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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [mattbk] [ In reply to ]
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mattbk wrote:
So... reading your posts has been quite humorous. You keep saying TI is the most efficient, but I don't think you know what the word means. Efficient means achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense. Where is the "maximum productivity"? You equate TI to aerobars. Aerobars are not about making things easy. They are about going faster. They are not for causual riding where you can soft pedal without the wind bothering you and your ability to smell the flowers on a scenic tour. You say TI is necessary because water is 100's of times thicker than air. This means every time you TI glide, you have 100's of the times of the force of air acting against you to stop you. When you ride a bike you can stop pedaling while at speed for moments and not loose too much speed. Imagine stopping pedaling and trying to coast if you were riding under water, or stomping one pedal and coasting, then stomping the other and so on. Imagine water being denser and more viscous. What if you were swimming in caramel like that candy bar commercial? This would be 1000's of times thicker than water, which is "100's of times thicker than air". Would TI be even more relevant in this situation? You say Sun Yang is swimming TI and making it easier and more efficient. You think this guy isn't in extreme amounts of pain while breaking records and winning races? He is pulling hard and getting in sufficient kicking to drive his hips. I am sure he is on the verge of vomiting the whole 14:34... And please stop using "lol" at the end of every sentence...unless you are a 4th grade girl, in which case carry on...

X10...Yang was no doubt in extreme pain the whole time. He is not "gliding" at all in the sense of TI instruction. This whole discussion of Yang being a closet TI swimmer is just absurd.


"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [mattbk] [ In reply to ]
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Your first line reads"reading your posts has been quite humorous".Your last line reads"stop using"lol"at the end of every sentence".I AGREE my posts are funny,that is why I used"lol".Anyhow a lot of debate seems to be over the use of the word"efficiency".You said it means MAXIMUM productivity with MINIMUM wasted effort.In terms of racing neither one of these goals are absolute in my opinion.Winning the race,pretty much by definition,is maximum productivity.BUT just become someone wins does not mean they used minimum wasted effort.AND just because they used minimum wasted effort does not mean they won.My point was Total Immersion PROPERLY DONE,wastes FAR LESS EFFORT then"catch and pull".Nobody seems to have much problem with that statement(that I can remember).The issue is TI does not acheive MAXIMUM PRODUCTIVITY.In my opinion that is because not enough top swimmers use Total Immersion,if more people used it more TI users would win(IMO the times would be as fast or faster but we would see) .As I(and others on here) have seen, many people who use TI now are slow and would be slow NO MATTER WHAT technique they used.And same with the good athletes,they would be fast no matter what technique THEY used.To see which technique is best everyone just has to LEARN BOTH TECHNIQUES.
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [hotman637] [ In reply to ]
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hotman637 wrote:
I am slow at swimming,biking AND running,LOL.However I am swimming faster doing TI then I was doing"catch and pull".Total Immersion makes way more sense and everyone should at least learn the basic theory and then apply other concepts if they want,like you did.And as I said it usually takes a lot of practice to get fast.Doing catch and pull if you want to go fast,just swing your arms faster.With Total Immersion to get faster your entire body has to function in one smooth motion,like a fish,lol.

I feel your coaching pre-TI may have sold you somewhat short if that's what you believe proper non-TI swimming is.
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [hotman637] [ In reply to ]
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hotman637 wrote:
The issue is TI does not acheive MAXIMUM PRODUCTIVITY.In my opinion that is because not enough top swimmers use Total Immersion,if more people used it more TI users would win(IMO the times would be as fast or faster but we would see) .


So you think the USOC and folks in Colorado Springs just have it in for Terry and are snubbing him? It's a worldwide conspiracy of coaches and elite swimmers to not use TI, even though they could be faster? That's brilliant. I think you have uncovered a new 60 Minutes piece: "The TI Debacle: Elite swimming and their vendetta against speed".

One would think someone on the planet would rebel from the overlord swim coaches forcing their athletes to use their current approach and step up to the plate with this 'faster stroke'.
Last edited by: tigerpaws: May 20, 12 5:24
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [tigerpaws] [ In reply to ]
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I suppose Russel Mark of USA Swimming just made shit up on his study showing that long axis stroke elite swimmers actually spend less time on their sides than what current coaching conventional wisdom says they should.

Eh. I'll take Terri McKeever & Eddie Reese's coaching results over TL's any day.
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [FLA Jill] [ In reply to ]
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FLA Jill wrote:
I suppose Russel Mark of USA Swimming just made shit up on his study showing that long axis stroke elite swimmers actually spend less time on their sides than what current coaching conventional wisdom says they should.

