Tackling TriDot Workouts: 25 / 100 Speed Sets, Ladders, Building 100s, Descending 100s and Threshold 200 / 300s

TriDot Podcast Episode 326

Tackling TriDot Workouts: 25 / 100 Speed Sets, Ladders, Building 100s, Descending 100s and Threshold 200 / 300s

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Vanessa Ronksley: Hello, everyone and welcome to the TriDot podcast. Swim days are some of my favorite training days. Being in the water can be so soothing, it can be meditative, but not necessarily relaxing. Today we are decoding swim workouts. The swims that are going to sharpen your stroke and move the needle on your swim fitness. We're going to be breaking down five staple workouts, what each one is meant to do, how to execute it effectively, and then how all of these work together to make a stronger and smoother swimmer. I'm Vanessa, your average triathlete with elite level enthusiasm. And I am honored to be sitting here with TriDot coach Kurt Madden. He is an expert who's going to help us decode the why behind these sessions. From the 25 to 100 speed sets, ladders building, hundreds, descending hundreds, and then everybody's favorite threshold intervals, we treat this show like any good workout. We'll start with our warmup question, settle in for our main set conversation, and then finish things up with our cooldown where coach Kurt will answer a listener question. Lots of good stuff. Let's get to it.

Announcer: This is the TriDot podcast, the triathlon show that brings you world class coaching with every conversation. Let's get started with today's warm up.

Vanessa Ronksley: Here we go. Kurt, let's start with something super light. What is your favorite pool training accessory? Pull buoys, fins, snorkels, underwater headphones. What is the one thing that you are grabbing to have with you on deck?

Kurt Madden: You know, I gotta tell you, Vanessa, I struggle with this because it's Christmas time and I always want more little gifts underneath the tree. And you know, when I go to the pools, sometimes I want to bring my little red wagon because I can have all my toys there as just one person who's going to do this one workout. But I've really thought about this and I think if I really had to narrow it down to what? Just the one thing. And that's hard to do because toys are toys, right? We all love them for various reasons, but for me, you might be a little surprised. The one thing that I think is most important for a great experience are my goggles. Because when my goggles are working with me, not against me, I've got this full—you know, it's like an HDTV surround sound. I've got everything right there and if I can see well, I think I'm much, much better. Don't get me wrong, I do use the other items when needed. But if it's the one thing, when my goggles are on point, I'm on point. And it's a much better experience and a better swim session.

Vanessa Ronksley: You know, I think that we all overlook the importance of our goggles because it's something that we just bring with us naturally and they're very valuable and necessary. And if you've been in a race or any situation where your goggles are not available, yikes, you're kind of out of luck. So I agree with you. Goggles are pretty important for us to be able to execute our swims safely and effectively. And like you said, when those things fog up or something breaks at the pool, it just ruins your whole session, you know? So I think for me, my favorite pool toy at the moment is a pull buoy. I am rehabbing an injury and so the pull buoy has become a major crutch for me at the moment. And I'm past the point where I need to use it all the time, but I'm finding myself wanting to use it all the time. So I have to break the relationship with my pull buoy. But usually I have to say that my favorite is fins. I love fins. I think that they're a great tool so that you can focus on the stroke part of the swim and not have to worry about body balance and all that kind of stuff. So fins are usually my favorite, but this time around it's the pull buoy.

Kurt Madden: And I would add to that—I would say that when a person is doing drills, fins are essential. However, there's time when you need to let them go. I get a little concerned when I hear athletes telling me "I can't take my fins off." I said, well, hold on. I haven't been in a triathlon yet where they will allow you to use fins. So there's a time and place for fins.

Vanessa Ronksley: Yes. And I only use them for the warm up and then whenever the workout says—like sometimes, you know how they say "fastest time with fins"? Sometimes that pops on my schedule, which I love. It's like the best. Anyhow, as always, we love hearing from our audience. So drop into the comments on YouTube or Spotify or head over to the TriDot community hub to tell us what the one thing is that you always need to have on deck for your swim. I can't wait to hear what you have to say.

Announcer: Let's go.

Vanessa Ronksley: Thank you to everyone for joining us here and for anyone who is watching on YouTube or Spotify, I just want to let you know that we're going to be popping some examples of each workout on screen. But keep in mind your exact sessions that are part of your specific and personalized training plan—they're going to vary depending on your dot score, your age, your ability, your gender, your genetics, all of these different things that TriDot uses to personalize a plan. So some of the workouts that we're popping up on screen you may never see and you will never have had on your calendar. And that's totally okay. So here we go. We are going to kick things off with some speed. I think it's everyone's favorite thing to do in the pool. Now, I have to say, Kurt, I love fast swim sets. There is nothing that compares to flying through the water. And I can tell you that when these pop up on my calendar, which is usually Friday, there is a full on dance party. One, because it's Friday and two, because it's just so much fun. So we're going to be pulling up the workout on screen here for those watching and your version is going to be tailored to your own training data. So, coach Kurt, can you walk us through what this 25 to 100 speed set actually looks like in general, why it's in the program and what physiological systems this workout is targeting?

