Episode 305: Swim Secrets – A Conversation With Purple Patch Swim Coach John Stevens
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Swimming can be a frustrating sport, especially for those who don't start early. With 90% of your body weight displaced, it's like competing in the weightlessness of space. Moreover, finding pool times, commuting, and improving technical skills can be quite challenging, especially for amateur triathletes.
However, as a triathlete, swim training is essential for overall improvement. You need to minimize the time spent swimming to go faster while limiting physiological costs and fatigue. Swimming also has a cross-pollination effect on other sports, such as improved cardiovascular conditioning.
If you're time-starved and already have much on your plate, how do you get the returns on your effort to optimize swim readiness and splits? To help you unlock your swim potential, we invited Purple Patch Swim Coach John Stevens to the podcast. John is a world expert in open water swim coaching and technique, a former Division 1 swimmer, and has worked with many leading swimmers in open water and triathlon racing.
During their conversation, John and Matt discuss five essential things every time-starved amateur should do to improve their swimming speed. They also talk about common mistakes, the best equipment for improving skills, the significance of strength training, the proper application of pool technique in open-water swimming, and several other topics.
Matt and John reveal tips to successfully incorporate swim training into the context of your life and reap the rewards while uncomplicating your swim training experience.
Episode Timestamps
00:00 - 05:18 - Welcome and Episode Introduction
05:25 - 12:50 - Matt's News-ings
13:04 - 15:56 - Word of the Week
16:03 - 1:00:23 - The Meat and Potatoes - Episode 305: Swim Secrets – A Conversation With Purple Patch Swim Coach John Stevens
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Full Transcript
Matt Dixon 00:03
I'm Matt Dixon and welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. The mission of Purple Patch is to empower and educate every human being to reach their athletic potential. Through the lens of athletic potential, you reach your human potential. The purpose of this podcast is to help time-starved people everywhere integrate sport into life.
Matt Dixon 00:25
Folks, today we're talking about swimming, and let me give you the headline news here. Just taking part in InsideTracker and having a look inside your biometrics, is not going to lead to you being a faster swimmer. That's the truth of it. But, you know, one thing it will do is it will ensure that you're focusing on the right things so that you can bring your very best self to your efforts in becoming a better swimmer. In other words, your health, your energy, your adaptations that you yield from the hard work that you put in. With my guest today, John Stevens, we've both gone through and leveraged InsideTracker, so that we can get specific to our demands, we leverage it with our athletes at Purple Patch, and you can leverage it if you don't need to be a Purple Patch athlete, all you need to do is head to insidetracker.com/purplepatch, that's insidetracker.com/purplepatch, and you can use this sneaky code Purple Patch pro 20. It's a great process. You're getting peer-reviewed research, education, as well as recommendations, and your personal action plan in everything around longevity, health, and performance. So why don't you like me to get involved? Cheers, enjoy the show.
Matt Dixon 01:47
And welcome to the Purple Patch podcast as ever, your host, Matt Dixon, and today, we're talking about swimming. I just ain't right, folks, a serious source of frustration for so many of you. Those of you who didn't embrace this sport as youngsters, when you're doing this thing when 90% of your body weight is displaced. It's like being asked, trying to do some form of sport while in space, you're almost weightless. And the technical features of swimming make the journey so demanding. For amateur triathletes, we also add the logistical challenges, pool times, commutes, and the hard work that you have to put in just to get tiny, if any negligible improvements. And then other athletes that just generally have disdain for the whole process, just don't enjoy swimming. But guess what, if you are a triathlete, it's non-negotiable. Swimming is central to your improvement as a triathlete, not only so that you can minimize the time you spend on the swim discipline - aka go faster in swimming - but more than that, you also want to leverage it as a tool because due to the fact of the non-weight-bearing aspect of the sport, it provides a wonderful cross-pollination effect across your other sports. It's a tool for you to become an improved athlete globally. And let me tell you something about that. Anytime that I have taken any level of athlete and asked them to do a swim project for two months, three months, or four months, where we were overweight, the emphasis on swimming, and let biking and running, drop down in emphasis, whenever we've done that to overtly improve their swim performance one thing also happens 100% of the time, they become a better triathlete. And that's pretty weird when you think about that. But it happens every time from Pro down to newbie. And so what I thought we would do is spend some time unlocking your swim potential today. As a time-starved athlete, how do you get returns on your effort to optimize your swim readiness in your splits? For us to navigate this, I've invited Purple Patch swim coach, and overall open water guru, John Stevens. John is a world expert in open-water swimming, coaching, and technique. He's a former Division One swimmer, he's worked with many of the leading swimmers in the world of open water and triathlon racing. He is instrumental in much of the Purple Patch swim program that we utilize across our coaching and tri-squad programs. One other thing that's worthy of note of John, he's only raced Lance Armstrong once in his career, but in that race, he stood on top of the podium. And what I decided to do is I thought we would have some fun today. I wanted to make this educational, but I issued John with a challenge. I asked him to tell me five key things, I want you to come up with five principles that every single time-starved Amateur should deploy for them to unlock their swimming speed. Five of them, no more. John is going to give his answers today. But first, let's do Matt's News-ings
Matt Dixon 05:25
Yes, folks, Matt's News-ings, I've got two things to tell you about a great March Madness promo. But I can't go through today without talking about our swimming program. So to take part in our swimming program, you do not need to be a Purple Patch athlete. You can be coached by anyone in the sport, anyone in the world, or just self coached. And it is an end-to-end program led by our guest today, John Stevens. And it's special. So many people go and get videoed, or a video assessment - and it might be a great singular experience - but very quickly, the lessons evaporate. And that's because it's really difficult to take the learnings from that video assessment and apply them and make the actions stick. And so we've designed an end-to-end program that has been having fantastic success for every participant that's gone through it. Let me give you the headline news here, you register for the swim program, you video yourself - or get someone to video you I think that's better - you gain access to our special app and then John goes and reviews it. And he has a little look and he identifies the specific challenges that you have in your swimming. You set up a consultation right after that and John goes through with you to ensure that you have an understanding of what's going on. You review that with the voiceover and the diagrams and when you have the consultation with John, you then have an action plan. He creates a customized personal action plan with the key drills, ensuring