Barbell Shrugged - Episode 21 - Swim! CrossFit+Swimming. Swimming in Competition. Technique, and more w/Lucas Ferreira and Mike McGoldrick

Episode Date: August 15, 2012

Swim! CrossFit+Swimming.  Swimming in Competition.  Technique, and more!

Hey guys, this is CTP with Barbell Shrug. For the video version of all these podcasts, go to our website, fitter.tv. That's F-I-T-R dot TV. Check out the video version of all of them. They're a lot cooler. They're super juicy and tasty. All right, guys. If you're listening to this episode and you're not watching,

make sure to go to fitter.tv later on and watch the video because there's going to be some swimming demonstrations and drills. You got to see it. You can't hear it. I'm serious. i'm like oh man i'm so great like i love everything i like i just like you i like to sit here talking to you just feels good to talk and then like an hour later i'm like i don't want to do anything i just want to lay down that's amazing that or i need more coffee

and then it starts over again i had espresso like seven at night last night and i still went to bed fine yeah see i'm just not not used to it i respond well actually i mean i i still and and the thing is i don't like drinking coffee every day because i like having the stimulus to respond from so i kind of shy away from drinking it uh just so that when i drink, I have a response. Yeah. But if I drink it... It's like a freaking treat to me.

Yeah, but it doesn't get me nearly as bad. I don't stay up late if I drink coffee. I can sort of... I don't really stay up late. I just feel jittery all day long. I used to... I can hear my heartbeat. I feel awesome.

So here's how I went through grad school, all the way through grad school. When I was writing my thesis, I couldn't write. Like, it would be funny. I would be, like, sitting in front of my computer for, like, an hour. And, like, God, I wrote, like, two words. Like, nothing's coming out. And I would take caffeine pills.

And, obviously, when you're taking caffeine pills, you don't know if you're taking only caffeine or there's a proprietary blend and there's some like ephedra or something like that in it i really don't know what was in it but it was funny because kelly hammond who worked like right like on the cubicle right next to me she could tell whenever it hit me because like it was like keyboard keys were flying like oh it really hit you i was like yeah this is going out No, baby. This is happening. It was awesome. Was it a, not an Explode, Jack 3D product? I can't remember. What's the name of that brand? I can't remember the brand. Jack 3D. USP Labs.

Yeah, USP Labs. Geranium. That shit is awesome. Yeah. It was like, it's supposedly 200 milligrams of coffee, which is not that much, but I'm sure there was something else in it. Because like, you're really like, I would get jittery, but I would get very productive.

Man. Geranium root. First time I ever took, I tried Jack. This is, like, when it first came out, and, like, it was, like, you know, the big wave. And you guys had a bunch of it. Yes, we did. We had a bunch for free.

Yeah. Doug was, like, try this stuff. And I was, like, all right, I'll try it. And I went and lifted with Brian that morning, Coach Brian. And I think I took, like, two scoops, which is way too much. I'm drinking it, and I'm like driving there, and I'm like, boom! And I get there, and I warm up, and I'm like ready to go, and I'm talking, I'm talking, I'm talking.

And he's like, would you calm down and let me teach you? And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I was good for like one lift. And then after that, I just like popped. It was like, I can't do it anymore. But I PR'd. lift and then after that like i just like popped it was like i i can't do anymore but i won a pr and it was nice oh man that's funny and then the rest of the day i was like all right guys we're gonna get uh started with our 21st episode is that right 21 barbell shrug thanks for staying tuned in and if you're new to the show, make sure to go back and watch the earlier ones too.

It definitely has gotten better since we've been going on. Steep learning curve for us. Barbell Shrug is a strength and conditioning podcast. I'm Mike Bledsoe. I've been running Faction Strength and Conditioning along with Doug and Chris and Rob and those guys for about five years. So we've learned some things along the way and hope to pass them on to you guys. I'm here with Mike McGoldrick, one of our athletes and coaches. Hello.

