The Best Open Water Swimming Training Tips: The OWS Community Answers
Are you an open water swimmer? If so, then you understand the difficulty that comes with training. Few sports and activities are more difficult to train for than open water swimming. Open water swimming requires a fair amount of ability, knowledge, and guidance to start safely.
The “Ask the Community” series poses a wide range of questions to the open water swimming community. We recently asked the community for their best open water swimming training tip.
Here are some of the best open water swimming training tips from the open water swimming community:
“Don’t shy away from rough water. The Alcatraz swim is like a blind date, never sure who will show up!” - Gary W.
“Swim with a buddy or two or three.” - Laura Y.
“Learn to breathe on the left and right side! Keeps you from getting hit in the face with waves while you are out there.“- Alanna L.
“Practice sighting every swim!” - @cblythe1
“Train yourself to breathe on both sides until you no longer have a preference. Bilateral breathing is a must for open water safety.” - @sabrina.flynn
“Stay very calm. Open water is much different than lap swimming. Learn how to just float. Many learn to swim but can’t float if they aren’t moving.” - @swimmerguy76
“Know your swim environment before getting in.” - @capescotty
“Keep focus, stroke techniques should be consistent.” - @fouadbdlab
“Relax and enjoy. Seriously.” - @thebearanderson
“Breathe often and take it slow out of the gate, unless jumping off the boat from Alcatraz then you should paddle like hell. :-) Earplugs to help with motion sickness.” - @mykrilee
“Relax and calm down.” - @scardenasjr
“Go at your own pace. Don’t feel pressured to keep up with others.” - @mountsurf
Stay tuned to the Odyssey Open Water Swimming social media pages for more “Ask the Community” questions.