I've noticed at lot of dicsussion in recent threads about TI principles,
As you can see from my location, I'm on the other side of the atlantic and TI has started to make an impact over here.
I've come across a lot of people in my local University pool who seem to have been mesmerised by the TI message and it is now common for me to see people swimming on their sides with one outstreached arm and a submerged head.
When the time comes to breath these guys have their heads so deep from pressing their bouy that they end up lifting it so high that they loose whatever alignment they had in the first place.
From talking to them, none of them seem to want to develop a proper kick and build up endurance so they can develop
good form.
I have decided to post a list of TI priciples and my own critism of these, feel free to add to the list or post a TI defence!
TI PRINCIPLE 1
Side to Side Rotation
to get into Low Drag Fish-like Position
Criticism
Rotation is good to get extentsion and
a good catch + power into the stroke,
Excessive rotation slows down the stroke.
TI PRINCIPLE 2
Swim DownHill
Press your Bouy
Criticism:
Holding head too deep creates drag
Makes breathing Difficult
TI PRINCIPLE 3
No Kicking
Criticism
Kicking essential to fast swimming
+ to maintain good form particularly
for male swimmers.
TI PRINCIPLE 4
Front Quadrant Swimming/
Distance per stroke,
Criticism
A reasonably high Stroke rate is necessay for
fast swimming,
Unless you have a very strong kick a glide
phase in your stroke will cause decelleration
TI PRINCIPLE 5
Drills will make you a better swimmer
Criticism
Drills are important, but there is no
substitute for good quality fast training.
Originally posted by Ion Beza
Coach Mike Bottom -of the Gary Hall Jr. (U.S.) , Duje Draganja's (Cro.), Anthony Ervin's (U.S.) fame- credits the gold won in 200 back by Gordan Kozulj (Cro.) at the 2000 European Championships, to working on a much faster Stroke Rate.
And of course all these swimmers are sprinters . It seems to me stroke rate is much more important for sprinters. However, once you start swimming longer races reducing drag becomes more and more important. Sprinters can take the tradeoff of greatly increased propulsive force by slightly increasing their drag. Distance swimmer cannot.
I think there are a couple reasons TI is popular. One is that it produces a reasonably efficient stroke which can be sustained. This is something very enticing to triathletes or others without a swimming background who found that, before learning TI, swimming was an absolute struggle. The second is that it is written such that it's so portable. What I mean is it's pretty easy to learn the basic principles, they make sense, and this makes it easy to take on the road or write down in a book.
Originally posted by Ion Beza
Coach Mike Bottom -of the Gary Hall Jr. (U.S.) , Duje Draganja's (Cro.), Anthony Ervin's (U.S.) fame- credits the gold won in 200 back by Gordan Kozulj (Cro.) at the 2000 European Championships, to working on a much faster Stroke Rate.
And of course all these swimmers are sprinters . It seems to me stroke rate is much more important for sprinters. However, once you start swimming longer races reducing drag becomes more and more important. Sprinters can take the tradeoff of greatly increased propulsive force by slightly increasing their drag. Distance swimmer cannot.
I think there are a couple reasons TI is popular. One is that it produces a reasonably efficient stroke which can be sustained. This is something very enticing to triathletes or others without a swimming background who found that, before learning TI, swimming was an absolute struggle. The second is that it is written such that it's so portable. What I mean is it's pretty easy to learn the basic principles, they make sense, and this makes it easy to take on the road or write down in a book.
