Your Core And Posture In Swimming

[Source: East Coast Cycos newsletter, in Tri-Rudy newsletter, January 27, 2010]

"Core Stability": The buzz-phrase of the 00's

The buzz-phrase in the fitness world for the last decade has been Core Stability. Most of us realise that core stability is important for our swimming but are unsure how to tune into it and how to improve it. In this article we're going to take a deeper look at how to do just that.

We're going to use three simple exercises to help:

1. Stretching Through Your Core
2. Squeezing Your Butt
3. Swimming Proud

A Strong Core

We know that a good swim stroke is fluid and relaxed right? Well, that's only partially true. Your arm action and your kick action should be nice and relaxed yes. But your core should be strong and engaged when you swim. This is a bit of a paradox about swimming - all the time you're trying to be relaxed and fluid with your stroke you need to be strong through your core - all the way from your glutes to your upper spine.

Having a strong stable core makes you more torpedo-like so you spear through the water in a straight line. It also helps connect your arm strokes to your core, allowing you to use your whole body to drive your arm propulsion, not just your small shoulder muscles.


Visualise some licorice stretched between your pelvis and rib cage.

Exercise 1. Stretching Through Your Core

To engage your lower core try this visualisation the next time you swim.

Think about your pelvis and your rib cage. Imagine you have a piece of floppy elastic or licorice attached at one end to your pelvis and the other to your rib cage. If you stretch tall through your core, bringing your rib cage away from your pelvis, you can make the elastic stretch and be tight.

As you swim, stretch tall through your core and keep that imaginary elastic tight. This will engage your lower core muscles and strengthen your torso.

Exercise 2. Squeezing Your Butt Muscles

Our second exercise is another visualisation. This time we're focused on the lower-rear core muscles, the glutes (your bum/butt). As you swim, imagine you have a large coin between your butt cheeks and you've got to keep it there! To do that you've got to lightly squeeze your butt cheeks together - a crude thought but very effective none the less!

Don't over do it, a very light clench is enough to engage your glutes, straighten your lower body and connect your legs better to your torso. This exercise also helps you develop better kicking technique.

Think about this regularly when you swim and you will gradually develop neural pathways to your glute muscles, recruiting them for permanent use.

Posture

Computer work is very bad for your posture and that can impact on your swimming.

Many of us have office jobs and spend our days itching to break free from the PC and head out the door to train. But it gets worse. The posture that you adopt in an office job in front of the computer can really hurt your swimming. Unless you are very careful, computer work and other desk jobs cause you to develop a slouched posture with hunched forward shoulders and a bent forwards spine and neck.

You probably remember growing up and your parents or teachers telling you "...don't slouch - shoulders back and chest forward". This is actually excellent advice for your swimming too.

We are taught to think of core stability as being purely about the area around your abdominal and lower back, whereas in fact core stability concerns a much larger area. Your whole core comprises your abdominals, lower back, glutes (i.e. your bum / butt) and your upper back / shoulder region.

As a swimmer, you should be concerned about your level of core stability, especially when it comes to the upper back and shoulder region. Having hunched or rounded shoulders from the way you sit at the office leads to a swinging arm recovery, coming wide around the side rather than over the top of the body. A wide arm recovery causes cross overs, ruins the catch and is one of the leading causes of shoulder injury.


Poor posture leads to poor body roll which causes cross-overs. =(

By sitting slouched at your desk, you are inadvertently shortening the muscles at the front of the shoulder and chest (the pectorals or 'pecs') and elongating those at the back (mid and lower trapezius muscles or 'traps' and the rhomboids). Over a prolonged period of time, this posture becomes ingrained.

So sit-up! Shoulders back and chest forward! Let’s remedy this whilst you read.

Working to strengthen the muscles at the back of the shoulder and stretch those at the front will pay real dividends for your swimming. It will help develop a range of motion around the shoulder joint and through the upper back, and in doing so help prevent cross-overs.

Exercise 3. The YTWL and Swimming Proud!

