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 kaelonj
So as a musician - instead of trying new music which you may learn something or improve your skill upon you would rather go back and just play chopsticks on the piano.
...
"...just play chopsticks on the piano." -like you wrote- gave me lifetime bests for a late starter in swimming that were not considered 'chopsticks' by good coaches and swimmers.
You underestimate these best times and how I swam them, as being 'chopsticks'.
In fact the focus on my times in this thread, started with whether the nickname 'Fast Ion' is deserved, and I say that in the context, it is.
The agenda for improvement that I trust -like in Engineering when something is not working anymore- is to restore whatever worked, these 'chopsticks' to you or personal bests to me, then go from there.
(This includes competing in race shape, which is way beyond the aerobic shape that a coach wrongly sent me in, to Cleveland last month).
TI's agenda, like "...trying new music which you may learn something or improve your skill upon...", I don't trust it to get entangled with:
to me, there are too many contentious points to spend time on.
Originally posted by MetroSwim
Ion, you pull stuff out to suit your own purposes...
...
You go back to your old technique and see how your times improve.
...
Exactly:
I am looking now for the USMS program that with a combination of conditioning and technique in coached workouts, restores my times I swam and trusted in France for two years, afterwards in Canada for four years, and in USMS for three years -1994, 1995 and 1996-.
In the meantime, I don't trust traveling to a TI clinic, but I trust going to coached workouts having a blend of technique and conditioning in them, up to the point of seeing the results in competitions and further judging at that moment.
Originally posted by kaelonj
So as a musician - instead of trying new music which you may learn something or improve your skill upon you would rather go back and just play chopsticks on the piano.
...
"...just play chopsticks on the piano." -like you wrote- gave me lifetime bests for a late starter in swimming that were not considered 'chopsticks' by good coaches and swimmers.
You underestimate these best times and how I swam them, as being 'chopsticks'.
In fact the focus on my times in this thread, started with whether the nickname 'Fast Ion' is deserved, and I say that in the context, it is.
The agenda for improvement that I trust -like in Engineering when something is not working anymore- is to restore whatever worked, these 'chopsticks' to you or personal bests to me, then go from there.
(This includes competing in race shape, which is way beyond the aerobic shape that a coach wrongly sent me in, to Cleveland last month).
TI's agenda, like "...trying new music which you may learn something or improve your skill upon...", I don't trust it to get entangled with:
to me, there are too many contentious points to spend time on.
Originally posted by MetroSwim
Ion, you pull stuff out to suit your own purposes...
...
You go back to your old technique and see how your times improve.
...
Exactly:
I am looking now for the USMS program that with a combination of conditioning and technique in coached workouts, restores my times I swam and trusted in France for two years, afterwards in Canada for four years, and in USMS for three years -1994, 1995 and 1996-.
In the meantime, I don't trust traveling to a TI clinic, but I trust going to coached workouts having a blend of technique and conditioning in them, up to the point of seeing the results in competitions and further judging at that moment.
