Mental Toughness For Long Distance Swimming and H2Open Magazine Launch

Swimming a very long event such as the 35km English Channel is an incredible physical undertaking but it is also extremely tough mentally. The sheer distances, the hard training, the loneliness of the event and the cold water create considerable challenges for any swimmer. How do long distance swimmers cope? This fascinating article written by Professors Greg Whyte and Andy Lane explains and gives you some of their techniques that you can use in your own training and racing, whatever the distances and environment:

www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/david-walliams-endurance-swimming-coach-reveals-all-39465

You may know Prof. Whyte as comedian David Walliam's coach when he swam the English Channel. He was also one of Paul Newsome's exercise physiologists at Bath University on the British Triathlon Team.

Also this week we bring exciting news of the launch of a new UK based open water swimming magazine: H2Open. We've written some articles for the new magazine and are very impressed with the list of contributors - it will be a fantastic read. If you've largely been a pool-based swimmer to date we know you'll find the new magazine a great inspiration for training and racing in the great outdoors!

Find out more about the magazine here: www.h2openmagazine.com
And subscribe here (UK or international): www.escosubs.co.uk/h2open/index.asp

Congrats to Simon Griffiths and his team on the launch!

Swim Smooth!

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Lance Armstrong's Stroke

This week on the blog we're going to do something slightly different and look at the stroke of seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong. Some of you may already have seen the clip of Lance's stroke that appeared on YouTube about ten days ago. The video was taken whilst he swam in the ocean in Kona, Hawaii, the venue for the Ironman World Championship.

We know many triathletes are extremely excited at the possibility of Lance racing in Kona this October, so we thought we'd critique the clip, highlight the strengths of how he swims and maybe even provide a few pointers to tweak up his stroke a little.

Paul Newsome runs his analysis here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-pgQ-gpmNk

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When Not To Breathe Bilaterally

Last week on Feel For The Water we discussed how stroke problems normally occur when you go to breathe. As distance swimmers we need to breathe between every two and five strokes to get sufficient oxygen: if you can breathe bilaterally it really helps keep you stay symmetrical and iron-out those stroke flaws when breathing.

It's not always easy to switch to bilateral breathing but we know from the flood of feedback we had after last week's post that many of you have made the switch and are getting there nicely with it - well done to you! We call the process the 'Two Week Bilateral Hump' as it normally takes about 6 sessions - or two weeks - before bilateral starts to feel right. So give yourself a little time to adapt to breathing both ways.

If bilateral breathing is so good, how come many elite swimmers and professional triathletes only breathe to one side when racing? Here are three key reasons:

Conditions: Breathing away from chop, waves and blinding sunshine is very important in open water. This technique is well documented in triathlon magazines and makes perfect sense - no one wants a mouth full of water when they go to inhale!

Drafting: Drafting can save you between 15 and 38% of your energy expenditure (Delextrat et al. 2003) and there are two ways of doing it. The first is to sit directly behind your competitor, the second way is to place yourself tight in to their side:

This tight-alongside position can give you an even greater draft than sitting behind but you do have to be very close in. The key to getting so close is to only breathe towards the lead swimmer so you can judge the distance and follow their every move.

Tactically: Watch very carefully and many of the world's elite pool swimmers will breathe every two strokes but then swap sides every length to keep an eye on their main rival. They do this so they can instantly respond to accelerations and attacks.

What do these three points have in common? You need to be able to breathe to the left OR the right depending on the circumstances. If you can only breathe to one side then you're severely limiting yourself tactically in these race situations. Most elite swimmers practise bilateral breathing in training to develop a rhythmical symmetrical stroke. Some will treat bilateral breathing as a drill in itself and you could certainly look at it this way.

Aside from race tactics, being straight and symmetrical is a huge advantage in open water because it helps you swim straight - if you've read our classic blog post on this you'll know how important this is! Even if you don't breathe bilaterally when racing your stroke will hold together and be symmetrical provided you've swum the bulk of your training this way. Plus, by swimming straighter, you won't have to lift your head and sight forwards so often - which tends to sink your legs and so add drag.

To wrap up, the take-home points from this two-part blog are:

- Breathe bilaterally for most of your training and you naturally start to remove stroke flaws from your stroke and become much more symmetrical. Not only does this improve your stroke technique, it helps you swim straighter in open water.

- Being able to breathe to both sides opens up your tactical options when racing which will translate into faster times and better placings.

