In this coaches corner, our coaches “dive in” to swimming and the overall benefits and how they are applied to the time crunched Tristar Athlete.
The PROS 🏊🏻♀️
Swimming is a sport you can do for life and is low impact on the body and joints.
Swimming as a huge impact on low end aerobic capacity. Even though it may feel like “work” its really suffocation and your actual heart rate is fairly low in the water.
This low end aerobic capacity work helps you to lean out and improve overall raw stamina and endurance.
You can do lots of it and ramp it up with less consequences vs biking and running.
Swimming aids in muscle repair and recovery. It helps sooth aching muscles and relaxes the body which overall aids in your recovery.
Prior to a race, more advanced athletes can significantly ramp their swimming 4-6 weeks out from their “A” priority race and still do well. This is not true for less experienced athletes.
Swimming can help the bodies range of motion and flexibility.
No one have ever said “that swim crushed me!” …..like a bike or run can do to the body. In this way swimming is very “restorative” and complementary to training overall.
THE CONS 🏊🏻♂️
The time commitment to get to the pool and do an actual workout more than other sports.
The “bang for the buck” is less in this way.
Most Tristar Athletes get faster simply by increasing healthy training volume.
There is a boomerang effect to biking and running that reverberates in the pool.
Most athletes get more “bored” when it comes to swim training.
Many athletes have a swim limiter when it comes to drills and how they move through the water and are less willing to put in the time to improve.
if you dont work on your swim limiters in terms of form…. some day as you get faster, this will be your total race limiter and how far up you can place in an event.
Ultimately, if you are a triathlete we recommend that you try to be balanced in the three disciplines and while times of your season may be more loaded with swimming than not, the discussion is between you and your coach as to how much, how hard and when to swim!
~The Tristar Coaches, 👨🏻💻
