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?
Originally posted by PeirsolFan
You're right about not analyizing other swimmers too closely. What works for one person may not work for another.
That's why researchers use groups larger than one, in order to average out idiosynchrasies. You can compare (let's say) the final heat of Olympic swimmers, and compare that to another group (new swimmers?), and see if there is any generalized behavior that is different between the two groups.
Although fitness and stroke rate might make one particular swimmer faster than another person, stroke length is the big difference between skilled swimmers (as a group) versus non-skilled swimmers. (But knowing what you want, and knowing how to get it... that's why we have coaches.)
Originally posted by PeirsolFan
You're right about not analyizing other swimmers too closely. What works for one person may not work for another.
That's why researchers use groups larger than one, in order to average out idiosynchrasies. You can compare (let's say) the final heat of Olympic swimmers, and compare that to another group (new swimmers?), and see if there is any generalized behavior that is different between the two groups.
Although fitness and stroke rate might make one particular swimmer faster than another person, stroke length is the big difference between skilled swimmers (as a group) versus non-skilled swimmers. (But knowing what you want, and knowing how to get it... that's why we have coaches.)
