Triathletes

Originally posted by TomH This is interesting. All this whining about triathletes in this thread and yet I can get better advice on swimming than this on the triathlon forums! :D Ah!! but one of the main drills for freestyle on the triathletes thread happens to be dog paddle. Here is the low down...... Freestyle Stroke Drills Drill/ Practice Coaching Point High elbow finger trail High elbow with trailing finger/hands up body during recovery. Fists Swimming/ Open hands Helps to increase sensitivity of hand to water pressure, and develop a feel for the water. Doggy Paddle Streamline push forward with hand ( on side ), turn wrist and hand at extension, flex elbow outside the body & hand to pull down the centre line of the body. The head can either be in or out of the water. Body rolling through kicking Sufficient body roll, to encourage a narrower, longer, more streamlined body position. Breathing Restrictions Short swims, holding breath, keeping head still, increase breaths taken, returning head to central position. Stroke Counting Distance per stroke can be used to measure stroke efficiency.

is this still true? tell us how you really feel A

Boy! i hate to admit it but i'm a triathlete. :whiteflag: I was a runner first, bike commuter second, but i always loved swimming. The funny thing is that as much tri-bashing that is going on here, i actually agree with alot of what is being said. 1) To be good a good triathlete, you have to train like a runner, biker, and swimmer. This means that if you go to a masters workout, you should do the posted workout, learn all of the strokes, and do flip turns. I believe it's improved my swimming and helped with injury prevention since doing only freestyle only builds the freestyle muscles. I also get very bored with only freestyle so i'm really glad to have learned all of the strokes. 2) Wetsuits - should be banned except for water under 70. you may think lower water temps but the problem is that if you have to bike on a cool day after swimming, hypothermia can set in pretty quickly and that would be bad. I've never worn a wetsuit in a sprint distance tri (500-800m) where the water is in the upper 70s and the air temps can creep into the high 80s or better. i sweat alot and felt like i would overheat... but i recently learned that if everyone around is wearing a wetsuit, you are at a distinct disadvantage since everyone is riding higher in the water. so at a 1500m swim tri in the same lake, i donned a suspender style wetsuit and improved my swim place bigtime...so, until tris ban wetsuits except in cold conitions, the non-wetsuit holdouts will don a wetsuit! 3) Rationale for the all pulling workouts - when you wear a wetsuit, it's like having a pull buoy between your legs - you don't have to use your legs much cause they just float. so, alot of tri workouts tend to have alot of pulling in there. 4) My husband is a former college runner and ripped on me for doing tris for years based on the "mediocrity at 3 sports" principle...until he saw a tri on tv where all the guys were former D1 college runners. take a look at the swim times of the top tri-guys and gals before you judge this one. 5) the selfish training time - so true but only for longer distance events. 1/2s and full ironman's take a serious time committment. But, shorter distance events the most workout time needed is about as much as serious swimmers doing doubles every day. in short, i don't think it's fair for triathletes to expect masters workouts to accomodate them. nobody should be able to differentiate between the swimmers and triathletes (except most triathletes don't kick too well :drown:) i don't think they realize what an advantage it is to become serious about swimming as a sport in and of itself. but, what the competition knows won't hurt them :D

George, you instigator ... I actually don't know of any current triathletes on my team. A few former tris ... some moonlighting runners. We're all swimmers who (attempt to) do 4 strokes. I like it that way since a diet of purely distance free would be unbearable.

is this still true? tell us how you really feel A How Bizarre! Over two years after posting, the thread comes back to life! To answer your question, everyone in my masters group is extremely supportive and helpful. Even the three who aren't triathletes! :rofl:

I read that if the triathletes were not swimming with the master swimming clubs, most master clubs would fold.

As a former runner I used to watch T&F at every opportunity. And I still do occassionally, but now would rather watch a baseball game given a choice between the two. I don't know what happened to it's popularity either, although the absence of U.S. distance runners on the world scene may be a factor (sorry Fort but Webb just hasn't been consistant enough on the international scene and where are the 5K, 10K, and marathoners?). Another observation regarding the decline in the popularity of T&F is, in my opinion, the "in your face" attitude so often displayed on the track before and after events. I haven't seen that attitude in swimming which makes it more enjoyable to watch. Just my :2cents:. Bill,I think you are pulling all our chains. Swimming was an event at the first Modern Olympics(Athens 1896.) Also Dynamo in Atlanta is one of the premier teams in USAS.I love to watch track.30 years ago I'd have agreed that the average person would have rated the track athletes as the top athletes. For reasons I don't understand Track is not as popular in the US as it was.I think that is sad and hope it makes a comeback.

Track and field has also suffered from doping fairly badly. The bling, the costumes, the attitude these days makes it unwatchable.

Posted on this thread two years ago: Powerful the dark side is. I should have said I was four dimensional two years ago with my advanced girth. That was also back before you went on the Balco plan and had small guns.

Tom: :doh: That was not my main point, it was just an example of the fact that more kids swim than run or do tris. I have a swimmer kid and a runner/tri kid. Believe me, at least where I live, there are vastly more age group swimmers. There are just not that many running clubs for kids, although I believe that more kids are doing road races these days. The competition is simply stiffer in swimming. As for Atlanta ... are you kidding? That's a big age group swimming venue. Seems like they're a lot of masters swimmers there too ... Poolraat: Alan Webb is just a local hero. It's fun for the kids here to meet him at events or on the local trails. I guess we'll see how he does in the semi-finals tonight. But he was pretty speedy the last time he ran!