Last Swim Squad of 2010!

Dear Team,

I've got nothing much to say about tonight's training, whatever I could share about keeping the body up on the surface at same level at all time regardless of breathing or any head movement, I already shared. If you have questions, please come to me direct and I will help you.

To round things up, it has been a superbly cool year with Team Sapphire. I got some thank you speech to say which I couldn't bring myself to speak up in the debrief... paiseh la.. and it is pretty long. Anyway, here it goes.

Thank you for the constant support for me as a coach, it mean A LOT to me.

Thank you for your trust in my teaching, I hope I have been able to help you realize some if not most of your goal of year 2010 in terms of swimming and some of you, personal fitness achievement and health.

You have been a drive to motivate me to consistently readup, practice and train myself and experiment new training method on myself so I can improve my ways of sharing with you to make all of us a better swimmer after each and every swim squad!

Thank you for your understanding in my ways of coaching, that I can be very persistent and opinionated in my teaching, but I mean good for all of you all the time no matter what the situation is. I live and die by the idea that health and fitness is two different things and the latter is always secondary to the first.

Thank you for the love and being the important group of my life that I feel so attached and belonged to... Without you guys, Desaru wouldn't be possible.. Team Sapphire wouldn't be possible.. My sharing would have been to the 4 walls around me. It is the players in a team that makes up the team but it is the team that the players in the team belong and I feel that So strongly in Team Sapphire. It is so amazing.

Without Team Sapphire, I'd not have opened my perceptions to many things in life because of the sharing from YOU, you and YOU. At age 26, Vincent, Ebnu, Lawrence and Take has helped me to begin my journey to learn what it takes to be a good father and a man of the family.

I've learnt what it takes to be committed to a group and be responsible for every action I take for the group.

I've learnt how amazing an individual can improve in a skill if the coach put in enough heart and soul to help direct to the right path. I've learnt how important it is to balance my life with my work and training.

I've also learnt invaluable lesson of marketing and even website administration. Needless to mention, I've learnt so much more ways to express my teaching and it has enabled me to share even better to the boys and girls I coach for a living...

Knowledge is King and I am so glad, that you guys are so generous enough to help shaped my brain as much as I help shape your brawns.. =)

Life is Just That Much Better with you guys around.

I just want to let you know, that I appreciate them all, so so much.

Believe it or not, You've been a very very important part of my life and I feel responsible to each and every one of you. I cancelled my lifesaving test tonight (My lifesaving coach and Sam are totally against that.. but its alright, we're still tight. =>).. Don't question my motive behind the cancellation of my own test, it is because our race is nearing and it is my duty to make sure that the transition from base training to speed training is properly done and that none of you "suffer" in the team without undue preparations. In Team Sapphire, We Suffer Together.=)

Once again, Thank you Team Sapphire, Each and Every One of You are important to me. Have my words for that. =)

Let us bid goodbye to 2010, and say HI to 2011, a whole new racing season.. may SUCCESS AND FUN COME TO US and the LAZINESS BE GONE! hahahaha...
,
Cheers!
Coach KK

Swim Squad and Plan to Singapore Biathlon

Dear All,

I've decided to do without for the Anaerobic Time Trial as most of us are still very bad with the endurance aspect. As this is a 1.5hr time slot I got with the Team, I cannot be selfish and drag everybody to do the same Anaerobic TT. Ultimately, lesser is better for the anaerobic stuffs right now at least until 2 weeks later.

We got 7 weeks including this week to Singapore Biathlon week.

A fore view into our training until Biathlon will be as per follow:

Long swim this week (WEEK 1)

WEEK 2: Long swim + Speed work

WEEK 3, 4, 5: Speed work

WEEK 6: Peak Week

WEEK 7: Taper/Race week (We're all not very fit personnel, don't need taper That much)

In Addition, WEEK 3,4 and 5 I will organize open water swim @ Sentosa. It is impossible for all of us to meet up on all sessions and thus I can only HOPE that you can turn up for at least 1 of them, ESPECIALLY for those going for their FIRST EVENT.

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Tonight's training program:

Warm up: 5x100 (Alternate SWIM and KICK)

3X200 (Easy, Moderate, Hard X 2)

6X100 ( as 3 x Easy, Moderate)

500m Swim Continuous at Moderate Effort w Sighting every 6-8 strokes

Cool down: 500m Alternate Breast and Freestyle Easy

Total: 2.7K

Cheers
KK

PRE CHRISTMAS SWIM!

Two things to mention before talking about the training tonite.

1) I noticed that some of our team members are bound by their work situation to be a little late all the time for the 7.30pm swim. To help you all, I decided I should post up the training program on Wednesday Morning if I can get access to my laptop. That way, you can take down whatever is to be done and get started no matter what time you reach. If you're late, you can always reduce the warmup reasonably to catch up with the team, or just join in and do until majority of the team has stopped and you stop together and the team can continue the flow of training.

If anyone has any Violent Objection to the above recommendation, let me know personally and I will think of something else. =)

2) The group is getting larger, yes some of us are not very consistently joining (As in EVERY SINGLE WEEK WITHOUT FAIL) but at ANY ONE time, there are still more than 8 swimmers... I am very happy that we got the circular lap swimming etiquette dialed in... as a coach, I'm very relieved as I am very much afraid that we'd disrupt other's classes as much as our own training. As we can see from the few sessions we do, as long as we move as a team and in an orderly manner, people will tend to give us the way because they don't want to get hurt too. However, I have to mention that we are still public users of the public pool so let's not take it overboard no matter what happens yup. Nothing has happened so far but IF something is to happen like a quarrel or arguement, give and take la huh. =)

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For tonite's training, the main idea is to just spice things up a little as the year nears the end and also to introduce more training concept (yes, AGAIN).

First thing is our warmup will be at least a 500m-1km swim from now on. I'd like to move on from stroke practices to full fledge swim training. If anyone of you have ever read a swim training book writing about competitive swimming, their swim training almost never go below 3km. So our swim training will gradually take on the following characteristics.

- Longer warmup (minimum of 500m), unless pressed for time.
- Drills after warmup (optional/reminder work if i find some slacking brains)
- Main set options:

1. speed skill sets (sets of 50s at fast effort but focus is on moving arms quickly and efficiently and not power output)
2. endurance sets (4x500 etc..)
3. strength building sets (drag pants/paddles/zoomer fins)
4. Anaerobic endurance sets (3x200 hard.... etc)
5. etc that i can find is beneficial to all of us

- Cool down should always do mixed strokes

Enough of previews.. now, for the real thing...
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Here we go, PRE CHRISTMAS SWIM:

Warmup: 1000m fs easy/moderate
Drills: 500m fist swim with pull buoy (focus: body balance in rotation and EVF, catching water with forearm)
M/S: 4x50 (25m Flat out FS, 25m head up)
1x team FS relay.
Cool down: 200m as 2x(fs, breast)

Quite little, but people cramp from the sprints and relays... so i think it is Enough la huh. =)

Note: The head up swim is strength building but also a way to let you realize the difficulty of swimming with your head up so you will learn to put your head back down when you do your normal swim. If you understood the rational behind, people who swim with very high head position like benjamin will benefit from it a lot because of the realization of body position in water.

Individual Swim Review:

Hong Jun
- Your hand tend to flip upside down when you finish your entry. Keep it flat when you enter!
- Sometimes, its not a matter of how you do it, whatever I can impart to you as your coach for free style, I've taught you. What you lack now is practice and strength which takes months to build up like I've mentioned in our sunday lesson last week. Be patient and keep working at it, you'll become a very very fast swimmer with your long body. =D

Marianne, Samantha, Teck Beng and Gen
- Very streamline and very relaxed. Fantastic overall body position except the legs tend to become lazy and open up wide to do a kick (lower legs instead of from hip).
- Too much gliding. Pull should start once the pulling arm ends pushing. From now on, you have to VISUALIZE yourself become a very FAST moving and AGILE athlete. Imagine Bruce lee type agile.
- Teck Beng still not activating core correctly, working on the kick DON'T HELP. We should visit the gym soon. =)
- Need to work on start off, no immediate power.

Wilson and Calvin
- Good absolute strength/power but technique and body weight are the limiters.
- Pretty straight arm pull, root of problem is inflexible shoulder. Please google for shoulder stretches, do them religiously and watch your swim time drop. =)
- Droppy chin, need to maintain that "proud" chin up posture

Benjamin
- Your head is WAY TOO HIGH. Water level is at forehead. Because your head is so high out of water, you're literally swimming in a diagonally sinking position and you have to kick SO hard to enable yourself to move forward. Imagine you were doing the head up swim ALL the time you know.. I'm sure you know what I mean. So please, ask jaslyn what I've shared with her about keeping the head submerged... Don't let your power go to waste...