you understand why you're doing them and how to execute them properly. And then even the specific swim sets that you should integrate into your programming, and you go away and you implement. But there's one special thing that we add to it. And that's the bookend, the other side of the equation. After four to six weeks, you repeat the whole process with brand new videos, side by side, objective improvement in your swim performance guaranteed, promised. And it is all you with John. And, if you are coached, and you want to bring your coach into the equation, John is happy to collaborate with the swim coach and ensure that they understand some of the recommendations that he's pointing out. So you don't need to be a part of Purple Patch but you can gain access to who I think is one of the world leaders in swim techniques specific to open water swimming. So that's our first promo. If you're interested, feel free to reach out to info at Purple Patch fitness.com. And as ever, Barry is going to put the link in the show notes and you can just easily access and register there. We'll take care of it. And please do let John know that you heard about this on the podcast so that he can give you some extra special love. The second thing, is I need to get this in March Madness goodness me, Yes, it is March I can't believe it is we're a little bit nuts. And the Yankees do love their college basketball. It's kind of that time of the year. So we aren't doing something very special for March. You might have heard that our program has been completely reimagined. Yes, the tri-squad coaching program, is from the ground up and brand new. We're now on training peaks, a fantastic increase or improvement in our user experience, we have completely redesigned and rebuilt the program. We also have the upcoming release of our education and community platform that is outside of training peaks, which is a wonderful venue where you're gonna get constant access to myself, the Purple Patch coaches including coach John Stevens today and a host of world experts to help you on your journey. And from the ground up. We have reimagined and redesigned the race build plans to get you step by step day by day delivering you to your key races to ensure that you can show up not just fit and prepared, but also fresh. And finally, a completely reimagined suite of education on every aspect of performance. Think about it, a direct promise from me to you that we can have absolute race readiness where you race faster, with no compromise on all of the other aspects of life that are important to you. Because ultimately, this is the only program in the world that is designed specifically for time-starved athletes. You're also going to get coaching not just from a coach but all of the Purple Patch coaching team as well as myself, and you're gonna arrive to your races empowered and upgraded on every aspect, through our live and on demand education, it is truly a one stop shop solution. And even that, every week, you can have multiple live coaching opportunities, we feedback in real time from myself and the rest of the coaching team. All the while using most cutting edge understanding of training, and the most up to date tools and technologies. We've got proven results, we don't... how can I say this Barry? ...We don't F it up. Okay, all of this for $129 a month. But I said that we were celebrating March Madness. Well, we don't want to dish out soul destroying, sterile, dull, AI based workouts, these are tailored to keep your interest and maximize results. And so if as a part of March Madness, you join right now, in March, and you commit to the rest of the year, we're going to give you a month free, yes, you get 10 months for the price of nine, that is pretty mad in itself. But here comes the really mad part. If you are one of the first 10 New athletes, or maybe you were part of Purple Patch before, and you're now decided to return. So for new athletes in the door not currently on Purple Patch, the first 10 to register, you're gonna go into a little hat, it's a very nice little hat that my puppy tends to live. And from that hat, we will pull one athlete, and that athlete is going to come to the Purple Patch Performance Center with me here in San Francisco, and spend the day with myself and the team. It's going to be a performance experience end to end, and you're going to get every single service that we can offer. You're even going to come to lunch with me and have a personal one to one consultation. This package is worth 1000s is the truth. And you're going to have a one in 10 chance of getting that. That's pretty good odds. And so if you jump in now, that is our March Madness. We are going to pay for your flight, for your accommodation, all of your services, you're going to have lunch, we're going to talk about the world but we're also going to help you become a better athlete. The details are in the show notes or just feel free to reach out to us, info@purplepatchfitness.com, you know that it is March only folks, only the first 10 newcomers are going to go into the hat for a lucky draw. It's going to be a lot of fun. Alrighty, so I want to keep going with the education today. So just before we dive into John, I can't help it Barry get the ukulele out because we are doing the word of the week.
singer 12:50
the way he thinks serious with a wave. So it's time to take a peek. It's the Dixon every word of the week.
Matt Dixon 13:04
Yes, the word of the week this week. Deep. Yes, indeed, deep. Let's talk about deep sleep. You hear so much about the importance of sleep, how it is your performance enhancer. And it's true, it is a critical component to not just athletic success, but you showing up the very best version of yourself that you can. And we hear a lot about duration, try and get eight hours of sleep every night. We hear a lot about quality and some of the components are cooler and dark environment, et cetera, et cetera. But what about timing? Well there are multiple cycles of sleep that we go through every night, and each cycle is made up of four phases. And one of the key components of each phase that's really important, so far as processing some of the stress that we accumulate in the day, but also yielding adaptations, is deep sleep. I'm sure you've heard about it before. And it's really important. It's the thing that we want to protect and get. And in fact, if we have optimal sleep, we would be getting 90 minutes to two hours of deep sleep every night. But there's a truth that many people don't actually realize. And that's whether you prefer to stay up late and go to bed at midnight, and then get up at eight o'clock in the morning. Or you're a bit more like me where I go to bed at about 9pm and get up around 5am or 5:30am in the morning, whether you're a night owl or a morning Lark deep sleep tends to occur around a pretty similar timeframe every night, and that's between about 10pm and 2am. So therefore, if we have two people, the person that goes to sleep at midnight and gets up at 8am, eight hours of sleep, or someone that goes to 9am and gets up at 5am, eight hours sleep, the second person is protecting their opportunity to get all of their rejuvenating deep sleep. But the person that goes to bed by midnight is compromising their opportunity for deep sleep on a regular basis. And that means performance decline. And so, timing is another important factor. And there are two main things that can help the quality and the yield from your sleep. Number one, trying to go to bed at the same time every night. And if you can try to protect that time of going to bed a little bit earlier, even if you need to break old habits, and you need to start to incrementally move your bedtime forward. If you can get to bed before 10pm. You're giving yourself every opportunity to maximize that deep sleep and show up the very best version of yourself. Just a little tip on deep sleep and why our Word of the Week this week is deep. And with that Barry, it's Coach John Stevens. Let's do the meat and potatoes.
