Let's turn this question on its head. Maybe this will satisfy Ion. (But I am not holding my breath, not even for a 25 yrd underwater swim. :D )
I don't have the post in front of me, but I remember Ion talking about training 45-50K yards a week. (Even if I'm off by 10K, the rest of my statements still apply.) Ion has ridiculed others that do not swim as much, calling them lazy and fat. I guess Ion is lazy too, since college and USS swimmers sometimes swim two or three times as much yardage.
Besides the fact that distance alone is not a good indicator of the quality of the practice, I'm guessing that Ion spent 15-20 hours (or more) in the pool each week. Between work, other interests (like volleyball, reading, etc.) and pool availability (which is fiercely limited where I live), I have between 5-7 hours of pool time. (People with kids would have even less.) Clearly, you cannot approach your maximum conditioning with limited resources. So that is one reason why USMS emphasizes technique: given limited time, it will have minimal impact on your conditioning, and produce the greatest possibility of improvement. (For the former, working on technique is just as taxing as "normal" swimming. For the later, unless you have a natural feel for the water, there is a lot of wasted energy.)
Let's turn this question on its head. Maybe this will satisfy Ion. (But I am not holding my breath, not even for a 25 yrd underwater swim. :D )
I don't have the post in front of me, but I remember Ion talking about training 45-50K yards a week. (Even if I'm off by 10K, the rest of my statements still apply.) Ion has ridiculed others that do not swim as much, calling them lazy and fat. I guess Ion is lazy too, since college and USS swimmers sometimes swim two or three times as much yardage.
Besides the fact that distance alone is not a good indicator of the quality of the practice, I'm guessing that Ion spent 15-20 hours (or more) in the pool each week. Between work, other interests (like volleyball, reading, etc.) and pool availability (which is fiercely limited where I live), I have between 5-7 hours of pool time. (People with kids would have even less.) Clearly, you cannot approach your maximum conditioning with limited resources. So that is one reason why USMS emphasizes technique: given limited time, it will have minimal impact on your conditioning, and produce the greatest possibility of improvement. (For the former, working on technique is just as taxing as "normal" swimming. For the later, unless you have a natural feel for the water, there is a lot of wasted energy.)