Jaslyn
- There is a lot of improvement since your swim with me. However, your pull is still very short (ending at your stomach) and it should end pass your thigh.
- Also, your breathing is still not from rotation, it is still from your left arm pushing down on the water. As I've shared with you, by doing that, your body comes up high for a breathe but your hips sink... and after breathing, it sinks DEEPER back in because of the previous height gained.

Ebnu
- You are not lifting your head up high but your hips are sinking because you're not pressing your chest down (leaning inside) enough. You have not been able to feel what is it like to be doing the pressing your chest down technique thus you couldn't activate that part of your swim.
- We need a swim session together even if it is just 15minutes before the team swim squad. Can you spare that for me next wednesday? I assure that you will improve leaps and bounds once you get what I'm trying to make you feel. Lawrence experienced that sudden improvement leaps too.. I hope for you to do the same and now is still early enough to take that step. =)

Take

- Arm pull tend to start straight instead of the bent elbow EVF
- When doing long swim, head tend to become too high. I believe it is because you know that when you look in front slightly, your body tend to become straighter, but it is indeed a little overdone. =)
- Good to know you're able to pace yourself very well indeed! Don't worry about being slower than the group you're in.. Only when you have someone in front of us then we can improve yup!

Yukari
- I've said this time and again, YOU ARE FAST.
- Don't worry about the relay swim, it is all in the name of fun! To cramp up means you've pushed to your limit and you've done your best and thus nobody can take anything away from you. I'm proud to be in your group! :)
- Only grudge I have with your swim is you like to open up your fingers (teckbeng used to do that and he told me he was counting strokes... hmm...) when you pull. You need to keep them closed to form a solid paddle!

Saori
- Like Mummy and Daddy, like daughter. Everything they have, you also have, Problems included. :P
- Still, you're one student I am very proud to say I've taught you from scratch... Jiayou! Gambatte! =)
- Work on your run and you'll definitely top the rest of the kids in triathlons and biathlons once you grow up a little more.

Vincent
I find that when you sprint, you can really put your mind behind and just chiong all out. It resulted in a pretty bad pacing when the effort goes up.

For example, when you're doing moderate effort, you pace very well. However when you go fast with me just now, the first 1 is VERY very fast but the subsequent ones you became slower and slower. And in the relay, you even cramped up.

Even though I kept telling the whole team to go flat out... I feel that you have to hold it back a little bit even for a flat out swim. Learn to see the whole set as a goal and not just 1 lap. It is very important that no matter what the effort, you must have a game plan to finish very very strongly... that's how you win in a race.

My principle of racing is always Practice like you're racing even in the slowest effort swim the mental aspect of pacing and strategy must be there. Then in you race, do it like you're Practicing and it'll definitely turn out good unless you have an off day. =)

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Hope you guys had fun in the relay swim. Merry Christmas! =) 

Cheers

KK

AEROBIC TIME TRIAL SWIM - 16122010

Dear Team, here is your Aerobic TT result. =)

200warmup, 20laps swim at Aerobic Effort TT with no rest.

Now, I know there will be some banging here and there and probably change of direction that caused a couple of seconds to be lost but it really doesn't matter yup. The way I am deciphering the swim times is according to how I know you and your swim style. We can clearly see some patterns here that we can learn from. It was all in all a very good Aerobic Time Trial, all of you went very easy at it and that is the whole point, to set a bench mark on how fast you can swim 20 laps when doing it easy. With proper training, we're aiming to see a drop in timing (together with a drop in stroke count for some of us) before we go for our Biathlon and our ultimatum OSIM Tri. =)

Calvin

This is a very very good consistent Aerobic effort swim. I believe you have always been doubtful or less than trusting to what you can achieve in your swim. This time around, great Thanks to Take's mistake in counting the laps, you did 2 more laps after the TT. And the timing from the extra 2 laps are more than pleasing to see that stroke count did not increase a lot and the timing was well within a couple of seconds from the average time per lap!

This shows that your swim technique has really stabilized and you're able to hold it that way almost automatically! That is awesome news for you! The only hiccup is at lap 12 onwards, your stroke count started to increase and so did your timing, indicating a slight lack of core strength or general endurance to maintain your stroke integrity at the normal level when you're fresher. Other than that, it is all good! WELL DONE! =)

Take

After watching you swim for a few swim squads, I realized you have a very smart way of doing things. You know that you have limited amount of energy and you always try to ration it properly according to the distance/amount of work you have to do. It is very evident in this Aerobic TT that you're trying to do a 100 moderate push, 100 moderate easy kind of pace. I believe it soon became a constant effort in the middle because you were feeling unsure about how that type pacing will result in what kind of timing and thus the middle portion of red.

Your smart pacing also resulted in a successful negative pace set. That means you started strong and finished strong even though you have to give and take in the middle. That is exactly what we want to happen in a race... however, that is NOT what we need in a Aerobic Time Trial where we need to set a bench mark. To set a bench mark, we have to try to maintain a consistent pace like what Jaslynn/Hong Jun/KH is doing (check out KH swim and comments below regarding his Time Trial). That way, we can learn more by seeing how much our body can tolerate before technique or endurance starts giving way.

Even though calvin didn't manage to take a lot of your stroke counts, I was watching the four of you swim and your stroke rate are very rhythmic and rather consistent. You're definitely one of the better skilled swimmers in our team so keep up the good work and work on the head position! =)

Lastly, One thing I like about your style of pacing is that you're never afraid to take a step back and slow down so you can push harder in the next one or many more future laps. This is one thing we youngsters should learn and not be overwhelmed by our ego to always compete and go hard and harder when things get tougher. =)

Teck Beng

The lack of experience in TimeTrialing caused the first 3 laps to be rather fast instead of easing into it. This is something we have to prevent in future because if we were to do an anaerobic 20laps TT, you'd have been VERY VERY worn out by the 4th lap if you were to go hard in the first 3 laps because of adrenaline. =)

I understand that you were thinking about your strokes throughout 20 laps and I believe in this team, perhaps only you, myself and my brother KH have the ability to concentrate at that level. However, I still highlighted the middle portion as yellow because I roughly remembered that those few laps are when your body position is at its worst. I was concentrating at my own swim but I can't help take a peek once in awhile when we pass by la...

What we can learn here is that your mental aspect can be still thinking about what is correct and what should be done, however if the muscle is weak, there will be a "disconnection" until you "force connect" them again by flexing the associated parts harder than the current effort you're putting in.

I don't know if you get what I'm trying to say here but basically its like when you go at a constant effort for 20 laps but your core endurance level is not there to keep the hips up at that easy effort then if the effort maintains at easy, the core will not be able to hold unless you up the effort by flexing harder a little bit lor. Longer people like you and Hong jun have to work harder on the core activation part la.

Last but not least, stroke count for your height should be 40-45 MAX. Right now, it is really too high because of the sinking hips... and your overall aerobic endurance level only last until 17th lap and then stroke rate started increasing together with time per lap. Need to up endurance and core strength quite a bit if going for Olympic Distance ya... JIAYOU! =)

Hong Jun

I am very very impressed that you could maintain such a consistent effort level of swim. The timing and stroke rate are so consistent, it is almost hard to believe! You're definitely on the right track in terms of mind and total body connection in the swim versus your pacing skills. I believe having gone through a set of triathlon training with the kids and myself helped you quite a bit with the pacing skills eh? =)

Only thing I see here and it is REALLY CRITICAL is that being a 1.8m++ person, your stroke count should be same as what I suggested for Teck Beng at 40-45. Right now it is so high largely due to your snaky hands and also super hard entry plus VERY discounted pull (til stomach only, should end at hip!). Please work on that at this moment.

I was very concerned about the 3.2km you swam, if they are all this type of stroke then you're practicing Good Pacing BUT LOUSY STROKE leh... please take note ar...

Last but not least, your question to why you can't swim straight, that one, i really feel it has to be a problem with your concentration on looking where you're going, and seeing the blue line and adjusting your body back to be following the line. I believe the problem is when you're breathing on the right side, you couldn't see what is on your left and how you were pulling your left arm. Thus, the left arm is causing you to move A LOT SIDE WAYS! Try correcting and let us know... do seek the others' opinion on your swim too because I am quite at wit's end for this to be honest..

Keep up the hardworking attitude! I love the way you work as a motivated young sportsman! =)



Jaslynn

I felt that this is a very enlightening swim for both you and myself as your coach. I saw very clearly the points you needed to improve (that's why I chose to partner with you.) and I correctly predicted you'd come to me and tell me "I felt like I can go faster". The answer is definitely a no because even after 20minutes of rest (watching me swim and counting my strokes), you could not do a 100m with consistent stroke rate and timing.

Diciphering the swim you have, the stroke rates indicates you have a very poor stroke technique. I shall not touch on the details here and I will share with you when I meet you in 4 hours' time.

