THOUGHTS, LOTS OF THEM.

The focus on drills.

I'm sure some of you will be having these thoughts in your mind. Especally those who never started right at the beginning and whom I never shared the focal point of training in my perspective before.

1) Looking at "Dear Fish"'s training and also other swim squad, why am I doing WAY lower mileage than them? They're doing like 5km?! Tonight's training is only 0.7km!

2) Why the heck am I doing all the kicking when I should be using arm pulls to move myself through the water?

3) Speed work, speed work, SPEED WORK?! WHERE ARE THEY?!?!?!?!

4) Can these hundred meters worth of drills really bring me through 1.5km of swim, or even 750?!----------------------------

Firstly allow me to explain:

Theoretically, swimming is a type of cardio workout. Which means it has to be done _Continuously, in a rhythmic manner. JUst like walking, running and cycling.

When we look at the motion of swimming from as general a point as it can be as a form of workout. It is just moving the arms, legs and body continuously and breathing continuously to facilitate the production of energy so that the movement of arms and legs and body can be continued.

SO WHY? Why are most people finding that swimming a lap of 50m is more difficult than running 50minutes when 50m is at most (even for the guy with lousiest techniques) a 5minutes affair?

Reason 1:
Movement in water comes with resistance. Resistance increases in cubic form against the amount of force applied BY YOU.

IE: Those of you who're feeling like you can't even finish 1 lap of kicking, you're kicking too hard. Note that the AMOUNT OF FORCE is applied by YOU. And there IS a minimum amount of force you can apply to help you move in the direction you desired.. Who are really focusing on using really THE BARE MINIMUM.. and who are focusing on "HOW COME I'M NOT MOVING? KICK HARDER! PULL HARDER!"...

Without the ability to consciously control the amount of force you apply means you tense up different parts of your body that aren't needed and thus causing the amount of oxygen consumed to be way above minimum with regards to the amount of force you ought to be using to solely move yourself forward.
Also, without the ability to control how much force you are applying, means you are probably always applying more force than you thought you really are to move yourself forward.

Reason 2:
When you run, and cycle, you can adopt a rhythmic breathing and increase/decrease the frequency AND volume of breathes for anytime and anywhere you need/want to. During a run and cycle, that can be done WITHOUT THE NEED OF A CHANGE IN BODY POSITION.

- Stay in that fucking aerobar position and wack til you puke your lungs out, you can still breathe without moving your arms or body.

- Run til you puke your heart out, your head is still upright and there is NO rotation of any sort from your face direction to disrupt/help your breathing.

But in swim, you can Only breathe when you turn your face up and out of water.

Reason 3:
Drag in water.

Please refer to:
3 forms of drag in water

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With the above said, let me answer those queries with further explanation below:

Why aren't we doing 5km of FREESTYLE swim?

1) All of us (yes myself included) have flaws in our swim stroke.
2) Swimming is a habit based exercise. If you build good habits, every stroke you take is good, if you build bad habits, every stroke you take is slogging.
3) Drills are repetition of a small portion of a good stroke.

Now with the above 3 points. Lets take my own stroke count for example. Each lap I take 50 strokes, and inevitably when I tire out, I will be using more and more. Lets be generous and optimistic that I am SUPERB in my stroke integrity and I never increase any stroke count throughout the whole swim (My dream.).

So in 5km of swim, there is 100 laps.
Thus stroke counts in total for that practice session of 5km will be: 50x100 = 5000 strokes.

In order to prove that we humans are creature of habit, you can try saying "milk" for 5000 times, then ask your son or friend to ask you "what does cow drink?"
Answer immediately without more than 2 seconds of thinking. You'll definitely reply "milk".
You can try "shit" too. It'll still work.

That test proves that when you do one thing repetitively for so many times at one go, you'll remember it and whether you can apply it in the correct situation or not, it is not guaranteed.

That also means, whether you're practicing the correct stroke, great, you got a 5000x practice of correct FREESTYLE SWIM STROKE. But if you flip the table over and you'll soon notice that IF you're practicing the WRONG STROKE then GREAT, you'd have practiced 5000x of WRONG technique and according to a physiological research, it takes 300 strict, perfect practice continuously to build a new habit, it takes 3000 to correct a bad one.

