jsmith82 wrote:
I'm the 1% I suppose, I took this plunge and lived to tell the tale. Since she decided to race tri with me, we focus primarily on freestyle. Here's a recap.
First session was an hour or so and was a lot of standing, bent over at the hips face in the water practicing bilateral breathing while doing the freestyle stroke with her arms and not actually swimming, breathing on every third, getting used to the motion and finding the pocket. 1 minute down at a time, then a short break. Once she felt fluid in the motion I had her doing 25 yard pulls with a buoy between the thighs so she didn't have to think about legs at all, just use arms and focus on breathing. I swam along side her, same speed, and encouraged her effort and progress at every wall, asking questions in the process on how she felt about what we were doing (digging for worries to focus on later).
The following week was a lot of pulls and kicks, getting used to the water. But then we started moving off pulls to actual freestyle with a light kick. Then tacked on the yards per interval. Then started in on some different drills to promote good form, real basic stuff. One day a week was endurance day with the longer yards per interval, other days would be drills. I would swim with her 1 time a week, the other sessions she would execute workouts I wrote up for her.
A few weeks later, we started in on 100 yard speed intervals.
Here's the important part!!!!! (how I survived this)
She recognizes that I have raced for a while now, therefore has faith in what I say. That was helpful. However.... Once that first session was done and she was swimming freestyle solo, I would provide the workouts but would NOT pick her apart. This is the slippery slope. Questions are great, suggestions are helpful, but a critique is what gets you in the dog house. "You know, you wouldn't be so slow if you would X instead of Y with your Z", this is a bad idea. BAD idea... She would eventually ask me or say something like "I just can't seem to pick up my speed on the 500's" which opens the opportunity for a form critique suggestion... These are the open opportunities where you can really get a point across without sleeping on the couch!
She went from brand new to first tri in 2 months, first OWS tri in 3 months, first Oly in 5 months, then this year she's done a couple races and is doing her first half. And I didn't die in the process. And bought a new bike. Success.
I would agree to this but also add one thing. Ive taught exes how to do lots of sports (they are exes on my doing and it had nothing to do with the learning process - just on record) but the critique is key. I have found you can offer up suggestions.
"Ok so your pull form is pretty good and it definitely works, but try extending a bit more. It might help to lengthen your stride. It might feel goofy at first, but I think it will make you more efficient"
(I just made that example up but you get it). I always respond to coaching that way. Ok you are doing well and it looks good but try this, might help, might not. But try it for a week and if it doesnt then go back to the way you were. Every human body functions differently.