I agree that, as a swimmer, you have to figure it out in water. My style, no matter what the pursuit, is to learn as much as I can from a scientific perspective as well. It helps me understand what I am doing a lot better. It doesn't mean that I am going to put pen to paper and run through equations at all.
Although...I do have access to FEA (Finite Element Analysis) fluid simulation software...I am crazy enough to put a human model in a flow of water in different poses and watch what happens.
I am with you there, I *NEED* to know the background behind something before I go out and do it.
As you have probably seen, one good thing about the Total Immersion people is they they have put together a comprehensive program to get you swimming all four strokes. And they back it up with some logic. People will say that their approach is not the best approach, however it is the one resource that I know if that will allow you to sit down with only a basic 6 year old redcross lessons 25 years ago swimming skill and show you in a solid manner how to swim all four strokes.
You're not done at that point, but they do a explain a way to get it done.
But once past that, being an engineer myself here are my favorite technical resources for swimming.
1. Swimming Fastest - huge book and the first few chapters detailing the strokes and propulsion are excellent
2. Coachesinfo.com - the swimmingsection is edited by Ross Sanders and it is full of nice information
3. Proceedings of the International Society for Biomechanics in Sports w4.ub.uni-konstanz.de/cpa. You will find there is very little actual data on what aspects of swimming technique are better than others. What little there is, you can get oriented to through these presentations.
3. www.svl.ch Check the tips in english section.
4. www.h2oustonswims.org Coach Hines has written a fair bit and lays it out pretty well. He is also the author of fitness swimming.
5. acadianendurance.blogspot.com - Well it's my own site but the 4 articles about the lactate metabolism and the types of swim sets that we use to work on the different aspects is pretty good I think :-)
I agree that, as a swimmer, you have to figure it out in water. My style, no matter what the pursuit, is to learn as much as I can from a scientific perspective as well. It helps me understand what I am doing a lot better. It doesn't mean that I am going to put pen to paper and run through equations at all.
Although...I do have access to FEA (Finite Element Analysis) fluid simulation software...I am crazy enough to put a human model in a flow of water in different poses and watch what happens.
I am with you there, I *NEED* to know the background behind something before I go out and do it.
As you have probably seen, one good thing about the Total Immersion people is they they have put together a comprehensive program to get you swimming all four strokes. And they back it up with some logic. People will say that their approach is not the best approach, however it is the one resource that I know if that will allow you to sit down with only a basic 6 year old redcross lessons 25 years ago swimming skill and show you in a solid manner how to swim all four strokes.
You're not done at that point, but they do a explain a way to get it done.
But once past that, being an engineer myself here are my favorite technical resources for swimming.
1. Swimming Fastest - huge book and the first few chapters detailing the strokes and propulsion are excellent
2. Coachesinfo.com - the swimmingsection is edited by Ross Sanders and it is full of nice information
3. Proceedings of the International Society for Biomechanics in Sports w4.ub.uni-konstanz.de/cpa. You will find there is very little actual data on what aspects of swimming technique are better than others. What little there is, you can get oriented to through these presentations.
3. www.svl.ch Check the tips in english section.
4. www.h2oustonswims.org Coach Hines has written a fair bit and lays it out pretty well. He is also the author of fitness swimming.
5. acadianendurance.blogspot.com - Well it's my own site but the 4 articles about the lactate metabolism and the types of swim sets that we use to work on the different aspects is pretty good I think :-)
