Thanks to Wayne McNulty for the following review of last weekends intensive swimming course, looks like there could be some fast swim times posted next season...
Last weekend saw seventeen members of the club attend the first triathlon swimming specific workshop in the region. London based outfit
Swimfortri.com made the trip from across the pond to give the three day training course.
The weekend kicked off in the
Regional Sports Centre with introductions from Dan and the team, along with instructions on what participants could hope to expect over the weekend. Into the pool and it was time for drills with a taster of all the technique specific drills that would crop up over the following days. A review from Dan followed the evening session and left the group looking forward to the following two days in Avena leisure centre.
Saturday morning saw club members gather shortly before 7am for a bit of dynamic stretching pool side warming up the muscles, which was definitely something that is neglected by most swimmers in the usual rush for the pool.
Into the 20 metre pool and the group was split into two with Dan concentrating on one half while the other got the attention of assistant coaches Keely and Fabiola. Again the emphasis was put on quality drills trying to break bad swim techniques and encourage new, more efficient stroke patterns. Among these were drills to improve every aspect of the stroke from
efficient breathing, extension, rotation, good leg kick with all of these aspects combined working toward good streamline body position in the water. Next on the agenda was the video recording of everybody’s front-crawl stroke from the front and, again, from the side.
After lunchtime grub the group met in studio 3 for playback and analysis of their techniques by the Swimfortri team. This was possibly the highlight for most club members as the opportunity to view their swim footage along with an expert opinion made for a much clearer picture of areas to concentrate on in order to improve their technique further.
The day was wrapped up with Keely showing us some dry land exercises to help improve flexibility, core strength and overall conditioning which aim to enable a swimmer maintain a good body position in the water for longer without loosing good form.
The coaching returned back to the pool again on Sunday morning for more drills, where there was more emphasis on the on the “catch”. The session consisted of individual and paired drills to help improve
timing, hand placement, hand entry and recovery and pull through the water, while in effect reducing our stroke count for a length. Another bit of filming followed, this time from above along with ‘torpedo’ drill, and a rerun of yesterdays filming to see if we made any improvements from the previous day.
The weekend finished in Studio 3 of the Avena centre for the last hour or two, where participants got to see the footage. There was a visible improvement in many members technique from the first day with everybody taking a lot of positives from their new technique; along with knowledge of areas they can make more gains in order to shave seconds or even minutes off their swim times.
The improvements don’t stop there though as all participants are awaiting their swim footage along with a personal program which they can incorporate into their training over the rest of the winter.
Note: There is a DVD containing all the swimfortri drills with this months Triathlon 220 magazine.Overall it was a very enjoyable weekend with a great balance of pool time and swim theory. It was great to get people of that calibre over on our door step which would otherwise mean having to travel to Dublin or abroad to partake in such a professional training camp. Congratulations must go to Colm Casey who did all the graft, booking and organisation for the Swimfortri team, and made the weekend possible for the club.
