I'm absolutely amazed at the amount of misinformation on swimming, especially on the internet. One website I saw instructing the specifics of the backstroke advocated a completely illegal turn.
A bodybuilder site said that depleting your stores of Glycogen by starving your body of it actually helped the body move faster. I'm not buying that. You can't swim without it.
Other sites like USA Swimming, have a lot of kids with a lot of questions who for some reason don't ask their coaches or parents. Lots of ear infection questions - which are fairly preventable by wearing a swim cap.
Early on in my learning I suffered a severe injury by practicing a drill recommended by one of the so-called experts in swimming technique, who shall remain nameless. That's led me to pay closer attention to sports medicine specialists and surgeons who swim.
Everybody's body is different and has specific limitations. For example, the Neer Test for your shoulders. The entire approach to pitch, catch, pull, etc... is highly individual. I trust top athletic coaches and top swimmers and doctors.
One site on backstroke listed something very technical which actually made sense and works wonders but after running a search a dozen ways through Google I found no one knew of it or spoke of it other than that 1 site!
Who do you trust? What are your thoughts on this?
Parents
Former Member
I just started swimming a couple of years ago to help recover from a ruptured Achilles tendon. For the first year, I followed the “conventional wisdom” of the experts, such as:
• If you want to go faster, train longer and harder
• Build up your shoulders with weights, paddles and pull buoy sets so you can pull harder
• Use kickboard sets to build up your legs so you can kick harder
I also got private coaching from a former competitive swimmer. She actually gave me some decent advice, such as reduce your stroke count, but couldn’t really tell me exactly how one goes about doing that.
As a result, I did get bigger muscles and more fitness, but I made virtually no improvements in time for a year and injured my shoulder to boot. Then I discovered Total Immersion. It was a revelation to me. Most of the basic TI principles are endorsed by most experts, although a few are still somewhat controversial, such as the idea that quality of practice is much more important than quantity. But to me the really important thing about TI is that it teaches you to be your own coach. It gives you tools and techniques for analyzing your swimming and crafting your practices to improve the aspects you want to work on.
One of the first and most important things TI taught me is that the key to swimming is minimizing water resistance, and that this cannot be done by becoming stronger and overpowering the water. You have to practice “fishlike” swimming.
Notice that I use the TI terminology “practice” instead of the common swimming terminology “workout.” TI makes the point that effective swimming is much more a product of skill than of sheer brawn and fitness. To learn a skill, you have to be instructed in how to do it and you have to practice it. You practice piano, you practice dance, you practice tennis, but in swimming you have a workout. You have a piano instructor and a tennis pro to teach you, but in swimming you have a coach to craft a (grueling) workout for you. As long as swimming continues to take this approach, it is going to continue to have problems attracting new participants. I know that during that first year when I was doing endless mind-numbing sets of up and down the lane and constantly struggling to overcome fatigue, I came close to quitting several times. But TI has changed all that. I totally enjoy my practices now. My mind is just as actively engaged as my body, and I have cut my 1,600 meter time by 8 minutes in the last 6 months, while swimming on average about 2,000 meters per practice session three times a week.
So to answer the original question, the only person I now trust for help is my new swimming instructor - me.
I just started swimming a couple of years ago to help recover from a ruptured Achilles tendon. For the first year, I followed the “conventional wisdom” of the experts, such as:
• If you want to go faster, train longer and harder
• Build up your shoulders with weights, paddles and pull buoy sets so you can pull harder
• Use kickboard sets to build up your legs so you can kick harder
I also got private coaching from a former competitive swimmer. She actually gave me some decent advice, such as reduce your stroke count, but couldn’t really tell me exactly how one goes about doing that.
As a result, I did get bigger muscles and more fitness, but I made virtually no improvements in time for a year and injured my shoulder to boot. Then I discovered Total Immersion. It was a revelation to me. Most of the basic TI principles are endorsed by most experts, although a few are still somewhat controversial, such as the idea that quality of practice is much more important than quantity. But to me the really important thing about TI is that it teaches you to be your own coach. It gives you tools and techniques for analyzing your swimming and crafting your practices to improve the aspects you want to work on.
One of the first and most important things TI taught me is that the key to swimming is minimizing water resistance, and that this cannot be done by becoming stronger and overpowering the water. You have to practice “fishlike” swimming.
Notice that I use the TI terminology “practice” instead of the common swimming terminology “workout.” TI makes the point that effective swimming is much more a product of skill than of sheer brawn and fitness. To learn a skill, you have to be instructed in how to do it and you have to practice it. You practice piano, you practice dance, you practice tennis, but in swimming you have a workout. You have a piano instructor and a tennis pro to teach you, but in swimming you have a coach to craft a (grueling) workout for you. As long as swimming continues to take this approach, it is going to continue to have problems attracting new participants. I know that during that first year when I was doing endless mind-numbing sets of up and down the lane and constantly struggling to overcome fatigue, I came close to quitting several times. But TI has changed all that. I totally enjoy my practices now. My mind is just as actively engaged as my body, and I have cut my 1,600 meter time by 8 minutes in the last 6 months, while swimming on average about 2,000 meters per practice session three times a week.
So to answer the original question, the only person I now trust for help is my new swimming instructor - me.
