Starts & Finishes (In's and Out's)

In the swim leg of a triathlon or even an ocean swim, what is involved? It’s not just swimming. There’s also a run into the water (the start) and the run out of the water (the finish).

Starts and finishes always get forgotten about in training. Why? Especially when focusing a little more on this area could make a big difference to your overall time. Being a weak swimmer, having a good start could be the difference between you swimming in the pack or having a lonely swim by yourself 30 meters behind the pack. Being a strong swimmer, having a good start could be the difference between you swimming at the front of the pack or you being able to make a break away from the front of the pack.

Starts and finishes are like any skill in life. The more you practice them, the better you’ll become. So make sure you get down to the beach as often as you can to do some in’s and out’s practice - running into the surf, taking 10 strokes, stop, turning around and returning to shore. Let’s break it down. There are three main components involved with starts and finishes, the running, the wading and the dolphin diving. When you’re practicing your in’s and out’s you need to remember you can wade faster than you can dolphin dive, and you can dolphin dive faster than you can swim.

You’ll wade (run into the water with high knees and out to the side) until it gets too deep, then you’ll dolphin dive (pushing yourself off the bottom of the ocean floor and jump/dive as far forward as you can until it gets too deep to be able to do this, then you’ll start swimming.

Most triathlon/ocean swim starts are on the sand so it’s important to incorporate some sand running into your training. It doesn’t need to be a lot but you need to be confidant you can run relatively fast on soft and hard sand. Running on sand is also good way to build up ankle strength.

In your next pool session try to incorporate some running around the pool into your workouts. Try to do it in the warm downs. For example if you have 8x50 for warm down, then do a run around the pool between each 50. After swimming for a long period of time our body gets used to being in the horizontal position. Swimming 50 meters, then running a lap around the pool gets our bodies used to going from the horizontal to the vertical position. The more we can get our bodies used to doing that the easier it will become race day when you are sprinting up the beach to the finish line or into transition.

 

 

See you on the beach!

Trent Grimsey

English Channel Record Holder

3 Time Australian Open Water Champion