Your energy level, which directly affects your endurance level, dropped from the 10th lap onwards as we can see an increase in stroke rate and timing per laps consistently from then on. For your case, this is NOT an indicator that you are not fit. This increase in  stroke rate and timing is a result of your inefficient stroke wasting too much energy and not propelling you forward.

It is not an embarrasing fact that you are slightly shorter than the people around you but you put people like HongJun and Teck Beng to shame because they're taking just 8-10 strokes lesser than you per lap and they are at least 30cm talling than you. However, you should still be doing about 50 strokes per lap at max at that Aerobic effort.

I could tell you are trying very hard to glide, that - is a good thing. However your inefficient pull and push phase robs you of your frontward propulsion. You got a strong kick which sort of compensated for your high head position but that isn't going to work very well in triathlon because you're gonna need those legs to bike and run later.

For your information, from lap 1 - 10, you're doing 30 strokes for 1st 25m of every 50m and 50 strokes for the 1st 37.5m of every 50m. From lap 11-20 onwards, you're doing 34-36 strokes for 1st 25m of every 50m and 54-56 strokes for 1st 37.5m of every 50m.

That in itself explains the bad streamlining is complicating matters with your effort to pull with an inefficient pull. As you put in more effort to move forward, the fact is you're just creating more resistance to negate your propulsion effort.

For the last lap, you pushed harder and you got a 4seconds reduction from the 19th lap.. But, you took 74 strokes as compared to the 1st lap at 56. That is a wooping 32percent or 1.32 times increment of stroke count! Very inefficient neh...

Nonetheless, I like that stretch you have in the entry. You got it immediately after I explained to you and that is Impressive. =) Also, you are very good at sustaining a certain effort level of swim. I could tell you pushed harder than aerobic pace because you got a little bit of difficulty talking after the swim. Personal trainers like to use Talk-Test to see what effort level their client is at.. if after a workout session the client couldn't talk in full sentence immediately, it is more than just moderate. However, I will take that as an indicator that you are very very good at working at a consistent effort level, and that is very important for triathlons where you have to keep hammering the race at a same effort and pace. I see a great triathlete in you. =) 

We'll see what we can work on tomorrow. For now, if you ever do your own swim, slow it down and count your strokes. Find out how you can improve on stroke rate. I'll help you out definitely. =]

Vince

A very very impressive swim! With an empty stomach and tired mind, you could still focus quite a bit and regain the focus after losing them during the swim! I understand a couple of laps you got banged into and slowed down to sort of regain equilibrium but it didn't rob you off too much time la cos your swim are really pretty consistent after you finally settled down into a pace that you find it to be just right (13th lap onwards). Next time, aim to start the swim at that effort. =)

I felt that the first 3 laps was not properly controlled and then you suddenly remembered that you have to ease into the swim which results in the next 3 blue highlighted easy effort. I guess that after that you realize it seem to be too easy and thus you decided to push it a little and your body probably felt a little bit of hard breathing and thus your mind asked it to ease off again to totally remove the hard breathing.

I don't know, really.. from the way I review your stroke rate, you're having complete control over your swim and the inconsistency in timing is largely due to seldom doing Time Trials for swim and thus not knowing how to start and not knowing what effort is right.

Overall, it is a fantastic swim which tells us your upper body & core endurance and stroke integrity is falling into place at aerobic level where you can still think.. and deciphering the time sheet helped us learnt a lot more about how you should pace yourself in future aerobic level swim. =) It is a very encouraging workout! =)

KH

I honestly felt that you're the only one in the team other than me who maintained a consistent connection between mind and body control. I have a few issues that I have to mention for your swim which you need to work on.

1) There is not enough endurance. Wayyy too low. Your stroke rate is Deadly Consistent but your timing goes down the drain while maintaining the same easy effort level and I could see your stroke was almost flawlessly intact throughout the full 20 laps. That really is a big indicator that you lack upper body and core strength.

2) Your stroke count is consistent for 20 laps, so is your stroke integrity. However, there is still a lot of flaws in your strokes like dropping elbow in your push phase, the legs opening up too wide after completing the 2-3 beat kick, the arms catching up too much before starting the next pull and this is just to name a few I spotted by peeking at your swim. I could name more if I were to look at your swim closely.

3) There is definitely an improvement in core strength as I could see your streamlining is really good except when you turn from side to side sometimes the body tend to snake a little bit. Try to turn with the area of diaphram down to the thigh. If you focus the rotation to be 45 degrees of that area facing the floor from side to side, then the turning will be more stable and snaking will decrease. Ask me if you don't understand this.

Overall, it is a very very well done Aerobic Time Trial and it gives you everything you need to know about how and what to train for your swim right now at this base period. You need more gym work and general conditioning. Jiayou!!! =)

KK

As spoken after swim training, I was always preaching about swimming with core and not arm pulls, the result of the Time Trial is a very significant display of the fatigue of the legs and abs gym training I did last night. The timing was supposed to be at sub 1:00 for at least the first 15 laps with that type of stroke rate and effort.

My usual 20 laps Aerobic TT Swim is averaging 44-47strokes per lap and the increased in timing per lap and 49 strokes per lap average tonight is evident that I couldn't move my body forward with the hip rotations due to the fatigue I have in my core. This further strengthens the concept and preaches of my swim is done with my core. I walk my talk so you walk yours. =)

Before I reached the pool, my body was aching so much and I met Jaslynn and I told her I wanted to back off from the swim TT because I knew the timing won't be good and it won't be accurate but I still went ahead with it because I wanted to show you what is consistency in stroke integrity.

With the aches I have, 20 laps is gonna be a long way and thus I broke it down to 10x100. I did not purposely pace myself so I go faster on the first 50 of each 100 and return with lesser effort. However, you can see that the lesser effort in the second 100 results in a slight increase in timing AND stroke rate. This is because of the decrease in effort in keeping my hips up. However, having set my mind to know this is a 10x100 sets with no rest, I am always able to feel slightly more ready to go for it when I leave the wall for the next 100m and thus I am able to get a rather consistently lower stroke rate on the first 50.

Personally, I call this mental pacing strategy. When times are tough and you never know when will what things happen in a race. You could jolly well have a migraine like my first biathlon or diarhea problem like my last marathon last week... the race still have to carry on and practicing this type of mental pacing drills in your mind in your swim, bike and/or run training helps a lot when the time comes where you have to "negotiate" with your body to give and take so the race can go on and still be finished.

The only one thing I did well in this swim is my effort is controlled and always remaining at aerobic level plus my stroke counts are Deadly Consistent. I like that but it can still be better. I used to do 3x500 TT with numbers hitting 1:00 per lap and stroke count at 47 happening for 25 times in a row. That is definitely achievable and I hope all of you will aim for that in aerobic swims. =)

8/12/2010 - Swim Squad

W/U:
2X (100Free + 50Back)

Drills: 10X 100 as 50 Drill + 50 FS (aware and easy)
1) Fist Free
2) Fist Breast
3) 3 Fly Kick 1 Breast Pull
4) Right arm pull Left Breathe
5) Left arm pull Right Breathe
6) EVF position sculling
7) Pull-End-Phase sculling
8) EVF position Fist sculling
9) Single arm breast (25m Right, 25m Left)
10) Pull-End-Phase Fist sculling (didn't do)

M/S:
3X100 Modified Individual Medley
(25m Free, 25m Back, 25m Fly, 25m Breast)
3X100 as 50 Back, 50 Free

C/D:
3x100 as 50 Breast, 50 Free

Total: 2.1km

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I figured it's a bad decision for us to do Time Trial today because not everyone is present and almost half of the team went for the Standard Chartered Marathon last weekend.. The form just isn't there before full recovery can occur and thus the result won't be accurate.

And therefore, I did up this last minute program to add some fun to the training. I wanted to do a relay racing swim but looking at the "shag-ness" from all the drills, I decided not to stress the muscles too much especially when holiday is coming soon la.. :)

I know, some of you commented I shouldn't have swam since I was still feeling sick... Thank you. I really appreciate the care and love.. =) but then.. when I see 12 team mates in the water, 6 went for a marathon/half marathon... I know its gonna need so much more effort to put in a good swim after a superb marathon run.. and thus I decided its important for me to do and even do slightly more to set an example to motivate you guys!

Honestly, I felt every bit as bad as all of you who did the run. RPE was quite high because of the fatigue... you're not the only one who is struggling in the team... in Team Sapphire, NOBODY SUFFERS ALONE. :)

Enough of team spirit thingy.. for the swim, there are a few benefits that I need to raise up here for you to appreciate.

1) In a team environment, you'll be "forced" to do what you won't do by your own.. and thus all of you are forced to do your different strokes

2) Doing different strokes strengthen all the core muscles that will be needed to keep your body in a streamlined position in all the different pulls and kick patterns

3) Doing the drills with fists seem to work very well for the men.. I saw that the strokes immediately changed to more glide to gain distance per pull/kick.

