SWIM

Lesley Patterson won the Xterra World Championships again in 2018 and is a five-time off-road world champion. Known as a tenacious competitor, here are her swim tips:

“Swimming is so much about your proprioceptive awareness in order to nail your technique,” she explains. “Slight movements of your wrists, hands, hips, can have massive changes on your stroke. In the off season, I will often do dance classes or martial arts classes to get fluidity of movement and a sense of my body in lots of planes of motion. As triathletes we pretty much move in the forward planes, so we often become uncoordinated doing anything else.”

In terms of equipment, Patterson uses various tools to help her form and endurance:

THE VASA ERGOMETER

“I simply cannot say enough good things about it. It’s strength oriented, you can put mirrors all around you so you can address issues of stroke technique. You can do full-on swim sets at different resistances.” It is an expensive piece of equipment. Some clubs have invested in them. If not, suggests Patterson, “Try getting three or four of your friends to all chip in a few hundred bucks and just share it around.”

INDOOR ROWING MACHINE

“You can focus on major strength and aerobic training here that actually transfers quite well to swimming. Although its slightly different muscle groups, there is a lot of crossover. You can set sessions and have competitions with friends.”

TEMPO SWIMMING

By wearing a device placed inside your cap, you set it to beep and set a stroke tempo specifically for you. “This way you can focus on stroked count and pacing. Add in the snorkel, too, and you can really focus on front end mechanics.”

Patterson also recommends incorporating swim chords and getting a video analysis of your swim stroke.