Technique vs. Training - An Olympic Swimmer's Perspective
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This week on the Swim Smooth Blog we have a special post from Olympian Anna-Karin Lundin, giving us her experience and insight on striking the right balance between technique work and fitness training with her own swimming and those she coaches.
As you'd expect, Anna-Karin is a brilliant swimmer herself (you can see some footage of her in action below) and is very much a "Smooth" swimmer with a very long silky-smooth stroke... But what happens when she tries out swimming like a Swinger just for kicks? The results are quite surprising...
Anna-Karin is currently training to be our first Swim Smooth Coach in Sweden - a big thanks for your insight A-K!
My stroke has always been in my favour, my strength. Up to the age of 13, I won races thanks to an effective stroke and a winner’s mind. It got me pretty far but eventually my competitors came up beside and passed me. I realized there and then: I have to start training for real! And so I did and my results came in an instant; number one in Sweden when I was 14, and one year later I qualified for the Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea.
Now, 25+ years later, I have once again experienced almost the same thing. In a deeper way this time. Now with the why, the how, and the what. As a former coach for another swimming methodology, I was tired of not knowing how to best progress my own nor my clients’ swimming. Now, I know what I have been missing. This article is a declaration of what structured CSS-training has given me, both as a swimmer and for my coaching approach.
But let’s go back to my younger years and start from there: in the Swedish national team I was called "The Ant". Tell me what to do and I will do it. I did the work, the hard work, but unfortunately too often without knowing the why. Endless amount of meters clearly provided results, but it came at a cost. As a tired, mentally worn out 19-year old I quit swimming, bitter and lost.
It wasn’t until 2010 I took up swimming again. The masters World Championship was going to be held in August in my hometown, Gothenburg. When I learned about this, a little fire within me was lit. With eight months to go, I made a plan, using what little knowledge about training I had. This was fun, reading and learning a lot alongside the swim sessions. Trying new things, both in the pool and the gym. So much had happened since I was last active. I gave myself a challenge: “How fast can you get with only three to four workouts per week?” I must say it got me pretty far, ending up taking two WC gold medals and the journey continued with two more golds at Masters WC in 2012. As a 39-year-old mother of two, I was only three seconds off my all-time best performance 19 years earlier in 100 meters. So, what did I learn from this?
At this time, I also started to help out some triathletes with their swimming. Initially just for fun but soon my full time job as a teacher was dropped to a part time, and then I started my own coaching business. I went to the States to get a Total Immersion coach license as I felt I needed a base for my coaching. My swimmers found my new skills exciting, first in Sweden to try this out by a licensed coach. It got so popular that me, myself and I were not enough to cover the expanding market. I educated 10 more coaches, we became the crew of Simcoachen.
Very, very focused on technique and swimming beautiful, effortless, and one small detail at a time. In our world, there were a right and a wrong way of swimming, and we strived to get it right of course, forming all swimmers into one technique. Our swimmers got better, mainly from reducing drag. But quite soon I figured out that the swimming style we taught mainly suited one kind of triathlete/swimmer - the ones that likes to read, understand, analyse, taking things quite slow...
Obviously this is not ideal as my goal is to be able to coach all people regardless of ability, and level of ambition. In my own swimming I noticed that I was losing fitness, as I was busy trying to keep strokes per length to a minimal and looking awesome. Time did not matter and with a low frequency stroke (44 SPM) it was impossible to get fast times when I gave it a go. I started to see a similar trend with my competitive athletes, and I immediately realized I needed to change my coaching strategy so I started to look around for options.
I got my eyes on something completely different and immediately I felt that I found a secret treasure! This is what has been missing in my own swimming as well in my coaching: Swim Smooth with fitness, CSS, Jono van Hazel, Paul Newsome, Red Mist, Swim Types and using a Tempo Trainer in a totally different way. How very exciting!!! I got in at a three-day Swim Smooth workshop in England. I checked out the app (Ed: now The Guru) some weeks prior to my attendance, getting the unfit body moving again. I tested out some sessions to get a grip and to understand what I was about to learn more of.
Something happened with my fitness pretty fast and I went to England with hope, joy and curiosity. This was definitely something for me! During the workshop, one of the sessions included s 400m and 200m at full speed, a classic CSS-test (Critical Swim Speed). With a Dutch guy chasing, I was not in a million years letting him pass me! My heartbeat went back to normal after five hours. But this was so much fun – racing again! Getting tired and feeling alive! From this background, you can point out three things:
I am an easy target to challenges. Coach Paul Newsome gave me an unreachable (yes, THAT hard) task and I swallowed the whole bite. Back home I started training with sessions from the Swim Smooth App giving me purpose, understanding and structure. Every set divided into three zones: warm up, building pace/technique and then a CSS-set. Same structure but different from day to day. Very challenging sets, but doable and smartly build to not reach lactate level.
