Episode #19: Unlocking Your Potential in the Water and Embracing the Chill with Laura Ansell

In this episode we discover Laura's inspiring journey to setting up Triswim, and becoming a certified Swim Smooth Coach. We explore her journey into the sport, the milestones that shaped her coaching philosophy, and the unique personal experiences that inform her approach to helping others excel in the water.

We delve into the power of Swim Smooth’s individualised coaching methodology, designed to cater to diverse swim styles and bring out the best in every swimmer. We discuss how this approach creates breakthroughs for clients, by addressing their unique strengths and challenges.

With winter upon us, Laura offers invaluable advice for triathletes looking to refine their swimming during the off-season. From maintaining motivation to incorporating dry-land exercises, you’ll learn actionable tips to keep your training on track.

We also delve into the rising popularity of cold water swimming, its mental and physical benefits—especially for women navigating perimenopause or menopause—and how to safely and effectively acclimatize to the chill.

Whether you’re an experienced swimmer, a triathlete, or someone curious about the magic of cold water dips, this episode is packed with insights and inspiration to elevate your swimming journey.

Connect with our guest:
Triswim
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Bluesky
Facebook

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Transcript

0:03

[Music] hi I'm tiia boothman founder of LTR coaching and I'd like to welcome you to the inspired triathletes podcast where I'll be bringing you stories from female triathletes and taking on topics that are important to women in the sport hello and welcome to today's episode I'm here with Laura from Tri swim and she's going to talk to us all about well we've got quite a range of topics I think we're going to cover today um she set up Tri swim in 2015 I get that right just told me and I'm like yeah I think I remember um so yeah we're going to start off just talking a little bit about your background so if you could share your journey into swim coaching what was it that inspired you to get into swim coaching and how did your personal experience in the water kind of shape your approach so my story start right from parent a baby swimming lesson right from 18 months old so both my my dad was a really strong swimmer my mom is terrified of water and she didn't want my sister and I growing up being terrified with water so she set about sending me to parent babies lessons as soon as she could and apparently I screamed my way through about 18 month month's worth of swimming lessons but she persevered W and it got to the point where I just I started when I could walk start hiding my swimming costume I did not want to go anywhere near the water H and then my dad being quite a strong swimmer said hey do you know what let let's been off these swim lessons how about I take her to the swim pool every single Sunday and that then started a whole childhood of just loving abrasive supportive environment in the swimming which any child is going to thrive in and and I'm not alone I absolutely loved it and I found that I was naturally very good and that led into swimming lessons when I was much more calm and able to swim and then um I mean I started teaching from around age 16 so I was a competitive swimmer I started started really swimming when I was around 7 years old uh joined a local Club worked my way through uh and I was a county level swimmer I was a a butterflyer and a freestyler um and then unfortunately my dad died when I was 16 very suddenly and it was that very same year he died in April and by September I was enrolled to train as a swimming teacher it was kind of my way of healing you know all these things I remembered my dad for my happy times what would he want from all of that well he'd want me to to do something with my swimming and and so I became a swimming teacher but it was that time in the water with my dad that has really dictated how I teach other children so I like to call it the method of monkey see monkey do so instead of being on the side of the pool shouting down at a child which can be quite negative and quite scary and overwhelming I'm in the water with the children I'm moving alongside them hey look at me it's okay I can do it you can do it too and it sort of working on that relationship of support nurture and confidence and then that brings them out of their shell ready to trust the water and learn much more effectively and lots of women teachers teach like this now which I'm really pleased to say but when I started 17 18 years ago that was still quite rare it's really only been in the last maybe 10 years that that has really taken off being in the swimming pool with the children and yeah I find it a much more holistic way to to teach definitely like you just yeah I love that that's a beautiful story about your dad as well I love that that he took you and took the pressure off by the sound of it a little bit yeah you know not being it's you're never going to trust anyone more than you trust your caregiver your care provider you know they know you inside and out so obviously you're going to be much more relaxed when you learn to swim and as a swimming teacher I fired a pound for the amount of times children had gone to the summer holidays they'd gone on holiday with Mom and Dad or their caregiver and then they've they've come back much better swimmers and the parents are like I have no idea how this happened well because you were in the water with them because you spent the majority of your time on holid day in water alongside them playing laughing making memories that's what creates a much more confident relaxed swimmer in the water yeah definitely and so if people haven't had that swim background around like from a young age do you find they find it more difficult learning to swim when when they're an adult of people do learn I'm very lucky that I you know I came from a family that could afford to go on summer holidays and and support my swimming but I've also worked in London where I was meeting 13 14 year olds who had never stepped foot in a swimming pool before because they just did not have the money to spend on going to the local Leisure Center for recreational swim let alone swi Essence and we know through the government at the moment that swimming Essence aren't as readily available as they used to be and so this is a massive problem and I've seen it I I I remember when I was probably around 21 years old myself and a friend Brendan who's still a friend now who we met as swimming teachers we were approached with a very lowi income class some of which we knew hadn't been swim before we put them in the baby pool so it would there only been knee depth for them thigh depth a push one of the lads slipped under the water and he couldn't stand up again you know it's it's awful so it it absolutely has a foundation in how you and I swim in the water how anybody swims in the water is dependent on their background and their their Early Childhood years of how they've got into the water and sadly for some people it it isn't a positive experience yeah yeah definitely and it's yeah it's going to shape and color everything that you yeah when you get in the water like oh you know you have fear yeah I I coach a lot of adults now who the first thing they do is they sit down to me and say you know I learned to swim 40 50 years ago and it was a case of pushing somebody in the swimming pool and saying all the best you know and so they devel this fear and hatred of the water because they just remember really cold horrible dingy swimming pools where somebody just pushed them in and didn't give them any supports that's it's it's a huge theme in the people both men and females that I coach these days yeah yeah definitely and like you say about the dingy swimming pools I mean they they used to be pretty horrible as places sometimes you know back in well you still get the odd one that's a bit like still like that yeah but we we're quite lucky here we've got a nice new swimming pool and and they've refurbished a few around so it's pretty good but that environment makes a massive difference to you you know if you have thought about oh I'm going to have to go in that and the smells and all that kind of thing it's all kind of affects how you feel when you get there so think about it it's a really overwhelming experience especially for for anybody that's that's suffering on the set in the Spectrum it's a huge deal you've got echoey sounds you've got these weird chemical smells you've got different textures pool you got the horrible pool that you used to walk through to stop veras oh yeah God and then you got different textures on side itself you know then you got different volumes you know it's such an overwhelming experience yeah definitely definitely so what is it that led you to you I know you're swim smooth coach um what is it that led you to swim Smooths kind of methodology and