Coach Scott Murray gives some tips on training sensibly when returning to the pool
Great news that we can get back in outdoor pools from Saturday 11th & get the smell of chlorine on us properly from 25th July 2020 and with BTF regularly reviewing permitted events, who knows we may even manage to get in a few socially distanced triathlons this season.
Keep up to date on BTF recommendations at https://www.britishtriathlon.org/covid-19
Before we jump straight back in there are a couple of considerations.
Anticipate that your local pool may not operate the same hours as it did before and if you swim at different pools, they may all operate slightly differently. I know we are all keen to get some sessions in, but please be patient & kind. It may take the pool a few weeks to get the water temperature back up & staff re-trained on how to deal with COVID casualties.
Like we have seen with open water swimming & returning to athletics tracks there may well be online booking to complete, health questions & declarations to fill in, temperature checks, social distancing and no or limited access to changing rooms.
Government guidelines are that each swimmer should be allowed 3m2 , so anticipate there may be fewer swimmer allowed in each lane.https://www.gov.uk/guidance/working-safely-during-coronavirus-covid-19/providers-of-grassroots-sport-and-gym-leisure-facilities
Swim England proposes that there should be 6-8 swimmers in a 25m lane, if the lane is 1.5m wide. https://www.swimming.org/swimengland/pool-return-guidance-documents/ Bear in mind the Govt document above refers to the 1:5 coaching ratio and is applying the outdoor guidance to indoors as well.
Keep an eye on the BTF site as we will be publishing our updated coaching guidelines imminently.
Remember you should be happy & comfortable with the provisions the pool has in place to keep you safe.
The International Triathlon Federation recommendation is that when we get back to swimming, we should reduce our volume and/or intensity by 30%.
For those in swim clubs it may be dropping down to four sessions rather 6 sessions a week. If your triathlon clubs swims twice a week, it maybe from 2 x 1hour sessions a week, to 2 x 40 minutes sessions. If you know your Critical Swim Speed, you are probably going to be in the low aerobic zones around ~7 to 10s+ on top of your CSS.
Swim England’s guidance is for the first three to four weeks athletes should be swimming at an intensity around a 5/10 effort, so low aerobic. This is minimise athletes breathing heavily and any aerosol droplet transmissions.
https://www.swimming.org/swimengland/pool-return-guidance-documents/
BTF & ITU guidance is that once we get back into the pool, we should give ourselves at least 6 weeks before looking to get competitive. This is a great opportunity to work on skills like sculling and really focus on execution of our drills.
As a rough rule of thumb, it will take you between half - to all of the time that you have missed – so if you have missed 12 weeks swimming expect that it will be 6-12 weeks before you feel your swim fitness return.
I’m sure that if you have been open water swimming in the last few weeks your shoulders may have felt a bit ouchy after the first few swims. I’d anticipate having a bit of delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) after the first few pool swims.
The environment may look strange with coaches wearing masks or using message boards to pass on information. The Government guidelines stipulate that steps should be taken to avoid people needing to raise their voices to communicate, again due to the potential of aerosol & droplet transmission.
Just going to touch on a bit of open road cycling as the Cycling Time Trials have announce that from Monday 13th Club events (Type B) will be allowed to go ahead and from Saturday 18th July open time trial events will be sanctioned.
Again, just consider how happy you are with the risk assessments and medical provisions around any event you are considering, as it may have been a while since you road on the open road at that sort of intensity.
Lastly a consideration around returning to athletics training. Consider the change in surface you are running on and how changing from trainers to flats to spikes could impact on your running style. Make sure you keep up your conditioning around Achilles and hamstrings and please, do not go for the burn up sprint with your buddies until you have.
The Regional Committee is looking to host an informal drop in webinar on Monday 20th July 2020 at 1900 for anyone wanting to chat around the stuff spoken about in this article. Contact southcentralacademy@britishtriathlon.org if you want the link.
