Triathlon swimming demands a blend of technique, endurance, and open-water adaptability. Below is a structured breakdown of swim drills and concepts I teach my clients to master the swim leg of a triathlon. These drills focus on improving breathing, body alignment, stroke mechanics, kicking, open-water skills, and refining performance, culminating in a well-rounded swim workout structure. Click on the links below for demonstrations.
Proper breathing is foundational for efficient swimming, ensuring oxygen delivery while maintaining rhythm and form.
Blowing Bubbles/Sinking Drill: Exhale steadily underwater to control buoyancy and build comfort with submersion. Practice sinking to the bottom of the pool to relax and control your breath. This is great if you're new to swimming. It's also a warm up routine to prime your nervous system and breathing
Bilateral Breathing: Breathing on both sides gives you options in open water such as looking away from the sun or choppy water or when drafting. Alternating breaths helps you navigate straighter. It also promotes balanced muscle development. It's a critical skill that needs to be developed if you don't already do it.
Breathing Every Other, Every 3rd, & Every 5th Stroke: To maximize O2/CO2 exchange, exhale as deeply as you can to improve intake. It feels counter intuitive when you feel breathless, but it's often that you need less CO2, than more O2, especially at higher intensities. Vary breathing patterns while swimming to build lung capacity and maintain stroke rhythm under different levels of exertion.
Good body alignment reduces drag and enhances efficiency, allowing you to glide through the water with minimal resistance.
Swim Buoy and Bands: Use a swim buoy or bands between/around thighs, knees, calves, or ankles to isolate upper body and focus on core stability and body alignment. A swim buoy provides additional lift if your body alignment is suboptimal. If using a buoy, try dropping it halfway down the lane and focus on maintaining proper body alignment for the remainder of the lane.
Hat Drill: Balance a hand paddle on your head (top, not forehead) while swimming, keeping it steady to encourage a streamlined head position and minimize drag. Maintain your normal breathing rhythm. Increased speed generates more pressure, helping the paddle stay in place.
The catch phase and power application are critical for propulsion, focusing on how you "grab" and push through the water.
Sculling (Top, Mid, Rear, On Back Forwards/Backwards): Move arms in small, controlled motions to feel the water’s resistance at different points in the stroke cycle, refining arm positioning and water sensitivity.
Short Dog: Emphasize the "The Catch" with quick, small arm movements to set up a strong push. Don't muscle the set up. Let your arm drop at the elbow into a vertical forearm. This creates a "big" paddle.
Long Dog: Begin the catch as you would in the short dog drill, then apply full power by driving your arm straight back to maximize propulsion. Reset your hand forward underwater—by intentionally creating drag during this reset, you slow your pace and can better sense if your next stroke is effectively catching the water.
Swimming with Fists: Clench fists to focus on forearm engagement and improve catch mechanics without relying on hand surface area.
A smooth recovery phase ensures energy efficiency and prepares you for the next stroke.
Shark Fin: Position a kickboard between your thighs so it sits vertically like a shark fin. With each stroke, tap the board to reinforce a complete stroke finish and encourage strong body rotation.
Bow and Arrow: Pause with your elbow high and hand extended forward, rotated onto your side as if drawing a bow. This emphasizes full-body rotation and a high arm recovery—especially beneficial in rough water conditions.
Finger Tip Drag: Lightly drag fingertips across the water’s surface during recovery to maintain a relaxed, high-elbow position.
Swim “Quiet”: Minimize splash and noise by focusing on smooth, controlled arm entry and recovery. Splashing expends unnecessary energy.
These drills integrate multiple elements of the stroke for a cohesive, efficient technique.
Single Arm: Swim using one arm while the other remains in front (easier) or at your side (harder) to isolate stroke mechanics and encourage rotation. For additional buoyancy and support while developing form, you can use a kickboard in front and a pull buoy between your thighs. Gradually remove these tools as your technique improves. This is also a great way to develop bilateral breathing.
