Swim like Ky Hurst

As our ambassadors focus on their Olympic campaigns, our aim is to help you with your training.

Ky Hurst has some of the most important tips and tools to help improve skills, keep your mileage honest and maintain your motivation – especially during the colder months.
 

1. Join a squad

Swimming with a squad is one of the best ways to improve quickly, learn new skills and improve fitness. It is a great way to meet other avid and like-minded ocean swimmers and have fun at the same time.
 

2. Pool training

The best training to do in the pool is your ‘interval training’. Because the environment is controlled you can focus on repetition and quality without nature’s challenges. Here are some specific training elements to include in your pool program:

• Time trialling – This is a good way to boost your confidence before taking part in an actual swim event.

Incorporate time trials, which can range in distance from 750m to 2.5km.

• Sets – Make sure your program mixes up the pace at which you swim. A great skill and advantage to have in open water is the ability to change pace and vary your tempo at different points allowing you to finish your swim off strongly. Examples of sets:

5x400m with 20 seconds rest; 10x200m with 10 to15 seconds rest; 20x100m with 10 seconds rest

• Speed training - Explosive sets helps with speed e.g. 20x50m = 25m hard and 25m easy with 30-45 seconds rest.

• Equipment – Break up the sessions by using hand paddles and a pull buoy during some of the warm up. This is a great way to work on the upper body and save the legs for the main set.  For example, if my warm up is 2km long then I will swim 500 - 800m with my pull gear. I often swim most of the cool down wearing flippers and alternate freestyle and backstroke.

• Warm up and cool down – This is just as important as your main sets to prevent injury and assist recovery. Always include other strokes such as breaststroke and backstroke for variety and to take some of the pressure off your shoulders.
 

3. Open water

Longer distance sessions should be done not only in the pool but, just as importantly, out in the open water. Measuring distances for repetitions and times in open water is more difficult, however this can be overcome by swimming between buoys (if they are present), sighting landmarks and counting your strokes. i.e. 30 strokes easy and 30 strokes fast x 10 repetitions.

Whether training in the open water or a pool it is important to mix up the pace of your swims. I hope this helps and remember that consistency is the key to improvement.

By the way, Ky runs a swim series called the "Great Australian Swim Series" check it out on www.swimseries.com.au

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