 The only easy day was yesterday Welcome to the only easy day was yesterday the official Navy SEAL podcast Comfort speed and efficiency in the water are all hallmarks of a successful NSW recruit today at NSW In Preparatory School, we continue our discussion with aquatics expert Dan Kish to speak specifically about safely developing confidence in the water This will be a popular episode because there are so many people that are not comfortable in the water and even before that Flat-out can't swim or have had very little exposure to the types of swimming that you're talking about For people who are in that camp, what is your recommendation for them in terms of kind of Introducing water sports initially into their training regimen Do you recommend people start with the the real basics like a modified freestyle just to kind of learning To at least start the crawl walk run kind of part of this swim process I can't help but think that there's gonna be a lot of people that tune into this episode to learn like hey I'm a bat. I know I'm a bad swimmer or I think I'm a bad swimmer Where do I even start this combat side stroke? Hey, I can barely even get in the water without feeling like I'm gonna drown. You know what I mean that's common a lot of friends that joined you know higher military branches and Very weak and deficient in the water and they knew it and they asked me like hey I know you can swim. Can you help me out here and I would drag them to the pool with me Water polo is another great way to become comfortable and confident and with team building going on It's the most calories you'll ever burn in a match or game You know one game of polo there is no rest because you're treading no matter what you are doing You're in the pool. You are sprinting and Great ways to become you know a little bit more comfortable and confident You don't have to be the fastest swimmer We just want you to have a good foundation or base that we can build on and make you Get dialed in and tuned in to become Much you know more efficient in the water and it should be the last of your worries Once you get out, you know two mile swims in the bay water rescues pool comp not tying Should be flawless once you get out there. I hope so you just mentioned comfortable or confident base Can you maybe give me your definition of that? It doesn't have to be precise but I'm sure people will set that as a benchmark for where they want to get at a bare minimum and So can't kind of maybe give me a picture of what that means to you it's very easy to identify who is Scared or uncomfortable in the water from day one if you're swimming with big eyes Panic mode just trying to find the wall as fast as you can That's wrong. You know slow things down. You should be able to swim, you know longer distances You don't need to have a ton of speed But your 500 yard times should hopefully be under that 10 minute, you know nine minute base to be Good and comfortable in the water if you're over 11 12 minutes you're gonna struggle significantly in The pool evolutions that take place here So that that's a pretty good number that people can actually kind of have a metric for themselves to say, you know Where I'm at in this spectrum in terms of comfortability Obviously, I think with the type of instruction you can provide in your other teammates Obviously people can get much better and much more comfortable, especially with the additional exposure But that's a good place for them to start. Is that what you're saying? Yes, get your you know 500 yard time down, you know with the least number of strokes as well So be efficient and get your time down We call that here golfing where we want to take the lowest number of strokes while going the fastest time We'll play around with that a little bit and we will always train Half the time on our right side and half the time on our left side here at the prep school majority of us have a strong dominant side and Majority of us have a bad side and we want to be good on both and that helps play a role with being comfortable no matter Not always operationally speaking you can go swim down on your right side and swim back on the mission on your right side as well Be good on both and that's same with freestyle You'll always breathe half the time over your right shoulder half the time over your left shoulder Is that a testing requirement for the PST? To be swimming half and half on each side that is not a testing requirement here When we train we enforce it heavily if you watch the Olympics, you're like oh Michael Phelps only breathes over his right shoulder correct, they Race like that. They do not train like that You'll always train half the time on your good side half time in your left your bad side or with breathing on freestyle or Combat side stroke so we do enforce that pretty strictly here to be good on both and that will help any one side Develop better as well. Let's talk a little bit about buoyancy This is something that I really wasn't even that aware of until maybe a few months ago When we started doing a little bit of reading and research about the PST in general How can someone determine whether they're negatively buoyant or positively buoyant is that something that's easy to determine or is just like I keep on sinking at the bottom of the pool. How do you determine that? So that's funny We're all humans, you know, we're all pretty much the same. How come you're buoyant and I'm negative. It makes no sense. However About 20% of the candidates come through, you know sink to the bottom. Is that a body composition thing? Body composition plays a little role You see the you know the bulk of your muscle guys But we still have some candidates that exhale all their air and are still bobbing at the surface Yeah, because I definitely think if I let out the auction out of my lungs, so which is good What I tell them is you need to learn how to control your body in the water. Some of us are positive some of us are negative Both have perks here at Naval Special War from prep school I when we swim we want to be at or even better on the surface, right? So we want to be positive in the water, you know you the less drag You will increase speed if you're negative in the water you can be working a little bit harder We want to get that body position, you know at or on the surface But if you're negative once we start working the first time we do Pool skills one of the stations is floats and your hands