Total Immersion - Does it work?

I don't know much about TI but I thought it was about improving stroke technique/efficiency. Is that not true? It seems to me that, in this thread, there is some conflating between *techniques* that are suitable (or not) for sprinters to adopt, and *training* for sprints. This may also be what Jazz is getting at. (See, for examples, references to "traditional training" and sprinters working on "basic endurance.") TI training is all based on the concept of practice. To me it seems like learning to play something on a musical instrument: you have to play it slowly before you can play it quickly. That's how you build procedural memory, and TI approaches swimming as a procedural memory problem to solve. So even if your goal is to sprint faster, and even if you're an experienced sprinter, you might still benefit from doing slower streamline drills, catch drills, whatever. I did this style of training a while ago and it worked OK for me, although at my skill level I got a lot more out of strength training. But then, why not both?

I don't know much about TI but I thought it was about improving stroke technique/efficiency. Is that not true? It seems to me that, in this thread, there is some conflating between *techniques* that are suitable (or not) for sprinters to adopt, and *training* for sprints. This may also be what Jazz is getting at. (See, for examples, references to "traditional training" and sprinters working on "basic endurance.") TI training is all based on the concept of practice. To me it seems like learning to play something on a musical instrument: you have to play it slowly before you can play it quickly. That's how you build procedural memory, and TI approaches swimming as a procedural memory problem to solve. So even if your goal is to sprint faster, and even if you're an experienced sprinter, you might still benefit from doing slower streamline drills, catch drills, whatever. I did this style of training a while ago and it worked OK for me, although at my skill level I got a lot more out of strength training. But then, why not both?