#904 – How To Not Suck At Swimming #17

Crushing Iron Triathlon Podcast

Mike Tarrolly

Fitness, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 739 Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2026

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Back into the water today with an explosive episode focusing on early vertical forearm and the catch. We get into things like the proper entry, whether or not you should glide, and how to get maximum efficiency from your stroke. We go over tons of typical mistakes by triathletes, including diving too deep with your hand. We look at a few great drills and how they can help you develop better form and be more economical, which is the key to great triathlon swimming. We talk about technique sets vs. swimming long just to build yards. We get into efficiency, anxiety, and how to build confidence in the water. Sometimes it's just hard because you think you're bored. Start slow. Be patient. Build.

Topics:

Snow shoveling tips
Swim as compared to a bike fit
Body position and breathing
Early Vertical Forearm - what does it mean
The catch phase - propulsion
Bad return on investment
Why hand control is underrated
Should you "glide?"
What about entry
Should fingers be spread open?
Diving too deep with the hand
Understanding early vertical forearm "leverage"
Hip driven freestyle
Shoulder over elbow over wrist
Paddle and visual cues
Tarzan drill and swimming with balls
Long sets with rocks
Skulling
24 x 100 or 2400 straight?
Efficiency is speed
Stop obsessing about yardage every time
Maximum efficiency
Economical athletes get the most return
Shorter technique driven swims
Getting faster with better form
Fear and anxiety vs. confidence
Take time to be more efficient
Sometimes it's just hard because you think you're bored.

Mike Tarrolly - mike@c26triathlon.com

Robbie Bruce - robbie@c26triathlon.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	All right.
0:03.0	All right. Good morning, coach.
0:20.8	Here we are.
0:22.1	Hope everybody's doing okay out there.
0:24.6	Did you hear that it got cold?
0:27.2	Oh, yeah.
0:28.3	I'll just check it.
0:29.3	I didn't know if you heard, but it got cold.
0:32.3	And people got snow and people got ice and pools are closed.
0:36.9	Every, every traffic. It's, you know, again, timely for our podcast. They will go into it here in a minute closed every every traffic it's you know again timely for our
0:39.3	podcast today we'll go into it here in a minute but yeah it's uh it's a cool brisk january 27th the year
0:45.5	2006 welcome aboard everybody you're listening to the crushing iron podcast this is episode 900 and
0:53.5	four yeah and thank thank goodness people told, because I certainly haven't been outside. I was going to ask you, like, if you know, you said you didn't get any snow. So I mean, like, you're probably like, yeah, this is like, you know, just, I mean, we got like 10 inches and they didn't go to school yesterday because it was, I think, like negative 15 and the roads are still but they're back at school today to thank god but yeah it was a
1:14.1	it was a I think, like, negative 15.
1:13.3	And the roads are still, but they're back at school today to thank God.
1:15.1	But yeah, it was a, it was a little bit much.
1:16.8	Yeah, I was kind of bummed. We didn't get any snow out.
1:18.1	It's just, you know, brutally cold and blah.
1:22.6	All the sun's out today, so I can take that.
1:25.6	Yeah.
1:26.1	And it's, I seriously, I believe that, like, online, like, it's like, in my opinion, if you can get sunshine,
1:35.2	I would take sunshine and negative 10 over cloudy and 10.
	...

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