I have been endeavouring to improve my freestyle stroke for some time and am now confused. I am hoping someone may have some advice.
For years I just swam thinking all I had to do was rotate my arms and kick to get to the other end. Once I could get to the other end I began to focus on technique.
I read Terry Laughlin's total immersion aiming to increase stroke length by fully extending the leading arm and practising front quandrant swimming by only commencing the catch and pull when the other arm "caught up" to the leading arm.
I have also been in a technique class however they suggest the leading arm should not be extended but should remain curved as the leading hand enters the water. They suggest the catch and pull should commence as soon as the leading hand enters the water. This is a completely different technique to that explained in Total Immersion.
I understand there are different techniques and suspect it is a matter of identifying what works best for the individual. I would be interested in other swimmers views and which technique they prefer.
Regards - John
Former Member
Originally posted by dead fish
The other portion of this discussion was “drills” which TI is very big on. For learning “gross movements” drills are fine. But as a form of true training it has never been shown that what you do at slow purposeful effort has any cross over to improved fast performance. This is not only true in swimming but every other sport.
The only way to master technique is focus on technique while swimming at race or near race pace effort.
Drills are not the answer.
The reason TI uses drills is because most swimmers have bad habits that they have been practicing for so long that they do them without even thinking about it. When you practice a movement over and over and over again, it finally becomes such a deeply engrained habit that it is virtually impossible to get conscious control over it and change what you are doing. If the habit is a good one, then of course there is no reason to change it. But the problem is that bad habits can get as deeply engrained as good ones.
Drills provide a way to break out of those bad habits because drills are far enough removed from regular swimming that our minds don't "realize" we are swimming and invoke all of the deeply engrained habits we have been practicing over the years. As a result, we can use drills to engrain new swimming habits which can then be incorporated into our swimming strokes.
You are correct that goal of training should be to swim with perfect technique at race pace. But you are not likely to achieve this by swimming at race pace while trying to perfect your technique.
Musicians are perpetually faced with a similar problem: How do you learn to play a fast piece of music correctly? I've never met a musician who seriously believed that you can do this by playing the piece at concert pace while trying to get the notes right. Instead, the procedure is always to:
- Slow it down to a speed where you can play it correctly.
- Gradually speed things up, while still playing it correctly, until you reach the speed at which it is supposed to be played.
This same principle applies to learning any highly skilled activity that must be executed quickly.
Bob
Originally posted by dead fish
But as a form of true training it has never been shown that what you do at slow purposeful effort has any cross over to improved fast performance. This is not only true in swimming but every other sport.
Grasshopper -
Here is a quick way to convince yourself that this is wrong: Pick a fight with a Tai Chi master. You will have a lot of time during your recovery to re-examine the "slow doesn't translate to fast performance" idea.
Also, it is NOT true in all sports. The best racewalking coaches teach kids in exactly this way. The Russians have done it that way for decades.
In both cases, I speak from experience.
-LBJ
"Most fish are longest in their front-to-back dimension and narrowest in their side-to-side dimension. The only way humans can achieve the same thing is to swim on their sides."
The narrow frontal profile presented by fish allows
them to efficiently cut through water, however the
water presenting the resistance doesn't care what
orientation the object passing through it has, for
example flat fish also present a low drag shape
to the water,
Rotating all the way over on to your side to
achieve a low drag configuration is one of
the worst mismomers of TI swimming.
Rotation is only necessary for proper positioning
of arms for propulsion and recovery.
Human swimmers can achieve low drag in the horizontal
position by making sure they keep flat, keep the kick
amplitude small and don't let their hips sway from side to side.
Originally posted by free142
The narrow frontal profile presented by fish allows
them to efficiently cut through water, however the
water presenting the resistance doesn't care what
orientation the object passing through it has, for
example flat fish also present a low drag shape
to the water,
Rotating all the way over on to your side to
achieve a low drag configuration is one of
the worst mismomers of TI swimming.
Rotation is only necessary for proper positioning
of arms for propulsion and recovery.
Human swimmers can achieve low drag in the horizontal
position by making sure they keep flat, keep the kick
amplitude small and don't let their hips sway from side to side.
Not quite applicable. The orientation doesn't matter IF you are completely submerged, as are fish. If you are not completely submerged, the surface tension of the water, the various drag components, and the change of laminar to turbulent flow come into play and will cause a larger cross-section relative to the horizontal plane of the water to have a physical penalty.
-LBJ