Matt Dixon 16:03
Alright folks, that is the meat and potatoes. We are getting aquatic today. Yes, we are talking all about swim five key principles. And as I mentioned in the introduction, I get to welcome and I'm proud to welcome actually coach John Stevens, not just a coach, you are a Purple Patch. Coach. John, thanks so much for joining us.
John Stevens 16:22
Of course, thanks for having me, Matt.
Matt Dixon 16:25
You are one of the very few returning guests on the Purple Patch podcast that must make you feel very, very proud.
John Stevens 16:33
I didn't realize that was so special, amazing. Very special.
Matt Dixon 16:35
You're up there in Maine, you're navigating the winter, you haven't done too much open water swimming lately, but I reckon your memory is pretty good about that. Because you're you're one of the few swimmers that I know actually that, in particularl coaches, that have really really deep and steeped experience both coaching and swimming, pool swimming. And you know that world very, very well division one athlete in swimming down at the University of Arizona with some of the best swimmers in the world, of course, and open water swimming, and particularly swim run races, which, which you know, you don't just, you don't just participate in, but you have a role in organizing and leading and everything else. So you really are sort of well versed across the collision between really two different sports in one way, which is swimming, and there's swimming in the open water environment, which I know that we're going to dig into today. But I gave you a bit of a challenge here. And I said, I don't want to have a discussion about swimming technique and swimming training, it's all been done many times before, I want you to come up with five key principles. And I want them to be hard hitting, informative, actionable, and really helped the listener go away and apply to their own training journey. And so you've turned around and you told me what they are. I've got them in front of me, but we're gonna go through them one by one. But I couldn't help, if you're willing, to give you a couple of quick fire questions before we get going. I was going to lead with swim. But I'm going to lead with this. So we're going to do a little, a little round of quick fire if you want to call it that, then we're going to get into your five principles. Are you up for the blind challenge here?
John Stevens 16:36
Yeah, let's do it. Throw it at me.
Matt Dixon 18:22
Man of confidence. So these are just questions that in honesty, I was chatting to a couple of friends and told them that you were coming on, he's ask him this, ask him this, so I decided to list them down and I said, under 60 seconds, let's get going. We're going to be talking about swimming, we are going to unlock potential. But here are five that are not your principles, but are just questions from me to you. So you can give me your best answer possible as a reaction. The first one is actually pretty broad, which is for triathletes, specifically, what do you feel as a coach is the right amount of swimming? In order to get better? What do they need to do?
19:02
Well, I think the first answer to that is how much time do you have? That's what it comes down to. You know, you take the time you have then you have to optimize that time and use it in the best way available. So I think it comes down to your goals and you know, ultimately you want to be getting faster you want to be able to leverage this fitness and you know, you and I have talked about this a lot cross pollination, right? So how much swimming do you need to build overall fitness, one, for swimming, but then that you can also use towards swim, I'm sorry, towards bike and run. So maybe in the winter, you have a little more time that fitness crosses over towards that. Maybe in race season, you're you're kind of narrowing that down a little bit. But ultimately, as we coach time-starved athletes most frequently, it comes down to the time available and then optimizing that time that you do have available so pretty individual for the person and perhaps for the time of season as well.
Matt Dixon 19:53
Fantastic, you you got there very succinctly. I do just want to shine a light on that the cross pollination I think so many people forget about which is, hey, you're not just training for the swim, there is this jewel of performance opportunity there where, because it's non weight bearing, you really can drive cardiovascular conditioning that carries on and has a knock on effect on broader fitness in, in not just in triathlon, but obviously in life as well. So I think it's a wonderful modality of exercise. It's really good. But of course, how many hours have you got? Well, that really depends, doesn't it? So, okay, second quickfire question then because I want to make sure that we can get to your principles and give them the justice that they deserve. So how do you see pool swimmers being different than open water swimmers and triathletes? This is a great question. I sort of focused on this at the start of our introduction.
20:47
Yeah, I mean, two different sports almost essentially. I often compare it to track running and trail running. You know, you've got one pool track would be the comparison there, it's a controlled environment. It's flat, there's not a lot of waves, you know, it's a set distance. And you're you are then in that in that space available to really dive in on skills and technique. Think about your form, think about those things. In the open water, you don't know what you're gonna get, depending on where you are, time a year, where you're swimming and the weather on the day. Temperatures are going to vary greatly, you know, then you may have a wetsuit on, that's going to change things up a little bit, you've lacked the ability to throw it in maybe some of those same technical development that you might use with toys, not super safe to use certain toys out in the open water. So very different kind of approaches. That said, there is that intertwining where they can relate, we can practice open water skills in the pool, and then carry them to the open water to enhance your ability to swim in the open water and become a better swimmer overall. And then when you are in the open water swimming, you're able to work on those specific skills as well. For open water, swimming with the sighting, managing currents, managing waves, managing all the different things that get thrown at you.
Matt Dixon 22:02
I absolutely love the analogy of track running to trail running because I just envision a trail runner getting ready for - make it up - a marathon or a 50k trail run and looking at the technique of Usain Bolt and saying, I'm going to mimic that. And yet that is, so much of what the common media does it says, look, look at Michael Phelps and that's what you want to try and mimic as an adult onset swimmer who's getting ready for effectively a different sport. So I think it's a great analogy for the listener to to sort of develop their filter around what's the right information what's the right technique for basically developing open water swimming, which we're going to be talking about today yeah?
John Stevens 22:44
Yep, absolutely. You know, there's a there's a lot out there, and it's trying to figure out what's going to work best for you in terms of information and, you know, there's a lot of misinformation as well. And you said, watching Katie Ledecky, watching Michael Phelps, Caleb Dressel, that's great. They're, they're fast, but that's not going to help you in the open water.
