TI Question...heard this and doesn't sound right...
Former Member
I am teaching a stroke clinic class at the YMCA. My background is USS competitive swimming (ages 8-18) and some age-group coaching. One of my students, a triathlon trainer, has been to Total Immersion. Because of his TI training, he is doubtful of any stroke correction I am giving him. Basically he has the typical problems of a short stroke...entering too close to the head and not pulling thru.
The TI triathlete is telling me that the TI "Fish" style swimming technique says the hand should enter the water just in front of the head, then reach forward. In my opinion, he needs to lengthen his stroke, rotating and reaching as far forward as possible, entering out front (not by the head). I am thinking he is mixing up some TI drill with proper freestyle SWIMMING technique. He at least agreed with me when we talked distance per stroke (and started believing I know something about swimming)...but I don't see how you can maximize DPS with hand entry by the head.
Can someone shed light on this for me? What is this "Fish" swimming in a couple sentences? And where does TI say the hand entry should be?
Thank you!!
P.S. I'm new here and enjoying reading...I swim masters and hope to compete in butterfly someday...I'm waiting it out until I get a bit older so can face the competition. My butterfly has held out better than my other strokes (used to be a long distance freestyler too).
P.P.S. I did a search on TI and read some of the posts but they didn't quite get to my specific question above.
Parents
Former Member
Shari,
It's hard to answer your question with any definiteness because we can't see the swimmer in question. In general, if a coach says "one of my swimmers is doing X, but I think he should do Y," it's going to be hard for us to meaningfully comment unless we can see what X and Y look like.
Imagine, e.g., that a coach said "I think my swimmer is keeping his head down too much, but he won't listen to me because he says TI told him to keep his head down." Well, who is right - the swimmer or the coach? It's certainly possible to keep your head down too much, but having coached at a swim camp just last week and having viewed underwater videotapes of several dozen kids, I can tell you that this error is rare. Still, it is possible to keep your head too low, and it's more likely to occur if the swimmer has had the reverse problem and is trying to correct it. So I really wouldn't be able to say who was right without actually seeing what the swimmer's stroke looked like.
But I can offer the following general comment: Both you and your swimmer need to be aware that the central focus of a fishlike hand entry should not be on WHERE the hand enters the water, but HOW it enters. The hand should pierce the water, and the rest of the forearm should follow it into the water through the same hole, with as little stirring of the water as possible. The goal of fishlike swimming is for your stroking arm to grip the water almost as though it were a solid while your body and recovering arm slip through the water with as little resistance and turbulence as possible.
Bob
Shari,
It's hard to answer your question with any definiteness because we can't see the swimmer in question. In general, if a coach says "one of my swimmers is doing X, but I think he should do Y," it's going to be hard for us to meaningfully comment unless we can see what X and Y look like.
Imagine, e.g., that a coach said "I think my swimmer is keeping his head down too much, but he won't listen to me because he says TI told him to keep his head down." Well, who is right - the swimmer or the coach? It's certainly possible to keep your head down too much, but having coached at a swim camp just last week and having viewed underwater videotapes of several dozen kids, I can tell you that this error is rare. Still, it is possible to keep your head too low, and it's more likely to occur if the swimmer has had the reverse problem and is trying to correct it. So I really wouldn't be able to say who was right without actually seeing what the swimmer's stroke looked like.
But I can offer the following general comment: Both you and your swimmer need to be aware that the central focus of a fishlike hand entry should not be on WHERE the hand enters the water, but HOW it enters. The hand should pierce the water, and the rest of the forearm should follow it into the water through the same hole, with as little stirring of the water as possible. The goal of fishlike swimming is for your stroking arm to grip the water almost as though it were a solid while your body and recovering arm slip through the water with as little resistance and turbulence as possible.
Bob
