Swimming for Hammers and Spoons

:rofl:

We want to hear about all the ageing inflexible MAMILs you helped get down below 60 for 3.8km OW :wink:

I tought one guy to swim a sprint distance from struggling to do 15m. Hardest thing i ever did! Its very hard trying to get them to do things you think are second nature. Good learning experience though and helped my communication skills. I also coached a lady from around an hr half to a 35 olympic in 5 x 1hrs. She’d been “swimming” for years at the same monopace, got her out her comfort zone. The worst people to coach though are MAMILS who have been in the sport a few years, swim about 1:30 IM but have read swimsmooth and lots of other conflicting nonsense, try to change 100 things at once, then change them back. They take everything you say on board at the session then go away read an article in 220, follow that instead then come back the next week saying they aren’t improving and want to tell you what is best for them as 220 said they can swim like phelps off 1hr a week.

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I would say I’m generally pretty good at that. And as I say, I’ve had some training OW swims at London Docks which have been more aligned with my pool paces. Copenhagen is the only race swim where I’ve felt like I’m swimming well and strong. Most others, for some unknown to me reason, I end up feeling like I’m fighting the water :man_shrugging:

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That was interesting. It goes to show that pretty doesn’t = faster, and what goes on below the water is more important.

So feeling pretty sluggish doing 1600m of 50/100 alternate. My 100s were all coming in 1:36/7 and 50s were 46/7s. Then after halfway I thought sod being graceful, and just started ‘throwing’ my right arm over, so it was a flatter recovery and landing shoulder-width or maybe a little wider.

Anyway - after that my 100s were all around 1:33 and the 50 reps were 44s! :man_shrugging:

Forget you! Paul Newsome is on @Rooster’s podcast this week so that will sort us all out :rofl:

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swimsmooth lol

Original TTer, along with Adam.

Exactly the sort of response I’d expect from an Arnie

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He’s a Bambino

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As with most swim coaches we don’t all agree on the minutiae of each stroke, but generally they do some good stuff and you have to show respect to the business model. On the outside at least they appear to have cornered the market in swim coaching to the point people are willing to spend big money to do “coaching” courses with them and that the name is so well known you can sell yourself just by saying “Im a swimsmooth coach” Genius stroke giving all the course material to British Tri for free as its opened up the whole of the BTF to them with coaches paying for the app etc. Paul was very good in the early days on TT as well, as was Younggun and his charts!

Won’t be many “kicktastics” on here though :rofl:

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Yes I remember them being here (there?) and being helpful. I downloaded one of their plans and found it all too busy and in need of toys TBH. Lots of a bit of this drill, some of that drill and so on. I prefer to work on one, maybe two drills in one session so I can try and improve at it.

yes i agree, i have an ironman plan from years ago and it is over complicated, but that sells books! I always say if you can’t remember the session its too complicated.

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Paul gives Tritalk a nice mention in the interview :slight_smile:

Made me all nostalgic :slight_smile:

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More than once!

Out of interest, what’s your main criticism with the swimsmooth process?

I actually thought Paul was completely the opposite to this, at least in the way he talked about it. He was all about synthesising quite a complicated technical sport to some key principles. And he even said the above forms part of each consultation he does…he makes people summarise all the points into one or two sentences that is what he makes them identify as the key takeaway.

I’m actually in Perth after New year and have already checked out how much a consultation is. It sounded a quite valuable opportunity.

I was thinking exactly the same thing as he was explaining the types!

If you look at the sessions they are very complex, I think they work on too many things at once. It’s a long process to improve, dont try to fix everything in a 12 week session plan. But the best, simple way doesnt sell books

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Interesting. I’ve not read the book. But @Rooster did plug it quite a bit and give it his thumbs up.
The bit that surprises me is that what I’ve quoted above would be the total opposite of pretty much everything Paul advocated as his philosophy in the interview!

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What was Paul/Swimsmooth’s origin login on TT1.0? I remember his location being ‘Purf Ostraileea’, after he moved over there (iirc)