Now that I've gone through the hassle of signing up as a member of this dicussion group, this gets more and more fun. Maybe I'll get fired from my job :)
Anyway... I'm sure that ALL Masters level swimmers have heard of Total Immersion (from now on referred to as TI) swimming, correct? What are everyone's opinions about TI swimming? I am most curious because as a coach of age group swimmers, I was looking for training videos for our kids. I happened upon TI and liked what I saw... at first.
Here's some background for my experience with TI... very well put together, most of what they teach has been in existence for some time anyway, and they certainly are good for teaching novice/beginner swimmers the basic technique for swimming.
However, when looking to swim fast, and I mean fast, not lap swim quality, but truly competitively, I thing TI has missed to boat completely. Yes, smooth and efficient swimming is nice, but did anyone see the NCAA's? There are 20 year old men swimming 9 strokes per length in breaststroke! We have a number of age group coaches in my area teaching their kids how to swim breaststroke at 6 or 7 strokes a length!!! What gives? Extended glide is one thing, but when you slow down your stroke to such an extent just to achieve long and fluid strokes you sacrifice speed tremendously.
Hey, if you can swim 9 strokes a length at 1 second per stroke that is WAY better than 6 strokes a length at 2 seconds per stroke. Simple math.
Anthony Ervin of Cal swam the 100 free in the follwing SPL... 12 (start)/15/16/16. I could be off but that's what I was able to get from the (ahem- PALTRY) ESPN coverage. Now TI has goal SPL's of 12/13! Hello, if the BEST sprinter in history takes 8 cycles, shouldn't that tell us something? Turnover is very important. Same with streamlining, yes streamlines are nice and quite important but A.E. pops up after 5 yards MAX out of each turn. You only serve yourself well if your streamline is faster than you can swim, most age group swimmers would be well-served to explode out of the turn and swim within 3-4 yards.
Alas, it's been a slow day finishing my work for the week. Just looking to start a nice discussion. It's been my experience that a lot of Masters level swimmers are also engaged in coaching age group swimming at some level, and therefore I feel we can get some good dialogue going on this issue.
Now I've just used TI as an example because that's what I've had my experience with, but more general is what keys do you all stress when trying to mold competitive swimmers?
Au revoir,
-Rain Man
Parents
Former Member
I'll have to admit I have not read the TI book cover to cover but have perused it. I don't believe the TI book was meant as the magic bullit to train a world class swimmer, but more as a training aid, teaching core fundamentals or a foundation in which to build your swimming success on. I was fortunate enough to swim with a coach in the mid/late eighties who coached with a balance - drills with deliberate swimming (ie sprint freestlyers did a workout more geared to sprint free not tons of distance yardage or massive IM workouts, we still did 'crosstrain' but trained specifically). Most of the drills we did are the same ones found in the TI book. I think it foolish for a swim coach to think that by just doing easy drill swimming will get a swimmer to a sub :20 50 free, a good analogy would be that easy walking is not going to make someone do a sub :10 100 meter run - the easy walking will help you in being able to finish the 100 meters but no guarentee of being a competitive sprint runner.
Ion: I think you have to rethink your evaluation process in how you go about finding a coach. You in the past have mentioned how you felt some of the coaching was off (not getting a proper taper, etc.). One of the things you mentioned was looking for a coach for your one on one because he was a good distance freestyler and trains two competitive distance swimmers - this doesn't necessarily make that coach a good coach (think about professional sports, how many hall of famers have gone on to be great coaches, not many). You may have to shop around a little to find a mesh, you hear about a lot of athletes leaving their coaches because of personality clashes - not to say it is one or the others fault, but finding that cohesiveness can be difficult. Also be aware that coaches are sometimes lucky (talented swimmer just happens to come their way) and all of the sudden they are the person looked upon to provide advice. Have patience, Good luck and happy swimmming.
Jeff
I'll have to admit I have not read the TI book cover to cover but have perused it. I don't believe the TI book was meant as the magic bullit to train a world class swimmer, but more as a training aid, teaching core fundamentals or a foundation in which to build your swimming success on. I was fortunate enough to swim with a coach in the mid/late eighties who coached with a balance - drills with deliberate swimming (ie sprint freestlyers did a workout more geared to sprint free not tons of distance yardage or massive IM workouts, we still did 'crosstrain' but trained specifically). Most of the drills we did are the same ones found in the TI book. I think it foolish for a swim coach to think that by just doing easy drill swimming will get a swimmer to a sub :20 50 free, a good analogy would be that easy walking is not going to make someone do a sub :10 100 meter run - the easy walking will help you in being able to finish the 100 meters but no guarentee of being a competitive sprint runner.
Ion: I think you have to rethink your evaluation process in how you go about finding a coach. You in the past have mentioned how you felt some of the coaching was off (not getting a proper taper, etc.). One of the things you mentioned was looking for a coach for your one on one because he was a good distance freestyler and trains two competitive distance swimmers - this doesn't necessarily make that coach a good coach (think about professional sports, how many hall of famers have gone on to be great coaches, not many). You may have to shop around a little to find a mesh, you hear about a lot of athletes leaving their coaches because of personality clashes - not to say it is one or the others fault, but finding that cohesiveness can be difficult. Also be aware that coaches are sometimes lucky (talented swimmer just happens to come their way) and all of the sudden they are the person looked upon to provide advice. Have patience, Good luck and happy swimmming.
Jeff
