Novelty November

Written by: Euan Lees.

At this time of year we have tended to switch up our sessions a bit, under the banner of “Novelty November”. This isn’t as frivolous as it sounds – we all benefit (physically and mentally) from variety in our training, even if it is just a case of running through the middle of Richmond Park rather than round the outside.

In this short blog post I’m going to concentrate on the value of different swim strokes, which are often the keys to unlock improvements in our Front Crawl. For example, Back Crawl can teach us a lot about rotation and body position, Breast Stroke is great for strength work, and Butterfly is probably the best way to understand what a catch should feel like and what position your head should be in.

Many triathletes dread and avoid Butterfly because they simply bob up and down in the water. Why? Head position and bent knee kick. As with Front Crawl, a high head will tilt the back end down and you end up very non-horizontal (for lack of a better expression) in the water. A bent knee kick will make this even worse by pushing upwards against the water and forcing your legs further down.

On some of our Thursdays and Sundays we will spend a little time building up the other strokes, particularly Butterfly, from the basics. I promise that if you put some effort into improving your Butterfly that you will simultaneously be improving your Front Crawl. Ask me, Shane or many of the other coaches for further details and explanation.

We will also practice some tumble turns, by popular request.

Enjoy November!

Euan