Matt Dixon 23:00
It's very true. All right, number three, before we get going, what are the most common mistakes that you see as a coach, that triathletes and open water swimmers make? This is a good one? Maybe the first one is what we just talked about, so we can bypas that but yeah, lead it away with any others?
John Stevens 23:18
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things and this is it's kind of counterintuitive a little because one of the things not - spoiler alert, I'm going to talk about later on - is drilling and working on form and technique. But one of the big mistakes we see is people drilling too much, over drilling, and trying to -- you can't drill your way to speed and to success -- drills have a place, they're certainly going to help you and we're going to dive into that a little bit later, but if all you're doing is showing up at the pool and doing drills for 1500 yards, 1500 meters, that's not going to lead to success. On the kind of opposite side of that one of the other mistakes, we'll see someone swimming without any structure, just showing up and swimming 2000 Straight in a pool, and not getting any of those intervals in and mixing it up and finding that variance. Variance is always really important. And again, with that too often you'll see people not swimming fast enough. Just really keeping the effort level too low and continuous on the opposite side of that you might see someone swimming too fast, too often and simply doing too many short intervals of just 25s. But it's important to mix things up and have that variety and often we don't see enough variety in swimming, when people are doing that. And I think lastly, we talked about open water and we talked about making those skills, that pool is that opportunity to work on open water skills. Whether it's a race simulation, its sighting, there's a whole number of things that you can practice in the pool. And we often don't see people doing that and they simply show up for that first open water swim and realize that they can't sight and there's swimming crooked and there's swimming all over the place. And so the pool is the place to practice that skill. And then you implement that skill on the open water but you have to practice it first.
Matt Dixon 24:59
I think that's great. Alright, so number four, we'll carry on so that we can keep it brief alternative tools. This is this is actually a question for me, because I'd love your thought on this. We haven't talked about it too much, although we do integrate some of this into Purple Patch programming. But when I talk about alternative tools or training methods, the sort of thing that I'm saying, and I'd love your opinion on the value of them, Vasa trainer, bands, or chords that we leverage at Purple Patch, an Endless Pool potentially, and I'm going to throw strength training in there but but that's more of an additional one. But focusing around the swim specific alternate tools, what what's your thoughts on those?
John Stevens 25:37
I think there's definitely a place for those. I love the swim specific tools. I think when when pools got shut down four years ago, I was the first if you remember to say, Hey, we should be doing swim chord swim ban sessions, let's hop on that. And we were leading those via video a couple of times a week, because they pay off, they do work, you're able to build some really swim specific strength using those. You can actually dive in and focus on technique a little bit as well, if you have the right approach to it and the Vasa is very similar in that. So you can utilize those tools and improve your swimming, I think they are, you know, something you can add in. It's not going to replace swimming, you're never going to get the same benefit of getting into the pool and getting that feel for the water. I don't like that term because it's used too much. But there is a feel for the water. Everyone knows what I'm talking about when I say that, but you're not going to be able to get that if you don't get into the pool and swim. Now that said you can improve your swimming by integrating some of those other things, whether it's the Vasa, whether it's the swim band, swim chords, or if you have the ability to get in an endless pool, that's going to be helpful as well. And then finally, obviously, strength. It's a pillar of performance. So certainly room to integrate that and get some specific around it as well.
Matt Dixon 26:48
Yeah, no, I think it's super. So last one, then we'll go into your five principles. So fifth question, I want to sort of extend beyond that a little bit and talk about toys. So snorkels, ankle straps and bands, paddles, buoys, what fins, what the ones that that you really like and think that sort of must haves for adult onset particularly, but time-starved athletes are getting ready for open water.
John Stevens 27:13
I love the toys, I think there's room for it, and I will say, let's tie that back to mistakes swimmers might make - not using toys or using too much and seeing that person in there with every single toy on all at once trying to use them all. They have their place and they have their purpose. My favorites - snorkel number one. I think if there's only one toy, it's that snorkel, it's going to help you work on connection, body position. Breathing screws, everything up, you take breathing out of the equation, you can really dial in on what you're doing. And what you're focusing on. Pull buoy is another one and pull buoy is not to limit you or stop you from kicking, it's something that's going to help body position. It's going to bring your hips up, it's going to bring you in a better better position in the water and it's gonna help you get comfortable and used to that. And so those are my top two from there. Obviously, hand paddles. Don't go too big, but something that you can utilize to build power to build strength with if you use them in the right way. Fins, I love using fins with drills. Again, with the fins, we're not building kick strength. Kicking in a triathlon is not propulsive. It's going to help with balance, it's going to help with rotation, it's going to help with body position, but using those fins and kicking with that in certain areas is certainly going to be helpful as well.
Matt Dixon 28:24
I want to just pinpoint for the listener there. One thing that you said - kicking in a triathlon is not for propulsion. So it's for balance for body position, helps with timing. And I'd like fins as well, because we coach with each other, but as sort of it provides a little bit of patience or luxury to get into the engagement, the timing. And so often if, particularly for adult-onset swimmers, where their hips tend to sink a little bit, it sort of takes away that anchor point of naturally getting dragged down so they're not - they don't have to rush, the connection, the catch, they can get their timing in, get a good body position and really sort of coordinate themselves. So, I like fins, but I agree with you. I want to come to the top of that question where you said the number one tool that we have is the snorkel. And I know a lot of people feel claustrophobic, you know, they, they don't like it takes 8, 10, 12, 14 swims and then finally having the breakthrough with familiarity, they get used to the breathing which is very, very different. But once you get there, I think if there is only one tool that you have that you always want to travel with, it's a snorkel, you don't have to wear it on the plane, but it is a good thing to have if you're ever away and you're and you're swimming remotely. Alrighty, so, got the quick fire. I got your five minutes of joy right there some great nuggets. Now we're going to go into your principles. So there are five of them, five keys to every listener to unlock your swimming potential. I'm deliberately placing a heavy weight on your shoulders, John. So, Barry, if we had a drum roll, we would give a drum while we're here it is principle number one over to you, what's your first principle for every summer?
