Swim Clubs for Dummies | E7 with Candace Elliott, Physiotherapist

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Questions this week from Shayne…

Hey Matthew hope all is well! I was wondering where do you find groups to bike and swim with to help teach techniques?

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Candace is a Physiotherapist at Collegiate Sports Medicine in Red Deer, click here to read her bio

Candace swims with the Red Deer Swim Club (aka the Red Deer Silver Sharks). You can find out more about them at their website and Facebook group

Music By The Passion HiFi

What is a Masters swim club?

1:00
Masters just means anyone over 18
It has nothing to do with skill level

How many people attend?
About 30 usually in Red Deer, AB

How often do they meet?
Usually 3 times a week
You can attend as many or as few as you like

4:00
What’s the difference between Lane swimming and Public swimming?
Public swimming is for kids running around and playing
Lane swimming is just swimming in lanes for training
Sometimes the pool will be divided into part Lane and part Public

What happens at a Master’s swim club?

6:00
At the Red Deer Swim Club practices are 60 or 90 minutes
1-4 people in each lane
The coach will help put you in the right lane for your ability
There is a certified coach at each meeting

10:00
Are Master’s Swim Clubs good for total beginners?
Yes, much easier than going solo
Everything from total beginners to Olympic hopefuls
The coach will tailor the session to your ability

11:30
Do they teach you how to swim?
No, Masters swim clubs are for people who can already swim at least one length of the pool
If you can’t swim then go for Adult Swim lessons

What gear do you need to start swimming?

13:13
Goggles are essential
Women need a one-piece bathing suit
Men can wear jammers
You don’t need to wear speedos!
Get dark tinted goggles for outdoors swimming, clear for indoors
Try and stick them to your face without the straps to make sure the eyepiece fits
Goggles always fog up, it’s normal
Try to keep the inside of your goggles out of the water (don’t dip them to clear off the fog) – or the pool water will wear off the anti-fog coating
If you have hair, wear a swim cap, it keeps the hair out of your eyes
Swim caps do NOT keep your hair dry!
Swim caps help you be more streamlined and keep the hair out of your eyes
Get a clarifying shampoo to get the shampoo out or it will turn green
Use it after every swim
Triathlon shorts have a thin pad for cushioning on the bike
Get a training bathing suit
Typical bathing suits will only last a few months of use in a chlorine pool
Training bathing suits or endurance bathing suits are thicker and more resilient to the chlorine

What do Masters Swim Club session look like?

30:13
At the Red Deer Swim Club the coach writes the warm-up on the board for the different swim levels
Then the coach will put different workout intervals on the board
You will take regular rests and do a fair bit of socializing
The coach will also put in some drills to help you work on your technique
Swimming is very tiring when you first get into it
This lasts a few weeks and is totally normal

Poor swimming technique can make you more susceptible to injury

37:00
Swimming is awesome cross-training if you have a running injury
Poor technique can make you more susceptible to injury
Shoulder injuries are common in swimming
You need to keep your elbow high as you bring it through and keep the elbow flexed (bent)
Loss of thoracic spine rotation will make life harder on your shoulders when swimming
It’s helpful to get coaching on your technique early if you get into swimming
Strengthening the rotator cuff and the scapular stabilizers will help you protect your shoulders against swimming injuries
To test your thoracic rotation stand with your back to a mirror, twist to face yourself, and see if you can easily see yourself in the mirror
When swimming we want to twist from the hips so you “roll” to get your arm out of the water
When pulling through the water we begin on our side and toward “tummy down” as we reach the hip
If you don’t roll from the hips you will put more demand on rotating your neck and make life harder for your shoulders
A high elbow catch is to get your forearm and hand to pull under the elbow as you begin to pull through the water
The amount of “bend” in the elbow will vary from person to person

Swimming drills can help you improve your technique

52:00
Drills and shorter distances are helpful for beginners
The Catch-Up drill is essentially swimming with one arm (the other is floating out in front or resting on a kick-board)
You want to be as “flat” or horizontal as possible when swimming
Try not to look forward with your head as this will drive the legs down into the water
Stronger swimmers should focus on their kick, weaker swimmers should focus on the pull and the roll from the hips

Swimming “toys” can help you improve your technique

56:40
Use a pull-buoy to support your legs helps so you can focus on working on your pull
They also help you focus on keeping your legs together to keep a streamlined

Your feet should remain in the water always and there should only ever e a very small splash

1:01:00
A flutter board or kickboard or flippers/fins are helpful for working on your kick

1:03:00
Hand-padels are plastic devices that you strap to your hand to help you work on your pull
You will be able to feel the pull more easily through the resistence of the water to let you know your hand is orientated correctly
Bigger hand padels are used to increase the resistance so you can work on upper body strength training
Start with the training bathing suits and use those for races as well initially. You can always buy a race suit later

Pacing is tricky for swimming

1:07:10
Usually, the coach will give you an allocated time for each interval at a Masters Swim Club
Some goggles will display your pace on the goggle lens so you can see it!
Masters Swim Clubs can also be helpful for pacing as you will be put in lanes with people aiming for the same pace as you
Hitting other people as you swim is normal
More experienced swimmers often don’t apologize for hitting each other as it’s so common

1:16:09
Breathing can be very challenging for new runners
Make sure to breath out through your nose in the water and to breath in through your mouth
It can be helpful to hum as you breathe out