4) Butterfly is a mentally and physically difficult stroke to learn, coordinate and execute. And to execute it with grace and relaxed breathing is AN ART that even I am trying to master. So let's work towards that in 2011. :)

---------BACKSTROKE--------------

I understand that most of you can't swim straight with back stroke. It needs practice. I can't put it into words how does practice helps you to swim straight but it is really just a process of getting used to it.

Right now, you have very little confidence swimming backwards and thus you have to keep checking where you are going. Also, the stroke is not very accurate in terms of entry and exit and extension of your arms (straightening).

If you haven't noticed...

... Checking the direction by looking in front will force your buttock to sink - inefficiency no. 1.

... Checking the by turning body down to the floor will cause the body to turn and thus lose momentum and also streamline position maintenance will be affected when you kept "squirming" around to check

... Recovery and Entry with a bent arm and wrist will cause the entry to be at 12-o clock. That causes the pull to be pulling outwards away from the center alignment of our body and thus propel the body laterally (side way)... and end result is a snake swim.

The above will contribute and add up to be a lot of factors that can turn your back stroke into a very very crooked swim... Once again, you need to practice to have confidence and you won't check that much which will lead to easier maintenance of body streamline position.

As for recovery and entry with straight arm, remember you must be Constantly STRETCHING AND REACHING for the sky and back. Keeping it Straight is NOT enough.

---------Butterfly------------

First of all, IT IS A VERY PHYSICALLY TAXING STROKE if you're undertrained. HOWEVER, it is POSSIBLE to practice and master it so that it becomes a RELAXED stroke.

With all honesty, it is just about reducing the tension when you do butterfly and to do that, you have to put down the "concept" in your mind that butterfly is a REALLY TIRING STROKE.

Take it one stroke at a time and remember that there is only 1 point in time where there is a NEED for a power stroke... That is when you arm push and the leg kick at the same time to get your shoulder out to recover the arm.

Once that stage is done, the recovery should be done with a relaxed, TENSION-LESS body + arms + legs.

If I didn't see wrongly from my peripheral vision in my swim, I saw that you guys are very very tensed when you recover and when both arms are in front and gliding. There are holding of breathe which causes a very very quick hike in thoracic pressure (the pressure you felt in your chest) which will then directly causes breathing to be very very panting and breatheless.. and then the whole tension thing becomes a vicious cycle.

For you to better "visualize" what happens during a stroke for me it goes like that:
1) Push off wall in streamline position (arms are at shoulder width)
2) Slight outward pull to do EVF
3) bring elbow (forearm in the vertical position) in towards ribs and then the arms comes closer together
4) Push and Chops outwards from center,
5) At the same time as 4), do a hard fly kick to "kick" the shoulder and arms out of water for recovery
6) Arm recovers over the surface of water (thumbs down, pinky finger point towards side)
7) Arms chop in thumbs first at slightly wider than shoulder width

ALL STEPS ARE DONE IN A RELAXED MANNER EXCEPT STEP 4 & 5.

Theoretically (PROVEN BY ME AND MANY SWIMMERS), when you have a core strong enough to do undulation (the wormy kick) effortlessly, you can then slowly practice and master the stroke with lesser total body tension.

----------------------------------

For the above writeup, I am hoping to read some questions other than from TECK BENG hor....

Before I end the post...

Latest news is that OSIM 2011 is in June. I found that out on a website where they are looking for volunteers for it. I hope that all of us can be there! I find that it is one of the most well organized triathlon in SG and even though it is quite expensive, it is very recommended for those who are racing for the first 3 times of OD.

My Race calendar has modified:

February- Singapore Biathlon (Fun race)
March- Aviva Half IM (A+ Priority)
April- 2XU Compression run (Goodie bag race :P)
May- Tribob Sprint Triathlon (Fun race)
June- OSIM OD Triathlon (A Priority)
August- HP Tri Factor/DESARU Half IM (...-_-... dunno yet la.)

Cheers
KK

5th December 2010 STANDARD CHARTERED MARATHON!

Team Sapphire Team Members Timings:

Full Marathon:
Andy: 3:45+- ?
Ryan: 4:05
Edmund: 4:43
Yukari San: 5:14
Lawrence: 5:20
KK: 5:25
Wilson: 5:45
Benjamin Yeo: 5:50
Jaslyn Yeo: 6:00

Half Marathon:
KH: 3:00
Sam: 3:05
Mari: 3:00++?

10K:
Christine: 1:00+ ?

Congratulations to ALL runners.

Ryan: you're incredibly fast and definitely in peak form this time so please don't over train and get burn out! Time to relax for a couple of weeks before starting to train again!

Andy: You run on batteries.. so get more duracells ok :P

Lawrence: You've proven to us that age is no limit to endurance sports by outdoing your younger coach in a race! You're the inspiration to every one of us in the team so please keep up the great work!

Yukari San: You're born to be an athlete. Enough said. I look forward to your success in your first Singapore Biathlon!

Wilson: Your strong will and optimistic determination (new word sioll) have brought you to finish the incredible torture with new Weight(not height ar. :P) and I am superbly proud of you as a coach and as a friend. I hope you have time to train more consistently next time to prevent injury!

Edmund: I look forward to racing you with my best effort in the singapore Biathlon. =)

Benjamin & JasLyn: You guys have great potential and willingness to learn and go the distance (literally) will definitely help you excel in sport as a hobby or a passion. My advice to you two is to pick up some sprint distance as experience then work on getting lighter and faster instead of joining longer distances for now. JIAYOU!!!

KH: To have you as my brother is either your unfortunate happening or my proudest moment in life. I have literally seen you pick up swimming from nothing to a "easily" attain 1.5km swim in the pool kinda guy in less than a year. Thank you for your trust in me and thank you for your willingness to try to better your health. I know sometimes I do things that seem to make you suffer but then I hope you look further into your future and see that health is the greatest asset, fitness gives you ability to use your time fruitfully and wealth only comes last. Going to races together with you is both stressful and exciting for me because you're my only brother and I only hope for the best to happen for you and not some freak incidents that we can't control. Whatever it is, I am very very proud to have you as my team mate, my friend and my closest brother on earth. CHEERS =)

Sam: I think being my girlfriend is really tough. Tougher than doing a marathon or iron man. Because you have to battle laziness that all girls are entitled to.. Because at the same time when you train, you have to take care of tired and easily falling sickly me. Because you've been an incredible soulmate in my life. I hope you've enjoyed your fitness and physical gains nonetheless despite hating the trainings somehow... You're the proudest achievement in my life in terms of the benefits you've drawn from the fitness trainings... and I'm super happy that at that same time, I am so in Love with You. =)

Mari: Time to lower the mileage and go faster la!!! So sian to keep doing longer and longer eh! Need to up the timing! Not the distance liao!!! haha.. Hope you have a great time in Sweeeetzerland! And please sign up for sing bi!!! Really hope you can go with us as a team!

Christine: I think you're a very very very fantastic wife who goes out of your comfort zone to do what you feel is needed to accomplish the task of motivating Lawrence. It is something that not every women who're married can and will do. Your love for Lawrence inspire me to be a better man so I will continue to get support from my love one too.. More importantly, keep running and try to pick up cycling if possible! Takes away the boredom la.. JoJo and you can both come to sam's class to learn swimming!!!! =)


----------------------------------------

What I have to say.....

Whatever your timing is, your effort can never be discounted and everybody hurts the same way during and after the run!

It's been a great 2010 of racing with this team and I will like to thank all of you for being there for me in my toughest races and all the trust and faith that you've given me have encouraged me to become an even better coach than ever... the learning must go on and i do the readups, you guys do the listening ok? =D

Once again, thank you for letting me have the honour to know a great bunch of people like you. I am referring to WHOLE TEAM SAPPHIRE... not just those listed in the marathon running!

YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST!

TEAM SAPPHIRE ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers
KK

SWIM SQUAD 011210

Dear Team,


I understand several of you are going to Standard Chartered run this weekend and thus I made the swim a very informal and educational one. I think it fulfilled 2 main purposes.. first, of letting those going for the run have a rest and i believe secondly everyone seemed to have more or less grasped what I was trying to share about keeping your body straight in the body using your core.

I could see everyone's hips floating much better after activating the erector spinae, glutes and hamstring in that land swimming drill. However, I see possible issues arise from the 10 minutes of swim.

1) It requires a lot of mental strength to keep the chin up, chest up and buttock up proud posture.
Holding that posture whilst thinking about breathing, EVF, leg kicks from hips and body rotation is definitely a lot of thinking to do.

2) Your core may not be strong enough to hold that hip up high for long period of time yet and thus some of you may be rushing to do too much practice.

At all times, make sure you do just enough until your buttock starts to sink. It may mean 80 laps for me, it may mean 2 laps for somebody else.

