TriDotPodcast .02:

HowTo Remove 8 Common Barriers To Swim Improvement

This is the TriDot Podcast. TriDotuses your training data and genetic profile combined with predictive analyticsand artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you betterresults in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate,inspire, and entertain. We'll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches andspecial guests. Join the conversation and let's improve together.

Andrew: Welcome to episode two of the TriDot podcast. We have agreat lineup of coaches and training insight for you today. So, let's get rightto it. I'm excited to be joined by TriDot founder and CEO, Jeff Booher. Jeff isthe ultimate authority on optimized triathlon training. And more importantlyfor today, he is an excellent swim coach. Jeff, thanks for coming on.

Jeff: Absolutely. Thanks. Glad to be here, Andrew. Really excitedabout the main set today. We're going to share a lot of things that will justhelp athletes achieve some big breakthroughs with their development of theirswim form.

Andrew: Next up is coach and professional triathlete, ElizabethJames. Elizabeth is both at Kona and Boston qualifier and has been coachingwith TriDot since 2015. Elizabeth, welcome to the show.

Elizabeth: Thanks, Andrew. I'm very excited to be here today.

Andrew: And who am I? I'm your host, Andrew, the average triathlete,voice of the people, and the captain of the middle of the pack. Like any goodworkout, we here at TriDot like to ease into things with a little warm-upquestion. After that, we're going to dive headfirst into our main setconversation, which today is all about addressing the eight common barriersholding triathletes back from improving in their swim training. Then we'll cooldown with a race recon of what it's like to be on course at Ironman Louisville.

Time to warm up. Let's get moving.

Andrew: Jeff, Elizabeth, for our warm-up today, I'm going to ask youto be just a little bit open and honest. We all know that embarrassing momentsare great when they didn't happen to us. So, for my amusement, and the joy ofall of our listeners, tell me what is your most embarrassing triathlon story,Elizabeth?

Elizabeth: Oh, man. My most embarrassing story. I thankfully have nothad anything too embarrassing. But thinking back about my swim exit and T1 atIronman Texas just still makes me cringe. As often as I tell athletes to walkthrough the transition area and know where their bags are, my mind just wentblank as I got out of the water. I know I ran past my bag and bike gear atleast three times, and I could not remember my race number for the life of me.I had to look on my shoulder to remember what my race number was, and thenasked the volunteers to help for locating my bag.

Andrew: At least you realized it was on your shoulder.

Elizabeth: Yeah, that’s true.

Andrew: That could have been way worse.

Elizabeth: It was helpful. I've got that printed there.

Andrew: As coaches, we tell athletes all the time, please, please,please get to know transition. Get to know where your stuff is. It's like we'renot just saying that because it's good in practice. We all come to that momentwhere it's like, oh, no, where’s my stuff?

Elizabeth: Exactly. Yeah.

Andrew: Your blood’s not going to be in your brain at that point.Yeah. So, Jeff, what about you? What is your most embarrassing triathlon racestory?

Jeff: Well, mine goes all the way back from when I first startedin the sport.

Andrew: That makes sense.

Jeff: My first time riding with clipless pedals. I had done atriathlon without them. It was the beginning of my second season. And so I wastaking a test drive in the middle of the day, put them on a bike, clipped in. Irode probably five or six miles, so everything was going good. I turned off areally busy road into a neighborhood, I was going to turn around and come backout, ride home. And so I'm turning around in the neighborhood and I couldn'tturn sharply enough between these houses on this road, and I was about to hitthe curb. I couldn't unclip and so I fell on to their lawn. I’m on their lawn,my bike is still clipped on. So, I'm on my back with my bike fully clipped in,sticking straight up in the air, looking like a turtle on his back with my bikeup. So, I’m trying to unclip and get back on and get out of there before anyonesaw me.

Andrew: So, they weren't out in the yard thankfully while this washappening?

Jeff: I didn't look. I didn't want to make eye contact withanybody. I just wanted to escape the scene unnoticed if possible.

Elizabeth: You didn’t want to know if they saw.

Jeff: No.

Andrew: I think for me, my most embarrassing story wasn't,thankfully, seen by a whole lot of people like Jeff's. But I went into thePorta Potty before a particular race and you know, we all have to do that, getthat pre-race Porta Potty visit out of your way. And I went in and I justdidn't think to check, Is there toilet paper in this particular Porta Potty? Andso I go in, there was an athlete before me, he didn't [let me know], likecommon courtesy. All my triathletes out there, if you're the one who kills thetoilet paper in the pre-race Porta Potty, let the next triathlete know. For thelove, let your fellow triathlete know that, hey, there's no more toilet paperin here. So, I go in there, I take care of my business, I go to reach for thetoilet paper, and I'm like, there's not any. Awesome. So, thankfully, I waswearing a tank top. I wasn't wearing my race gear at the time. And so I justtook my favorite black tank top and just kind of used it instead, and I cameout holding it by a clean portion thinking, okay, let me find a trash can and tothrow it away in. And my wife was like “Oh, here. I'll take that from you.” I'mlike, “No, no, no. No, no, no.” And she's like, “You do want to throw it in thebag?” I'm like, “No, we need to burn this. This tank top is no longer …” So, Iembarrassingly had to tell her what had happened. And she was like, “Well, wecan take it home and wash it.” She knew I loved this tank top. I was like, “No,no it's forever done.”

