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.
Originally posted by ShariL
2) have the hand out of the water as briefly as possible on recovery (i.e. re-enter close to the head)
SO YOU RECOMMEND SHORTENING THE STROKE?
You keep comming back to this. By stroke length, I'm guessing you mean from the "catch" all the way through to where the hand exits the water. If so, it doesn't matter (for stroke length) where the hand enters the water, especially if you are continuing to glide the hand forward after entry.
As far as rotary vs front-quadrant, I was just looking at some of the drawings in Colwin's book (pg 43, Swimming Dynamics). If you are watching the conventional TV coverage of swim races, how can you tell what these high caliber swimmers are doing? The drawings are *clearly* front-quadrant. However, at the only moment where you can see both arms (as the hand leaves the water), the arms are opposite ("rotary"). The only way to tell what the swimmer is doing, during the entire stroke, is to get a simultaneous above and below water view of their arm action.
Originally posted by ShariL
2) have the hand out of the water as briefly as possible on recovery (i.e. re-enter close to the head)
SO YOU RECOMMEND SHORTENING THE STROKE?
You keep comming back to this. By stroke length, I'm guessing you mean from the "catch" all the way through to where the hand exits the water. If so, it doesn't matter (for stroke length) where the hand enters the water, especially if you are continuing to glide the hand forward after entry.
As far as rotary vs front-quadrant, I was just looking at some of the drawings in Colwin's book (pg 43, Swimming Dynamics). If you are watching the conventional TV coverage of swim races, how can you tell what these high caliber swimmers are doing? The drawings are *clearly* front-quadrant. However, at the only moment where you can see both arms (as the hand leaves the water), the arms are opposite ("rotary"). The only way to tell what the swimmer is doing, during the entire stroke, is to get a simultaneous above and below water view of their arm action.