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[su_accordion][su_spoiler title=”Transcript” open=”no” style=”default” icon=”plus” anchor=”” class=””]um so uh yeah we had that question from
shane which i’ll sort of read out at the
start but it’s uh
yeah hey hobo as well i was wondering
where do you find good groups to bike
and swim with and to teach technique so
i thought if we could kind of use that
as a
as a navigation is that is that okay
yes although that is a big
failing of the swim clubs
[Laughter]
well that yeah that’s why i thought it
would be a good idea to get you on to
talk about
because i have heard of i mean honestly
the first time i heard of a
masters swim club because the the
the name is masters i thought well that
sounds quite
like intense do you know what i mean so
what what is that
the swim club exactly so masters
just means that you’re over 18 years old
so if you’re under 18
then you just swim i guess competitively
like with other people your age and if
you’re over 18 then you’re just
classified as masters
so you don’t have to be a really good
swimmer you can be at any skill level
that’s just
what they call it and i believe that’s
all across canada
all right okay so the name can be very
misleading because
you tell that to people and they say wow
you must be really fast you’re like well
no you don’t have to be
so and then so what’s your background in
swimming have you been like
swimming your whole life or just for a
while or uh
pretty much my whole life um my mom
made us take all of our swimming lessons
when i was a kid
and then when i was about 10
i joined the swim club in my hometown
so i swam in swim club until i was in
high school
and then kind of stopped swimming a
little in university
and then i got back into it i joined
masters
two years ago so took a bit of a break
but
so we have people that are like me that
have been in swim club or they just
swam the whole way through never quit
and then we have people that took
swimming lessons
or know a little bit of swimming but
don’t have a whole lot of skill
necessarily so then the club helps them
improve
and how many people like in a in a
masters swim club typically
um i believe the like in red deer we’ve
had around
30 or 35 the last few years
um calgary the clubs get really full so
there’s actually a wait list to join
i’m not actually sure of their size um
right now with kovid we are allowed to
have 48 swimmers just so that with our
two coaches we’re
considered one cohort but we’re nowhere
near that number
right okay well i guess um just to
orientate some of the
because we’ve just started blabbering on
about it but let’s
orient it p some people will be
listening and some people will be
watching so
we’re both in red deer and uh just to
intro you
um candace and i are both
physiotherapists and work at
collegiate sports medicine and um the
masters swim club
uh is in red deer is that right yes
but they have them all over the place
right okay
and now what’s the name of the the red
deer one
uh the red deer silver sharks right okay
and then if you want to join is it like
how often do you guys
meet and all that kind of stuff so in
red deer
we actually have five different swim
times
you can either swim tuesday thursday
afternoon
or tuesday thursday evening and then
everybody can swim on sunday morning
so you can either register to swim once
a week or you can register for three
times per week
and you can go to any practice that you
want
okay within like how you’re registered
and then what what does it look like
when you
go like how how long is it what kind of
workouts are you doing is it really hard
because i know for me it’s a little
intimidating because
especially when i first started swimming
because i went from running to swimming
and
that’s a big difference
and it was like i don’t know it’s just
yeah i mean i went swimming when i was a
kid and um
like i went to a swimming club and stuff
to learn how to swim
but then i didn’t really swim apart from
like swimming around in the sea on
holiday
um until like last year
and i remember just i was like how do
you go swimming and i would look at the
the rec center and it was like land
swimming and public swimming and even
that
confused me what’s the difference
between lead and public swimming
so public swimming would be like what
you would take your children to
if you want to go fool around in the
pool or if you want to play like at the
wave pool or on the water slides or just
you know
like throw a ball around or there’s
other kind of different things
lane swimming is all of the lanes are
separated by lane ropes and you just
swim
back and forth for however long that you
want to
so if kids are going to go they also
have to you know just
swim back and forth across the pool some
people will
walk in the pool in the slower lanes so
that’s usually
okay but yeah lane swimming is if you
were going to swim to train for
something or for fitness
and public swimming is just like a
free-for-all at the pool
yeah so that’s uh and then you get some
that are public slashly and swimming
right so it’s like
is it like half the pool is lanes and
half is like kids missing yeah
they usually would have um a couple of
lanes blocked off for people that just
want to swim laps
and then the rest of the pool would be
open for people to just
kind of play around and have fun or use
the hot tub or
the sauna or things and when you’re
swimming with the
what’d you call it the silver sharks
yeah
um do you guys sort of reserve the whole
pool and then all the lanes are just for
your club or do you have a half half
where it’s like
anyone is coming in and using them or
it’s and like
two or three lanes where just you guys
and i’m like how does that work
so on tuesday and thursday afternoons
because afternoons aren’t a very popular
time a lot of people work full-time
they just have two lanes reserved
i don’t know what happens with the rest
of the pool if it’s regular lane
swimming time because i’ve never gone to
those practices
but in the evenings and on sundays we
have the entire pool reserved
so it’s just masters that’s there at
that time
okay so the masters club reserves the
pool sometimes but then some of the
quieter times not so much if there’s not
so many
yeah people attending that session
usually
yeah and so what it looks like is
practices are
either 60 minutes or 90 minutes
and all of the lanes are separated by
lane ropes so
at the michener pool is the one that we
often swim at there’s six lanes
so you have between one and
four people in your lane depending on
your skill level so you’re split up
sometimes you kind of split yourself up
if you know who’s coming to practice
that day
when you first start out the coach will
ask you you know what your swim level is
they usually just get you to swim a lap
or two and they kind of
put you in a lane where people are a
similar speed
and then when you so say i’m a newbie
and i go in there
so there’s a coach for every session
okay
yeah so they’re they’re like a certified
swim coach credentials i’m not entirely
sure of but
yeah right now we have two coaches and
they’ve been coaching for
several years so and then so say they
put me in the
thing and they they’re going to
determine where i’m going to go
in terms of the different lanes are
going to have different skill levels
and they’re going to try and put me in
the right one so i’m not going too hard
or too easy
so they’re going to ask me to swim a
couple of lengths now am i supposed to
go like as
hard as i can or is that am i supposed
to pick a comfortable speed like how do
they
how how do i do that bit i think it’s
just
up to you like even just probably
watching you swim 10 or 15 meters gives
them an idea
of okay like this guy’s you know he
doesn’t put his face in the water
or no different things like that or no
he can’t actually do front crawl
so yeah and as your skill level changes
um they might tell you to move up so i
know swimmers that have started out in
the slowest lane
and then they’ll come to practice one
day and the coach will say no swim here
today and you maybe do a little bit of a
harder workout
or this i guess the the same workout but
over a shorter period of time so
so that’s a good question because i
remember when i first went
you get in the pool and you saw you know
it’s like sometimes when you go back to
the gym you’re just so convinced that
everybody’s looking at you and thinking
what an idiot
why are they doing that you know i went
in my i had running shorts because i
didn’t
didn’t have anything else to wear i uh
okay like an old crusty pair of goggles
and
i went in the slow lane and i seemed a
bit too fast because there was people
walking in that lane
yeah i’ll move to the next one and i was
struggling to keep up and then i wasn’t
sure what the like
the etiquette was for whether i should
like stand at the side
or do you know what i mean like when i
was taking a rest where you should stand
so there was all these little like
things that made me feel very
uncomfortable and so
a lot of people that listen to this will
be runners and
you know yeah so what what
is i mean that so i went through it and
now
when i go to the pool i’m quite
comfortable
but at first it was really
nerve-wracking
if you um if you’re like me and you you
were just running
and you were like i want to take up
swimming because it’s good
cross-training and
i want to try something new but you
haven’t swam in a while
you don’t have all the gear you don’t
know about like when to go
would masters swim clubs be a good place
or should you sort of get your
feet wet as it were go a few times i
would start with masters
um honestly um i’ve been thinking about
swimming a lot the last couple of days
and like if you’re just getting into it
instead of struggling through it on your
own it’s a lot easier if you have
somebody
coach you like we we have swimmers of
all levels there’s one swimmer who
started this year
having to practice putting their face in
the water
and there’s one swimmer who i believe
almost made an olympic swim team when he
was
younger so there’s there’s everything in
between so if you don’t
really know what you’re doing coming to
the pool is a really
good idea because like the more
experienced swimmers you know the coach
gives us a workout
and then if someone really needs help or
has lots of questions he goes over and
spends a lot of time working with them
and giving them like separate like
special drills or
different things to do and really helps
them work on things so
instead of just going and struggling on
your own and trying to figure out what
you read online
or different things like that like it’s
the coaches will they’ll teach you and
other swimmers can help you too
yeah because there’s going to be more
experienced swimmers there like yourself
who aren’t
the coach necessarily but yeah you know
it can just kind of give you a helping
hand
so what about if you’re you know you’re
a runner and you’re an adult and you
didn’t learn to swim when you’re a kid
is is this a good place to go or should
you look for like adult swim lessons
we need adult swimming lessons so you
need to know
how to swim to join masters so if you
