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
Originally posted by Rain Man
...
There is absolutely no reason living in the state of California that you can't find a coach that will suit your needs.
...
That's what I thought too in the year 2000, when I got attractive job offers from elsewhere, but I chose San Diego anyway.
I am training now with another program, and I don't know how well it will prepare me for racing.
In today's aerobic workout with the new program, in a 50 meter pool, there was a 8 x 250 meters free set, leaving every 3:45.
3:45 per 250 meter, that's a pace of 1:30 per 100, kept for 2,000 meters straight.
I made the set, in the first two reps with as much as 15 seconds rest to spare, so with a sometimes pace of sub 1:25.
In Cleveland, August 15, I swam the 800 free in 11:45. That's a pace of 1:28.
Conclusion from this -and other similar examples-:
in Cleveland I was swimming in aerobic shape, not in race shape.
To me it is the coached workout duty to put me in race shape when the meet of the season is coming up and it was communicated with the coach four months ahead, otherwise I don't entrust myself anylonger in the program, and I wasted one year of efforts.
Originally posted by Rain Man
...
There is absolutely no reason living in the state of California that you can't find a coach that will suit your needs.
...
That's what I thought too in the year 2000, when I got attractive job offers from elsewhere, but I chose San Diego anyway.
I am training now with another program, and I don't know how well it will prepare me for racing.
In today's aerobic workout with the new program, in a 50 meter pool, there was a 8 x 250 meters free set, leaving every 3:45.
3:45 per 250 meter, that's a pace of 1:30 per 100, kept for 2,000 meters straight.
I made the set, in the first two reps with as much as 15 seconds rest to spare, so with a sometimes pace of sub 1:25.
In Cleveland, August 15, I swam the 800 free in 11:45. That's a pace of 1:28.
Conclusion from this -and other similar examples-:
in Cleveland I was swimming in aerobic shape, not in race shape.
To me it is the coached workout duty to put me in race shape when the meet of the season is coming up and it was communicated with the coach four months ahead, otherwise I don't entrust myself anylonger in the program, and I wasted one year of efforts.