We asked our Smooth Swim Type "poster boy" Jono Van Hazel why he breathes bilaterally and he simply replied "because it keeps my stroke straight and symmetrical". If you've recently received our new Catch Masterclass DVD and seen Jono swim then you can't argue with how aligned and symmetrical this awesome technician is.

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If Something's Going To Go Wrong In Your Stroke, It'll Go Wrong When...

What do all these stroke flaws have in common? :

pushing down and wide	collapsing arm
scissor kick and crossover	scissor kick and over-rotation
straight arm push down	crossover

If you said "breathing", then you're correct. In fact most stroke flaws happen during or immediately following breathing because you're simply thinking "give me that air!" and not focusing on the rest of your stroke.

Breathing is such a distraction and interruption to the freestyle stroke that it even disrupts an elite swimmer's rhythm and efficiency. This is why 50m sprinters minimise the number of breaths they take - often only taking one or two during their 50m dash. As distance swimmers we have to breathe much more often than once or twice per lap but this highlights the significant challenge to our stroke technique when breathing.

What can we do to minimise this problem? Firstly, try and avoid always breathing to the same side every two strokes. If you do this then some very critical areas of your stroke never get any of your attention and are very likely to be major weak points in your technique. For instance, if you breathe only to your right every two strokes then your left hand catch never gets any attention because you're always breathing simultaneously with it. Such a swimmer will tend to develop bad habits on that side, such as pressing down on the water or dropping their elbow, greatly harming their speed and efficiency in the water.

Switching to breathing every three strokes (bilateral breathing) greatly helps you because two out of three left arm strokes are now non-breathing strokes and can get your full attention. When it comes to the one in three that are during a breath, your stroke will stand a very good chance of holding together nicely:

Bilateral breathing helps Mel Benson perfectly maintain her stroke when breathing

Breathing every three strokes is about the right interval for most swimmers when they've developed good exhalation into the water. Very tall swimmers who've tried to overly lengthen their stroke may find bilateral breathing a challenge because their stroke rate is simply too slow and the time between breaths too long. Conversely, shorter swimmers with naturally faster stroke rates often settle happily into a pattern of breathing every five strokes.

If you have worked on your exhalation into the water and still find bilateral breathing hard then consider your body roll at this point of the stroke. If you're flat in the water to your non-dominant side then that will make breathing very challenging. Think about extending and rotating to this off-side and breathing to it will start to feel much easier.

Coaches: have you noticed that a swimmer's breathing technique often looks much better to the non-dominant side? This is because bad habits such as lifting or over-rotating the head have never developed on that side. If you see this with a swimmer then feed that back to them to give them encouragement to get over the 'bilateral hump', which normally lasts about 6 sessions.

Next week on the blog we're going to look at tactical situations in races when breathing to one side is advantageous, explaining why we see many elite swimmers breathing just to one side on TV.


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If Something's Going To Go Wrong In Your Stroke, It'll Go Wrong When...

** Don't forget our FREE INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING ON DVDs offer finishes on Jan 10th! - includes our amazing new DVD Catch Masterclass **

What do all these stroke flaws have in common? :

pushing down and wide	collapsing arm
scissor kick and crossover	scissor kick and over-rotation
straight arm push down	crossover

If you said "breathing", then you're correct. In fact most stroke flaws happen during or immediately following breathing because you're simply thinking "give me that air!" and not focusing on the rest of your stroke.

Breathing is such a distraction and interruption to the freestyle stroke that it even disrupts an elite swimmer's rhythm and efficiency. This is why 50m sprinters minimise the number of breaths they take - often only taking one or two during their 50m dash. As distance swimmers we have to breathe much more often than once or twice per lap but this highlights the significant challenge to our stroke technique when breathing.

What can we do to minimise this problem? Firstly, try and avoid always breathing to the same side every two strokes. If you do this then some very critical areas of your stroke never get any of your attention and are very likely to be major weak points in your technique. For instance, if you breathe only to your right every two strokes then your left hand catch never gets any attention because you're always breathing simultaneously with it. Such a swimmer will tend to develop bad habits on that side, such as pressing down on the water or dropping their elbow, greatly harming their speed and efficiency in the water.

