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
Re the last post :
Finally, lots of people have asked how many Olympians have Terry or Emmett coached. Is it necessary to have an explicit endorsement from an Olympian before one's coaching is considered valid? There are 100's of coaches out there who don't have that credential. Are they all unproven crack-pots until one of their swimmers hits the big time? And, should that be the measure of effectiveness, given that Olympian swimmers are a miniscule, and insanely talented, fraction of the swimming population? In other words, is what is good for them necessarily effective for most swimmers?
I agree. Not many of us master swimmers are ever going to go to the olympics. Our goals are different than Olympians' goals - mainly fitness, fun, and getting faster (but not the fastest in the world - that's unrealistic) so our coaching needs differ from Olympians' coachind needs. And I think we take ourselves a tad too seriously if we whine about our coaches' lack of expertise...most are volunteers...
Re the last post :
Finally, lots of people have asked how many Olympians have Terry or Emmett coached. Is it necessary to have an explicit endorsement from an Olympian before one's coaching is considered valid? There are 100's of coaches out there who don't have that credential. Are they all unproven crack-pots until one of their swimmers hits the big time? And, should that be the measure of effectiveness, given that Olympian swimmers are a miniscule, and insanely talented, fraction of the swimming population? In other words, is what is good for them necessarily effective for most swimmers?
I agree. Not many of us master swimmers are ever going to go to the olympics. Our goals are different than Olympians' goals - mainly fitness, fun, and getting faster (but not the fastest in the world - that's unrealistic) so our coaching needs differ from Olympians' coachind needs. And I think we take ourselves a tad too seriously if we whine about our coaches' lack of expertise...most are volunteers...
