The coaches' corner - Open Water Tips
by Seth Botwick
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Meet Seth Botwick. Seth is a coach with One Step Beyond in Cary and
he tells us about his swimming background and philosophy in open water swimming
I come from a background in swimming, luckily! Swimming has been
a big part of my life. Starting in High School then Masters and now
coaching. My uncle is also a former swimmer and coach. At Christmas
we become giggling little school girls comparing swimming notes. A few
years back we went for a swim. In a vulnerable moment
he confessed that he couldn't figure out why I would always pull
ahead on the odd lengths. It was a simple answer, I was kicking
on those lengths! He was a bit deflated but we had a good laugh about
it. Our passion for the sport became even more intense when our sons
started swimming. I mentioned my Uncle because I remember a phone
conversation we had about how he had been "hand-picked" by
a team of talented tri guys to be the "Swimmer" in their butt kicking
relay. Race completed and the phone rings. My poor uncle, the
swimming prodigy, freaked out and had to hang onto the support canoe and
compose himself!! He had also gotten himself "way way way" off
course. |
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So the topic of the article is now revealed. As strictly
pool swimmers, we don't have, I believe, an appreciation for the "dark
side" of our sport (pun intended). Open water swimming is, for some of the
most talented pool swimmers, a dangerous and scary proposition. However,
if you can get over the mental hurdle of swimming with creepy, slimy, who
knows what, open water swimming can be a wonderful deviation from the tiled
landscape of a pool bottom.
Now onto the coaching. I would like talk about these key
open water topics: sighting, no walls, breathing, and starts and
finishes.
Sighting is something I rarely see people practice in a
pool. Not sure why, it's easy! Focus on a point at end of the
pool and look at it! Let you eyes focus on it, don't peak so fast you
miss it. You also don't have to lift your head so high out of
the water your feet then sink. Get your chin to the surface and take a
gander. Like steps? Here you go: Step 1. Take a little larger
kick Step 2. While taking a pull lift your chin to the surface
Step 3. Focus Step 4. (It is a little Zen but it
works) remember what you saw and "see it" through your forehead
and point yourself to it. One more thing, don't trust that the guy
swimming next to you knows where they are going even if he looks like Michael
Phelps.
Walls, walls, walls! There are none in a lake. So
that means that a 1500 meter open water swim is longer than it is in a
pool. Usually in a pool you are only swimming the distance between the
flags. Take that into account with your training. I
extend each stoke and focus on getting my chest out of the way of the
water during an open water event.
Breathing is a big debate. I stand on the side of; breathe
when you want and on whichever side you want. We are not doing
sprints, so breath! As coaches we sometimes tell people to breathe on
both sides to fix a stroke problem. Even though I breathe on my right, I
can breathe on both sides. Just in case you are swimming with waves or
Mr./Mrs. Turbokicks in your face, you should know how to breathe on both sides
comfortably. I typically have an athlete practice breathing on both
side just in case.
Finally, starts and finishes. This will depend on the race
conditions but dolphin diving in and then again at the finish works very
well. Running though water is very slow. Run in as far as you can,
remember water is 1000 times more dense than air so don't dive in too
early. I like to swim in as close as I can to the shore before
standing up. That usually means swimming until my fingers start brushing
the bottom. When I first started out, I would exit the water a drooling
dyslexic fool. My heart rate would spike terribly. My wife would
say "You look horrible!!! But hurry up and catch that
guy!!" I found that if it's a triathlon, visualizing my T1 set up
200 yards from shore and doing a very relaxed jog helped a
lot. If you are doing an open water swimming event, get out and sprint to
the finish.
The mystery of open water swimming can be conquered with good
practice, good friends, and good coaching.
Good luck,