Switching to breathing every three strokes (bilateral breathing) greatly helps you because two out of three left arm strokes are now non-breathing strokes and can get your full attention. When it comes to the one in three that are during a breath, your stroke will stand a very good chance of holding together nicely:

Bilateral breathing helps Mel Benson perfectly maintain her stroke when breathing

Breathing every three strokes is about the right interval for most swimmers when they've developed good exhalation into the water. Very tall swimmers who've tried to overly lengthen their stroke may find bilateral breathing a challenge because their stroke rate is simply too slow and the time between breaths too long. Conversely, shorter swimmers with naturally faster stroke rates often settle happily into a pattern of breathing every five strokes.

If you have worked on your exhalation into the water and still find bilateral breathing hard then consider your body roll at this point of the stroke. If you're flat in the water to your non-dominant side then that will make breathing very challenging. Think about extending and rotating to this off-side and breathing to it will start to feel much easier.

Coaches: have you noticed that a swimmer's breathing technique often looks much better to the non-dominant side? This is because bad habits such as lifting or over-rotating the head have never developed on that side. If you see this with a swimmer then feed that back to them to give them encouragement to get over the 'bilateral hump', which normally lasts about 6 sessions.

Next week on the blog we're going to look at tactical situations in races when breathing to one side is advantageous, explaining why we see many elite swimmers breathing just to one side on TV.

Swim Smooth!

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Announcing Our New DVD: CATCH MASTERCLASS

Swim Smooth are today very proud to announce our new coaching DVD: Catch Masterclass. Two years in the making, Catch Masterclass is packed with all of Swim Smooth's insightful video, drills, visualisations and techniques to improve your propulsive power and efficiency:

The catch phase of the freestyle stroke is very elusive for most swimmers. If you don't fully understand how to generate good propulsion from this critical phase of the stroke, or you need to take your swimming to the next level, then this DVD is for you.

Many swimmers focus on reducing their drag in the water and whilst this is very important, if you compromise your propulsion in doing so you will soon hit a plateau or even become slower. Don't let this happen to you - use Catch Masterclass to develop your propulsive technique and become a much faster, more efficient swimmer as a result.

In the DVD we clearly explain what a great catch technique looks like and show you three champion swimmers employing the same great catch mechanics within their individual stroke style. After explaining where you might have gone wrong up until now, we give you all the methods, drills and visualisations for introducing a great catch technique to your own stroke.

The Catch Masterclass is suitable for any swimmer or triathlete who can swim freestyle. Find out more and view the trailer: here

Special offer: Until the 10th January we're shipping this DVD (and also our DVD Boxset) anywhere in the world for free!

Some stills from Catch Masterclass:

Paul Newsome takes you through the Catch Masterclass.	Discover Jono's super-smooth secrets.	Instant pop-ups help make demonstrations real.
Shelley Taylor Smith - still the best.	New drills.	Putting the Masterclass into practise yourself.
Clearly understand the key focus of each drill.	Warning: DVD may contain images of extremely bright swimsuits.	Understand how Jono swims sub-50 seconds for 100m.
Advanced level drills to perfect your rhythm and timing.	Avoiding common pitfalls.	Different stroke styles, same great catch mechanics.
Dryland conditioning.	Every angle covered leaving no question unanswered.	Sorry, swimming pool not included.

Wishing you a fantastic 2011,

Swim Smooth!

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The Most Common Mistake Swimmers Make

Over the festive season you may have a little time to think about and plan your swim training for the next few months. Be careful though, you could well be about to make a fundamental and incredibly common mistake - that of 'heading to the extremes'. For instance you could plan to:

- Only do technique work and no fitness training (or vice versa)

- Swim only with a pull buoy and/or paddles

- Focus purely on short sprints to develop your speed

- Aim to make your stroke as long as you possibly can

- Increase your stroke rate as high as you possibly can

- Only swim in the open water (one for our Southern Hemisphere athletes)

- Stop working on your water skills completely

We understand the temptation to take a 'one track only' approach to develop your swimming - all the coaches at Swim Smooth have been, or are currently, competitive swimmers or triathletes and have made these mistakes ourselves in the past. Unfortunately heading to the extremes like this very very rarely works out for the better. The people that become very fast efficient swimmers devote a portion of their training to areas of weakness but keep all the balls in the air with a well balanced all-round program.

If we were designing your swim program for the New Year it would include:

- The right technique work focused on your individual needs (e.g. see our Swim Type system)

- Some hard training, some longer aerobic sets and some lighter recovery sessions where you'll adapt to the hard work you're putting in.

