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
Former Member
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. I think that sums up your take on this discussion, next !
Ion, you pull stuff out to suit your own purposes and miss the point -
The musician analogy you used - "is like if I were a musician and being asked to play music that I don't want" doesn't apply in the way you expressed it .
It doesn't have to do with the type of music being played, it has to do with correct technique on the instrument. The best musicians have nearly flawless technique and they can choose the type of music they want to play. Whatever their choice in music, they take years to master an instrument, and still practice the basics every day to ensure the integrity of their technique.
Similarly, TI advocates practicing the drills that reinforce proper technique.
I enjoy it so much more these days because it is much easier. Right now, I find that I can go just as fast in workouts as I used to, however my endurance has increased because I am working harder on being streamlined and staying "long" in the water. Part of this is that my lower SR results in a lower heart rate to show for it throughout each set.
In effect, I can go faster for longer than before because of technique and not fitness. In the next couple of months I will build up my fitness and find the best balance of SL & SR for each stroke at verious distances.
But still I don't care if I'm faster or not right now, because I am still in the process of changing some bad habits.
What would be the point of obsessing over times when I'm still a work in progress? Next year I'll see where I stand.
Here's the deal: You can either improve fitness or technique. You go back to your old technique and see how your times improve.
I'm sure you'll tell us all about it no matter what happens.
Jeff, I agree that other states have it harder. But a lot of oregon is rural. Urban areas are more likely to have more pools. And the UCI built was the first 50 meter plus built there in almost 25 years there. As for Portland I don't know why they don't have a 50 meter pool since in poorer cities like Frenso California have one. As I stated proposition 13 in California limited the mass construcation of swimming pools that took place mainly on high school and college campus during the 1950's and 1960's. The last aau team I was workout on was a 25 yard high school pool and 4 deep in Fountain Valley California. Granted, California has a lot of pools, but the population is over 33 million people-the size of a western european country. And in poorer areas like Santa Ana as in other states with poor populatons, pools and other recreation facilties are less acessable. Arizona has alot of more recent built swimming pools because the big population increase has occurred the past 10 years here. And that is why we are having our national atn Tempe because the place has a 4 pool complex and even has a rec pool that is 75 meters. As for Ion wanting to drive to Irvine that's up to him. But I think there is a differance between someone living in Riverside county going to work in LA driving for work and someone doing it for swimming which is a hobby.
Well, I guess that the UCI pool is the state of the art since its new. The Tempe pool is early 1980's but it has all those pools and is deeper. And probably the master teams don't have their meets at those older pools in California ,the ones built in the 1940's to the early 1960's that need some repair work.
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 cinc310
...
As for Ion wanting to drive to Irvine that's up to him. But I think there is a differance between someone living in Riverside county going to work in LA driving for work and someone doing it for swimming which is a hobby.
Yes.
Heather,
Congrads on getting your stroke count down to 20 from 35. To learn what to do as far as your stroke and lessening your stroke count the better place to go for those types of questions would be to the TI discussion board http://www.totalimmersion.net/
You can ask away and many times Terry himself answers the questions posed (otherwise you'll probably get me).
While this is a very informative discussion board and TI is bantied about alot. For those 'how to' type quesitons you get more answers by going to the source.
I have a copy of Total Immersion that I've been reading here and there for a few months. I implemented the stroke length in to my coaching of free with the age group swimmers and found dramatic improvements in times. The kids all want to argue that more pulls is faster, but I have the numbers to back me up. Now that I'm a master's coach I am starting to have them consider stroke length. THis past Mondya was the first time I had them count their strokes and they just thought it was a drill. I plan to keep working on this in practice and hopefully I'll get the smae numbers to back me up. Myself, I have gone from 35 pulls in a 25 yard pool (so unefficent) to 20. I would love to get down to 15. Not only am I faster, but there is less stresss on my body, particularly my shoulders. I like the book, but as with anything thinkg, not everything works for everybody.
