I submit that swimming is one of the worst sports in terms of following fad techniques simply because someone has been successful using that technique.
I submit that talent or genetics, aerobic capacity, workout intensity as well as mental toughness play a far greater roll than mere stroke technique in the end.
Seems like the US latches on to the winner's stroke techniques all too often as the way explain success and teach kids. Front quadrant swimming like Ian Thorpe..... head down sprinting like Popoff..... these guys would be successful in their events with or without these techniques in my opinion.
Except for the latest cheating techniques...... i.e. flip turns on backstroke, underwater dolphin kick on backstroke, head under on breastroke, full body suits, and the soon to be dolphin kick on breastroke pull outs, the sport has not improved a whole lot in the last 25 years.... especially when you compare it to 25 years previous to 1980..... (1955)
Thought for the day...... :-)
John Smith
What sport isn't a fad sport? Basketball and baseball are off the fad charts. Football is too, both types. Golf is beyond a fad. Tennis is all about the fad these days. And, let us not forget Gull80s favorite sport, NASCAR racing.
It doesn't matter what sport or what era, you will always see the kids (or old farts, in our case) try to imitate the best in the game.
Mr Goodsmith:
I just have one correction in your point 2, otherwise I agree with what your saying. In 1980, there were actually 2 people that went under 50 seconds in the 100 Meter Free. Jim Montgomery went :49.99 at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal and then a month later in Philidelphia in August of 1976, Jony Skinner went :49.44 and held that record until Rowdy Gains did the :49.36 swimming next to you in the time trial in Austin. The next guy to break his record was Matt Biondi doing a time of :48.75 sometime in 1985. By the way, what was your time time swimming against Rowdy? If you don't remember that's fine or maybe is just none of my business.
A little bit of a tangent here, but if you're ever looking for past Olympic Trials results, they do exist on USA Swimming's web site. It took a little searching, but here you go: www.usaswimming.org/.../DesktopDefault.aspx
Most of the '70s and '80s results look to be scanned in from Swimming World, but at least they're there!
P.S. There's a great photo of GoodSmith's wife in the 1984 results.
I can see valid points on all sides of this issue.
John mentions "cheating techniques". In my opinion, for the strokes in question, that has been the major factor for improvements in times over recent years. I look back at what it used to take to WIN the high school state meets back in the 70s for backstroke and breaststroke, and now some of those times would barely be qualifying times today.
But we have seen improvements beyond that, as was pointed out with the 100M free example.
Maybe we latch on to "fads" because we are a culture that demands immediate results. We want to see a record broken at every meet. So with the wheels of progress grinding slowly, we place our eggs in the next (and the next) fad basket, hoping that it will be the magic bullet for the next record.
BTW, I wouldn't necessarily call the changes "cheating". But it gets the idea across so I won't quibble. I'll add improved pool design to the list. Improved gutter design. Improved lane-line design. (I wonder how some of the swinmers of generations past would have fared had they not had to swim with rope-and-bobber lane lines...)
And I predict that somewhere in the not-too-distant-future, we will have to start regulating (or at least certifying) the content of the water chemicals. Denser water could make for improved times. (Broimine vs chlorine. Concentration of chlorine. Salts. Etc.)
And from the look of things, she did from lane eight! Gotta love those outside smokers ... unless you're in the race.
Anyway, regarding the women's fly, only four women have swum faster than Mary T. since she broke the record in Aug. 1981 (not 1983, as Mr. Smith said): Susan O'Neill (the first to do it in 1995), Misty Hyman, Otylia Jedrezejak, Jessicah Schipper. And the world record is only five-tenths fatser! With the suits and dolphin kicks, it looks like the improvement is small. Kinda like the women's 200 free.
I'm one to say that I follow fads, too, though I'm usually at the end of the fad's popularity. It took me years to break down and swim the wave breaststroke. I didn't start wearing paper suits until 1990. I've been trying to imitate Kitajima -- only in his pull, and it's been scrutinized for three years now.
The only "fads" I'm still reluctant to participate in are bodysuits (because I like the feel of the water) and underwater dolphin kicking (because I don't have the strength or flexibility).
Well..... Mr. Matt S...... I am afraid I am going to have to take issue with your points..... :-)
1." Ian Thorpe's WRs in the 200 free, matched by Hoogie.... "
This merely proves my point that swimming is a fad sport. Here we see two totally different stroke techniques battling it out at an elite level. Which one is better?..... Well, Hoogies is probably better for this event because he spends less time out front on his stroke than Ian and he is able to turn over a little faster. But we'll leave the stroke mechanics on freestyle to another thread.
2. "In 1980 only one person had EVER been under 50 in the 100m free, and it was such an unusual event that some people speculated the pool was 6 inches too short. Now, we expect anyone in the hunt for the Olympic Finals to be under 49."
Mr. Matt... surely you jest with this feeble response. By 1984 the World record in the 100M free had dropped to 49.36 (I remember quite vividly as Rowdy trounced me twice in a time trial that day in Austin when he set it). Take away the full body suit which probably corresponds to 3-4 tenths and you have a paulty 1 second differential between the early 80s and now. That's nothing compared to the improvements made in the 100 free from 1955 until the early 80's. (Again we ASSUME no drugs are being used... a big assumption but none the less we will assume it).