- The use of fins during drills to gradually develop your hip flexor and ankle flexibility without having to do dedicated kick sets. Fins also help develop your kicking technique - in fact we do very few kick sets with a board here in Perth.

- If you plan to race in open water next year then we'd include drafting, sighting, pacing and mass start simulations in your pool sessions. Yes, we would keep practising this even in the off season because these skills are hard to perfect and can easily take minutes off your race times all by themselves. They're also a lot of fun and provide variety in your training.

- A focus on pacing skills - another critical aspect of your swimming technique as a distance swimmer.

- Combine these aspects into single sessions to make things more time efficient - for instance a session combining open water skills with fitness and pacing work.

- Keep it fun but be as consistent as you can with your training.

From everyone on the Swim Smooth team we'd like to thank you for all your feedback and messages of support in 2010, it's been a pleasure working with you. We've got a lot of exciting things in the pipeline for 2011 which we know you're going to love. Here's wishing you a fantastic Christmas break and a very Smooth New Year!

Cheers,

Swim Smooth!

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Ross Davenport: What You Should (And Shouldn't) Try And Emulate About His Stroke

On our recent Coach Education Course in Loughborough, UK, we met up with Ross Davenport, double Commonwealth Games Gold Medallist, to have a good look at his stroke and understand what makes him so quick in the water. Ross has a classic elite swimmer's build, he's very tall and broad with long arms:

As you might expect, when racing Ross has a long stroke taking about 36 strokes per length in a 50m pool or 14 strokes per length in a 25m pool. To investigate his stroke make-up, we asked Ross to kick 100m for us with a kick board:

His time? 1 minute 16 seconds - a very powerful and propulsive leg kick indeed! In his freestyle Ross uses this kick to push him along and lengthen out each stroke to create a long style that is very efficient for him. This is like yourself donning a long pair of fins/flippers and finding you can easily swim with a longer stroke, taking many fewer strokes per length.

Ross races 200m in around 1 minute 48 seconds and takes 36 strokes per 50m. Given his skill level and physical attributes he could easily swim this distance taking fewer strokes if he wanted but he would be less efficient and slower because that would mean overly-lengthening his stroke.

If you don't have Ross' skill level, flexibility, height and arm span - and you can't kick 100m in 1:16 - then trying to emulate his low stroke count might be a mistake. If you'd like to be a faster more efficient swimmer then target the others key things in Ross' stroke instead:

- great breathing technique
- a high body position
- good alignment in the water
- great catch and feel for the water
- a strong rhythm and timing

Get those basics right and you will start moving very quickly through the water - and your strokes per length figure will take care of itself. Don't let the tail wag the dog!

Swim Smooth!

A special thanks to Blue Seventy and to Ross for joining us in November.

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Should You Perform The Other Three Strokes?

As a triathlete or distance swimmer looking to improve your freestyle, should you swim backstroke, breaststroke or butterfly sets in training?

Our answer is that it depends on how much you are swimming. If you're in the water up to three times per week then we think it's best to focus exclusively on freestyle to give you as much specific stroke and fitness work as possible. However, if you are swimming four or more times a week then a little variety is stimulating and the other three strokes are great for developing your feel for the water and your all round conditioning.

Saying that, if you're swimming mostly for health rather than specific race fitness, or enjoying some less focused off-season training, then introducing some non-freestyle sets is a great way to liven up your sessions.

Give Individual Medley (IM) a try too - this involves swimming all four strokes in succession without a break, normally in the order: fly-back-breast-free. This is pretty tough, so start with a set of 100s IM (25m of each stroke in turn) before attempting 200s (50m of each stroke) which are quite a bit harder!

With butterfly many swimmers struggle with getting their arms up over the surface of the water. Two quick tips on that: 1. Focus on an undulating rhythm through the core akin to doing a backwards and forwards hula-hoop at the hips. 2. When breathing lift your head early to inhale and then immediately dip your chin back down to your chest to continue the undulating action of the stroke.

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UNCO: The King Of Drills

Unco is a special drill which helps you develop the rhythm and timing of your stroke. We love Unco at Swim Smooth as it brings so many elements of the stroke together and forces you to time your catch, pull and body rotation correctly. You can even use it to polish up the timing of your breathing.