don’t know you know what front crawl is
or
back crawl or you don’t know how to kick
your feet
then you would or you know you don’t
know how to breathe out into the water
those would be things that you would
want to take swimming lessons for
so they won’t actually teach you how to
swim if you don’t know
how but if you have you know maybe you
made it
through a few of your i don’t even know
what swimming lessons like maybe you
made it to level six out of level
10 of swimming lessons when you were a
kid you should at least
know in theory how to swim a little bit
and you know tread water and that type
of thing but if you don’t know how to
swim at all then you’re looking at adult
swimming lessons
and what would be a good gauge is it
like you know if you can swim
15 minutes on your own without sinking
is that like okay then you can go to
masters but if you can’t do that you can
swim
one length of the pool but you know you
can if you could swim all the way
you know the 25 meters across then i
would say
start out in masters if you have no idea
how to get from one end of the pool to
the other
you’re probably looking at swimming
lessons okay cool
and then so again we’re coming back to
someone like me
right i know how to swim basically yeah
and i’m thinking about getting back into
swimming
and but uh i haven’t swam much as an
adult right i i was only running
until last year and then what what do i
need to get
because like again i had to sort of
figure out the gear
as i went and i wanted to kind of share
what would have been good things to have
do you need a lot of gear
do you need those toys do you need like
what what do you need to get started so
really um
number one i would say goggles um
there i don’t know that i’ve ever seen
anybody since i was a small child swim
without goggles
um it’s it’s very uncomfortable to do
that
and if you’re a woman you want to look
for a one-piece bathing suit
um like a bikini something that you
might have to worry about
falling out of or falling down you don’t
want that so like a one-piece bathing
suit
um and then as a guy not like swim
trunks like baggy
shorts they’re gonna weigh you down a
lot so you don’t have to wear the little
speedo that people think of that is a
specific question i had
yes where’s the speedo
okay okay so speedo is quite okay so
what what do the guys wear
so a lot of them wear what are called
jammers which are
like a longer uh shorts that they’re
they’re they’re tight they’re snug
fitting they come
about mid thigh or some of them will
wear
more like a boxer brief length um
swim short as well so as long as it’s
snug fitting then that’s what you’re
looking for you’re not going to get that
drag
and what i mean if you’re either going
to search it online or if you’re going
to go to a store
i mean a one-piece bathing suit i think
most women
would i mean even i think i i understand
how to look for that
but a guy like what would you type in
what do you what do you
because i would think speedos but i
don’t know i wouldn’t feel comfortable
wearing speedos so these other things
you mentioned
yeah what kind of shop do you go to well
what do you what do you search online if
you’re looking for that stuff
men’s swimsuit um so i think they call
them jammers which are the longer length
um shorts i can’t remember uh what the
the you know the one in between the mid
length mid thigh length short and the
little
banana hammock i can’t remember what
those ones are called um
so men’s bathing suits shoots shorts or
jammers and jammers is like
j-a-w-m-e-r-s
yes okay and then goggles what what are
we looking for there do we have to spend
a lot of money do we want to get the
cheapest pair we can find
um you don’t have to spend a lot of
money um
a couple of things to think about is if
you’re going to be swimming indoors or
outdoors
if you’re swimming outside having darker
tinted goggles can be nice
i don’t like that because in the pool
inside it’s not as bright and
they do get foggy i know there was a
question around that
so i have like a i have a clear pair
actually both of mine are
clear so that i can see um
something that i like is un under the
eyepiece
if this is foam the foam will kind of
get
separated and eat away and then you can
get leaks in your goggles
so this one it’s all kind of one piece
together
if you can see that yeah um
one good thing is if the goggles have a
nose piece that’s adjustable some of
them will come with different sized nose
pieces
because when you put them on your face
what you if you can take them out and
try them on if you stick them
here we go into videos if you stick them
to your eyes
you should be able to have them stick to
your face
so the straps are here and if they don’t
stick if you can’t get them to stay on
they’re probably too big
in the eye area so then you’re gonna get
lots of leaks in them
right so the straps you can adjust but
yeah so this eyepiece this one took me a
while to figure out how to get it
adjusted so like
it’s it’s a lot bigger but i can still
get it to stay on my face but
again this one popped off so it’s a lot
wider of a lens than the other one
and yeah goggles i’m sorry
they’re not that expensive i think
they’re around twenty dollars
yeah even the good ones are not terribly
expensive right
no they’re not and they will over time
they’ll break down from the chlorine in
the pool so they won’t last forever um
the one pair that i have here i’ve used
for
just over two years and it’s holding up
really well yeah
and do yours up because mine fog up
all the time
that i don’t know anybody who can have
their goggles not fog up so
they usually come with a coating on them
um something that you want to try not to
do is try not to get water like on the
inside of the goggle because there’s
usually an anti-fog coating there so
i know i’ve seen swimmers who will dip
their goggles in the pool
and that helps that wear down a little
bit faster
you can buy anti-fog sprays i’ve never
tried them but i
i did have a client who was in the red
deer swim club like as a teenager and
she
i asked her one day and she said they
just fog up
so i don’t know how to make that stop
happening
yeah i was thinking about this i can’t
imagine there is a way because it’s
probably
the fog i don’t know exactly but it’s
probably something related to the
coolness of the water versus the
temperature of your
your body is that what’s going on with
the pump and generally the longer
that you swim like when i start in a
workout um it takes
them longer to fog up and the newer pair
that i have takes longer to fog up than
the older pair but
they fog up by the end of the workout so
usually like if i take a break i’ll just
kind of wipe them with my thumbs to get
the fog off
and keep going and what and you wiping
the outside of the inside
the inside yeah and and you said because
i didn’t know this you said try not to
so when you get in the pool you should
already have them on your eyes so you’re
not getting the inside of the goggles
wet
or on your forehead like usually i put
my cap on and then i put my goggles on
and they’re you know sitting up they’re
twisted
they’re sitting up on my forehead and
then you hop in the water and then i’ll
put them down
when you go to start swimming oh right
okay
yeah i didn’t know that because yeah i
always dip them in the water to when
they start to fog up i dip them in to
to get the fog off but i should love
them yeah well i use my thumbs
because yeah i’ve kind of learned over
the years that if you continuously dip
them in the pool
the chlorine the pool water is going to
eat away the anti-fog coating
i mean it’s still on my thumbs but it’s
a little bit less than
than if you’re actually dipping it in
the water well i think it’s too lit for
my current pair but my next pack
and it’ll it’ll still happen i mean i’ve
done that with both of my pears and they
both start to fog
too so i don’t know solution for that
some of the people listening to this
will be you know getting in the
triathlon and stuff which is what i was
doing so it’s probably worth mentioning
there because yours are clear but i know
once you start going to open water
swimming so you’re swimming um
outside in lakes and rivers and stuff
like that um
my goggles have um like a
it almost looks like sunglasses when you
look at them from the outside
and i believe that’s to help with the
reflections of the sun
off the water and the this yeah kind of
like having sunglasses on essentially
yeah
yeah and that’s a personal preference
that yeah it depends on where you’re
swimming i do have
two pairs of dark tinted goggles and
i only use them now if i somehow would
lose the two pairs that i have like i
have them but i don’t like them but i
also only swim indoors
uh so that’s what you meant by dark
tinted it was this kind of sunglasses or
some of them are mirrored
and they look like yeah like sunglasses
that’s what’s mine are yeah because you
can’t really see my eyes when i have
them on
yeah and i i do have two pairs of dark
tinted ones but i
didn’t bring them to my prop pile
and what about swimming cups i mean i
don’t wear one because i’m bald but
should i
and do do does everybody need one like
what’s up with swimming cops
if you are racing so as a master
so if you’re over 18 you can still go to
swim meets they do have swim meets
not currently with covid but they do
have them so if you’re really concerned
about
speed and time and shaving off the
milliseconds
wearing a swim cap whether or not you
have hair unless you’ve completely
you know shaved your head right to the
skin
i would say anybody who’s got hair
longer than an inch or two
would probably want a swim cap
with a lot of people it’s because when
you’re swimming your hair
will get in your eyes and as a woman
even if you put your hair
a man with longer hair if you put it in
a ponytail the little bits are still
going to get out it’s going to get in
your eyes um
it will slow you down i haven’t swam
without a swim cap
in probably since before i was
10 years old so i and i’ve also gotten
my hair tangled in my goggles so if you
have
anything longer than you know a typical
man’s haircut i would say
getting a swim cap or if you spent a lot
of money
dyeing your hair um you might want to
keep as much
chlorine water out of it as you can yeah
see these are things that never occur to
me so that’s uh yeah that’s good to know
for when i grow my hair long and dye it
red i’ll yeah i don’t know
so i mean i’ve never actually worn a
swim cap so this has
always baffled me well it’s you know one
of those
i guess this is the theme of this
episode is like
questions you feel too stupid to ask
that’s okay
like ask away my next one is
if you’re a girl and you’ve got well i
guess like anyone with long hair
and you put a swim cap on before you go
in the pool
and then you go and swim for like half
an hour and then you get out and you
take your swim cap
off is your hair dry or is it wet it’s
wet
so something that my mom actually asked
me about when i was a teenager
is why don’t swim caps keep your hair
dry swim caps are not meant to keep your
hair dry
so they’re meant to make you a little
more streamlined so you go faster but
also keep your hair out of your face