Elizabeth: But now, did you give the common courtesy to the guy inline behind you? Did you let them know? Did you give them a heads up?

Andrew: I honestly was probably so shell shocked about what hadjust transpired I do not recall doing so. So, anybody out there, someone'slistening and you're like, this sounds really familiar. I might have been thatguy. I may not have told that person. I'm not really sure, to tell you thetruth. Hopefully, I did. I like to think that I did, but in the heat of themoment, you just never know.

On to the main set. Going on in 3,2, 1.

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Listen,unless your name is Lucy Charles-Barclay or Josh Amberger, chances are there isroom for improvement in your swim splits. So, today I've asked two of ourTriDot experts in the swim to help us address the eight common barriers keepingtriathletes from improving their swim form. So, Jeff, Elizabeth, let's diveinto barrier number one. Many triathletes attempt to improve their swim by justthrowing more volume at it. After all, if I swim more, I'll eventually startswimming faster. Elizabeth, why is this a barrier?

Elizabeth: This is a very common barrier, andone that I was guilty of myself as a beginner triathlete. Swimming more oftenwith bad technique just makes you really good at doing it incorrectly. You'rereinforcing those bad habits. Now, beginners may see some initial gains inspeed, not necessarily form, but then they're going to quickly plateau. Theimprovements in the swim are often limited by technique, not fitness. So,increased volume while neglecting technique is unlikely to produce thoseimprovements.

Andrew: Yeah, you talked about how when you first came to thesport, that's an easy thing to believe. Because with the run and bike you willsee improvement just by doing it more. You can do it smarter and improve evenbetter, but with the swim especially, that's not the case. I remember the lightbulb moment, I was at a local sprint race, and there were some youth kids theredoing the local sprint race. They were 13-, 14-, 15-year-olds. And I rememberthe top swim time from that particular race was from a 13-year-old youth elitegirl. And I remember thinking to myself, clearly it's not about gettingstronger back in our muscles. Clearly, it's not about aerobic capacity per se,because all of those boxes, I win over a 13-year-old girl as an adult male. That'sjust biology. But she beat me in a local sprint by minutes in the swim and itwas that light bulb moment of, oh my gosh, I can’t just swim more, I can't justget stronger in my upper body, there's got to be something technical here thatshe knows that I don't know. And so that's exactly right, that's a barrier. So,I encourage you, if you're out there, really hear that, because we here atTriDot, we hate to see you taking your training hours and throwing more hoursat something and not seeing the results. So, thanks for breaking down barriernumber one, Elizabeth. Once we move past that one, barrier number two: anathlete may be keenly aware of a specific technique adjustment they need tomake, but they don't build their form in the propersequence. Jeff, talk us through this barrier.

Jeff: This is very important. Like yousaid, form is so important to swim, in a far greater degree, than the bike andthe run. And swimming, it's like building a house. You have a foundation, thenyou build a first floor, then the second floor, then you put the roof on. Andyou have to develop it in that way. There's a lot of ways to break down yourswim form from start to finish. In some broad categories, you start with yourbalance, your head and body position. So, how are you balanced in the water,what is that orientation like? Then there's the roll from side to side asyou're stroking. Then you have overwater recovery of your arm, and then thelast phase, you're catching your pull. And each of those can be drawn down tothe smaller subparts, sub-components. But when you're working on your swimtraining, if you try to address something that's more advanced, like a secondstory, and you don't have a firm first foundation, your foundation is not builtyet. You're not going to have success because each one requires the prior onein order to develop it correctly. So you have to be very purposeful andintentional. I know when I first started swimming, I swam recreationallyforever, but 17-18 years ago [when I started triathlon], I just startedswimming. I went through a program and the light bulb moment went off withsomeone literally getting in my face.

So, listen, this is how important this is. I remember I wasswimming as a sprint triathlon and I'd done a, it was a 300 swam. I can'tmember whether it was 7:30, just trying it out to see what I can do. Okay, I'mfirst time in the pool, so 7:30. And then the guy told me just how important itwas. He gave me a program, kind of wrote out what you should do in this order.And I took it literally. I didn't swim a full stroke of swimming for, gosh, ithad to be five or six weeks. All I did was I went in for 30 minutes two orthree times a week and practiced the first drill until I mastered the firstdrill. Then I went to the second drill until I mastered the second drill andwent through that same progression, the body position, the roll, the breathing,the over-water recovery, arm recovery, then the catch and pull. At the end ofthat time doing nothing else but that, I did a 300 in 5:30. So, I took twominutes off my 300 in about four or five weeks doing nothing but the drills.The fitness came a little bit, but it was the resistance. So, water is eighttimes-- 800 times denser than air. And so making that change, and the firsttime I did the 7:30 I was so gassed, I couldn't get out of the pool. My armsare throbbing and I could not get myself out of the pool. The second time I didthe 5:30, and I was ready to go. I was ready to jump up and I felt great. Andso it's just the importance of making that dramatic of a progression becauseeach layer built on a firm foundation of the previous layer.

