5 Pro Tips To Swim Faster With Lucy Charles

Swimming may be your strongest discipline or it may be your weakest. Either way, we're all searching for ways to swim faster. So we've got the help of uber swimmer Lucy Charles and here are her top 5 tips to swimming faster.

Lucy: So my first tip that I'm going to talk about is the catch, which is, basically, the front end of your stroke. And a lot of people, when you say catch, they're like what do you mean by catch. Basically, it is the front end of your stroke. You want to anchor it, you want to catch the water and you want to feel the water. And the main thing is really to be more efficient, so the more water your can catch, the easier you're going to get through the water and the faster you're going to move through it.

My next tip is structured swim sessions. I think if you get in and you haven't got a plan and you're just floating up and down aimlessly, one, it's going to be really boring and you're also not going to get a lot from it. So if you've got a plan when you get in, you're going to get tonnes more from the session, and it's actually going to be way more enjoyable.

Up next, I want to talk about arm rate, which is, basically, your cadence with your stroke. And for Triathlon in open water, a high cadence stroke rate often works a lot better, and I'm very lucky in that, even when I was a poor swimmer, I had quite a high cadence stroke rate. Well, if you compare me to my other half, Reese, he had quite a long, slow stroke rate, and he was always much faster than me in the pool, but when we went over to open water, he often struggled. So he's actually had to adapt his stroke rate now to a high cadence, especially for open water. Particularly, if it's really choppy in the water, it actually helps a lot more to have high cadence because you don't have to fight with the waves.

Then it's bilateral breathing, which basically means being able to breath to both sides. And when I was a swimmer, I actually only breathed to the right hand side because I was a lot faster like that. And when I moved into triathlon, I actually found I had a lot of issues and some injuries from bike and run because I was so imbalanced from only rotating to that direction. So, in that respect, I would definitely say you should bilaterally breathe, but also in open water, you need to see what is going on on both sides of you. So yeah, I'd definitely say get in the pool and breathe to both sides.

My final tip is speed work, and you may think this sounds pretty crazy because the distance I'm doing is an Iron Man, and it's very much endurance, but I definitely wouldn't neglect the speed work, you want to make sure you've got that initial speed to break out at the start, and then if somebody's going to surge in the swim, you want to make sure you've got that speed to be able to react.

Music: Epidemic Sound
The Night Is Young (Instrumental Version) - Siine

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Which of these tips do you think will make the biggest improvement to your swimming? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below 👇

[steakfries__]

get u a guy that looks at u the way mark looks at lucy

[jonash]

Seriously, her catch is so fascinating to watch! Love her technique

[MayimHastings]

I’m so addicted to this freaking channel... I have the body of Yoda, but when swimming I’m free! So this channel has really upped my game and I can now out swim everyone I know! THANK YOU ALL!!! And a happier new year! 🎊

[JanseJannik]

More Lucy please! So cool that the pros are involved.

[norbert]

that casual "i'm lucky to have one at home"

[gururajms]

Thank you GTN, Mark... I am 38 and recently started training for triathlon mainly for fitness reasons. You guys are doing a fab job getting people fit and healthy. All the best to your entire team.

[mattyice]

Best video yet! Love Lucy's expertise and Mark's interview skills to help fully explain the ideas. More of this format please

[dionysiaex]

Yay! More Lucy Charles content please!

[andrewgrenville]

Good vid, Mark does a good job of ensuring Lucy expands on her tips.

[obi-wankenobi]

I love everything about trialthlon besides running and swimming.

[karbsundance]

This was super helpful to me! Lucy is awesome btw

[barryfield]

Great tips from Lucy, especially to get a video. She is right on about thinking you're doing it right, but the video doesn't lie. Mark does a fine job on getting Lucy to expand on her tips. Good stuff with these videos with elites, GTN rules! The best triathlon youtube out there.

[MrShoji]

She was so fast specially swimming part when I was watching her in Ironman Kona 2017!!

[egbourgeois]

I love Lucy and love to see her sharing things!

[richardrunscake]

Great tips 👍 more of this stuff please

[darrenc.]

GTN, thanks for the great interview. The tips are obviously rock solid from such a superstar swimmer. One suggestion I have is to create a video that can help triathletes with something many of us don't get to practice often and that is how to start effectively from the beach into breaking waves. I've been lucky to have lots of experience with this, but it never ceases to amaze me that in a 10person wave start, after the first wave I'm on my own as the others tried to jump over a wave and got rolled back. Triathletes really need help with this!

[magnemmar]

If you don't have a swimming background, and many Triathletes do not, you should see if there is a Masters swim team in your area. The quality of coaches for Masters teams will vary a lot, but if the team is fairly stable and has more than 10 or so people then it likely has someone on deck who is a decent coach. Teams with poor coaching tend to fall apart pretty quickly. If you can't find one, look for year round teams (ages 6 - 18). Obviously you can't swim with them, but very often the assistant coaches will do coaching on the side and they may be a less expensive way to get in some focused stroke technique work. I haven't met a coach yet who will turn down some side work as long as they don't feel their time is being wasted.

Have your spouse/significant other/friend video you, and since many phones are water resistant, you can get video under water. No endless pool + mirror or coach required.

Drills are very helpful, but you need to know which ones to do, when to do them, and how often per practice/week to do them. If you overdo it or do them incorrectly, you can end up worse off than if you hadn't done them at all. Being told, "Do drills to improve your catch" or "Keep your elbows high" or whatever the case may be doesn't mean YOU should be doing them, or that there aren't other issues with your stroke that should be sorted out first.

Don't rely on fins, paddles, bouys, or boards. They all have their time and place, but if they are overused they become a crutch. Kicks without a board are fantastic for core strength. Same for pulls without bouys.

Don't rely on only swimming freestyle. Breaststroke is extremely useful. Backstroke kicks (without fins or a board) are excellent for overall endurance. Butterfly for strength and endurance. Basically, don't just roll up, swim a ton of freestyle and be like, "1 and done!" because you're doing yourself a disservice.

[ericbergstrom]

My endless pool is the rip tide in the ocean. This is a good video

[alanmorris]

very informative thanks, just taken up tri from a cycling TT background....loving all your videos. Keep them you