Kurt Madden: Yeah, absolutely. And it's so amazing—as Vanessa and I are recording this, it is on Friday. And Vanessa, when I'm done with this, I get to do my best workout. So I am super pumped. I'm just really, really excited with you. So many times, I think as athletes, we kind of miss what is the majority objective. And let's go back to what you said, Vanessa—this is a speed set and I think that's important. The other thing, when any athlete with TriDot looks at their dashboard, this is positioned very carefully that when you look at your normalized training stress with your bike and your run, typically it's like on a Tuesday or Wednesday or Tuesday, Thursday, this is pushed aside. This is on Friday. So these workouts, keep in mind that when you look at your normalized training stress, usually for these sessions, they're pretty gosh darn high. So speed is of the essence. The other thing that I want to mention too, I'm going to use a lot of comparisons between swimming and biking and swimming and running so the listeners will really understand what we're after. But when you look at this workout, it should not be a surprise that when you just look at the bar graph, you do have some time in zone two. And zone two is great because when you think about the physiology, the primary role of zone two is aerobic in nature. When things are aerobic and you're not developing lactic acid at the cellular level, you're developing the powerhouse of the cell—mitochondria. Think of a flashlight with all these little batteries in there. The more you can stay in zone two, you're developing your capacity to carry more batteries, which gives you more energy, which helps out for your workouts and for your upcoming races. So know you've got a balance here, you've got time to recover. But know that as you ramp things up into zone four and zone five, it really shifts or moves the needle over immediately. With your physiology, it's like, "whoa, wait a minute, I'm no longer aerobic. I'm going to go anaerobic." So when I go anaerobic, that's without air, you're really going to tax your max VO2. You're going to develop your max VO2. Also think about your blood plasma. You're going to increase the amount of blood plasma you have in you. The other thing too, from a physiological standpoint, not to get too far into the weeds, but I think it's just important to understand—when you hear the phrase ATP, adenosine triphosphate, the major objective is to drain that out of you as you're doing these intense sessions. But know that when you recover, it comes back up. The more you're putting stress on your body in any way, shape or form—swimming, biking or running—and you can come back and you do it again and again and again, your body will adapt and you're going to actually get to a higher level of fitness. The other thing you want to remember is when we look at this first workout, it's a shorter set. So maybe think of a run workout. Let me see, which run workout would that be? Oh, wait a minute. I think it's called math shuttles. And when you look at math shuttles, you're stimulating the fast twitch muscle fibers. Now, please keep in mind you can either thank your parents or blame your parents, because no matter how much you try, chances are you will not change your genetics at all. We are what we are. However, whatever percentage of fast twitch muscle fibers you have for swimming, our objective is, let's max those out. Let's really stimulate those. Let's make sure they're good to go, they're active, they're regenerated, they're good to go. So keep that in mind. So when you look at fast twitch, you look at blood plasma, you look at max VO2, you look at ATP, there's a lot of benefits when you look at this from a physiological standpoint.

Vanessa Ronksley: Kurt, you are speaking my love language, which is biology terminology. Oh my goodness, I love hearing this. And I do have to say I've never heard the analogy that you were talking about with the batteries and zone two. That just puts it perfectly into perspective for so many people and that makes it super easy to understand. I'm curious now for the mental aspect. I know a lot of athletes kind of struggle. Something that I love about the TriDot workouts is that they're color coded. When you log into your platform, you can see that there's colors and the brighter the pink color, the more intense the workout. Sometimes when athletes see that on their calendar, they kind of doubt themselves. So I'm just wondering how you might mentally prepare an athlete for these high end efforts.

Kurt Madden: You've hit the nail on the head and I think colors are very good, especially respectfully for men. I think we do better when we see those colors, know exactly what we need to do to not go off the rails. Follow the plan. And I can tell you for sure this workout mentally, if you're not on point, if you're not really geared up to swim fast, I would really recommend that you move things around. So knowing—good end of Friday, like you said, Vanessa, you're closing out the week. This is kind of like a fun thing that we are going to have some fun. So we're going to swim fast. It's going to be an awesome session. So mentally, you've got to think about it. What gets you fired up? What gets you fired up to swim this session? Well, first of all, you're going to preview it and you're going to look at that to say, "I know the objectives, I've got to go fast." What can I do mentally to get myself there? Is it fueling up correctly? Like, I know I'm going to go fast. You know what I might do? I might get a few of those things called carbohydrates because I want to get fueled. For some people, maybe a little caffeine. Hey, that's not bad. For some people it's music. For some people, it's like "I'm going to watch a couple of YouTube videos of people swimming super fast." I want to have that mindset. But as you're going into this workout, you've got to tell yourself, "I am going to swim fast." I think it's also too that when you look at your grit, when you look at your emotional intelligence, and I say this respectfully, that you've got to use self control, you've got to use self awareness. You really got to be in tune with these nine inches above the shoulders because I think we swim from shoulders down, but our head is really, really important. So get in your mindset correctly that it's a can do workout. You're going to do it fast, you're going to do it well, and it's no nonsense. And that is the key. So if you're kind of dragging into this workout and you're tired from the week and you've had a really rough night and maybe you're looking at your HRV, your core cortisol levels or whatever the case might be, honestly, if I was there with you and I just watched you do the warm up, I would pull you out and say, "No, honestly, we're going to make a change here." So mindset, mind, body, spirit—you're ready to go. And look at it as an opportunity. This is your sanctuary and this is your time to get in and get stuff done.

Vanessa Ronksley: I love all of what you just said. The mindset is so important going into the workout. And I just want to ask one more question about the speed set because I think that a lot of athletes struggle with getting faster in the water. And something that I've noticed is that looking at different athletes and even looking at myself, sometimes we feel like we're going faster and when we get to the wall and we finished our speed set, we're breathing as if we have gone faster. But then when we actually look at the data, our swim times are not that much faster. And sometimes we're not even clocking time in those really important anaerobic zones of zone five and zone six. So what's happening here? Why do some people feel that they're going faster and then they're not necessarily seeing that reflected in their execution of the workout?