And Lucas Ferreira. Ooh. Oh, yeah, that's good. He hails from Brazil, and he now coaches near Atlanta. He's a swim coach at Gwinnett Aquatics. Yes. Yeah. I work mostly with youth swimming.

That's, I think, my day-to-day job. I work mostly with kids, high school kids and all that. But, I mean, with that, I guess, kind of blends into what we were trying to do and talk about crossfit for – swimming for crossfit athletes i one thing that that i'm gonna put out there right away i thought when mcgildrick came up with the idea of the of the podcast and talk about swimming for for crossfitters and swimming for people that don't know how to swim the first thing that hit me was like man i i really don't do that like i work with kids that know how to swim and want to be real proficient in swimming so this is kind of a

like i said it was good because it it got my wheels turning around again. Like, oh, what are the things that people can do? But I guess I'm jumping the gun here and kind of telling. Sure, that's okay. Just to give you guys a heads up, I mean, this entire show is going to be nothing but swimming. If you sent me some questions, I received some this last week that we're going to talk about. That's going to be on the next episode. So there's going to be an episode where I answer questions and all that kind of stuff. So you're not going to get those on this one.

But you are going to learn how to start implementing swimming into your training as a CrossFitter, what you should do, how to balance in the water, and maybe how to balance your weight training and crossfit training with swimming. We're going to talk about some good resources on how to become a better swimmer, what a typical swim workout might look like for a crossfitter. And if you don't have any training, you run into a competition, how to survive in the water, like, how to survive in that competition. Not how to not drown, but how to basically get from point A to point B.

That may not be your event, but basically do well enough to where you can make it up on the other side. So we'll kick it off. We'll start off. Most CrossFitters, probably the ones that are going to be most interested in listening to this episode we're going to talk about beginners people who are they're fit people you know they've got good cardiovascular good muscular endurance they're strong but they're beginners in swimming that's a it's a new skill go ahead mcgoldrick that's me mcgoldrick is a beginner and so i think that's one reason he

came up with this idea he was like oh my god we need that it's great i mean you're you're a real athlete out of the water and then i mean when you get in the water the environment changes completely yeah and it's all of a sudden it's like it's like a fish out of the water uh but like we were talking just before we started filming i think the the number one thing, I think everybody can understand how important balance is for any activity. So like you're, you wouldn't try to lift weights off the ground if you didn't know how to balance on the ground. I think everybody understands that because, but because we are land animals, we, we understand balance on land fairly well.

Uh, so when, when you're, especially if you're a real athlete and you try to get into swimming and you try to get into the water and try to swim, that the whole what balance is changes. And I think that's the number one thing that people really struggle with when they don't know how to swim is they don't understand that learning how to balance in the water might be the first step is I mean we all went through this on land but but again you're changing your environment and and balancing in the water is different than learning how to balance on land essentially balancing on land means you're standing up straight and on two feet and if you try to do that in the water it's actually not gonna work

very well so I was talking about how one of the most important things for concepts for swimming is understanding that you have a center of buoyancy, which is essentially right around where your lungs are because you have air in your lungs. So your lungs tend to float. And then your center of mass is further down. It's roughly around your navel. It changes depending on how your limb positions change and all that but so those two when you're laying down in the water they are apart from each other and what that means is you have a force coming from underneath pushing you upwards and your center of mass pushing you downward and that generates torque and that's why what causes your leg to try to sink uh the i also

feel like the the basic tendency that people that don't know how to swim have whenever they get in the water is you want to breathe, right? You don't want to drown. So what you do, you lift your head. And the moment you lift your head, you're shifting your center of mass even further back. And with that, you tend to sink even quicker. So, again, I think that would be the number one thing. It's like you got to first learn, understand what balance in the water is. And then McGoldrick was talking about a resource that he used that I think is

actually quite helpful for people that don't know how to, uh, how to, uh, yeah. Um, number one issue when I started was, uh, everyone that I had five or six people come out, come out with me to try and help me swim. Cause it was just awful. It was fun. And I mean, I'm swimming 25 meters and having to stop cause I'm like, I feel like I'm dragging a weight. I'm like, this is so hard. Why is it so hard for me?

