Swimming Strokes for Triathlon

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Carey Kepler I'm a functional training coach I also work with triathletes today I'm going to give triathletes triathlon goals for the intermediate to the beginner triatlete. And if you would like more information you can go to my website at www.boundless-energy.com. What I want to talk about is the freestyle stroke it's also known and called the crawl it's the most sufficient stroke that your going to be able to use, so you want to be familiar and be able to use that stroke if not throughout the entire swim portion of the race, then at least the majority of it. I know first timers sometimes get nervous in there and you want to breast stroke or back stroke. But the freestyle stroke is the most sufficient so when your doing a freestyle you want to make sure about there about 5 mechanical moves that you want to be familiar with. The arm positioning you want to be familiar with the way of the arm is place into the water you want to catch the water so your going to place the hand into the water, and your going to pull through and keep a high elbow. Number 2 you want to make sure that you have a kick and a strong kick and it's going to be a flutter kick so your not going to bend at the knee your going to actually move through the water with your hips. And number 3 you want to be familiar with your breathing technique some people breath unilaterally which is one side every other stroke. The most efficient breathing technique is the bilateral breathing technique that you'll swim and breathe every 3rd stroke so you'll actually be breathing down both sides. The benefits of that is the more fluid body movement so your going to be more slippery in the water so your going to be more efficient and also when your in triathlon there's so many people around you there are waves water can come into the mouth and if your capable of breathing from side to side your able to avoid and miss some of that water which can really you know clog you up. So you want to try to learn to bilateral breath. And 5th you want to make sure that your are body positioned in the water that you are most slippery. Being slippery in the water means that you literally are going to turn from side to side, so that your body movement rotates completely from almost shoulder to shoulder when your in the pool you want to work on that. Shoulder roll and hip roll and so if you exaggerate that in the pool when you actually swimming in a race your going to be the most slippery and the most fluid in the water, so you want to be more fish like."