Kurt Madden: I think if I had to narrow it down—and I'm just, I've been so fortunate my entire life that I grew up around the water. I was in the water, I swam in high school. And literally the next year the head coach said, "I want you to be my assistant." I'm like 18 years old and I'm like "assistant coach?" I just graduated from high school, so I've kind of been in the water my entire life or coached or worked with people on this. And I think really, Vanessa, if I had to narrow it down, it's really about efficiency. It's kind of comparing the two other disciplines. Some people on the bike, you know, I watch people in the Tour de France and oh my gosh, I could watch them all—they're just spinning and spinning. Watch other people that are struggling, they're doing squares, they're not spinning circles. I look at running, I look at some people, like, is it—are they just natural? Do they—have they done a lot of drills? You know what it really comes down to? Those athletes are very efficient at what they do. And even with swimmers, generally speaking—I was on a call the other day with someone, I said, "Never judge a swimmer by their physical body, the presence of." Because once you get that same person into the water, they're like, "whoa, what is going on?" To someone else, it could be Ms. October or Mr. November or December. They look beautiful. They've got this awesome body. They get in the water and I don't think the water's their best friend. I mean, they're clubbing it, they're beating it. And I think it really comes down to efficiency. So it's effort, but at the same time, it's being super efficient with every stroke you take in the water. Because water is 800 times more dense than air. And in that high density environment, efficiency and technique is really, really, really critical.

Vanessa Ronksley: Yeah, I think that's exactly what's going on with a lot of people—that their efficiency decreases in place of moving their arms faster or something like that. You know, they increase their cadence, but then they don't necessarily pay attention to that efficient, strong stroke.

Kurt Madden: And the other thing for our listeners, I think this is a really key takeaway. And I think I experience this often when working with people—if they're swimming and if they're swimming okay, or they're not a very good swimmer, this is sometimes what they'll tell me: "Coach, I'll just keep swimming five or six days a week. Just give me more volume." And I'm like, "You're sure about this?" Then I kind of go back to, "Well, if we look at two different examples of you improving your technique and swimming three to four times a week versus five times a week, and no one is kind of assessing or giving you feedback, which do you think is going to do better? Are you going to swim better?" If you have—oh, yeah, you kind of brought up a good point. So just for our listeners, someone, another set of eyes on what you're doing, regardless of where you are in this continuum of swimming, it can be a little humbling. We just put our egos aside, and I know that when I've traveled, my beautiful wife is taking videos of me. She goes, "Oh, let me show you something." I'm like, "What is it?" "Oh, my goodness. Really? You sure that's me?" "Oh, absolutely. I tracked you all the way, and the pictures don't lie." So just know that. But I wanted to bring that point up early into this podcast because I think it's real important for our listeners to understand that.

Vanessa Ronksley: Yes. And sometimes, even if you don't have the opportunity to get some eyes on you in the pool, even just videotaping yourself and having a look at what you are actually doing is massively eye opening because you think that you're doing a certain thing, and then when you look at it, you're like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm totally not doing that." So the way that we think about what we're doing and then the execution is definitely something that a lot of people can take note of, even just on their own with a video. So I think we're gonna head over to our workout session number two, which is ladders. Now, these often kick off assessments week with a bang for some people. For other people, they show up at different times in their schedule. So with ladders, generally, you're going to start long and get shorter with each step down the ladder. But just a quick reminder for those of you that are watching, this might not reflect your exact session—TriDot is going to adjust this uniquely for each athlete. So, Kurt, what is the physiological purpose of this workout and what does it look like in general for each type of athlete?

Kurt Madden: Yeah, it's funny you say that, Vanessa, because I know some people—this is what they say: "I don't like ladders. I'm afraid of heights." I'm like, "Wait a minute. No, we need to go there." So this is—and again, to kind of use—this is a huge, this is a massive workout. And why? If you take the same data that you see here on the screen, it would almost be like doing a running workout where we're going to start off with—you know, instead of 500 yards of swimming, we're going to run 2,000 yards on a track, and then we're going to drop down and do, say, instead of 400 yards swimming, we're going to do 1600 yards. So this ladder, this progression, you're going down in distance. I think it's important to understand your first attempt, this one by 500 is going to be key. Mindset is critical. A good warm up is very, very critical. Then thinking through and visualizing yourself that what it says is, "I've got 500 yards, I build to zone four." So the first question I often hear: "Coach, when should I start to build to zone four?" It really kind of depends upon how you feel. Possibly at 300 yards or 325. But the key is you're kind of self assessing. I go back, Vanessa, to the EQ—you're going to go out a little bit easy. You get to 100, you get to 200, you get to 250. Now you can look at it to say, "I've got 150 yards yet. I don't want to pull the trigger right now. I want to wait a little bit longer." So when you're fresher, you should be able to hopefully hang on that somewhere in the ballpark—I would say, generally speaking of about 300 yards or even 325—"Okay, I need to increase it. I want to be able to get to zone four." So just when I finish, I am there. The physiology—I go back to what I said. What are you doing? You're starting off at zone two. Great for the mitochondria. You're taking it up a notch. You're going to go through zone three. Now you're at zone four. You've got max VO2, you've got again your ATP. You've got those fast twitch, maybe oxidative muscle fibers—not the glycolytic for 10 or 12 seconds, but you've got about 90 seconds to go. That's huge. And then all of a sudden you're done with that. As you look at this workout, there's two ways to do it. You could simply say, "I want you to sit at the wall for 30 seconds." Or you know what we should do? Swim an easy zone two. Go zone two. That's an active recovery. Why are you doing that? Well, you're getting more volume in. It's kind of like a track workout. Instead of going 2,000 yards and just stopping, "I want you to jog and walk an easy 200." What are you doing? You're getting the blood to circulate, you're replenishing that ATP. You're getting the lactic acid out, you're getting your batteries charged because now, instead of taking a big bite of the apple, we're going to reduce that down a little bit. And now we're only going to go 400. So same progression there. As you start to drop down, it gets a little bit easier, but all of a sudden, "Wait a minute, the AI has this 3 by 300, zone four with paddles. What's happening there?" Well, you increase the surface area, it puts more stress on your body. The beauty of the way this is really set up, though, is you've swum a 500, you're building to zone four. You've done the 400 at zone four. Your body is warmed up, your mind is warmed up, you've got the endorphins kicking in, you've got the adrenaline kicking in. And now we go for the three 300s. When you look at paddles, you got more surface area. You should be able to swim a little bit faster. But you've got to pace yourself to say, "I got to read it again. It says 1, 2, 3. I've got to get those in." And I know that's very important. Once you're done with that, you're going to go back to recovery zone two. Zone two again—your mitochondria, you're going to flush out that lactic acid. Then you come down to the 4 by 200. And the 4 by 200 is cool. Why? You get 175 yards at zone two and then you really pick it up there in that last 25. So that's good. Very similar to a track workout. It would be like going four times 800. Control the effort, control the effort. The last 200, "I want you to pick it up right there." And then again you do the 4 by 100 at zone one. Zone one means stay in zone one, go nice and easy, do a little bilateral and maybe—Vanessa, what you said—"Hey, let's put on that pull buoy." You want a full recovery. Why are you doing that? I see what's last, what's left on the table, what's left in your lane. It's called dessert. It's the 100 fast. And what that means is you've got to have that ATP, you've got to have the mindset. You've got geared up, you're ready to go, you've already taken the temperature and do your best to go as smooth as possible for 100 yards.