And then a six-year-old man next to me is just all day long. Yeah, just cruising. And the first thing someone told me was, well, your legs are like almost perpendicular to your upper torso when you swim. And they're like, you know, kick harder. And I'm like, okay, I'll kick harder. You know, it'll help me float better. Right? So in theory, you think that would work that would work well then just makes me more tired so i'd still get 25 meters down sure i probably floated better but now i'm just twice as tired because i'm having to kick as hard because you're and uh uh we'll get to where i learned how to

change that in a little bit but uh yeah basically balancing more and and just being more efficient trying to glide in the water was a big difference right lucas what uh for someone who's never swam laps you know i think i think most i mean obviously there's some people who can't swim at all and they obviously probably just need to find a swim coach somewhere and say teach me how to not drown right uh you know i don't think we can address that on a radio show yeah that would be that would be a 12 month uh series someone goes out in the pool and drowns like yeah they told me yeah yeah they told me how to swim yeah sign the electronic waiver yeah that would be the electronic waiver do not go in the pool by yourself after listening to this podcast yeah the um i understand balance now. That's right. Got it.

I just put my legs up. Can't breathe underwater. Strange. So I want to talk about approach for beginners. What exactly should beginners be doing? People who can obviously know how to not drown and maybe know how to get from point A to point B, but you throw them in the ocean for a 400-meter swim.

Yeah. It's a different beast. If you're training for that, what's your first training session look like? I think the general, I think the three key words that we talk about in swimming for people that are trying to be more proficient in swimming is rhythm, range, and relaxation. So you have to have rhythm in your stroke. You have to have range, reach. Rhythm? Rhythm, yeah.

Okay. You're going to have to translate whatever I'm saying. Rhythm. Yeah, rhythm. You can do it. I can. If I hear it once, I might be able to repeat it. I just watched, remember, I just watched Snatch this morning, too.

So I'm going to start talking pikey in a second. Snatch the movie. Yeah. Anyway, so rhythm, is that right? Good. Range,

which is the reach and then relaxation. And I think relaxation is actually the number one thing. So for people that know, know how not to drown, but they don't know how to swim and they're trying to

get a little bit more proficient is i think the number one thing is learn how to relax in the water uh and and that pretty much goes with with any sport like we when you watch people that are proficient at something they always make make it look like it's easier than what it really is uh so so with swimming that's also true uh so learning how to relax in the water, I think, I think would be, would be the number one. Now, the number one goal I think would be understanding buoyancy, understanding how, how can you make it so, so like my go-drug was saying, so his problem was that his legs were sinking and that's generally everybody's problem. I think that people that are more proficient in weightlifting and things like that,

your bone density tends to be even higher than people that don't train at all. So you might actually tend to sink even a little bit more. People that are stronger in the legs and all that, you have that. And that's where it all started initially. I had some friends that were like, we'll do the buoyancy test on you. I don't remember exactly how it worked. They had me drop under, blow all the air out, and see where I float, that kind of thing. And it wasn't what they expected.

I floated fine. And then they're like, oh, shit. And then they're like, well, you have a lot of muscle mass. And I'm like, there's guys twice as big as me swimming fine like that's i don't believe in that so it's something mechanical yeah it's definitely learning how to interact with the water and that's what i mean that's why i think being able to relax in that environment understanding how it works so i think that's going to be part of what uh again i'm really jumping the gun forward to what we're planning on doing here but we talked about uh afterwards doing some stuff in the pool and trying to do what we need.

It's okay. You can tell people. Yeah. So here you go. Hopefully we can see an example of me swimming when I have no balance whatsoever. I'll try and do like a before and after type thing. Right. And you can see the difference.

