General Discussion Introduce Yourself!!! » Newbie!! As green as they come!!! Rss Feed  
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2015-04-27 9:27 PM


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Subject: Newbie!! As green as they come!!!

Hello,

My name is Chris and I have recently (within the last month) decided I wanted to do a triathlon; and holy smokes can getting into triathloning be overwhelming.

A little about myself, I am 30 years old, been married for almost 7 years, have a 10 month old daughter and am a physical education teacher for early elementary. Finding time to train is tough but I feel very good when I do train and see improvement on each session. I live in Michigan so unfortunately for me I can only train in cycling and running for now, once the weather turns for the better that is when I will begin to really focus on swimming. My confidence from greatest to worst starts with cycling and ends with swimming. So any tips for swimming would be great. I have my eyes set on a sprint triathlon in either late July or early August and the swimming and transitions are what get me most nervous.

Oh and the gear, where to start I'll keep it short what do I need and what should I want/get?

And any tips for a beginner that you have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris


2015-04-28 8:49 AM
in reply to: Cmhughes1985

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Subject: RE: Newbie!! As green as they come!!!
A great many triathletes struggle with the swim. I am a beginner Tri-athlete myself, just finished my first sprint tri about 10 days ago. I have however taught swimming for adults for over a decade. The biggest hurdle for new swimmers is learning focus on one thing at a time. Many swim instructors also struggle with this and try to make multiple corrections at one time overwhelming the learner. Adult learn to swim is a my specialty, I have a doctorate in education and taught Physical Education teachers for over a decade.

the first thing that I work on with new adult swimmers is water comfort and to learn to breathe rhythmically. These are fundamental foundational exercises that must be learned before any other water skills can be learned. If the swimmier is uncomfortable then it is difficult for them to engage in learning because they are in fight or flight mode as they seek to "survive" the experience.

I start most adult learners with simple floating exercises with varying degrees of support to show that they can float and that body position and posture are very important. Once the swimmer can demonstrate front float, back float and recovery then I focus on breathing. I incorporate floating and rhythmic breathing in a very simple manner. We start with a superman glide from the side of the pool. Picture superman and then mimic his body posture with head between tour arms and gently push off the wall. As the glide begins to slow, I have the swimmer let their dominate arm fall straight down and then recover it to their side and as the arm is brought back up to the side I have them roll to the opposite side and breathe. We do this drill until they can do it 10 times consecutively without error or anxiety. This can take a while! Once the swimmer has gotten a good feel for this basic drill, I had in the other arm. So again they push off the wall in a superman glide. As they slow down their dominate arm falls straight down and then is rotated up to the waist which causes a natural body roll to the opposite side, where they then can slightly cock their head to breathe. After breathing in, the swimmer allows their body to roll back to the neutral position and then they roll to the opposite side and bring the opposite side arm up and over and allow it to fall straight down and then rotate the arm up to the hips. This process is repeated until the swimmer can get 10 consecutive demonstrations. At this point the swimmer will now have a base set of drills that will allow them to make forward progress in the water and breathe rhythmically.

Please note that this is just the beginning and there will be many things to be streamlined and perfected, but the swimmer MUST be able to breathe rhythmically or they will have great difficulty in learning new information. I will try to upload some video this evening to demonstrate what I discussed above as picture is worth a thousand words and a 30 second video is worth several books ;-)

Steve
2015-04-28 6:45 PM
in reply to: Cmhughes1985


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Subject: RE: Newbie!! As green as they come!!!
Hey Chris - Welcome to triathlon! First off, keep it simple. Don't be worried about having enough time either. Remember that you're setting a great example of an active and healthy lifestyle for your family and newborn.

I was scared of the swim, too. I'll never forget what my friend said before my first tri: "just remember that everyone is nervous in the water." Well this worked. I made it through my first tri and so will you .

Seems like you have a good attitude about improving each season, and that's key. I had no patience at the beginning, but I stuck it out and 3 years later I've climbed from the bottom to top of my age group...

Look forward to hearing about your progress!

Cheers,

Nick
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