroll
Is Cross Training Important for Runners?
Many serious runners put in between 40 and 80 miles a week. This can be very taxing on the body and sometimes can lead to injury and burnout. A great way to prevent this is to switch up some of your longer less important runs with sports like cycling and swimming, which utilize the same muscles and systems but are low impact.
If you’re serious about running and want to reach your full potential then you don’t want to switch your speed workouts with cross training sessions. Speed work is important and targets muscle groups and systems that can only be improved by running fast. Instead, if you have two long runs or tempo runs a week you could replace one of those. Cycling is great if you want to get the heart rate up but reduce the pounding. Also, if you cycle at a high resistance or on hilly terrain it can greatly improve your strength. Since your main sport is running you’ll want to stay away from high intensity cycling, in other words speed work on a bicycle, because your muscles likely aren’t adapted to this kind of training and you’ll run a high risk of injury. In fact, it’s even recommended for people who are concentrating solely on cycling to bike for at least two years before getting into high intensity workouts.
Swimming is a viable cross training workout for runners as well. Swimming takes a lot of upper body strength, which is also necessary in running, so you might get a bit of a leg workout but more importantly you’ll build upper body strength. If you’re not keen on swimming then you could also try pool running. You’ll need a pool with a moderate depth in order to perform this correctly, but if you only have a lap pool then you can try it with weights in order to make it a bit more challenging.
Visit www.epoboost.com to learn more about how you can improve your endurance, speed and strength. You have nothing to lose with our 90 day money-back guarantee.
Boost your endurance with EPO-BOOST™ and you’ll run faster and farther, we guarantee it!
Improve Your Lactate Threshold and Swim Faster in Your Next Triathlon
Whether you are a runner, cyclist, triathlete, or an endurance athlete you need to train as fast as possible without hitting the wall from high levels of lactic acid in your blood. Elite athletes and coaches know that increasing lactate threshold is essential to success.
There are several factors that can be modified to improve performance and endurance in athletes. VO2max, exercise economy, and lactate threshold are all factors that can be improved with training and nutritional supplementation. If you can improve your lactate threshold your race speeds will improve. This article will focus on training to improve lactate threshold in swimmers.
If you are an amateur swimmer training for a local event like a triathlon then you need to understand the mechanics of a swim workout. A workout is basically comprised of two elements, endurance and threshold. Let us say you are training for a sprint triathlon with a 500 meter swim. What would be the point in swimming three miles continuously three times a week? Every time you hit the water you are swimming almost ten times your race distance. This kind of practice is known as swimming “junk miles” and many swimmers do it.
For a short race like a 500 meters you are basically going to be sprinting the entire way; endurance should be of very little concern. Instead, your preparation should be geared towards increasing your lactic threshold. All world and Olympic endurance athletes incorporate lactate threshold training into their workouts.
To increase your lactate threshold you are going to want to swim at or even faster than race pace in training. So let us say you do five 50 meter repeats. If your goal is to swim the 500 in 6:25 then you would want to shoot for somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 seconds for your 50 meters. Perhaps the first couple of times you will need to have a few minutes break between each 50 meters in order to repeat the time, but as you progress in your training you should decrease the rest period until you are basically swimming ten – 50 meters at around 40 seconds a piece.
This same sort of practice can be used with just about any swim distance; lactic threshold expansion is an integral part in your training program.
Of course, if you are training for an iron man swim of 2.4 miles then endurance is going to be a factor. But once you feel comfortable swimming the distance in order to get faster you will have to do the same kinds of workouts as the person training for the 500 just on a bit larger scale, 100 or 200 meter repeats for instance.
Designing a swim workout is that simple. There is no need to look for a long fancy training plan that is difficult to follow. If you want to improve your times then you have got to swim faster in practice, it is that simple.
Your training program will be difficult in the beginning, but if you stay determined to improve then you will see astronomical gains in a very short time. Combining this training workout with nutritional supplementation to increase VO2 max and exercise economy and increase your speed and endurance.
DS Carroll is a consultant for Biomedical Research Laboratories. Biomedical Research Laboratories market scientifically based nutritional supplements for endurance athletes including supplements for cyclists, runners, triathletes, and mixed martial arts. Visit http://www.epoboost.com to learn more about how EPO-Boost can increase VO2 max, running economy and endurance.