Yeah, noticeable. after type thing right and you can see the difference it's uh yeah noticeable so um so yeah i mean just uh like i said understanding that buoyance understanding how to relax in the water uh and and understanding uh how again part of one of the things that makes it very easy a lot easier is if you learn how to breathe without necessarily having to lift your head away from the water all the time so which which comes down to just being comfortable in the water just exactly so just being able to takes a little while to learn um i'll use myself again as an example uh sorry i keep bringing myself back into it but um you know there's two types of uh beginners i think i think one that is not comfortable in the water and don't know how to swim and there's one who might be pretty comfortable and is just not very good at

swimming uh when me and shepherd go swim he seems to be pretty comfortable in the water and his strokes okay i'm sorry his stroke seems to be pretty good but he's not very comfortable in the water so his breathing sucks right me i'm like the both i'm terrible at both of them and uh rather than doing drills i just had to swim more like i just had to get in there and just do it and just get used to sucking up water every once in a while and knowing where I can place my head and that kind of thing. I think, I mean, and there's always, there's obviously a balance to find there. I think, yeah, if you're not comfortable at all and you're terrible at it,

you might actually gain more out of just trying to swim a couple of laps and just trying to do a little bit more and more of it. Just, again, because that starts getting you into that comfortable position. And then, after a while, you might be able to do some drills and actually gain more out of the drills than if you did the other way around. If you just did drills for a month before you try to swim at all. And we were talking about it. It's the same with somebody walks into a CrossFit facility

and they've never lifted before. You don't just tell them, like explain Olympic lifts for them for three months before they try to do a WOD, right? They're gonna have a bad day. It's the same thing. Like I'm not gonna throw a bar or maybe not even a PVC pipe in someone's hand

and start teaching them snatch until they've got quite a few squats. Right. Like, you know, they may just do bodyweight squats, right? So they're just, you know, we want to, maybe not, we don't have to master, but we have to get comfortable. With just moving. Going up and down, you know? And it's going to happen a little bit faster since we're on land.

Right. And we are used to being on our feet. Yeah. So doing a squat is not not as uh novel as as uh swimming can be but uh yeah i think you know you got to get a certain amount of training volume and it doesn't matter how you get it you know just just get in the water for x amount of time totally agree you know it's the same thing with you know some weightlifters it's like you may got the technique and they may even have the technique down but but they're weak.

And they're like, what do I need to do? I was like, got to get stronger. They're like, how do I get stronger? I was like, time under the bar. You just got to be under the bar. And the same thing with swimming. You just got to be in the water. I mean, maybe you don't need to be swimming laps.

Maybe you should just be playing water polo. Yeah, things like that. We're going to talk about some sculling that I think can help, learning how to scull and sculling as you're doing some buoys. So I think this is going to get a little bit more clear when we're in the water and trying to interact. And I think having a goldrick around is going to be real good because, again, it's somebody that, I mean, obviously, from what I understand, you are way more proficient now than you were a couple months ago. Yeah, it's still nothing great, but I can get by now for sure.

So we can try to, if I can get him to do a couple of the skills that I'm thinking about now, that means that most people should be able to do them, provided again. And I guess the only point I want to make clear is, I mean, like we're saying saying we're used to being in our feet or used to me on land the only people that I'm concerned with in regards to swimming is people that are actually scared of the water there are people that actually have this oh yeah life-threatening fear of drowning and in that case like you you should not be in a pool by yourself there's because people drown in water that's shallow enough for them to put their feet on on the bottom and and walk and and the reason they drown is because they

panic and they don't know what to do right there's a difference from someone if you throw them in the ocean say swim 200 meters they get tired they naturally would turn on their back and just be like all right i'm cool here some people don't know to do that and they freak out they freak out and that's like they just wear themselves down. Yeah. So I guess kind of tying along, part of the goal here is to get people to understand how to get through if they don't know how to swim, but also how to get through if you go to a competition and there's a swimming portion to it,

how to get through saving some energy. Because that's what we were talking about when you did your triathlon, right? Yeah, good example. Let's say you're at a CrossFit competition or you sign up for your first triathlon. I don't necessarily want to, it's a sprint try.

