How to Race like a CHAMPION (ft. Dubai Open)

He might sneak the victory. I'm on the pool bag during the opening. This is so VIP. How are we feeling before the 100 breaststroke? My swim pro closing out this 100-meter breaststroke. He's swimming the world masters next week. It's a roll! Good job, Perez. If you want to race like a legend, you have to go where the legends are. I'm right now in the Hamdan Sports Complex in Dubai. This is one of the fastest, if not the fastest, swimming pools in the entire world. It can fit 15,000 people. It costs over $300 million, and it was created for the 2010 World Championships, which is one of the fastest of all time. 57 championship records were broken. Four world records. This is one of the greatest pools of all time, and I'm so excited to do today's session in this pool, and I'll be racing in just a few days at the Dubai Open Middle East Championships. Let's get it. A lot of people ask what makes a pool fast or slow. Here's a couple things that make a pool fast. Number one, it's the flow rate of the gutter system. So what you don't want is a lot of turbulence because water is 800 times more dense than air. So the more turbulence you have, the more water that's ricocheting, it's actually going to slow you down. So if the gutter system can have the water flow out really, really fast, it's going to make it a fast pool. The other thing is the depth of the pool. So if you have a shallow pool, all the shock waves from the swimmers are going to bounce off the bottom, come back and hit you, bounce off the walls. You don't want to have a shallow pool. You want to have a deeper pool. This pool is about three meters deep the entire way. Another thing is the width of the lane line and the lane marker itself, how wide it is. The wider the lanes, the thicker the lane marker, the less turbulence you're going to have. Another thing is temperature. Now the ideal temperature for fast swimming and competition is 26 to 27 degrees Celsius, which is about 79 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. That's going to feel pretty cold for just a casual swim. But if you're talking about speed, you want to have a colder pool. And then of course, one of, if not the most important factor is the atmosphere. The air quality is great. The venue, I'm literally in a stadium that can fit 15,000 people. If you don't go fast in this pool, I don't know how you're going to go fast otherwise. Swimming fast comes down to setting yourself up for speed. And that happens before you even get to the pool on race day. So the way that you've been able to get a good night's rest, the nutrition that you have, what you're eating at breakfast, the way you're hydrating for success before, during, and after a warm-up or the competition itself. If you have multiple sessions, you have to make sure you're keeping yourself fueled for performance. A lot of it has to do with the way that you're actually warming up. So if you've been following along in this series as I train for the World Championships, I've been doing the same workout almost in each of these different videos. And what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to fine-tune my speed. And each week, I'm actually decreasing the amount of volume that I've done and I'm increasing the speed. I'm also giving myself more rest. And today is going to be no different. So I've got the workout that I have right here. I'll put it on the screen that you see what I'm going to do. I'm going to have a little bit of a parachute warm-up, get the muscle activation. And then I'm going to do 350s breaststroke where I'm going to descend and I'm going to go as fast as I can on the last one. I'm even going to suit up. So I'm going to take off my Speedo, put on a fast skin. I'm here in the competition venue. So I'm hoping I can put down a better time. The last few weeks, I've been able to improve my time a little bit in these 50s. This weekend, I'm actually doing a competition. So that's really going to be the ultimate test of where I am heading into the World Championships. But my goal is to really produce speed and the way that you can do that is really by setting yourself up for success. So that way you are doing the proper warm-up and everything that you need to swim faster. Let's make it happen. So part of today's warm-up, I'm doing two 50s IM. It's like a broken 100 IM. So even though I'm in a 50 meter pool, fun hack, you can actually turn or flip over in the middle of the pool. So I'm going to go 25 meters of fly, 25 meters of backstroke, stop, and then 25 meters of breast, 25 free. The reason why I'm doing such short distances, I just want to get a little bit of warm-up in each of the strokes because that increases your feel of the water, but I don't want to swim so much of the stroke that I'm over fatigued. That's a really important thing when it comes to warming up for fast swimming. You just need to do enough to warm up the muscle and get the muscle activation, but you don't want to do too much where you get yourself tired for no reason. Okay, so for the last part of my preset, now I'm going to go 25 meters with the parachute, two rounds of this. We'll go 25 with the parachute as fast as I can, maximum power, and then I'm going to swim a 50, where I'm going to go half breaststroke, half freestyle. So I have two different levels of parachute size. I have the red, which is what I'm going to use on round number one. It's