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
Thanks to Phil and Wayne for a more exacting discussion on the actual angles of front quadrant swimming. I can see that the positioning may not be as overhead as I thought, but I still think the issues of freestyle technique leading to shoulder injuries should be looked into by people more qualified than us, like physiologists or orthopaedics.
And Wayne, this is certainly not to cause trouble but a word of caution. In your post you take a very authoritarian stance, a "my way or no way" connotation, and then sign your post "ACSA Level 5". Well that's great. Back in the 60's, the highest rated coaches were teaching methods that *at the time* were thought to be the best. ASCA level means nothing to me, it doesn't mean one can't explore new ideas and perhaps learn from others. It doesn't mean one knows everything there is to know about swimming. Taking that attitude may turn people off to listening to anything you have to say.
I've reviewed the NCAA tape over and over and still fail to see the 50 and 100 freestylers employing the front quadrant technique. To me, there appears to be no hesitation, no "wait" time before the pull as the trailing arm recovers.
Phil: Agree with you on rotation. How come TI repeatedly says the kick is not terribly important but we've seen some TI posters now indicate that the "world-class swimmers" generate their rotation from the kick. I'm sensing conflicting information. I thought the rotation was supposed to be generated by the core muscles. To me, it also appears to come from the nature of freestyle in itself, the way the arms and shoulders are used.
Backstroke: agree with the poster (it may have been Phil also) that the pinky down happens because you've rotated onto your side, not because you actually turned your pinky down. An aside... same with the catch. Your arms should enter no closer to your center line than your shoulders because once you are rotated onto the side, the catch happens directly above you on the center line. More shoulder-friendly too.
Regards,
RM
Thanks to Phil and Wayne for a more exacting discussion on the actual angles of front quadrant swimming. I can see that the positioning may not be as overhead as I thought, but I still think the issues of freestyle technique leading to shoulder injuries should be looked into by people more qualified than us, like physiologists or orthopaedics.
And Wayne, this is certainly not to cause trouble but a word of caution. In your post you take a very authoritarian stance, a "my way or no way" connotation, and then sign your post "ACSA Level 5". Well that's great. Back in the 60's, the highest rated coaches were teaching methods that *at the time* were thought to be the best. ASCA level means nothing to me, it doesn't mean one can't explore new ideas and perhaps learn from others. It doesn't mean one knows everything there is to know about swimming. Taking that attitude may turn people off to listening to anything you have to say.
I've reviewed the NCAA tape over and over and still fail to see the 50 and 100 freestylers employing the front quadrant technique. To me, there appears to be no hesitation, no "wait" time before the pull as the trailing arm recovers.
Phil: Agree with you on rotation. How come TI repeatedly says the kick is not terribly important but we've seen some TI posters now indicate that the "world-class swimmers" generate their rotation from the kick. I'm sensing conflicting information. I thought the rotation was supposed to be generated by the core muscles. To me, it also appears to come from the nature of freestyle in itself, the way the arms and shoulders are used.
Backstroke: agree with the poster (it may have been Phil also) that the pinky down happens because you've rotated onto your side, not because you actually turned your pinky down. An aside... same with the catch. Your arms should enter no closer to your center line than your shoulders because once you are rotated onto the side, the catch happens directly above you on the center line. More shoulder-friendly too.
Regards,
RM