I don't necessarily want to spend three months training. I want to go out and have some fun and do it. Well, it's in the ocean and I've never swam 300 meters in my life. You know, like I said earlier, I have to swim 25 meters and stop and take a break uh let's say you know in my shoes how can i get by like what would you recommend uh i go out in the water and i swim as far as i can for the freestyle and then i've hit my limit of a whopping you know 50 meters and i'm tired what do i do right do i turn to my back

you know what do you recommend so yeah there's? So yeah, I think what you did instinctively was actually the right thing. That's what you said. Yeah, I didn't want to die. You can't finish the race if you're not alive. I was that example. So yeah,

I mean, turning on your back, it turns out, is a possibility. I think we were talking about side stroke. Side stroke can be a little easier

for people who don't know how to swim to just continue going and having about side stroke. Side stroke can be a little easier for people who don't know how to swim to just continue going and having some side stroke. So those are the alternatives, really. It's turning your back, doing what we would call elementary backstroke, which your hands are not really living the water and you're doing sort of a breaststroke kick.

And again, in that case, we're trying not to die, but also if you're in that position in that race, it's also enough to, again, get you through and then get you on land and hopefully you have some energy to continue with the event. You've still got two more legs of the race left. Exactly. You've still got to bike and run. So, yeah, if you don't know how to swim, even if you were able to do the 300 meters, like, okay, this is the first time you ever swam 300 meters then you're gonna crawl on land and you still got a bike and run i mean the event is also essentially over so so i guess that's that's part of the goal here is not only learn how to survive the the swimming portion of the event but how can you

get through and have some gas left yeah so for you who don't know, we're talking about a specific instance where we went down to Alabama and did a sprint try. This is not necessary. Sprint try. And I was actually worried about my wife even like drowning. And she passed McGoldrick in the water.

She rubbed it. She still rubs it in his face to this day. I'm pretty sure of it. It wasn't even that far like it was a 300 meter swim starting on the beach so like realistically you're swimming like 150 meters total like because you're walking half of it you know like getting out into the water and uh i get out and i'm like man i'm doing fine and then ashley just like flies behind me and i'm like what the hell is going on like what am i doing wrong and then uh before i know it i'm on my back and i'm just looking at the sky and i'm like this is so hard and all of a sudden i hit something i hit my head and i turn

and i look up and it's like a lifeguard on a on a paddleboard and he's like you all right and i'm like i'm fine and he's like you need to go that paddle board. And he's like, are you all right? And I'm like, I'm fine. And he's like, you need to go that way. I was probably like 50 meters off course. I wasn't even looking anymore. I was just kicking and going. I hate life. And he's like, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, I'm fine.

I'm cool. I'm just slow. At that point, McGoldrick had been beating me on so many different things that I was like excited. Like when I saw him on the bike and I was like, oh man, this dude is so far behind me. Yes! Finally! Ashley said she didn't know

I was ahead of her and she's on the bike probably halfway through it and I pass her and I'm like pissed. I'm like... I pass her and she's like, what? She said she got excited because she knew she was beating me. That was pretty funny.

Great story. Lesson learned. We're going to take a quick break. Watch this cool video. We'll be back in a second. All right. Mangy mutt. Hey there.

This is Macy. That's Macy. Macy. Go ahead, guys. Grace. All right, guys. We're're back barbell shrugged talking with mike mcgoldrick and lucas fajera and uh we're still talking about swimming the this is the total swimming barbell shrug do not try to shrug barbells in the water uh and mcgoldrick was talking about a book that

really helped him out kind of people were telling you you know to get your head down feet up and you need to kick harder but it wasn't until you read this book that kind of things started to click yeah i had a lot of advice from a lot of different people and um i still didn't really understand like how my body's supposed to be placed in the water like i had no idea and um you know you know your legs are sinking so kick harder okay well now i'm more tired oh we'll take a longer breath well now i'm like upside down you know it's just one thing after another uh the book is called total immersion and um it's got some great examples uh starting from the very beginning on you know some very basic drills on