Vanessa Ronksley: This is a doozy of a workout. Just looking at this—and this is usually on a Monday for most people, right? Like, the first thing, if you swim first thing in the morning, look what you have to wake up to. Nothing like starting your week off with something like this to get you all revved up to go. I have a follow up question here. I'm just curious about—these rests are very short. Like 20 seconds at the wall is super short. And then we pop right into that zone two. What is the physiological benefit? You did talk about going to zone two, but after 20 seconds and you've just done three by 300s at zone four and you only have 20 seconds, what is going to happen to your fitness if anything? If you do actually go right after that 20 seconds, you're still breathing really, really hard and then you go straight into zone two. Is there any benefit that might even transfer over to the bike or the run or anything like that?

Kurt Madden: Yeah, and that's a very good point. I think when you compare swimming to biking to running, if I use kind of the two different extremes, it's very evident that in swimming you don't need as much recovery. You're thinking, "Well, why? Why is that?" Well, when you think of the amount of musculature that you're using, the stress on your body, swimming is actually pretty forgiving. So you have a shorter break there. And then again, when you look at running, if we go back to the running workout, if you went 2,000 yards all out, whoa, you cannot jump back in because why—you've used so much ATP, you use that energy that your body can't recover. So really, when you look at high intensity training with a 20 second gap, I think that is really, really important to understand. You've got to use your mind, you've got to overcome that. So you've got to be calm, you've got to maintain that rhythm, that cadence in your stroke and do your best at the same time. I can tell you for sure if you're not a very strong swimmer and/or you're starting swimming again, my recommendation—if I was there with you in person because I care about you and I want you to be successful—if you look at the entire workout, if it's one hour, I would shave it back to about 30 minutes and try to do the bulk of the main set or even 40 minutes. The other thing too, if you know for sure you were not recovered in 20 seconds, between us on this call, it is okay to go to 30 seconds or 40 seconds. The other thing you have to ask yourself: "Did I push that last repetition a little bit too hard?" I would say honestly that if you can't reach zone four, stay in at least zone three with a little bit more recovery. Also understand that one good workout doesn't make you super, super fast. So we've got to play the long game. We've got to look at a block of training from eight to 12 weeks. But if you can just get through week one and then week two and we always say, "Hey, when I'm only at 30%, I'm going to give 100%" or "I want just to be 1% better." If you go back and check those workouts, just like people in the off season, you know, we're in the development phase, "I want to be a better runner." It's not the one math shuttles workout that's going to do it. You've got to continue to do the cruise intervals and everything else that goes with that. So be patient with yourself and give yourself a little bit of grace.

Vanessa Ronksley: I really, really appreciate what you just said because we're not all coming from the same place in terms of our background and our proficiency in swimming. So not only is this session called a ladder in terms of us moderating the amount of distance that we're doing at each interval, but you've just given us a ladder as to how to maybe take a step up here or there from one ladder to the next ladder session and maybe give yourself some grace and giving yourself a little bit of a longer break. And then the next time you go to that ladder session, you can take one step up and reduce it by five or 10 seconds to see that progression that you're actually having. So I just love what you did there, Kurt. I'm not sure if you noticed that you did it, but you gave us a ladder within the ladder, so that's perfect. Right on point with coach Kurt Madden here. And we're going to switch over to one of the sneakiest workouts that exists, I think in swimming. And this is the building hundreds. You tend to start out nice and controlled and then everything just gets faster and faster. Now don't worry if your building swim session does look a little bit different than the one that's on screen as TriDot does personalize the structure and intensity to your profile. So, Coach Kurt, what can an athlete expect in terms of patterns for this workout and what is the physiological purpose?

Kurt Madden: Very good. I like this workout. I mean, I like all of them. So just give me one of them and I'll do it. There's no pushback. I'm already in. So the building hundreds—you want to look at this workout again. If I use the kind of the analogy or the comparison, this is like getting on a track. And as I'm looking at the workout that we have here, you want to get your warm up in. So do your drills, get your heart rate up again. Fueling for this session is key. I know for sure with this session, just like the other ones, I'm going to shift my fueling plan because I need glycogen. I definitely need that. Maybe some electrolytes too, just to make sure. But when you look at the purpose of this workout, it's going to give you ample time to definitely get warmed up. Even when you look at the five rounds. But it forces you to swim fast. It's just almost like a fartlek workout that you're kind of—"go, just okay, go boom, go boom, go boom." The other thing too, when you look at the physiology, I sound like a broken record, but it's the truth. You have time for recovery, you have time for max VO2, you have time for your ATP to really develop and be enhanced. And also know that at the end of the day the mental aspect is going to be key. So that's an added bonus right there. So when you look at this, it can be a little overwhelming. It's like, "Okay, if I read this correctly, it says I'm going to do five 100s, but I'm going to do five rounds." So you can do the math very quickly. Five times five, I'm doing actually 25. Yes, you are correct. The other thing too is I have learned that it's important to have this nearby at the end of the lanes visually so you can see exactly what you're doing. Also, it gives you a chance to actually work on your rate of perceived effort and your pace. Because when you're trying to go from zone one to zone five, a little bit of zone four, you're kind of bouncing around. And again, if I go back to a track workout, it would be like if you run a track workout and a coach had a whistle and they would just tell you, "zone one," that means one whistle. "Zone four" means four whistles. "Zone five" means five whistles. You have to adapt on the fly. And I think that's another thing because a lot of people struggle with pacing. And I think when you're doing this building 100 workout, you've got to look at the whole workout to say, "Wait a minute, objectively, I've got time to recover, I've got time to kind of shift my gears." And you might say, "Well, why do I need that?" Well, if you've ever been in a triathlon, it's kind of nice to have more than one speed, because when you have one speed, you can get around an obstacle, you can get around a person. If you need to stop, you can start again. And I think those are of great value to you as you're looking at that. So this Building 100 workout, again, a game changer. And I know in doing this again and again and again, just if I look at the 100 at zone five, if a person did that over a period of time, you look at your critical swim speed, the stress you put on your body at zone five, when you actually get into a 400 yard segment or a 200 yard segment, that is going to really pay dividends because your physiology has adapted to the change.

