Who do you trust for help?

Originally posted by Conniekat8 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. That's what video is for. ;)

Originally posted by PeirsolFan That's what video is for. ;) Exactamundo!

Originally posted by tomhendersonfl Connie, I agree with Bob that you have the right kind of coach...... snipping for shortness. Yeah, I've been through self coaching, and through TI for 2-3 years, and finally making most progress after I found a good masters program and a knowledgeable coach invested full time in masters swimming. With a good coach Personally, I made more progress in 6 months then I have in 3 years of self coaching and TI. Between the workouts and clinics and personal lessons and goal setting and motivational programs available within the team you get a great package. I agree with you that they are hard to find. Primarily, as far as I understand is because it is near impossible to make a sustainable living on what masters swim coaches get paid, and yet to run a great wekll rounded program one needs a full time investment. I find some swimmers (not necessarily you) an odd bunch, they want all this time and quality coaching and instructions and what not, but they seem to want it all for nothing. As for watching the pro's, other then the novelty of it we really discourage watching them for the technique. Most pro's have very specialized things that they do, that they've learned over the years, and what works for them and their mindset and body Most often one can't do advanced things sucessfully before they get a good basic skills. Watching the pros, I've ween many people focus on minutia that ends up being to advanced for their personal improvement. If one is to watch a pro, it's best to do it with qualified guidance. For examplke, in our program, we do watch pro's on occasion, with help of dartfish, and compare the main technique elements watching you vs. a pro with sort of a textbook element of a technique, so a swimmer can visualize the correction they may be aiming for. Even after that, when they get their basic skills in the 'textbook ballpark' then a coach begins to watch you and help you adjust the technique to fit your body style and physical ability. Especially in masters, giving consideration to one;s physical ability is very important, since unlike with kids swimming, there is much more emphasis on injury prevention.

More very good points. Would you pay a coach more if they were ASCA certified? Only universities can afford them it seems. I would pay more and have more faith. You're right about not analyizing other swimmers too closely. What works for one person may not work for another. I learned another sport by watching someone else and guess what I picked up? A very precise very specific movement that only the two of us do. I lost my individuality which is something I'm striving to maintain in swimming.

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 gull80 I could be wrong, but I don't believe the top ten swimmers in my age group have achieved their success simply through drilling. Pianists don't need to worry about VO2max, lactate, etc. As for elite tennis players, they devote quite a bit of time to improving their cardiovascular fitness nowadays. Technique is important, no doubt about it; Bobby Hackett once said that he never swam a length of the pool without thinking about his technique. But I think you have to put in the yardage, some (a lot?) of it very fast. I don't think anyone is questioning the value of yardage. The question is how you do the yardage. Is it mindless yardage done with the goal of filling some yardage quota, or is it mindful yardage consisting of a combination of drilling, whole-stroke swimming with focal points, and swimming where you work on maintaining your efficiency at faster and faster speeds? Bob

Originally posted by gull80 .... But I think you have to put in the yardage, some (a lot?) of it very fast. I didn’t mean to imply that fitness is not important. My point was just that it is more important in the beginning to master the basic skills before working on fitness. I know from experience that fitness alone will not significantly improve your times if your technique is bad. It just enables you to swim slowly and badly for longer distances. And 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. In other disciplines, this is not so much a problem because you can work on skill and fitness at the same time using different activities (cross training). A tennis player, for example, can get fit by running or cycling without having to get fit by playing lots of games of tennis. Swimming seems to be an exception, though, because general aerobic fitness does not seem to translate very well to swimming. When I started swimming, I could cycle hard or power walk in the mountains for hours with no problem. Yet when I first got in the pool, I was exhausted after a couple of hundred meters. Perhaps it’s the different breathing pattern that causes this, I don’t know. But so far I haven’t discovered any effective cross training that helps with my swimming endurance. Maybe this is one reason why there is so much emphasis in swimming on doing lots of laps. TI offers the opinion that as a beginner, technique is probably 90% responsible for your success and fitness 10%. For an experienced competitive swimmer, that ratio drops to more like 70/30, so the better you get the more of a differentiator fitness becomes. I know this has proven pretty accurate in my case. When I was following the swimming CW of just getting in as many laps as possible I barely made any improvements in my times. But when I began focusing on technique at the expense of fitness, my times improved drastically. I just think a lot more people would enjoy swimming and be a lot better at it if they were taught deep imprinting of the basic skills (like balance, streamlining, body rotation, etc.) before starting to put in the big yardage.

There are two different arguments here. I don't think anyone questions the value of TI-like drills for the novice swimmer who needs to develop technique. The more interesting argument concerns the competitive Masters swimmer who has a limited amount of time to train. Granted, swimmers at even the elite level work on technique, but what proportion of their workout is comprised of drills? And why are the words "mindless" and "yardage" always linked on this forum? A set of 10x100s @ En2 or En3 pace has a purpose.

In the beginning energy wasn't my problem - it was how it was being expended. It really was scary to see me like a windmill out of control veering in every God given direction believing I knew everything. You know, you can breath and kick when you want because there's no pattern. Ha! Before studying coaching or anything else I knew it had to be broken down into sections and focused on technique. When I began to study coaching and physics, things became much clearer. Gone is the frustration of "I'm moving so much how come I'm not getting anywhere!" My coach, who was/is quite good in competing in my event, worked for free (long story). Peirsol said not long ago that whether he was feeling good or bad he knew how to swim the event. Teaching the stroke is different. To me it was more valuable having someone who literally knew what it was lilke to swim it and how to do it with all the injuries and frustrations. It probably has a lot to do with how I learn.

I totally agree with Bob. You can get training effect and technique improvement from mindful yardage. Strength,endurance,and technique are all important,but technique will get you faster,faster. That is just as true for the elite swimmer as the novice. Thats why they spend so much time on video taping. I am one of the better breaststrokers in my age group,but last year a coach had me REALLY working on streamlining after the kick.(I thought I was before,but I was wrong.) This dropped my stroke count one stroke per 25 at the same speed. If I take 78 strokes for a 200 LCM and you take 110 you'll have to be in much better shape to beat me. Also in distances up to 200 M,explosive strength is at least as important as endurance. You don't build explosive strength with long swims, you build it with weights and (mindful) sprinting.