I got tired, but not sore and worn out. I could keep both mind and body fresh and go back to the pool day after. My body was able to manage and slowly but accurately build a faster me. My swim fitness went from zero to "better" within a month. Everything smartly calculated on the hundred of a second, completely personalized from my CSS-times in England. Pretty fast I realized the importance of house holding with my reserves. I had to, otherwise the doable was not about to happen and this very important knowledge has been a key to managing longer distances at a high speed, for me and for those who I coach. My focus had moved from only technique work to CSS-training: building speed and motivation day by day. You have to do the work but the difference from my youth is now sets with world-class structure and a deep understanding. The circle was closed.
Swim Smooth was just what I needed motivation and fitness-wise and I dropped 22 sec/9 sec on 400/200 in 10 weeks. The joy for swimming was back, so much more fun to follow a red, focused thread than swimming blind. On my Perth-trip in January 2016, I got another challenge (from Adam Young this time) and this had to do with both stroke rate and personality: “Let your inner Swinger out and try 72 SPM”. Oh my God, I had been struggling with my rate around 60 SPM!
Now, three months later I have let my inner Swinger out and I love it, feeling comfortable and relaxed at 70-72 SPM and this has made me drop 3 seconds per 100 m.
Playing with higher stroke rate, working and taming the body to adopt has definitely been a major lift in my swimming, I am almost flying on the water. That is a feeling I share with my swimmers, they love the structure and CSS-work as much as I do since I am lucky enough to pass that feeling on week after week. They have learned so much in less than a year, getting much faster and this summer is the first for them to try out their new skills in Open Water, so very exciting!
Our swimmers are more motivated than ever before and their times in 400 and 200 have dropped amazingly, the times from the past are long gone. This is definitely the future!
Anna-Karin Lundin
www.simcoachen.se
Swim Smooth!
PS. For more information about becoming a Swim Smooth Coach, see: www.swimsmooth.com/becoming-a-swim-smooth-certified-coach.php
Swim Smooth Guru content relevant to this post:
As you'd expect, Anna-Karin is a brilliant swimmer herself (you can see some footage of her in action below) and is very much a "Smooth" swimmer with a very long silky-smooth stroke... But what happens when she tries out swimming like a Swinger just for kicks? The results are quite surprising...
Anna-Karin is currently training to be our first Swim Smooth Coach in Sweden - a big thanks for your insight A-K!
Now, 25+ years later, I have once again experienced almost the same thing. In a deeper way this time. Now with the why, the how, and the what. As a former coach for another swimming methodology, I was tired of not knowing how to best progress my own nor my clients’ swimming. Now, I know what I have been missing. This article is a declaration of what structured CSS-training has given me, both as a swimmer and for my coaching approach.
But let’s go back to my younger years and start from there: in the Swedish national team I was called "The Ant". Tell me what to do and I will do it. I did the work, the hard work, but unfortunately too often without knowing the why. Endless amount of meters clearly provided results, but it came at a cost. As a tired, mentally worn out 19-year old I quit swimming, bitter and lost.
It wasn’t until 2010 I took up swimming again. The masters World Championship was going to be held in August in my hometown, Gothenburg. When I learned about this, a little fire within me was lit. With eight months to go, I made a plan, using what little knowledge about training I had. This was fun, reading and learning a lot alongside the swim sessions. Trying new things, both in the pool and the gym. So much had happened since I was last active. I gave myself a challenge: “How fast can you get with only three to four workouts per week?” I must say it got me pretty far, ending up taking two WC gold medals and the journey continued with two more golds at Masters WC in 2012. As a 39-year-old mother of two, I was only three seconds off my all-time best performance 19 years earlier in 100 meters. So, what did I learn from this?
