All Good Open Water Swimmers Are Built In The Pool
Slow down to speed up: Why winter is the time to fix your damn stroke
Your 2026 open water swim results are based on how you spend your time in the pool. Swimmers should use the winter months to focus on technique, not open water time or raw yardage.
It’s pretty simple -
Technique builds efficiency
Efficiency builds endurance
Endurance builds speed
Is that a “no” to open water? Not at all. We go to the open water to learn to be cold, swim in varying conditions, and practice our open water skills such as sighting and feeds. However, even good marathon swimmers with an English Channel around the corner will still prioritize pool work as they build their time in the open water. Why? The pool is where we build and reaffirm the core foundations of a good swim stroke that will last for miles.
Break Inefficient Habits
You can’t fix your stroke in open water. Bad habits are easily masked in open water. Chop, waves, wind, sighting and no black line make it difficult to maintain or “hold” that perfect body position and stroke.
You need the pool to build the new movements so when your body and mind get tired, the automatic movements you revert to aren’t the old, inefficient stroke but the new and improved movements you’ve mastered.
The pool is your controlled environment.
The wall doesn’t move and the clock is keeping score.
These are your tools - use them.
Winter is the perfect time to slow down and critically analyze every part of your stroke and overwrite the flaws.
It’s time to fix your damn stroke.
The Necessity of a Real, In-Person Swim Coach
Improving your stroke isn’t about swimming more laps. It’s about having a trained, expert eye guide you so that each lap is progress towards a more efficient stroke.
Many open water swimmers fall into the trap of taking stroke advice from fellow swimmers they admire based on their speed or accomplishments. However, speed and a number of swims does not equal understanding of biomechanics and swimmer development.
A stroke technique coach can usually see your flaws in minutes - your special combo of chain reactions in the water and how best to address them. This is someone who has spent years on the pool deck working with swimmers on the mechanics who can both unravel and rebuild your stroke. Swimmers vary in age, physiology and experience. Good coaches know how to find the most efficient, personalized movement pattern for each individual swimmer. An inexperienced ‘on paper only’ or ‘internet certified’ coach can accidentally grind you into injuries by following a generic one-size-fits-all approach.
Why In-Person Matters
Coaching should be in-person where the coach can see cause and effect and make corrections in real-time. Seeing a 30-second video clip and making a suggestion to then incorporate the next time you are in the pool isn’t as effective and can never provide the whole picture as an “eyes on” session - especially for newer swimmers. Invest in some coaching time, be it going to Masters or through a local community pool.
Note: You won’t be “fixed” in one lesson or a weekend workshop. Whether it’s Masters or private lessons, plan for a cycle of: learn, practice on your own, return for a tune-up, repeat. It won’t be linear and it won’t be immediate. It will be a process of drills, movements, sets, and practice.
Practice is Consistency, Repetition and Patience
Consistency is non-negotiable. You need to be in the pool at least a few times each week for a sustained period of time if you expect to improve and the winter months are perfect for this!
As the old saying goes, “Practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.”
You can’t play a piano concert at Carnegie Hall after one piano lesson - it takes years of practice and building new muscle memory. Just sitting at the piano banging on keys won’t make the concerto. Swimming is much the same - it takes a lot of practice and the more perfect practice you put in working on technique and building new muscle memory over time, the better swimmer you will become.
Be patient. Some pool sessions will be boring and just plain work while others will be fun and invigorating.
The more practices you put in, the more opportunities to improve.
Effectiveness v. Efficiency and Endurance
You can be effective and get from Point A to Point B with a lot of wasted energy and a high risk of injury. Is that swimming or is that slogging?
Adding volume to an inefficient stroke is a strategy with diminishing returns and potential injuries, so make a commitment to stop putting in “garbage yardage” (yardage for the sake of yardage). Make every yard count by working on your stroke technique to gain efficiency - more forward progress, less effort.
Why?
When you actively work on your stroke to gain efficiency, covering more yards with less effort, you can start to build endurance and eventually speed!
Speed is a Byproduct of Good Swim Mechanics
Speed isn’t about trying harder. It’s about reducing drag. A more efficient swim stroke with proper body position, a better catch and stronger pull with rotation and kick that are in sync will move you through the water with less resistance. The byproduct is speed.
Technical work now in the pool allows your body to learn to hold good technique, and thus efficiency and speed, under fatigue.
Stronger, faster, longer - get it?
A Word About Injury Prevention
Swimming involves thousands of repetitive movements. Anywhere your stroke is out of alignment you risk shoulder impingement, neck issues, or any assortment of repetitive stress injuries. By working on proper technique in the pool along with supporting dryland work for strength training, you can decrease your risk of overuse injury.
Looking Toward 2026
While the work you do in January may feel disconnected from a swim in August or September, the two are inextricably linked. The off-season is a luxurious gift to work on the small things - the drills, the micromovements. It’s the chance to invest and be hyper-focused on every lap and skill that will yield big pay-offs later in the year.
Don’t cheat yourself or hope you’ll simply become a better swimmer. Do the work now. You’ll be grateful later.