The Swim Technique Hierarchy of Needs for Triathletes | Brenton Ford (Effortless Swimming)

Brenton Ford is a swim coach and the founder of Effortless Swimming, one of the most well-known and well-respected resources of swimming knowledge for triathletes and open water swimmers. Especially for adult-onset swimmers without a swimming background. In today’s interview we start with an in-depth discussion of swim technique, before diving into specifics for open water swimming, training structure, and more. This episode is packed with information, and you’ll have a great chance of finding some advice applicable to your own situation that can help you improve your swimming. 

HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY TOPICS: 

• The hierarchy of needs for improving your triathlon swimming: breathing, body position and tautness, rotation, catch and pull, timing and rhythm
• Common mistakes triathletes make in each of these areas, and how to fix them
• What to do when your technique looks good, but you’re not getting faster anyway?
• Swim technique modifications and specific training advice for open water swimming
• How much of swim technique and feel for the water is trainable, and how much is innate talent?
• Training structure: when and how to incorporate technique work, threshold and VO2max sets, and endurance sets within your triathlon swimming program.
• Listener questions

DETAILED EPISODE SHOWNOTES: 

• We have detailed shownotes for all of our episodes. The shownotes are basically the podcast episode in written form, that you can read in 5-10 minutes. They are not transcriptions, but they are also not just surface-level overviews. They provide detailed insights and timestamps for each episode, and are great especially for later review, after you've already listened to an episode.
• The shownotes for today's episode can be found at https://scientifictriathlon.com/tts697/

LINKS AND RESOURCES: 

• Please support Effortless Swimming and That Triathlon Show by getting the best swim goggles on the market at shop.effortlessswimming.com. Use the code TTS15 to get 15% off your goggles, and get a free two-month Effortless Swimming course membership.
• Effortless Swimming website, Youtube, podcast and Instagram
• Technique improvement and swim training for triathletes with Brenton Ford | EP#320 - Brenton’s previous appearance on That Triathlon Show

WHAT SHOULD I LISTEN TO NEXT?

If you enjoyed this episode, I think you'll love the following related episodes:

• Power Rankings – Our top five sessions to improve your triathlon swimming
• Beginner Series 5 – Swimming for Beginner Triathletes
• Swim Types and Fault Fixers with Swim Smooth’s Paul Newsome | EP#188
• Open water swim training with Olympic gold medal coach Marcel Wouda | EP#246

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