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
it is certainly not a good idea to try and work on fitness and technique at the same time using the same activity. Your body does not imprint new muscle memory when you are tired. Instead, it reverts to old patterns. So if you work on fitness before technique, you are just imprinting bad habits that will become more and more difficult to correct the longer you do them.
I have to disagree with you here. One of the myths I frequently hear from swimmers is that you can't build fitness while you're working on technique. That simply isn't true!
Before I got into swimming, my primary form of exercise was weight training. In weight training, technique is also important, though for a different reason. A typical weight training program consists of a number of different exercises, each of which is designed to work out a different group of muscles. So if you don't do an exercise correctly, the effort ends up being borne by a different set of muscles than was intended, and the muscle group that was being targeted by that exercise ends up getting cheated.
The three things that cause incorrect execution of a weight training exercise are (1) inattentiveness to how the exericse is being done, (2) using too much weight, and (3) doing too many reps. The reason why the 2nd and 3rd reasons so frequently come into play is because when the correct muscles can't do the exercise (either because they're not strong enough or because they're too tired), our natural instinct is to compensate by spreading the effort over more muscles (i.e., by cheating on the exercise). So weight trainers are taught to stop before it gets to that point.
So how do weight trainers ever build their muscles? After all, I've heard swimmers say that in order for your swimming workout to be useful for conditioning, you have to push your speed and distance to the point where your form deteriorates. If you don't, you're not taxing yourself enough for your muscles to grow.
The answer is that this isn't true. You don't have to push yourself to the point where your form deteriorates in order for your muscles to grow. Weight trainers prove this on a regular basis. I proved this on a regular basis back in my weight training days. You do have to push yourself. You do have to do a little more each week than you did the previous week. But you don't and shouldn't push yourself beyond what you can do with correct form, and you should never allow yourself to become inattentive about your form. And exactly the same thing is true in swimming.
Bob
Originally posted by tomhendersonfl
it is certainly not a good idea to try and work on fitness and technique at the same time using the same activity. Your body does not imprint new muscle memory when you are tired. Instead, it reverts to old patterns. So if you work on fitness before technique, you are just imprinting bad habits that will become more and more difficult to correct the longer you do them.
I have to disagree with you here. One of the myths I frequently hear from swimmers is that you can't build fitness while you're working on technique. That simply isn't true!
Before I got into swimming, my primary form of exercise was weight training. In weight training, technique is also important, though for a different reason. A typical weight training program consists of a number of different exercises, each of which is designed to work out a different group of muscles. So if you don't do an exercise correctly, the effort ends up being borne by a different set of muscles than was intended, and the muscle group that was being targeted by that exercise ends up getting cheated.
The three things that cause incorrect execution of a weight training exercise are (1) inattentiveness to how the exericse is being done, (2) using too much weight, and (3) doing too many reps. The reason why the 2nd and 3rd reasons so frequently come into play is because when the correct muscles can't do the exercise (either because they're not strong enough or because they're too tired), our natural instinct is to compensate by spreading the effort over more muscles (i.e., by cheating on the exercise). So weight trainers are taught to stop before it gets to that point.
So how do weight trainers ever build their muscles? After all, I've heard swimmers say that in order for your swimming workout to be useful for conditioning, you have to push your speed and distance to the point where your form deteriorates. If you don't, you're not taxing yourself enough for your muscles to grow.
The answer is that this isn't true. You don't have to push yourself to the point where your form deteriorates in order for your muscles to grow. Weight trainers prove this on a regular basis. I proved this on a regular basis back in my weight training days. You do have to push yourself. You do have to do a little more each week than you did the previous week. But you don't and shouldn't push yourself beyond what you can do with correct form, and you should never allow yourself to become inattentive about your form. And exactly the same thing is true in swimming.
Bob
