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
Ion,
I think your use of Jochums quote from 'Gold in the Water' is a little out of context with the subject matter in this discussion. 'We fix technique at race speed, not in drills...' I believe is his comment in regards to which swimmers, Grote, Torres et al, those swimmers who have years of experience not ones learning how to swim. When teaching someone to swim we don't just throw them in the water and say swim to the other side (chances are they won't make it) and then try to correct what they did - but we start off with a series of drills, practicing arm pulls (standing, holding onto the wall, a kickboard) we work on breath control (bobs, kicking with the face in the water) all of those are drills to slowly build up to swimming until they can actually swim with some resemblance of a stroke then build onto that technique and fine tune. I have seen and heard of other world class swimmers workouts and they do drills, Popov would do drills based on stroke count (doing things like trying to swim a 50 as fast as possible with a low stroke count, then come back and do it again with a lower stroke count - still a drill) others do 100's of one arm swimming.
For those that question the validity of a technique or theory - should, change is not always bad and something comes along by thinking differently. A fairly recent article about cycling and Lance ARmstrongs climbing technique and pedaling. For a long timehills were climbed in as a tough a gear as possible, getting as much ground gained as possible with each pedal stroke, if you've watched the tour de france Lance Armstrong actually spins more, he doesn't try to power up the hills, they've also taken note that he tends to keep his heel higher than what was considered optimal (whatever he's doing it sure works for him- and seems to go against the convential thinking).
Ion, keep at your stroke technique, have faith in your coach in developing technique over power. When I play golf I love to hit my driver 250+ yrds, the only problem only about 220 yards of it is straight the other 30 yrds or so puts me into the water or two fairways over, so I'm better off hitting using an iron and keeping the ball on my fairway (remember the shortest distance between two points is a staright line), but I still go to the range and play with the driver so one day I will be Tiger Woods (maybe not as far but at least my ball will stay on the Fairway).
There are so many posts that are so far off base it amazes me. Being your own coach is as bad as being your own lawyer at a trial for your life. Ion is great at gleaming tid bits from all over the world, often quoted out of context or with no real idea of what the author was speaking about. How about taking some modern courses in swimming technique such as offered through ASCA or Ion could take classes at San Diego State University. After a couple of years of coaching I could begin to listen to your comments.
Lets start with "I don't see any harm using a kickboard in breaststroke. It’s never made my kick worst".
YES is does harm!
In breaststroke for every inch your head is above the water your hips will sink two inches. That greatly increases the drag and cuts into the strong point of all breaststrokers, the kick power. It does not matter what style of breaststroke you swim, you will be faster if you practice your kicks with you head in line with your spine and looking down. You MUST practice and drill as close to race technique as possible. You are right; today’s breaststrokers are not much faster than 20 years ago. In 1984 Steve Lundquist went the first 50 in 28.12 on way to a 1:01.6 in winning Olympic Gold. Today’s World Record splits are slower. Lundquist was the last record holder who had to swim with his head never going under water. The extra resistance caused by the rules of that era made for much more energy use than today’s smooth wave styles. There is no doubt the Lundquist would have done 59.5 with today’s rules. Yet one of these days Ed Moses will go out in 27.5 and come back in 30.5. You heard it first here.
Its true that your feet can sink on a board. But I don't mine using a kickboard once and and while. And Ion is right that different coaches have different opinions on kickboards. When I swam age group years ago, I had coaches that had different opinions on techique or workout philosophy. Flip Darr mainly like to work people out with high distance freestyle volume while another coaches like to train people in their strongest strokes more. In my opinion I think us adults are old enough to make up our minds on what to do with our swimming. Most of us are not going to swim like we did at 18 years old or 20 years old, so we should be in control of the things we do more than minor children or collegate swimmers are.
Val,
There is TI part II. In Emmett's book, "Fitness Swimming," it's the higher intensity workouts (yellow, orange and red zones) and the chapters that describe how to put together a workout plan for a whole season. The focus is how to build speed in your workouts while maintaining SL. I do not pretend to fully understand it, but I know it's there, and I keep going back to it.
Matt
Matt,
Thanks for the reply. I actually have a copy of Emmett's book and have been working on lower my "swimming golf" score. And more importantly building the engine to my long streamlined vessel.
I can now cruise through hundred yard repeats with 11 strokes per lap at around a minute pace per hundred. It's a pretty stroke but it ain't gonna get me under 48 seconds for race pace.