how to um you know like luke was talking about earlier pressing your buoy into the water basically working on your balance in the water pressing your boobie in the water press your chest your chest in the water your buoy the first first quarter of the book talks about just being balanced in the water and uh it's got a lot of good examples that if you know nothing about swimming make a lot of sense to you um i highly recommend it i don't remember the name of the author but we'll try and get a picture of it on there i'm gonna uh this book is actually it's funny it has a a mixed wrap in in terms of like people that work only with swimming

because when you're talking about competitive swimming there's other things that you're looking for and so some people uh when you first came out some people were saying oh this is the thing for swimmers and then people that are into the competitive swimming arena said well this is not really what competitive swimmers do the body positions are different because at that point you're more interested in in just getting to the race quick and that's exactly exactly right like and when you read the book you'll understand that because it it doesn't want you to swim hard. That's exactly right. And when you read the book, you'll understand that because it doesn't want you to swim hard. Right, yeah.

It's like this is, we want you to slow down, and the point of it is to be balanced and glide as long as you can, basically start from scratch, and, you know, slow down your stroke rate, everything. I can see where if you're sprinting 100s and 50s where this is not the right thing. Right, yeah. So it's for beginners. For people that are trying to understand

how to get along and get through with water and all that, I think that's a very good It's got a bunch of good cues that really stick in your head. Right. You want to touch

on some of those? Where were we at? Well, we kind of talked about balance. I think we're going to talk about those cues a little bit more when we go to the pool.

Okay. You want to play into the next topic? Yeah, yeah. We'll just move on because, yeah're going to talk about those skills a little bit more when we go to the pool okay uh you want to play into this next topic yeah yeah we'll just move on um because yeah well you'll talk about how to yeah how to get balance in the pool and i think that's going to be done more with demonstration drills yeah uh what what's a typical swim workout for a crossfitter uh and i guess it would it's going to depend on beginner if you're a beginner intermediate or advanced and i'll just describe what i think a beginner intermediate and advanced is a beginner is somebody who's not really comfortable in the water i would consider mcgoldrick a beginner

uh he's he's on his way to becoming intermediate intermediate is uh a swim workout is going to kick your ass and you don't you probably don't need to be doing, maybe that's your workout for the day, is just being in the water and, you know, a 2,000-meter workout. You know, you're not swimming 5K, 10K in a single workout. And advanced is the guys that can swim 5, 10K in a workout, and they'll come back that night and do it again. And that's kind of how I view advanced. So let's go ahead and start with beginners. What's an example workout?

Again, I think even within beginners, there would be quite a big range that we'd be talking about. But part of what we were talking about before, I think as long as you can do a 25-meter without stopping, you'd be doing a couple of those. And I think that's a good starting point because you're, like we were talking about, time under the bar.

And this is freestyle? This is freestyle. I would, if your goal is not to swim competitive, if your goal is to get through with a competition portion. My goal is to be able to complete a swim in a crossfit competition or a triathlon. Yeah, there's, I mean, I wouldn i wouldn't in that case especially if you're a beginner would stick with freestyle uh maybe you maybe you throw some side stroke in there or some

like i said we when we go to the pool we can talk about elementary backstroke uh just so that you can do a little more without uh and learning how to do a little more without getting so tired but but yeah i mean there's no reason for you to start throwing butterfly in your workout. They would be like, yeah, well, why would you? So yeah, I think if you're a beginner, you're going to break it down into shortest distance possible and try to do them well, try to do them correctly. And then with the time under the bar, I think progressively,

you're also going to start bringing in more drills, more understanding floating, understanding buoyancy. I think having a small kickboard is really helpful. Not a big kickboard. Actually, I don't know what kind of buoys we're going to have at your dad's place. But I can talk about that too. How can you use a kickboard to to understand floating uh and things like that actually one of the things that would be real cool and i didn't have time to get is a a bike inner tube you have an inner tube with just a little bit of air and you twist that and

