Swimming With (or against) The Flow

Whenever discussing any aspect of swimming in open water, it is imperative to realize that navigation is of paramount importance. Proper navigation is only possible with frequent small adjustments and to do this you need to sight often. Unless the your sighting technique minimally disrupts your swim technique, sighting will slow you down. So before we even touch upon how to swim with or against a current, let's review efficient sighting.

Efficient Sighting

Sighting technique should be practiced in a pool as a drill. Do a minimum of 4 X 25's with 15 - 30 seconds rest between. When you swim these 25's, incorporate sighting into each breath. The most efficient technique is to lift the head just enough to get the eyes above the water line as your arm is recovering, as soon as you get a glimpse of the view, you immediately roll as you extend the arm forward and drop the head back into a neutral position. In other words, you are not breathing when you sight. You are breathing as you normally do, to the side. What this technique does is allow you to lift the head less and keep the body in a glow drag horizontal position. Of course you will not see as much as if you did a water polo type stroke and the whole head and shoulders come up, however you will sight so often that if you miss seeing the buoy on one sighting you will see it on the next or the next etc. The problem with a water polo type of sighting technique is that it makes your legs and lower body drop creating drag. In addition you loose power from your pull since you must apply forces down to keep the head and shoulders up. If you watch the faster open water swimmers in a race you will see that almost all of them are sighting often and keeping the body position fairly horizontal as they swim. Although this may sound difficult and be frustrating at first, after a few sessions you should get the hang of it. Of course in very choppy or wavy conditions it may be necessary to do a few strokes of head up swimming to find your way or even do some breaststroke. It is always better to make sure you are swimming in the right direction than to hope you are.

Very few things are ever perfect. Not earth shattering news. Triathlon conditions in general and open water swims specifically are rarely perfect. As a matter of fact you can almost guarantee there will be some challenges come race day in the swim, prepare for it.

One of the classic races of our sport is the Quelle Challenge in Roth Germany (formerly Ironman Europe). An interesting aspect of this event is that the swim is in a channel and usually has a current in your favor one way and against you in the other. Although most triathlon swims are not in a body of water such as a river or channel (at a time when there is a strong current going in one direction), there are many things to learn form such a severe situation since almost every open water swim has some sort of water flow or movement.

Here are the main categories of water movement:

Downward flow of a river from higher ground, creating a “head or tail” current
Wind sweep in any body of water
Cross current or sweep in a tidal body of water, ocean/bay
Wind chop
Wave action close to shore, this includes what lifeguards refer to as a “puss”, “suck” or “undertow”.


The first three situations are similar in that the net effect is one way you are aided and the other impeded. These conditions are very similar to head and tail winds on a bicycle. This is a relatively easy condition to deal with especially if the flow of the water is directly in front or behind you. If this is the case then your navigation and direction will not be severely affected. In this situation the most important thing to work on is how to adjust your swimming technique for the changes that the flowing water makes as you swim. Let’s take the more challenging situation first:

Swimming directly into a current

If any of you have ever swum in a counter current pool of flume, you have experienced this. It can be very frustrating even for great swimmers since if you stop swimming you will start to go backwards! This is especially difficult for beginners and any swimmer who is uncomfortable in open water to begin with. Having experience and knowledge can go a long way to make your experience enjoyable rather than stressful. Here are our tips for swimming into a current:

Be careful not to go “all out” or too fast at the beginning of the swim. This is a common reaction to feeling the water pushing you back. If the current is so strong that you must go at maximum effort just to make any progress, then the conditions are too severe for your ability. The advice here is to realize you should not swim on this day. Chances are if this is the case on race day, the swim will be canceled or direction reversed. You need to be able to complete the swim, so pacing yourself is essential.
When swimming against moving water, your stroke will be shortened. Do not fight this and try to make the same extension and glide as you would in neutral conditions. Instead increase your stroke rate slightly and that way you are applying power more often. Realize gliding in these conditions is a disadvantage. This is a reason that doing all of your swimming in a counter current pool is not the best thing for your technique. To be a well rounded swimmer you need to be able to handle any condition that you encounter.
Stay calm! As you swim you may notice very little forward progress, stay calm and steady. If after 30 seconds you have not moved or are moving backwards, it is time to get out and call it a day. Do not be ashamed. Even the best swimmers in the world would not be able to do the famous swim around Manhattan if they left at the wrong time and hit some of the sections against the Hudson River’s powerful flow!

Swimming directly with a current

Enjoy! This is free speed, like biking down hill. Some swims that are point to point get the full advantage of this. An example is the NYC triathlon. The organizers time it so that the Hudson is flowing in the direction of the swim. That explains times like 12 minutes for 1500 meters!
In reference to technique it is almost the opposite situation to swimming into a current. Here you can actually exaggerate the glide and get some speed while you rest! Lengthening your stroke and rolling a little extra should be done in direct proportion to how strong the current is.
Be sure to finish the pull to get a nice long stroke.

Wind Chop

Wind chop along with rolling large waves are the toughest conditions to navigate in since many times your body is in a “trough” and no matter how high your head comes up, sighting is impossible. This is another reason why sighting often is so important. You need to sight when you are at the peak of a wave to see your way. Also, the wind chop has the effect of a “washing machine” and the direction of the water changes often.

The best advice for these conditions is to shorten your stroke a little, recover with your arm a little higher (so you do not get your arm pushed back by the waves) and of course keep sighting. It is frustrating, but keep in mind that everyone is facing the same conditions. Use that to your advantage: stay calm and relaxed as much as possible.

Wave action close to shore, this includes what lifeguards refer to as a “puss”, “suck” or “undertow”

This is a situation that often exists in an ocean swim when you are swimming parallel to the shore. What happens is that the water from a wave that rushes into the shore may get channeled back out through a small deep channel at the bottom of the water or next to a rock jetty. The water then will recede very rapidly in a concentrated area. You may be pulled out 25 to 50 meters or even further in a few seconds. The key in this and almost all open water situations is to first have researched the swim enough to know this might happen and second to stay calm. If you have gotten yourself into this situation you are probably a pretty decent swimmer and should simply continue swimming, but at an angle towards the shore. Swimming directly into the undertow is a waste of energy. These undertows are generally not very wide and soon you will be back in some neutral water.

Summary:

Work on navigation first.
Always swim in sight of a lifeguard.
Stay relaxed and have fun!
By Steve Tarpinian (Orginally Published In Inside Triathlon Magazine in May 05)

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