and feet will be together behind your back and you Need to do what it takes to control your body to stay at the surface You have to stay inside your six foot by six foot, you know box and you can't just travel or swim all around and For some of us, it's the easiest thing you'll ever do, right? You just be a bobber in the water simple hands and feet together Other candidates that are negative you're gonna be working a little bit harder You know get those little dolphin shrimp kicks going stay at the surface the entire time So yes, we're all humans. Why is it different? Some of us are positive some of us are negative females float better than men different demographics Float better than others. Everybody. Everyone is different in the water You need to learn how to control your body in the water So talk to me a little bit about that is that just a matter of keeping a certain amount of air in your lungs? You did mention something about you know kind of flutter kick or shrimp kick a little bit to kind of help keep yourself Propelled towards the surface. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? Like what what types of techniques maybe someone should investigate and kind of try out in the pool or in the Ocean or wherever to kind of figure out what works for them. What's the starting point for that? Yes, so here we have freshwater pools in the ocean different density makeups It's easier to float salt water than fresh water So if you're positive in the water you can almost get in a vertical position straight up and down Which is quite difficult to do you have to be very positive in the water and then you'll play with your lung capacity Can you breathe and exhale and still stay at the surface or on the surface? So you're talking about really kind of staying like a pencil in the water Not moving your arms too much and just using your breathing to kind of determine at what level you start to Your your mouth will start to sting on the water. Is that accurate? That would be someone who is extremely positive in the water can float very easily Just by kind of just sticking their body vertically in the water and their face will stay above water Which is a small percent of candidates to come through The majority of us we want to get our body into a question mark shape almost So your head will be down the water the buoyant parts of your body are obviously your lungs your organs You know your chest cavity is quite positive and buoyant in the water there So once you get your body in your question mark shape, so your hands will be together behind your back Your feet will be together bring your knees up to your chest and You know float at the surface and then when you do need a breath Work your legs kick your head up Get that quick breath in and get right back down head down into that question mark shape that your whole body should be in This is the majority of our candidates That we see during our floats so during We started doing some pool skills and drown proofing tests you have to float for three minutes So stay inside your six foot by six foot box staying at the surface for those entire three minutes It seems like you're saying the majority of people are negative It's either a negative buoyant or buoyant. Is that is that a correct terminology from the second half of the spectrum? I would say a little bit more negative in the water when you come your feet will be tied together here So you need to learn how to control small dolphin kicks are working You know the lower half of your body there to keep yourself at the surface and then work those into your breath So get a good rhythm kick your head up for a breath kick your head right back down Try and stay in that question mark shape, but we will work with you here We have five aquatic coaches here to help you make you more comfortable and confident in the water I'm just going to interrupt real quick because I think that's a really key point Comfortable and confident in the water being exposed to water under waters it was a really fast way to make you uncomfortable and developing the techniques skills to give you the confidence to know that you'll be able to get a breath when you need one as opposed to When your body's kind of wanting one is I think it's a pretty big key to even developing your skill and efficiency In the combat side stroke being able to know that you can get the breath You need and you don't need to break from that mental focus and put your chest up and give me a second to regroup I can't think of any other way other than just exposure and time practice to really accelerate that unless you have any tips That you can add to that absolutely The first three letters and seal spell C right you're gonna be in the water This should be the least of your worries if you have a mission Operationally speaking if you're in the water for that long about your swimming abilities or how comfortable and confident you are We are humans. We're not designed for the water at all. We walk upright with curved spine. We need air We do not belong in the water. I think we're one of the few mammals at birth that cannot swim Spend time in the water to become comfortable and confident does not happen overnight The golden rule we have here is every day you're out of the water It takes about two days to get back where you were so if you have you know a long weekend or you've been out of the pool for a week It's gonna feel like you're swimming in mud and all sluggish because you naturally will lose that feel for the water We need to spend time in the pool You know fine pools you want to swim a lot Back in the day we used to swim, you know up to like a hundred thousand meters a day Just spend time you mean individually an individual will would swim a hundred thousand meters in one day That's common during peak training Training trips training times, but here at prep we swim about two to four thousand meters a day Which we want some quality training with also some treading some pool skills taking place water rescues Whatever else we do so here at prep we swim about two to four thousand meters a day to help us From you know kicking swimming pacing Long-distance swims short sprints. We kind of do a mixed bag With all the strokes almost every day here Let's talk a little bit about mobility. I mean there's obviously a huge focus on strength and coming into this pipeline You know these guys have to do X number pull-ups and push-ups guys