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
Hi Phil Arcuni - I was talking about kicking in terms of the motion, not the body position in the water. I am assuming that Misty Hymen is on her side, but still kicking towards the front and back (like a dolphin), and not towards the shoulders (like a fish would, if they had shoulders). :)
If RainMan is still out there, I have three opinions:
1) You mentioned that many of the ideas are well established with age-group coaches. Might you be putting the cart ahead of the horse? At the time the ideas that led to TI came out, they were radical and not established.
2) There is a huge difference between SPL in practice, and in meet situations.
pg 103: "By (Popov) training his body to get by on those 28 (SPL), the 34 he allows himself on race day... are a piece of cake."
3) There are a lot of books out there, besides TI. If you are interested in swimming history and the evolution of the techniques, I would look for the books by Cecil Colwin.
Hi Phil Arcuni - I was talking about kicking in terms of the motion, not the body position in the water. I am assuming that Misty Hymen is on her side, but still kicking towards the front and back (like a dolphin), and not towards the shoulders (like a fish would, if they had shoulders). :)
If RainMan is still out there, I have three opinions:
1) You mentioned that many of the ideas are well established with age-group coaches. Might you be putting the cart ahead of the horse? At the time the ideas that led to TI came out, they were radical and not established.
2) There is a huge difference between SPL in practice, and in meet situations.
pg 103: "By (Popov) training his body to get by on those 28 (SPL), the 34 he allows himself on race day... are a piece of cake."
3) There are a lot of books out there, besides TI. If you are interested in swimming history and the evolution of the techniques, I would look for the books by Cecil Colwin.