Swim Smooth employ a simple exercise that is used by many physiotherapists to help tune into this upper-core stability. Perform the "Y-T-W-L" at the pool, in the gym or at home to gradually tune into your upper posture and something called Scapula Retraction.

The YTWL is a basic scapula retraction exercise that can work wonders - even if you feel like a bit of an idiot whilst doing it (!). Do you remember The YMCA? Well, the YTWL is similar! :

What is Scapula Retraction?

Your Scapula are your shoulder blades. The shoulder blades connect your humerus (upper most arm bone) to your collar bone.

Scapula retraction is the action of pulling your shoulder blades together, bringing them towards your spine. This is important in swimming because it stabilises your arm attachment to the body and strengthens your upper core.

When you stand up tall and proud, your scapula retracts to pull your shoulders back. Engage these muscles when you swim and you will develop more power from your stroke.

Run through each of the Y-T-W-L positions shown in the picture in turn, hold each position for about 10 seconds. Stand up tall as you do it but keep your back straight - don't arch it. Hold your stomach in, your shoulders back and chest proudly forwards. We suggest you repeat the YTWL through about 5 times each time.

By doing this exercise before you swim and even before you go to bed at night, you’ll help rectify the bad posture which you may have adopted at work. Over time this will get better and better and may even help to cure common ailments such as a tight neck, shoulder and back muscles.

Why Is Your Posture Important?

Three major reasons:

1. Having better posture keeps you straighter in the water, particularly your arm extension forwards. This means you'll expend less energy travelling down the pool. Being straighter will also avoid cross-overs, which ruin your catch and lead to shoulder injury.
2. Better posture helps develop good body roll. Good body roll gives you a longer more powerful stroke.
3. Having a strong upper core helps attach your arm stroke to your body. This means you start to use the whole of your body and your body roll to drive the stroke rather than just your shoulder muscles. This is a much more powerful way of swimming.

Good posture is one of the keys to Swimming Smooth. Start thinking about yours today.

Should I be Doing Core Work In the Gym?

If you can get to the gym regularly, then yes. Seek some advice from the personal trainers and get them to build and demonstrate a short session tailored to your needs. Mention to them you are interested in improving your upper body posture in particular.

You don't need to do huge amounts of core work to make a big improvement. A structured routine performed little and often can make all the difference to your swimming.

Race Day Fluid and Carbs: More or Less?

[Source: East Coast Cycos newsletter, in Tri-Rudy newsletter, January 13/10)

Race Day Summary

by Mitch Anderson

It’s really hard to get it right. It’s really hard to give people direct advice to get it right. But if you can just understand how the system works, you’ll be a lot closer to almost getting it right. If you could jump on the scales at the end of each hour, the job would be so much easier. So how much fluid with how much carbohydrate and electrolyte? I’m going to try and make this clear in physiological terms and practical terms.

What type of fuel to put in?

Imagine you gut is a filter. It is essentially a water filter, then secondarily an electrolyte and glucose filter. Then, and only then is it a fat and protein filter. The latter items require the most time and remain the most complex items to filter. Indeed they are not required on race day, because you don’t burn much protein (it is not a significant contributor to metabolic requirements) and you have more stored fat than you can use in a day (try a week!). Fat and protein clog the filter, do not use them on race day (unless you’re racing for fun, not performance).

Water never truly clogs the filter. You can drink water almost as much as you like. It even helps when the filter is blocked, by flushing carb and electrolyte through the system. It helps because it dilutes the contents of you gut. The advice on your gel packet reads: “take with water” for this very reason. Water in excess can be a problem with causing bloating the gut, or the other extreme water intoxication (which makes you wee and bleeds sodium from your body). But on the whole, water is helpful.

Carbohydrate and electrolyte do clog the filter, but not as much as fat and protein. There are specific transporters for these substances in your gut membrane. In fact, there are co-transporters which take all three (water, sodium and glucose) in one hit. This is another reason why water should be added to your gut contents when you take a gel. In addition, glucose and electrolyte are vital to maintaining the metabolic output of your muscles. Neither are stored in huge amounts in you body, like fats. This discrete supply means you should focus on their replacement (with water) on race day.