Look at yourself when you swim, and think how efficient you are with the timing you get for the 10 laps swim and also the stroke counts you're doing. Then think about what I've just mentioned above, I hope that answers the first question as to why aren't we doing 5km swim right now at this moment.


If you need a even more exaggerating example, try 100cad/min for cycling. Do that for 3hrs straight with BAD revolution (toes pointed at the end, only mashing the pedal down with no up pulls from alternate legs...).. So by the end of 3 hrs, you'd have done 3x60x100 which is 18000 Rev of bad practice! WOW. :)

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Next question:

Why are we doing all the kicks with no arm pulls? -- Tips: wanna swim like the pros? learn from the pros. Phelps? Thorpes? Nope. Learn from the Whales.

Again, refer to the efficiency of swimming defined.

So streamlining is THE SOLE KEY to moving more effortlessly through water. Being streamline is like being aerodynamic. To maintain a fixed front cross section as you punch a hole through the water/air so that there is lesser disruption AROUND you.

They're similar in the way you should achieve that result, just that the significance in water is amplified 1000x since water is 1000x more dense than air. You can pedal at 45kph and allow the bike to sway from side to side when you stand up and pump the sprint on a bike and you'll still be able to hit above watever the speed you're doing before you stand and pump the bike side to side.

In water, once you break out of that streamline position, you'd be slowed down IMMEDIATELY and the lost of momentum will cause the hips to sink and then the legs will sink even more. And with the frontal resistance coming from the legs moving through the water in a sunken manner, you'd be left with 2 options:

1) Kick harder to get your legs up --- but, how long can you last with those crazy kicks?
2) Use your technique/finesse. Press the chest down and relax to help the hip to float up to the surface again.

----------> Side track, let us review the body shape of a fish.
It has NO ARMS/LEGS/NECK. It only has ONE PIECE of body. And it moves via side undulation of the body (similar to side butterfly kick).

Small fishes are like that and they move fast, large ones like whales too, are like that. So does that mean that whales (BIG SPERM WHALES) need to generate A LOT OF POWER/TORQUE to move forward?
Scientist actually found that the whales generate very very little power to move forward. In fact, they are well known to be able to dive for 2hrs flat without breathing. FYI, Whales (as mammals) need to breathe outside of water, like us with our nose, so they can't breathe underwater. How can that be possible? Only through very very little effort and thus minimized usage of oxygen and also the forward movement is only possible with a streamlined body that causes minimum drag in ratio to minimum power generated.

Click for information about whales

So, with that said, we humans have so many joints (neck, arms x 2, hips x 2, knees x 2). Control the hips and knees to be constantly behind our shoulder width is already a problem when you swim without the arms. Just imagine when you add the arms in front of your body to disrupt the streamline position even more. The amount of power generated with your arms will no doubt make you feel strong because we're always working with our arms. However, the amount of drag that you can possible create with the addition of arms are just way too much in the exchange.

Last but not least, remember that the whales can move by using minimum amount of oxygen.. so we must learn too to conserve our energy.. and use the minimum amount of energy to move our body. And in order for that to happen, we must first learn to keep the head to toes (without our arms in front) as one piece just like a fish.

Once you know how to do that, you'll be able to swim much more easily when you add your arm strokes in slowly. I can do a session of 2km of the drills i taught you without ANY stops. Thats both a testament to how strong my kick is and also more importantly, how I can already control my exertion when I'm tired to recover from the hard kicks and continue in the session without stopping. And when I conserve my energy in my kick (ie kick gently) I can still move forward with ease.. because of my streamlining.

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Next... Why no speed work?

If you haven't noticed, I've already introduced speedwork into tonight's training. The Power Butterfly vertical kicks are Plyometric exercises. Which means they redlines your heart. 100% heart rate. They're anaerobic. If not, how come you can run 2 hrs but you pant like a small kid running a marathon the first time after 5 power fly kicks?

