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
Just responding to rain man, when a trained coach looks at finals from this years NCAA champs, or the 2000 Olympics, about half of the men and women are using what you call front quadrant swimming. I disagree with you completely on the analogy of stress to the shoulders, you will see the swimmers like Klim and the Torpedo with their hands and arms UNDER the water in a streamlined "long boat " shape, they are not pulling with their hands at the surface which would cause stress at the shoulders. They really keep HIGH elbows but are using their hips-abdomen-pecs and lats to generate power.
Part of the problem masters swimmers have is they do not have access to underwater movies of the great swimmers. What you see from above is no bearing to what style they are actually doing.
When you describe the "S" pattern, you describe the most misunderstood theory ever produced. Poor coaches took this pattern literally as an S, it was always a multiply change in planes using the bodies rotation, it just looked like an S to untrained observers.
“Why? Why is it that when fins are put on good swimmers have even less hip rotation than they do with no fins? Isn't the kick stronger with fins, causing more rotation? “
This is because great swimmers derive so much power from their kicks they do not have to pre-rotate their hips as much as ordinary swimmers who do not gain as much.
The real problem with 99% of all swimmers and most masters swimmers is lack of core body strength. This leads to poor alignment and poor mechanics of the stroke. That is not a problem with world class swimmers.
Coach Wayne McCauley
ASCA Level 5
Just responding to rain man, when a trained coach looks at finals from this years NCAA champs, or the 2000 Olympics, about half of the men and women are using what you call front quadrant swimming. I disagree with you completely on the analogy of stress to the shoulders, you will see the swimmers like Klim and the Torpedo with their hands and arms UNDER the water in a streamlined "long boat " shape, they are not pulling with their hands at the surface which would cause stress at the shoulders. They really keep HIGH elbows but are using their hips-abdomen-pecs and lats to generate power.
Part of the problem masters swimmers have is they do not have access to underwater movies of the great swimmers. What you see from above is no bearing to what style they are actually doing.
When you describe the "S" pattern, you describe the most misunderstood theory ever produced. Poor coaches took this pattern literally as an S, it was always a multiply change in planes using the bodies rotation, it just looked like an S to untrained observers.
“Why? Why is it that when fins are put on good swimmers have even less hip rotation than they do with no fins? Isn't the kick stronger with fins, causing more rotation? “
This is because great swimmers derive so much power from their kicks they do not have to pre-rotate their hips as much as ordinary swimmers who do not gain as much.
The real problem with 99% of all swimmers and most masters swimmers is lack of core body strength. This leads to poor alignment and poor mechanics of the stroke. That is not a problem with world class swimmers.
Coach Wayne McCauley
ASCA Level 5