what they do what was it that attracted you to that kind of a whole story as well in short what I love about swim smooth is the individualized coaching approach I've come through the British Swim Pathways and when you were when I was a club swimmer it was very much a one-sized fitall approach to stroke development you know and especially in freestyle swimming if you close your eyes and try and imagine what you think a freestyle swimmer should should look like I'm sure you would imagine that six beat kick at the back beautiful rolling motion High elbow recovery High catch and it's that sort of Michael Phelps competitive swim stroke that you imagine and swim smooth came in and said no it's free style everybody swims it in their own free style and that really spoke to me because when I was a competitive swimmer it felt natural to me to swing my arms over the water and the of times my coach would call me up on this and get me over and over again to to emulate this High elbow catch and high elbow recovery and I had a lot of shoulder problems and I dropped out competitive swimming quite early at around 16 years old um so when I saw this from swim smooth it just it it just spoke to me it spoke to my heart because suddenly here was somebody saying to me it's okay to swing you're absolutely fine and they gave all these wonderful examples of these not only open water swimmers and triathletes but competitive pool swimmers you've got Laura manado Grant hacket you know all these swimmers that had a beautiful swing stroke and it's okay and I also loved the approach that Paul is very Paul new who starts smooth it's very much that our core ethos is respect every swimmer so it's not just about respecting the stroke style it's respecting the person getting to know you a onetoone level and finding what coaching methodology works for you rather than just maybe going into the autocratic style of this is what we're going to do and this is the way it's going to be which I know it works well for some coaches but it really spoke to me but my journey into actually finding swim smoth so I was a swimming teacher up until around age 21 22 and then I ventured into swim coaching you know I I went back to the competitive pool environment and started using what I'd been applying as a swimming teacher into the coaching environment and I went all the way through the coaching pathway there um cut a very long story short when I was pregnant with my daughter so i' had my son who's now um 12 going on 13 and my daughter had just been born and I was laying in bed with my husband and we watched uh Gordon Ramsey program and Gordon Ramsey was saying hey I'm starting a Triathlon Club you'd like to apply get in touch and I can't run I'm not very good at cing but I'm pretty good swimmer and I'm really out of shape I've just had a baby how would you like to take a chance on me and the very next day I got a place on Gordon Ramsey's team so I I went from postpartum to my first 70.3 Triathlon in 10 months wow so yeah it was an intensive journey and with within that Journey was my first dive into Open Water swimming and as a confident good swimmer even I was scared I was scared going in the Open Water what's luring underneath am I going to get sick from the water what happens if I sink panic attack you know all of these thoughts and my first Venture into Open Water Swimming wasn't a positive one um I didn't feel supported and and there was an incident in the water and and I was the one that had to respond to it so it wasn't actually me that was in danger it was somebody else and I remember coming out of the Open Water thinking gosh you know people deserve a much more supportive collaborative approach to Open Water swimming and it was doing the gr 100 and actually talking to Gordon himself and you know we had Dino from from H and we had uh some amazing coaches and I was saying all of this stuff and Gordon said to me you sound like you should do something with this what can I do to help and so it was it was with the gr 100's help that Tri swim was born you know and they really gave me a lot of support a lot of contacts they helped put put pen to paper and here I am today it was part of that talking to Gordon and talking to dino hoop that Dino said hey have you heard about swim smooth I haven't heard of swim smoth and that was my path in as soon as I heard how Dino described swim smooth I was like I have got to get involved with this this is where I want to go and as a coach this is where this is what I have to strive to be yeah definitely I mean it's swim smooth was one of the first swimming sort of approaches that I looked at and I was like this is brilliant it just kind of it makes sense and it was the and the way it's explained just made me helped me to understand a lot better what I was what I needed to do and think about in the water so it definitely has a really good appeal um and it has you know that sort of the swim Styles you've got the different styles haven't you can you describe some a couple of styles for us so I think one of the reasons people is so easy to follow is that Paul was one of the first people to look at the whole swimmer so we've been putting cameras in the water looking at tiny elements of a s for decades but Paul really started looking at hul swimmer and we would start seeing problems like very classic problems let use an easy one bending your knees and kicking over kicking at the back well we would look at that and say well obviously there's a problem with kicking here's a flow we're going to fix the leg kick and it'll be all good but put it back into the full stroke and the problem comes back because the problem was never with the legs it was actually something happening at the front end of the stroke whether it's breathing head position buoyancy so this all of these different cause and effects that we sort of listed down and noted helped to create swim types so we started seeing these patterns emerge of not just swimming faults but personalities and and how people approach fixing technique and how we coach people so right at the beginning of the spectrum we have Bambinos H and Bambinos are your new and nervous swimmers so does necessarily mean nervous of swimming it means nervous of technique I don't know what I've got to do to get better and interestingly is an archetype that we see quite a lot from early level female swimmers so when when I see somebody that's come that's not had awim background before I usually see a female Bambino so Bambinos we usually see their heads are up and about out of the water they're not breathing very well if at all they're just holding on to their and hoping for the best we've got bendy knees at the back we have poor buoyancy a very slow stroke style there's really no catch and P and very little propulsion there's quite a lot going on with our binos we then have our Ares and our arets so we call them the Jeremy Clarkson of the swimming world power power power so they're actually very similar to our Bambinos what separates them is confidence so we will see Aries who have had quite a lot of athleticism maybe they're high Achievers in work they're go-getters they're people that want to do really really well and you can always tell an Arie when they come to your swimming pool because they usually have a notepad and pen and they're ready to get all the answers and soak it all in um so classic faults we see with ar usually flexion and stability pour flexion through the shoulders we'll see crossovers dropped catch um sinking legs through the water getting very very frustrated and out of breath uh you will often hear an Arie say I don't understand it there's somebody twice my age in the lane next to me they're swimming twice as fast as me and I can't understand it very classicism um then we have our kick tastics and again talking about archetypes yeah g and this is a general sweeping statement because gender obviously does not dictate swim type I see so many different variations of of swimmer and they can kind of mix can't they generally speaking I will see a Bambino female or I'll see a KCT tastic female and KCT tastics are females that have maybe had some swimming background and had a big break from it or have some athleticism to them some Fitness to them and K tastics kind of clue in the name they're powering their stroke through their leg so there is a weakness in their catch and their pull and they're trying to bolster their propulsion through their legs they don't generally like using Poor Boys um Paul will tell you that sometimes k can be a bit aloof I don't using that term because I find it a bit rude but certainly I I would say that I can often see confidence issues in AR tastics and that can sometimes lead them to being a bit closed off and a bit quiet because they're just a bit frighten I'm not quite sure how to help you with that sorry I was aex um they may just feel a little bit nervous about showing their vulnerability and you know that can sometimes come across as a bit of but say I don't really like that term um then we move into our overg gliders