Eh. I'll take Terri McKeever & Eddie Reese's coaching results over TL's any day.

Exactly. This will be detailed in the 60 minutes piece as a huge conspiracy though in an attempt to keep TI down.
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [hotman637] [ In reply to ]
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hotman637 wrote:
In my opinion that is because not enough top swimmers use Total Immersion,if more people used it more TI users would win(IMO the times would be as fast or faster but we would see) .As I(and others on here) have seen, many people who use TI now are slow and would be slow NO MATTER WHAT technique they used.And same with the good athletes,they would be fast no matter what technique THEY used.To see which technique is best everyone just has to LEARN BOTH TECHNIQUES.

So it's just a coincidence that TI swimmers are slow, and fast swimmers are non TI. Your lines of reasoning are just silly, ie the aerobar comparison. And lowering effort levels? The point is not to lower effort, it is to elevate the effort you can sustain over a given period. But this last reasoning in the quote above...this is just preposterously ignorant. Enough to make my head explode...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MXRy9kWvuU
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [tigerpaws] [ In reply to ]
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The problem is we are all arguing THEORY.Studies,"conspiracies",Total Immersion,"catch and pull" are all theories.Just about every pool I have been to has at least one person,(usually a man.ha ha),who talks and talks theory of swimming.Nothing wrong with that but does not mean much in the end.The important thing is to ACT ON THE THEORIES and see what works best for you.I will give an example.I had a friend who took a"catch and pull"lesson.He picks up things really quickly and he was swimming very well using that method.I suggested that he TRY my"turn and push"method.I said"instead of reaching above your head and PULLING your way through the water,lower your head,TURN your shoulders(ideally 90 degrees)and PUSH your way through the water"(that is really the major difference!).Instead of arguing he simply did what I said(amazing I know!).What happened?He had a much smoother,easier more powerful stroke and glided through the water way easier IMO(going just as fast).The ONLY way to really test that story is to lower your head,turn your shoulders(ideally 90 degrees)and push your way though the water!! It's not rocket science!
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [lightheir] [ In reply to ]
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After beginning triathlon four years ago and swimming all out with bad form, TI made a huge change in my performance.

BUT if you swim a 1:50/100 in training why would you expect to do any better in a race? Makes no sense.
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [tigerpaws] [ In reply to ]
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It's all about truthiness after all.
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [hotman637] [ In reply to ]
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hotman637 wrote:
The problem is we are all arguing THEORY.Studies,"conspiracies",Total Immersion,"catch and pull" are all theories.Just about every pool I have been to has at least one person,(usually a man.ha ha),who talks and talks theory of swimming.Nothing wrong with that but does not mean much in the end.The important thing is to ACT ON THE THEORIES and see what works best for you.I will give an example.I had a friend who took a"catch and pull"lesson.He picks up things really quickly and he was swimming very well using that method.I suggested that he TRY my"turn and push"method.I said"instead of reaching above your head and PULLING your way through the water,lower your head,TURN your shoulders(ideally 90 degrees)and PUSH your way through the water"(that is really the major difference!).Instead of arguing he simply did what I said(amazing I know!).What happened?He had a much smoother,easier more powerful stroke and glided through the water way easier IMO(going just as fast).The ONLY way to really test that story is to lower your head,turn your shoulders(ideally 90 degrees)and push your way though the water!! It's not rocket science!

Again, you do not understand what the words you use mean. I would classify what you term "catch and pull" as not a theory, but a law in the scientific sense. TI is not even a theory, but a hypothesis. A hypothesis that has been shot down by the majority of the authority on swimming in regards to efficient swimming (which is dependent upon being fast). I know it may be your job to come on here and attempt to lull gullible triathletes/swimmers into using the "aerobar of swimming", but you lack any logical reasoning whatsoever. Maybe you were instructed to sound ignorant so as to come off as some average everyday person trying to swim...and voila!) TI became your aerobar...
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [running1457] [ In reply to ]
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I started swimming using TI a few years ago, after several years of trying to figure out a good from by myself. Based on my experience, I think TI has given some positive contribution to swimming, but offset by what I think is a wrong idea of what efficient swimming is. First the good...

The positive contribution was to illustrate, in terms that one can easily understad, some basic freestyle form. For example, before TI I used to hear widely differing opinions on how much one should rotate during freestyle or backstroke. For example, I have a friend, who in her teens, more than 15 years ago, used to do competitive swimming, which swims flat and does not rotate much. That way of swimming, while good for her, was too hard for me. By ‘allowing’ rotation in free and back, TI has made things a lot easier for me. Of course, this is not only a TI approach, but Terry Laughlin has made these pieces of information more accessible.