Australians love to shorten any word and put an 'o' on the end - in this case shortening 'uncoordinated' to make Unco. This probably tells you straight away that it is quite a challenging drill! We'd encourage any swimmer to give it a try but it is probably best suited and most beneficial for upper intermediate and advanced level swimmers. If you are a bit of an Overglider or have any deadspots or pauses in your stroke then give it a go, you'll find it really interesting.

Performing Unco

Unless you have an exceptionally propulsive kick, always use fins when performing Unco. It's a one arm drill, performed with one arm by your side whilst performing a full stroke with the other arm:

(sequence above taken from our forthcoming DVD "Catch Masterclass")

Breathe away from the stroking arm and breathe on every single stroke - even if you don't feel you need to - this helps drive your body rotation. We suggest you start with your right arm stroking and breathe to your left as shown in the pictures above. Once you get the hang of it you can swap sides every 25m or so.

The key to the drill is to make sure that you rotate your body fully to the dead side, ensuring that you dip your non-stroking arm and shoulder down into the water as shown in the last picture. The mantra of the drill is 'stroke and drip... stroke and dip...'. You will really have to emphasise dipping the dead shoulder into the water as there's no arms stroke on that side to help you. Get this right and your stroking arm will recover easily over the top of the water. However stay flat on that dead side and the arm recovery will be very tough!

If you struggle to coordinate the drill don't worry that's normal - in fact it's the whole idea and simply highlights that the timing of your stroke may need some work. When you get it right it should feel smooth and rhythmical.

Try 4x 100m with fins as: [ 25m left arm Unco + 25m right arm Unco + 50m freestyle swim + 20 seconds rest ]

You will feel the magic of Unco when you swim normal freestyle immediately after performing the drill. We recommend you perform a short swim every time following Unco, keeping the fins on and just feeling the rhythm and timing of the stroke. The improved smoothness and efficiency can be a revelation.



By the way, The Feel For The Blog has just exceeded thirty thousand subscribers, all since July last year! Thanks for reading, thanks for forwarding the posts to your friends and thanks to all our contributors. We've got some great material planned out for the coming months to keep you on an upward curve with your swimming and hopefully inspire you at the same time. Enjoy your time in the water!

Swim Smooth!

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Counting Strokes Can Hurt Your Efficiency (And Your Shoulders)

At Swim Smooth we're not very interested in counting strokes over single laps. Firstly, your height, arm length and hand size has a huge influence on your stroke length and makes the outright number pretty meaningless. Secondly, it's too easy to fake a low stroke count over short distances. This week on the blog we're going to expand on that second point and discuss the dangers of focusing too much on counting strokes.

Every day we meet swimmers who can perform at a low stroke count over single laps but cannot sustain that count for further than 100m. If such a swimmer takes 16 strokes over the first lap, that will soon rise up to 20 or even 25 strokes per lap as they swim longer distances. It's not necessarily a problem swimming with a high number of strokes per lap but this deterioration in stroke count tells us that something is wrong.

Try this yourself: swim for 400m as efficiently as you can and count your strokes for the first 25m versus the last few laps. It's normal to lose 2-3 strokes per 25m from the beginning to the end of the 400m but 5+ is suggesting a problem and your stroke may well feel "like it's falling apart" to you. Remember, it's not the outright number we are looking at here but how consistent you can be over the 400m.

Conventional wisdom says that a swimmer who cannot sustain their strokes per length should keep practising over short distances with drills and short swims. This is a major mistake because this sort of technique work actually encourages you to develop a stroke which cannot be sustained over longer distances.

By overly working the shoulder muscles it's possible to make your stroke longer by actively gliding, however the shoulders are a small weak muscle group compared to those of the chest, back and core and tire very quickly if overused. As the shoulders start to tire your stroke shortens which harms your body rotation, resulting in that feeling of your stroke falling apart. This shortening of the stroke has nothing to do with coordination or control and everything to do with fatigue in this small group.

Over-reach and introduce a deadspot in your stroke and you are forced to push down on the water with a very straight arm, this isolates the shoulder muscles and overworks them:

Fatigue in the shoulder muscles is very deceptive - being such a small muscle group they don't elevate your heart rate or breathing very high when they are being overworked. For this reason your perception of effort is highly distorted when trying to make your stroke as long as possible. Sure, it feels easy to swim at a low stroke count for 25 or 50m but this doesn't mean your shoulders won't quickly tire.