have been asking each other how much they can bench since they were teenagers Right not everybody has the type of genetics that that you are gifted with the type of swimmer body that you would see Versus you know an olympic weightlifter or fill in a blank for any other sport, right? That seems like it would be a little bit of an issue for some people whether it's the shoulders and their ability to reach It kind of caused a little bit of that kind of stuttered stroke and stuff like that Do you work on mobility here? Do you recommend the guys and athletes that are kind of coming into this process work on mobility? Any specific exercises for that that you recommend? We all love those big bulky mirror muscles Those are not going to assist you in the pool. We want to have you know the longest range of motion possible Increase, you know your shoulder mobility make you more efficient in the water and just help with injury prevention as well So stay away from bulky muscles. We want to be Flexible so we will do some stretching here increase your range of motion shoulder mobility If I see some candidates that are really bad in the water I will pull them aside and show them some extra stretches that they can do to help them out help them out There's been a couple times as groups will do a class stretch with a swimming background I do you know a majority of all the shoulder mobility increase that range of motion But there are some partner stretches you know Grabbing your hands behind your back It should be taking place if you're bad at that work with a towel little by little Working on perfect streamline a majority of our candidates came and do that where you know Everyone can show me a streamline, but is your wrist over wrist? Are you squeezing your ears with your biceps? Are you as long as possible in the water? It's just unnatural being in the water keeping your arms above you for that long that I think candidates really don't expect It will help you out in the long run, you know become more efficient and hopefully prevent some injuries as well After speaking with people involved with kind of the the strength and conditioning Out of water portion of building up for this There's a big emphasis on the parts of the body that people aren't working on in the gym You know what I mean the upper back and then in the shoulders specifically I think our got to be a common weak point for people not necessarily in strength But in mobility and just being able to get a really really long stroke You need to be able to get your your hands straight over shoulders Nobody off the street can do those types of movements to be able to make their body that long Do you think that's representative what you see in the pool? It is common. Hopefully it will go away over time once we do start swimming You're going to start getting used to having your arms out in front of you for long periods of time Whether we're doing some you know kicking drills in the streamlined position Whether we're just swimming some long-distance freestyle sets Where we kind of over exaggerate no front quadrant swimming Always keeping one hand out in front of your body the most you know efficient ways to swim freestyle And this should start going away over time But hopefully you can come with a good range of motion in your shoulders We're not going to over stress your shoulders too much in the pool a lot of us swimmers have been doing it for many years We'll start have some shoulder Injuries more common in the pool Ankle flexibility is also a huge one that gets overlooked in the pool A lot of our candidates kick like they are wearing a boots and they have no boot size So you're saying keeping their their foot at like a 90 degree ankle? Correct, which is not what we want to do here Um, you should not have to think about pointing your toes while kicking But ankle flexibility plays a big role in the water. We will Slowly increase the amount of meters we do with fins on Starting off with no fins and then slowly working our way up to you know, four or five thousand meters with fins on But if you have poor ankle flexibility There's some other stretches you can do such as you know ready in the alphabet Sitting on your feet while you're watching tv or whatever it is, but other Natural abilities to get kind of overlooked in the pool there So you mentioned you mentioned fins. What what's your take on the fin issue in terms of for prep and training? Um How do you recommend people incorporate if at all fins and masks and goggles and Caps or whatever it is into their training process developing up for pst tests So almost every pool has some basic equipment. Luckily for swimming. You don't need any You want some goggles or a mask? Absolutely wear them. Take your mask off every now and then Swim you know swim with your face in the water your gear will fail Mass will break the mission still needs to be carried on you shouldn't be freaking out if you have no mass You can still swim still carry on the mission Fins just wear some regular rubber surface fins. You don't need to have 10 foot long dye fins some ridiculous things on your feet that are you know stiff as a board Just basic surface fins or zoomers, which are those a little bit shorter looking fins Help you out just condition your legs a little bit more kickboards are almost found at every single pool as well We do use those here at prep as well, you know condition your legs If you can condition, you know the biggest muscle groups of your body the rest of your body will be good to go as well So we will focus a lot on kicking. It's also the quickest way to get in shape as well Kicking with the board without a board, you know in streamlined position on your side We will do a lot of other drills, you know with some equipment on some equipment off. So be comfortable All strokes with without equipment It should be good in the water no matter what if you're wearing pants if you're wearing a shirt Just a suit all have different feels for the water Which you should be able to you know execute with no problem What kind of things that are a little bit unconventional? Do you think are helpful that you would recommend that are safe for people to develop their skills and their their capabilities in their comfort level One great thing about swimming there's Infinite amount of drills you can do to help you out become more you know comfortable in the water Or just bite size pieces of the stroke So you