The Essential Triathlon Swimming DVD. Discover the secrets to improving your swim technique, avoiding painful injuries, and shaving minutes off your best triathlon times to date!
With over 27 years experience in coaching and competing, Kevin Koskella is one of the top triathlon swim coaches in the U.S. today.
Being an accomplished swimmer, earning the highly prized All-American status at the college level, Kevin Koskella is a leader in aiding the beginner and experienced triathlete towards excellence in the swimming portion of the race.
Kevin’s coaching philosophy differs from the traditional approach to competitive swimming: He believes that the best swimming techniques are different than the traditionally taught styles:
Traditional: The traditional approach and philosophy in swimming has been “no pain, no gain” and “the more, the better,” usually with slower swim timing and results as well as burnout and injuries.
Koskella Triathlete: This progressive approach incorporates using several techniques and drills in workouts, as well utilizing clinics and private lessons, allowing swimmers to get more out of their strokes, swim faster, and swim more fluidly, while keeping their heart rates down. In other words, getting more out of less!
Kevin coaches sessions for swimming masters and triathletes in San Diego, and conducts a variety of clinics, private lessons, and video-analysis of personal swim style with critique and correction. He has helped professional Ironman triathletes reach their goal, but his passion is to give the new triathlete the confidence to be successful in the swim portion of the race.
Kevin is an active contributor to Triathlete Magazine, Inside Triathlon Magazine, Men’s Health Magazine, and popular websites, Active.com and Beginner Triathlete.com, focusing on issues, tips on swimming for beginners, and helping his triathlete students to resolve common swimming problems.
Hey Kevin, my name is Jose Flores and I writte to you from Puebla, Mexico. I don’t know if you have a lot of students from Mexico but I certainly am one. Let me congratulate you on your system. I purchased the DVD (had them shipped out to a hotel in Las vegas where I spent a weekend) and the ebooks and now I think I was one of the firsts to purchase the drill cards, stil waiting for them here in mexico. I also lsiten to your podcast every week, by the way it’s been two weeks now since the last one right? Hopefully you’ll publish a new one soon. So I’ve been doing the drills and they are helping, I am able to take fewer strokes every 25 yards and consume less energy. I am at the pool practicing 3 or 4 tiimes a week. previous to this, my last swimming lesson was 25 years ago (I’m 36 now).
What has been giving me a hard time is breathing, I am practicing on my breathing position which throws me out of balance but I think I can fx this following the drills, what I don’t know how to fix is that now that my strokes are longer I fall out f breath before it’s time to come out for air. I breathe every 3 strokes, take a breath…. take my slow and long strokes but before I’m done with hte 3 strokes I am already gasping for air, I hold it of course and wait, sometimes I hav to hurry myself to reach out for air and that pushes me out of balance again, after a few laps I’m agitated and have to take a rest. What can I do to help with this?
I hope you don’t mind me asking and again I congratulate you on an excelent International coaching service .
best regards
Jose Flores
Kevin,
I have been trianing for my fourth Tri and suddenly from one workout in the pool my right shoulder and right peck became very painful. 80% of the ache came from my chest, peck area. I iced and rested for a week and it happened again after swimming for about 20 mins. Can you advise me at all. My tri is on July 26th.
Thank you in advance.
Mark
Kevin,
I am training for my third tri. I have been listening to your podcast none stop while biking and running. I have been working on breathing while swimming for the last year. Nothing has worked no matter what i have tried. I still got warn out after swimming about 100 meters. finally i found a way to increases that distance exponentially. I however am swimming unilaterally instead of bilaterally. My questions i guess is that is there anything wrong with swimming unilaterally,and is there anything else i can do to make breathing while swimming easier?
Corwin,
Good question! I think by “unilaterally”, you mean breathing to one side only.
I definitely encourage swimmers, especially triathletes, to learn to breathe on both sides. However, there is nothing drastically wrong with only breathing to one side. I still mostly breathe to the right side, because it is much more comfortable. But, the advantage of bilateral breathing is that your stroke will be more balanced, and navigation becomes easier. Also, you will be less likely to get a shoulder injury if you are balancing out your breathing.
Good luck and let us know how it goes!
Kevin
Hi Kevin,
Your videos, instructions and drills have been a big help to me. I have enjoyed sprint and Olympic triathlon over the years. I’ve typically struggled with open water panic but eventually in the season overcome it and start all over the next year. Last year I was back to Olympic distance again and finally fell in love with oven water. I swam weekly in open water. At the end of summer I started having GI issues and finally last week my doctored figured it out and I cultured positive for cryptosporidium and Blastocystis hominis- which are both parasites that my doctor believes I most likely contracted in open water when I was swimming. I have to be on Flagyl which is not something you want to be on more than once if you can help it. If I want to stay healthy my dr. suggests I give up open water swimming. Any thoughts on what my odds are of getting this again. Do you know how common it is for triathletes to contract parasites from open water?
Kevin,
I really appreciate all your tips on swimming. If you could give one tip for open water swimming what would be the most important one??