And so athletes need to be aware of that sequence. And whenthey're in the water if they haven't been trained or instructed on here's howto develop those first core things, they're likely to have very limited successworking on tweaking the second story or the roof, when their foundation isn'twhat it should be. It isn't firm or isn't correct. And likewise, if they comein and try to make a change to the foundation, then everything after that needsto be adjusted. It's like if you have a house and your form is what it is, andyou go to make the foundational change, move the slab 20 feet to the east orwest, everything above it has to change. All of that can't stay the same. So,realizing when you make those fundamental changes, you need to allow the timeto develop all of those corresponding adjustments after that when yourorientation changes because your foundation changes. So, it needs to be verypurposeful, your focus, intentional, strategic, and sometimes, most of the timefor athletes, they don't know where that focus should be, what to prioritize,when mastery is achieve.

Andrew: Because we all read different things, right? And so someonemight know, yeah, I think one time I read somewhere where a pro triathlete waslike, oh, this is the number one thing you can do is like fix, really focus onyour pull, what's happening underneath the water. And then someone else willsay, oh, no, in open water swimming especially you need to focus on what'shappening over the water. And so you read all these different things and you'relike, okay, well, I know I need to fix my catch, but then someone can even fixtheir catch and to your point, if they're focusing on their catch, but theyhaven't mastered body roll and they haven't mastered body position, theyhaven't mastered how to breathe, you're doing it out of order.

Jeff: Exactly. And so if they work on that advanced skill, andthen ever come back to the first skill, all of that needs to be relearned.

Andrew: And people just take it out of order and wonder why they'renot seeing the improvement you saw just taking the time to do it. By workingthrough the steps and processes you can shave minutes and minutes and minutesoff. But it takes time, people, it takes time. And so let's move on to barriernumber three. That was super enlightening right there. I mean, day- onetriathlete Andrew Harley needed to hear that. Too bad the TriDot podcast wasn'taround when I started as a triathlete. Barrier number three, an athlete will correctly spend time focusing on a specificchange to their swim stroke they know they need to make, but not enough timefor the new change to become muscle memory. Jeff, talk about this barrier.

Jeff:This one goes hand in hand with the other one. So, okay, now you know there isa strategic, purposeful way to address your swim training. You want to buildyour form, you want to build your foundation, have it be solid before you go tofirst story, second story, and the roof. So, realizing that habituation takestime. So, there're different athletes that can learn, we can learn things andunderstand what should be done, but you have to be as patient as your muscleswill achieve muscle memory. And it just takes repetitions, and it takes time, andyou have to do it over and over and over. There's a cycle of skill developmentthat's called unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, consciouscompetence, and then unconscious competence.

Andrew:Which is where you’ve got to get.

Jeff:So, that's a mouthful. So, you're starting out, you don't even know what you'redoing wrong, and you're doing it wrong. And then there's a point at which youknow what to do right, but you're consciously doing it wrong. And then, sothat's kind of where you start. Now you're doing a form, now you're doing yourform, now you're doing it correctly working on a drill or an aspect of yourstroke, but you have to consciously concentrate on it. If you're notconcentrating on it, you backslide and then you go back to improper form. Andso that's where athletes spend a lot of times, that conscious competence. Theycan do it correctly if they really focus on it, and they don't spend a longenough time there. It can be a lot of things. It can be the rest of theirtraining. So, they'll do drill for 30 minutes a couple times a week, 20minutes, 15, and then they'll spend another two or three hours swimming doingit incorrectly because their mind is drifting on all these other things. So,they're spending 10% of the time –

Andrew:But in their mind, they think they've got it because they've got it whenthey're thinking about it.

Jeff:Correct. But they don't realize muscle memory is happening that whole time. Andso 10% of their time, they're doing the correct muscle movement, movementpattern, and then the other 90% of the time they're not. So, they're actuallydetraining. They will not improve their muscle memory because 90% of their timeis spent doing it wrong. So, I think one saying is, every stroke you takeeither makes or breaks great swim form. So, every single stroke in the warmup,in the cooldown, in your main set, whatever you're doing, you have to do itright or you're not going to have progress. And every stroke that you takethat’s not right, your detraining yourself.

Andrew:I had a buddy of mine in college, he went to a golf academy because he wantedto be a golf pro so, you know, local golf course. And he would always say aboutgoing to the driving range, he was like a good golfer, he's will never go to thedriving range without a specific thing to be working on.

Jeff:Absolutely.

Andrew:Because if you're just going out there hitting balls like, what are you doing?You're not doing anything to improve your stroke, you’re not doing anything toimprove your game.

Jeff:That's probably the best analogy, swim technique improvement to golf technique,swing stroke.

Andrew: Yeah. So, if you're going to the pool and you don't have,okay, I know I need to start at the foundation with body position, and if youdon't work on body position long enough to get it to where it's just, you'vegot it without thinking about it, you're not –

Jeff: Don’t move on.

Andrew: Yeah, and because most importantly, I think if you, as I'veseen this in myself, if I'm really working on my hand entry into the water, Ican really get that arm entry going really smooth and really well to set up thecatch when I'm thinking about it. Well, guess what, on race day you're notreally thinking about it. There's so much going on around you with otherpeople's bodies in the course and the next buoy, and if it's not unconscious,like you've got it automatically, you're going to totally –

Jeff: It's not there. You haven't developed it until you're doingit when you're not thinking about it.