so overg gliders are people that have have been told that to lengthen your stroke means that you're more efficient if you can go from Ab in as few Strokes as possible that must mean you're efficient and this is certainly not us discrediting certain swim methodologies out there this is just us applying science to efficiency um gliding by its very nature cannot be efficient you are de accelerating with every single arm pole so every armp pole you then take you have to put more Force Through in order to move forward and that's going to be quite cardio heavy so other faults that we see within overl gliders is sometimes we see very tight shoulders very tight hips where they they're gliding and pours through the water we can see things like Whi kicks um kickstarts and that's where they're feeling a glide through their stroke trying to sort of kick themselves forward through that sort of stagnation um and again we see things like Drop to catch because they're just stabilize themselves in the water so I said these are you can you can be a mixture of things um you could be all four of them you know you may speak a little bit to each and every one of them then we have our two Elite Strokes so our Elite Strokes are our swingers and our Smooths and classically your smooth are your pool sprinters and your swingers are your Open Water however it's really important to know you can be whatever you your body tells you to be we see Smooths in the Open Water we see swingers in the pool it doesn't matter but just classically we say that your uh your Smooths are the one that going to have that six beat kick at the back they're going to have the high elbow they're going to look Sleek through the water and they just look they just look sex your your swingers are a little bit choppier and they come over the water they're a little bit wider maybe they have a little bit more rotation through the hips and a little bit less through shoulders and they tend to have a a choppy faster turnover in their stroke rate as well so these are they they're designed to help you as a swimmer and me a coach establish whereabouts you are and helps us c a path forwards in in improving technique rather than saying look this is what you are and this is what you're always going to be um and and trying to limit people in that way yeah because you can like change from one you know as you improve your stroke you can improve and change change into a different archetype or whatever so as I found it really useful because I did have a sort of video session quite a while ago when I was training and trying to qualify for cona and it was like right I'm going to put everything into this I'm going to get swim analysis done and it was really handy and he spent you know a long time with us going through the video he was a swim smooth coach so she was H can we say who it was I can't remember his name now where was it I've forgotten he was in Cardiff but he doesn't live in Cardiff now well he never lived in Cardiff I think he was from Cardiff G is it GIS someone possibly or Alan Cardwell he's a he is yeah he was very helpful and he spent a long time going through our videos and tell you know and talking through and it was useful to see other people's videos as well and kind of like have a look at what other people are doing and and see how oh how would you improve that because you know I coach as well but I don't coach in the pool but sometimes people will send me a bit of video and I kind of want to have a look at it see if I can spot what's going on and not always easy to get video footage of people is it though no I'm I'm very lucky personally that I have my own private pool so and I use exclusively for us so it makes personally for me taking video very very easy but so much more difficult to find somebody as an athlete to do videois with Because unless they have their own pool it's almost impossible to get in a public pool these days obviously safeguarding and and what have you it's you have to the whole place don't you to to be all have that area sort of sectioned off somehow where it's yeah but yeah a lot of people just have their own kind of endless pool and things like that do you find people swim differently in an endless pool then if you're videoing them than they would you know be very careful when we talk about this because make the people that make those sort of swim filters can get a little bit upset when we talk about this but it's like running on a treadmill versus running outside yeah you know your run stance and your Cadence will change on a treadmill compared to running outside would swimming be any different I personally find that when you put um the resistance through the water which is they they blow air at you and that creates tiny little bubbles through the water and that's going to make you sit a little bit lower in the water than you would naturally find so you may find doing things like grills quite difficult in in those sort of pools they certainly have their pros and cons like it's amazing having this facility and able to be very close up with your coach and they can see all different angles and can correct very very quickly you know they I'm certainly not poo pooing them as a tool to to learn it but just be aware that it it can be trickier to swim in one of these pools than a conventional pool yeah I have I've got a friend that's got one and I had to go in it and I was like oh this is really weird yeah a treadmill you don't run outside at the perfect spe like let's say I don't know 12 km an hour you peek off as you go up and down Hills and flats and to same in a swimming pool when you suddenly set this resistance to let's use an easy number 2 minutes per 100 you don't swim really at 2 minutes per 100 you'll go up and down even through a long distance swim not by much you know there's no room for maneuver in these pools can leave people feeling a bit frustrated as well yeah I think I think I had to set it quite low for like what my normal speed was so that I could actually manage it because like you say you do you kind of like speed up and slow down in the pool normally did you ever lose a fingernail no I didn't stay in for longen to you that's the other one when you when you set it to a time and then you know like you do when you swim you think about Christmas or holidays or food what you eat and then you you forget how fast you're swimming and you maybe get a little bit too fast and you put your finger through the the great and you rip your nail Hur it's just it just wakes you up and makes you a bit more for today oh yeah know I didn't swim that long in it I I didn't have enough time to drift off it was just like I'll have a go and see what it's like a I personally prefer coaching and swimming in a conventional pool but that's just me as a preference I I like being able to see my swimmers swimming as they would in a swim pool when they come away from my session so I find that quite useful but then I've never coached in in the smaller pool so I'm sure I'd feel differently if I did coach in those pools I think it's probably practical more practical for some people to be able to do that I guess like out here I know we've got an some a guy who coaches with an endless pool because maybe he can't get in the in the public pool to to do that coaching and to video people and things so that's one way of getting around it isn't it yeah definitely so with the swi swim smooth method have you had any kind of memorable breakthroughs with with anyone that obviously you've had lots but can you pick out one I don't want to sound pihe headed but I for nearly 10 years now I've been with swim smooth for eight years and I I lost track of the amount of people I've videoed and worked with and every level and background and ability of swimmer you can possibly imagine one of which is my husband you know I've actually trained my husband to be a light and Open Water lifeguard now but he came for video analysis session when he was preparing for his swim time uh for the lifeguarding and I was horrified I was like you've taken both of our children swimming this is the way you swim his feet were dragging across the bottom of the swimming pool and and literally an hour later all we did was talk about the methodology of breathing and relaxing and then getting him to apply to movement and he completely unlocked his swimming and now he's actually very proficient open wall to swim i w tell him that to his face but it's true he's quite a good swimmer I've had complete aquap phobics that have come to the pool and have not wanted to put their face in the water and it's taken maybe two or three sessions to just sit by the water and discuss it and talk about feelings realize those feelings are valid set very small goals and then get them all the way up to like 5K swiming you know obviously those stories are incredibly special I always and I'm going to use his name and he won't mind me using it his name is Steve Lindsay and I always revert back to the Steve Lindsay story because it's just such an incredible story so Steve came to me 