First in our multi-part blog series exploring real triathlon swim technique. Introduction
For anybody, no matter how slow or fast who wants to improve their open water triathlon swim, this is a must read. Not once but 10 times. Just reading it is going to improve your swimming by not only allowing you to evaluate different strokes that may suit your individual body type, but by also educating you more accurately on swimming history and techniques from over the years. This will be more valuable than the 'swim coach expert' standing on a pool deck shaking their head, saying 'you don't understand proper swim mechanics'.
I don't have any beef with triathlon coaches who have little knowledge in the swim part of Triathlon. However when swim coaches put their head in to criticise me, without any knowledge or curiosity of why we do certain techniques, that is sacrilege. Even worse, the Tri coaches who gain all their knowledge from lectures given by these and other 'experts' who have never been to a triathlon. These people have zero credibility to me. They take money from you while having no understanding of 'real triathlon', not just swim, but also bike and run! However, let's stick to swimming over the coming series of blogs. We will not espouse techniques, rather show you where our 'they have no idea' theories originate from. All the athletes that we will discuss have at one time been world champion or world record holders, and were completely dominant during their era. Now before I get the trolls writing 'but swimmers go faster now'... That's the same dumb nonsense the coaches are selling you. Let me be clear. Most of today's coaches wouldn't know who these people are, let alone have seen them swim. Most of the coaches weren't born when these swimmers were dominating the swimming world. However, here is the difference. Every one of these techniques is selected for their compatibility for triathlon adoption. All of these swimmers with the exception of one hardly use their legs. Thus the strokes adhere to a core principle of keeping triathletes legs fresh for the bike run segments.
This is key to the Trisutto Total Body Force swimming we teach (TBF). This is not about attacking well meaning coaches that are naive to real swimming. It is to debunk the nonsense put out by most of the jealous opposition who can't replicate Trisutto athletes gigantic improvements. I spent 10 years as a national swim coach in Australia. Was coach of the year in 1986, and the Director of Coaching for not just the best swim state in Australia, but the world at that time. Hence I'm sick of nonsense swim advice - it's hurting my athletes, and it is hurting you. I am the only legitimate swim authority on swimming in the triathlon community. Over the next three blogs we will dissect the greats that I didn't just read about, or hear about; but I watched swim with my own eyes. The greats who I studied for weeks at a time before I knew what a triathlon was. When I went into triathlon coaching my first thought was the same thought I have today when a new athlete joins our group - 'What technique from the greats will suit this individual?' This is our coaching philosophy at Trisutto, and it will always be. Not the athlete trying to fit the technique of the latest swim champion. Rather the great champions with different strokes fitting around the individual. The first myth buster episode in this blog series will be on the sacred cow of triathlon swimming - the high bent elbow - and the way I see it!