Great information! I looked into have a video analysis done, but haven’t gotten a hold of a gopro (or similar) yet. Drills are definitely my friend, and I learned quickly last year which ones were the most beneficial to my stroke: fist drill for sure.
I have never kicked with flippers, but should try it!
I just found my nearest Swim Smooth certified coach and went to him. He had a good quality underwater camera, plus used some decent analysis software. At the end of the session I walked away with the video file, which included the audio of his analysis, so it was good value.
I’d love to use flippers for kick sets to improve the flexibility of my ankles, but flippers/paddles have recently been banned at all the local pools round here 
That sucks Are there swimming/tri clubs nearby who book pools for exclusive sessions? We can use flippers at our club nights on that basis.
That seems really fast! I wonder what that would be in CSS. I’m off on a training course soon but will be learning Swim Smooth (mentioned above) as it’s what the British Triathlon Federation have adopted, rather than USRPT.
I’m not able to make the times the local tri clubs swim, so I tend to train with a mate on a different night. It’s all good though, we get some decent sessions done.
Cool. Is that a coaching course you’ll be on?
Certainly is! BTF Level 1. Apparently the drill I’ll be explaining to the other trainees is UNCO, which is literally the worst 
. Ah well, at least I get skip & group riding for the other disciplines.
Great, I’d be interested in hearing your experience of the course 
Have you subscribed to their Guru site? They’ve got some great footage of the drills on there.
More than likely, fast swimmers take for granted that they’ve been coached on proper technique for 5-10 years before they get to be that fast.
I did my own deep dive of the speed work I was doing last year, just trying to “Go all out” during the hard sessions and increasing stroke rate to get there. What ended up happening though is that my form broke down so much that I was only marginally faster while expending a lot more energy and thus they were not very repeatable. In self-coaching all we have are drills and of course some of the metrics that we get from our devices.
After some self-reflection I decided to really not go “all out” but hard while trying my hardest to do my stroke as perfect as I could. That has paid dividends… So I only have increased stroke rate by 2-3 strokes/min when going hard, but my distance per stroke stays relatively the same, and thus gain some significant speed in the water.
Part of the other reason I don’t do much kick sets is that I do a 2 beat kick, so it is really easy to focus on the important aspects of the kick when just swimming, 1 kick per stroke, even during hard sets.
Many in my Master’s group do not do flip-turns. Those that do seem to not mind that I don’t when we share a lane.
Kicking: I have found that kicking for a 100 or 200 really helps the legs feel better after a hard before. Been several times where the legs were so fried that I could hear them scream for the first 50. Then they whimpered. Then they completely shut up and were ready for more bike and run.
I can also predict when our Master’s will have more kicking – my legs are always fried on those days. 
Have your big toes tap each other when you kick. Helps with this.
Talk with the director at your pool. I have done things that are against the rules but asked ahead of time with an explanation of WHY I needed to do it. (Swim in tri kit was big one – street clothes are a big issue at my pool). They had seen me around enough to know me and that I would not cause issues. Also helped I did not do it at a peak time. Can’t hurt to ask…
It is really fast, works out around 1:12-13/100m. I even rewound the podcast to check I’d heard it properly!
I think like @Bioteknik implies swimmers who are that fast by definition have decent technique otherwise they wouldn’t be as a fast as they are. Maybe Tim Floyd’s implication is that once the speed is there stoke refinement is the marginal gain that can be the icing on the cake?
He also said that (IIRC) that the body will naturally find it’s own way to get quicker and reduce drag if you swim fast, and especially so if you swim in a group environment and the motivation to keep up with better swimmers is there. I know for me that my times are quicker in Masters groups, even if I’m leading the lane, because of the motivation of being in a lane with others. Shallow I know!
As a former division 1 distance swimmer who now coaches and works high level clinics… I’d just add that although drills are important… we’ve really found that your balance in the water is the critical first step. If you just swim fast in order to practice swimming fast longer you are still potentially fighting your own stroke. Meaning… if your legs sink, and you work on kicking harder so they float, you haven’t fixed the problem of your legs sinking. Once you address that problem, you will expend significantly less energy swimming in general.
When I work with swimmers we always start with how you balance in the water. Get a snorkel. If I had one piece of equipment I would recommend… that’s it. A snorkel.
