Beginner Triathlete - articles

How to join lap swimmers without making a splash. A primer on the social graces applied to swimming laps.

Tips on wetsuits, using different strokes, where to line up, breathing and sighting.

Stroke after stroke, my pace was pulling me out into the middle of the lake quickly. The cover seemed to be getting thicker. But still in the distance, the little boathouse was my lighthouse.

The last month of this series will be building you to a 750m continuous swim and workouts of up to 1200 total meters.

A three month program designed to help beginning swimmers improve technique for a sprint distance race.

A three month program designed to help beginning swimmers improve technique for a sprint distance race.

Good memories are crucial to your success in the water. Trying to swim laps before you are comfortable in the water is likely to reinforce your anxiety, so avoid the white-knuckle approach.

Working only on technique will not make a swimmer much faster; some work must be done at speeds and efforts that could cause technique to deteriorate.

I highly recommend hiring a coach, if you are a beginner or just looking to become a better swimmer.

These workouts are all designed for beginners and range in length from 400m to 1200m – hopefully providing some useful workouts until you are able to tackle the 2000m+ workouts.

Sometimes the best way to master something is to be around people who are masters of it. For non-swimmers - there is the Master’s Swim group.

The most common question I hear in the triathlete world about the mysteries of swimming efficiently usually involves something with breathing.

Work your weakness. In the sport of triathlon, most coaches agree that you should spend the most time working on your weakest of the three sports. For many of you this will be swimming!

Many people in the triathlon world think they need to just emulate Ian Thorpe to have a faster time, or have a similar stroke to Michael Phelps to cruise through the swim. Unfortunately...

Increasing your energy efficiency even modestly -- from, say, 3% to 4% -- can translate into a 33% improvement in your swimming.