can start swimming, you know with just one arm or just you know one leg out of the water We'll do some goofy, you know body balance drills like that Always swim with a lifeguard with a buddy. You don't need to do underwater swims You do not need to do you know anything crazy outside of here, you know at a pool Just do some basic lap swims different intervals different distances You know join your high school team Polo team treading is a big one. I think it's overlooked You mean in terms of people people not practicing that correct coming here with no Base on how to tread in the water So staying stationary at the surface with your head dry And we will do this for extended periods of time Our hands out of the water with you know one hand out two hands out in the streamline position And you need to learn how to control your body in the water So come with a good Base of tread whether it's the egg beater kick what you see the most efficient way to tread Or with a breaststroke or a scissor kick to help you out keep your head above the surface there You talked a little bit about you know no need to underwater swim How is the the pst administered in terms of starting off your swim? Are you allowed to to go underwater and push off to the side of the pool and kind of go as far as you can Underwater are you able to kick off and do that on every lap? What are the kind of standards for that? So once we start doing underwater swims here, we have a one-to-one safety ratio So one candidate per one staff member You know with fin snorkel rescue tube in case something happens in the higher risk training evolutions However, once we start doing our swims in the water every time you push off the water Without fins on you should be executing at least one underwater breaststroke pullout Which is the most efficient way to swim underwater not the fastest way, but the most efficient way to swim underwater So push off in that tight streamline position So we have wrist over wrist you're squeezing your ears with your biceps You know powerful push off the wall You know it's tight streamline as far as you can and when you start slowing down Your hands will separate start anchoring there You know your arms push that water past your chest past your hips past your feet long glide And then sneak your hands back out front while executing a breaststroke kick underwater swimming Is the single greatest thing you can almost do to become better in the water because You're built up your lung capacity You learn how to catch and move through the water And obviously how to be streamlined as possible in the water. So it's a great thing. We do not allow our candidates To swim underwater though without us there. So there's a fine line with the safety issue But off every wall execute one underwater breaststroke pullout try and travel about 15 meters Off the wall you mean in total before initiating a stroke or correct, which is uh In the competitive world that is how far you are allowed to go off every single wall So try and use that you know get be comfortable with pushing off in the streamline position Executing one underwater breaststroke pullout And try and travel as far as you can and you should be relaxed while doing this as efficient way to swim underwater You should not be having a higher heart rate freak out mode Which we see one candidates start doing you know our underwater swims Sometimes you see people big eyes start breathing too heavily and that's when stuff can go south very quick How do you feel that open water? Swimming plays into the the training process to get you to buds. So I strongly Enforced that every candidate leaves here Can do the one mile in the bay mile and a half two mile open water swims Under those time standards of 90 85 80 minutes They're all physically able to do that One thing that you cannot teach in a pool with a line telling you where to go with no waves no marine life No tides pushing you around is guiding and siding So once we start doing some buddy swims or you're partnered up with someone You always swim within six feet of each other at all times. So guiding and siding Is one thing's difficult to teach in a pool So every once in a while when you swim work on picking your head up looking downrange focus on You know a person walking by a fixed object down far away You know mimicking a boat a buoy a bridge an island whatever is out there And then without stopping or pausing the water and continue swimming. We will be swimming 4 000 meters You know a day which is well over two miles in 90 minutes So everyone is obviously able to pass that time standard here But open water is a new realm and Mother nature can play a big role sometimes with what's taking place there Yeah, I guess there's a big safety issue too if you lived by the beach and you wanted to try to get out in open water And that's where you're going to practice your strokes I'm going to I'm going to have to guess that that's not something you recommend in terms of I'm trying to increase your fitness level generally unless you're Really an expert swimmer and even so I don't think that that's really worth the risk Unnecessary find a pool with a lifeguard Make sure you have some swim buddies around you know go work out or train with people You know similar in speed or age and try and push each other that way You don't need to find open water Here at great lakes. We have lake michigan in our backyard We are only in there, you know a handful of times a year due to the amount of Safety equipment staff everything that's to take place in order to swim outdoors And the limited window which we have here in lake michigan is quite small and that's if the weather cooperates with us on those days So there is a lot of safety aspects to take place to swim open water But easily find a pool get your workouts in there And you know try and do you know 3000 meters, which is two miles Hopefully under the 90 minute mark spend as much time in the water as you can And come to prep with a good base or foundation that we can build on Well dan, thank you so much. Where can people find any other details that might want to about this topic? So you can go to sealswik.com Wonderful illustrations pictures and descriptions about what to expect here at naval special warfare preparatory school Great dan. Thank you so much for your time and all the great information anytime Find out more at sealswik.com and join us again for the next nsw podcast