1. "x" beat kick refers to number of kicks per stroke cycle - one pull with each arm. sounds like you are describing a four beat kick. i wouldn't get too caught up in the semantics.

2. ankle flexibility is key. zoomers might help some, but they are not a magic bullet. the rack you describe can also be effective. full scuba fins will help more than zoomers but will negatively affect your stroke technique more. however sets of pure kicking with big stiff fins are one tool to improve flexibility. nort thornton at cal has had some good results with alternating heat, stretching, and cold.

3. i like jochums's approach. for some reason he hasn't had much in the way of results since his return to coaching 8 or so years ago. i have no idea what he would say about total immersion. and you don't want to get me started on that topic.

brent

Yes...I do want to get you started on that topic! I believe that "TI" is not worth the money!

I'll preface my post by saying that I've never gone through Terry's TI class (although I've read a little bit about it) but I do have a competitive swimming background.

Techinque is very important. Stamina is very important. If you're just going to fart around doing drills all day, you aren't going to get very much stamina from doing that (at least I know I wouldn't). Likewise, it's pointless to fight the water.

Learn to know what good technique is. Practice it for a while during warm-up and maybe an easy warmup set. Then do some aerobic work in the pool trying to keep good form. That's what I'd recommend anyway, if I were a coach.

1. Has been asnwered, X beats refers to the number of beats per stroke cycle.

2. If you can move well on your side but go backwards when facing down or up, then you are probably bicycle kicking. I've seen it before. Zoomers will help some, big fins will help even more because it is impossible to bicycle kick with the big fins. It is hard to do with zoomers too. It is actually a bad motor pattern making you backwards, not your flexibility.

3. I suspect Dick Jochums doesn't spend too much time thinking about Total Immersion. The audience for total immersion books and videos and the folks Dick Jochums coches are worlds apart. Total Immersion is written for folks learning to simw and some folks learning to swim better. The slowest folks Jochums coaches would be way at the front ofthe pack at your local tri swim split.

Yes, technique is important and will get you farther 'down the road' if you are a newbie. But you do have to do some real work once you reach that certain point. That certain point is different for everybody. The same would apply to running & cycling also. I coiuld just work on bike handling skills and my spin, but that alone is not gonna get me to a sub-whatever bike split in an IM. The same for doing strides while running. Anyway, I agree with most of the "T1" principles I have seen. (And I have seen them from other sources before I ever saw them "packaged" by T1 - like Bill Boomer for instance). I have had a few Masters I coach come back from T1 clinincs and want to do drills till they are a prune. But if that same person is very fit from cycling and running, just drilling exclusively a'int enuff. Gotta get some serious aerobic action going to get that swim split down. I would even say that slow drills may not help a lot. What does your form look like at race speed. Lots of people can look fantastic at slow comfortable sppeds, but break down at race pace. It is best to have a coach watch you at race pace and correct what you do at that time. Temper that with technique and you are gonna rock!

It does sound like you're bicycle kicking on your free kick. I'd try working some backstroke into your practices and seeing what happens. It's harder to bike kick on your back, and backstroke actually does some things that help you work through freestyle flaws.

As for Laughlin and Jochums, I haven't read the book yet, but my guess would be that he'd think Laughlin had some good ideas on the mechanics of it all, but was weak on the training/workout management side of it. The idea that you're supposed to stop for the day when you feel form start to go downhill (something Laughlin keeps saying) would get you an invitation to not come back to practice again from all of the good coaches I've known over the years. And none of them have been big on drills once you hit junior high age and can handle making stroke corrections under high speed/high stress circumstances.

1. It has already been answered but you don't want a kick where you kick for a bit, then stop, then start kicking again. You should have a kick that stays constant or at least to the best of your ability. This helps balance and the wavey rockey swimming.

2. Personally, I was never a fan of Zoomer fins. I never found any good use out of them for me. I do like the TYR split fin as well as the Finis monofins. For a great workout, try out one of Finis' monofins. Those things definitely kill your legs and really help with your streamline.

Re: The device you mentioned to stretch out your ankle on the Zoomers site. I am a swim coach and had one swimmer that came from a running background, and had the most inflexible ankles I've ever seen. I had him use Zoomers, told him to stretch, and practice vertical kicking but NOTHING was getting his kick off the ground. Finally, I told him to try this stretching device and what do you know? His ankles started to become flexible and his kick improved!

As far as the 2-beat, 4-beat or 6-beat kick, I wouldn't get too hung up on that. Try to settle into a rhythm that works for you, as everyone is different. A good drill to practice is 6 kicks per stroke- remain on one side while you kick 6 times, then take a stroke and rotate to the other side and repeat. This is an exaggerated kick that will make you swim on your sides.

Cheers,


Kevin

http://www.triswimcoach.com

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"Laugh At the Water and Make The Swim Your Friend"
http://triswimcoach.com
http://triathlonsprinttraining.net

which is another myth that seems to have been perpetuated by TI. you don't see elite swimmers on their sides. their shoulder rotation is greater than their hip rotation. do they get power from the hips? likely. does more rotation equal more power? i don't think so. this is not a bad drill. but swimming on your sides should not be the end goal.

brent

Brent,

I respectfully disagree that swimming on your sides is a "myth that seems to have been perpetuated by TI". Total Immersion certainly did not invent that style of swimming. An elite swimmer (and remember we are talking about triathletes here) may be able to get away with swimming more flat on a 50 or 100 free. But this becomes inefficient and a waste of energy for longer distances.