Now, the bad...

Several years after, I find several negative aspects in my swimming that I believe derive, at least in part, from TI, as they are largely related to the several hypotheses about swimming that are ingrained in TI, like press buoy, leading with the elbow, glide, 2bk is preferable, etc. For example, after 2 years swimming with a 2bk, I found a flutter is more comfortable for me in the pool. It is different in the sea. I still kept a horizontal body position with a 2bk, but it just feels easier, and more rythmycal, with a light flutter. I can imagine som Ti swimmer saying ‘oh you are unbalanced, crap, you are doing it wrong’. Very well, so are many others. And it’s not that we have all spent 10 minutes on it. And it’s not that we are all incapable, as we can otherwise bike, run or do some other more complex things in life rather well.

Another example: the glide kills the flow of the stroke. It just destroys it. Water is just too dense to glide effectively, as it has been discussed here before. I find that by keeping my lead arm moving, the stroke flows much better and in spite of a higher stroke count, I can swim longer, faster and more comfortably. Isn’t this, by definition, a more efficient stroke?

I agree with a previous poster that TI is an elegant hypothesis, but falsified by the experience of many swimmers and coaches. Apart from Shinij and Terry, I am still to see a TI swimmer who is (i) smooth AND (ii) fast. Most people who swim TI appear to me to be imprisoned into some analytical, dogmatic box. They justify this, as hotman does, by postulating that most people practise wrongly. When I was practicing martial arts, there was always this talk of remote masters in inaccessible regions of China imparting exclusice knowledge for a select few. Well, that was not Kung fu, if the Kung fu 99.9% of the other practicioners in the world was something different. Now tell me, if the vast majority of TI swimmers are slow, and frankly, not that smooth at all in the water, where is the real TI? If it is some ideal, platonic form then that is no good to me.

The thing that bugs me the most is this arrogant and vaguely puritan idea that TI is THE minful approach (whatever mindful means), while other swimmers just splash and plod along, without regard to form. I don’t see this. Instead, I see many young kids in the local pool, and many other pools, having fund and swimming very, very well. They don’t splash much, they don’t appear ungracious, and they can be fast. I don’t hear them going overly paranoid over years about the angle of the forearm respect to the head or the absolutely perfect timinh required for a kick, and how everything has to be perfect to breathe comfortably (to see this, check the TI board, any randomly picked thread should do).

They swim just fine, and kick just fine, and breath just fine. Without this entire obsession about years of training, neural imprinting, etc. that seems to me to be an excuse for the fact that TI simply is neither easy to learn, nor effective. In fact, I found at some point that all the attention to the details of the stroke can bordeline the obsessive, and make it very, very hard to achieve the purported smoothness. And I know enough fast and clever athletes who have put some effort into TI, and are otherwise successful in other techincal endevours, but somehow, with TI seem to just keep trying but going nowhere, until they give up and then get better again.

Surely, the proof of the pudding should be in the eating…
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [pat80] [ In reply to ]
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pat80 wrote:
Another example: the glide kills the flow of the stroke. It just destroys it. Water is just too dense to glide effectively, as it has been discussed here before. I find that by keeping my lead arm moving, the stroke flows much better and in spite of a higher stroke count, I can swim longer, faster and more comfortably. Isn’t this, by definition, a more efficient stroke?

Multiply this factor many times over when transferring to OW as well...
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [mattbk] [ In reply to ]
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I am NOT being paid to promote Total Immersion.If I was I would probably be fired by now because no one seems to understand what I am saying.You have a good point,I DO lack logical reasoning because TI is NOT logical at least according to"the authorities on swimming".The way to understand an illogical"hypothesis"is not logic but action.So FOLLOW the simple steps put forward in my last post,THEN get back on here and call me a fool if you want,ha ha!
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [hotman637] [ In reply to ]
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I am finding your posts to be most entertaining. Please tell me about how to get the perfect timing of the kick. And the Push in the stroke, I'm not quite cler on that. Am i to push forwards or backwards ? Please help so i can incorporate this amazing technique into my swimming and throw out my years of learning and training with the inefficient catch and pull technique.

Thanks!

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
Last edited by: JasoninHalifax: May 21, 12 5:04
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [hotman637] [ In reply to ]
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hotman637 wrote:
I am NOT being paid to promote Total Immersion.If I was I would probably be fired by now because no one seems to understand what I am saying.You have a good point,I DO lack logical reasoning because TI is NOT logical at least according to"the authorities on swimming".The way to understand an illogical"hypothesis"is not logic but action.So FOLLOW the simple steps put forward in my last post,THEN get back on here and call me a fool if you want,ha ha!