Vanessa Ronksley: That is excellent. You answered so many of my questions in there. And I think one of the reasons why I love this workout so much is that it does mimic that race kind of feeling when you're just cruising along and then you're coming up—"Oh, I have to switch now to zone four." And it's like, "Oh, I'm passing somebody." And so if you can actually put yourself in that race situation and feel like "I am passing somebody," it just gives you a little bit of extra pep in your step. And I actually do like doing this—if someone does have the opportunity to be in a long course pool, doing this workout in a long course pool is really, really fun because it does feel like a race situation. Now I'm curious about breathing strategy and how you might work in some different types of breathing patterns as the intensity increases. What would you say to some athletes about that?

Kurt Madden: Sure. And I think that's a very common question. The question that I often hear is, "When should I breathe and how should I breathe?" Well, I want to encourage everyone, if you haven't been to pool school yet, this is your golden opportunity to say, "I think Coach K and Vanessa, they have piqued my interest. I think I should go to pool school because I understand the importance of breathing and balance." So let's start right there. When you look at the physiology, you've got to ask yourself, "Okay, I'm in the pool. It's an atypical type event or activity, different than when you're on a bike or different when you're running because you have ambient air." When you're in the pool, you have to really think about, "Okay, you're in this highly dense environment. I'm cruising right along, my face is in the water." I found the most important thing, that people that are very efficient, they're on autopilot. They're always exhaling. I think when we run, we actually exhale. I think we're on the bike, we actually exhale. So rule number one for everyone on this call, next swimming session—I want to challenge you in a good way. Just focus on one thing. I want you to exhale. Exhale. And exhale. Why do you do that? Well, what's happening within the body with your physiology? I'm going to guess your heart rate is going up. When your heart rate goes up, you're kind of pushing the envelope. You become what we call hypoxic. Hypoxic is really without air. How do you know you're becoming hypoxic? It's a very strange feeling that overcomes you. It's like, "Wait a minute, my feet start to feel a little bit numb," and then "my legs start to feel a little bit numb." "But wait a minute, I'm swimming." There's no oxygen down in that part of your body, and you've got a lot of lactate there. So we have got to really exhale from start to finish. And I'm talking about really blowing the air out your nose and your mouth. Why do you do that? You look at research. Your central nervous system kind of likes when you can do that. Plus, if you're emptying your lungs out, you actually just turned your head to breathe. All you need to do is inhale. And just that split second to inhale is key. It's not really a debate, but I think, generally speaking, this is what I share with people. If you watch the pros when they swim, you look at Lucy Charles, you look at anybody, they're typically breathing every stroke when they're racing. Why do they do that? When you look at the physiology, they're getting more air in and more air out frequently. So the heart rate is going to stay a little bit lower. Just like if you were running. We don't take three steps and then blow your air out. Hold your breath and run. No, no. If we're doing a 5K, hey, we're just breathing. Our respiration rate is very, very high. So that's what I would recommend. Some people, depending on their technique and their preference, I think bilateral breathing is another great option. Now, if you look at the pros and cons, delaying that by another two or three seconds when you go to the other side, all of a sudden now you're saying, "Wait a minute, I'm not releasing the CO2 that's developed in my lungs. I'm going to get a little bit of a spike in heart rate." However, I think when you look at a balanced stroke, the beauty of bilateral breathing is you don't have this blind spot because you're always breathing on one side. You can actually see where that other arm is entering. Also in open water in the race, you can see to the left, you can see to the right. So you want to be able to shift to bilateral. I would say if you're not breathing on the right, which might be your preferred side, or the left, bilateral is a better option. I wouldn't encourage everyone to take five or six strokes and then breathe. And from the physiological side, what will happen? Unless you're just really just want to cruise at zone one, your heart rate is really elevated and you don't need that right now because again, "I think it's a swim. Oh, wait a minute, there's a transition. Then you have the bike and a transition." In other words, we don't want to burn all of our matches on the front end. And I think if we can manage that heart rate early on, it's key. Also, Vanessa, to go right into this—the first 150 yards, all I want the athlete to focus in on is exhaling and balance. Breathe and balance. You know, when I'm in Kona and I work with people in the water, just breathe and balance. Don't worry about being at threshold. You don't need to be at threshold. It's not a sprint triathlon. However, if you are racing in those shorter distances instead of long course, you've got to be ready and your training should really mirror that. But if you're in a 750 meter swim and you are competitive, you've got to align your sessions and/or your race rehearsals to say, "Hey, I've got to get out of the gate very quickly."