How much fuel to put in?

Everyone has heard the old chestnut about ingesting 1g CHO per kilo of body weight per hour. This is an excellent guide to quantity, but does not take into account the entire story. Other things to note are: electrolyte quantity; mode of ingestion of carb.; exercise intensity; mode of exercise (bike or run); training state; clothing; timing of the race; early/late in the race; length of the event; heat; wind; and topography of the course. There are bound to be a few I’ve forgotten, but these are the main variables.

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH! How do you get it right? Firstly, remember how the filter works. Don’t clog it with protein or fat. I make a concerted effort to load my system with some sodium prior to races (esp. long hot races), so that I don’t have to load my gut with extra salt tablets on race day. Don’t be fooled by these tiny tablets, they can make a big difference to the efficiency of your gut. There remains some controversy about whether or not the gut works better on bolus (large volumes to stretch and activate the membrane) amounts or steady drinking. I tend to use the former, because I have a hardy gut and means I can concentrate on the work at hand. Also, I like to think of my gut as a reservoir, that I can constantly top-up with water or concentrate, rather than let it empty at any stage. Taking gels triggers my mind to take water, because it’s a big load for your gut to handle when you’re at race intensity. The higher your intensity, the more you should be wary about loading carb and electrolyte into your gut. Think about the filter getting finer (therefore more likely to clog) as any of the following variables alter: exercise intensity rises; it gets hotter; topography becomes hillier; it gets windier; it gets later in the race; or it’s a really long race. Essentially all these elements compromise the amount of blood you can send to your gut thereby slowing the rate at which it can absorb fluid.

I guess think, think and think some more about what you are doing with your nutrition. Don’t just shovel it in to a schedule of 75g per hour, then get disappointed when your tummy ends up bloated. It’s a complex organ, which interacts with many elements of your race. So treat it with respect, by thinking about your fluid as you put it in. You should always be questioning yourself about the timing and relating it back to how your body is feeling, not behaving like a robot.

What are the over fill danger signs?

If you’ve never pushed your gut or your body to it’s limit, then this won’t have happened to you during exercise. But everyone has had gastro in their lives! Remember what your stomach feels like when you try to drink that first cup of fluid? That’s your warning sign during exercise, that your gut is not emptying. The sooner you can diagnose yourself as having a gut which is delayed, the sooner you can put into play the elements to unblock the filter. If you spot it early, STOP the carbs and electrolyte, and add a bolus water. You’ll feel the plug pull out and your gut starting to empty again. Slowing down will also allow more blood to be sent to your gut, and aid emptying. The slowing need only be transient (~5-10min), which is a hell of a lot faster than walking on the course at the end of a race. If you don’t feel your gut until it’s quite bloated then slow down, stop drinking and wait. If you feel alright after ten minutes, then start to add water in small amounts. Keep the brakes on your pace until your gut is tolerating fair doses of water.

In summary, it’s not a simple case of following a recipe. Your stomach works in mysterious ways, and has good days and bad. But getting in touch with the ways it works in you is crucial to racing well. I can highly recommend race simulations during training where you trial strategies of fluid and gels. Steer clear of the fats and protein, and you should be able to get close to getting it right!

Gut Threshold Nutrition Principles

[Source: East Coast Cycos newsletter, in Tri-Rudy newsletter, January 13, 2010]

By Mitchell Anderson

My favourite ad on television has just started being re-run after at least 12 long months in absentia! It’s the HBA advert, where a small boy talks about a nasty experience with a crocodile. In a twisted little voice he says: “Crocodile came along. Bit me into parts. I mean pieces. Bit my guts out. Then my head went one way, my legs went the other way!” Minus the crocodile, kinda sounds like doing a triathlon. Your gut is twisted every which way whilst you’re exercising. This article will explain why!