Like I've explained, swimming is not about using the arms to wield yourself forward. The arms are merely anchors that hold on to a point in water and allow you to rotate your body forward through the water. The rotation comes from your hip and core muscles. Which is why I ask of you to do fly kicks and rotation drills.

If you've paid attention and see the sharp rotation movements I did in the water.. That is the source of power I tap from when I swim, whatever the distance, whatever the effort.

Remember, in swim, Power must come with Control. If you can rotate your upper torso quickly but your legs are still dangling in the opposite direction then you'd be better off turning a little slower and maintaining the streamlining position.

The velocity of your swim will come when the control of your body heightens. The speed at which you're able to move your arms/legs/body separately through the water has absolutely no significance to how fast you will actually move through the water. It is how fast you can move your arms, legs AND body together as one piece through the water that counts.

With that, I answer the qn with: "Speed is relative here. And irrelevant to a certain context. Be aware of how fast your body move through the water, not how fast you flail your legs and arms because they might just be getting ZERO work done. I.E pushing against a wall."

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Last question, can these 100m of drills bring me through 750m or swim?!

Lets go back to the previous general definition of swim. What is a swim again?

Yes Vincent, that's right, a Cardio workout. ALL of you in the swim are definitely able to run non stop for at least 1hr.

So, a 750m swim can take like 30 minutes (i've never had a student went for any competition clocking more than 25minutes for 750 by the way.) at MAX? So lets be generous BUT PESSIMISTIC THIS TIME ROUND... 1.5KM should be abt 1 hr (double of 750 la?) if you're DAMN FUCKING JIALAT.

So, giving that equivalent aspect of swim as a cardio workout, can you do a 1hr, 1.5km swim?

The heart and lungs already said yes.

What about the physical muscle aspect? Yes you can. If you master the Control over your exertion and also your body positioning.
More importantly, without the concern over how fast you want to complete the swim... You will be able to do a 1hr swim as long as you can control the amount of force you exert and when you need to relax, you can do so without tensing up.

Remember: Resistance is cubic times the amount of force YOU APPLY. So if you go through the swim applying VERY VERY little amount of force.. you'd be pushing against very very little resistance (for your arms) and thus technically, you'll be able to do that for an hr...

Need a proof? Since the amount of force applied is very very small, it ought to be smaller than the power used for pushing off your 60kg body off the floor for (90cad/min for an hr) 3600 times right? So if you can do the latter, why can't the swim?

------> So jokes and examples aside..
With those drills, you'll be able to learn how to control your body properly And with short and small portions, you'll be able to practice only the purest form of correct technique** and with only one aspect to think of per lap, you'll be able to focus and get it done right quickly. If you can spare 1 hr of time swimming aimless ly in the pool doing 1000strokes of practice, why can't you put your mind into practice for the same number of strokes or lesser?

**That sentence applies differently for individuals. It all depends on how strict you are to yourself.. if you don't pay attention and are just there to clock mileage, then expect even my 10yr old kids to swim faster than you even if you can pedal 50kph for 1 hr.. I have this national cyclist boy but he can't swim for nuts.. am still waiting for his return to training.)..
Ask sam if its a truth that my 10 yr olds are swimming way better than most of you in the squad.. she see them every week when she teach with me. Its ALL about technique at this level.. not the strength or speed.

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Finally, I know the way I write here is a lot like boasting and its fucking straight "IN YOUR FACE" kind.. but put hard feelings aside and notice that I am merely stating facts that occurs and can knock us out of our comfort zone to REALIZE what is going on in the world of swimming. I am facing MEN right here and I myself too know how ego and pride can hurt my performance when it just shut the ears and eyes of an advice that goes against my common practice. Not good at all for optimum performance.

The only way to improvement is to humble ourselves and learn continuously even if you're a coach. Because before you become a coach, the knowledge all comes from the coach before you.. and the knowledge of THAT coach comes from HIS coach. Thus all in all, it is a very limited range of discussion... Always have an open mind even if you're the best cyclist in the world. Even though what you said make sense.. but it doesn't mean that what other pple say are all nonsense. there's always a way to apply something whether in a good way or bad way... I hope with this post, we open our perception to greater heights and also the understanding to swimming to a different level.

Cheers
Coach KK