16 weeks before a full Iron Man and sat with me with a video analysis and said I can't swim and you sort of get this a lot as a coach and you sort of laugh off and say haa they're being one this and he got in the pool and about 20 me in stopped and I was like oh you meant it you really can't swim and you've got 16 weeks and he was like yeah what can you do I'm like um well I do my very best for you Steve but you know we got to be realistic and he signed up to 12 lessons there and then so the first seven lessons we were very much going through swim he very much an Arie uh he had cross over he wasn't breathing very well his body position was poor didn't have good propulsion catching poor didn't understand what catch and paol was he's one of these classic swimmers that hated doing drills he would come to the swimming pool and learn everything he needed to do for the drills and understand why we're doing these drills and then when we say but the next part is that you have to this practice you know these drills into practice in your own time you need to swim two to three times a week he'd come back the week later how was you swimming during the week oh I didn't do it I don't like to drills okay um so about seven weeks in and it really wasn't Computing for Steve and he he's quite an alpha you know he's he runs a very busy very successful business and it was getting frustrating for both of us that he wasn't able to move past this technique barrier and I wasn't able to break the inspiration to him to get him to motivate him to train and I remember sitting down on PO side and saying to him da I think we've reached that point where we need to have that discussion and I I he's the only person I've ever in my entire career had to do this to and I said to him it's time to have that discussion because if you continue down this path you will not make the swim and you're investing all this money into your iron man you're not going to make the swim I think it's best you leave the pool and I'll you know I'll refund you for the rest of your lessons and wish you all the best and I I knew what I was saying don't get me wrong here I knew well enough to know that this was going to trigger something Primal in him sure enough he got out went to the Chang rooms smashed the Chang rooms up a little bit got back in the pool and just glared at me uh and I know if in that moment he was going to swim an Iron Man swim I said what I needed to say to break that motivation yeah and that I ended up staying about two hours after session was due to finish because I knew he' got into that pool and tested himself to swim an Iron Man swim he swam an Iron Man swim and it was that moment forward he realized the power of practicing and drills and listening and letting go of his own ego to allow somebody else in to help him and and I actually traveled with Steve up to his Iron Man in Bolton and he had a fantastic swim it was it was 1 hour 20 uh and he had a fantastic Iron Man you know and and I'm so proud of Steve for for what he did and and how he fought it and it's always been that story of my of you and this really into coaching right that it's a skill to be able to read your client and understand what they need in that moment I am certainly not advocating that I would talk to all my clients the way I spoke know I'm I'm actually very nurturing very I'm a very fuzzy fluffy coach I like to cut and nurture so it's not in my nature to actually sit down and say with somebody hey you know this isn't working but it's about coach you've got to learn the skill of how to apply for every different client you have and you have to have the confidence to believe in what you're saying and you know and that in it's it's is a whole skill but I feel swim smooth and the training we go through at swim smooth really helps you delve into that and understand you a coach and where your strengths are and and how to bring out the best in your clients so I cannot say enough positive things about swim I'm now I'm now working with Paul to to the mentorship program so to bring new coaches board and and nurture them in a slightly different way and I'm very you know after eight years I'm really proud to to be doing that with Paul so yeah ning and working with other coaches is something I'm very passionate about yeah that's amazing I really like that story that's so good that you said exactly the right thing at the right time it was like right yeah definitely so um kind of linked to that a little bit when we're looking at women in swimming do they would you say that they generally excel at certain things technically I mean we talked a little bit about the swim style so maybe not quite so much in that but like mentally how do you find women typically women dominate longdistance Open Water Swimming we're actually it's when I say we dominate men are always hate saying it men are going to be faster and stronger than we are as as females however what we're seeing and there was a study in 2020 um i' got to try and remember who it was now it was scopus scopus research 2020 found that women swimming the Catalina Channel swim the English Channel the triple crown and the Manhattan Island swim was swimming on average 0.06 km hours faster than their male counterparts so we actually are fantastic and well adapted as women the swimming in water around 14 to 20°cus open water and long distance we are more adapted to it than men and there is a lot of research there so what we're seeing is that women have a greater distribution of fat so you have your subcutaneous fat which is our legs and our thighs which most of us absolutely hate but as swimmers it helps keep those you have your viscal fat which is what we have around our midriffs now the per menopause and the menopause women we have a little bit more of that sadly than in our youth again that is going to protect your internal organs for from the cold and then we have our Brown ose fat which is all the way through our body so women have more of this than men so first of all we have our own built-in wet suits that help us keep a bit warmer but as women we we have a little bit more sensitive ity to insulin so especially we see this with women that have polycystic ovaries you know they have a very sensitivity to insulin but what that means in terms of heating it means we're able to metabolize the energy and the fat better than what men can do with their levels of insulin so again that's putting us a little bit further ahead uh we generally because of our hormones we're a little bit more flexible in the shoulders in the trunk and through the the knees so that makes us a little bit more with our propulsion and a little bit more energy efficient we also know that fat is um is ways less than muscle and fat is built up with tiny little layers of oxygen so the bigger you are the more fous you are of flotation you know I mean to make you're gonna be more flous in water and that's going to be conserving of energy as well and promotes really good Pro propulsion we have a little bit more resilience to stress than there's research that shows that our stress responses create a little bit more resilience than our male counterparts I know that's quite hard to believe really and we see this in another 2020 research looked over motility rates over 250 years and what we found was that women on average would live longer through famines and epidemics and that again comes down to our our body f because we're able to metabolize our fat better and we're using less energy through our muscles we're able to conserve our our energy and that also helps with our immune systems whereas men would burn through their lean muscle burn through their energy supplies and crck it halfway through a f famine so all of these things make women swimmers female swimmers actually really better in Open Water we also have things like we have a higher pain tolerance than men you know um I'm trying to think there's more stuff I'm sure there's more stuff but yeah it's so and I I scream this to everyone because Tri swim is predominantly Open Water Swimming company I love Open Water Swimming I love Cold Water swimming and I love the science behind Cold Water emotion and especially women in menopause and param menopause and all the benefits that it has for us when we swim but there are so few women on the triathlon field in the Open Water event field it's still 2/3 men one3 women and yet we are biologically better and more adaptable to swimming this we should be out there showing it and being proud of it because we're excellent at it so why do you think women don't want to open water swim or don't enter those spaces again it's quite difficult I think there's so many different reasons but a lot of it comes down to confidence I think especially as we get older um our confidence wains as our hormones dip we we don't feel as versatile we don't have the the Verity that we had as we were younger you know so that can leave us feeling a little bit vulnerable um so body confidence is definitely something confidence in our ability is something I think it's always