you put put it around your your feet it really raises your body like to the position that you really want to want to go to and it kind of is like you have to all of a sudden work on your core as you swim or else you start fish tailing so so that's something that even for for advanced swimmers is a helpful tool and i think for people that are learning again provided you don't panic because all of a sudden your feet are floating and your hands are i think that can actually be a very very helpful tool and we can we can try to figure out if you can do something like that and there's nothing wrong with using those kind of tools because if you walk into a crossfit gym and you can't do pull-ups you know we're not just gonna throw you on the bar right

you know make you gut it out get harder we're gonna give you they're gonna give you a band right exactly there's nothing wrong if you don't know if you're using a buoy or you know some hand fins yeah you're just to just to feel it out and get comfortable in the water first these are tools to help you get better. It's the same thing as using a band for pull-ups, using a PVC pipe instead of trying to do your first snatch with a 45-pound bar. If you can't do that, you're not going to do it. If you're a beginner, what are you going to do?

Are you going to do 1,000 meters in a workout, 100 at a time? Again, beginner, I think we're still talking about a big range here. But, yeah, I would definitely keep it under 1,000 meters in a workout, but make it in a way that counts. So when you're swimming, first of all, don't just try swimming up and down. I think swimming up and down and getting the time, what we would call time under the bar is important. But, again, try to get something more out of it.

Try to understand what you're doing in the water a little bit and deal how your body position changes different things. And again, I think this is going to be a little bit more clear once we go in the pool and demonstrate that. I think with an advanced or intermediate swimmer slash crossfitter, then you can start throwing, I'd say, 2,000, 3,000 yards or meters a day. And one of the things that McGoldrick was saying on the break is that for people that are lifting constantly, a lot of times that swimming workout usually, like, really helps with recovery

as well. Oh, absolutely. Right? Because you have, you're in that weightless environment, there's zero impact on the joints. No impact. Actually, I think throwing in two workouts with swimming. And again, I'm talking about not people that are swimmers. I'm talking about right now a crossfitter that wants to start throwing in some water workouts in there. I think having it two times a week, maybe three times a week, it's very helpful. I think it can help with the recovery, help with you feel the the day after actually in terms of lifting and you can get start getting something more out of those workouts so if i'm training five days a week do you think i should add it on top of one of those five days a week i'm training or do you think i should put it in

my sixth day which is normally like a rest recovery day i would probably i would probably i would probably put one in your sixth day and then if you're still interested in putting another one then take one of the five days off. But again, I think this all depends on what your goals are for that, for whatever you're doing right now. Are you a beginner or intermediate? Yeah, if you're talking about intermediate, right? I'm assuming.

But again, it's like, well, if your goal right now is to improve one specific skill in CrossFit, then that's not the way you want to go. But if your goal right now is to, okay, I want to improve my, whatever I can do in the water because I think this is going to be important for an upcoming competition,

then absolutely, take even one of the days from the lifting off, make those other four days more, what's the word I'm looking for here? More valuable for you, more intense, but then add another day of swimming. And then finally, I think moving on to the advanced, one of the things we were talking about,

if you're an advanced swimmer, there's actually a lot of things that are fun to do around the water. And this is provided you have a pool in your backyard or something like that. I just won the... Brazil won the gold medal. I hate you.

So, yeah, you can do things like swim a fast 25, get out of the water, do burpees, go a 25 underwater, or do a couple of jumps in the middle of the pool, get your knees up to your chest, come out of the water again. Do push presses and stuff like that. You can start mixing up your weight workout with your swim workout.

And that can be very, very intense. Getting from that, because you're getting from one environment to another. You're having to deal with different things during one workout. So I think when you're advanced, if that's kind of something that you want to try throwing in, it can make things very interesting, I think, in your training. Yeah. And the last two years they had swimming in the CrossFit Games, but there's nothing to say that they're not going to have you swim 100 meters and then do some kettlebell swings and pull-ups and then swim another 100 meters. Yeah.