Mark Spitz was actually one of the pioneers of side-to-side freestyle, back in the late 60's/early 70's. This hip rotation was also preached by the great swim coach Bill Boomer, long before anyone had heard of TI or Terry Laughlin.

If someone is swimming flat in the water and is taking countless strokes per length, I certainly wouldn't try to change their stroke if it is working for them. However, many triathletes (including many on this board) are struggling with this type of swimming and after a 1 kilometer swim have no energy left for a bike and a run. In those cases, hip rotation and lengthening out the stroke usually result in a faster swim time and/or a faster overall triathlon time.

Cheers,
Kevin
http://www.triswimcoach.com

---

"Laugh At the Water and Make The Swim Your Friend"
http://triswimcoach.com
http://triathlonsprinttraining.net

I know you questions have mostly been answered, but I'll offer up my experience with trying to improve my swim. I was a pretty consistent 1:30 per 100 yard swimmer in the pool. I wasn't improving and I was working pretty darn hard for that 1:30. I know my technique sucked so I had a coach give me a 30 minute lesson for $37. She first explained how to do an S style stroke under the water with each arm and how to bring my elbow to a 90 degree bend and continue the stroke so that my fingertips just touch going past my hips. The second thing was that my kick was wrong. She told me to kick with my hips and not keep my ankles and legs so stiff. She then told me to keep the water line just above my goggles and not to drop my shoulders when I turned to take a breath. I don't rotate a lot and I definately don't swim on my side. After a month of practicing this, I'm down to a consistent 1:22 in the pool for 100 yards. The cool thing is that I can swim 1:30 with almost no effort. I'm totally amazed at what 30 minutes and $37 got me. I've started experimenting with a farther / stronger reach and a harder type of whip when I roll (e.g. using the roll of my hips to transfer power to my kick) and when I do this I can get down to 1:17, but it seems to require a lot more effort so its currently hard to hold for more than a couple of laps, but I think it will come.

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- Steve
http://bailey.sts.winisp.net

seattlesteve THANK YOU from all the former swim coaches, current swim coaches and swim coaches to be that read this board. Lets see you just dropped 2 min, not including time saved in the bike and run from expending less energy in the swim, in your next tri for a mere $37. Thats more time savings than a $1000 set of race wheels and a much better ROI.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I think the whole beauty of this, if there is some, is that everbody has to tinker with their own minute aspects of power or pulling and entry and, at the same tim, reducing drag--or keeping yourself out of the way, by drilling, getting instruction and what not. The answer of course here is that it's both.

On TI. I cannot corkscrew my hip down and stretch out over and over---without paying price during a mile swim, or 35 yards, short course. It just wears out my back and hips, to rotate over and stretch out before the pull. However, what I have learned from TI is that, I should do a little of it, mabye not busting out at some sub 1:00 100 yarder on repeats, everytime like that.

All of this is what, to me, makes swimming, my favorite of the three events. A small change in something makes a huge difference. It's a question of degree, is it not, between side gliding and power. Almost an art?

The sport has an alluring combination to athletes. It's technical and it's brutal. You can sink whole days into theory in it, a whole day on proper hand entry. I just read a book where the instructor spent 2 pages on using the "Ship Drill." He spent a whole chapter on hand position and flow.

The bottom line however, is to get any better at it, or faster, you have to go further and faster, and fail, over and over and build it up. You literally have to fail and stop and come back tommorrow. In running, I can lag out or pitty pat, to recover my "air." Not so in swimming.

I could say that about running or biking at certain speeds, but, when you fail or fatigue in swimming fast, the overload, at least to me, is much more substantial and immediate than in running or biking.

Why the tri rulers, don't make swimming longer in the events, is beyond belief in sprints for example. Tri sprints should be at a mininum 700 yards to a mile, for example.

1. Has already been aswered, but the real question is "Does it really matters?" AS a trathlete, your kick has a more stabilazing effect than propulsive. You will see sprinters with great kicks and fast arms cicles, but distnace swimmers (as you when you swim your 1500's or more) have great, long and sometimes slow but very powerfull strokes. Work on this, make sure your kick are not in your way and save your legs for the bike and run, you will need it.

2. "make sure your kick are not in your way "... Make sure you have a good technique, start flexing you anckles, you can do it with your hands or you can sit on them when you watch TV. If you like fins buy a pair of cheap ones, you can find them at any BIG 5 of if there's no one in you area get them from Kiefer.com. Use them for a few months until they get flexible and cut them of 3 inches above you toes and voila! now you have Zoomers!. The most important thing about this is to point your toes backwards and kick from your hips and not from your knees.

3. I haven't read Dick Jochums's book, I probably should. But I read all the TI books and all the "Serious" books about swimming for the past 15 years. I have nothing against Coach Laughlin who I meet in Kona in 2002, but I think that his biggest value (if there's something wrong in it) is to democratized swimming. Until he came up with TI you only have few options, try to get the attention from your masters coach or read all the "serious" coaches by yourself. Swim caches "usually" think that triathlets are not worthy because are not fast enough and the books have a lot of technical infrmation. Mr Laughghin has the ability to translate years of scientific reaserch in easy to understand concepts for the mortals. He saw un unexploited niche and he makes a living out of it. Maybe more than any other swim coach without having world record swimmers and I applaude him. But trust me my friend, most of the drills, concepts theories and ideas that you read on the TI books you can find them in other books as well.

Amigo, dont worrie about your kick that much, try to feel it natural. Develop long powerfull strokes and work out! Slow swimming will make you a slower swimmer. Play GOLF ( I think that somebodyelse came up with that concept before laughlin) Count your strokes per lap, and your time. At the end try to come up with the samller number posible.

And yes, have fun!