um so water does get under the cap it’s
not a tight seal
um a lot of the time they want you to
shower before you get in the pool anyway
so your hair is wet before you get in
the pool
oh okay but yeah they’re not meant to
keep your hair dry
right i’ll keep it a little bit drier
but
it’ll still get wet well again and then
that’s a
a question that some you know runners
who are thinking about getting into
getting into a bit of swimming might be
concerned about it never occurred to me
but if you’re not if you’re if you have
had your hair dyed or you’ve had it done
recently
is going swimming gonna mean that you
end up going back to the hairdresser’s
sooner than if you weren’t swimming if
you were just running
i mean maybe i don’t dye my hair
um like if you’re in the pool regularly
like my understanding is
when you dye your hair you know the more
often you wash it
the quicker the dye comes out so if
you’re swimming
for an hour or so and then you’re
washing your hair
a few times a week maybe extra after
then i would say it probably would fade
faster but
most women out there color their hair
and there are a lot of them at the pool
right okay and they don’t they don’t
sort of lament how quick
how they’re ending up going to the
hairdresser every like second week
because
i’ve not heard that from anybody um you
can also buy and what i would recommend
if you have blonde hair or
like gray hair white hair is getting
a clarifying shampoo to remove the
chlorine
because it does it does kind of build up
in your hair
and it makes it it gives it a really
kind of strange
feel like you can often if you haven’t
washed the chlorine out of your hair
your hair feels
kind of gross and crusty and when i was
a kid i actually
had my hair turned like it had a green
tint to it so in fluorescent light you
would see my blonde hair and it had like
a green
tint so it is a concern if you have
light hair or if you’re paying to dye
your hair blonde
um so the mitigate that you would get
what kind of shampoo
just a clarifying shampoo some of them
will say like swimmer shampoo or
i think i just went to the hair salon
and looked for a clarifying shampoo and
read the back and it specifically said
to remove chlorine
from swimmer’s hair so and then should
you use that
on your exit from the pool every time or
is it just like do it once a week or
like
i use it after every time i swim this is
fascinating i didn’t know any of this
okay but i’ve also seen swimmers just
use regular
shampoo after swimming even if they have
blonde hair and their hair didn’t look
green
so i maybe i’m the exception
okay i guess i’m picturing like bright
luminous green
no it’s it’s kind of like well you know
how
you if you someone has to say dark brown
hair and they’ve got a little bit of red
highlights in it you can kind of see a
little bit of a red tint
in certain lights all right okay so it
would be like that except
the tint in my hair was green
okay well that that brings me to my next
point um
i don’t know if this is a thing that
happens to other people or if it just
happened to me
but i thought i bought triathlon shorts
to swim in i don’t know if you know what
they are know what triathlon shorts are
so you know those jamas you mentioned
yep
i think they’re like those they’re
essentially like they look like cycling
shorts
right okay but you can swim in them and
in the
in the butt bit there’s like a like a
pod
but it’s not a really thick pad so if i
get this
right i believe cyclists often buy
cycling shots that have a very thick pad
that you yeah it’s kind of like a nappy
to sit on
yeah it’s not though if you poo yourself
it’s just like cushion yep we’re
cushioned yeah
but in triathlon um the the triathlon
shorts have a thinner part
i think this is right and and i think
that’s
that’s because you’re going to get out
of the
bike oh sorry out of the water and it’s
you don’t want a really thick part
because it’ll be like drenched and then
you’ll have to sit on this drenched pod
because then you’re going to get
straight on the bike
and then you’re going to run so you have
a thinner pot no okay
the question i had those triathlon
shorts i was just like
well i’ll wear those for my swimming
rather than the running shorts because
at least i i look a little bit more like
i fit in but they they sort of
disintegrated they they didn’t
disintegrate but they
yeah do you know what i’m talking about
yes
so if you’re gonna be training and
swimming
you’re going to want to get a training
bathing suit
so you would save your triathlon shorts
for days that you’re racing
um so they actually if you like the
typical swimsuit that you would buy
you know you’re going on holidays you’re
just gonna go and get like a lycra
spandex bathing suit
those don’t hold up very well in
chlorine water because there’s so many
chemicals in a public pool
or if you’re in a salt water pool they
break down really quickly
they get really stretched out and baggy
they don’t only last a few months
so if you’re looking for um often when
you’re looking like on
bathing suit websites or if you’re in
the store they’ll say that they’re a
training suit or they’ll say endurance
so the endurance means that it’s more of
i believe it’s polyester so it’s a
thicker fabric
and it feels different than what you
would think of as a typical swimsuit
and it’s just to have them hold up to
the chlorine water better so that you
would train in that
and then that will last longer and not
get eaten away by the
pool water like your like your poor
triathlon shorts did
so often people will buy training suits
because they’re
they’re thicker and they’re made of a
different material and then
at a meet like if you’ve watched the
olympics often you’ll see them with you
know the really high neck and they have
you know men and women both have you
know neatly length shorts and there’s
kind of specific suits for competing in
but you wouldn’t train in one of those
because they’re very expensive and it’s
not going to last very long in the pool
right i wish someone told me that before
next pair i’m going to look after the
next pair i want some triathlon shots
and i want some
training um jammers that’s that’s what i
need
okay um right i think that takes care of
gear doesn’t i think we know what gear
we need
if we’re gonna get yeah and that’s
really all you need there is
like there are extra things like
kickboards or i call them flutter boards
or pan paddles
fins slash flippers pull buoys so
you don’t need any of that stuff most
pools have that available
for you to use even with kovid it’s just
that you put it in a bin to be cleaned
after so
you don’t have to buy anything you
really just need goggles and a bathing
suit
and possibly a swim cap okay well i have
lots of questions
following up about the training but i
didn’t ask you how like do you need to
go
like how long do we have you for i have
nothing else planned for today so
okay well we’ll see how many questions i
can ask sorry
maybe carving a pumpkin later but that’s
it oh yeah i haven’t done that okay
i haven’t even got a pumpkin so yeah i
mean um
my i have more questions about the
masters uh
group session so let’s say i go to one
and they they sort of determine
that i’m i’m going to go us in in the
one of the slow lanes
what and it’s you know 60 90 minutes i
mean that might be intimidating for
people who
don’t usually swim so do you do some
people just go for part of the session
like how hard these workouts how much
resting are you doing
all that kind of stuff so you don’t have
to go for the whole session
um most people will end up staying the
whole time
you’re not swimming for 60 or 90 minutes
non-stop
so typically what happens is you show up
and the coach gives you a warm up so
he’s got a couple of white boards that
he writes on so he writes
down what the warm-up is and that’ll
depend on again your skill level
he’ll kind of say okay like you people
over here you’re gonna do this and then
you people over here you’ll do this
so you go you warm up you can swim
completely at your own speed if you want
to rest for five minutes halfway through
if you want to stand on the deck and
talk instead of warming up
and then typically
uh like earlier in the season they
definitely go a little bit easier on you
because most people don’t swim you know
in between the seasons so he gives you
different workouts um so maybe you know
you’ll work on
a few sets of kick or you’ll work on
pull or you’ll just practice
swimming different lengths so generally
they give you
um now you’re going to swim you know 50
meters
four times so you’ll have to learn how
to count pool lengths by meters that’s
not that hard but you’ll have to do that
and he may say okay you’ll take this
much rest in between them or
you’ll do them on this amount of time so
you would do that
and then you know you take a little bit
of a break after
sometimes you’ll practice doing
different drills
so if you know different drills to
practice you can pick your own
sometimes he’ll you know give you ideas
of different drills that you can
practice so you basically you swim for a
little while
you stop and rest there’s usually a fair
bit of
socializing that happens so sometimes
resting is longer than
other times and so the
say you’re going to do drills is this
drills designed to improve your swimming
technique
yes so a really the the good thing about
swimming with masters
is that especially if you’re starting
out
doing shorter distances so that you
don’t get too tired
because if you try to go and swim 20
lengths of the pool and you don’t know
what you’re doing you’re going to be
very very tired um and you’re probably
going to be really discouraged so
you practice doing shorter distances
so that you can recover um drills
there’s for every stroke there’s all
kinds of different drills and they’re
designed to help you work on your
technique
so getting better at your technique is
how you get to be
a more efficient swimmer and what i mean
yeah that’s definitely something i
experienced like i would go and swim
before work in the morning
and at first i was doing 20 or 30
minutes and i was resting
quite a bit like every three or every
four to six
lengths i would rest and i was like
exhausted
at work and that went on for weeks it
took me so long
to build up any tolerance and that i
think it was partially that i got a
little bit of it swimming so it wasn’t
so inefficient but also i think just
because it’s different you know you’re
working all these other muscles and
i wasn’t good if i ran a lot at the time
i could have
i was running you know half and full
mouth and distance i was training quite
a bit
it wasn’t it yeah cardio fitness thing
but
yeah i was just half asleep i would
drink like six cups of coffee at work on
the days i went for a swim in the
morning
so i i feel your pain when i started
swimming
again two years ago when i joined
masters i think it had been
five years since i had last actually
gone lane swimming
and i like grew up swimming so i had
like
decent technique and i think i was
exhausted for the first
six weeks of the season just tired all
the time
so even if you are a swimmer if you
haven’t swam in a long time like it is