Catch Up: Wait to begin your next stroke until your recovery hand meets the lead hand in front. As you progress, transition to the 3/4 catch-up drill by initiating your stroke when the recovery hand reaches or passes your head. This drill enhances timing, rhythm, and stroke control.
6-3-6: Alternate 6 kicks, 3 strokes, and 6 kicks to emphasize separately kicking, rotation, stroke, and rhythm.
Single Leg Out of Water: Lift one leg slightly out of the water to engage the core and improve balance while swimming.
Efficient kicking adds propulsion and stabilizes body position without expending unnecessary energy. For triathletes and open water swimmers, the primary goal of kicking is to maintain balance rather than drive speed through the legs.
Kick Inside Bucket/Swim Bands: Visualize kicking with ankles inside a bucket or swim with bands to focus on small, controlled kicks and core engagement.
Dolphin Kick (Stomach/Back): Practice dolphin kicks on your stomach and/or back to build core strength and mimic open-water starts.
6 Kick Switch (With/Without Arms): Perform 6 kicks per side, switching sides quickly to emphasize rotation and leg drive.
2-Beat Kick: Use a minimal two-beat kick per stroke cycle for energy-efficient propulsion in longer races.
Open-water swimming requires unique skills to navigate unpredictable conditions and race dynamics.
Treading Water Goggle Adjustment: Practice adjusting goggles while treading water to prepare for mid-race fixes. This is a good skill to have if your goggles leak or are bumped by another racer.
Swimming Blind (Sighting): Swim with eyes closed briefly (about 20-30 strokes) to establish whether you have a clear dominant side. In the pool, close your eyes and swim for only 10-15 strokes avoiding lane lines if possible and to similar dark water.
Bilateral Breathing: Reinforce bilateral breathing to adapt to choppy water or competitors on either side.
Alligator Eyes (Sighting): Lift only your eyes slightly above water to sight landmarks while maintaining body position.
Tarzan (Sighting, Head Control, Core Activation): Swim with head above water to practice sighting and engage core muscles.
Counting Strokes: Track strokes to maintain regular sighting to keep you straighter.
Variable Paces: Practice surging and cruising to simulate race dynamics and passing competitors.
Dolphin Kick for Beach Starts: Use powerful dolphin kicks to navigate shallow water during race starts.
Sculling for Floating Starts: Scull to maintain position during deep-water starts.
Swim with Others: Practice drafting and navigating crowded swim starts.
Buoy Turns: Execute tight turns around buoys, flipping to backstroke briefly to breathe and reorient.
Fine-tune your technique and performance with the following metrics.
DPS (Distance Per Stroke)/GOLF: Maximize distance per stroke while minimizing strokes per length, or use the GOLF scoring system (strokes + time) to track efficiency.
Time Clock Intervals: Swim set distances within specific time intervals and limited recovery time to build speed, consistency, and endurance. Note whether your pace during the intervals is remaining the same, increasing, or decreasing.
A well-constructed swim workout balances warm-up, skill work, main sets, and cooldown to optimize performance.
Warm-Up: Start with easy swimming, kicking, and pulling to activate muscles and prepare for the session.
Preset: Include drills to focus on technique before intensity.
Main Set: Perform intervals focusing on speed, endurance, or threshold efforts, incorporating swim, kick, or pull variations.
Cooldown: Finish with easy swimming to recover and reinforce technique.
Tools: Use a snorkel to take away the breathing component so you can focus on other areas. Use paddles to build arm strength and to refine hand/arm position. Fins create more propulsion so you can focus more on your stroke and building leg strength. A buoy is great for emphasizing body alignment and your stroke.
Effort Zones: Remember to train in specific zones (e.g., aerobic, threshold) to target race-specific intensities. Always going slow won't make you fast and always going fast will make you slower because you plateau and don't recover properly.
By consistently practicing these drills and structuring workouts effectively, triathletes can build confidence, efficiency, and speed in the water, ready to tackle both pool and open-water challenges.