Think of it like this: You have a center of gravity (if you are floating face down, this will be that place where your legs sink) that is around your hip area, and you have a center of buoyancy (if you are floating face down this is where your body seems to float) are your chest. The goal of practicing balance is to move those 2 closer together. For our clinics, this looks like, starting in a ball, floating and slowing extending your arms up, then your legs. As you feel you legs sink, you have to engage your hips, chest, core area to work on finding that center. Hence the snorkel, you don’t need to come up for air.
And to the OP, if your legs sink, doing some extra kick to strengthen your legs to overcome that (if you are not practicing balance) is a positive thing. But, I’d still recommend a snorkel.
Thank you. Great info
250m kicking? I must’ve missed that one and gladly - I won’t ever be doing that. 
Unless I start racing in waters warm enough to be wetsuit free regularly, or perhaps focus on sprint distance. I do a bit of backstroke instead of kicksets if asked. Pull bouy (no kicking at all) is better imo.
I’m glad I’m not the first one to bring it up, that is my position.
Pretty much any skills based activity that uses drills is to correct flaws. If you don’t know your flaws, you’re blindly doing drills that may actually make you worse rather than better.
I think Tower26 has a similar position too?
I swim in a masters group and do workouts on my own from the Tower 26 plans. The T26 plans do incorporate lots of kicking, particularly in the warmup. The philosophy there is not that triathlon swimmers need to have a strong, well developed kick (they don’t). But training your kick improves technique and body position - namely what they call “alignment” and “tautness”. I don’t recall any workouts that had something like a long 250m continuous kick, but there are lots of kick variations on the T26 plans, e.g.
Also, their kick sets are done with and without fins.
I feel like it has helped my proprioception and feeling in the water.
IIRC, it’s not that T26 think that drills are pointless, I think it’s that most swimmers aren’t advanced technically enough (i.e. elite level swimmers) to get the most out of drills, therefore not really worth doing for most triathlon swimmers. Having said that, there are a few drills that we do, but not many and not that often.
Also, to your point, if drills are to correct or encourage proper form, and you don’t know what the proper form is (or have a coach giving you that direct feedback on deck), then the drills may be not reinforcing anything or may be reinforcing the wrong thing.
I will second the snorkel as being an invaluable piece of equipment. It’s probably my favorite toy for swim training. I use it heavily for focusing on arm/hand technique, particularly in long, moderate pull sets.
@pschulz, I concur w/ @mrlavalamp. If your swim is <2k yds (or m) (give or take), then a kick set of 10% may be taking you away from other more substantial (“less marginal”) gains. Kick as part of warm-up (200 swim, 200 kick, 200 pull) isn’t bad, but it takes a (comparatively) long time to knock out a straight 200 kick (and for a 2k total workout, it’s still 10%). Now, kick sprints (say 25s or 50s) are something else and potentially useful for raising the HR to prep for the workout and, with regard to tri, helpful to train for quick acceleration out of or into a pack, to catch or avoid a wave for ocean swims/starts/finishes, to get out of the water, etc. But, if you want to get the body moving for the workout, better than a kick set is something like 2 x (50 slow/fast, 50 fast/slow, 50 easy, 50 fast).
And… are you doing kick sets with a board? If you’re not a great swimmer and you’re taking the time to kick because you need the strength, part of learning body position, etc, then using a board is a bit, though not entirely, counter-productive. The kickboard is a great platform for socializing (and working your left arm as you grab the oncoming person’s left and you give each other a giant pull), but it’s placing you in a bad position. (In other words, if you developing skill, don’t use a board. On your stomach and use your outstretched superman position to quickly scull to raise you head up to breath and sight, or be on your side alternating either half-way down or after the wall.) If you’re doing 4-5k workouts, then the kick set, even on a board, can have a place for resting your upper body muscles and building lower body strength.
And… are you only doing freestyle kick (ie on your stomach with or without a board)? Fly, back, breast kick help build muscles and endurance. Doing egg beater with hands up, ideally with elbows out of the water, will really help with leg strength and endurance. But is this the best use of your time if you’re swimming 2-2.5k? I don’t think so. I would suggest mix in some backstroke, which is complementary to free (and not breast or fly), before doing more than say 4x (or 6x) 50 hard kicks. (But if you’re doing back and are a beginner swimmer, then you have more technique issues plus navigation challenges!)