it does take
a while to get used to so
and it does get easier with time
it does and it’s a different type of
tired i noticed like with running or
biking or weight training it’s sort of
muscular soreness whereas um
i didn’t feel any specific it wasn’t
like my shoulders got really tired or
anything it was more just
okay general fatigue you know what i
mean did you yeah
it was yours more experience like
specifically in the arms or like
um what do you know what i mean i felt
like
it was kind of easier on my body in some
ways
it wasn’t so specific it was just a
general fatigue
yeah and i think for the first week or
two i maybe just had
stiff muscles everywhere but then it was
just general fatigue
like i was just i’d walk up the stairs
and oh
i lost my headphones
um i’d walk up the stairs and just be
exhausted by the time i climbed to the
second floor of the building that i
worked in
and so yeah i was just generally tired
for a few weeks
and i did go from not swimming at all to
swimming three times a week so
maybe swimming once a week would be a
better way to start or
even twice a week like if you register
for three times a week you don’t have to
go three times a week you can go twice a
week
well i think it’s it depends on what you
want to get out of it really because i
think a lot of
i mean most of the runners i see in the
clinic are injured right and
i’m always trying to sell them on biking
and swimming is ways of keeping up their
cardio fitness and
not stepping backwards because of their
injury because inevitably
they have to reduce their running volume
and you know if you want to feel that
kind of
training fatigue you know really feel
like you’re progressing in terms of your
cardiovascular
cardio respiratory fitness swimming i
think is a
awesome alternative because it doesn’t
sort of
you know your feet don’t hurt you if
you’ve got knee pain it doesn’t affect
that usually
it’s it’s a great way to cross train
when you’re injured
yeah but yeah it is it is it’s a full
body workout
which is part of it like you’re biking
you know mostly your legs running again
like your legs but you’re using your
whole body with your swimming and you’re
using your core
a lot yeah yeah
yeah it’s definitely it’s
it’s exhausting when you’re not used to
it
yeah and now yeah i’m sort of taking a
little while off i
took some time off because the pool’s
shut and then i’m not going to be
swimming
for the next couple of months i’m going
to just work on strength training and
then
start again at christmas and i’m fully
expecting this
sleepiness to come back okay you
shouldn’t be as tired
um because i
between like my first season and my
second season swimming i think i went
lane swimming just once on my own
and coming back in september after
taking you know a couple of months off
it wasn’t nearly as hard as it was
you know the first year after taking
five years off and then
even now with with the pandemic it had
been six months
since i had swam and it’s still like
you’re tired but nowhere near that level
of exhausted so
if you’ve if you’ve built up a little
bit of the tolerance it does you don’t
go right back to square one so you
should
hopefully not be as exhausted as you
were yeah and that that fits with other
sports doesn’t it like when i know when
i’m taking time off rock climbing and
then go back to it you know you get your
fitness back
quicker so it’s sort of yes yeah
the sorry i forgot what i was going to
ask but it was quite
specific um
so we were talking about when we were
talking about what to talk about in this
episode i was saying that you know it’s
it’s something i often try and sell
runners on right especially because
they’re injured usually when they’re
seeing me and yeah
i find with running when i get a lot of
people say i want to take up running
and i give them these like really
careful like couch to five
carriers or interval running programs
and you know what i mean i get them i
get them to go really slowly
build up like a tiny bit at a time
because
running injuries are so prevalent right
they’re like 50
per year kind of thing of runners will
get injured roughly
i mean and then we were chatting about
whether there might be some common
swimming injuries and you know saying
you know as you get into swimming
it’s quite tiring at first especially if
you go three times a week
but then i was thinking do you have to
be as careful if you’re taking up
swimming and because there’s no impact
um i personally as a physio
i can count on one hand the number of
swimming injuries i’ve seen
in my career is this have you seen a lot
like um
is it very common for swimmers to be
injured it’s common for swimmers to get
shoulder pain
right and that’s with
i think i’ve seen that i can recall you
know one other injury from swimming
which just happened to be kind of a
freak concussion that happened
um a person was doing a flip turn and
they hit their head on the bottom of the
pool
um but otherwise it’s it’s only
it seems to be shoulders so i think a
lot of that is because the shoulder is
kind of a vulnerable structure
to begin with a lot of people
if you don’t have good technique with
swimming so if you’re not again
sure what you’re doing and you haven’t
necessarily been trained
then the technique that you’re using can
make you more susceptible to having an
injury and what might that look like how
how might i
be adopting a technique that’s putting
me in a bad
spot so typically
i’m just going to talk about front and
crawl or what we call freestyle because
that’s what most people do is they’re
going to just do front crawl
and when you’re swimming what you want
to do when you’re bringing your arm out
of the water is you keep your elbow high
so a lot of people will bring their arm
all the way around like a windmill with
a straight arm
and that’s the motion that tends to get
people into trouble
is that because it’s a longer lever arm
essentially so the stress on the
shoulder per stroke is going to be
higher if
you’ve got your arm out straight as
opposed to bringing a bent elbow through
i don’t know the answer to that question
as a physio probably i should
but i don’t really know the answer to
that question it’s just one of those
things that’s always been there and it’s
always been stressed and i never thought
too much about why that was well i think
as well the other thing that
occurs to me and again like if i have
seen swimmers over the years they’ve
been
shoulder injuries right that’s the only
things i can remember seeing i wonder as
well because
there’s a couple of things so one is
particularly in older people when you
get them to twist right
they’ve often lost a bit of mobility in
their thoracic spine to
yeah so that’s another a big one and
shoulder blade stability too
uh like you can have a swimmer with
great technique who gets a sore shoulder
because their
shoulder blade stabilizer muscles aren’t
working or yeah their thoracic spine is
stiff so those are
other things that can contribute and
there’s the
you know if you’re going to get into
swimming is there a way you would
potentially approach it to try and avoid
these things or is it more just gauss
law
and if your shoulders are getting sore
gone to your physio with an athletic
therapist and have them looked at like
how should you approach it if you’re
just getting into it
i definitely think going slow is a good
idea
um if you have access to like get
coaching or training that’s helpful
um working on things like rotator cuff
strengthening
or like scapular stabilization exercises
would also be a good thing
because there are lots of people that
ask a lot of their shoulders and they
never ever work on strengthening their
rotator cuff
okay um well i’ll i don’t want to take a
deep dive into that too much just
because i feel like that’s gonna
take another hour or two but um just
just in a simple way what what’s what’s
the rotator cuff
what scapular stabilizers how how might
you
like one or two simple exercises you
might do to sort of strengthen those to
help you
stave off any potential shoulder
injuries there
rotator cuff there are four muscles they
sit around your shoulder blade
they basically stabilize your humerus so
the upper bone in your arm they
stabilize that into the shoulder socket
so easy way if you have a resistance
band or a dumbbell
is to just tuck your elbow in and if
you’re either standing with your band
you’re
pulling out to the side against your
resistance here or laying on your side
he would do the same thing pulling going
the other way
those are often really common physio
exercises
uh doing shoulder blades squeezes so
muscles to keep your shoulder blades
kind of more
glued against your rib cage where they
should be instead of forward how i’ve
been sitting for the last hour
yeah me too i’m so doing you know
squeezing your shoulder blades together
or doing rows or lat pull-downs
those are those are good ones too
especially if you’re mainly working on
front crawl is you’re using a lot more
of the front of your shoulder and the
front of your body
as opposed to if you actually flip over
and do backstroke
now you can work at the back of the
shoulder a little bit more but a lot of
people just stay on their front when
they’re swimming
because it’s easier yeah yeah
yeah and then i would add to that to
look at the
the mobility of your let’s say you’re
twisting mobility but what we’re talking
about here is
the thoracic spine which is your your
thoracic spine is like where your ribs
are
the way i tell people to have a quick
check of that is to
stand with your back to a mirror and put
your feet together
and then twist your whole body and try
and look at yourself in the mirror
does that make sense and then if you
can’t yeah if you can’t turn around and
like see yourself
if you’re like if you only get like
halfway and you’re sort of craning your
neck
then you probably should do some
stretches to loosen up
your twisting um which you know you
could google something like a
pretzel stretch or a spine twist stretch
and
essentially it’s just anything that
twists that
part of your body because if you stiff
there
then you’re gonna have to put your
shoulder further back as you’re
swimming your shoulders gonna have to go
more back behind you
because you’re not twisting your um
thorax
to allow it to come through more
comfortably
and when you’re swimming um you should
be also rolling
your whole body so rolling from your
hips
um there’s different strategies for
rotation you can either rotate out of
your hips or out of your shoulders
it’s easier if you try to think about
turning your hips when you’re swimming
so that’ll that’ll take some of the
pressure off your shoulders
too is that you actually rotate so when
you’ve brought your hand into the water
you would rotate your hips to roll your
body so you’re actually
rolling because that hip rotation
will make it easier on your shoulders
and if you’re trying to rotate
through the upper half so this is where
it comes in when you’re saying like if
you want to try and avoid shoulder
injuries like
having good technique is a good way to
do and that might be worse something
where like a master’s club would come in
because like what you just said i didn’t
