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
Ion, In my humble opinion,
You sure as heck disrupt these forums with misinformation. Sometimes I am amazed at the numbers of quote you come up with, the sheer variety and spread of quotes.
Debating you is futile, unfortunately so is ignoring you. Please make one logical reason why your opinion of the TI teaching method is justified. No quotes, just scientific facts from The Journal of Swimming Research or similiar literature. Your opinion of coaching methods means nothing to me, because you are not a coach, certified or not. You are not exposed to actual coaching classes, nor the latest information such as World Clinics.
Your arguments are of two types, Post Hoc Fallacy and Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam. Neither are valid. The problem I have is that people lend creedance to people who use quotes and statistics, like you may be an authority. You left a whole bunch af statistics to Jeff, and then alluded to "into these facts above". But please tell me what you were trying to prove? And how does your "facts" relate to anyone swimming faster?
The statistics of the 50 free you are quoting don't mean anything. There would be meaning in the distances were equal, say both times to 8.0 meters. That is why the rest of the world lists times to 15 meters, time into and out of a turn at 5 meters, and the time for the last 5 meters. A better comparison would be the Torpedo breakout time and time to 15 meters versus Gary Hall, which I again say is a bad example of how coaches want to improve USA swimming.
I often bring up a swimming series that was on TV perhaps 1991? It was Mark Spitz vs. Matt Biondi and Tom Jager. Spitz actually had a faster time off the block and into the water, but in both races Jager and Biondi did a great single whole dive, and with more velocity and better streamlining came up one body length ahead of Spitz. The race was over. Yet both got waxed by Popov, the Russians came up with a great start and then 2-3 small dolphins underwater before coming up. Our swimmers still used flutter kick for the next 6-8 years. But in 2000 our swimmers caught on and did the dolphins like the rest of the world. That is information directly relating to swimming faster races.
I still challenge you to take a TI course, see if you get faster. You have the speed to do much faster in that 800 meter free. Better technique is where improvement resides. People have commented about seeing your stroke, there is much room for improvement. What do you have to loose? There is nothing better than getting faster at 43-44. If you drop your time by 20 seconds in the 800 I will be happy to call you Fast Ion. That's dropping one second off the start and dive, 0.5 seconds off each turn by streamlining, and only 1.39 seconds per length.
Now the Opinions above are mine alone, like Emmett says just my 2 cents worth. Please do not call your verbage (facts and statistics) anything other than your OPINION. I then would not have such a problem with your discussions.
Coach Wayne McCauley
ASCA Level 5 Masters Coach
USMS All American 4 times
USMS National Champion
17 years in a row USMS Top 10 (It took lots of luck on that one)
I started late in my swimming, and was faster at 49 than 43!
PS
Phil, you know I never understood what Ion was getting at, but I will agree that DPS and SR are not the things we should be loking at as swimmers or coaches. Boy that is simple words with no statistics. Again my opinion.
Ion, In my humble opinion,
You sure as heck disrupt these forums with misinformation. Sometimes I am amazed at the numbers of quote you come up with, the sheer variety and spread of quotes.
Debating you is futile, unfortunately so is ignoring you. Please make one logical reason why your opinion of the TI teaching method is justified. No quotes, just scientific facts from The Journal of Swimming Research or similiar literature. Your opinion of coaching methods means nothing to me, because you are not a coach, certified or not. You are not exposed to actual coaching classes, nor the latest information such as World Clinics.
Your arguments are of two types, Post Hoc Fallacy and Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam. Neither are valid. The problem I have is that people lend creedance to people who use quotes and statistics, like you may be an authority. You left a whole bunch af statistics to Jeff, and then alluded to "into these facts above". But please tell me what you were trying to prove? And how does your "facts" relate to anyone swimming faster?
The statistics of the 50 free you are quoting don't mean anything. There would be meaning in the distances were equal, say both times to 8.0 meters. That is why the rest of the world lists times to 15 meters, time into and out of a turn at 5 meters, and the time for the last 5 meters. A better comparison would be the Torpedo breakout time and time to 15 meters versus Gary Hall, which I again say is a bad example of how coaches want to improve USA swimming.
I often bring up a swimming series that was on TV perhaps 1991? It was Mark Spitz vs. Matt Biondi and Tom Jager. Spitz actually had a faster time off the block and into the water, but in both races Jager and Biondi did a great single whole dive, and with more velocity and better streamlining came up one body length ahead of Spitz. The race was over. Yet both got waxed by Popov, the Russians came up with a great start and then 2-3 small dolphins underwater before coming up. Our swimmers still used flutter kick for the next 6-8 years. But in 2000 our swimmers caught on and did the dolphins like the rest of the world. That is information directly relating to swimming faster races.
I still challenge you to take a TI course, see if you get faster. You have the speed to do much faster in that 800 meter free. Better technique is where improvement resides. People have commented about seeing your stroke, there is much room for improvement. What do you have to loose? There is nothing better than getting faster at 43-44. If you drop your time by 20 seconds in the 800 I will be happy to call you Fast Ion. That's dropping one second off the start and dive, 0.5 seconds off each turn by streamlining, and only 1.39 seconds per length.
Now the Opinions above are mine alone, like Emmett says just my 2 cents worth. Please do not call your verbage (facts and statistics) anything other than your OPINION. I then would not have such a problem with your discussions.
Coach Wayne McCauley
ASCA Level 5 Masters Coach
USMS All American 4 times
USMS National Champion
17 years in a row USMS Top 10 (It took lots of luck on that one)
I started late in my swimming, and was faster at 49 than 43!
PS
Phil, you know I never understood what Ion was getting at, but I will agree that DPS and SR are not the things we should be loking at as swimmers or coaches. Boy that is simple words with no statistics. Again my opinion.