a little bit smaller, and then on round number two, I'm going to load up with a bigger parachute, more resistance. I'm more warmed up, and that's going to give me a little bit more muscle activation. Then I'm going to hit the main set. Warm-up is complete. Preset is complete. It's time to change my wardrobe. I'm going to suit up, put on the fast skin, and I'm going 350s descent to maximum speed. All right, first 50 of three into the water. Now, anytime I'm doing a descent set, I want to feel super smooth on the first one. It's all about setting up technique. Honestly, the time doesn't really matter on the first one. It's all about distance per stroke. For me, I've been really working on extending my stroke, shooting my hands to streamline with a lot of power, but I don't want to feel like I'm rushing the stroke. Right now, I'm looking actually pretty good, really good distance per stroke. If you guys want to go through and leave in the comments how many strokes I took on each of these 350s, I didn't count them, but you guys can. It's a low distance per stroke, and so far, the first 50 looking really smooth. One down, two to go, baby. Here it is. Take your mark. Now, on the second 50, I do try and pick up my tempo a little bit, but I want to maintain a really good distance per stroke. Almost hit 15 meters there off the dive, really good pullout, carrying a lot of speed. As I get to the 25-meter mark, I think that was only five or six strokes, so really, really efficient, but I am trying to pick up my tempo, and this is more like a 200 breaststroke pace right here. So 100 breaststroke and 50 breaststroke, a lot more power, a lot more tempo. This is sort of midway between my descents. It's the second 50. Trying to pick up the pace. My time is faster, which is good. All right, so we're 250s in. I gave myself a little bit more rest. I dried myself off. We're going maximum speed. Let's see what I can go. Take your mark. All right, no messing around. Third 50 in the water, trying to maximize my power. A little bit shorter on this pullout. I think I actually rushed it just a little bit, and I remember feeling like I rushed the stroke just a hair. You can see a lot more pop in my stroke technique, a little bit more power, a little bit more agility, much higher stroke tempo. This is definitely more in line with a 50 or a 100 pace stroke cadence, so a lot more speed, a lot more hand speed. I did feel like I was rushing it, though. Immediately when I started this, it was not as smooth as the last 50. Yeah, the time's going to be faster, but not as smooth. Damn, that hurt way more than it should have. 350s. I got down to about a 32. My second one felt way better than the third one. I really tried to charge, and I didn't have, immediately I felt it on my first stroke. I was not gripping the water, and that's why it's so important to have a good warmup and to really fine-tune these details before the actual competition. So if this was the actual competition, I wasn't on point when it really mattered. So I was able to descend pretty nicely. My 100 pace looked pretty good, but when it came to raw speed, I didn't have it today, and it's really important that that happens now and not at the competition. So I have a few more sets to do with a parachute with fins, trying to add a little bit more resistance to my freestyle, and when I tune back in, I'll see you guys at the competition. What's going on, swim fans? We're here at the Dubai Open, so excited to be racing in the 100 breaststroke. I got a quick warmup in, ready to race fast. Shout out to Hamilton Aquatics for hosting an amazing event at this incredible facility, one of the best pools in the world, ready for fast swimming. Here we go. All right, this is the Dubai Open, 100 breaststroke. This is the prelim walkout. I felt super VIP, so shout out to the squad at Hamilton and Hamdan for getting these amazing behind-the-scenes shots of me. I mean, prelim swim walkout, the pressure cannot get any higher than this. It was a prelim swim, so what I wanted to do is just set up a really good feel of the water. You know, coming off of those 350s that I did a few days ago, I knew I had some easy speed, so what I wanted to focus on in this preliminary swim, just set up a good stroke, good long pullout here, and really not rush the technique. It's super important if you're swimming in a prelim final competition and you know that you can make the final or you have good confidence that you don't really spin your wheels in the prelims. There's a lot of different race strategies about how hard you go in the prelims versus the final, but for me, looking at the heat sheet and knowing what I'm capable of, knowing what I've done, the training coming into this event, I knew that I could go a little bit smoother here on the first 50, crank the second 50. I mean, I was out in a 33, so really conservative on my first 50, and I knew I had a lot of juice on the second 50, and you can see here, I'm already picking up my tempo. The first 50 was super smooth. Second 50, now I start to pull away from the field. I have a lot of gas left in the tank, if you could say that, and I'm starting to pull away from the field, and I felt really, really strong on the second 50, and actually, I think at this point, with 15 meters to go, I was like, crap, I probably should have gone a little bit faster on the first 50, but, you know, learning every opportunity, and even though