John Stevens 30:15
All right, first principle for me, form and technique are crucial, but they're not everything. When we talk about swimming efficiency is everything. Efficiency is super important and we don't want to have wasted energy, particularly in a triathlon swim. You're going to need to be efficient on the swim so you can get to the bike, you can get to the run. It's swim, bike run and we need to combine all of these. So being more efficient in the swim is going to help you with your entire race. And so ultimately, how do we increase efficiency? Well, we do that by swimming with better form, with better technique. And what's an easy way to dive into a technique to dive into form is to use some drills. And so I think with form and technique, going hand in hand with that, is going to be drilling. And we at Purple Patch, as you know, and anyone in the Purple Patch community knows, really dove into that in what was our fourth quarter or q4, and emphasized form technique and drilling, and took advantage of that. And so, you know, what we tried to do is break it down in a way where each drill, you know, we put out the purpose of this drill, how to integrate it, how to do it, most importantly, and put it in there. And so, as we said, finding that form and technique that works for you, as you said, we're not all Michael Phelps, we all don't swim the same way. But those drills help you identify areas that you might be struggling in. So for instance, maybe your timing is off, maybe you find that you're crossing over, or you're swimming too wide because your hand is in the wrong position. The important thing is understanding that and then finding the drill that's going to help you correct that and make that correction. And as we said before, you can't drill your way to success - It isn't just practicing these drills and doing these drills, it's understanding why you're doing the drill, and understanding how to do the drill. And then most importantly, understanding how you implement what you're learning from the drill into actual swimming. And so if you're going out there, and you are doing a drill incorrectly if you don't understand the purpose of the drill, I don't want to say you're wasting your time, but it is kind of a little bit of a waste of time if you're not understanding the purpose behind it.
Matt Dixon 32:21
There's a couple of things that you said there. And I want to say one thing first because we want this to be educational, not promotional, you know, for the most part at least, but I think this is one of the key catalysts of our swimming program so far is you helping individuals via the video analysis and, and the ongoing coaching and specificity there. I think where you've had so much success with individual swimmers remotely Purple Patch or otherwise, is when you see a video of them swimming remotely, you can identify what the key flaws are. But then you can prescribe the specific drill to address that flaw. And even then build the specific training sessions that integrate the drill, and then the execution of that drill in regular swimming that then you come back at the end of the program four or five weeks down the line, reassess and you can see the objective measurements and improvements. Swimming me side by side. I think that's why you've had so much success, because it's so different than just saying, here's the video analysis, look at this pretty angle. You need to work on your early vertical forearm, but then you're just out in the wilderness, and you've had this great immersive experience, but then it just evaporates. And I think that's where at least you tell me where you've had such seismic change on individuals working on their technique, but where it sticks with them, would you agree with that?
John Stevens 33:49
Oh, 100%, I think you know, we can take a broader approach for our team and apply it there. But we can narrow that down with video and being able to see what someone is doing. And so I can have an idea and say, my guess is a lot of people are pulling way outside their body, let's try to focus on that. But if I know specifically, that is what you are doing. And that's something that we need to tie in, we can find that drill but get even more it helps you understand as I was saying the purpose of that drill and how it applies to what you're doing wrong. And we can use one drill for multiple different things. But it being able to say this is that one drill that's going to work for you and this is a scenario and why here's what you should be doing, here's how you should be doing it and there's becomes the challenge of remote coaching. Not entirely sure if someone is doing it the right way. So I would say to them, if you don't know if you're doing the drill right film yourself doing it, let's take a look and make sure you're doing the film drill correctly. Then beyond that, let's implement it. Now you have to understand how to implement those changes into regular swimming. That is you know a big thing for me with drilling is that understanding and being able to apply it to swimming and not just swimming but applying it to faster swimming and have it hold. And then understanding when it falls apart, by doing the analysis, you know what to think about, you know what to look for. So if your form does start to fall apart, you know what that feels like, you know the drill and how to correct that. And it's that constant back and forth of resetting, applying, resetting, applying. And again, with the analysis, we can see if that's happening, if that's taking hold, because I think one of the things that is a little bit different from ours than anyone else I've seen is we do it twice, you come back through and do it again. And you have that ability for me to say, Yes, you are making that correction here, or, you know, what, actually, we still need to keep working on, you know, X, Y, Z, and continue that that journey and that progression.
Matt Dixon 35:36
No, I think I think you're absolutely spot on. And I think it is differentiated. I want to just come back to two other comments that you made that I want to bubble up again, which is really what you were just saying there, which is the application side of stuff, I see so many swimmers, just doing a drill. So they warm up a little bit, and they'd go and do a drill, and let's just make it up fingertip drag or single arm, whatever it is. And then they just get on with their main set. And there's no link between what you're trying to do with this drill and applying it to your swimming. And then you made a really important point as well, not just swimming, but fast swimming, or sorry, fast swimming. And so that through line is so important to do that. And that comes back to the principle which is drilling is important but it has to correlate ultimately to you improving as a swimmer, whatever your flaws are. And then the second point, again, linked to all of this in a nice bow is that technique is important. But it's not everything. And if we just take a half Ironman distance, give or take, if you just go in the middle of the bell curve, if I was swimming a half Ironman, I might be swimming, and taking two and a half thousand strokes. So I better be pretty fit, I better have a certain muscular endurance to maintain any technical improvement I have. So they are symbiotic. You cannot have improved technique if you don't have the fitness and muscular endurance to carry it through. And then even more, similar to what we will talk about later, but you want to make sure that that technique and that fitness is done in a straight line relative to the open water course, which is everything around sort of skills, and everything along that. So if you're listening, you cannot crack your speed code by just technique. It's really important. But you better be frickin fit. And you better become acquainted with developing and then implementing skills in open water. So I think we've hammered that one pretty well. Principle number one, yeah.
