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
The first question is: What makes you think there are more shoulder injuries now than in the past? Just personal observation?
I'm new to swimming and am disappointed by the number of shoulder injuries I see. As I've stated in another forum I don't think front quadrant swimming leads to more shoulder injuries. I've got as much proof of that as you do of the rash of shoulder injuries.
As it's been described to me by a couple of people (one coach and one physical therapist) is that the overhead extension with internal rotation. For example the thumb first entry in freestyle is bad news. In my own experience the pinky first entry in backstroke is also troublesome but EVERYONE says that's the way to do it.
In my uneducated opinion if confronted with a high incidence of shoulder injuries on say a swim team i am responsible for, I would look first at the exercises the swimmers are doing to stretch. As was pointed out in a wonderful article in SWIM magazine from last year, many of the shoulder exercises we do to stretch are exactly the wrong thing.
So for example when we clasp hands behind our backs and lift, we are in fact stretching the shoulder capsule and thereby actually predisposing ourselves to injury. We can say the same for putting one arm on the wall and twisting away from it. these are actually motions that are very detrimental to shoulder health, they make the shoulder hypermobile. On the other hand, there are coaches that say that mobility in these directions is beneficial to speed. This may be so but we are making a trade off.
Next I would look at the stroke making sure that we are not interiorly rotating the shoulder.
For PHIL, the article you mention which shows what areas to pay attention to in each stroke for shoulder ealth has been written.
www.education.ed.ac.uk/.../ad.html
There is also an article from swimming technique that hits these same issues pretty well.
www.svl.ch/superior_technique.html
The first question is: What makes you think there are more shoulder injuries now than in the past? Just personal observation?
I'm new to swimming and am disappointed by the number of shoulder injuries I see. As I've stated in another forum I don't think front quadrant swimming leads to more shoulder injuries. I've got as much proof of that as you do of the rash of shoulder injuries.
As it's been described to me by a couple of people (one coach and one physical therapist) is that the overhead extension with internal rotation. For example the thumb first entry in freestyle is bad news. In my own experience the pinky first entry in backstroke is also troublesome but EVERYONE says that's the way to do it.
In my uneducated opinion if confronted with a high incidence of shoulder injuries on say a swim team i am responsible for, I would look first at the exercises the swimmers are doing to stretch. As was pointed out in a wonderful article in SWIM magazine from last year, many of the shoulder exercises we do to stretch are exactly the wrong thing.
So for example when we clasp hands behind our backs and lift, we are in fact stretching the shoulder capsule and thereby actually predisposing ourselves to injury. We can say the same for putting one arm on the wall and twisting away from it. these are actually motions that are very detrimental to shoulder health, they make the shoulder hypermobile. On the other hand, there are coaches that say that mobility in these directions is beneficial to speed. This may be so but we are making a trade off.
Next I would look at the stroke making sure that we are not interiorly rotating the shoulder.
For PHIL, the article you mention which shows what areas to pay attention to in each stroke for shoulder ealth has been written.
www.education.ed.ac.uk/.../ad.html
There is also an article from swimming technique that hits these same issues pretty well.
www.svl.ch/superior_technique.html