Andrew: Yeah, that's good stuff. Hey, let's go to barrier numberfour after that one. And this is really important too, selectingthe wrong period in the season for the type of improvement they're looking tomake. Elizabeth, talk to us about why this is a barrier.

Elizabeth: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you'llnotice that this also relates a lot to what we were just discussing with musclememory, and kind of the time that you have available. So, one of the thingsthat athletes really need to consider is their goal and their current trainingphase. So, for example, do you have an Ironman race that's five to six weeksaway? If so, you might be able to make some small tweaks and some minoradjustments, but you're not going to be able to lay that new foundation in thatshort amount of time. Or is it the preseason, where the long swims and thehigher volume are not required, you maybe have the opportunity to kind of dothe overhaul of your swim technique and start down at the foundation. So, thetime available until your next event is really going to determine what type ofcorrection can be achieved prior to race day. So you need to allow yourselfenough time to create that muscle memory if you're going back to thosefoundational skills, making sure that you can really commit to this so that youhave the opportunity to be unconsciously competent in your swim stroke.

Andrew: So, what you’re saying is for the triathletes out therelistening, what they should not do is wait until 4, 5, 6 weeks out from theirfull-distance Ironman and say to themselves, hey, you know what? I’ve got anIronman coming up, I should probably have my swim stroke looked at. And they goto a coach because, hey, my coach is supposed to fix my swim stroke, saying,hey, I'm going to invest in this, it's going to pay off big on race day, 2.4miles swim. If I make a few little tweaks, huge time improvements. 4, 5, 6weeks isn't enough to do that, is it?

Jeff: It's enough to make some changes,but not really too substantial. And it depends, there's a matter of degrees forthe particular athlete. If the athlete’s a moderate intermediate swimmer,they're not going to make a whole bunch of gains. I think someone that is atfoundational, they can make a foundational change if that's what their focus isand they could have a pretty big impact. But for the most part, people doing anIronman, doing that longer course, they've been training for a while, and theyalready have a whole bunch of established muscle memory already that'sincorrect. And so it's going to take generally a lot longer to establish that.

Andrew:Jeff, for our athletes that train with TriDot and are familiar with thetraining calendar and training optimization, how does TriDot already kind ofhelp athletes order the training correctly without them even realizing it, liketo optimize performance on race day?

Jeff:Yeah. So, there's a couple things, I'll just hit on one of them. One is theswim form diagnostic. So, it categorizes athletes into six different swimforms, and has the very typical corrections that they need to make. There'sreally those very distinct classical swim forms. And so all of the drills arefocused on what that particular athlete needs to do. And it's not just anabsolute fall squarely in the center of one of those six buckets, but there'redegrees within the buckets, like to what degree are they this form or thatform, and what changes need to be made. But in the in the Season Planner, youdrop a race on there, TriDot's going to look at how long do you have? What isyour swing form? What is your ability? How fast are you? To what degree do youneed to make these changes? And then also, where are you in relationship toyour next race, and how long is that race? So, if you have a race that's comingup in six, seven weeks away, it’s going to do the most impactful improvementsfor your swim drills and optimize them for that period of improvement. Whereasif you had a 20-week training phase, it's going to go spend a lot more time onthe fundamentals before you progress further. You're going to spend in each ofthose stages of swim development, you're going to spend more time in all ofthose. So, that's being optimized, just kind of behind the scenes, and so youjust show up and do the workouts.

Andrew:And again, I think you know athletes and we will certainly talk about this moreon other podcasts. But TriDot athletes see their swim sessions come through ontheir portal or in their email and all those drills are there for a reason. Thedrills that are prescribed, the actual main sets that are prescribed. It's notjust haphazardly rotating what workout you're doing on a particular day, they’rethere for a reason.

Jeff:No, there’s not a simple rotation. As a matter of fact, when we design the warmups,those are customized, the drills, the drill sets, and the main sets, accordingto your abilities, swim form, race distance, all of those different things.There's more than 22 million different swim sessions that you could have withinTriDot. All those are dynamically created for every single scenario andcombination, so it's extremely granular and specific to that athlete.

Andrew: All right. Barrier number five, we're working our waythrough the list hoping that our athletes out there listening can apply thesetips to their own swim training. Barrier number five, a well-intentionedtriathlete finds a list of drills online or in a YouTube video and startsworking on these drills in their swim training. Elizabeth, why is this abarrier?

Elizabeth: Yeah, so athletes will do genericdrills that are often the wrong drills for them. So, we were just talking aboutthe swim form diagnostic, and a lot of swim technique is going to be specificathlete by athlete. So, if an athlete goes and they just Google “improve myswim technique,” they're going to find suggestions, drills from a number ofsources and possibly, some that aren't very reputable. They're looking forimprovement, they're just looking for any type of improvement. As we'vediscussed, there is that diagnostic element though to improving one form. Andso an athlete needs to address the areas for their personal improvement. Theycould be spending a lot of time doing drills that are not beneficial to them.

Andrew:So, Jeff, or an athlete out here, they just heard what Elizabeth said, they'veheard all the things we're talking about, how can they know clearly, knowingthey need to be doing drills and sharpening up certain parts of their technique,what are the right drills for them?

