Whether you’re at home in the surf or you’re looking to enter your first ocean swimming event, there are some great benefits to swimming in a flat water event.

Here are our top reasons why you should consider flat water for your next ocean swim event.

1. Focus on your stroke

Whilst the dynamic rock ‘n roll nature of the ocean is a part of its appeal, it can mean we forget about our stroke and our technique falls to the wayside.

When swimming in a flat water event you can more easily focus on your stroke; ensuring a nice long glide, strong pull and continuous kick (amongst many focal points) without being distracted by the everchanging waves and swell conditions.

2. Get comfortable with swimming in a pack

Swimming in a pack with a bunch of other people close to you can be daunting even for the most experienced swimmers.

Throw in some waves and swell and you’re almost guaranteed to have someone swim right over the top of you.

Swimming at a flat water location allows you to get used to swimming in a pack and become comfortable with people touching your feet and bumping into you in a more controlled environment before you decide to hit the waves again.

3. Almost always guaranteed flat conditions

The best thing about choosing a flat water location, whether that be a sheltered bay, a harbour or even an inland waterway, for your open water swim, is that you can almost guarantee that the conditions are going to be flat on the day because they are known for being flat almost all the time.

Knowing you are going to be greeted with flat conditions the morning of your open water swim event gives you peace of mind and takes the stress away from worrying if there are going to be large waves.

It also allows you to fully immerse yourself in the experience and truly enjoy the amazing joys of open water swimming.

4. No one can jag a wave from you

We’ve all been there before; you’ve swum well and are finishing strong, only to miss a wave and have the pack body surf past you.

Of course, if you choose an event that is held at a flat water location you can avoid this ever happening. You’ll be able to measure your results solely on your swimming ability and how hard you’ve been training and not on how unlucky you are or how skilful you are at catching a wave.

5. Know it most likely won’t get cancelled

Training hard for an event and then getting all prepared and hyped for it, only to rock up on the morning of the event and be told it’s cancelled because of a large swell is heartbreaking.

Organisers don’t like cancelling their events either, they only ever do it to keep ocean swimmers safe which is what we all want, but if you choose an event at a flat water location, you’re almost always guaranteed that you’ll get to swim and see your hard training put to work because the conditions are almost always flat.