it can it can be a little bit intimidating when you see a field of two-thirds men um you worry that am I going to get lost in the field here am I going to be trod over um will I have the Mickey taken out of me and quite honestly you know as well as I do in the world of trath and swimming it's actually a very embracing community of people I've never ever seen anyone be of any age ability background race everyone has always been very embracing so but it it takes a while for that message to get through and for for people to believe that message I Al think as we get older we have a lot more aches and pains especially in perim menopause and menopause you know as our our hormones dip we our bone density goes down we have more inflammation through our joints and our muscles that can limit us to actually starting activity and the irony is that cold water immersion is absolutely fantastic for these things so yeah I think if we want to talk about Cold Water Swimming yeah well there's a lot of lot more women doing it now I think that I mean it did it has become quite popular my mom goes um but just dip you know she calls it dipping but she just goes on it and she kind of steers away from the groups CU she's kind of like quite quiet and I think sometimes people you know it works really well for some people that kind of group big environment of of all the women going together but for some women it doesn't and for her she just like to go with one friend or a couple of friends or something and the lots of women together intimidates her so yeah I totally get that and I think going back to what you asked about what limits women from joining in is we call it overwat swimming and then a lot of people male and female think well actually I'm not a strong swimmer I'm not going to be welcome or I'm not going to be able to keep up I'm going to be exposed as a poor swimmer well in fact we we shouldn't really call it open swimming it's just being in open water and some people dip some people just Wade um in thigh deep some people yes they do swim but some people swim from gr and some people swim doggy paddle and some people swim breast stroke and some people use a float you know so it really doesn't matter what kind of swimmer you are you know just it's it's having I think we're on the back foot here we have to try and find a way to advertise open world swimming without making people feel like they have to swim and swimming especially open water as you say it can be one or two things it can be a really nice group of supportive people or it can be a very solitary solo thing and both are absolutely fine you find that some people take inspiration and motivation from that group support the camaraderie shared experiences but on the solo side of things it allows you time and space to decompress from everyday life and being outside we know through scientific studies is better for us we have we have our vitamin D and our vitamin C and that's much better for us but it's about being in nature as well you know you hear the sounds of of the birds of the water Rippling and that can lead to calmness they call it Forest bathing and things I call it water bathing you know all these things can help decompress us from our stressful life so it really doesn't matter if you're not a people person Swimming by its very nature is actually quite a solitary sport yeah definitely um you know it's then there's the side of like being safe and things in the water I guess you know if you are swimming so if you I know you're a cold water swimming and swimmer and you obviously enthusiastic about it but what would you kind of advise people if they were wanting to start and and get into swimming and have you know like I would I'm quite comfortable swimming on my own but then I sort of think well should I be doing this I'm not sure if I should or not you know I would always advise going to a lifeguarded venue especially if you're new to it now this is not me trying to make a a business plea for for Open Water swimming but I like to think of places like Tri swim are very um embracing and we're trying to share our knowledge with you so when you come down to the water we will teach you about all the safety measures how to look after yourself how to spot for egress and Ingress safe places to go in out of the water what what kit you should have with you the sort of things you're looking for whe things hypothermia we're trying to share knowledge and if after you've you've learned that knowledge you decide I'd like to go and experience this on my own hopefully we've given you the tools and the confidence to go and do it safely so my first advice is always seek out a lifeguarded manage venue if you're new to them if you're not going to do that try and always go in a group of people because Anything could happen at any time even to the strongest most resilient of cold water swimmers sadly we've already seen that starting to happen this year we've we've seen people very strong cold water swimmers going for their morning constitutional swim and not coming home and these are people that you always hear the spouse saying but they were such a strong swimmer knew what they were doing it can happen to anyone anytime so always go with two people even if you stays dry aside um you always want to have a working mobile phone with you so that should the worst happen you can call for emergency services always make sure that you've got warm easy to put on clothing so when you come out of a cold water to swim you're going to be cold and there is going to be after drop uh and liken this to when you burn yourself when you burn yourself you run your fingers under a tap because your skin continues to burn when you sub it's the same in Reverse if you cool your body it is going to continue to cool until the endothermic reaction start warming you back up again but that takes time so you need to be able to come out of the water and get those layers on as quickly as possible it's okay to shiver shivering is your muscles frictioning and creating heat obviously if we shiver to the point where we have lost control of our motor reflexes and we can't speak clearly we need to seek some help and that's where your bodyy is going to come into into play and help you out so other things we can do is a warm drink we don't want a Boiling Pot drink why if you're shivering and you've got a Boiling Pot trick you're going to end burning yourself but also we've shown that having a Boiling Pot drink can trick your body on the inside as well so we say to people not to have a hot shower after a cold water swim because you continue to cool if if you then heat your skin up your body thinks oh she's really warm well I'm going to stop warming her up from the inside and that's going to does make hypothermia come on even quicker and stronger so try not to do that but also having a really hot drink can have the same effect but a warm drink a warm sugary drink is a really great way of warming yourself up slowly from the inside sugary snack or a sugary drink helps level out your blood sugars it will stop you from overeating later on in the day and again the sugars will help ignite your gut and help warming you up from the gut level so those are all really good tips and tricks in uh even in a lifeguarded venue this is all still massively relevant so we don't want to swim when we have open Cuts or if we have injuries that's just common sense um if you have got a cut and you decide to swim make sure it's completely covered going to a lifeguarded venue we have a duty of care to take water quality tests so it's very publicized at the moment that we're not so great with our sewage at the moment so that just gives you peace of mind that you're coming into water that's been tested that is safe to swim in and you are less likely to get ill from it it's very difficult especially in the winter months to know what's safe and what's not little bit easier in the summer months because you can see plant life living and thriving around the water you can see ducks on top of the water and that gives you a really good indication if that water's safe or not plants and animals are so much smarter than us they they know when the water's not safe so that's a really good indication but you can often see sheen on top of the water we don't really get blue green AE in the winter but or we don't at all but again you get shees on top of the water or slicks where we've had sewage spills yeah because of rainfall that we have in the winter that can churn up rivers and and lakes and makes the water look muddy and a little bit distilled that then makes it more difficult for you to be able to establish whether there is actually sewage in that water so it's trickier in the winter than it is in the summer if you go to a lifeguarded venue be okay you know you're going to be you're going to be safe um we're also trained as Open Water lifeguards to be able to look at things like um pyp swimming in Juice PM edema um this is something that a lot of people aren't talking about so swimming and Juice po yes so s juice pmer edema