I went out a little bit slower than I probably should have, I knew that's a good data point for the final. So, solid splits, 33-4, 36-4. All right, we're in the ready room with the squad. How we feeling before the 100 breaststroke? Whoo! Very good, very good. Very good, spider. Yes! All right, this is the final. If you notice, the pool is now dark. The lights are on. Swimming under the lights in this venue is something special. I'm really just trying to take in every moment that I can. I mean, there was smoke in the walkout. Now, it's all serious business. Off the start, I think I was a little bit slow on the reaction time, but I knew after the prelim swim, I could push the first 50 a little bit harder. It looks like I'm off to a sluggish start on the first 25 meters, but immediately, you can see I start to pick up my tempo. The guy in the lane next to me took it out like an absolute missile. So, if you remember in the prelim swim, I was out in a 33 mid. So, obviously, I knew I could go a little bit faster, and I started to pick up the tempo maybe even too much because the guy next to me was going out so fast. Really should have been in my own lane, but I went out in a 31.1, so that is significantly faster than I went in the morning. Part of that is I just tried harder. The second part of it is maybe the hype and the adrenaline really got me going. So, I look really good right now, and then the piano fell on my back. So, I really started to fatigue here at about 75, 80 meters into the race. Last 20 meters, I was thinking about how to just finish, hold your stroke together, keep your line, shoot to streamline, don't sink in the water, keep your hips high, and I really felt a lot of pain right here. The rest of the heat started passing me, but I was out so fast. Even though into the finish I died, I still ended up going a lot faster in the final coming to 108.8. Just finished up the 100 breaststroke final swim. Super excited with how it went. The time was amazing. The way I swam, it wasn't very good, but it was such an amazing atmosphere to swim under the lights. It was a great race, an incredible facility to compete in. It's really unlike anything I've ever done. Highly recommend it, and I'm so happy to take this experience with me onto the next competition. Good morning. Final day of the competition. Is this not one of the most beautiful entrances to a swimming pool you've ever seen? I mean, look at this. It's like paradise, but it's a swimming pool. Paradise is swimming. Let's go. Prelim swim of the 50 meter breaststroke. Back in lane 2 like I was in the final the night before. Same thing as the 100. I just wanted to set up a good prelim swim. Really solid distance per stroke. Right away, off the dive, I felt good pop. It looks like I'm going pretty hard right here, but actually it felt pretty smooth. I knew I had a lot of power left for the final, so I just wanted to get in here, qualify for the final session. Stroke looks really good. I look really smooth. Good distance per stroke. High tempo, but not too high, and really smooth into the finish. Finished the 50 breaststroke prelim. Felt pretty strong. I think I can go faster tonight. I'm leaving the venue right now. Going to get some lunch, maybe a quick nap. Come back for finals, racing under the lights. It's going to be epic. I've been on the pool deck during the opening. This is so VIP. I'm not supposed to be here. Our starter, final session, International Riquity. 17 and over, B-final in the water. El Gaziri is our fastest qualifier. He swam a nice 30.83, but there is pressure coming from every single lane. There is no hanging about. Look at Perez from my swim pro. He might sneak the victory. He's in lane number 7. Great. I think he's going to win it. Perez for the win in lane number 7. Hits the wall. Put your hands together for the young man at 33 years old. 30.13 as he celebrates. A fantastic win from lane number 7. Good job Perez. I just finished the 50 breaststroke and I'm honestly so excited with how the race went. I felt so much power and it's really hard not to swim fast when you're swimming under the lights. It's a stadium. The energy, the vibe is really unlike anything else I've ever experienced and I've competed at the World Championships back in 2017 in a venue that fits 13,000 people, but this to swim at night was on a whole nother level. From a technical perspective, I'm actually really happy with overall how I swam. I dropped 1.5 seconds from my prelim swim into the final swim and I think a lot of that has to do with just having a better warm-up, being more consistent with my stroke and honestly just pushing it harder. I think when you're racing against other people swimming just as fast as you, if not faster, it really pushes you and of course, it's amazing to win a heat. You know, I haven't won any heats here at this championship. So it's really exciting to go out there and race. Also, huge shout out to all the swimmers who came up to me and said hello. It's amazing to connect with swimmers all over the world, whether it's taking a selfie or talking about your race, wherever you are in the world. I always appreciate it and I think it just goes to show how amazing the swimming community is. So I have just one week until I go to the Masters World Championships in Doha. So a little bit more rest. I'm going to shave down my legs and we'll see if we can go faster. I'll see you there and happy swimming.