Vanessa Ronksley: Yeah. Oh, that makes so much sense. Thank you for sharing that. I feel so lucky to be getting this personal—I feel like it's a one on one conversation with me and coach Kurt getting all these master tips for swimming. So I really appreciate the knowledge that you're bringing to myself and to our audience as well. We're going to slip into our next workout which is descending hundreds. This is similar to building, but not quite so. As we walk through this descend set, remember, for those of you watching that your pacing targets and interval layout might be different than what we're showing on the screen because it's based on your metrics. So it's personal to you. Now, Coach Kurt, what can athletes expect in terms of patterns? And what is the purpose of these intervals?

Kurt Madden: Yeah, that's a great question. I know that I use this phrase "descending" not only with athletes and swimming, but I do it in biking and I do it in running. And the obvious question is, "Well, can you drill a little bit deeper? Why am I doing this?" And I think, as I've learned through the years with your own physiology and/or your muscle memory, that the more you can teach your body to descend—that muscle memory, not just one workout, but you do it again and again and again with those various repetitions—I want the light to go off and the athlete say on race day, "Wait a minute, I don't even need to think about it." "My legs just want to go fast or my arms just want to go fast." And I think too, when you look at a swim session, you've got to be able to descend. You've got to be able to do that. Even if I go on the bike and there's a 3 by 10, I would tell people on zone four, "I want each one your power to go up a little bit more." Same thing when they run. If they look at a longer run and they've got, say a long run for an hour and a half and they've got a 3 by 6 in the run, I tell them "I want each one a little bit faster." So you're descending. Now, if you really drill down in swimming, it's a little bit more sophisticated. But I'll give you a couple of examples. If we see here on the workout, it says we're going to do five 100s, descend one through four. Then really what that means, if we start off, let's say, give or take, that if we start off on the first one at 1:45, the next one should be somewhere in the ballpark of 1:44, 1:43. So it's an RPE, your rate of perceived effort. You're just going to tweak it a little bit. So ideally, you're going to go 1:45 to 1:43 to 1:41 to 1:39. Each one progressively is going a little bit faster. How much of a gap? The gap should be one or two seconds. Now, if someone is struggling, where they start off at 1:45, then they go down to 1:30, then they go to 1:20 and they're back to 1:40 again, or 1:45, we're going to say timeout. In fact, if I was working with someone in person and they were on the third one and they had a huge gap, we're going to back it up and start it over again. So it's very important to understand you're going to do that progression again. The physiology—you're in zone four, you're going to be able to do that, be at threshold. You've got your max VO2, you've got your ATP, you've got all those good things going on. What's nice though is you get a little bit of break. Now we could have you sit there at the wall and just recover, but now what are we going to do? We're going to take a short break and then we jump right back into it. Instead of going at zone four, now we're going to push the bar at zone five. You might say, "Well, why are we doing that?" Well, now you're only going 50 yards the other way to really maximize your max VO2. When I look at this 2 by 50, what I would have that person do is say, "Okay, you're going to go 50 yards on your first length. I only want you to breathe twice. You're going to blow your air out very slowly, but only breathe twice. Going back—when you come back on the last 25, go ahead and breathe every stroke." You might say, "Again, what's the purpose of that?" Well, let's go back to what we've talked about. You're elevating your heart rate. You're really going to create much more lactate. You're going to elevate your max VO2 much more. When you can swim a distance and only breathe twice. Also keep in mind, when you look at that rest interval, it's a 30 second break as compared to 20.

Vanessa Ronksley: That is a very good breakdown. Thank you for doing that for us. I actually did not realize that the descending 500, you were supposed to start set one in zone four. I've been doing these workouts for years and I've always been like, "Okay, the first one's gonna be like, you know, upper zone two and then I'll go to zone three and then I'll go to zone four and then upper zone four and then zone five." So clearly I've not been working this properly. And I need to put more effort into my first descending set. So thank you very much for unpacking that for us. Now, this might be an interesting question to ask because I know a lot of athletes, if they are newer to swimming, they might not utilize the clock. And in every single swimming pool, there are clocks everywhere. There's sometimes digital clocks, there's sometimes the clocks that have the different colored arms on them in 15 second increments. Is this a good workout to use a clock for, one, and two—if they do use the clock, how do they know that their descent pattern is on point by using that clock?

Kurt Madden: Yeah, I think that's a very, very valid question. I can remember Vanessa, once upon a time, we didn't have something called Garmin, right?

Vanessa Ronksley: Yes.

Kurt Madden: We didn't even have Timex. Right. All you really had was you have to look at the lap clock. And now we have digital clocks. So I know some people, they really struggle with seeing the clock and/or you might have sunlight or depending upon the arrangement, you just can't see that clock. The beauty of having something on your wrist, it's going to be pretty close to that. So I think typically speaking, if you go at a traditional lap clock or pace clock, you know, kind of the mantra is, "Okay, on the top." "On the top," I think is really, really good because you know that's going to be on the very top, that's going to be at the 12 or it's going to start, it's going to be at the 60. "On the bottom" means you're on the bottom. I find really that I think this is important because it gives you some feedback and it's like pacing. It would be like if you're doing a track workout and if you didn't have the clock, if you were doing 400 repeats on the track, isn't it nice to hear the coach say "40 seconds"? What does that tell you? That means you kind of went out, right? You want to be able to go 1:20, so you've got to maintain that. So it kind of controls your pacing. I think the biggest value I found with pace clocks and all sincerity, I'm a little bit OCD because I'm sharing my shortcomings. If I'm going to do a critical swim speed, I do my best to get to the pool when there's very few people there in the inside lane next to the pace clock. Why? I know that if I can turn and see that pace clock at the 100, at the 200, it doesn't matter at the 300 because I know I've got to bring it home. It will help me control versus "I'm kind of swimming blind. I'm just doing that." I know some people use the form goggles, and that's a whole different podcast on that. But being able to control your effort, I think is really, really key. And then also in all fairness, you've got to be able to do your best to be super, super, super disciplined on your rest interval, because 20 seconds doesn't seem long. But I think when you're in a rhythm and you're a tempo, doing a couple sink downs—sink downs are your bread and butter, everyone. That's another free bonus right here with this podcast. Do those sink downs. And you know what? If you're mentally geared up, 20 seconds, you're good to go. Push off that wall. Get started. And the most important thing is exhale, exhale and exhale.