1) Understand what you do and why – that will motivate you further
2) Maximize the time you have – do the work that has to be done, skip the rest
3) Racing again was fun
2) Maximize the time you have – do the work that has to be done, skip the rest
3) Racing again was fun
At this time, I also started to help out some triathletes with their swimming. Initially just for fun but soon my full time job as a teacher was dropped to a part time, and then I started my own coaching business. I went to the States to get a Total Immersion coach license as I felt I needed a base for my coaching. My swimmers found my new skills exciting, first in Sweden to try this out by a licensed coach. It got so popular that me, myself and I were not enough to cover the expanding market. I educated 10 more coaches, we became the crew of Simcoachen.
 |
| With her extensive swimming background, Anna Karin has that classical long smooth stroke style. |
Obviously this is not ideal as my goal is to be able to coach all people regardless of ability, and level of ambition. In my own swimming I noticed that I was losing fitness, as I was busy trying to keep strokes per length to a minimal and looking awesome. Time did not matter and with a low frequency stroke (44 SPM) it was impossible to get fast times when I gave it a go. I started to see a similar trend with my competitive athletes, and I immediately realized I needed to change my coaching strategy so I started to look around for options.
I got my eyes on something completely different and immediately I felt that I found a secret treasure! This is what has been missing in my own swimming as well in my coaching: Swim Smooth with fitness, CSS, Jono van Hazel, Paul Newsome, Red Mist, Swim Types and using a Tempo Trainer in a totally different way. How very exciting!!! I got in at a three-day Swim Smooth workshop in England. I checked out the app (Ed: now The Guru) some weeks prior to my attendance, getting the unfit body moving again. I tested out some sessions to get a grip and to understand what I was about to learn more of.
Something happened with my fitness pretty fast and I went to England with hope, joy and curiosity. This was definitely something for me! During the workshop, one of the sessions included s 400m and 200m at full speed, a classic CSS-test (Critical Swim Speed). With a Dutch guy chasing, I was not in a million years letting him pass me! My heartbeat went back to normal after five hours. But this was so much fun – racing again! Getting tired and feeling alive! From this background, you can point out three things:
1) Something BIG was missing in my swimming and coaching: FITNESS
2) People are different, and you can’t squeeze everyone into the same mold
3) It is still fun to race!
2) People are different, and you can’t squeeze everyone into the same mold
3) It is still fun to race!
I am an easy target to challenges. Coach Paul Newsome gave me an unreachable (yes, THAT hard) task and I swallowed the whole bite. Back home I started training with sessions from the Swim Smooth App giving me purpose, understanding and structure. Every set divided into three zones: warm up, building pace/technique and then a CSS-set. Same structure but different from day to day. Very challenging sets, but doable and smartly build to not reach lactate level.
I got tired, but not sore and worn out. I could keep both mind and body fresh and go back to the pool day after. My body was able to manage and slowly but accurately build a faster me. My swim fitness went from zero to "better" within a month. Everything smartly calculated on the hundred of a second, completely personalized from my CSS-times in England. Pretty fast I realized the importance of house holding with my reserves. I had to, otherwise the doable was not about to happen and this very important knowledge has been a key to managing longer distances at a high speed, for me and for those who I coach. My focus had moved from only technique work to CSS-training: building speed and motivation day by day. You have to do the work but the difference from my youth is now sets with world-class structure and a deep understanding. The circle was closed.
Swim Smooth was just what I needed motivation and fitness-wise and I dropped 22 sec/9 sec on 400/200 in 10 weeks. The joy for swimming was back, so much more fun to follow a red, focused thread than swimming blind. On my Perth-trip in January 2016, I got another challenge (from Adam Young this time) and this had to do with both stroke rate and personality: “Let your inner Swinger out and try 72 SPM”. Oh my God, I had been struggling with my rate around 60 SPM!
 |
| Video: Anna-Karin compares Smooth and Swinger styles (extract from SS Coach Training in Perth) |
Now, three months later I have let my inner Swinger out and I love it, feeling comfortable and relaxed at 70-72 SPM and this has made me drop 3 seconds per 100 m.
Playing with higher stroke rate, working and taming the body to adopt has definitely been a major lift in my swimming, I am almost flying on the water. That is a feeling I share with my swimmers, they love the structure and CSS-work as much as I do since I am lucky enough to pass that feeling on week after week. They have learned so much in less than a year, getting much faster and this summer is the first for them to try out their new skills in Open Water, so very exciting!
Our swimmers are more motivated than ever before and their times in 400 and 200 have dropped amazingly, the times from the past are long gone. This is definitely the future!
Anna-Karin Lundin
www.simcoachen.se
Swim Smooth!
PS. For more information about becoming a Swim Smooth Coach, see: www.swimsmooth.com/becoming-a-swim-smooth-certified-coach.php
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