8 Open Water Swimming Skills To Practise In The Pool

Published on January 16th 2018

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You might not be lucky enough to have somewhere warm and sunny or an open water venue near to where you live. But don't worry, you could actually replicate a lot of your open water skills in the local pool, meaning you're nice and confident and ready for race day. We've put together some great techniques and drills that you can do that'll simulate that open water environment that you can do in your next pool session. Subscribe to GTN: http://gtn.io/SubscribetoGTN Check out the GTN Shop: http://gtn.io/6d Thanks to Club La Santa for the locations used in this shoot. So at the start of a lot of triathlons a lot of bodies in the water together and unless you're on the front row of he grid, you're likely to have someone's feet in close proximity to your face. There's often nothing that you could do about that but you can be prepared. And it's actually quite a good thing to do to practise in training starting right behind somebody else so when it comes to race day it's not quite so much of a shock. Treading water's quite a valuable skill to have especially for triathlon, as often a race will have a deep water start and the organisers try and get you into the water well before, sometimes up to 10 minutes. So you don't want to be like frantically wasting your energy, you want to try and stay nice and relaxed and focused on your race. The general technique for this is you need to tread water by using a bit of a backstroke leg kick or an egg beater kick as we call it, and sculling with your arm. But don't fret, you're generally gonna have a wetsuit on so you can be nice and buoyant anyway. Once you've been treading water, you'll start coming to a more horizontal position and start sculling with your arms and kicking with your legs as you're ready for the starter's horn. This is a great activity to practise in the pool. You can do it with fellow athletes. All line up in a line and basically get your coach to count you down as it would be a start and it's all about accelerating straight into your stroke from this position. Now you can also replicate swimming 'round a turn buoy but using the black tee at the bottom of a swimming pool. And obviously if you can take a lane row path it makes it even more realistic. Try doing it with a few other people and then it turns into more of a race day situation. One of the most annoying things in open water swimming is when your goggles start to leak or come off. You probably save more time by actually stopping and clearing them. You can either do this by just stopping outright, treading a bit of water, clearing them and putting them back on or if you want to try and keep moving, and why not flip onto your back. These tips will you make you a lot more confident and relaxed going into your next open water swim race. If you've enjoyed this video, give it a like and share with your triathlon friends. If you'd like to contribute captions and video info in your language, here's the link 👍 http://gtn.io/6e Music: Epidemic Sound Siren Screen - Ooyy Watch more on GTN... 📹 8 Triathlon Myths | Tips Every Triathlete Should Either Know Or Forget - http://gtn.io/TriMyths 📹 9 Open Water Swimming Tips | Swim Skills For Beginners - http://gtn.io/OpenWater