Whatever it is, when it comes to techniques and skills, it NEVER pay to rush to increase volume and duration. Once technique falters because of muscular fatigue, then practice will become very meaningless unless you rest and allow the muscles to recover and be able to hold the position again.

It can look really easy for people like sam, myself and vincent to be performing it but it is because we've been doing swim in the right way or at least, sports at quite a high intensity before and thus our general body conditioning are pretty O.K. but it is a very tough thing to do for most general population. That includes all of us in the team.

So, once again, patience is a Value to inculcate... and it is never too late neither can it be too early. The sooner you start to practice going slower and in the right manner, the EARLIER you'll get to benefit from the practice.
--------------------------------------
I'd like to commend Calvin, Teckbeng and wilson for trying. Their body like mine are very bottom heavy and/or lengthy. The longer and heavier the lower body is, the harder it is to keep it afloat and yet, they're trying their best to do it without complaints... I recognize this effort because I was one of the "victim" of being bottom heavy... But you'll realize that constant practice of this mental control of your lower back and other core activation will allow you to get stronger and stronger overtime that you'd be able to do it just like what I showed or even better!
For Mrs Takesawa, I'd like to praise that your swim is one of those who felt 150% correct to me after you corrected your entry to be at shoulder width and also today you kept your hip up and manage to erase the lazy legs to keep the feet up breaking the surface gently. It is a very very correct stroke and definitely ready to push for greater heights!

Wilson got lots of brush up to do and I believe your posture problem came abit from the long runs.

Vincent, you need to try and reduce the amount of time you spend in level 8-10 kind of effort. The lesser you visit that, the better you will become in months to come.

Basically there is two parts to conditioning your body to burn fats.

1) Eat and Drink lesser sugar and mid to high G.I. Carbs (limit that to just after workout)
2) Train more at low intensity of 4-6 level of effort.

You know where I am getting to la. I shall stop my nagging here. Apologies to be a nanny of some sort la.
Sam, KH... I need two of you to start gymming with me to prep for OSIM.
Lawrence and Ebnu, are we confirmed on Aviva? I need to plan for you guys yah..
Hong Jun, please make sure stroke is correct as you clock the distance. Try not to just do freestyle in every lap. Mix up all the strokes to get overall conditioning.
Benjamin and Jaslyn, as spoken before, from these two training sessions, I will like to presume that you two are power type athletes who can perform very well in sprint events. And that means you need to apply a lot of force in water, i.e there will be A LOT of resistance coming in your way if you don't correct the breathing technique.
Another flaw I saw in your stroke is that

1) Jaslyn kick too much

2) Benjamin is just fluttering the ankles and toes
The kick should be at max 3 beat per pull during slow to moderate effort swim like tonight.

And the kicks should start from the hips, not just move as fast as possible from the ankles. The ankles have very small muscles and will easily get injured when kicking that way.
"Moo"saic, You have to work harder on the other strokes to have an edge at your age of competitive swimming. It is not so much about freestyle only but you need to be well rounded so that your overall body will be better conditioned to move in the water. That will build you a base foundation that will help you a lot should you decide to pursue swimming in the near future more seriously in multisports.

Cheers
KK

In regards to Teck Beng's sharing.

Great thanks TeckBeng for the sharing on sculling..

My simple add on:
It is most impt in sculling for the palm and forearm to be pitched in the correct angle(opposite of direction of where we want to move to) and to relax at the end of each push phase in each direction.

My sincere Apologies to all who wasn't well taken care of in the team or neglected as the group grow larger.. Please raise your questions to me if you have any..those who asked me knows that i always gladly answer them with as much help as possible..

Also, Well said, lawrence on the need to self practice.. As of that, i need to give praise to at least Vincent, Teck beng, Ebnu, KH and Sam who has been doing their own practices in their own private time and has came to me with questions to ponder and discuss.. It has come up with very fruitful results such as TeckBeng's heightened body position awareness and vincent's pace awareness, Kh's improved swim technique endurance and sam's improvement in coaching and her own streamline maintenance.

I hope that the above encourages all of you to do even better in your swim practice! Even though the rest of you did not approach me for discussion, i'd believe that you still do a little more than just the wednesday swim session.. Even if it is just more reading or watching videos of swim on youtube..:)

Cheers
KK

Why my sculling don't move ?!?!

If you have the same problem as me, this video will explain in detail how to do sculling properly.

When do the sculling, my movement is only coming from the kick...I was doing it all wrong.




Hope this is helpful to you....Teck Beng

17112010 Swim Squad

Objective of training:
1) Introduce Circular lap swimming (sharing of lane with similar ability swimmers)
2) Introduce moderate effort base training swim (fat burning)
3) Celebrate Wilson's Birthday with the team's first 2.8km swim in 1 yr. =Pp

W/U:
200m Easy FS

Drills:
6x50drill+50 fs swim
1) 3 x Butterfly kick + breast pull
2) Right arm pull only
3) Left arm pull only
4) EVF Sculling + super light fs kick
5) Right arm pull Left breathe, change to Left arm pull Right breathe on 25m
6) Right arm pull Left breathe, change to Left arm pull Right breathe on 25m

M/S
4x100 as 2x(Easy,Medium)

3x200 as (Easy,Medium,Fast)

6x100 as 2x(Easy,Medium,Fast)

C/D
200 Mixed strokes

-------------------------

Please note during the swim we did left turns, next time, we'll do right turns next time. =)

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Happy Birthday Wilson! :)
-Team Sapphire

Cheers
KK

PS - Thank you Sam, Gen and Patrick for the pool and especially Patrick for joining us to swim!

Strength Training (Brief How and Why)

Today's topic I'll touch on Strength Training and its effect on sports performance.

Before we go into the very conventional ways of thinking that….

Strength Training = Lifting heavy weights in the gym repeatedly until you feel pain, follow that by 1 min rest and do that for 'X' number of repetitions…

Lets think about what strength training actually does and how we can leverage on that for sports performance, specifically triathlon.

In summary, proper form of strength training will definitely aid in sports performance, and no elite sportsmen reach the podium without strength training. This is especially true in strength and power based sports (think Power lifting, 100m track sprints and contact sports like wrestling). However, we will learn how it can apply to cardio sports as well.

Like I've always shared, whatever we are doing, when we go down to the lowest level, it is always about muscles flexing and lengthening (yes, everything, even typing this post with my fingers!) and the heart and lung providing oxygen and blood being the medium of providing the needed fuel/nutrients.

So lets put the heart and lung out of the equation and zoom into the muscular aspect first.

What strength training does is that through Progressive Overloading, the muscle fibres will breakdown and reform to perform Specific Adaptation to the amount of load we put on it over a period of time.

In layman terms, Progressive Overloading refers to the amount of resistance, in addition to whatever we can handle currently, that we apply to our muscles.

Specific Adaptation refers to the process of your muscles growing stronger to do a specific movement that you've used to done the Progressive Overloading on.

With that in mind, we must then look further into Sports Specific Performance. Sounds similar to Specific Adaptation right? Because it is where Specificity will come into play.

Our body is made in a way that when you expose it out of a comfort zone, it will learn and it will adapt.

In the most extreme of example, if you have no clean food to eat and clean place to stay, you have to survive by eating cockroaches and live in unhygienic place, over time, your body will adapt and you will SURVIVE AND LIVE ON. That is provided the change is introduced over time in a Progressive manner.

Lets summarize again the points we've gone through so far.
The body will adapt to become better in handling a situation of change. The process of introducing the change, is called Progressive Overloading and the adaptation to the change is called Specific Adaptation.

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In the high level of sports performance, we can't take running as moving the body forward with your legs, and we can't take swimming as just using the arms to sweep through under the water and then your body will move forward as long as it is fairly streamlined.

It is true that we have to increase our arm power and back power so we can have a stronger pull in our swim. But does doing 20 pullups a day translate to a stronger pull in swimming? Or lets ask a more specific question, does the amount of strength that you gain from the adaptation of doing the 20 pullups a day translate FULLY, like 100% into swimming power?

Specific Adaptation states that we will get better at what we do as long as we kept doing it. A lot of people cannot perceive that it is a double edged sword. It is the same reasoning behind practice does NOT make perfect, practicing correctly makes perfect.

In order to get better in our sport, we need to understand the specific movements of each muscle in each specific movement that is required by the sport itself, before we can start training them to apply a higher amount of force in that specific movement.

-----------------------------------------------

Let me digress into strength training movements in gym and their effects so that you gym goers can relate better. Generally we do single joint movements and multi joint movements in the gym with free weights and also machines like the smith machines.

A single joint movement such as dumbbell curls will train your biceps and depending on you do them standing or seated, you also may or may not train your muscles in your core to stand with stability while applying force to lift that dumbbell up with your arm flexion.

Take another single joint movement like your tricep extension (take your dumbbell, extend the arm above the head and start dropping the weight downwards then straighten the arm pressing the dumbbell upwards again), trains your tricep to become stronger in lifting a weight in that position.