is it can be fatal it's very rare for it to be fatal but basically it's when your cells From the Inside Out are drowning so you've either drunk too much water and then your skin is absorbing water as well um you begin to drown from the inside out signs of cyp are a cough and a cough that creates um a blood tinged or pink frothy SPO so coffee fln comes out um is a sign if that happens you need to get to a hospital as quickly as possible but all Open Water lifeguards that are qualified through the rlss we're all trained to understand and spot these things and I am pleased to say incredibly rare incredibly rare but I do actually know of two or three swimmers that swim with us that have had it it is more common in women than in men and it is more common in women over per menopausal age so per menopause menopausal age it's more common in those in those age groups so I think is it really important that you and I talk about it and we at least spread the awareness of of it um made it sound a bit doom and doom now haven't I no it's important to be aware but that happens does it from in like bre swallowing too much water in the swallowing too much water being in the water too often we're not entirely sure what yeah it's still being researched investigated but it is more prevalent in people that drink or hydrate probably more than they need to that then swim a lot so they're then saturating the skin on top of that and then maybe swalling on top water on top of that um it creates the cells to saturate and damages the lung lining and and that's how we get yeah but we that shouldn't put people off basically no absolutely not but it is an important aspect for us to share and things like when we go from warm to cold now cold water submersion has so many well publicized benefits that have been all the way through the media recently um but they do come with risks and those risks are uh when you first get into the water and you can have cold water shock so absolutely never jump straight into cold water and cold water you likely to get cold water shock from around 14° and down it can still happen at 17° 18 at 19° it all depends on how warm you are and how warm the outside temperature is and how cold that water is so cold water shock lasts for around 90 seconds so that is when your your body and your skin start to get cold and it's an involuntary re action you start yeah in the air your heart rate goes up your blood pressure goes down you shallow breathe and you can sometimes feel a little little bit nervous it can leave some people feeling a little bit on edge but after about 90 seconds your body will begin to stabilize and you'll feel stronger and better it does pass and then you a little bit safer to go into the water um this is why as much as I love whm Hof and I love cold water submersion I wasn't a big fan of the BBC program where he jumped straight into a bore hole not such a good idea um so we have cold water shock that we to be aware of we also need to be aware of hypothermia hypothermia is actually very difficult to happen when you're in the Water swimming so we generally see hypothermia happening when you're out of the water when you get that Co the After Shock that comes on but we essentially we want to put the body into stage two stage three hypothermia to get the benefits of cold watering and that sounds awful but that's just normal submersion you know stage two stage three uh hypothermia is when we penetrate the muscles underneath and we're coing the muscles and then we're getting the benefits of reducing inflammation we get the endocrine system that does all the good things about bringing up the dopamine and the endorphins and serotonin and the oxytocin that's what makes us feel really good and then later on when we start warming back up again we have the ther endothermic reactions which helps us maintain our weight maintain blood sugars helps our Cascadian Rhythm helps us sleep better it helps things like peptides in our skin so we have more collagen production it's why we always look quite flushed after a swim you know all of these things you you want to be in the water for about 90 seconds to 3 minutes to get into that deep te tissue cooling after that you can do whatever you like um you can swim if you like you can come back out but we often hear we should be in the cold water for 1 minute per degree yeah heard that before absolute nonsense absolute nonsense especially as women our hormones fluctuate daily so one day we can wake up and we would have had a really good night's sleep we've hydrated well we're feeling great and I can probably be in the cold water for 15 minutes before I start to feel really cold and I'll be great but the next time I go in the cold water I've had a poor night's sleep I have haven't drunk as much I haven't eaten well I'm feeling a bit run down I can only cope with 3 minutes and that's fine you've got to tell yourself that each swim is individual don't try and beat the time that you did last week because that's the challenge to yourself the challenge is that you need to learn to listen to your body every cold water swim is different and we need to listen and adapt accordingly yeah and I guess triathletes are not always very good doing that like that competitive sort of no it is really difficult to get these three people and you know thir a pound for every single time I've seen someone say oh I I don't understand it I only did three minutes today and last week I managed 15 and I have to repeat everything that I've just said to you and say you know it just might be that this week your your body's a little bit adaptable to metabolism and you're just burning fats a bit quicker and so you're feeling the cold a little bit more off we go let's let's finish off fine don't worry about it you're getting everything that you need from that cold water swim in around 2 to 3 minutes when you've penetrated that deep tissue cooling yeah and that's so it's kind of like a different you know you're looking at it from a completely different angle to actually swimming you know you're not looking at it like I'm swimming I'm I'm just going in to get the benefits that's going to increase my recovery and and all of those benefits that you talked about earlier so we're not looking we've got to change our mindset around it a little bit if we're going to go Open Water Water Swimming the second mindset is is Open Water swimming a lot of people come down thinking they're going to swim Open Water I'm going to do a thousand meters today and you have you have to build up to that my friend um and it's it's interesting so a good example is Louis Pew so Louis Pew very famous ice swimmer he's incredible so the body goes through habituation and adaptations in cold water if you submerge in cold water tomorrow your body will remember that process for 12 months and it makes adaptations so then the next time you go in yeah it will be a little bit easier and a little bit easier but what LS Pew found was that he became so adaptable to Cold Water Swimming that he was able to swim to the point of passing out in the water his body would go into such far hypothermia that he would and out now most people's terms if you did that it it it would be very difficult to come back from it Lewis is obviously incredibly fit uh and with an amazing team around him and he was able to to come back from that but the point is that we the body has to make adaptations in the cold water you can't just go straight into swimming a th000 meters 1500 M you've got to give your time your body time and space to get up to that it's concept and not all triathletes are on board with in the early stages no and we have to tell them hey 200 meters is absolutely fine as long as you're swimming in the pool during the week 200 meters cold water is a good Target absolutely it's a completely different thing as well isn't it like um you know a lot of people because of the co their lack of confidence in Open Water they want to start putting more and more Open Water Swimming in and it's like well we still need to do the pool stuff because it's where you learn your Tech you know refine your Technique and you know I I always think Open Water Swimming is more of a mental game for people to practice you know managing their fears and and and a climatization to the water and you mentioned that cold water shock and you know that's some people will get into in a triathlon race and they think they have a panic they're having a panic and actually it's the cold water and if you can climatize a little bit before yeah and and get your body used to it then you're not going to be like the beginning of the race so knowing and understanding that really helps people yeah I think let's not forget that um wearing a wet suit has compression as well which can yes really change the way that we breathe in the water and in a swimming pool every 20 25 MERS we're able to have a little rest as we push and glide Off the Wall suddenly we're now faced with 1500 M 3,600 M straight swim and it's a whole different level of swimming learning to endurance