The Fastest Open Water Swimmers Aren’t Always the Fittest

Tips to improve your open water tactics this summer season.

Hey Swimmers,

One of the biggest surprises for pool swimmers entering open water is discovering that fitness alone isn’t enough.

You can be incredibly fit and still lose huge amounts of time through poor skills.

Swimming off course. Poor sighting. Bad drafting decisions. Panicking in physical contact. Lifting the head too high. Fighting conditions instead of adapting to them.

These things quietly destroy performance.

I learned this lesson the hard way many years ago preparing for the British Junior Triathlon Championships. I spent weeks swimming almost exclusively in the sea thinking I was becoming more race specific. In reality, my pool speed deteriorated badly because I’d stopped focusing on quality and structure.

That experience shaped a huge amount of how we coach open water swimming today.

At Swim Smooth, we always emphasise that open water skills should be trained deliberately, not just experienced passively.

Simply swimming in the ocean isn’t enough.

Take sighting.

Most swimmers lift their entire head out of the water while trying to sight and breathe simultaneously. The hips and legs immediately sink, creating enormous drag and breaking rhythm.

Instead, think of sighting as a quick “alligator eyes” movement. Just the goggles lift forwards enough to spot the buoy before returning immediately back into your normal stroke rhythm.

Done correctly, it should barely interrupt momentum.

Then there’s swimming straight.

This is a hugely underrated skill. Some swimmers unknowingly swim up to 10-20% further than necessary simply because they drift continuously. Breathing asymmetry, crossover and poor awareness are often the culprits.

That’s why bilateral breathing remains such an important skill, even if you race predominantly breathing to one side. The ability to comfortably switch sides depending on swell direction, sunlight or buoy positioning becomes invaluable.

I experienced this personally during my English Channel swim where I spent most of the crossing breathing to my less preferred side due to the conditions. Without that adaptability, the swim would have been significantly harder.

And finally, perhaps the most overlooked skill of all: staying relaxed around other swimmers.

Open water racing is chaotic. Arms collide. Feet touch. Goggles get bumped.

The swimmers who cope best are rarely the strongest physically. They’re the calmest emotionally.

That composure saves enormous energy.

One of the reasons our open water skills sessions in Perth have become so popular is because swimmers realise these sessions add fun, teamwork and tactical thinking back into training. They break the monotony of endless lane swimming while developing highly transferable race skills.

So if you’re preparing for an open water season this summer, don’t just train harder.

Train smarter.

Because the fastest line between two buoys is rarely achieved by fitness alone.

Thanks for reading, your coach, Paul.