Vanessa Ronksley: Right? Yes. I know personally when I started using the clock, which I prefer to my watch, because if I'm looking at my watch, I'm moving my head around and I don't want to do that necessarily while I'm swimming. But using the clock, I found it gives you something to strive for and then it allows you to see tangibly between each 25 or 50 meters if you're actually staying on pace or if you're getting slower or getting faster. So using the clock is like that just next level. If you're looking to move your swim to the next level, then this is a tool that you have in every swim location for the most part. And it's something that can really make a big change in your session. Just like you said, if someone's telling you when you're on the track that you have to be there by this time or you're at this amount of time and you're trying to beat that for your next round, it just gives you a little bit of an extra push to get that done. So I really think that that's a valuable asset that maybe some people might want to have as part of their toolkit. So here we are. Our next and final session is a classic. No matter how you look at it, kind of looks simple on paper, but it's incredibly effective. And as we're going to be walking through this threshold here, your pacing targets and interval layout might be different again, based on your own metrics. So, Kurt, for these threshold intervals, what can an athlete expect to see? And what's the physiological purpose here?

Kurt Madden: Yeah, yeah, that's great. I think again, I know this workout very well. It's probably not my most favorite, but it's sometimes like eating kale. It's going to be good for you, right?

Vanessa Ronksley: I do like kale, for the record.

Kurt Madden: Yeah. I'm not telling you it's comfort food, but know that it's good for you. So just suck it up and just say, "Hey, I'm going to do myself justice here." Yeah. When you look at the threshold 200, 300, 200, 300, it varies like you said, Vanessa, it varies from athlete to athlete. Keep an eye—the beauty with our platform and all due respect, I have learned that 80% or 90% of the time, it's on point. So it's looking at your stress, it's looking at your fitness, it's looking at readiness and do your best to just embrace it. So when you look at this, it is right there in front of you. It is at threshold. You are at zone four. You do have some recovery built in, but you know the main gig here is going to be high intensity training. So we talked about mindset—you know that this is going to be a tough workout. So just, "Hey, we got to get her done." What about your fueling? Yes, you've got to definitely get some fueling before the session. So having everything dialed in when you start, you're going to get a good warm up in. What's nice about this set—right away after you get the warm up and you look at the main set. "Okay, what's a 3 by 50, 3 by 50 at zone five?" "Why in the heck would we do that?" Well, we want to get your heart rate up. We want to make sure that your muscles, your connective tissue, everything is stretched. You've got all systems, you're good. That's a little bit tough, but keep in mind it's only 50 yards. It's not 500 at zone five. It's just down and back, down and back, down and back. On my screen, I'm looking at—Vanessa, it's a 25 second break. That's pretty substantial. So you've kind of taken the temperature. You're toned up. "Okay, now you look at this, it's 4 by 150." "Okay, what's happening here?" Give or take, it might be 2 minutes and 10 seconds, 2 minutes and 20, maybe 2:30. I'm using that fast twitch oxidative. I'm tapping into those. I'm looking at my ATP. If I do this once and I do it twice and I do it three times and I do it four times, "Whoa, I am good to go." But this is a challenging workout. So you look at your next one, you're right back into 2 by 50. Now, keep in mind, you're in the pool. You're not doing a session with running, so you can handle that stress. A little bit of an overload, but then you come back and now it's reduced from a 4 by 150 down to a 3 by 150. So the reduction in time reduces the normalized training stress on you. And then you get that, then you come right back and you do 3 by 50 at zone five. Why? You want to maintain that speed, you want to maintain that good rhythm in your stroke. And now here's your special time of the workout. You've gone from three 150s to two 150s, and now you're down to one. So it's almost like a ladder, really, when you think about the way this is set up, it's like, "Wait a minute, I've got some confidence. I've done three, I've done two." And you got to be like a little puppy dog and get into your grit. Say, "I'm not giving up." "I can do six lengths and it's just one length at a time." You've got your 150 and you know what—"Oh, wait a minute, we're almost done." But these little 2 by 50s at zone five, "I can do this because I've come so far." And then "I get a nice 500 at zone one." That is huge. Why? You're flushing out the lactic acid, you're enhancing the mitochondria, you're recovering, you're just again, a little bit of a cool down there. So like I said, this doesn't warm hearts, but I know for sure you've got to put your head down, you've got to be disciplined, you've got to have the integrity for you. And you've got to say, "I want to be a better swimmer." If I'm focused on breathing, I've got a good rhythm going. And I do this workout again and again and again and again and again, chances are you're going to do well.

Vanessa Ronksley: Yeah, this is definitely one of those ones where you look at it the night before and you're like, "Oh, gosh, this is going to be a challenge." But something that I really, really love about the TriDot platform is that it doesn't give you anything that you cannot handle because it's constantly looking at your residual training stress from the day before and the week before. And so it will make adjustments if adjustments need to be made. And so if it says that you can do it, well, you better just go and do it. That's just how it is. The data says you can, so go ahead and execute it. So I tend to go into that session with that mindset. "Well, it says I can, so obviously I can, so just get her done." But what I'm wondering, as you're progressing through these intervals, how does technique typically deteriorate as these sets progress, and how can an athlete correct this? And I mean, this question kind of goes for any of the workouts that we've discussed where there might be technique deterioration. So what can an athlete do to try and make sure that they're going forward with each of their reps in their sessions with the best technique possible?

