

The Effortless Swimming Podcast
Brenton Ford
Faster times and better technique aren't a guarantee when you train hard. What really makes a difference to your speed and efficiency in the water? The Effortless Swimming podcast helps make a complex sport really simple to better your swimming. We cover open water swimming, triathlon swimming and pool swimming. Hosted by Australian National swimmer and coach Brenton Ford.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Feb 25, 2022 • 9min
#221: Five Things That Helped Me Break Out Of A Rut In My Swimming
In today's episode, I want to talk about five things that helped me break out of the swimming rut. For the last three months or so, since coming to the pool from our recent lockdowns, it's taking me ages to get back, much longer than what it had in the past. I want to share a couple of things that helped me finally get back down to the times that I was doing prior to the lockdowns. 01:06 Blow-Out Session 02:53 Sprint Session 04:00 Hard Massage 05:30 Kicking 06:29 Tune In To The Rhythm Of The Stroke

Feb 16, 2022 • 18min
#220:Case Study: What's Possible In 12 Months with Craig Bryan
My guest today is Craig Bryan. A year ago, he attended our clinic, and recently, I had the chance to do another swim analysis with his swimming and saw a huge improvement. I got him on the podcast to talk about the improvement that he made and what he did to 18 seconds off his 2 km swim. 01:08 Swimming Background 04:34 Attending The Effortless Swimming Clinic 05:23 Difference In Swimming After The Clinic 07:04 Increasing The Stroke Rate 10:27 Using The Tempo Trainer 11:59 Swimming Goals 13:07 Training On Your Own 14:43 Main Drivers

Feb 9, 2022 • 32min
#219: The Queen Of English Channel with Chloe McCardel
My guest today is the Queen Of English Channel, Chloe McCardel who has successfully swam across the English Channel for a record-breaking 44th time. Join us as Chloe talk about her experience in achieving this record-breaking feat. 01:47 Keeping Eye On The Price 02:45 Has It Got Any Easier? 04:28 Unsuccessful Crossing 06:15 More Channel Crossings? 08:04 Last Swim 13:43 92 km Relay Swim https://chloemccardel.com/

Feb 3, 2022 • 35min
#218: Back to Basics with Brenton Ford (Kieser Podcast: Healthy to 100)
On this episode, I was recently a guest on Kieser's Healthy to 100 podcasts. I was a guest there for two episodes. I thought it would be great to publish it in our own podcast because I think you will thoroughly enjoy the things we talked about in this podcast. It's pretty much going to basic with freestyle, with swimming and we looked at what really matters, what's worth knowing, what's worth doing when it comes to freestyle. I hope you enjoy this episode. 00:36 Background 02:13 Peak Of Swimming Career 04:35 Swimming Sessions 05:57 Training Sessions 06:52 Consistency 07:44 Load Management 08:27 Technique 10:02Common Technique Problems 13:26 Head Position in Pool And In Openwater 14:36 Alignment 17:13 Ripping the Band-Aid Off 20:53 Catch And Pull 21:35 High Elbow Catch 24:50 Shoulder Pain 32:43 Lower Back Pain

Jan 28, 2022 • 44min
#217: How To Create Sticky Habits And Avoid Wasting Your Time with Chris Natterer
My guest today is Chris Natterer from Ultraworking. He is a Lead Product Manager at Ultraworking.com. In this episode, Chris will talk about what we can do to be more productive to make sure we stick to habits and also to talk about nutrition as well. All of these things tie in really well in what we do. my job is to help people be consistent with their swimming but also change their motor patterns and develop different muscle memories which really comes down to sticking to habits. So I thought this would be a good topic to talk about and why not get someone who is experienced in that area to chat about it. 01:05 Ultraworking Background 02:27 Implementing Best Practices (Work Cycle) 10:12 Debriefing 11:28 Reason Behind 30 minute Time Cycle 14:12 "Very Easy Not To Do Planning" 17:16 Consistency 23:15 Baseline and Stretch Goal 32:00 Joint Health 36:28 Nutrition https://www.ultraworking.com/swimming https://clockworknutrition.com/ Form Goggles https://www.formswim.com/?sscid=b1k5_hkrgn& Check out the Effortless Swimming membership for online coaching options: https://effortlessswimming.com/member/membership/ View our freestyle clinic schedule around Australia: https://effortlessswimming.com/freestyle-clinics Click here to subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/user/EffortlessSwimming Follow us on Social media: https://www.facebook.com/effortlessswimming/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/effortlessswimming/