I'm still working on anywhere under sixteen strokes per length for an all out sprint which is nearly a 25% reduction in efficiency according to T.I. (very bad!)
I guess the bottom line is about beating the clock, and not so much 'the guy with the lowest stroke count wins'.
P.S. If they're 'Happy Laps' then you're not working hard enough. No offence Terry. :D
Val,
Swimming golf is a start, but I think some of the training techniques in Emmett's book go deeper than that. He has that whole interval, SL, time, HR continuum thing going, and I don't believe I am groking it in its fullness. I know I am still a bit confused about the jargon in his red zone workouts.
I don't understand it all, but I get a sense from the book and his other articles that he has a very different approach to conditioning than the classic "What's the distance? What's the interval? What time are you holding?" triumvirate. If you understand it, I'd appreciate your thoughts.
Matt
Some very interesting stuff about the latest school of thought regarding getting more efficient and ultimately faster.
Personally the bottom line out of the Total Immersion book for me was about reshaping the hull design of your "vessel",.... and then building the "engine".
As many here have posted, good form and long strokes are one thing, but getting fast is another story. That's where good old fashioned training comes in. Perhaps there could be a part two of the T.I. book about balls to the walls swimming while maintaining the "fish like" profile.
I think Ion has the right idea about throwing in a level of intensity to the work out routine. I am sure that "No pain , no gain" would be a motto that he and many other competitors could relate to.
The hundred yard free isn't a water ballet afterall.
Ion is doing pretty good considering he didn't start working out in swimming until he was 25 years old. Many people on this board that do better than he does swam as children on a team and some of them have done masters swimming as long or longer than Ion.
Originally posted by breastroker
...
Ion is great at gleaming tid bits from all over the world, often quoted out of context or with no real idea of what the author was speaking about.
...
You forgot to back up this claim with anything.
Originally posted by breastroker
...
Lets start with "I don't see any harm using a kickboard in breaststroke. It’s never made my kick worst".
YES is does harm!
In breaststroke for every inch your head is above the water your hips will sink two inches. That greatly increases the drag and cuts into the strong point of all breaststrokers, the kick power. It does not matter what style of breaststroke you swim, you will be faster if you practice your kicks with you head in line with your spine and looking down. You MUST practice and drill as close to race technique as possible.
...
This claim is from the Total Immersion book and can go back to the book, to stay in there:
there is training of calf muscles by kicking with a board, an imperfect simulation since swimming uses kicking in a slightily different position, but a cross training nonetheless;
of course kicking without a board and with your "...head in line with your spine and looking down...", simulates kicking for swimming better, but it can be practiced less;
my own kick is calf muscles developed with a board;
coaches who see me swimming long distance, praise my strong kicking all the way;
for the reason of strenghtening calf muscles, US Swimming programs are doing lots of kicking with a board;
in the 'Coaching' section of this Forum, there is a thread about positives from kicking with a board.
The first question is: What makes you think there are more shoulder injuries now than in the past? Just personal observation?
I'm new to swimming and am disappointed by the number of shoulder injuries I see. As I've stated in another forum I don't think front quadrant swimming leads to more shoulder injuries. I've got as much proof of that as you do of the rash of shoulder injuries.
As it's been described to me by a couple of people (one coach and one physical therapist) is that the overhead extension with internal rotation. For example the thumb first entry in freestyle is bad news. In my own experience the pinky first entry in backstroke is also troublesome but EVERYONE says that's the way to do it.
In my uneducated opinion if confronted with a high incidence of shoulder injuries on say a swim team i am responsible for, I would look first at the exercises the swimmers are doing to stretch. As was pointed out in a wonderful article in SWIM magazine from last year, many of the shoulder exercises we do to stretch are exactly the wrong thing.
So for example when we clasp hands behind our backs and lift, we are in fact stretching the shoulder capsule and thereby actually predisposing ourselves to injury. We can say the same for putting one arm on the wall and twisting away from it. these are actually motions that are very detrimental to shoulder health, they make the shoulder hypermobile. On the other hand, there are coaches that say that mobility in these directions is beneficial to speed. This may be so but we are making a trade off.
Next I would look at the stroke making sure that we are not interiorly rotating the shoulder.
For PHIL, the article you mention which shows what areas to pay attention to in each stroke for shoulder ealth has been written.
www.education.ed.ac.uk/.../ad.html
There is also an article from swimming technique that hits these same issues pretty well.
www.svl.ch/superior_technique.html