swim and threshold Pace controlling your breathing controlling your pacing so I do see a lot of triathletes that either spend 95% in the pool and then go Open Water Swimming once or twice before their event and wonder why they're struggling in their Open Water event or I see people spending 95% open water and wondering why they're not getting any quicker and they're not able to to get ahead of the pack and triath because they're just not putting the time and space into the pool both have their place in training we use a pool especially during the winter because we're able to control the variables in a swimming pool you know it's a controlled environment so we're able to look at our Pace we're able to look at our technique without weather without the water moving without Sandra doing breaststroke in front of us and with her head up and her toe flow you know so um it is really important it does have its place in training and especially during winter so winter is a time when first of all it's a time for us to decompress we've had our Race season we've had our events and there's always an natural come down from that but it's also really important to allow your body time and space to recover from that so we see a lot of people that finish their events in September October and they want to gr straight back into the pool I need to keep my training up no you you need some time to congratulate yourself for the season that you've just done to self analyze and think what am I going to do better next year and allow some time to just enjoy the process of relaxing the next thing we use winter for is a little bit more self goal so rather than event training we're going to have some personal goals we're going to say today I'm going to work on my catch today I'm going to work on my rotation I'm going to work on my pacing or do you know what I'm going to work on my flexibility and my stability and I'm going to go to yoga and I'm going to go to Pilates whatever it is you have a little bit more personal goals rather than it being just about event because as you and I know you can get event fatigue and it can become it can be all-encompassing and very overwhelming and if you're never giving yourself a break from that you're going to lose the joy and the motivation of training pretty early on so Winter's a really good time for self-reflection but it's also a really good time to explore different different cross trining um things that are on offer so yoga Pilates your strength training you can do things like your cold water swimming or absolutely anything even meditations and affirmations each have their place in training we can do a little bit more dry land training so working on a little bit more upper body strength lower body strength and keeping ourselves taking over so winter becomes the time when they say winter miles equals summer Smiles I kind of take that with a pin so also it's true in the sense that in the winter we're kind to ourselves we look after our bodies we heal but we keep things sticking over at a lower pace and then in the spring we can begin to ramp it back up again definitely so have you do you recommend those the swimming cords or anything like that cuz I started using them and I was like actually this is really helpful because I can actually feel the muscles moving a bit more I can feel the resistance a lot more than in the water so it did help me but certainly cords definitely have their place in training we we've been using cords for for master swimmers and Elite youths for the decades they absolutely have their place in training but much like um treadmills we need to use them sparingly we can't we cannot use core training in replacement of of sing in the pandemic when everyone was doing well yeah need back then thankfully we're not in that situation anymore but I have seen some people using cords in replacement of going to a swimming pool and claiming that their swim times have got quicker I'd love to see the data is all I'm saying on that but we've got to be careful when we're using cords as long as you incorporate rotation into your cord working because otherwise you're going to be using shoulders predominantly and that is not how we swim as swimmers most of our propulsion should come from the hips so like tennis like golf that drive and propulsion starts in the hips if you keep the the body straight and just use the shoulders you're going to burn the shoulders out pretty quickly things like tendon itis and impingements which are not on anybody's agenda for the upcoming season so yes cords absolutely have their place make sure you're encompassing the rotation with it and use them sparingly other things that we want to be working on in the winter is a lot more core control so where we have a lot of injuries we see a lot of injuries through like the glutes sciatica so we want to make sure that we're strengthening the core to take a little bit more pressure off the back and make sure everything else in the ler levels are stabilized as well so that's your planks your Russian Twists all the stuff we absolutely hate doing they are really really good um I always Advocate yog and pilates it is the best way to keep the body supple and suppleness means less chance of injury so the more Supple we are the more oiled up we are through our body uh the less likely you are to get those twinges and those aches and those pains and and you don't have to go to ay and you don't have to join classes to do that there are so many different free uh programs online that you can find these days and do in your living room and and I definitely Advocate them the other thing we want to work on In The Swim apart from our technique is we want to look at our threshold Pace winter is a great time to be working on threshold and this is the power of zone two training I love Zone if I could I would swim Zone 2 all my life I I I'm very much a diesel engine and I love working zone two the power to is taking it down a notch not working at our maximum working well below our submaximum and keeping it ticking over that creates a much stronger cardio respiratory system so that when we get we come back and gear it back up in the April we start from a much stronger level we don't need to Sprint through the winter we can we can take it much slower much steadier work on our pacing work on our breathing work on those small technique gains here's a Time where we can use our paddles we can use our poor boy and our fins and our snorkel if you want to use snorkel and we can work on our catch and our pull and our recoveries and our rotations uh whilst we're also giving our body a great big hug uh and giving it all the love and attention we need through the winter ready for the next season and especially you know I think the season you've also got the darkness in the evening and that kind of thing it's it's kind it's harder to motivate yourself this time of year to do lots of things but it's always worth it you know when you get out and and do something but you also need to be aware that yeah it's not as easy mentally it's not as easy I think creating Variety in your training through the winter is a great way to keep yourself motivated maybe looking at joining a group if that's what helps you with your motivation is a great way to to stay active throughout the winter or perhaps if you can afford to looking at an overseas swim camp or a tri camp through the winter months that be nice for a lot of us right now but if you're able to do that that is is a great way not only to meet friends and and share experiences but to enjoy a little bit of warmth from the Sun and the Sea and put some time into your training yeah that sounds like a good idea I like the sound of that oh well thank you so much for your tips youve packed loads of information in there for us so I'm sure people will be able to find out you know have a lot to take away from this episode um so just to wrap up then are you training for any events or have you got any challenges on the horizon so I had signed up to the Triple Crown this year but I ended up getting hooping cough ear what's the what's the Triple Crown sorry so the Triple Crown is in the Lake District it's coniston windir and I always forget the last one um there three three legs terrible but basically you swim one a month um and it starts with the the shortest distance all way all the way up to windir which is the longest distance so I signed up to do the triple crown and started putting all of my training in and then I ended up getting a disease Victorian disease from my children and I had hooping cough so I'm looking forward to the next Victorian disease I get this year so I actually I stepped back and and didn't do it but I've transferred it to next year so I'm I'm starting my my training now for the Triple Crown but I generally don't take part in events anymore I take a lot more enjoyment these days for swimming for me and and having my own reasons to swim sometimes I find personally and this is coming from an elite coach I find when I sign up to a event the pressure becomes too much for