So really, I want to talk about the concept of ‘gut threshold.’ I’m certainly not going to claim this description as my own…but I haven’t heard anyone else talk about it in this manner!! The term ‘gut’ globally describes your stomach and intestine. To start, the key is the word threshold. In VERY simplified terms, the way your gut works is almost digital. It’s either emptying, or it’s not. You either feel distended, or you don’t. It reaches a point (or threshold) and then shuts down. The very worst thing that can happen during an endurance event is for your gut to shut down. No gut equals no nutrition. Absorption of gut contents is affected by three main factors: thermoregulation (relying on heavily on environmental temp.), exercise intensity (relying on your aggro) and concentration of gut contents (relying on what you’re eating/drinking). Largely, it’s good to try and keep the first and last in check, so you can maintain exercise intensity…therby maximising performance.So ! if you can think of gut threshold in a way similar to lactate threshold- you reach a point of deflection on a graph where your lactate begins to rapidly accumulate in the blood. This means you have to slow down. Similarly, if you push your gut over threshold, if exercise continues…you’ll have to slow down. If you get too dehydrated or take in concentrated solutions, then intensity will suffer due to gut shut-down. Blood that was being sent to your gut is being diverted to muscle (for exercise) and skin (for thermoregulation).

So let’s think more about factors effecting gut emptying and why it’s important.It’s really not that difficult to understand why gut threshold is important. The three contributing energy systems during exercise are: fat, protein and sugar. Protein is not a vital piece of the exercising pie, but the others are. Fat is stored in limitless supply, some more limitless than others (!), but you have a finite level of access. Furthermore, it is a difficult substance to absorb across your gut membrane, as it requires processing prior to absorption. In addition, this absorption happens in the intestine, not the stomach. Carbohydrate, on the other hand, is readily absorbed across the stomach membrane utilising swanky co-transporters. These suck up carbohydrate and electrolyte and water, dumping these vital components straight into the blood stream for use. Your brain and exercising muscle demand glucose in mass quantities.

Quite differently from fat, carb’s are in limited supply in the human body (stored as glycogen in the liver and muscle), so any additions are greatly beneficial. If you run out, then you’ll hit the wall.The stomach is the first port of call for anything you pop into your mouth. Food and fluid shoots down your oesophagus and is processed by the stomach first. It mixes and mashes and adds acids to break the food into small parts. I mean pieces. So when you are racing, anything you pop into your mouth that isn’t glucose (or fluid and electrolytes), I think of as a distractor. Essentially I mean protein, fats and fibre, none of which are absorbed across the stomach membrane. There are a few reasons why they’ll behave as distractors. They’ll block the efficient absorption of the essentials, by not being absorbed until the intestine. They act to increase the concentration of the solution inside the gut, thereby dragging fluid from the blood to assist in equalising the concentratio! n. Furthermore, they aren’t needed by the body to perform exercise (there’s plenty of fats running around already, you don’t use much protein, and you sure as heck aren’t worried about your bowel health with the fibre )…so why eat them?The fact remains that palitibility is the main stimulus for eating and drinking during exercise. So whether or not you like the taste of something.

The real trainability of the mind lies in ensuring you stay positive and receptive to carb/electrolyte/fluid, rather than allowing your mind to force you into eating sub-optimal food and drink like bars or other solids. I’m not saying you shouldn’t eat what you like during training (especially on the bike), the intensity during training is much lower and shouldn’t be pushing your gut to the limit. I’m talking about racing and utlising largely liquids, allowing you to load your stomach optimally, rather than adding fibre. Furthermore, using sports drink in the correct concentration (6-8%), and gels (plus or minus salt tablets) will provide you with every nutrient you need in a race spanning 1h to 15h. They will also assist in adding nutrients in the correct concentrations.

So try and push your gut to it’s limit in the same way you push your muscle to it’s limit. Manage it at gut threshold, so you’re always pouring in as much water/carb/electrolyte as your membrane can absorb. Minimise the number of distractors. Maximise your performance. Race well. Stay away from crocodiles