Jeff:Well, obviously they can get their swim coach to actually look at them and givethem that visual feedback right there. TriDot also has a, I mentioned this before,a swim form diagnostic, where you answer some questions, it looks at your swimperformance and you enter some data. And it'll list there the drills, here'sthe corrections that you need to make, and here’s some of your tendencies. Andyou read those and it fits you to a T, and you like, wow, that's exactly what Ido. So, it dials in on what those should be and then that data is used duringyour swim training optimization.

Andrew: All right. Moving on to barriernumber six, athletes do the right drills, but they do those drills wrong. Iknow Elizabeth and Jeff have a few comments on this one. It's a big deal. Elizabeth,can you get us started on this conversation?

Elizabeth:Yeah, absolutely. So, we've moved on from doing the wrong drills and somethingthat wasn't particularly personalized for that athlete. So, at least now wehave athletes doing the right drills for them. But I mean, there's still abarrier here in that when you have the right drills, you need to be doing thoseright drills correctly. So, to improve, athletes need to do the right drillsright. When an athlete is looking to make these changes in their swimtechnique, one of the first things that they need to understand is that theyshould not be fatigued doing drills. Drill sessions should be very formfocused, not –

Andrew:Not paced focus.

Elizabeth:Right. Not fitness focused. So, you don't want to turn -

Andrew:Elizabeth, my pace has got to look good on Strava.

Elizabeth:Oh, I know. It will once you get the form down.

Andrew:Oh, touché.

Jeff:There you go.

Elizabeth:So, yeah, I mean, really don't turn this into a workout session. The fitness isgoing to come. And there's a lot of swim tools that help you do the rightdrills correctly.

Andrew:Well, Elizabeth, don't get us too far ahead because you may not know it, butbarrier number eight, we talk about pool toys and different ways to do swimdrills.

Elizabeth:Okay, gotcha. So, we'll save the swim tools for a little bit later. But I knowfor me, like from personal experience, this is something that has been extremelybeneficial to get some feedback on as I've been working to improve my swimtechnique. That when I know which drills I need to be focused on, I stillrequire some feedback to make sure that I am doing this correctly. So, forexample, Jeff has worked with me extensively on my swim technique and my swimstroke. And one of the things that he had me do was move my hands out a littlebit wider for my hand entry point. And he would say, all right, Elizabeth, moveyour right hand out a little bit wider. And I'd swim down and back and youknow, pop up the side of the pool, smile at him, and be like, how’s that look?And he's like, wider. So, I'd go again, come back -

Andrew:Was she doing it the exact same way?

Jeff:Just about.

Andrew:Okay.

Elizabeth:Yeah, definitely.

Andrew:That's so common.

Elizabeth:And that is a very common thing. And it really took some video feedback as wellfor him to video my stroke and have me swim down and back. Okay, now move yourhand out wider, swim down and back. He'd show me both videos, and it would lookthe exact same. And so my –

Andrew:And it probably felt way different to you.

Elizabeth:It did, it felt different to me. So, my kind of perception of what I was doingdidn't necessarily match what I was doing in the swim stroke. And I feel like alot of athletes also run into that, that they think that they are doing theswim drill correctly. They think that they're making these changes, but theymay not actually be. Just what I was saying what Jeff did with me, videoing meas I was thinking I was making those changes. That's an excellent test that anyathlete can do. Have somebody go to the pool with them, just with their phone,take a video of them swimming down and back, then make a change, such as movingyour hand out a little bit wider. See if you notice a difference in that video.If so, then great, you may have that body awareness and are able to make thosechanges. If not, then you're probably going to require some feedback to makesure that you're doing those drills correctly and actually seeing someimprovement from the technique corrections you're targeting.

Jeff:I'd love to echo what Elizabeth said about that proprioception and just reallystress the differences between swim training and cycling and running. Not onlyis the swim training, the technique, so much more important, but in cycling,you can look down when you're riding and you can see your body position, youcan see the way your legs are moving. When you're running, same thing. You cansee your arm movement; you can see those things. When you're swimming, the mostimportant arm movements are either behind you, up above, out in front. Whenyour head’s straight down, you can't see them. And not to mention your head’sdown and you’re rolling from side to side, so your frame of reference, yourhead is constantly moving. And so you have this path that’s supposed to beprecise, to have the streamlined recovery, catch and pull. Meanwhile, you can'tsee any of that. So, when you're trying to make changes to something that youcan't see, it's incredibly difficult.

Andrew: That is great. Barrier number seven, manyathletes are used to breathing on both sides and exclusively do that inpractice since they plan to breathe bilaterally on race day. Likewise, manyathletes are most comfortable on one side and continue to breathe unilaterallyin the pool. Jeff, unpack how this can be a barrier to developing good swimform.

Jeff: Yeah, so there's a lot ofmisperceptions about how you should swim, what's best. Just like everythingelse, you should be very intentional when you're breathing. And race daydoesn't necessarily need to be bilateral breathing. I’d say the longer thedistance is – you get a third less oxygen when you're breathing every thirdversus every single stroke. So, it's a lot more aerobically efficient tobreathe every stroke. However, if you are always breathe unilaterally one side,like always to the right side, if you're always going to do that, then you canhave some symmetry issues where you start favoring [one side], and your formdeteriorates over time favoring one side over the other.

