lightheir wrote:
To the OP: I've checked out swimming forums, quite a few of them, on the exact premise you propose, in that "the best swimmers should be on swimming forums, so you'll get the best advice there."
The reality though:
- Most swimming forums are almost entirely frequented by competitive swimmers. Meaning that these folks have been RACING swimming for years, if not since childhood, and very seriously as a single sport. This almost always means as well that these same folks are (very) naturally gifted at swimming or else they'd have quit long ago, even if they're not just 'joe-average' on their competitive swim team.
- When you ask a group of very gifted athletes for advice on basics, you often get the WORST advice, despite these gifted folks meaning well.
They'll say stuff like "if you're not swimming sub 1:20/100m for distance, it's all a technique problem for you, forget about effort, fix your technique', which is a load of crap for the non-gifted triathlete swimmer. They'll also attribute almost all their swim speed to "I worked so hard, which is the ONLY reason I'm so great at swimming", and/or "I refined my technique so will, which is the ONLY reason I swim 1:00/100 and you swim 1:45/100" - both of which are patently false.
The MAIN reason they're fast (like collegiate fast), first and foremost is their genetic advantage. After that, sure, hard work and technique count, but those factors will never make a average AG triathlete a D1 swimmer, no matter how hard they try. These gifted swimmers would have been FFOP triathlon swimmers with zero coaching, minimal training, even without their swim background, once they started training, thanks to their natural gifts, which they will NEVER acknowledge. Even D1 swimmers here routinely say they have no swim talent.
If you want to see this in force in running, just go to letsrun.com and watch the advice of these gifted 15-16 min 5k runners to 24+ min 5k runners - they'll say "I run 15 min 5ks on <20mpw, so at the LEAST, you should be able to run a 17-18 on <20mpw - you're just training all wrong or too wimpy to push it hard enough." Yeah, right.
- I actually am pretty sure that in terms of swimming forums, unless you're a gifted (collegiate swimmers are gifted in my book!) swimmer, triathlon swim forums give your best bet for getting practical advice for a real joe-average ability swimmer trying to improve.
Really good post. The exact same thing that swimmers would tell me to do, I'd flip it around and tell them that if they can't jog a sub 5 min mile as a warmup, then they have not put the work in. I was born as a runner (although pretty useless now, sometimes 40ish years of competitive running is the end of the road)...some are born swimmers. They can get their body shape into that of a speedboat that some will never be able to hold due to bone geometry, joint flex etc etc etc.....and then some are born with massive engines but will claim it is all hard work. No most people "relatively" suck because their engines are small and their bodies are built wrong for the sport.....now let's try to get Hicham El Gerrouj to crank off a sub 4 min 400m free.....he's a 3:26 1500m guy who has the engine, but I bet you he can't contort his body to swim fast....likewise I suspect it woudl be comical to get Ian Thorpe to run the 1500m on the track...probably can't break 6 minutes.