Patent pending EPO-BOOST ingredients have been shown to increase VO2 max and running economy in college athletes.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=DS_Carroll
http://EzineArticles.com/?Improve-Your-Lactate-Threshold-and-Swim-Faster-in-Your-Next-Triathlon&id=3717146
Visit www.epoboost.com to learn more about how you can improve your endurance, speed and strength. You have nothing to lose with our 90 day money-back guarantee.
Boost your endurance with EPO-BOOST™ and you’ll run faster and farther, we guarantee it!
Training Tips for Open Water Swim in Triathlons
If you’ve been swimming in a pool all season and your priority race is an open water swim then there are a few things you’re going to want to keep in mind before race day. Of course, it’s ideal if you can get in some open water training sessions before the race, but for many that’s not an option. Whether or not you can get into open water before the race it would still be wise to consider the tips listed below so that you can practice them in the pool, and when you do finally hit open water it won’t be as big of a shock.
1. Swimming the shortest distance. When swimming in open water you’re obviously going to want to swim the least possible distance as you can. If it’s an ironman distance then it would be nothing to swim an extra 400 meters just by taking an irregular path. In order to prevent this you’re going to want to get into the habit of turning your head and eyes when you breathe in order to see what’s in front of you. Now you don’t want to do this every breath as it will lead to inefficient swimming, but you definitely want to get in the habit of checking every 50 to 100 meters. It should be a smooth motion, not jerky, and should be barely visible from an outsider’s perspective. Many of the best swimmers have develop the technique so well that they don’t even need to turn their heads they can just turn their eyes as they submerge their face after taking a breath and see everything that’s going on in front of them.
2. Another important technique to get comfortable with is taking a breath on both sides. You never know where the wind is going to be coming from in an open water swim. If you can only breathe on the right then you’re going to have big problems if the waves are coming from that direction. It’s not hard to learn to breathe from both sides; it just takes patience and effort. If you make a vow to improve breathing on your weak side then there’s no reason why you can’t get it up to par within a month.
These are the most important aspects to keep in mind when open water swimming.
3. Sprinting workouts. One final tip you might implement in the training sessions leading up to the race is getting into the habit of sprinting for a few hundred meters at the beginning of the workout. This is a great way to simulate the commotion at the beginning of a race and if you do it enough times it shouldn’t be a problem for you to break away from the main pack and get out front. This will make the swim much more enjoyable and allow you to get into your rhythm much quicker than those jockeying for position in the back.
Visit www.epoboost.com to learn more about how you can improve your endurance, speed and strength. You have nothing to lose with our 90 day money-back guarantee.
Boost your endurance with EPO-BOOST™ and you’ll run faster and farther, we guarantee it!
Ch ch ch Chia? Endurance and Chia?
Yum… chia is yummy. No, you do not have to smear Chia on your head and water yourself every day to get the benefits of Chia. Chia seeds are one of the most powerful nutritional superfoods in the world.
Chia has been used by the Indians in the southwest and Mexico as a staple food. It is known as the running food, as it is known to be a high-energy, endurance food. It was believed that ancient Aztec warriors subsisted on Chia seeds during their conquests.
The southwestern Indians would eat as little as a teaspoon full when going on a full day run. Indians running form the Colorado River to the California coast to trade their wares would only bring the Chia seeds for their nourishment.
Chia is a super-hydrater and helps with electrolyte balance. The soluble fiber also know as hydrophilic colloids, massively retains water which keeps you hydrated and helps maintain electrolyte balance.
If you mix a spoonful of Chia in a glass of water and leave it for approximately 30 minutes or so, the seeds and water will become an almost solid gelatin. This gel-forming reaction is due to the soluble fiber in the Chia. Researches have found that this same gel-forming phenomenon takes place in the stomach when food containing these gummy fibers, known as mucilages, are eaten. When the gel is ingested, carbohydrates conversion into sugar slows. Chia seeds provide long lasting energy that brings with it stamina and endurance and at the same time gives you a quick boost of energy.
Chia seed is also known to stabilize blood sugar, improve mental focus, provide protein and essential fatty acids, build lean muscle mass, and many other effects on a persons overall health. Endurance athletes can benefit from adding this little seed to your diet. There are many good Internet sources for the seed and some really good deals if you look around. You may want to add this to your list of endurance supplements along with EpoBoost, an all natural endurance supplement.
You can sprinkle ground or whole chia seeds on cereal, yogurt, or salads; eat a handful of whole seeds as a snack; or grind them up and mix with flour when making muffins or other baked goods. We like to take a two cup container add water , 1/3 chia seeds and stir and in 15 minutes you have chia gel. We just consume a 3 tablespoons a 2-3 times a day. Some people like to add it to juice.