Be like Water Helen, you know what I mean? Yeah. I could see that happening. And so people are, you know, if you want to stay ahead of the curve, that might be where you need to go. But I wouldn't, you wouldn't, I mean, I wouldn't suggest this and I'm assuming you know if you want to stay ahead of the curve that might be where you need to go but I would you wouldn't I mean I wouldn't suggest this and I'm assuming you wouldn't either like if you're not at that advanced stage yet you should know if you're not advanced advanced stage yet you should your first goal should be understanding how to deal with the water they're

standing the environment and understanding and getting more out of the swimming portion of it until you actually can do more. Otherwise, you're just, again, it's just trying to juggle five balls when you can't juggle three. Right. And we were talking a little bit about frequency, and you were saying you could do up to three days because it's so low impact. And, yeah, I kind of put it in the same category as like airdyne, sled work, rowing. Those are all conditioning tools that aren't going to cause a lot of muscle damage,

so you can do them pretty frequently. So don't be afraid of swimming hurting your program, I guess. But it is going to affect your overall volume. I guess we're going to wrap it up. We're going to hit the pool, and Lucas is going to show us how to get better at swimming. Let's go through our plugs real quick. I'm just going to tell everyone to go to the shop on fitter.tv. Just go there and click the shop button,

and we can buy coffee mugs now. If you're a coffee drinker, you want to feel stronger while you're drinking coffee? If you're not a coffee drinker, you should be one. That's right. If you're one of those sissy tea drinkers,

you can, just don't buy the mug. And then, we've got a seminar on there. We're working on getting more seminars up there. We're actually talking about possibly doing a swim seminar.

So, if you guys are interested in us doing a swim seminar, uh, with Lucas, something that's going to be way more detailed, uh, shoot me an email on the website. Just go to fitter.tv and hit the contact button and, and email me and say, Hey, I'd like to see that. Um, and you know, if anything you want to see, get on there and let me know. Um, what do you, anything you want to plug? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, if people are watching this for the first time and you haven't been following barbara shrug you're missing out i think the other 20 episodes were were great all every single one of them like and like i said each one each one i watch is like oh this is seems like it's better than the one before so you guys are doing a great job so for people that are watching if you haven't again if you haven't followed uh all the other episodes go on to YouTube, watch them all and keep following this. Sign up on feeder.tv, right?

Yep. If you are interested in swimming around the Atlanta area, again, I work with Gwinnett Aquatics in Gwinnett County. We do have lessons as well. We do offer adult lessons. So if you're interested in having an instructor or something like that, you go to a Gwinnett aquatics calm and and sign up for that and and again we have individual lessons I have a group group lessons or if you any anybody that wants to start youth swimming just come on over to Gwinnett aquatics and other than that I guess everything everything else on feeder.tv it's uh mcgoldrick uh yeah a couple things um

mobilitykits.com um new product up and running we got a website launched as well um it's a uh a foam roller it's got contents inside as a um comes with a pair of lacrosse balls a stretch band and a um stick brand massaging stick. It's great if you're a traveling athlete, whether crossfitter or running in races, or if you are someone who has trouble, you know, taking care of yourself after training, you have this kit with you. It's super convenient. It's right there, and everything you need is inside the kit. You know, you leave it around your house. You know, you're sitting on the couch, you know, grab the ball or lay on the ground watching while you're watching tv roll out you know you got to take care of yourself if you're wanting to improve your performance um this is a great way to do it

it's an all-inclusive piece and uh once again located at uh mobilitykits.com yeah actually uh i have one in my living room right now and uh my wife doesn't go anywhere without it so it's in her travel bag all the time she uses it a whole lot i would say i use it a lot but i am lazy anyways i roll out only when absolutely necessary i'm like oh my god um but maybe that's why i'm not so competitive all right guys uh Good having you. And stay tuned to watch the pool section. And if you're listening, you should probably go to fitter.tv to watch this episode

because there's a lot of visual stuff there. All right. Peace out. See you later. All right.