even know that so that’s that’s good
advice
so when you’re when you’re swimming yeah
you know your hand say your right hand
comes over you put your right hand in
and you’re
sort of pulling back on the water as i’m
pulling back do i actually want to be
um sort of my tummy is facing down
towards the bottom of the pool or do i
want to be sort of slightly on my side
as i’m pulling through so
you want to be on so after your hand has
entered the water
you want to rotate sorry to reach
further
and then yeah when you’re when you’re
pulling
through to bring your hand by your hip
you would kind of rotate more
so that your stomach is facing the floor
of the pool
yeah then you would go the other
direction because your other hand has
entered the water
so you’re not swimming flat
like a barge going through the water is
you’re trying to rotate
your body side to side
yeah and that’s something i noticed i
was doing a lot at first it was almost
like i was a
like a like a two by four kind of
floating along and then my arms would do
do this and then i would turn my head on
your shoulders
yeah on your neck i noticed that’s going
to make your shoulders and your neck
very sore
um i actually i had a bit of a maybe an
argument with a patient once about
turning your head when you were swimming
and i said well you don’t turn it very
much because you roll your body and
they were convinced that yeah yes you
turn it quite far and i
had to think about it and you do turn it
when you’re swimming but if you’re
turning your neck a lot it’s because
you’re not rotating your body enough
yeah i think you have to turn your neck
a bit but it should be mostly coming
with your body rotation well i like what
you were saying about turning with the
hips right because then it’s almost like
you’re
you’re sort of twisting the bottom of a
tennis racket or something you know
the twist is coming from lower down yeah
and that’s a nice way of thinking about
it
and then with your hand so this is
something i think i was doing at first
and then i watched some youtube videos
and i think it got better but
essentially
as you you know your hand enters the
water and then you’re pulling through
and
i think what i was doing is keeping the
elbow quite straight and it was sort of
coming through
like a big arc um yeah but that’s not
quite right is that right
yeah so what what’s right and that’s
something that i have been working on
lately to is you they call it a high
elbow catch
so there’s different drills that you can
do to work on that as well
so a lot of people think of it again as
that windmill where that your arm comes
up straight and you pull it down with a
straight elbow but
what you actually do is after your hand
has entered the water
is when you start to pull you actually
are bringing your elbow
up and you’re bringing your forearm down
so you’re in the pool
and you’re trying to pull
and it go then your hand goes back by
your hip so
once your hand has entered the water
when you’re starting to pull
you should be bending your elbow and is
there
i mean is it very bent is should it be
sort of almost near your chest
or is it like just a smidge bent like
it’s it would be less than a 90 degree
bend
um the exact amount
would probably differ swimmer to swimmer
yeah
i know last season we did a lot of
drills that
a lady who was a triathlete came up with
a different way to swim freestyle
and she really changed her stroke so
that she was
very bent and instead of pushing you
know bringing her hand all the way by
her hip which we would normally do
she would just stop short and come up
again so
that was the i can’t remember her name
um i think it was
carlin something but she had spent years
developing this new
technique to swim freestyle and that’s
what worked for her so
the amount of bend will will vary you
can kind of play with it and see what
works for you
but yeah you should have a a bent elbow
and i’ve seen some people at the pool
and they have one hand
on a float and then
the other hand they’re sort of almost
swimming with one hand so
is that familiar to you and why are they
doing okay
so they’re probably uh working on their
pull
um because if you’re if you’re doing
that straight arm
if you you know stabilize one arm so
that you can focus on one side at a time
that’s often easier so you can focus
on doing your high elbow catch finishing
your stroke
coming up so you can just kind of slow
it down where you’ve taken away
all the rotation you have to think of
you’ve taken away
what your other arm is doing so you can
just really focus
on doing the proper pull
and if so that would just be a drill if
you are a beginner and you’re
maybe thinking about going to masters
obviously they’re going to show you some
drills that um
you know you can learn these um at the
time
say you know you’re not quite ready to
take the plunge and go to the masters
and you want to have a try on your own
like i did it first
would you suggest doing drills or would
you more say just you know get in there
and swim and get comfortable i would
suggest
doing drills um what you’d probably want
to do
is start doing shorter distances so even
swimming 25 meters
taking five seconds rest or 50 meters
and really yeah focus on what you’re
doing you can
practice some drills over 25 meters
and c because doing the drills is how
you
figure out the proper technique and what
would be a good starting drill
um so the one that you mentioned uh with
uh the the kick board or the flutter
board
is a good one if you take away the
flutter board we call that catch
up so you depending on how you do it you
would either have your hands wide apart
or sometimes you actually want to bring
them to touch
so you’re doing the same thing you just
described you just don’t have your hand
resting on the board
so if you’re not very good at having
that hand not
sink down when it’s not doing anything
then using the board is helpful
okay and then i mean something i noticed
quite quickly is that my uh legs would
sink right they felt like that they were
there i was almost
almost going diagonally across the wall
um
i don’t know that i’ve improved that
drastically um
what what’s what’s the proper amount of
like
flatness i guess and you want to work on
that
flat as you can get okay one thing to
think about is your head position
so you should be looking down at the
bottom of the pool so if you’re
here straight a lot of people will look
ahead when they’re swimming because they
want to see what’s coming
but your head should be in line with
your body so you’re actually looking at
the bottom of the pool
when you’re swimming or if your head is
in the water
you know you should that the top half of
your head should be out of the water
so if you’re looking forward that tends
to make your feet sink down
yeah um and if you’re not kicking which
is a problem with triathletes
that what are you trying to say
is that if you’re if you’re gonna then
bike and then run
it makes sense that you would save the
energy you know out of your legs but
that is a problem that like
some people like again that i’ve swam
with that do iron mans and things is
they’re trying to conserve
their energy for their bike and their
run but you do have to
kick your feet otherwise yeah you’ll end
up
flat yeah yeah because your arms like
once you’ve done the swim your arms are
just basically
doing nothing in a triathlon so it’s
like i’ll just do the swim with my arms
and save the legs or
but um the the trouble with that as you
say is you’re going to
sink you’re going to be diagonal and
your arms are going to work twice as
hard which is going to make your heart
and lungs work
twice as hard right so it’s not
efficient to to sort of spare your legs
too much but
i’ve equally i’ve heard that kicking too
hard can be sort of
unnecessarily draining because you kind
of your feet aren’t in a place where
they can generate tons of propulsion
so if you’re kicking too hard you’re
just kind of unnecessarily wasting
energy and i think um my understanding
is the stronger of a swimmer you
are the more you should focus on your
kick
so if you’re you know a high level
swimmer you should be kicking your feet
because you’ll know
the proper rhythm and you’ll know what
type of kick you should be using
but if you’re more of a beginner swimmer
you still want to kick them
but you’re not spending your energy
kicking when
you know you’re gonna get more benefit
from trying to use the proper pull with
your arms and trying to roll your body
um so it’s probably more you want enough
to keep yourself up in the water
yeah and not more than that until you
get to a more advanced level with your
swimming pool yeah
and kik is something that i remember
being a teenager and my parents telling
me like why don’t you kick your feet
like i don’t know it messes up my rhythm
and so lately i’ve been yeah working
more on kick but i’m still not
like a power kicker like they’re they’re
going but they’re not
so you you have to kick them in order to
float but
yeah your energy’s not going there first
um
a good way to practice trying to you
know focus on what your arms are doing
if you’re worried about sinking is to
use a pull buoy which is a
a thing that goes between your legs so
that will make your upper
your lower half float so that you can
focus on what your arms are doing
and you can get the arm the arm position
down
you can really focus on your pull you
can focus on your head position
i actually find it a lot easier to roll
the body with a pull buoy too
so you can practice your rolling and you
don’t have to think about what your feet
are doing
so you can work on you know the top half
and
then your body just floats behind you
okay well
that’s i mean this is a nice point for
me because i see people using those it’s
another thing that
a little bit intimidates you know
because you don’t you see the
toys the the floaty stuff and you see
people using them and because you don’t
really know what to do you don’t want to
go and grab one and
do the wrong thing and look like an
idiot so there i mean and for people on
who are listening rather than watching
you just picked up uh did you call it a
pool boy
yes so what is that and and what do you
do with it
they’re usually made of foam although
there are all kinds of different ones
now
and there are different styles um so the
one that i have has two
foam cylinders and there’s a strap that
you can adjust so it goes
in between your thighs uh you can put it
between your knees or between your
ankles but i like to put it up
kind of right into my groin area
and you basically some of them you have
to squeeze
so it’ll make you activate your leg
muscles
activate your core if you if you lose
the squeeze then
the pull boy uh flies away so it
actually helps you with your technique
in that sense as well because you’re
becoming more like a cylinder kind of
thing as opposed to like a flailing kind
of
yeah and there’s different styles
um the style that i have is the only one
that i like i don’t like the other ones
and i think it’s because i have
very small skinny legs so they just pop
out
so you might have to play with different
different pool boys to find the one that
