UBER TRAINING
Swimming is the most technical of the triathlon disciplines. Once you've managed to stay afloat long enough to complete your planned race distance there is a mind-boggling amount of refinement you can do to your stroke to improve both efficiency and speed. Ultimately the only route to fast, injury free swimming is to work on your technique alongside power and endurance training.
Front crawl is the stroke used by almost all triathletes, although you will see some people using breaststroke. Crawl is preferred over breast stroke as it is potentially faster, more efficient, more compact (your fellow triathletes will thank you for the extra space your stroke leaves them) and easier to do wearing a wet-suit - very important as you move up in distance from pool-based triathlons.
For your first triathlon, if you can't front crawl, don't worry about it. If your breaststroke is strong and you can get out of the pool ready to bike this is much preferable than trying to front crawl before flopping onto the side of the pool breathless and spitting up water!
Pool training is usually the easiest option for most triathletes. Find out when your local pool offers lane swimming, this will allow you to concentrate on your training rather than avoiding other swimmers.
A typical swim training session usually involves elements of technique work and a mixture of interval and tempo work.
For technique training there is no better option than getting some 1-on-1 coaching, either as part of your local swimming or tri club or perhaps a technique workshop. Second to this is getting a swimming DVD or book.
Most recreational triathletes do 1 or 2 swim sessions per week, each of which is around 60-75 minutes in duration.
SWIM
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