So how good are they when we don't usually carry our grocery up and down like you were doing the dumbbell curls? How specific are they to your life? Do you do your swim by constantly flexing your elbows seated or standing and lifting the water up and down like your bicep curls? If not, I don't understand how they are to translate to swimming prowess since the application of force and stabilizer muscles used are completely different.

Multi joint exercises seem to have more benefits because they are more functional. An example like squatting a weight up seems to make more sense in our daily life (sitting on the chair and standing up is a squat). Cycling tend to benefit quite a bit from squats too but are they really that sports specific, I don't think so.

I use squats to help grandma and aunties to regain their ability to climb stairs properly and even stand up from their chairs on their own… But for bike strength and run strength, I rather hit the hills since they overload my muscles in the most specific way my sport requires them to exert force in, as in really cycling and running!

----------------------------------------------------

Strength training does NOT have to come in the gym. It can happen on your bike, it can happen in your run and on the stairs, it can happen in your room and it can even happen when you go through your daily life just by carrying a heavier backpack. So, its time to think out of the box and throw whatever you know about gym training off the mind first.

Lets look back into sports specific performance.

1. To perform running, we need to keep the legs moving and keep the body in a more or less upright position and leaning forward fashion.
   
2. To perform a swim, we need to keep the body in a streamline position while applying force with our core and arms to pull ourselves forward.
   
3. To perform a biking, we need to keep the body in a aerodynamic position while spinning the pedals with force.
   

Do you see a trend? All the sports requires us to hold a position while applying force in a fixed angle repeatedly.

And the muscles that we use to hold that position is generally called stabilizer muscles (of course there are scientific names such as antagonist, fixators and synergies but I'm not here to impress).

Stabilizer muscles are the primary muscles we should take note of while doing strength training because if you cannot keep your body in the position that we need them to be while applying force, we will 1) lose out in streamlining, 2) lose out in aerodynamics, 3) lose out in run efficiency because of non proportionate weight distribution above our legs.

That brings us back to Specificity in strength training. When you do a squat to train your legs, your focus is to train your biking and running strength capacity… and when you do a pullup, you want to increase your swimming power, when you do a tricep press you want to improve your swimming's push phase but consider these:

1. Squat: Does your resistance come from the barbell on your shoulder when you bike?
   
2. Squat: Do you go into your aero position when you do the squat? Elbows on the pad and sitting on a saddle?
   
3. Pullups: Do you swim while hanging upright?
   
4. Tricep extension: Do you really push with your tricep only or do you rotate your core and pull your body forward with an anchor in your EVF?
   
5. Dumbbell curl: Do you swim with your fist clenched or fingers must hold a paddle shape?
   

Doing a pull up requires you to prevent your body from swinging forward and backward in air. Doing a squat require you to straighten your back and push a weight upwards. Doing a lunge require you to stride your legs forward with a weight by your side or a barbell on your shoulder. Specifically, does it help your run and your swim, I'd say no because of the different stabilizer used and also the angle of force application is different.

In summary, strength training in the gym can be done in the base phase of periodization training but once the training goes closer to the event (approx 3-6 months to race depending on distance of event), the strength training should occur specifically in the way you move your body for the event.

Again, why specific to the movement? There is also the phase where by your RELAX your muscles after each pull/stride/pedal… if you do it in the gym, how are you going to replicate the force application phase, timing and relaxation as per specific in the sport's required movement?

My advice to you is if you want to do strength training, study the below list of movements and how they are to be done in gym and think about how to replicate the movements, activating the same stabilizer muscles as you do when you're doing your swim, bike or run before you go and whack yourself with heavy weights. I will touch on the proper forms and also the difference between Training and Using them for performance if there are people who request that.

Just please remember that doing the movements with weight in the gym does not improve performance completely, because we still have the lung and heart aspect that is not covered in specific fashion (aerobic, anaerobic etc etc).

Freestyle Swimming (personally, I find that it is so hard because you can't hover in the air in that swim specific position and lying chest down on a chest means you're stable and you won't activate the core muscles needed like you were in the water:

• Arms:
  
  • Elbow flexion at catch
    
  • Wrist neutral and palm and fingers opened and placed together
    
• Legs
  
  • Straightened but relaxed throughout the whole kick movement
    
  • Slight knee flexion at downbeat of kick
    
  • Hip flexion at kick
    
  • Hip extension at kick
    
  • Plantar flexion at feet (Relax effort at up beat and exertion at down)
    
• Body
  
  • Stabilizing as one piece and isolated from the arm and leg movements
    
  • Ability to rotate from side to side
    
• Shoulder
  
  • Internal rotation at catch
    
  • Depressing of shoulder (opposite of shrugging) before the pull and push phase
    
  • Shoulder flexion when arms extended in front
    
  • Shoulder extension when catch and pull starts
    

Biking (easier to train):

• Arm
  
  • Elbow flexion and Holding the position of aerobar (Specific width to your set up) or your road bar
    
  • Relaxing on that position while holding your core tight
    
• Shoulders
  
  • Holding position of shoulder flexion at 90 degrees
    
• Legs
  
  • While holding a aero position, do the following:
    
    • Knee flexion
      
    • Knee extension
      
    • Hip flexion
      
    • Hip extension
      
    • Dorsi flexion
      
• Body
  
  • Just holding a tight core
    

Running

• Arms
  
  • Elbow flexion
    
• Shoulders
  
  • Swinging of flexed arms (shoulder flexion and shoulder extension)
    
  • Keeping shoulder depressed and prevent shrugging
    
• Legs
  
  • Hip flexion to a specific height and degree required of your swim
    
  • Hip extension
    
  • Knee flexion (when you lift your heels off the floor)
    
  • Feet Dorsi Flexion to neutral plane to the floor
    
  • Repeat in an alternate legged manner
    
• Body
  
  • Keep the torso from swinging from side to side
    
  • Keep torso extended and straight while doing the leg movements
    

Cheers
KK

Race Poll

Dear all, I shall skip last week's training details as I believe I've spoken enough and nagged more than enough at the debrief.

If you have any questions, kindly get to me personally and I will resolve it together with you. :)

In this post, I will like you to have a show of hands on who will be taking what events so I can train you guys specifically for that swim event.

NOTE THAT IF YOU DID NOT PARTICIPATE IN THIS POLLING, I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SET FOR YOU SPECIFIC TRAINING FOR YOUR EVENTS PARTICIPATED.

So Please, help me to help you as I won't want to ask again and again which race you are joining in every single session so i can come up with an impromptu training for you that I cannot track....

Kindly add a comment upon reading this blog in the following format.

Name: KK (So i know who you are)
Races:
Race name / Importance Ranking A - C,
Rank C being the least impt and for learning or leisure purposes, Rank A being top priority.
Singapore Biathlon/ Rank C
Aviva Half IM / Rank A
OSIM Triathlon Olympic Distance / Rank B
Port Dickson Olympic Distance / Rank C
Power Man Malaysia / Rank B
Laguna Phuket Triathlon / Rank A

Goal: To achieve the Fastest timing that I can in every A race instead of just completing them just like I did in my previous years (except Singapore Biathlon).

Motivation Slogan: It's Race Time.

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List of main races in 2011 that I will recommend joining:
OCBC Cycle (4th to 6th Mar)
Singapore Sprint Series:
Sprint Biathlon - 27th February 2011 (Sunday)
Sprint Duathlon - 3rd April 2011 (Sunday)
Sprint Triathlon - 1st May 2011 (Sunday)
Singapore Biathlon (12th Feb, Saturday)
Aviva Half IM (20th Mar, Sunday)
OSIM Triathlon Sprint Distance (TBC, April, Saturday)
OSIM Triathlon Olympic Distance (TBC, April, Sunday)
Port Dickson Olympic Distance (July)
Power Man Malaysia 11km run, 64km bike, 10km run (Mid November)
Laguna Phuket Triathlon 1.8km swim, 55km bike, 12km run (End November)

some videos to share, related to 3 Nov Practice

The first video is on the single arm pulling freestyle which we did in the pool, with one arm resting by the side, stroking only with 1 arm, breathing on the non stroking side.

This video features the late US long distance swimming Fran Crippen...who recently passed away at a early age of 26. In the video, you will see how this young talent demonstrate this drill.

the video can be found here:

http://www.goswim.tv/entries/5847/freestyle---single-arm-breath.html

The other video is what coach talked about during the debrief session. I looked up on the internet and found one video that i thought is what he was talking about. Sculling.....

This is related to EVF. In the video, the person uses a finis snorkel...too bad they don't allow this in the pool.

Video can be found here:

http://www.goswim.tv/entries/5937/freestyle---evf-drill.html

Happy Swimming!!

Teck Beng

28/10/10 Swim Squad. - Increase Stroke rate for efficient faster swim time

In this post, I will like to try to put into perspective of the below point:

Why are we increasing stroke rate now? YOU KEEP ASKING US TO INCREASE GLIDING.. NOW YOU ARE SAYING THE OPPOSITE?