Andrew:I never thought about that.

Jeff:And so there's a few things to think about here. One is, when you're masteringswim form, making a change, doing drills, it’s best to swim unilaterally. So,that's swimming and breathing always to one side, every single stroke. And whenyou're doing a lap there, you're able to focus repeated efforts, one strokeafter another being exactly the same. To the right side, your balance changesminimally, and so you're able to repeat the exact same movement, therehabituating, that movement for the entire length. And yeah, when you start outswimming, you might get off and you gradually dial it in by the time you're atthe other end of the pool. Well, if you're switching from the right side to theleft side, you're changing your roll, your body position, head position,everything's changing, you don't have enough repetitions of the same thingbecause you're constantly switching from the right side to the left side. So,at first, just do the unilateral breathing to one side, master that one side,when you go down that lane. Then when you come back, switch to the other side.And so you're still doing an even amount of work on the right side on the leftside, but don't introduce the dynamics of bilateral going to both sides untilyou've mastered the fundamentals of that stroke or that technique or whateveryou're trying to change.

Andrew:So, the Jeff Booher-endorsed way to properly do drills in the pool is breathingon one side, but switching that side with each length of the pool?

Jeff:Yes, with the exception of there is that point where the drill becomesswitching. And when the drill is switching and alternating that dynamicbalance, from the right side to the left side, then absolutely bring it to bothsides.

Andrew: And finally, the eighth barrier holding you back from swimimprovement and I’ve got to be honest, guys, this one is 100% me at the pool.An athlete uses their swim fins, buoys and other pooltoys incorrectly, or they don't even use them at all. Jeff, why is thissuch a barrier for people?

Jeff:Yeah, this is a great one too. I love this one. I guess you preempted Elizabethtalking about it a little earlier, teased us that this was one of the barriersthat was coming up.

Andrew:Because again, this one is for me. I wanted to talk about this.

Jeff:Yeah, well there's a lot of people that don't understand how they're used orreally underestimate the impact of how important they are. Some use them wrong.I'm going to focus just on a couple. There's a bunch of pool toys that you canuse. I’m going to focus on the fins and the snorkel. The fins are the mostimportant by far. Some people grab and they just want to swim faster, maintaintheir body position, that's not the purpose of fins. It'll help you with ankleflexibility, there's some benefits like that, but we're focusing just on thatform development. The first thing that's most important, or that's veryimportant, there's three to four, that are just very, very important. One is ithelps you to not fatigue when you're doing drills. So, you're able to getacross the pool moving, you generally don't have a lot of propulsion whenyou're swimming one-arm drills and some of those, so that gives you thepropulsion. So, with a lot less effort, you can get across the pool and back.So, you're able to focus on the form without just exhausting yourself kickingreally hard. Second thing is it helps you maintain that speed and the bodyposition. So, it keeps your feet up more toward the surface, so that you'reable to have an accurate body position as when you are swimming and when you'restroking with both arms. So, the worst thing in the world you can do is developa form, you're developing your proprioception, all of those things, you'retrying to develop the whole purpose of the drills, but you're doing it withincorrect body position. So, you're teaching yourself, even doing the rightdrill right with the wrong body position. So, your whole foundation is askewwhen you're doing your drill. And so you’re building –

Andrew:The drill isn't about swimming with fins. Swimming with fins can’t help you dothe drill correctly.

Jeff:Exactly. Whether you're doing a single-arm-leads drill, you're doing one armswimming, you're doing the high elbow, there's all kinds of different drillsthat you can do.

Andrew:Breathing in the pocket correctly.

Jeff:Exactly. Well, that's the next thing. So, first is just maintaining that bodyposition so that you're able to have that proper orientation in the water. Andso all your reference points of your body, your alignment, head position isaligned so that when you start creating the muscle memory of your arm motionrelative to your body position, it stays the same. Second thing is that speedand that's the bow wake, the all-important bow wake, the wake that happens onyour head when your head is pushing through the water, it creates that wake inthe front of your head just like a boat, and then there's a trough right behindit. And so that trough is where you need to breathe. So, a lot of swimmerseither kick really slow, even with fins they don't kick fast enough. And sothey're going through the water, not fast enough to create that bow wake sothey don't have the trough. So, now they find themselves over rotating to getto the oxygen So, they’ve got to get to the surface –

Andrew:They’re really turning their head to the side to get that breath.

Jeff:Right. So, normally if the bow wake is there, you have the trough to breatheand your mouth can be lower and you have a better proper body position soyou're breathing. But without that you're training and again, you're drilling,teaching yourself from the necessity of having oxygen to breathe to rotate muchtoo far, or to lift your head up. So, you either going to rotate, over rotate,or you're going to lift your head out of the water to get to the water. So, you'reteaching yourself, you're creating that habituating form that's incorrectbecause you're not going fast enough to simulate the bow wake and the troughbehind it, that will be present when you start swimming with a full stroke.

Andrew:And so for people who know, okay, I'm not a fast swimmer, I know I am notproducing that speed when I'm drilling, you would recommend swim finsespecially to help them swim correctly?

Jeff:Absolutely, absolutely.