If you find that you cannot sustain your stroke count over long distance swims then it's very likely that you are overly dependent on your shoulder muscles - which is symptomatic of introducing glide and deadspots to the stroke. To overcome this, work on improving your catch and feel for the water to remove the pauses from your stroke and simultaneously start using the larger muscle groups of the chest and back. You'll know when you start to get this right as you'll be able to sustain your stroke count over much longer distances.

We use catch setup, sculling and doggy paddle type drills to help swimmers make this change. All these drills and explanations are in our DVD Boxset but keep an eye out for our new DVD called 'Catch Masterclass' which we'll be releasing very soon. It features all new footage and explanations from our hi-def filming rig, showing you exactly how elite swimmers develop such great propulsion and how to introduce these changes into your own stroke.

Swim Smooth!

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Behind Every Smooth There's a Gaggle Of Bloodsucking Swingers

If you're fortunate enough to be a Smooth Swim Type you may have a problem when swimming in open water. From your pool swimming background you've got the ability to go off fast and lead the race. In traditional pool based races this method always worked well for you and more often than not you led from start to finish.

Unfortunately in open water things can be a little different. For a start many of those guys with seemingly ungainly strokes who you can drop in the pool can be really very fast in more choppy open water conditions. These unrefined Swingers have a shorter faster stroke than yourself which helps them punch through the waves and chop from other swimmers at close quarters. Worse still, these guys are often very savvy about the benefits of drafting (up to a 38% energy saving) and have the sort of personality which enjoys the rough and tumble of swimming close to other swimmers. This pack of Swingers will love nothing more than seeing you going off fast and like a group of vultures will jump on your feet and get a free high speed ride (you can almost hear them cackling to themselves).

Our advice for Smooths swimming in open water is to learn to play the game: Become familiar with good sighting technique and practise your drafting skills. Sit in the pack and bide your time to unleash your devastating finish when it's needed. Don't be afraid to modify your stroke, experimenting with a higher arm recovery and a slightly shorter punchier style to power through waves and chop.

Swimming in open water is great fun and with your skill and technical ability you are more than capable of adapting to this new environment. In time you can learn to dominate it too, just watch out for those bloodsucking Swingers.

Swim Smooth!

(If this post didn't make any sense to you, you need to see our new Swim Type system: www.swimtypes.com The power of Swim Types is that it helps you understand your individuality as a swimmer.)

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We're Banning The Word *Slow* At Swim Smooth!

Thinking about your swimming in a positive way is so important. The Swim Smooth squads in Perth don't have a slow lane (and that's not because everyone is a world record holder, far from it). Instead we have a fast lane, a faster lane and a fastest lane! This is a small example of the positive psychology you can apply to your swimming.

Swimming is a fantastic sport for all offering you health, fitness and friendships. Just learning to swim freestyle is a challenge in itself and everybody feels outside their comfort zone every now and again - that's totally normal. Be determined and overcome these challenges and your self esteem and confidence will get a huge lift. Sure there's always going to be someone faster than yourself but that's no problem - welcome to the water!

Swim Smooth!

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Your Middle Finger

If you have a tendency to crossover the centre line in your stroke, here's a useful visualisation. Try swimming thinking solely about the middle finger on each hand. As you enter the water and extend forwards think about keeping your middle finger pointing straight in front of the same shoulder, extending gun-barrel straight down the pool:

You may have been told to extend wider to correct a cross-over but we don't like this instruction as whilst it may help correct things in the very short term there's a real tendency to drift ever wider which will reduce your rotation and harm your catch. Instead of thinking wider, think straighter!

Two thirds of swimmers we work with have some degree of cross-over in their stroke - treat removing yours as a priority.

Swim Smooth!

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Wetsuits and Body Position (HD Footage)

This week on Feel For The Water we have a very rare piece of video footage for you to watch, shot with our high definition filming rig in Perth.

In this fascinating clip we look at the difference in body position from using a wetsuit, a speedsuit, a pull buoy and normal bathers. As you watch this slow motion comparison, simply observe how much the wetsuit and pull-buoy enhance Pro Triathlete Scott Neyedli's body position. Watch the video: here

The clips are time synchronised, with Scott pushing off in all four corners simultaneously. Notice how much faster he finishes the lap with the wetsuit and then the speedsuit, clearly demonstrating the advantage of a higher body position to your speed in the water.

Cheers,

Swim Smooth!

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