Take a totally different race as an example. The 200yd free at NCAAs. 21 years ago Rowdy did a 1:33.8 If you put a full body suit (probably 8 tenths advantage) on him back then his time would still place in the top 2 in that event.... i.e. a high 1:32. Again.... very little improvement over time in this event over 25 years. Hell my paultry 1:35.8 got 4th place at NCAAs in 1984. It wasnt until the last 3-4 years that that time go knocked out of the top 8.
3. "The women's butterfly races."
What exactly is your point here? That Mary T's legendary time is not competitive any more?...... Dude.... there have only been a handful of female swims in the world that have ever been faster than her, and she did it back in 1983. Again, I submit to you that in 25 years, this event has NOT improved that much. Especially if you gave Mary T a full body suit and reversed the clock. The same thing goes for Betsy Mitchell's 200m back. Almost no one can touch her even today. It's not like the whole final heat has caught up to Betsy. Hell.. they're still doing 2:13s in that event. My wife's time from 1984 trials could've finaled this year and she got second in 84 when she made the team. That's not that impressive for the girls in this event today considering they are wearing full body suits and do underwater dolphin kick with freestlye turns now, Matt. The whole final heat should be around 2:11 or faster today.
4." AND, while we're on the subject of women's swimming, the steroid slammin' East Germans kinda fouled up the results for the 70s. Consider that women today are clean and now equaling or surpassing the time of roid-monsters, and suddenly the last 25 years starts to look better."
I suggest we leave drugs out of this conversation as the US is not a totally clean nation either. But, if you want me to remind you of the greatest all-around US female swimmer of all time (Tracy Caulkins).... I think you will agree that her times are still competitive today in the final heat of nationals. Again, she is the product of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
5. "There is another hole in your hypothesis. If it was all talent and workout intensity, you would expect today's world-class swimmers to be doing more intensity and more volume than in the 70s. Actually, they are doing less."
Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt....... today's distance swimmers may be doing less than the mega yardage of the late 1970s, but the sprinters are a totally different case. I swam for Eddie in the early 80s. The good sprinting schools back then ... like Cal, Arkansas, Texas, Tennesse etc... did NOT do mega yardage back then. It was weight concentric and quality set oriented. Its not THAT much different today for them in terms of training and yardage with weights.
6. "Finally, I think that we're kidding ourselves if we think we can separate out the effects of "technique" and of "training." Anyone who has been in the sport knows you need both to have real improvement, and they are not independent of each other but in fact they interact (as anyone who has worked on fly technique while out of shape can tell you). We could go around in circles trying to figure out whether Dara Torres' successful comeback (arguably more successful than Jenny Thompson sticking with the sport during the same time) was due more to technique or training. Fact is stroke technique is different, training methods are different, and what works for one person's body and psyche may be a complete disaster for someone else."
I agree that training and technique are intertwined and related closely. Howver, once you get to a USS Nationals level it is much more beneficial to have the "talent" (i.e. genetics) and hard "training" as your weapons of choice than to rely on incremental fad stroke techniques of the winners.
John Smith
I take great issue with the idea technique isn't important,it's huge.Without good technique you don't have a chance. That said there hasn't really been a great technique change since the sixties except in breaststroke and there the rules changed (unless you count underwater dolphin.) Basically it's been "rotate more on free and back and keep your head down". Hardly an earth shaking break through. Front quadrant swimming is not new and is one of those ideas that only works for some swimmers at some distances. The arguement between lift versus drag propulsion has been facinating, but has had surprisingly little effect on how most elite swimmers swim.I think the biggest reaso times dropped so much in the late 60's and 70's is goggles. Until comfortable goggles came out yardage was limited by eye pain.
Originally posted by aquageek
What sport isn't a fad sport? Basketball and baseball are off the fad charts. Football is too, both types. Golf is beyond a fad. Tennis is all about the fad these days. And, let us not forget Gull80s favorite sport, NASCAR racing.
It doesn't matter what sport or what era, you will always see the kids (or old farts, in our case) try to imitate the best in the game.
I couldn't have said it any better myself.
The post was a combination of Matt S. 's reply and my answers to him. I didn't say there was only 1 person under 50 seconds in the 100m free, Mr Matt S. said that. But it makes no difference in the end. I still say that times are not that much faster now then 25 years ago given suit technology and the cheating rule changes to the strokes... :-)
As for my embarassing Freshman year swim with Rowdy when he went a time trial for that record in Austin in 1984..... I think I went a 52.1 He missed it the first time and swam it again about 20 minutes later. I remember crawling off the deck hoping no one saw me..... walked up to my favorite Texmex restaurant on Lavaca and drank several pictures of beer..... :-)
John Smith
Yeah it was 1981 for Mary T. Brown Deer I think. My memory is going.
Anyway...... stick with the conventional suits Jeff and I'll use the cheatin' full body suits on the 100 IM. I need the extra half second.... :-)
John Smith
