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
Originally posted by tomhendersonfl
INotice 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.
Sounds like you haven't had a very good coach and have some misconceptions about swimming.
Perhaps you had an age group (kids) coach work with you. There's a significant difference between coaching age groupers and elite USA swimmers, vs. masters, fitness and triathlon swimmers. Very different considerations with respect to individual physical abilities, depending on the age of the swimmer, cognitive and disciplinary capacity of an adult swimmer vs. a 10 year old age grouper, and different needs as far as recovery time.
Our swim practices contain workouts that are 30-50% skill drills, and pretty much only the main set is the hard working fitness or endurance work. The rest is drills and drills and the coach watching you and giving you pointers. Doing drills properly is plenty of a workout in itself.
Also unlike 20+ people per instructor, as in TI clinics, in our clinics you get a max of 6 people per instructor.
As for coaching yourself, that has majopr limitations, unless one has superb visualization skills, and can see yourself in water and able to analyze where you need improvement. So far, I'm not aware of anyone having that ability.
Originally posted by tomhendersonfl
INotice 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.
Sounds like you haven't had a very good coach and have some misconceptions about swimming.
Perhaps you had an age group (kids) coach work with you. There's a significant difference between coaching age groupers and elite USA swimmers, vs. masters, fitness and triathlon swimmers. Very different considerations with respect to individual physical abilities, depending on the age of the swimmer, cognitive and disciplinary capacity of an adult swimmer vs. a 10 year old age grouper, and different needs as far as recovery time.
Our swim practices contain workouts that are 30-50% skill drills, and pretty much only the main set is the hard working fitness or endurance work. The rest is drills and drills and the coach watching you and giving you pointers. Doing drills properly is plenty of a workout in itself.
Also unlike 20+ people per instructor, as in TI clinics, in our clinics you get a max of 6 people per instructor.
As for coaching yourself, that has majopr limitations, unless one has superb visualization skills, and can see yourself in water and able to analyze where you need improvement. So far, I'm not aware of anyone having that ability.
