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
Originally posted by kaelonj
Ion,
...
'We fix technique at race speed, not in drills...' I believe is his comment in regards to which swimmers, Grote, Torres et al, those swimmers who have years of experience not ones learning how to swim.
...
I have seen and heard of other world class swimmers workouts and they do drills, Popov would do drills based on stroke count ...
...
At many USMS swimmers' level and mine too, in workouts incorporating technique sets, there are years of ingrained swimming; these years did develop efficiencies empirically, no matter the perceived good swimming technique, the academic swimming.
An approach to correct a perceived faulty technique, would be to dismantle the stroke and want to rebuild it.
In practice, there is little guarantee that dismantling the stroke is going to bring speed increase after rebuilding it, because along the way one swims slower than before, for longtime, until new muscles and brain conditioning develop, if they develop again.
Instead of dismantling a style, I choose to believe in this approach to teaching changes in technique -for which Gennadi Touretski, coach of sprinter Alex Popov (Rus) is quoted in SWIMNEWS magazine of May 1998-:
"...without making excessive changes such that swimmers lose their technique and feel for the water.".
It is less drastic than the Jochums' quote -"In workout, we fix technique at race speed, not in drills. I don't believe in drills."- since Popov and Touretski are doing drills, however it is in the same vein of respect of the individual's style.
By this token, priorities for a faster freestyle in my case, are:
1. increase arm turnover, such that speed increses;
(in the past, this increse in arm turnover with no other modification in my training, did bring me personal bests);
such increse requires better conditioning than what I have now;
2. have fun in workouts by swimming fast with the existing defects; do what I do best, so that an optimistic swimming environment, a feel for being in a 'zone' is created;
emphasize positives of the existing style; for example, my straight-arm recovery, discredited in Total Immersion, makes Touretski see pros which are quoted in the same SWIMNEWS article: "...Michael Klim's technique..." incorporates "...the old-fashioned straight-arm recovery. The longer recovery seems to lenghten the stroke.".
3. correct small defects only, with supporting the existing style in mind.
Originally posted by kaelonj
Ion,
...
'We fix technique at race speed, not in drills...' I believe is his comment in regards to which swimmers, Grote, Torres et al, those swimmers who have years of experience not ones learning how to swim.
...
I have seen and heard of other world class swimmers workouts and they do drills, Popov would do drills based on stroke count ...
...
At many USMS swimmers' level and mine too, in workouts incorporating technique sets, there are years of ingrained swimming; these years did develop efficiencies empirically, no matter the perceived good swimming technique, the academic swimming.
An approach to correct a perceived faulty technique, would be to dismantle the stroke and want to rebuild it.
In practice, there is little guarantee that dismantling the stroke is going to bring speed increase after rebuilding it, because along the way one swims slower than before, for longtime, until new muscles and brain conditioning develop, if they develop again.
Instead of dismantling a style, I choose to believe in this approach to teaching changes in technique -for which Gennadi Touretski, coach of sprinter Alex Popov (Rus) is quoted in SWIMNEWS magazine of May 1998-:
"...without making excessive changes such that swimmers lose their technique and feel for the water.".
It is less drastic than the Jochums' quote -"In workout, we fix technique at race speed, not in drills. I don't believe in drills."- since Popov and Touretski are doing drills, however it is in the same vein of respect of the individual's style.
By this token, priorities for a faster freestyle in my case, are:
1. increase arm turnover, such that speed increses;
(in the past, this increse in arm turnover with no other modification in my training, did bring me personal bests);
such increse requires better conditioning than what I have now;
2. have fun in workouts by swimming fast with the existing defects; do what I do best, so that an optimistic swimming environment, a feel for being in a 'zone' is created;
emphasize positives of the existing style; for example, my straight-arm recovery, discredited in Total Immersion, makes Touretski see pros which are quoted in the same SWIMNEWS article: "...Michael Klim's technique..." incorporates "...the old-fashioned straight-arm recovery. The longer recovery seems to lenghten the stroke.".
3. correct small defects only, with supporting the existing style in mind.