John Stevens 37:48
Excellent. Yes, I think so. And I'm glad you said that you have to be fit to be able to do these drills and we certainly prescribe drills for people who try it once and say I can't do it. Keep trying, let's build fitness and then, oh, I can do this now because I have I've built that strength, I've built the fitness around it to be able to execute that drill properly, and then start applying it to the swimming. So I'm glad you said that.
Matt Dixon 38:10
It's funny when you do your swim assessments when you build out the drills that we are going to implement into the Purple Patch swim program because you're primarily building those drills out., it reminds me of a filter, that regular listeners- can think back to last week and I said we have a Purple Patch filter for everything. And the first primary thing is, is it going to make the athlete faster? So that's really how we look at any technical development and drills in swimming is it going to correlate to an athlete becoming more efficient and swimming faster? And if it is globally in the bell curve, then we're going to implement that as a part of the program. But we ain't gonna drill for drill's sake. That's for sure. And that's, I think that's an important one. So, drumroll number two, then we get the opportunity to progress on principle number two, unlocking your swim speed, what is it, John?
John Stevens 39:05
Principle two - keep it simple. All right, we want to simplify, I just talked about a lot of drilling and a lot of technique, which adds a lot of complexity. It's a very technical sport. But again, it doesn't have to be all-encompassing mentally, which is part of the reason we do something like swim analysis or break it down if I'm working on form with someone,'s it's two things, it's three things you know, we're trying to simplify. You can search how to swim and you're gonna see a million articles out there and a million videos out there. But really what we want to do is simplify and sometimes, you know, to swim faster you simply need to swim more and that's that's honestly that's a lot of the times I like to give that stupid answer because people will ask that question, Oh, how do I swim faster? Swim more. Stupid but holds an element of truth to it. And so there is that simplicity of don't overthink the drilling. Don't overthink the time you have but simply get in swim when you can and swim - make the most out of it ultimately, we want to break it down so what are we trying to do? We're trying to get faster. And you know, what does that look like from again, a simplistic standpoint, we're trying to reduce drag as we move through the water, we're trying to grab water well, we're trying to accelerate that water back. We're trying to accelerate ourselves forward in a straight line, and have an awareness of what we're doing while we're doing it. So really, what we want to do is simplify this, break it down, and try not to overthink it, it's really easy to overthink swimming, especially. So just simplifying is the big one.
Matt Dixon 40:34
We come back to that filter on that one. I have spoken about this on prior shows, but reading articles in triathlon publications where they break down the seven phases of the swim pull. So from hand entry, for swimmers that know it, to hand exit, the seven phases. Well, understanding that most swimmers are spending just under to maybe just above one second from hand entry to hand exit, that means that we're being asked to think about seven things in one second. Now I'm a pretty smart geezer. But I can't do that, and I don't think many people can. And so I liked your -- I'm gonna try and regurgitate it back to you, as I remember it. But reduction of drag. Yes, that's important, really important. Grab water. I remember my former Purple Patch pro Aussie, Luke Bell, said " Grap it, mate. That's the first thing you want to do get the arm and grip the water. Good. And then accelerate it back. So many people just have the hand almost move through the water at one pace, which is a little bit like throwing the ball with no acceleration is just going to not move very far. So that's the Aussie Luke rip it after the grip it and that's really important to accelerate. Then one thing that you said there that I don't typically think about this, when I'm coaching too much, which is important, then accelerate and propel forward in a straight line. So taut, really strong. And I think it's a great addition, I just learned a nice thing to add to my repertoire there. And with that, develop a sense of awareness around you and pacing. And that's it. And if you can do that under the umbrella, and you build it with more swimming and more experience, ultimately, you're gonna become faster.
John Stevens 42:28
Yeah, we make it sound so easy. But I think it can be. And I think that's the big thing is like you said, apply those filters, break it down. It doesn't have to be complicated, I think is kind of the big point I'm trying to make with this is you don't have to make a complicated, it may seem like it, but you can simplify it in a way that is going to make it more efficient for your time. And more attainable for you to get.
Matt Dixon 42:52
Yep, that's awesome. All right, so let's, let's move on. Principle number three, what is it?
John Stevens 43:00
Alright, principle number three, make the most of your training time and mix it up a little bit. I think that's one of the big things. And we've kind of been touching on these themes a lot with everything we're talking about. But ultimately, you know, time-starved athletes, trying to swim, bike, run, strength, how much time do we have, it's limited when it comes down to it. So make the time for it and make the most of your time for it rather, when you're in there, and then mix it up a little bit while you're doing that and have some fun with it. I think as we mentioned previously, again, the drills, I'll keep saying it, are really important. They need to be included smartly. As we said, you can't just go in, if you're drilling nonstop, you're wasting your time. If you are going in there and you are swimming straight, and not integrating any intervals, you're wasting your time. You know, I think as we've said before, swimming has that low impact compared to running or biking, so we can integrate a lot more strong swimming. Now I'm not saying we should be swimming fast all the time. We shouldn't be doing short intervals all the time. But we're mixing it up, we're doing some fast swimming, we're doing some endurance swimming, we're doing some threshold swimming, we are doing some short intervals, we're doing some long intervals, we're taking advantage of that time we have and getting the most out of it by again, mixing it up and adding some variety. And I think that variety that variance in your training and what you're doing is going to create more of a stimulus and you're going to get a lot more out of it. As opposed to as I said, just going in and swimming 2000 Straight, you're not making the most of your time. And you're not going to get the most bang for your buck, which is what we're looking to do with the time that we have available.
