Spend One Kind Of Energy For Another
Do you know what its like to spend energy of one kind in order to gain energy of another kind? That’s what it usually feels like for me when I go swim. It doesn’t have to be ‘easy’ swimming either. Most often I train quite strenuously,...
How To Make Your Stroke Longer
The universal speed equation is… Speed = Stroke Length x Stroke Rate If you want to go faster in the water you need to make stroke length (SL) longer without losing more than a calculated amount of stroke rate, or you need to make stroke rate (SR) higher without...
It Matters How You Breathe
Have you worked patiently and persistently on your stroke skills and fitness but still feel breathless after only a few laps? There is more that could be affecting how well you feel refreshed by each breath. UPDATE: It Matters How You Breathe is essentially Part 4 of...
Tips For Designing A Single Practice Session
This is part of a series called The Happier Swimmer: how to set up your practice lifestyle so that you are making steady improvement toward your goal, making the body safer and stronger, and enjoying the process more than ever so you have the motivation to keep going....
Do Only That Which Matters
This is part of a series called The Happier Swimmer: how to set up your practice lifestyle so that you are making steady improvement toward your goal, making the body safer and stronger, and enjoying the process more than ever so you have the motivation to keep...
Avoid Hitting The Wall On A Long Swim/Run
The question about feeding has come up with some swimmers preparing for long swim (more than 2 hours). Something like, “I start to feel suddenly quite tired after an hour or so, and I think I need some food to keep going. What should I eat and drink? This...Choosing Safer Sunscreen
Another good thing about being an open water swimmer is that we pay more attention to the environment we play in. We notice not only how the wild water affects our pleasure and safety, we notice how the humans affect that environment, unfortunately, often in negative...
If You Want To Move Forward Quickly
We most often think of water as a whole body or continuous substance. But really, from another viewpoint in physics, it is a soup of individual water molecules, or little electrical balls all jumbled, bumping and swirling together. And if you want to swim forward in...