Let us know how you are using Chia and what results you are having?
Endurance Running, Swimming, Cycling – Ice Baths BRRRRR…
If you bike, run, or swim at high intensity for any period of time you may have experienced sore muscles and discomfort. Many endurance athletes are spending 15 minutes or so in an ice bath to ease the pain after a long run.
Ice baths or cold water immersion therapy constricts blood vessels and decreases metabolic activity, which reduces swelling and tissue breakdown. Once the skin is no longer in contact with the cold source, the underlying tissues warm up, causing a return of faster blood flow, which helps return the byproducts of cellular breakdown to the lymph system for efficient recycling by the body. This means that not only do you suppress inflammation but you also get rid of of the broken down tissues from the body. So ice baths reduce inflammation of tissues and joints, relieves soreness, and speeds recovery.
Ice baths require more than just 1 tray of ice. Get about 30 lbs of ice and add to water and climb in brrr, soak for 15 minutes and yes, your teeth will be chattering. Stay no longer than 15 minutes or you may cause tissue damage. Some people suggest getting into the tube in cool water and add the ice to create less of a cold shock to the body.
Another option might be to hop into a cold lake (if you are lucky to have one nearby) and stand in cold water for 15 minutes. Wrap up and drink a warm beverage while sitting in the tub. Have fun and feel great the next day!
Challenges make our lives more interesting….
When you wake up in the morning, do you think, “Ugg, another day…. can’t I just sleep a bit longer?”, or do you wake up ready to face the challenges that lay ahead? If you are the latter, then good for you! I know there are a lot of people out there, myself included, who have a hard time staying motivated and focused. Have you ever thought that maybe the difference is in the nutrients that we are providing for our bodies?
If you take one person, who only eats junk food all the time, and compare them to a person who eats the right balance of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats…….. you will simply be amazed. On the one side, you will notice someone with a lackluster outlook on life, nothing special, nowhere to be, just go to work, and go home. Blah! Then you take a look at the other person, just brimming with energy, bright eyes, and always on the go. The difference is quite astonishing.
Sports nutrition doesn’t have to be just for the elite athletes in life. For some of us, just life can be a competitive sport all on its own. The stay at home mom, who is always on the go, and never seems to have any time to eat right or the busy executive who is always working through the lunch break. You need good nutrition also, your goal at the end of the day may not be a medal, or anything shiny……..the fact that you made it though another challenging day, is quite an accomplishment that you can be proud of everyday.
Sports Through Poetry
Who knew that a passionate love for athletics could be expressed in more ways than actually performing in the sport! This is a moving, and pretty funny, poem by an R. Stone from Burley, Idaho, entitled,
“Saturday Morning”:
Here at the start
The water’s too cold
The outhouse line long
I am too old
The wind’s coming up
My goggle strap breaks
The crowd surges forward
The start of the race
I’m lost in the water
Run over again
Passed by a raft
I never could swim
Finally to shore
I stub my big toe
Where is my bike?
Nobody knows
My wetsuit is stuck
My rear tire flat
My clean white towel
Sprayed by a cat.
Off on the road
Facing 20 knots and gusts
Well back in the pack
I’ve got to be nuts
As I get to the turn
The wind’s dying down
Soon I learn
It just turned around.
Parts start to hurt
My hands going numb
Back at the start
It’s now time to run
Where are my legs?
I’ve left them somewhere
I look down to check them
To see if they’re there.
As I leave the start
The leaders come in
Their race is over
They’ve come for the win
Mine is just starting
Miles to go
I’d run like the wind
But I am too slow
Passed on my left
Passed on my right
Sprayed by a hose
I’ll finish by night
Just passed by Zeke
Caught in the run
Come back–Zeke
You said it’s for fun
I would keep up
If stronger than I am
If I were a lion
I’m running fast as I can
There are pains over pains
Aches over aches
My throat keeps burning
There’s salt on my face
The finish is near
My race about done
I’ve finished another
I do this for fun
When I leave this life
Maybe I’ll rest
Then if I come back
I’ll be the best
But as my luck would have it
As the Pearly Gates open so slow
St. Pete will step forward
And, suddenly, say – - “GO!”
You can find even more awesome original athletic poems at http://www.bpr.com/triathlon/poetry.htm
Visit www.epoboost.com to learn more about how you can improve your endurance, speed and strength. You have nothing to lose with a 90 day money-back guarantee.
Boost your endurance with EPO-BOOST™ and you’ll run faster and farther, we guarantee it!
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