works for you okay
because yeah the one you have there has
almost like it’s two
two cylinder form things
and then like a strap between them
whereas before i think i’ve seen it it’s
more like one
form thing with sort of a bump at either
end yeah so
those are very popular um that’s more of
what i see
um i don’t know why i’ve never asked
anyone why they prefer that one
but yeah you just put it between your
legs and it
helps your back half float so you can
focus on what your
your top half is doing so that will
allow you to work more on your
you know your rolling as we talked about
sorry twisting rolling
your pole and on your yeah
and then the head position we want you
know half the head out the water and we
want to be looking down at the
the bottom of the pool when when we’re
swimming and then
so said that’s going to help you work on
your top half these are all good tips
for me
and then what would you do if you had
the leg sinking problem
that um that i mentioned how would you
work on that and how would you know if
you were doing it well
um so working on getting your your top
half in the right position should help
with your leg sinking
and then again working on the kick those
are
i though i’ve been thinking about that
for a few days and those are the only
things that i know of because
for me it’s just something that i i
think i’ve over learned so i don’t know
how else to give advice on that
i don’t have a problem with sinking so
what i so the thing i wonder about when
i’m
swimming so i’ve worked on my kicking to
try and get my legs to come up a bit and
i feel like they do
i never quite know when i’m swimming
should my feet
remain in the water or should sort of
one foot be popping up over the surface
each time
you want to try to keep them under the
water um and if you’re if you’re
practicing
doing kick with a kick board your feet
should mostly be in the water and you
should have a fairly small splash
because if you’re bringing your foot out
of the water well now
when you’re bringing it down you’re
using energy but you’re not
actually displacing any water so you’re
supposed to do small
quick kicks just under the surface of
the water yeah
and then if you have a huge splash
you’re just wasting energy
yep so i’ve been doing that because i
thought that was good because it meant
that my feet were up but that’s not yeah
that makes sense because it’s not going
to push me forward at all is it because
my feet need to be in the water to
propel me and you’ll get
very tired okay well this is good to
know so and then you said did you say
kickboard there
you’re like like a kickboard or a
flutter board it’s just something those
those floaty things that you would hold
on to when you’re kicking
um yes okay yeah i can have a flutter
board or
a kickboard okay yeah i think i think
most people are familiar with those and
that that’s the one toy i’ve had the
guts to pick up at the pool and have a
go with because i kind of felt like i
knew what to do with it
and but i haven’t tried with the pool
boys because i was but if
you know if we’ve got the the pool boy
and a flutter board
they sound like good ways for beginners
to work on their technique and
yeah is there anything else toy wise
that oh shoot is that
is that pretty much it those are
kind of the main ones um some people
like to use fins or flippers like kind
of what you’d see a scuba diver wear
those can be helpful if you are
struggling with your kick
so if you put a pair of fins on
especially the long ones and your foot
is coming out of the water it’ll be
really obvious that you’re not actually
doing anything efficient to kick so then
you can work on doing a small
kick under the water um
i think that swimming like doing like a
regular stroke with fins on
can be a helpful way to focus on your
kick so that maybe you don’t sink as
much
[Music]
i hardly ever wear fins i wear them
like once a year so i’m not a great
person to ask about them but i i do have
people that i swim with that will wear
them every time they do kick because
they want to focus on
you know resistance training or because
they just struggle if they do kick
without fins so
fins can be helpful if you’re struggling
with your kicking
okay cool and then um the other thing
i’ve seen people use at the pool is um
they have
something on their hand which is kind of
like flat and
and do you know what i mean and i think
they call it it’s like
yeah that so what’s that there’s there’s
different styles
um i have a little one and i have a
really big one
oh yeah and so can we describe that for
people listening what you’ve got
yeah so the hand paddle they’re usually
made of plastic
there’s different styles of them the one
that i have is a piece of plastic
about an inch or so wider than my hand
it’s got holes in it and there’s little
straps to put it on
so you you put it around your hand when
you’re swimming so it would look like
this if you can see that
so what it’ll do is it’s helpful when
you’re working on pull
so i usually would only use the hand
paddles when i’m using a pull buoy
and it helps you have your hand enter
the water properly
they do make a specific type where if
you have your hand
entering the water the wrong way the
paddle will fall off
i don’t have those hands but you
basically if you’re
not entering with your hand you know
flat if you’re turned
well you’re not going to notice any pull
from your paddle where it’s meant to
increase the surface area of your hand
so you can focus more on doing your pull
and actually moving more water with it
and getting your hand in the right
position
and then if you’re more experienced
swimmer and you want to add some
resistance for strength training well if
you put a
a really big paddle on now you’ve got
a big surface area so that
you’re moving a lot more water there’s a
lot more resistance so it’s
it’s a lot harder so i think that they
uh recommend smaller paddles smaller
hand pedals are better for beginners
just because if you
don’t really know what you’re doing and
you slap a really big paddle on there
that might
just be too much they often have these
at pools too
sometimes they’re kind of hiding so
they’re they’re usually over where they
have kickboards and pull boys and all
the other
kind of toys how much are you looking at
spending on you know some things like
hand paddles pool boys
um i think my pool boy was cool
yeah i think my pool boy was 16 i bought
it online
uh hand paddles
i want to say like 20 to 30 although i
got
mine as a gift so i’m not exactly sure
of the price but
generally they’re not terribly expensive
well anyone who is you know getting into
triathlon will be relieved
at the price of swimming equipment like
compared to the bikes and the stuff
related to the biking
oh it’s just insane and this is really
nothing so
this is good stuff it’s like goggles
some shorts and
bathing suits are expensive um oh okay
50 to 90 dollars like bathing suits are
the most expensive
part and you want a training one and a
and a
i guess we call it like a performance
one you could you could do it your
triathlon and your performance one like
if you were a serious
you know pool swimmer who was going to
meets you might want to performance one
but
or i guess really serious about your
triathlon too
right but you mean you could do your you
could do your race in your training
gear so so really you should just start
with the training gear and then
get more more if you want to get more at
if you want it yeah
okay i think that’s answered all of my
questions that that was super awesome
can i just check my little list and
make sure we got everything i don’t
remember
i mean you asked me about critical swim
speed but i don’t know anything about
that
that was something i came across um it’s
essentially a way of just
and that’s probably a good question um
do you
look much when you go to these masters
sessions and something i have trouble
with when i
when i swim especially at first i got a
little better since i did some
like testing to try and work out my
different swim speeds that i should go
okay um pacing
is is very tricky do do you go more off
okay the coach says you know
you’re gonna do what do they say they
say you can do four lengths as fast as
you can you’re gonna try and hit x y
or z pace like how does that work yeah
so often he gives us a time
so he’ll say you’re gonna do four by 100
meters
on this amount of time so we’ll just say
two minutes which is
kind of slow for some people
so if you’re going to swim 100 meters in
two minutes what that means is you swim
your 100 meters you get to the wall
and then whatever amount of time you
have left
until it’s been two minutes since you
started so he kind of
sometimes he’ll give you a specific time
to go on like the two minutes or
they’ll say you know 10 seconds rest in
between
so depending on the level that you’re at
um usually he goes kind of lane by lane
okay you guys are gonna do
two minutes you’re gonna do 145 you’ll
do
you know a shorter distance on the same
amount of time so
you are kind of doing interval training
so you would swim
you take a bit of a rest um so what you
can do there’s there’s time clocks
at every pool so that’s kind of how you
figure out is if i know i’m swimming 100
meters in two minutes well when i touch
the wall
i’m gonna look up and see well how much
rest do i have like how long did that
take me
and if i get you know 20 seconds rest
okay
great that’s a you know a good amount of
time to recover with swimming and then
you go again and then maybe
that time you were slower so you only
had 15 seconds rest so you know for the
third one
well i have to go a little bit quicker
than i did for that last one
um pacing it definitely takes
practice um they do you can buy goggles
that will
like have a time clock kind of thing
that you can see
things like that you’re not allowed to
use in competitions
so a lot of people don’t use them
because
then you don’t actually learn how to
pace yourself yeah
yeah um another thing to pace is doing
like build
so what you would do is for the start of
your 100 meters you know the first 25
you’re gonna go nice and easy
the second 25 you’re going to try to go
a little bit quicker the third one a
little bit quicker so you’re trying to
build your speed throughout that way
you’re not
giving all of your energy at the
beginning and then you run out of gas at
the end
so those are other kind of ways to to
pace
but it does it does take practice
yes because it’s not like you know
running or biking where you can just
constantly look at your watch
and um yeah it’s
it’s almost like you like you get the
hang of like
you look at the pull clock and and then
you do your your interval whatever it is
and then you look back at it and you
have to try and work out like how long
it took you and
whether you were trying to meet whether
you met the pace that you were going for
i found that very tricky and i think as
well because it’s harder to feel
when you’re swimming it’s certainly at
first because you don’t have
the sweat and the warmth you can’t feel
your breathing as easily
it’s harder to know how hard you’re
actually working so you sometimes
you know it’s like in my little plan
