CBCG Hosts Swim Smooth at Nike WHQ: Our Single Best Technique Session

Swim Smooth Co-Founders Adam Young and Paul Newsome, and CBCG Coaches Chris Bagg, Molly Balfe, and Josh Sutton at the Swim Smooth 3-day Coaches Education Course

There’s been a lot of swimming on the blog, recently, but springtime always feels like swim time to us. It’s the perfect time of year to think about technique and to focus on the stroke faults you have in order to optimize your performance at races later in the season. At CBCG we deeply believe in the importance of the swim so that the rest of your race can go the way you’d like it to go. In that vein, we sent coaches Molly Balfe and Josh Sutton to the Swim Smooth 3-day Coaches Education Course at Nike in Portland this past weekend, in order to flesh out their already impressive coaching abilities. Professional development is a huge part of coaches continuing to improve their games, and we’re happy to be able to provide that support.

What is the 3-day Coaches’ Course like? Well, there’s a lot of material, for sure. Adam and Paul know they have a lot of material to cover, so they get right down to it, putting coaches in the water for a CSS test (like finding FTP on the bike) right off the bat, and then following that up with video analyses of each coach’s individual stroke. Molly, for example, set a new CSS pace, but was surprised (and motivated) by her video session: “I’ve got some things to work on,” she averred afterward.

Paul Newsome stalking the deck, running the “Single Best Technique Session”

One of the sessions Paul and Adam teach the coaches is the Swim Smooth “Single Best Technique Session.” This session helps swimmers focus on posture and alignment, hand entry, and breathing, ideally recognizing afterward which of those three areas is holding them back. If you’d like to give it a crack, the session is below:

Warmup

100 breathe right only
100 breathe left only
100 breathe bilaterally

Build Drill Set

4x100 with fins as 2x(25 kick on side, 25 swim), :15 rest.
---When kicking on side with fins, focus on the following things:
1) lead hand is 8-10 inches below the surface of the water and straight ahead
2) wrist is above hand, and hand is above elbow
3) eyes are straight down
Video here

8x50 Javelin Drill. 1-4 paddle on right hand. 5-8 paddle on left hand (ideally using a Finis Freestyler Paddle)
1) focus on feeling the water during the first 25. Ideally you feel water on the back of your hand, not on your palm.
2) on the second 25, focus on not crossing over, and on starting your catch even while breathing away from the catching hand.

Main Set
3x100 moderate breathe only right side, get time. :20 rest
3x100 moderate breathe only left side, get time. :20 rest
3x100 moderate breathe both sides, get time. :20 rest.
Which side was fastest?

Optional Set
400 pull + paddles breathe slowest side, :30
300 pull + paddles breathe bilaterally, :20
200 pull + paddles breathe slowest side, :15
100 pull + paddles breathe bilaterally

Happy Swimmers are our Favorite Swimmers

Ready to make a change in your swimming? You can now book Chris directly for a video swim analysis right through the scheduling site, here.