me and I Collapse so that's not for me but I've I've been there and done it and got the t-shirts and medals I think sometimes you kind of like you go through the phase and you can be quite happy just watching other people and helping other people to do that as well you know I I'm not training for any events either and I just swim because I love to swim yeah ex I swim I love it I don't I wouldn't say I love to swim to be honest I go I don't cycling cycling I can live without cycling for the rest of my life I haven't I haven't rid my bike for nearly well several months like I've been not not not cycling as much either but how do you keep your motivation then with you know if you've not got an event because some people struggle with that don't if they've not got something to train for I've come obviously I've come from a swimming background and swimming has been a major part of my life all the way through my life so swimming for me is an opportunity to like I said decompress it's it's a chance where I don't have to talk to people and I have time and space to Pro process everything going on in my life I've come up with my best business ideas when I swam I've come up with my best advice to swimmers when I swim and so that motivation for me is I have a very busy life with with the coaching and with tri swim and swim smooth I have two young children a husband pets you know swimming my motivation is this is my time this is I can silence the voices and just bubble bubble breathe and so that's that's my motive ation um it's it's my chance to unwind okay that's nice I like that motivation that's good yeah I I don't know why I'm still doing it just like doing it I'm quite disciplined as well I'm like I I use it as a kind of relaxation thing at the moment um so it's nice and I like the social because there always someone that I know in the pool so I have a little chat and things so there's that well funny thing is I I'm not a huge people talker outside of Tri swim you know when people come up to me talk to me at Tri I love it you know and and I'm I'm very conversational and chatting and articulate in my normal Outsider coaching life I generally don't like people but when I'm when I'm swimming in a swimming pool I don't know there's like a camaraderie between people you've never met before and it Sparks conversation and everyone's always happy to see you I you always get your your odd one or two that clearly doesn't want to be bother hey that's fine you do you um but you generally get people that oh I can see you're a good swimmer what's your background he tell me tips for me I was thinking about doing and it starts this whole conversation and by the end of it you found the new coffee budy I love it I like that yeah no it is it's good if you can take the time to CU I used to be one of those people that didn't want to talk to anyone I was like right I'm training got to but yeah I've I've discovered that it's much nicer but then I haven't got you know I've got the time now cuz I'm not trying to fit in like however many k in a in a short amount of time so I understand that that as well definitely sides of the spectrum yeah exactly it's it's fun being a swimming coach in the pool because you have maybe a little bit more understanding of people that are struggling and also the people that are there to train and you're somewhere in between that and comes quite funny especially when you can see in another Lane that someone's touched someone's feet and you're like drama you know what's going to happen yeah I know it's so funny and I think you can feel the energy as well in the pool you can feel like when someone gets in and they're like right I've got to be really aggressive swimmer and you can feel the whole atmosphere change you're like love that I I have to say I love it when that swimmer comes in because it's like driving on a Motorway and you find you've got to find small things to keep yourself entertain when that swimmer gets in the pool they are my new challenge I have I must keep swimming until they stop and they don't know me they don't know I'm having this internal battle with them and that just makes it even more fun yeah they probably do on some because you can I can feel what people are thinking can't you sometimes you're like oh I think they're trying to race me yeah and I'm all for it that's what keeps me going keeps me burning I love it yeah definitely it is well something to the whole experience doesn't it so what what is the best I know you've got some things kind of like in the pipeline at the moment so do you want to talk about them and then tell people how to get in touch and connect with you if they're interested in learning a little bit more or oring after this will be my 10th next year will be my 10th year of running Tri swim I decided to create a whole new app for swimmers so there are certainly different different apps on the market but I wanted to create an app built by a swimmer for swimmers so understanding all the different challenges I face a swimmer I wanted something in one central location like could dip into so our new Tri Swim app is going to have every different swim plan for every different level of swimmer and reason for swimming from beginners all the way up to channel swimmers your 70.3 as your iron maners technique endurance Sprint the lot on top of that we've recorded a load of drill videos that we show you how to swim the drills and what they should look like and why you're swimming them I think a lot of coaches forget that that your client doesn't come from a swimming background and sometimes you forget to tell your client why they're swimming a drill and how it applies to their full stroke so these drill videos that we've created help you unlock that we've also created some home PT workouts so that's for stretching and resilience training um body uh body weight workouts cardio we've got some home yoga workouts uh we've got some meditations and some affirmations we have a lot of people that swim with us that are very competitive that live on that knife edge who may be struggle to sleep in the evening because they've got too much cortisol so things like meditations can just help bring that back down and help you swim a little bit better we have a lot of people that struggle with body confidence or just general confidence in their ability that affirmations are really good you know it may not be for you but there are a lot of people this thing will work for we have nutritional PA plans and recipe guides for every type of of diet whether you're race prepping glutenfree keto whatever hundreds of recipes um and so yeah this has become a a labor of love where I hope it will help people not only have a guided Pathway to getting better but also help them understand their journey and that it is a journey and in every Journey there are twists and turns there's bumps in the road and that's absolutely fine definitely that sounds amazing and what so when do you expect it to Happ you don't know so we're in our beta testing stages now so we're hoping to have the app ready to roll out before Christmas so keep an eye on our social media on social media because we're putting all the updates on there other things that we're doing is we've got a lot of interesting fun stuff coming out swim smooth next year so got this great mentorship program where we're taking on new coaches we want to share the love with coaches spread the love and awareness of swim smooth so if someone's watching this who's who may be a triath coach or an Open Water coach and wants to understand biome mechanics of swimming techniques and how to apply that to their coaches do get in touch with us cuz we want to share our knowledge with you and if you're swimmer watching this wanting to improve their swimming I cannot encourage you enough to go and check out Swim smooth's website because it is the best tool out there for every level of swim breaking it down into bite-sized chunks and helping you understand your individual technique yeah definitely I use it as a resource with clients all the time I kind of say go and have a look at that because it's really helpful to just understand the drills and what you're trying to achieve got the book up there as well I had the book before he launched all the you know online stuff it's quite a long time ago now yeah but it's you know still a relevant book it's really good yeah really helpful I found that was super useful so yeah people can get in touch with you through Instagram online if they look for tri they're going to find you I'll put all the links anyway below so that people can contact you I've got a pause a brain myself I cannot remember all of the different handles we have for social media yeah don't worry I'll get I'll make sure that they're on there and if I need any off you then I'll I'll let you know but yeah it's been great talking with you and yeah thank you for all your tips and advice and your enthusiasm and your passion for swimming has really come over so thanks thanks for listening today have a great day take care bye for now[Music]