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
For one thing Michael Collins coaches in Irvine which is a good 1 hour and half from the San Diego area. So to tell Ion that he sould go to a masters program an hour and a half isn't the best advice. Besides stroke technique maybe there are other factors why Matt doing better than Ion. In swimming, you have good years and bad. I remember when I was a kid a girl that did beat me in the butterfly. We were usually even. The next year I beat her. So, times are not predictable from year to year. And as for yardage I feel better doing a little over the 10,000 to 13,000 range than I did when I was only swimming around 5,000 and less yards about 3 months ago. Granted Ion is putting in a lot more than that. But some master swimmers are able to put in over 20,000 and have really good times Laura Val for example. Everyone is different when it comes to the yardage factor. Also, as someone stated before maybe Ion should try some other events like butterfly, and there he has a chance to better times.
For one thing Michael Collins coaches in Irvine which is a good 1 hour and half from the San Diego area. So to tell Ion that he sould go to a masters program an hour and a half isn't the best advice. Besides stroke technique maybe there are other factors why Matt doing better than Ion. In swimming, you have good years and bad. I remember when I was a kid a girl that did beat me in the butterfly. We were usually even. The next year I beat her. So, times are not predictable from year to year. And as for yardage I feel better doing a little over the 10,000 to 13,000 range than I did when I was only swimming around 5,000 and less yards about 3 months ago. Granted Ion is putting in a lot more than that. But some master swimmers are able to put in over 20,000 and have really good times Laura Val for example. Everyone is different when it comes to the yardage factor. Also, as someone stated before maybe Ion should try some other events like butterfly, and there he has a chance to better times.