Matt Dixon 44:37
And I was gonna say two things to that. The first is I think that you deserve a lot of kudos because one of the things that you've introduced more and more into Purple Patch is some of the over distance longer duration intervals, asking people to stay mentally engaged and tension on the water as I like to call it to grip it and rip it for extended periods, and we're seeing a really good addition to that. So self (inaudible) myself as a coach over the last 10 years, maybe steering too far to the short, short, short intervals. But getting people familiar with holding tension on the chain for longer intervals, and that that's really on your shoulders, you've introduced that. I followed along and we've seen some really good gains on that. But, on the same breath, going, and just doing laps at the pool, up and down, at the same pace, the body doesn't like monotony, but it's the lowest yield that we're going to get. And I think that's important. That extends into open water. We won't talk about that now, because I know that that's coming, we are going to talk about open water specifically. But I think it's so important, the body loves variants. And, I think one of the things that I'm going to sort of wrap this principle up in is, as a time-starved. athlete, you have an optimization challenge. And that's across the whole arc of training. But also in typically the most logistically challenging discipline that we have swimming, most swimmers tend to only be able to go to the pool twice a week, maybe three times a week, sometimes once a week. So you have to - one has to view this through an optimization challenge and say with that, in the context of my life, what's the biggest yield that I can get from it? And it is never going to be just swimming up and down the pool. That's not going to be it, throw the intensity variance at it.
John Stevens 46:37
100%. Yep. And I think it's, you know, it does, it does, and I've learned from you like I know, I love the over distance, but I might prescribe 1500 yards to somebody, but I would never say goes from 1500 yards. You're going to do the 1500s building by 500. So you're going to do 1500 Where you do you know, 500 at 70% 500 at 90% 500 at 80%. So even within the longer swim, we're adding the variance within that. And I know your favorite, lots and lots of 25s and I think short rest, you know, we get so much more out of doing 20/25s on five to seven seconds rest than you would by just going and trying to swim a 500 hard. Is there a place for a 500 hard? Yes. There certainly is a place for 20/25s as well. Yeah,
Matt Dixon 47:20
Exactly. Agree with you. All right, principle number four, a goodie here, as, as I say on my notes. So John, lead us away, what's your principle number four?
John Stevens 47:30
All right, principle number four, swim with others, right, getting out and swimming with other people. I think there's a great benefit to swimming in a group. One, there's the social aspect of it, you know, it's swimming can be kind of isolating and lonely. And doing it with a group just makes it a lot more fun. I've been swimming my whole life. And I think now I probably swim three to four times a week. And I always go with a group, if the group isn't going, I tend to bow out these days, maybe once in a while I'll get in my swim. But it adds that social aspect and makes it a little bit more fun, you get the accountability for everyone to show up, and you get the support of the people when you're there. Sometimes if there's a group, you might have someone on deck, that's a little bit of added support from from maybe a coaching perspective, making sure that, you know, you're vetting that person and they know what they're doing a little bit. But there is that added benefit of being able to have some feet in front of you to chase or have someone chasing your feet, it's going to kind of level you up a little bit and increase what you're able to do in the pool have you work a little bit harder, I think we all know, we're able to push a little bit harder in a race, we've got that environment of everyone around you, when you have that in training in a pool, you're gonna get that same benefit of just getting that extra push that extra oomph from the group and kind of get somebody you know, carry you along with them, or push you along just a little bit more. And I think that's often underlooked particularly in triathlon, where you are time-starved I can only get to the pool at this time. I can only go for this amount of time. Sometimes that's not easy with a group. But if you're able to mix that in, I think you're gonna see a lot of benefit from it.
Matt Dixon 49:02
Yeah, quite. Quite often actually, I would say I'm always as a coach willing to give away a little bit of specificity if I can get people to swim in a group, particularly the right group. And I think sometimes triathletes take the option to swim solo because they say I've got my very specific set but generally, the group outweighs the benefits of maybe a little loss of specificity now you have to filter through you said it right there even with you know, the classic master's program and someone on the deck leading that the coaching, you've got to as a swimmer also developed a little bit of, of your filter to understand what's the lens that this master's coach or coach leading this group swim is looking through, because they may well and likely are looking through the lens of years of pool swimming, getting people ready for pool swimming, and you're a triathlete. And there's nothing wrong with that it can be symbiotic but you just need to filter The information in the education that you're getting, I would say that's one thing. I would argue, 99 times out of 100, that, if the whole pursuit was to get as fast as you can, it's close to impossible for anyone to optimize whatever their level of potential is, relative to the amount that they can invest timewise, without swimming with others. So I think it's very, very difficult to maximize your swim without that. And the reason I say that, and maybe you don't agree, or maybe that's a very, very strong way to do it. But also the group tends to provide a sense of, I think, two key ingredients that are so often missing for triathletes, support and accountability. And, and my argument would be swimming is an individual sport. Now there, we were part of a team sport in swimming, which is university swimming, but ultimately, you are swimming in your race. And yet there is no international swimmer that doesn't swim in a team environment, at least they're very, very rare Yeah. It's a team sport. In fact, in many ways, it's one of the great team sports bizarrely, because it's individual. But, and I same as the Purple Patch pros, we unlocked a performance culture by taking a team approach to an individual sport and I think that anyone if you have the opportunity, it's it's of great value. That would be my argument.
John Stevens 51:29
Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree with you. I think that idea of being able to level up with other people is what's going to actually kind of give you that extra edge, that extra advantage. And I know it's some people are listening to this and saying, isn't that a little counterintuitive, or an easy cop-out for a one-to-one coach to not prescribe the swims and tell them just to go swim with the group? There's a word there's room for it. But often, if I do have a swimmer that says, hey, I've got this master's group, there's a coach on deck that great, give me their phone number, give me their email, let me chat with them. Let's see how it applies. And they, you know, I've had someone say, I don't want to swim with that group. You know, they do a lot of IM work, a lot of butterfly. A lot of backstroke and breaststroke. Perfect. So let's go do that at least once a week. And mix that in, a little bit of mix it up a little bit, too. So there's a place in every group for a triathlete. To the extent that you're integrating that it might vary again, and I'll (Inaudible) so like, alright, now we have our race build, let's come back a little bit, let's get specific with what we're doing. But we're going to still integrate that group in some ways throughout if they have that available.
Matt Dixon 52:26
That was a great clarifying point. So thank you. What I wasn't suggesting is just turn your brain off and go swim with the masters and you think you've got it all cracked, you do need to not lose the reins of specificity. And you've got some very specific sessions. But integrating some groups swimming I think is typically that's where you get the real harmony of it, which is, which is very, very useful. And so we come to principle number five, John, and so I'm going to hand it over to you. What is it?