Kurt Madden: Yeah, and again, if someone is doing it on their own without any help and you don't have someone with you, you have to be a little bit subjective and objective. I think all of us can feel when you're losing form. I've seen this with athletes, even myself, for example, if I go and do—if I'm in kind of the heart and soul of the season and I'm doing a full Ironman, and I've run for two hours and 45 minutes, and three hours later, I go into even a recovery swim session, not a speed session. And I can't even maintain zone two. I typically just have to call that. So I would say this for our listeners—this is quality over quantity, that all of us are going to reach a point where you lose technique. And you have to know when that is starting to happen. And it's better even though you have a workout that might be an hour, if you've kind of touched on it. But if you're just coming back, it's better to go 30 minutes or 40 minutes so you can maintain form as you're going through the workout. If you need to fudge a little bit, it's okay, give yourself a little bit more time to recover, get the ATP back to hold that form. And I think also mentally it's focusing in on developing that rhythm and knowing what's important. And that's why we have pool school, because your functional freestyle is enhanced. I don't want to say much more, but I know it's just night and day because really once you lose technique, it doesn't matter—you can be giving 120%. But let's be honest. If we look at swimming stroke, if we look at swimming dynamics, just like with running, if your cadence isn't in that sweet spot, if your stride length isn't there, if your oscillation, if you're bouncing all over the place, "Whoa, shut it down." And again, if I was there in person, I've coached long enough to tell people, "No, you're done for now. And you know what, tomorrow's another day." And then try to pinpoint what patterns are we seeing. Was it a mindset, was it a fueling problem? Was it just you're not having your day. There's a lot of things that come into play, but trying to give it back to the athletes to do some reflection, do a little diary to say, "Hey, we need to make some adjustments." And sometimes it's important to look at the TrainX score for the workout. But if you didn't get a narwhal or didn't get a 90 and your pacing was really off, but you know in your heart and your soul that you just did your very best and you strive for excellence, give yourself a little pat on the back, kiss your brain, say, "You know what, I'm perfectly fine with that." Because I have learned there's multiple metrics—sometimes even running, I think we've all—deviating a little bit. But you can appreciate this. "Was that a satellite issue? Because my pace didn't change at all. It said there was a 30 second gap. It's okay." Or you're even on the trainer without ERG mode and you've got to go to zone four. I know when I do those threshold intervals on Tuesday, I've got to get through zone three of those gosh darn spin ups for a minute. I'm trying to sit in this little window and it's like bouncing all over. I'm like, "Don't go there. How can it shift that much?" So it's giving yourself a little bit of self grace.

Vanessa Ronksley: It's cool down time. Thank you everybody for sticking around. Today's question is one that I hear all the time. So it definitely has a need for the spotlight. So I'm grateful to one of our TriDot athletes, Ali Al Turahi, who has asked for us to answer here on the pod. So are you ready for it, Kurt?

Kurt Madden: Let me check my goggles. I think they're steaming up a little bit. I want to make sure they're still on. So these are opportunity goggles, right. So I got to bring my game. Let's do it.

Vanessa Ronksley: Okay, let's go. So Ali is asking: "For the swim training, I often see 'drill, SL, drill choice.' Do I get to choose a drill myself, or is it referring to something else?"

Kurt Madden: Yes, that is a very common question. So shout out to you. I hear this very often. And depending upon where you are in the continuum—and Vanessa, all due respect, going back to what you said—if you're doing drills, I have learned, especially through pool school, without fins and your body type, I tell some people, "Really, I'm probably in the same boat just with my body type, and I don't float very much. It's almost futile. I really can't complete the drill without the fins." And then if you haven't gone through pool school, maybe you have a limited knowledge base. But generally speaking, if I had to give kind of my top—can I give maybe my top three, four, or five?

Vanessa Ronksley: Yes, I would love that.

Kurt Madden: Are you sure?

Vanessa Ronksley: Yes.

Kurt Madden: Okay. The first one that I would suggest is going to be really simple. It's an underhand toss. It's just bilateral breathing. Why would you do that? Because I think if you're always breathing on one side, you do have this blind spot. When you go bilateral breathing, it teaches you a lot about just balance. So I think bilateral breathing is really key. The second one that I like, kind of like the threshold 200—it's kind of like kale—is the fist drill. What does that mean? Well, just like it sounds. You kind of make a fist like this, and you really get your elbow up. And why would I do that? Well, I find that people that are very strong in the water and fast, the number one characteristic, if you looked at them underwater with a camera, they've got the high elbow. Why do they have the high elbow? Because they know that they can create a lot of surface area from their fingertips all the way to their elbow. Plus, you engage your deltoid, your trap, a huge muscle group as compared to "Well, I drop my elbow, and I just have my little hands here." So you're going to recruit more muscle mass and musculature. So I would definitely do the fist drill. The third one, I think that's a game changer, is just the fingertip drill. And what that means is you have an elevated elbow, it's nice and high. You're bringing your hand straight through on the top of the water. Why do you do that? Because if your recovery and you're swinging your arms way out to the side, what really is going to happen is your balance is going to get really, really off. So I think those are the three that I would use. For kicking, that's why fins are super cool. For fins, I think is really good. Just try to do like a toe touch. Just boom, boom, boom. Keep your feet together. Because I find that people that maybe have a little hitch in their stroke or they're swimming very slow, they'll roll so far over on their side that their legs actually come apart and they do this scissors kick. And then if you're looking at a video, their body is all over. And the reason it's all over the place, it's a balancing issue that they're having versus toe touch, toe touch, toe touch. And then I would close this out with—and some people might not like this—breathe on your non preferred side. Because have you heard this question? "I don't breathe on the left side." "Oh, really? You don't?" "Okay, well, you might want to start because there will come a time when you have to go on your non preferred side, especially in a race. The sun, you're trying to find a buoy and if you never breathe on—" "That's right. I don't do that." You got to have a growth mindset. It's going to be good for you and I think the more you can do that, you're comfortable in all situations. So those are the ones that I would focus in on and I think if you do all those, n0ot once, not twice or "I don't do drills." I'm really sorry everyone. Everyone is going to do drills. We're a family, we're a community. We know what's good for all of us. And when you look at your return on your investment, it'll be huge on race time.

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