Jan 18, 2022 • 21min
#216: Case Study: Breaking The 1:15 Barrier in A 100m Freestyle with Aidan Booth
My guest today is Aidan Booth who is over at New Zealand. Aidan mentioned in one of his emails that he hit a PB on his hundred freestyle after going through the 8-week Faster Freestyle Course. Listen as Aidan shares his experience and how he broke the 1:15 Barrier. 00:51 Goal 3:11 Power Diamond 4:33 Stroke Rate 6:38 Measuring Stroke Rate 8:04 Hold Of The Water 11:19 Technique Checklist 17:38 What Keeps You Coming Back?

Jan 11, 2022 • 37min
#215: Case Study: Wiping 1-min Off A 100m Time Trial with Michael Riber
My guest today is Michael Riber. I contacted him a couple of weeks ago because I would love to have him on the podcast to talk about his improvement after finishing the 5-Day Catch Challenge. Enjoy 00:54 Swimming Background 09:37 Swimming Injuries 10:56 Accept What You Are And Do Something About It 16:17 Sky Diving And Swimming 18:09 Improvement After The Course 27:38 Patience 35:21 Life Is Long

Jan 6, 2022 • 36min
#213: A Different Approach To Strength Training with Zac Turner
My Guest today is Zac Turner, he is a physio at Kieser Australia. I have met Zac through a clinic that I was running in Melbourne, he invited me to try Kieser Gym that he worked at. I have been going there for a couple of months now, I have really enjoyed it, got a lot out of it, and now that I have come back to swimming, I've found that my shoulders have been really good as a result of strength training there. So I thought it would be good to get him into the podcast to talk about Strength Training. 01:34 Physio Background 03:16 Training Approach 06:55 Internal And External Rotation Strength Link To Swimming 10:26 Injury Prevention 14:51 Combined Elevation Test 17:11 How Can People Improve Their Overhead Range 20:36 How Often You Do Strength Training 23:57 Tapering Up https://www.kieser.com.au/ Kieser are happy to offer this deal to listeners who want to try a Kieser strength program. It includes: ●Initial physio session ●6x supervised strength training sessions ●6 week Kieser membership ●All for $180 Mention they listened to the EffortlessSwimming Podcast when they call up to book to access the offer. Terms and Conditions: Only available to new Kieser clients. Must reference the Effortless Swimming podcast when booking to redeem. Offer ends 31st of Jan 2022. Form Goggles https://www.formswim.com/?sscid=b1k5_hkrgn& Check out the Effortless Swimming membership for online coaching options: https://effortlessswimming.com/member/membership/ View our freestyle clinic schedule around Australia: https://effortlessswimming.com/freestyle-clinics Click here to subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/user/EffortlessSwimming Follow us on Social media: https://www.facebook.com/effortlessswimming/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/effortlessswimming/

Dec 20, 2021 • 1h 1min
#212: From Gassed Out At 50 Yards To Swimming 1000 Without Stopping with Marquest Meeks
Marquest joins us in this podcast episode to talk about his early struggles when he started swimming. 01:02 Swimming Background 9:00 Doing Half Ironman 09:30 I Gotta Start With Something 16:52 But Swimming 25:53 Signing Up For The Stroke Analysis 35:53 Kicking Hard 44:18 Climbing Up A Mountain 47:10 It's Not Comfortable But I Am Not Dying

Dec 8, 2021 • 1h 12min
#211: Starting From Scratch with Ari Klau
My guest today is Ari Klau and he is a professional triathlete who started only at the beginning of this year. He essentially came from no swimming background at all and he is gotten to a point now where he swimming very well for someone who doesn't have a background in swimming. His background is running, he was an NCAA runner and that is particularly his strength but he is a very good cyclist as well. On this podcast, we explore what he is going through in the last year in terms of how he started with his swimming, where 's is he at now, and some of those things he has worked on and focused on with his technique to get to where's he at now. Enjoy! 3:15 Swimming Background 7:27 Start Of Training 9:38 Training Mindset 13:25 First Half Iron Man 16:04 Feel The Water 18:52 Finding The Balance 19:48 Making Some Changes 24:00 Video Analysis 26:35 Focusing On The Catch 30:21 Reaching The Minute Mark 42:21 "Feel For The Water" 46:44 Breathing


