Reading swim myths debunked threads got me thinking abut this again, but I don't want to derail them with this....
One thing that always puzzles me is when average swimmers look at the cream of the crop swimmers, like Phelps, and the rest of his caliber to see how to maximize out own performance.
Most of us real mortals tend to have much more basic and serious flaws in our techniques, that if corrected even half ways would make a HUGE difference in performance.
Most of the cream of the crop at the top has gone through the basics, and fine tuning, and then fine tuned things even more to take advantage of their own physical advantage or disadvantage minutia.
I'm not talking about it sometimes being fun to analyze what makes the greats great, and the physics of it all. Thinking about what may be next and trying to learn and investigate more is always a good thing - well, let me qualify this, when put in it's proper perspective.
I'm talking about when actually coaching and clinics... most of what we end up dealing with is people who worry about their hand entry, should it be thumb or pinky first, and similar minutia... while their whole arm movement, for example is so inefficient, they get very little propulsion out of it.
What I don't see in swimming as much as I would like to (or as much as in other sports I participated in) is emphasis on, learn the basics first. Then you can start fine tuning things.
I think part of this is the tendency of most people to want a quick fix for major problems. Losing weight by increasing activity level and decreasing calories taken in seems like an awful lot of work if there's some magic pill or tea or procedure that will be a quick fix. Changing the hand entry position is so quick and easy and identifiable that it seems so much more do-able than hours of work perfecting body position and alignment which are so much less glamourous!
I think a lot of golfers do this too when they hope against hope that a new, expensive club will miraculously improve their swing.
My husband loves to shoot guns (in competitions) and he's always convinced that the next new gadget or sight is going to vault him to the next level. He doesn't want to hear that he just needs to practice more!
Maybe in swimming it's a little harder to just "throw money at the problem" so the quick-fix addicts focus on pinky position instead of the big picture...
I think part of this is the tendency of most people to want a quick fix for major problems. Losing weight by increasing activity level and decreasing calories taken in seems like an awful lot of work if there's some magic pill or tea or procedure that will be a quick fix. Changing the hand entry position is so quick and easy and identifiable that it seems so much more do-able than hours of work perfecting body position and alignment which are so much less glamourous!
I think a lot of golfers do this too when they hope against hope that a new, expensive club will miraculously improve their swing.
My husband loves to shoot guns (in competitions) and he's always convinced that the next new gadget or sight is going to vault him to the next level. He doesn't want to hear that he just needs to practice more!
Maybe in swimming it's a little harder to just "throw money at the problem" so the quick-fix addicts focus on pinky position instead of the big picture...
