Swimming
7 open-water swimming drills you can practice in the pool
You don't need to head out into choppy, icy waters to improve your open-water skills this winter - here's how to do it in the pool.
During the winter-time (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), it can be hard to keep your open-water skills up to speed. But when it's freezing, you don’t need to swim in a lake or sea to get your open-water form in shape.
There are many effective ways to train your open-water skills in your local swimming pool. These being a few of them...
1. Mimic mass starts
This is just one way to mimic the frantic nature of open-water swimming
© Jesper Stechmann/Unsplash
Swimming with a triathlon or swimming club is not only a great way to improve your fitness and make new friends and training partners, but to train your open-water skills. Since most triathlons involve a mass start and competitive swimming in close quarters, being surrounded by peers in the pool is a great way to get that experience. Not only swimming with other swimmers in the same lane, but actually rehearsing a mass start and swimming side-by-side, even with as little as three of you, can be very effective. This can be a fun way to finish your daily set and it can be executed as a 4 x 25m mass start (or even 4 x 50m if you can tumble-turn underneath the swimmers behind you).
2. Drafting
Just avoid getting kicked in the face, yeah?
© 220 Triathalon/Twitter
One piece of good news about open-water swimming is that drafting – the act of using a person in front of you to clear a wake and pull you, while ideally not kicking you in the face – is legal. Make sure you find a good pair of legs to draft and you'll save a lot of energy (just make sure they’re going in the right direction). If you’re in the pool with other people, you can train in these skills. When you’re swimming in a lane with 6/7 people it is hard not to draft -- but you also can do drafting drills before or after any main set. By starting 2 at a time, a set of 4 x 50m focusing on drafting would definitely do the trick. And remember, you can benefit from drafting both by swimming at the hip-level of another person, and by staying behind him/her. The first option is preferred because if you lose that position you still have the second one. So train both ways.
3. Eyes closed
Goggles or no goggles, going in blind is no bad thing
© Mia Gracia Tabili / Unsplash
Lakes and sea waters can be very dark sometimes, and seeing, when you’re packed together with 200+ other competitors, can become quite a task. Swimming a few lengths with your eyes closed when you’re in the swimming pool is not only a great drill that will make you focus more on your swim stroke technique, but also to feel more and more comfortable when swimming with poor – or no – visibility. You can execute this drill as 25 meters eyes closed, 25 normal swim in a 25-meter or 50-meter pool, or 33 and 33 if your pool is a 33-meter one. This is a challenging, but very fun and rewarding drill.
4. Sighting
Mastering your sighting makes a major difference for open-water swimming
© Aqua Chara / Unsplash
While drafting is a great way to save energy, sighting will make sure you’re pointing towards the right buoy when in open-water – otherwise you’ll end up swimming much more than needed and add seconds to your overall time. Developing your sighting skill is crucial, and you can start by including some drills in your technique session. A good set is the '4 x 50m sighting; where you bring your head above the water every 2/4 or 6 strokes and point to something on the deck of the pool.
5. Deep water start and Australian exit
Some of the races you’ll have lined up for next season will have a deep water start, so there’s no better way to improve that than in the pool. Instead of starting by kicking off the wall, start in the shallow water and hold a still position sculling (no feet on the ground). “Fire the gun” in your head and off you go. Want to look weird, but feel like a pro? Practise the Australian exit: after the pool length get out of the water, turn around and get back in again – just watch out for the slippery floor!
6. Open-water scenario
If your swim venue allows you to do this and you have reserved the whole pool for your club, this is the ultimate open-water exercise for a swimming pool. Take all the lane ropes off so that you actually build a small lake for yourself and place four buoys at the four edges of the pool (these can be anything that float and are visible from distance, even an inner tube). Now, if you’re part of a triathlon club, this will quickly become the most fun indoor session you’ve ever had and you can train all the drills mentioned above at once. Take a few laps of the pool as a warm-up, focus on a specific drill in the main set and finish it up with a small race. Success guaranteed.
7. Improve your freestyle
Different strokes for different folks
© Unsplash
You can swim the way you prefer in a triathlon. But the reason why the vast majority of athletes adopt the front crawl is because it's faster and more effective than other techniques for open-water. So it's best to improve your freestyle technique along with your fitness during the winter (both the cardiovascular component as well as functional fitness through strength and conditioning) to see an improvement in your open-water skills later in the season.
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