John Stevens 52:55
All right, yeah. Last one. Principle number five is open-water swimming. We're triathletes we're not pool swimmers. We're open water swimmers aside from the rare sprint triathlon that happens in a pool, we're doing our racing, we are competing, and we are kind of, you know, showcasing everything we have learned and grown and how we've grown as a swimmer in the open water. So ultimately, again, this stupid answer to a question, how do I get better at open water swimming? Swim in the open water. You're able to take that specificity of what you're doing in a race and apply it to that. Now, when I say go swim in the open water, it isn't simply heading to the beach, swimming 20 minutes out, swimming 20 minutes back, and calling it a day. Is that a way to get acclimated and have an understanding of the open water sure, but again, it comes down to what we've said before being efficient with your time. And so, if you are going to go swim open water, which you should, I think it's really important to make sure that you're going into it with a plan, you can create structured workouts in the open water, they don't have to be overly complicated. But you can create this structure of speed variance, you can still do intervals, you can do race simulations, you can practice takeout speed, and you can practice shifting your speed. And there's a lot of different ways to do that. Whether it's counting strokes, setting up an auto, you know, distance on your watch, if you're using one, there are ways to mix it up and build in that variance. And again, variance is going to be key, even in the open water. So I think it's really important if you are going to do open water, which you should, going in with the plan, having some structure around that. I mean, a pool offers a great opportunity, a great medium, and a controlled environment to do the things we were talking about like toys and drills and mixing up different intervals but ultimately, we can get into the open water and do some specific targeted work for where you're going to need to perform which is in the open water. So ultimately, what I would like to see that last principle is people getting into open water as much as they can. I think, you know there's room for pool swimming, there's, I think there should be a little bit of a balance but ultimately, we want to integrate open water swimming. And I understand I'm saying that from a point of privilege a little bit, living on the coast of Maine is granted, not all year long, but for a few months, yeah, that opportunity is half a mile away. Some people might not have that. And so it's hard for me to say that that is a big principle, which I still think it is when I know there are people where it's just not an option. And I think with that maybe take a mental approach around that is like, I can't get to the open water, but I can still open water swim. And what I mean by that is you can take advantage of the pool, and you can implement some open water-specific work into the pool. So mixing up the sighting a little bit, working on some of those open water drills, you know, if you find that your pool has an area, I know my pool sometimes will open up half the pool. So it's got no lane lines, get in there and try to practice swimming around without the walls a little bit, not the whole time a little bit mixing that up. If you've got a group and they're willing to be up for it, you can do some close contacts, swimming, live love doing this when we have camps and we have people together line people for you know, for up on a wall, everyone going at the same time bumping and grinding and getting used a little bit that contact. But I think if you can get to the open water, even better, you can do it with a group tightening in that last principle, you can improve, improve where we want to improve, which is in the open water swimming getting ready for racing.
Matt Dixon 56:28
Well, I think in some ways, just so I don't have much to add, I agree wholeheartedly, but you sort of got three elements, you've got pool swimming, where you're building, developing technique, building, muscular endurance, cardiovascular conditioning, all of your intervals, then you've got pool swimming, where you've got an open water mindset where you're trying to simulate, you're trying to integrate sitting and some of the skills, then you have the golden application. And in that open water, it's not just going there. And if you just go in some for distance, or some for time, it's almost like going to a five-star restaurant and just having, you know, the bread rolls, you're missing the meat and the vegetables and the salad and everything that goes around with it, because you can simulate your race experience. And then you show up on race day. And it's got this word, what is it? Familiarity. And with familiarity, is confidence, and with confidence is the absolute optimization of your performance potential, the hard work that you've put into it. So we covered a lot there, didn't we?
John Stevens 57:33
We did. We got right down to it. Fantastic.
Matt Dixon 57:37
Well, John, thank you so much. I know that we're going to do a series of these and every couple of months or so. But those are the five principles, build it around, and appreciate you being on the show today.
John Stevens 57:50
Oh, happy to be here again, repeating and always happy to talk swimming.
Matt Dixon 57:55
And I guess my last question, is, if folks are interested in doing some work with you on video assessment and the swim program, may you you're willing to take a couple on?
John Stevens 58:08
Absolutely anyone willing to come listen to me and get some advice, I'm happy to take a look at some videos and work with people. I enjoy doing it. I like the challenge of everyone's got their challenges. And so that's nice to be able to dive in with people. So happy to take as many people as we want back on for that swim analysis.
Matt Dixon 58:25
And of course, we're heading off to South Carolina very soon for a couple of months for our training camp, of which you lead all the swimming. So people can also have an opportunity to work with you directly there which will be fun with me overlooking and having a little look at the same time. So that'll be fun. We're looking forward to that. Alright, guys, thank you very much, John, we will see you next time. Take care.
Matt Dixon 58:51
Guys, thanks so much for joining. And thank you for listening, I hope that you enjoyed the new format. You can never miss an episode by simply subscribing. Head to the Purple Patch channel on YouTube, and you will find it there and you can subscribe. Of course, I'd like to ask you, if you will subscribe also, share it with your friends. And it's really helpful if you leave a nice positive review in the comments. Now questions that you have, let me know, feel free to add a comment and I will try my best to respond and support you on your performance journey. As we commence this video podcast experience, if you have any feedback at all, as mentioned earlier in the show, we would love your help in helping us to improve. Simply email us at info@PurplePatchFitness.com or leave it in the comments of the show on the Purple Patch page and we will get you dialed in. We'd love constructive feedback. We are in a growth mindset as we like to call it. And so feel free to share with your friends but as I said, let's build this together. Let's make it something special. It's really fun. We're trying hard to make it a special experience and we want to welcome you into the Purple Patch community. With that, I hope you have a great week. Stay healthy, have fun, keep smiling, doing whatever you do. Take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
swimming, swim, swimmers, drill, triathletes, pool, water, patch, bit, principle, people, purple, john, race, integrate, technique, athlete, coach, sport, faster