Personally, I’m not a TI fan, but that’s just me. Finding a good Masters program with a coach that will help you with technique is ideal. If you really need help, then I suggest finding a technique coach (perhaps your masters coach outside of the workout or at the side of the workout).
And on flip turns… as a swimmer for, er, holy moly, over four decades, please learn to do a flip turn and where to do a flip turn in you’re swimming with others. It just makes both your swim experience and that of those around you better and you’ll get more out of the workout. If you want more reasons: the efficient push off will help with explosive length strength, the proper form of not looking up helps with your body alignment, the act of not getting a breath at the wall helps with your breath control (ideally you’re not breathing your first stroke off the wall too), and the dolphin kick as you come off the wall to start your freestyle can recruit other muscles.
Just some thoughts. Remember they’re worth no more than double than what you paid me.
M
I’m a masters sub 20min 1500m swimmer.
Train alone no masters club.
TR tri plans great for me. Especially the base intervals (200 and 100 repeats under 10 sec rest).
I don’t kick as find it boring and takes time away from swimming.
Main thing is to keep core tight and try hold body flat and high in water.
I tumbleturn as fantastic core exercise. Think: 3000m session equals 119 turns…119 sit-ups with squat thrusts…
I take a break from TR specific plans over winter and use ‘swimming workouts in a binder’ are great https://www.amazon.com/Swim-Workouts-Triathletes-Practical-Endurance/dp/1934030759/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1548360064&sr=1-2
This is what I’ve been consciously trying to do over the past month or so. Trying to keep in my mind Gerry Rodrigues saying tautness and alignment! Personally I think that last year I maybe tried to hard to increase my stroke rate too much and sacrificing some of the distance. Strong and long has been a mantra and has I think helped with keeping that tautness and alignment. I may be only slightly faster at the moment but it feels like with less accumulated fatigue over a set.
I’m nowhere near a 20min 1500m but I’m not too far off a sub hour IM swim which is my goal event (PB is 1h and 47s) but that was in a wetsuit and my only IM swim this year will be without one so improving that body position is important for me.
@JoeX I tend to agree with you and @tanzbodeli re drills. They are great if you use the right ones for you but not all of us have a coach on deck to guide us properly and self diagnosing swim faults can be a fools errand!
One drill I have been doing regularly has been 100m of 25 6-1-6, 25 swim, 25 6-3-6, 25 swim (with flippers) which I think has helped me feel more ‘stretched’ in the water and helped to reinforce that tautness and alignment for me.
I’ve already tried, no joy. It’s no big issue though, there are other stretches I can do to improve ankle flexibility.
It was a good listen. I’ve been doing a few similar sets of the type he prescribes (fast 25’s and 50’s) this winter with the view of moving almost exclusively to CSS workouts as race season approaches.
I didn’t agree with everything he said though - he stated that technique isn’t usually the big issue with a 2min/100m swimmer. I understood what he was driving at with regards to having the required strength and conditioning, but I personally think the majority of 2min/100m swimmers would make significant gains with improvements to technique alone. I also think he bashed the red mist CSS type sessions a bit too much, when many coaches have had great success with such workouts.
Interesting that he classed three swims a week as only “maintenance”. I can only swim a max of two times a week (with fitting in the cycling, running & strength, plus having two young kiddies). I guess I need to accept I’ll probably plateau soon with that volume.
Definitely worth a listen wasn’t it. I do have some sympathy with his views on the longer intervals but I think they all have there place in a well thought out programme.
Will a 10x400m make me faster, especially this time of year? I’m not so sure. A 40x100m set however will be at a faster pace and almost certainly with less form degradation. The 10x400m for an IM swim might have much more value nearer the race than in January. I say that as somebody who values a lot of the Swim Smooth ethos and is a current Guru subscriber!
One other takeaway was his view of always taking a 20s break at the wall rather than the more touch and go shorter rest periods. A reset for breathing and to focus on form for the next interval rather than just bashing it out.
Shame about your pool issues with training equipment. I know it’s a common rule but it’s something I fortunately I don’t deal with. Anyway, I’m off to the pool for an afternoon swim, what to do…?