Elizabeth:Well, goes back to the muscle memory but I mean, you need to be doing thatcorrectly. Otherwise, if you're looking for that pocket of air and overrotating as you're doing those drills, then you're going to be over rotatingonce you translate that into your swim stroke as well.

Andrew:And tell me just a little bit before we go, you mentioned that the fins and thesnorkel are kind of a one-two punch of the two that you feel are the mostimportant. What benefit does the snorkel bring to a swim training session?

Jeff:Some of the listeners may not be familiar with that. It's not the scuba divingsnorkel that comes on the side of your head. They are these snorkels that fit,they come from your mouth and go straight over your nose and straight up thecenter line of your head and have a little brace on your forehead, where theysecure with a band around your head. And so that helps you not – you justbasically factor out the breathing. So, if you're if struggling with body roll,if you're struggling with your arm position during the catch and the pull, itdoes a couple of things. One is you don't have to worry about breathing ifyou're having trouble, and you're also developing that. So, you can focus onthose things separately: your breathing on one hand, and then your arm path onthe other. The second thing it does for you, it allows you to keep your headconstant in one place so you have a solid frame of reference for your armmotion, and then you're able to see. So, if you're working on your underwatercatch, your hand should be inside your elbow, the path underneath your bodyduring your catch and your pull. You're able to see it more. You're not havingto turn away to breathe to the right side or the left side. So, a lot ofathletes will have really good form on the hand that's the side that they'rebreathing to.

Andrew:Because they can see it.

Jeff:So, if they’re breathing to the right, they see the right hand and then as theyturn to the right to breathe to the right, they don't have any idea what thatleft hand is doing. And the same thing when they flip to breathe to the otherside. Now their left hand is good, the right hand is bad. And so this allowsyou to see both hands going through correctly and, more importantly than seeingthem, is establish that muscle memory. And imagine that whole, the wholelayering of the foundation, the first floor, second floor, all of that. If yourhead position is wrong, your breathing is wrong. Whether it's not using fins,and so you're over rotating or lifting your head, or you're not using a snorkel,as soon as you over rotate, now the extended arm in the front is going to alsoover rotate to your left side. Now that setup is incorrect for your catch andyour pull, so now you're going to be pulling across your body from left toright, right to left. And so there's a chain reaction of flaws that happen allstarting with that very first fundamental foundation that you're trying to lay.

Great set everyone. Let's cool down.

Andrew: And with that, we're going to cool things down with alittle race recon. No matter what race you're thinking about tackling next,odds are someone from the TriDot family can tell you all about it. Today TriDotcoach, John Mayfield, is fresh off his Ironman Louisville finish. And so he isprimed and ready to give us all the details about his first-hand experience.John, thanks for jumping on just in time for the cooldown.

John: Yes, my favorite part of the workout, so right on time.

Andrew: John, this was your fifth Ironman, but it's been a fewyears since you've raced this distance. What made you pick Ironman Louisvillefor your comeback?

John: Yeah, it's been a couple years since I raced Ironman. I'veattended lots in that time. I think I counted 17 Ironman races that I've beenat since the last time I had the privilege of crossing the finish line. So, Ithought it was time for me to get back at it. Every race I attended pretty muchlit the fire in me and gave me that desire.

Andrew: Yeah. How can it not?

John: So, yeah, it’s very inspirational and if you've been thereyou want to be back. So, it was a privilege and real exciting just to get thewristband on and be inside the ropes and all that for the first time in a longtime. So, I've attended Ironman Louisville the last couple years and just fellin love with the city and the race. So when it came time to pick a race that Iwanted to do, it was definitely on the shortlist. And I had some athletes thatI work with as well as some friends that were doing it, great local athletes,and some of our TriDot ambassadors in the area. So, it was really kind of anatural, easy pick with everything aligning for Ironman Louisville.

Andrew: Briefly talk us through the race, especially for anyone consideringsigning up for Ironman Louisville. What should they know about the course?

John: It really is a great course. This year, unfortunately, theswim was canceled due to some water quality issues. So, I had actually reallylooked forward to a river swim. I've done the open water swims in the Gulf atIronman Florida. I've done the lakes at Ironman Texas and Arizona, but I'venever done a river swim. So, I was really looking forward to that, but guessthat'll have to wait for another day.

Andrew: You just have to go back and do it next year.

John: Yeah, have to go back again. So, the course that I got todo, the bike and the run, both really high quality, especially the bike course.The bike course is kind of special I would even say, the first 10 miles, whichbecomes the last 10 miles are pretty flat. They go right along that river, veryscenic, shaded. And then once that initial 10 miles, you really don't have anyflat sections for a very long time, which makes for a fun course. I would sayit's a fair course. The hills are rolling. They're not particularly steep. They'renot particularly long, which is great for me. I live on the Texas Gulf Coast,so I don't train at elevation or elevation gain.

Andrew: You can’t, how can you?