Ohhhh...now I get it! I'll get right on that! You have convinced me. Your lack of logical reasoning has nothing to do with promoting TI, but is about the conclusions you draw and ways you try to make points. "The aerobar of swimming", "...many people who use TI now are slow and would be slow NO MATTER WHAT technique they used.And same with the good athletes,they would be fast no matter what technique THEY used.To see which technique is best everyone just has to LEARN BOTH TECHNIQUES." I could take multiple quotes from every post of yours and compile them into a quite comical compilation. The lack of logic is not that you think TI is god's gift to swimmers (a gift that only the slow and will always be slow no matter what technique they use have accepted) it is that all of your own personal ways of reasoning and saying things is bat shit crazy in a logical sense... You are so out there most people won't even bother to respond to you, they will sit in front of their computer shake their heads and chuckle. A couple feel compelled, some bored, and others just fell like toying with you like a bug a cat has found...

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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [mattbk] [ In reply to ]
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Started swimming at age 47 under the instruction of TI coach and although not classified as a fast swimmer made significant progress. Have raced IM louisville 4 times, first 3 times using TI method. My swim splits were 1:22 in 08, 1:21 in 09, and1:20 in 10. Before IM lou in august of 11 I attended a Gary Hall swim camp. He revamped my stroke completely in 2 1/2 days. long story short, swim split in 11 was 1:13.
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [hotman637] [ In reply to ]
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hotman637 wrote:
no one seems to understand what I am saying.You have a good point,I DO lack logical reasoning

We do understand what you are saying, it's just dead wrong.

As to your second sentence.....it's the first assessment you have correctly made the entire thread.
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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JasonHalifax says"amazing technique".
Tigerpaws says"its dead wrong".
That to me is the interesting thing about TI verses"catch and pull"there is very little middle ground.People either love TI or hate it.The BIG problem with TI is Terry makes TI WAY WAY WAY TOO COMPLICATED!! I said that way back on my first post.That is why there is so much debate about TI,IMO.
Also in my opinion the only way to solve this conundrum is NOT arguing,ha ha,but to get in the pool and put your self into a zen like state where you FORGET ALL ASSUMTIONS about swimming!! Then do the following:put your head and in the water,TURN your shoulders(ideally 90 degrees) and PUSH your way through the water.In short,TURN,PUSH AND GLIDE.This is not rocket science!Kick any way you want,breath any way you want,those are details.Do this for a couple of laps then get back on here and make a report.FEEL FREE to call me a fool,ha ha.
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [hotman637] [ In reply to ]
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I tried your amazing technique for a couple of laps, and wow, was it ever easy! I was swimming about 20 secs per 50 slower than with my normal catch and pull, but i'm sure that is only because i don't yet have the perfect timing it takes to be fast lol!

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [pat80] [ In reply to ]
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pat80 wrote:
Now tell me, if the vast majority of TI swimmers are slow, and frankly, not that smooth at all in the water, where is the real TI? If it is some ideal, platonic form then that is no good to me.

Fantastic use of the word, 'platonic.' Bravo
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks Jason! You actually tried what I suggested! That is ALL I ask! If you want to go back to"catch and pull",that is fine.Or use a combination. As I said people should do what they want. I simply want people to TRY,"turn push and glide" then they can make make a CHOICE!
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Re: Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion in a fascinating debate on BT [hotman637] [ In reply to ]
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I,m not here to critsize TI It has some drills that I still use, and it can be very benificial to the beginning swimmer. However, If reaching your maximum potential for speed in the water is your goal, TI will not get you there. I've been swimming for 6 years and had completely plateaued in terms of getting faster. As I stated in an earlier post, I spent a couple of days working under Gary Halls instruction and the first thing he did was to get me out of the "glide" phase of my stroke. What feels like a glide sensation in the TI method is actually a quick deceleration in speed. Water is 800 times more dense than air, the sheer laws of physics will explain the obvious decelaration. Unless you have the powerfull kick of a Micheal Phelps there is no way you can come close to maintaining the inertia in your stroke. I've become more of a shoulder driven freestyler as opposed to a hip driven stroke and in the past year have increased my speed tremendously. The problem with the glide is that your stroke becomes a series of starts and stops and you lose the speed or inertia from the pull phase of the stroke. Anyone who has ever missed a flip turn in the pool understands the loss of inertia and how hard it is to get back up to speed.Most all fast freestylers have fairly high stroke rates even your pro swimmers in triathlon have high stroke rates. In the past year, I have dramatically improved my speed by working on eliminating the drag points in my stroke and increasing my stroke rate.
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