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
Kevin - thanks for the links. I looked through the first article, and will read it in more detail later. I think most if not all of the recommendations are good. But I noticed a sentence in the summary - "seldomly, do swimmers with good technique exhibit shoulder pain." The problem is that that does not seem true, as indicated by Cynthia's list of swimmers who have had problems. I am not convinced that technique improvements alone will solve the problem, or that in all cases we really know the stroke improvements to make.
As for your backstroke concern, do the following experiment. Stand and face forward with your arm overhead and palm facing forward. Then rotate your shoulder toward that arm as you (should) do in backstroke. Note that your pinky is now facing behind you, as it should during the catch portion of your stroke. Then repeat the experiment with your pinky behind you before you rotate the shoulders. You will find that your palm is facing back, which is not a good position. My conclusion is that the advice to lead the entry with the pinky down is misleading - there is no medial rotation if the shoulder is properly positioned. Also, good backstroke entry is not over the head, but about 45 degrees off - again, because of the shoulder rotation, the hand will be pretty much forward.
Wayne - I don't buy the kick argument. If a poor swimmer gets more power from hip rotation, so will a good swimmer. If a good swimmer can get more power by hip rotation (or the same power for less effort) he/she will do it. Here is my hypothesis - the hips rotate because the shoulders rotate. A strong kick stabilizes the hips and limits how much they will rotate for the same shoulder rotation. A swimmer with a poor kick needs to (let) the hips rotate because otherwise the shoulders will not rotate enough.
Kevin - thanks for the links. I looked through the first article, and will read it in more detail later. I think most if not all of the recommendations are good. But I noticed a sentence in the summary - "seldomly, do swimmers with good technique exhibit shoulder pain." The problem is that that does not seem true, as indicated by Cynthia's list of swimmers who have had problems. I am not convinced that technique improvements alone will solve the problem, or that in all cases we really know the stroke improvements to make.
As for your backstroke concern, do the following experiment. Stand and face forward with your arm overhead and palm facing forward. Then rotate your shoulder toward that arm as you (should) do in backstroke. Note that your pinky is now facing behind you, as it should during the catch portion of your stroke. Then repeat the experiment with your pinky behind you before you rotate the shoulders. You will find that your palm is facing back, which is not a good position. My conclusion is that the advice to lead the entry with the pinky down is misleading - there is no medial rotation if the shoulder is properly positioned. Also, good backstroke entry is not over the head, but about 45 degrees off - again, because of the shoulder rotation, the hand will be pretty much forward.
Wayne - I don't buy the kick argument. If a poor swimmer gets more power from hip rotation, so will a good swimmer. If a good swimmer can get more power by hip rotation (or the same power for less effort) he/she will do it. Here is my hypothesis - the hips rotate because the shoulders rotate. A strong kick stabilizes the hips and limits how much they will rotate for the same shoulder rotation. A swimmer with a poor kick needs to (let) the hips rotate because otherwise the shoulders will not rotate enough.