John: Yeah I don't have the hills to train on. That said, mytraining had me completely ready for that even though I never had more thanliterally 100-200 feet on my 100-mile rides and then did the 5,000 feet of gainat Ironman Louisville. So, it's very possible to train for those races even ifyou live on the flats or never get off your trainer. So, it's just in about thespecific training that gets you ready for that. It's a beautiful bike course. It'sthrough Kentucky. There's horse farms, there's horse tracks. It’s all aboutKentucky Derby-type stuff. Great crowd support out there. All of the aidstations were fantastic. All the tougher hills had folks that were kind of Tourde France-style cheering. And it was just a really enjoyable, really fun bikecourse. You know, you're out there for 112 miles, five, six hours, but reallythe time passed by just because it was so engaging. There was always seeminglike another hill to go up or go down, something beautiful to see and greatencouragement from all the folks that were out there on the course. The run wasa new course this year, so it's a new three-loop course that tended to staycloser to the river, which was great. It provided a lot of opportunities forspectators –

Andrew: And I've been in Louisville. That riverfront is just – it'sbeautiful.

John: It's a very nice path. It's wide. So, there was plenty ofroom for all the athletes. And then off on the backside, there was actuallysome elevation that was kind of a little bit of a surprise. I thought I haddone my course recon, and the elevation map showed 1,000 feet of gain. But whenwe went out we did like the first four miles, I was like well, I just don't seeit so maybe – Well, I found it on race day, which –

Andrew: Isn't that always the case?

John: Yeah, and you would have thought I'd learned by now, but itwas fine. It was a good course. It was entertaining. Kind of had different feels,which I always enjoy in a course where it doesn't all look exactly the same,and for me, especially with the three loops, that helped segment. So, there wasthe part along the transition area, then we were down through more theneighborhood part, then we got into the riverfront. So, those are the kinds ofthings that helped me kind of mentally to break it down, eat the elephant onebite at a time kind of thing. And then, of course, the finish line is justabout second to none. So, you do the three loops and then it's about, I guessit was about maybe a half mile off of the loop to the finish line at FourthStreet Live, which is an entertainment district downtown that –

Andrew: It’s right in the heart of the city.

John: It’s lined with restaurants and bars, and it's a greatpedestrian area. So, there's just, I can't think offhand of a finish line thathas more noise, more support in a probably more party atmosphere than that. Andthat was really one of the things that drew me to that race was getting toexperience that. So, yeah, once I made the turn around there onto FourthStreet, that's when it really got good.

Andrew: I'm glad it was the finish that drew you there, not theswim because you'd be really sad if it was the –

John: Yeah, that would have been a bummer.

Andrew: Well, telling just a little bit about the logistics ofgetting ready for race day in Louisville. How is the host city and where wouldyou recommend future athletes stay?

John: I mentioned before, I love Louisville. It's a veryhospitable town. You're in the Deep South and they're living up to the southernhospitality that they're known for. I travel a lot so I've seen a lot of theseairports and Louisville airport is one of my favorites. It’s so easy to get inand get out of. It's maybe a 10-minute drive to the Ironman village so it'svery convenient, real close. There are lots of hotels right there in thetransition area, either at the transition area or near the finish line, just acouple blocks apart. Lots of great restaurants, just logistically, it'sprobably one of the best on the Ironman circuit.

Andrew: John, before we go and wrap up today, what was yourfavorite moment from race day?

John: Man, there's so many. So, say the finish line would be kindof cheating and taking the easy route. I will say I got to see lots of friendsand training partners out on the run course. There were moments where you seefolks and they're just having a fantastic race, they're crushing it, and you knowthey're going to have a great result. I would say those were probably thehighlights for me. And those are the things that kind of fueled me and kept megoing, feeding off that energy of seeing other people thrive.

Andrew: So, even on course, you're just in coach mode, justcheering on those athletes that you knew.

John: Well, yeah. And I would say that’s even beyond coach mode.I think we’re all in that mode. There was a great comment at one of the athletebriefings that said, “It's your job to finish but it's also your job to makesure that somebody else finishes.”

Andrew: Wow, that's great.

John: So, I thought that was really cool and there really is aspecial camaraderie when you're out there on the Ironman course of “we're allin it together.” And yeah, we're trying to get to the finish line, but we wanteverybody else get in there as well. So, yeah, it's just a great source of fueland energy just to keep going.

Andrew: Well, John, swim or no swim, it's still an Ironman finishto be proud of, so congrats, friend. If you are listening and you areinterested in more information about racing Ironman Louisville, head over toour YouTube channel, TriDot Triathlon Training, and find our full-lengthLouisville race recon webinar. There, John talks you through all the helpfuldetails of the experience.

Wellthat's it for today folks. I want to personally thank TriDot CEO, Jeff Booher,and coach Elizabeth James for taking the time to walk us through overcomingbarriers that hold us back in the pool. A big thanks to our friends atGeneration UCAN for bringing us today's show. There is a reason so many of usat TriDot use UCAN, and it's because it's the best stuff for sustained energyin training and on race day. I encourage everyone to give UCAN’s nutritionproducts a try. Head to GenerationUCAN.com and use coupon code TRIDOT for 15% off your entire order.Enjoying the podcast? Have any triathlon questions or topics you want to hearus talk about? Email us at Podcast@TriDot.com and let us know what you're thinking. Again, that's Podcast@TriDot.com. We'll do it again soon. Until then, happy training.

Thanks for joining us. Make sure tosubscribe and share the TriDot Podcast with your triathlon crew. For more greattri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.Ready to optimize your training? Head to TriDot.comand start your free trial today. TriDot, the obvious and automatic choice fortriathlon training.

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