Quick Tips to Improve Your Swimming Ahead of Race Day

For many triathletes, race day is approaching, and if swimming isn’t your strongest discipline, anxiety about that first leg of the race may be starting to creep in.

For context, I started as an adult-onset swimmer with no formal swim background and eventually brought my Ironman 70.3 swim times under 30 minutes. Was I the fastest swimmer of the day? No. Was I swimming well enough to be in contention for the top step of the podium? Yes.

If you’re stronger on the bike and run and looking to close the gap to the front of the race, here are the swim lessons that made the biggest difference for me.

A quick disclaimer: What helped me most was adopting a simplified approach to swimming. Rather than obsessing over every detail of my stroke, I focused on mastering the fundamentals and executing them consistently.

Tip 1: Body Position – Keep the Boat Flat

The easiest way to think about body position is to imagine yourself as a boat in the water. A boat moves fastest when it sits evenly on the surface, not when one end is dragging down.

Swimming is no different. Much of your speed comes down to reducing drag. On the bike, we reduce drag by becoming more aerodynamic and presenting less of ourselves to the wind. In the water, the same principle applies, except water is far denser than air (so the effect is amplified). Every part of your body that is out of alignment, or worse yet sinking, creates resistance.

If your hips and legs are hanging low in the water, you’re essentially dragging extra weight with every stroke. (Don’t swim dragging half the pool with you!)

Master this skill, and you will swim faster, with less effort. That last part is important. (Much like being aero on the bike, this could essentially be thought of as “free speed.”)

So how do you accomplish this?

The first step is simple: look straight down at the black line on the bottom of the pool. Learn to love that black line. Keep your neck neutral and resist the urge to crane your head forward to see where you’re going. Many newer swimmers instinctively lift their heads, but the best swimmers spend most of their time looking down.

Dropping your head helps bring your hips and legs closer to the surface, improving your body position and reducing drag.

One way I learned what good body position actually felt like was by using buoyant training fins. These aren’t scuba fins. They float while also providing propulsion. The combination helped lift my legs and hips toward the surface, allowing me to experience what it felt like to be riding on top of the water. Once I understood that sensation, it became easier to recreate it without fins.

One final note: A flat body position in the water is likely to initially feel like your head is lower than your hips and feet. This is because, for most of us, our “natural” swim position is head tilted up to see, legs and hips sinking. Therefore, correcting this might feel like you’re really diving your head down to start – but if you get a friend to video you, you’ll see you’re actually just achieving the desired position of being flat. And flat is fast.

Tip 2: Propulsion – Row the Boat With Force

If we strip swimming down to its basics, the second way to improve your speed in the water is to row your metaphorical boat with force and purpose.

The flatter and more streamlined you are, the less drag you create, which sets you up for forward movement. But that forward movement ultimately comes from pulling as much water as possible, leveraging the full length of your stroke, and making the most of every pull through the water.

You’ll often hear coaches talk about the “high elbow.” The most important part of your stroke to achieve a high elbow is underwater, because you want your “paddle” (the surface area you’re using to pull water) to extend from your fingers up to your elbow.

Think about it this way: using your entire forearm as a paddle is much bigger and stronger than just using your hand.

Whether you call it an “early vertical forearm,” a “high elbow,” or, my personal favourite, a “big paddle,” the concept is the same. More surface area pulling water equals more propulsion.

In addition to using a “big paddle,” you also want to take advantage of the full length of your stroke. Many swimmers cut their stroke short, pulling their arm out of the water before fully extending through the finish. If we’re sticking with the rowing analogy, that’s like pulling the oar out of the water before completing the stroke.

Tips & Tricks to Help Implement This

• Swimming with a snorkel (and a nose plug if you need one) allows you to observe your stroke in real time. Without worrying about turning your head to breathe, you can focus on whether you’re using your entire forearm to catch and pull water effectively.
• Another simple cue is to touch your hip before beginning the recovery phase of each stroke. This helps ensure you’re finishing the stroke and taking advantage of its full length.

Tip 3: Fitness – And Having More Than One Gear

While swimming is a technique-heavy discipline, fitness still matters. Yes, that means logging time in the pool, but it also means something more: developing more than one gear.

It is very important to practice swimming fast. Specifically, practice swimming faster than your current race pace.

Because swimming is such a low-impact sport, you can typically handle more high-intensity work in the water than you can on the bike or run. This creates an opportunity many triathletes fail to take advantage of.

There are two major benefits to swimming fast. The first is physiological. Just as with biking and running, spending time above race pace creates positive adaptations that, over time, make your race pace feel easier and more sustainable.

The second benefit is technical. Swimming fast teaches your body how to move through the water quickly and efficiently.

As we just said, swimming is a highly technique-dependent sport. When you swim fast, you’re forcing yourself to discover more effective movement patterns and better ways to apply force in the water.

Lastly, don’t be afraid of rest. Fast swimming works best when it is paired with adequate recovery between efforts. The goal is to swim each repetition with quality and good technique, not simply accumulate fatigue. Rest allows you to maintain speed, reinforce proper mechanics, and get more out of the session.

Many triathletes spend most of their pool time swimming at a steady, moderate pace. While there is certainly a place for aerobic swimming, athletes who regularly incorporate faster work often see greater improvements because both their fitness and technique are being challenged simultaneously.

Again, I am not a swimmer by background, but the three principles above helped me progress from an adult-onset swimmer to swimming under 30 minutes for the 70.3 distance.

Master the basics. Keep the boat flat. Row it with purpose. And don’t be afraid to shift into a higher gear when you train.