Yes, and No.

As you all would have known, I do things especially in sports, with a Lot of planning. And as I share with you, I improvise stuffs as I gain new knowledge and change as time goes by. So when you combine those two ideas together, you'd get what we call an unconventional way to train.

Below explains what we're trying to achieve and what we're actually looking at as improvement as of now.

----------------------- To start off: the formula for speed of swim in water ------------------

Velocity (Speed you move through the water) =
Stroke Length (Distance moved with EACH PULL) X Stroke Rate (No. of pulls over a period of time)

Example:

50m swim.

If I were to do a 1min 50m swim..

Velocity = 50meters / 1 min

Lets say my Stroke Length is 2.5m EACH PULL.

So in order to travel 50m I will need 20 pulls.

In order to travel 50m in 30 seconds, I will need to pull 20pulls in 30 seconds, i.e the STROKE RATE is 20pulls/1 min.

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Now, to improve TIMING, I can have 3 general options.

Option 1) Keep Stroke Length Constant, INCREASE STROKE RATE
Option 2) Keep Stroke Rate Constant, INCREASE STROKE LENGTH
Option 3) INCREASE BOTH Stroke Rate AND Stroke Length

Explanation:

Option 1:

When you increase stroke rate, it means you finish the number of pulls in a shorter period of time.

And with the stroke length constant, you finish the distance in shorter period of time.

Option 2:

When you increase stroke length, it means you
i) REDUCE DRAG, by streamlining
ii) PULL HARDER and thus achieve a greater distance per pull

And when the stroke rate stays the same, you finish the lap with lesser amount of strokes and of course, Shorter time.

Option 3:

When you increase Both stroke rate and stroke length, you do all the above and thus reaches the destination in the shortest time out of the three.

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So now that we understand how things work.. we'll get to the training part.

When I started this team, in all honesty, all I knew was to increase stroke length and thus that will result in a lesser amount of pulls per lap and in comparison to a higher number of pulls, that should become a more "efficient" and energy saving stroke.

But as I trained harder and read more and got educated more by my coaches in life.. I realised that the "efficiency" part isn't exactly true just because of the drop of number of pulls per lap.

The good news is my logic got us started at a good starting point.

My logic is that we're all born with this body of ours, and we have a base line of fitness that we currently possess.

However, to do a skill to perfection, it does not take into account how much fitness you have but how much muscular and bodily control you have to execute a movement.

I.E, no matter how fit you are, that is not a good indicator to how good you are at doing a certain thing.

And thus I started the training by teaching you guys how to MAXIMIZE the stroke length with your then-current fitness that you possess when you started training with me.

I.E I polish your technique to streamline your body and reduce drag AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE (skill training) and pull in the correct manner (to maximize leverage in water and move your body forward).

------------------------AND right now, I feel that we have all come to a common understanding on your swim techniques and also reach a point in time whereby all of you are able to more than amaturely execute the swim in a streamlined position that constitutes of the lowest drag relative to your body shape and movements in water ----------

*********THAT IS WHY I AM ASKING YOU TO INCREASE YOUR STROKE RATE********


Take note that since your stroke technique has reached a certain level whereby you know how you should reduce drag and do that consistently over laps of 50m swims (all of you were doing 24 to 28 strokes with exaggerated gliding which are really impressive)... the next step (look at ii) of Option 2 above.. is to PULL HARDER.

Any attempt right now to increase your stroke length even further, you will be resorting to pulling harder more than to inch out an extra cm from an even more streamlined position. That is because for most of you, if we want to achieve streamlining to another level, we will need proper video equipment and laser beams and EVEN MORE MENTAL FOCUS.

And taking the last point (MENTAL FOCUS) into consideration, I doubt you guys have enough of that.. and thus your body will definitely CHEAT and start to pull harder to go faster.

NOW THAT - is what I don't like to see in your swim right now. WHY?????? --- CONTINUE at ***

I've always emphasized aerobic training being 80% of your training volume and 20% anaerobic at max. When we pull harder, it is easy for us to cross that line and go into anaerobic mode.

In all long distance sports including Triathlon, we try our best not to go deeply anaerobic throughout the whole race unless we're racing for a very strong purpose or the race is less than an 1hr long.

For reason on why train aerobically...

1) Lower intensity = lower risk of injury due to
i) Lower effort = more ability to focus on right joint movement / techniques
ii) Lower effort = lesser impact on joints and muscles

2) Aerobic system is the system that provide us LONG LASTING ENERGY and thus to be successful, we must train that aerobic capacity to as high as we can because most of our races last longer than an hour and we will be working aerobically 90% of the race except when we over take people or race to the end line or when the gun goes off!

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CONTINUED --- ***
When you pull harder, you tend to go anaerobic. I.E High intensity.

In a nut shell, that is complete opposite of the reasons on why we train aerobically or what we're trying to achieve to have a well trained body and have a successful racing "career"/lifestyle.

On the other hand we can also explain it this way:

RACE PACE = The pace that you trained yourself to stay inside, i.e a comfortably uncomfortable state whereby your body is pushing at a state somewhere just below its limit of breaking.

When you go anaerobic completely, you will drain yourself out sooner than when the race will end. I.E That is HIGHER THAN RACE PACE.

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SO, now I'm introducing to you to INCREASE STROKE RATE while Stroke Length is maintained to be constant.

I.E we're aiming for No harder pulls.

Taking the example from above, each pull still move you through 2.5m of distance in water. So you will still need 20pulls to cover 50m.

The ultimate goal is for the amount of forced applied to stay nearly the same.

However, what changes now is that you complete the 20pull at a higher speed.

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It looks really easy on paper/screen.. however it will be tough.. This is due to the increase of frontal resistance from water as we move through the water at a higher velocity.

The amount of effort per pull will definitely have to increase in order to keep the distance travelled per pull the same as when you do a slow swim that allow you to travel 2.5m per pull.

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Digress:
Now, you ask, why do this? Why not stick with pulling harder?

From our example above, we take 20pulls to reach 50m in 30seconds if we travel 2.5m per pull...

so if we pull harder and increase stroke length to 5meters per pull and keep the stroke rate the same (speed of pulling = 20pulls/30seconds).

That way we reach other side in shorter time because we will only need 10 pulls (10 x 5meters) and so we will reach in 15seconds!

Right. But the REAL QUESTION is... HOW MUCH HARDER?

When you swim slowly (maybe 1min 5secs per lap or around 55 seconds per lap) and try to pull harder while streamlining yourself, you notice that the amount of swim time decreases a lot, maybe by 5 to 10 seconds. That is good.

However, when you do a swim at a higher speed (around 43seconds and below) it becomes SO MUCH harder to increase stroke length.

Reason: Water Resistance DO NOT INCREASE in LINEAR fashion.

I.E The faster you want to swim, the MORE FORCE YOU NEED to travel a MUCH longer distance per stroke.

So, by choosing Option 2, increasing stroke length, when you have already maxed out your current skill level to reduce drag, you will have to INCREASE YOUR STRENGTH BY A LOT.

You will now take slower pulls compared to Option 1, but each pull is going to have to be so powerful that it is pure anaerobic stuff.

SO....................

I choose Option 1, increasing stroke rate. Because given your current stroke skill level, you will have to just increase your strength per pull minimally to maintain the stroke length at 2.5m per pull instead of increasing the effort per pull by a whole lot just to ensure increase in stroke length even though you can pull slowly.

On a easier way of saying things:
1) Moving your arm slow at a HIGH effort = anaerobic (picture squatting 150kg)
2) Moving your arm faster with a lower effort = aerobic (picture squating 15kg 10x)

Total volume of work done is the same but you can last much longer on the aerobic state. That is GOOD for triathlon.

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Another comparison for the brain dead people.

You set your bicycle gear to big chain ring in front and 5th cog at the back as you feel moderate effort when pedalling at that gear.

So for example, 1 revolution of the crank will bring you forward 5meters.
And thus to travel 50m, you need to pedal 10 revolutions.

If you want to travel 50m in the shortest amount of time, you can either

1) Finish the 10 revolutions in very quick fashion (note: resistance didn't increase as gear maintain the same).

Or you can

2) Set the rear to 10th cog and travel a further distance per revolution. However, as you increase the distance travelled, you also increased the resistance due to the gear used. And that means you are pushing a very heavy weight with you legs to move through the 50m and that is anaerobic.

CLEAR?

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Now, you ask me, what about Option 3? I want to be REALLY FAST so I want to increase both my stroke length and stroke rate!

Note that moving your arms quickly in a form that is specific to the demand of the technique is a SKILL.
That's why we do speed skill training.

Once you master this skill of moving quickly without increasing much force, you can train to swim very quickly and efficiently at an aerobic state and thus maintain that speed for a long time.

