Open Water Sighting
This week’s Speedo Tip of the Week comes from Allison Beebe, a coach at First Colony Swim Team. Beebe, whose swimmer Kirsten Groome qualified to compete at the 2008 FINA Open Water World Championships this weekend, offers advice to swimmers when sighting in open water events.
One of the many challenges in open water swimming is swimming straight without the black line to guide you. Sighting is an important aspect of open water swimming. Swimmers should learn to look for their target as quickly and efficiently as possible.
New open water swimmers should practice swimming with “crocodile eyes” every few strokes. As part of your stroke, you should lift your eyes out of the water to look for your target. It is important not to lift yourself too high out of the water, or else your hips will drop.
One drill to help with sighting while in a pool involves a tennis ball and a friend. While your back is turned, have your friend place the tennis ball on the other side of the pool, in a visible, yet secret location (on top of a block, under a kick board, in the water, etc). Your friend should then start you without you knowing where the tennis ball is located. After you push off the wall, give yourself 4 “crocodile eyes” strokes at any point of the lap. Your goal should be to sight the tennis ball while getting to the other end of the pool as quickly as possible. Once you master this, you can do the drill for time and/or reduce the number of sightings that you are allowed per lap.
Older open water swimmer can incorporate sighting into regular sets. For example, in a set of 10 x 50m free, you could sight every six strokes on the odd 50s and every nine strokes on the even 50s. Once you have mastered the technique, can drop the interval. Remember that the two key words in sighting are quick and efficient!
Open water swimming brings a lot of opportunities and several new challenging skills to the sport. Contact your LSC to find out when the next open water race will be held in your area, and make plans to attend!
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