it’s like do 400 meters as hard as you
can
and after like 25 meters i’m like dear
lord i can’t keep this up do you know
what i mean i’m going way harder than i
need to because i can’t really feel how
hard i’m going
so and that is something that can like
again it takes some practice
um the helpful thing about like swimming
with with masters is that you’re
swimming
generally with people that are a similar
speed as you so
you what you can do is you can kind of
tell like okay you know you usually
leave
five seconds after the person ahead of
you so they’re about five meters ahead
so then you can kind of tell well he’s
like bob is way far ahead of me like i
should probably pick up the pace here or
like oh i’ve caught up to him
so either he’s going too slow or i’m
going too fast
okay so you can also use the people
around you like if
if you’re having trouble pacing because
you’re new to it then that is one thing
is you can kind of use the person around
you or i guess if you were lane swimming
you could
kind of do the same thing is yeah that
that steers you wrong though sometimes
because it’s very
like people sort of self-assign there
don’t they so sometimes you get people
who are like
crazy fast in the middle or in the fast
lane and some of them
like that that really shouldn’t be in
that lane you know what i mean in it and
so it’s
gonna be misleading that’s one of the
reasons i
don’t like lane swimming it’s because
you don’t know who you’re swimming with
you don’t know what workout they’re
doing you don’t know if they’re actually
in the right lane so like the nice thing
about masters is you
you know if one day i go to the pool and
there’s a whole bunch of fast
people you know faster than me already
there well i’m going to go in a slower
lane
right but now maybe i’m going to go
first because i know i’m faster than
these people so then you can
you kind of get to know the speed of
people that you swim with or if someone
is the same speed as you you can be like
okay well i’m tired today so you go
first and then i’ll just slowly swim
behind so you don’t
it you’re not it’s not as frustrating as
when you just go with the general public
when everybody’s doing their own thing
and that is a bit frustrating like i
don’t want to sound like a whiner but
i’m sure
other people get frustrated with me but
it can be like you know sometimes i
would go
after work so i’m a little tired anyway
and i’ve got a certain workout i want to
do
and you know the pool’s a bit busier
there’s maybe two or three people in the
lane and we’re all
swimming different speeds taking
different rests yeah
and it can be a little annoying
yeah it is and then sometimes people do
this like big wide swing
and like smack in the head or hit your
arm as they’re swimming
you know as you swim past each other
anyway um
i i hear that that’s good training for
open water triathlons
it’s just used to getting hit by people
but uh that will happen
like regardless i’m i’ve hit people with
my little
hand paddle several times just because
yeah you’re if you both swing at the
same time
or sometimes what’ll happen is you’ll
kick somebody under the lane rope like
if you’re doing
a breaststroke kick because you your
feet come out wider so as you swim by
you just give somebody a kick or
like it happens all the time so it’s par
for the course and if you’re going to be
a swimmer you got to learn to
to take those little invitations on the
chin so that’s
that’s normal yeah that’s that’s part of
it and like generally people are okay
and like usually
like someone says sorry and you’re like
what are you talking about you’re like
oh yeah i forgot that you hit me
you know five minutes ago like it’s so
yeah usually people aren’t bothered by
it
well no i mean that’s a good point
because like obviously you’ve been
swimming for years it’s happened
hundreds of times but me the first time
i hit someone’s hand
i was like really embarrassed i thought
i’d done something wrong you know maybe
swung my hands
right yeah so usually like if i was just
doing you know lane swimming with the
with the public
like if we stopped i would i would
apologize because i don’t know them and
i
don’t know yeah you know i don’t wanna
if you’re new to swimming and i’ve hit
you i don’t want to scare you away or
anything like that
so but yeah generally like at you know
at masters or things like it’s
not a big deal okay right okay that’s
good to know
especially when you’re doing butterfly
oh yeah
right i mean we didn’t really touch on
other strokes because i mean most people
were talking about
runners getting into swimming that like
you said they’re mostly going to do
freestyling
for triathletes listening and watching
they’re not going to swim
breaststroke for their swim legs no and
i mostly swim freestyle as well
um i’ve been trying to make myself
lately do the other strokes too
but yeah like it’s freestyle is is
basically everybody’s favorite yeah yeah
and it’s it’s i guess it’s it seems the
easiest to me
i mean i don’t even know if i can do the
other strokes
there’s more again if you’re new and you
don’t know the technique
you might as well master freestyle and
get
efficient at that if you’re just gonna
do triathlons and things then worry
about doing
like backstroke and whatever crazy fool
does butterflying in a triathlon
i mean more power to them but that’s not
the best way to swim it
this has been super helpful like oh
that’s good
these questions you know like i sort of
learned the answers but even i’ve
learned quite a bit
and they’re just these questions that
you’re just kind of embarrassed to ask
and
i think that’s part of the reason that a
lot of runners especially injured
runners when i’m trying to convince them
to go and
try some swimming they don’t because
there’s all these little things that we
don’t know
you know and we don’t want to ask we
don’t know who to ask and so i think
that’s really helpful so
thank you for going through yeah and
i’ve i’ve noticed over the years that
runners
a lot of them don’t like swimming um
and it’s it’s a lot different uh the
breathing is a lot different which i
know has been a barrier for some friends
that i’ve had that run marathons is they
they
can’t figure out how to breathe when
they’re swimming because it’s different
than running
yeah we didn’t talk about that because
i’ve heard some people do have trouble
with that at first i guess i didn’t
really i did when i went to open water
a lot of trouble with the breathing but
i think that was more anxiety um
you know the water was cold i would put
my head under and i couldn’t keep my
head under
so i’ve had a lot of trouble with that
that i’ve just kind of got through with
sort of created exposure but i’ve heard
that a lot of people like
when they first start swimming they
can’t keep their breath because they’re
they’re not able to time their breath
like when you’re running you breathe
when you want right whereas when you’re
swimming
it’s like sort of in sync with your
stroke
is there any is there any is it just
practice is there any way to work on it
like
um it’s practice a couple of things to
remember
um you breathe out through your nose
into the water
um something that is helpful for people
sometimes is to
hum so you would hum while you’re
breathing out
um also you don’t breathe through your
mouth when you’re breathing off
inhale through your mouth okay and then
you close your hair
into the water yeah through your nose
you want to make sure that you’ve
breathed out all of your air
into the water so that when you turn
your head to inhale
you don’t have to exhale and then inhale
again because that’s going to really
slow you down
and then you’ll swallow water which i’ve
done um so yeah
you exhale through your nose into the
water and then you breathe in through
your mouth
when i was a kid i used to breathe out
through my mouth into the water
and then inhale through my mouth and
that doesn’t seem to work
um it’s a really good way to get water
in your nose which then
kind of confuses things but also it’s
it’s you you’re breathing out through
your mouth so your mouth is already kind
of
open and then you’re going to inhale and
there’s just the timing isn’t quite
right there so
so you’re more likely to chalk and drink
water yeah
yeah okay um so if
if we have convinced some runners or um
and we’ve got some triathletes
interested in
getting into some uh joining in with the
master’s club
what what should they do how do they go
about it specifically for your club or
more generally if they’re not around
here
um so specifically for our club um a
good thing to do
would be the red deer master swim club
does have a website
um we’re upgrading the website in the
next few months
um i don’t know if you can provide a
link to the website yeah i can put that
in the description
because there is a like contact us kind
of information
email um you can even just
you know send you a message or me a
message and say you want to come to a
practice and we can give you the
information you are able to come in and
try one or two practices and then maybe
you know register in january or
something
okay the registration is online
and with covid you’d have to register
online if you just wanted to drop in for
a practice you don’t have to be
registered at this point in time
[Music]
and yeah roy is the is our club
president he’s
quite helpful i did a couple of years
ago
email a master’s club in calgary i don’t
remember which one i also like i
found them through google and they had a
you know contact us button
too so but it’s going to be pretty
standard like
you google you know your town and i know
shane who asked the question is in other
words so if you put in
a master’s swimming and then you look
for something that’s in a pool near you
and then
reach out to the the club yeah and then
it’s probably gonna have a similar
structure to what you said
two three sessions a week and they’ll
put you in the right lane and and you
can be anything from a complete beginner
who could only just swim
to quite a high level swimmer yeah the
one um the club that i
messaged in calgary if you were trying
to register they asked for
the the time it took you to swim 100
meters of freestyle so four lengths of
freestyle so that was so they kind of
knew about what level you were at
right okay um some of them like we
actually the red deer silver sharks also
has a facebook page
um so looking social media some of them
may have that as well
some of them might not depending on the
how old school they are
well advertising like for our club
advertising has been a bit of a struggle
we actually just recently got a grant
from the city of red deer so we’ll be
able to start doing more advertising
in the next little while to try to get a
little bit more known about
but google’s probably your best bet
or even if you just go to the pool and
ask the lifeguard or ask the person at
the front desk and they’ll know
if there’s a master’s club in town
yeah okay um that that again
super helpful candace thank you for
coming to talk to us happy that was
helpful
i’m gonna have some runners swimming
yeah i’m gonna stop the recording there
just a sec
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