Freestyle is undoubtedly faster, but I swam breaststroke in an Ironman 70.3 (ocean swim) and was still in the top 80 percentile. Not as slow as I thought I would have been. I saw a lot of folks take very suboptimal lines (zig-zagging) due to poor sighting while doing freestyle, so worth practicing sighting.
Good to know there are other freaks like me out there. I struggle with freestyle because my shoulders burn out after a couple of 100m. Breaststroke was the stroke I competed with back in my younger days and it feels the most natural to me and can swim past 1500 m non stop easy.
The problem with this great advice (which I will try to follow) is the lack of access to a pool where you get a lane to yourself to practice. None of the local pools I've been to in the last decade have been free enough to give me this type of practice space. Also breaststroke done well is a great distance stroke and much, much, better for ocean waves than crawl...
Wonder if this is a common problem. I can swim breast stroke with a pace of 2min/100m for a very long time and don't really feel tired after an hour or so. But when doing crawling I'm completely exhausted and out of breath after 50-100m.
I've got a young doctor friend who is racing mountain bikes in California. The last time he visited, he was talking about working on his kick turns swimming laps. I thought “Aha, the perfect audience for GTN.” I started to pitch a treasure trove of technical biking and swimming advice, but he cut me off with “I don't need it. I follow Global Triathlon Network"!
Thank you. Will give it a go. Will try this step approach. Really want to master this. Really enjoy swimming breaststroke but time to move on and progress. Thank you.
Loved this video Heather! I was exactly in the same position in 2018 having to learn to swim from scratch and I repeated all these steps/exercises so so so many times. At points I definitely felt I’d never front crawl even 25m in one go, persistence and patience were key. IM U.K. done and I’m working on technique again ☺️.
Literally what I needed! I can't swim proper breast stroke either, haven't been swimming much in my life, but my goal is to learn good freestyle swim technique before spring. Thanks for all the help I'm gettin on this channel.
Had been swimming breast stroke for many years. Many months back started to learn freestyle, realised need a lot of patience, effort and time to overcome challenges like sinking leg, out of breath and etc. Had made baby step improvement over past months, and hope to be able swim full lap or full 100m comfortably soon.
Looking at trying a triathlon next year, is the front crawl a required swim technique? Or is it however you can get from A to B as quickly as possible?
I habe tried and tried to switch from breast stroke to front crawl. My times in the pool are fairly equal between the two strokes but with front crawl my heart rate is way higher.
really helpful vid! This is what I need soon :) The only hurdle left for me now is, how to exhale continiously for such a long time since I do not have that much breath...
@@gtn I think my swim could best be described as surviving the ocean for 30 mins, traveling 500m. Now that I have been thoroughly knocked about, the work starts to be ready for 70.3 in Nov.
My issue is after about 200m panic sets in. I always need to side stroke for a bit to calm and then continue on the breast stroke. It's the mental aspect of this that overwhelms me. I am progressing. Maybe I should just go back to basics and start over as you say here in the video. I am able to complete swims in my Triathlons just not as pretty as it should be. Thank god I am good on bike and run.
What type of stoke under the water is that. it looks like you are curving your hand toward the center of your body. from what i have seen in the other GTN videos on swimming it does not really mention this. is this a better method for endurance swimming?
Did you find this video helpful?
Freestyle is undoubtedly faster, but I swam breaststroke in an Ironman 70.3 (ocean swim) and was still in the top 80 percentile. Not as slow as I thought I would have been. I saw a lot of folks take very suboptimal lines (zig-zagging) due to poor sighting while doing freestyle, so worth practicing sighting.
Good to know there are other freaks like me out there. I struggle with freestyle because my shoulders burn out after a couple of 100m. Breaststroke was the stroke I competed with back in my younger days and it feels the most natural to me and can swim past 1500 m non stop easy.
The problem with this great advice (which I will try to follow) is the lack of access to a pool where you get a lane to yourself to practice. None of the local pools I've been to in the last decade have been free enough to give me this type of practice space. Also breaststroke done well is a great distance stroke and much, much, better for ocean waves than crawl...
Wonder if this is a common problem. I can swim breast stroke with a pace of 2min/100m for a very long time and don't really feel tired after an hour or so. But when doing crawling I'm completely exhausted and out of breath after 50-100m.
I've got a young doctor friend who is racing mountain bikes in California. The last time he visited, he was talking about working on his kick turns swimming laps. I thought “Aha, the perfect audience for GTN.” I started to pitch a treasure trove of technical biking and swimming advice, but he cut me off with “I don't need it. I follow Global Triathlon Network"!
Thank you. Will give it a go. Will try this step approach. Really want to master this. Really enjoy swimming breaststroke but time to move on and progress. Thank you.
Good luck! Check out our swim with GTN playlist for more tips! 👉 th-cam.com/video/Zh9bhXe5lug/w-d-xo.html
Loved this video Heather! I was exactly in the same position in 2018 having to learn to swim from scratch and I repeated all these steps/exercises so so so many times. At points I definitely felt I’d never front crawl even 25m in one go, persistence and patience were key. IM U.K. done and I’m working on technique again ☺️.
Literally what I needed! I can't swim proper breast stroke either, haven't been swimming much in my life, but my goal is to learn good freestyle swim technique before spring. Thanks for all the help I'm gettin on this channel.
Awesome - let us know if it works 🙌
Had been swimming breast stroke for many years. Many months back started to learn freestyle, realised need a lot of patience, effort and time to overcome challenges like sinking leg, out of breath and etc. Had made baby step improvement over past months, and hope to be able swim full lap or full 100m comfortably soon.
Looking at trying a triathlon next year, is the front crawl a required swim technique? Or is it however you can get from A to B as quickly as possible?
You can swim any stroke, but over time, freestyle is the most efficient and fastest. And you spare the leg muscles.
It’s not required it’s just a quicker stroke.
I do breaststroke and beat most people in the swim.
I habe tried and tried to switch from breast stroke to front crawl. My times in the pool are fairly equal between the two strokes but with front crawl my heart rate is way higher.
We hope this video helps when you next try 🙂
really helpful vid! This is what I need soon :) The only hurdle left for me now is, how to exhale continiously for such a long time since I do not have that much breath...
Limited pool size before first tri in two weeks. Will try these to see if I can get more comfortable with the swim.
Good luck - let us know how it goes!
@@gtn I think my swim could best be described as surviving the ocean for 30 mins, traveling 500m. Now that I have been thoroughly knocked about, the work starts to be ready for 70.3 in Nov.
Did I get that right? You breathing in through your mouth?
Pretty sure you did. That's what I've heard recommended 99% of the time. The method for breathing out seems to be more open to debate
Unless you’ve got gills?
My issue is after about 200m panic sets in. I always need to side stroke for a bit to calm and then continue on the breast stroke. It's the mental aspect of this that overwhelms me. I am progressing. Maybe I should just go back to basics and start over as you say here in the video. I am able to complete swims in my Triathlons just not as pretty as it should be. Thank god I am good on bike and run.
What type of stoke under the water is that. it looks like you are curving your hand toward the center of your body. from what i have seen in the other GTN videos on swimming it does not really mention this. is this a better method for endurance swimming?
Great video as always. Do you have any tips about how to stop the opposite/extended arm from dropping while you breathe on the other side?
Thank you so much for a nice lecture!
Wish I’d gotten on triathlon bandwagon 20 years ago.
It's never too late
Is there a lot of people out there who can’t even swim freestyle ❓