WHAT HAPPEN WHEN YOU DON'T TRAIN THIS SPEED SKILL?

Then you will be churning your arms in the water and not catching any water with good technique in your arm pull and recovery and entry because you just never teach your body to move quickly while conforming to that stroke technique!

No offence but Vincent can be a testimony to this because you heard him said it himself that the effort was so high that he can't even think about what he is doing.. let alone maintaining proper stroke technique.

Okay, so lets fast forward 1 yr later.. you hit the plateau for this level, you will have to increase your strength per pull by doing RESISTANCE TRAINING. I.E Gym and paddle work and zoomer fin work.

By doing that, you'll increase your general strength and your "normal" pulls at aerobic state will become stronger.

Thus stroke length will then increase because of your increased strength and not because of an increased effort to apply more force.

That, is your option 3 lor. :)

Understand?

If no, please comment here.

Cheers
KK

ps: you can do the strength training side by side with what you're doing now.

ps ps: JSUT HOW THE HELL DO I DO IT?

Do a moderate swim and count your number of strokes per lap. Divide the 50m by the strokes per lap and you get stroke length.

Then try to swim faster.

The key is to keep your chionging nature in control and, try to apply same if not just minimally increased effort to maintain the stroke length achieved in your moderate swim now in your fast swim..

i.e swim faster by increasing the speed of your pulls while keeping stroke length constant.

20/10/10 swim squad video analysis

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See my facebook for your VIDEOS.... EXCEPT..........

LAWRENCE, MR AND MRS TAKE!! I LOST YOUR VIDEO.. :( DUNNO WHY CANNOT FIND.. but here goes nothing!

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Mr Take:

The only complain I have is your head is lifted too high. Mrs Take saw that. Focus on changing that first. :)

You got really strong core muscles which I must say helps alot in your body position. That is why your swim is so strong. We can see that strong core in work too from your butterfly kicks and swims. :) Keep up the good work!

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Mrs Take:

Your swim looks and feels very very relaxed! Very textbook like.

However on sunday when I saw you swim again, I saw that your recovery is done with a wide arm. Why not elbow leading?

I'll show you on wednesday if you remind me.

At slow swim, the technique looks really good! We'll see how when things get tougher in more speedy swim to come. :)

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Vincent:

Left side breathing head very high. not smooth, jerk up to breathe then drop into the water.. not in control.

Arms unable to close to the side? need to check latissimus dorsi range of motion on wednesday.. maybe due to improper lat pulldown or pullup training.

Recovery is hand leading... ie the fingers are in front of the elbow.

It should be elbow leaving water, followed by wrist and then fingers.. then bringing the elbow to the front to allow the forearm and wrist to follow the entry of the fingertips at the front end of the stroke.

Arms unable to stay at side RELAX-LY for a prolong period of time.. this shows a lack of control over his body.. which means there is no mastery of bodily movements yet.

If you can't slow it down, you can't control it enough to wield it to its greatest potential when torrential forces is unleashed.

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Sam:

As a fellow coach of yours I felt that you've done well to upkeep your stroke technique.

As a chiller (almost slacker status like calvin).. its easy for you to relax and that helps alot in reducing frontward drag caused by the newton's law of action-reaction.

However, do take note that at higher effort, your stroke tend to crumple due to the lack of stabilizer muscle strength to overcome the amount of force you generate at higher speed swim.

As speed increases, the amount of drag increases too and as you rotate your torso side to side, you need to have a fair share of torso stability to keep that position streamlined.

For now in this video, the only few things that is of an issue is the head rising a little too high to breathe and the right hand tend to cross center-line after breathing.

Lastly, you're not applying any constant pressure on your chest. That explains the bobbing up and down from your torso and your head.

Also to note is you're not recovering with a high elbow, its a hand leading recovery.

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KH:

Right arm pull too short, left arm pull too far behind (full extension of arm). To make things worst, left arm pull is done with the "flick" to push the water upwards and out towards surface.. that caused zero propulsion and then some drag.

Legs tend to open up after breathing. Must consciously keep the legs "kicking within a small tunnel" or point big toes inwards a little to cause a inward and small kick.

Left hand recovery tend to over reach to the front. This caused the forearm to drop and touch the surface instead of following the wrist and slide in the water into its extended arm position.

Plantar flexion of feet is not very good yet.

AFTER CORRECTION:

Streamlining is tip top good.

Rotation of hip to the right is slow and thus the right arm pull is not using your core muscle to pull. Resulting in overall deceleration on the right arm pull + breathing.

Legs issue resolved but still worth using the mental cue described above.

left arm still over reaching.

left arm pulling still not in the right direction and the flick of the forearm upwards to surface is a pain to watch. ;p

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Ebnu:

Right arm extension streamline position is perfect. However, both arm pulls is not right (look below for your pull's mistake) and that diminished the streamline position's advantage. When there is no propulsion, there will be no forward movements.

Plantar flexion of feet is not too good.

Streamlining when breathing is a problem as you tend to crunch up your body when you're breathing. Imagine doing a side ab crunch. This is a sign that you need to lift your body high to breathe.

The relaxation at the end of pulls are exaggerated just like vincent. The art of doing nothing has yet to be mastered (but of course this is just one lesson).

Left arm recovery is overreaching to the Front AND the center. The forearm is contacting the water surface before entry causing an upward lift instead of reducing drag with a fingertip entry.

The sudden jerk of recovery into the water signifies a sudden tension followed by a sudden try to relieve that tension. It should be tensionless ALL THE WAY.

The Pull:
First of all, You're pulling with just one speed all the way. There should be a deceleration in arm speed then followed by a progressive acceleration through the pull. The scale of acceleration and deceleration is amplified or minimized by the speed and effort your swim.

There is a catch phase where you bring your forearm-wrist-palm-fingertips in a straight vertical line. The elbow is flexed and beside the forehead or further out (as "early" in the pull as possible try to get into this state).

This position allows you to hold onto the water with the early vertical forearm before you progressive up the speed of pushing the vertical forearm-wrist-palm-fingertips towards the rear.

There is little to no force used here to get to this forearm position.

If there is too much force used to get to the early vertical forearm, it will cause a sudden and forceful deceleration due to the amount of surface area exposed to the front.

I like to describe it as sneak into that position fast without disrupting the water too much.. As the molecules have been disturbed by your movement, you then pause it there for a 0.3second or so.. so the water molecules to go back into its undisturbed bonded together form before pushing it backwards to gain more feel of a solid push just like against the wall.

That is the correct way to pull.

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Moo:

Your mind obviously shut off during this lap of swim. It is only expected of you to shut off as you're only a child and there is way too much to concentrate on.

First of all there is No glide. What happened to staying on the side in a streamlined position?

I believe keeping the head dow helps a lot in your swim thats why you remembered that into your skin and kept your head really deep. It helped your buttock to float very well but thats about all. Your legs are sinking without your conscious effort of pulling your body long and straight from fingertips to toes.

Your left hand pull is crossing all the way to the centerline.

Pulling is not right, I doubt your swim team coach taught you anything like that. So read up on what I typed for your dad above. Come to me if you need help.

Right arm entry after breathing went too deep into the water. The deeper you go, the higher you have to climb to get back up, so why not just stay on the surface???

The only thing I am gonna add to this bunch of nagging is to swim with a disciplined mind to put technique first before anything else. Power included.
Because the resistance is exponentially increasing as you apply more fast. I.E the faster you get, the more resistance you get. Momentum helps but only that much.


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Mari:

Two things caused you swim with not much improvement. The push phase after your catch is not right as you jerked and pitched the palm wrongly after you got into that early vertical forearm position.

Your pull are solely from your arms and not using your core at all. That disconnection between your core and your arms caused the pull to be very very low in propulsion.

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Lawrence:

There is an improvement in the crossing center pull for your right arm but not in your left arm.

The crossing center started when you breathe and the START of your left arm pull. When you finished breathign and look backdown to the water the pull is already half way done and thus it looked like you did not cross the center.

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In a nut shell, resistance wins force in water. No matter how strong you are, can be, water always win because it is 1000x denser than air.

We see easily if we're stripped down to our bare minimal force (slow swim with exaggerated glide), KH emerges as the fastest swimmer of the group despite only picking up swimming 6 months back.

If we think about this as a controlled experiment. The amount of force can vary according to individual but as the amount of force increases, the resistance increases exponentially. So the only factor that has increasing benefits and advantage is stroke techniques as it reduces drag instead of increasing force (and drag).

At the end of the day, you can use sheer force will get you a 30seconds 50m, I've been there done that to achieve a 29seconds swim with a sub-par stroke.. but you won't be able to get through that barrier if not for a technique change or a huge progress in your gym training (i was squatting 145kg and benching 120kg at that time of when i do 29sec).

Final Verdict: Technique :1 Force :0

Cheers
KK

ps-
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