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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [Robert Preston] [ In reply to ]
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Robert Preston wrote:
I love it how people enjoy arguing about stuff like this. Analyze it, dissect it, debate it anyway you want to, but Paulo is absolutely accurate in his tweet. 100% on the spot.

RP

Why do people always say this about Paulo's advice? "He's right, just trust whatever he says and stop thinking." Even if he is right, people want to know why. Without him actually expounding on his statements (which is rare), all we have is quibbling debates like this to help ourselves out.
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [Rappstar] [ In reply to ]
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Why is it so challenging for people to grasp that before you hammer out mega swim sets you SHOULD have a certain degree of competency. And if you don't have that competency you should learn it from a professional.

Did these same people also attempt to do interval bike sets on the open road before learning how to balance on a bike? That is basically what is being suggested.

If you are swimming a 2:00/100SCY - you need to learn how to swim. Perhaps that is harsh, but it is reality. If that is truly your top end sprinting speed...something is really truly wrong with your technique. Simply put you need a coach to help you make the appropriate adjustments. And those adjustments will be big.

Once you've reached level of competence and confidence in the water then you graduate to actual swimming. And at that point Paulo is 100% correct.

I did drills in highschool swimming. I didn't do them in college after the first 2-3 weeks of the season when we were all getting back into the swing of things or perhaps as an easy warm down set. I don't do them now. Some of the pansies I swim with like to do some 50's drill as part of the warm-up, I just swim them. I have rarely found them helpful.

What I did find helpful, even in college, was a coach standing over me with a kickboard in his hands screaming at me that if I continued to be lazy and drag my hips he was going to bash me. Which is why I always tell people...if you are a bad swimmer, go get an experienced coach. (not someone like me who just swam in college).

The other solution to dragging your hips is tying your feet together with no pull bouy. If there is no shallow end, you'll learn quick enough, or you'll sink to the bottom and die. buh-bye.

If your catch is bad, paddles will make sure you know it and you'll correct things pretty quick as well. Here's a tip...if the paddles feel like they are going to be ripped off your hand with every stroke...adjust your stroke.

Drills do not provide that level of feedback. Plain and simple.

So what Paulo said is right. It just assumes a certain level of competency.

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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [BeachboyWI] [ In reply to ]
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BeachboyWI wrote:

or you'll sink to the bottom and die. buh-bye.

hehe....;)


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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [DarkSpeedWorks] [ In reply to ]
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But that, even if you swim faster than 2 min per 100, that swimming more yards per week will alone improve your technique?
Nope. Or, if yes, not by any significant amount.[/quote]
This is obviously an argument that will go endlessly in circles and no one's mind is going to change. You've clearly drawn your line in the sand and you say you've based it off experience and what you've seen. I am in the extreme opposite camp and agree 100% with Paulo/Rappstar/Sutton. I was helping coach a tri club with a range of ability. When we went over video I felt like a broken record. They had a multitude of sins but what every one of them did wrong was their hand position on the catch as they slid their hands through the water. My masters team at the time split a long course pool with the UW swim team (prior to the fold of the program). My lane was immediately next to one of their lanes and I watched them swim with great interest. I also watched above water after workout. I have looked at video tape of many many swimmers and what was surprising to me was that they do the same things the beginners do. Many of them crossed over, there was straight arm recovery, bent arm, wide ranges of kicks and on and on. What they all did spectacularly well was their body position in the water and their catch. From my own experience, I can say that swimming 1:20 base feels different than 1:30 base. Swimming 1:10 base much different than 1:20. Swimming 1:00 base much different than 1:10. I've spent time at all of these levels without a single conscious thought to technique but just getting in and swimming more. Position improves, breathing improves, hand position improves. All things that we can try to replicate through drills and coaching but can't be sustained because we just simply don't have the strength to do it. As our strength and fitness improve, so does our technique. I spend most of my time bike racing now and I have no illusions that my slower base swimming time is not because of a deterioration in technique, but because I'm swimming about half the volume I used to swim.
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [DarkSpeedWorks] [ In reply to ]
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DarkSpeedWorks wrote:
This is becoming highly muddled.

Mmmm...no, it never was.

Quote:
What you are saying above is that if you want to swim faster for longer (i.e., get more endurance) you need to swim more?
Well, of course, yes.

But that, even if you swim faster than 2 min per 100, that swimming more yards per week will alone improve your technique?
Nope. Or, if yes, not by any significant amount.

Forest. Trees. Think a little harder and re-read Rapp's statement.

John



Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [Rappstar] [ In reply to ]
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this is a perfect segue to my invitation, jordan, to join me on my intended birthday set: 55 x 100yd repeating on 1:30. should be a piece of cake for you. followed maybe by an MTB ride over the backbone if i do this down in the valley. i'm figuring out when/where to do it. right now i'm thinking santa clarita aquatics center, but, maybe closer to you. we'll see. sometime around the end of jan, beginning of feb.

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [Rappstar] [ In reply to ]
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Like with any sport, you've got to be conscious of what proper technique is, while swimming and developing fitness, a lot can be learned by knowing what should happen, even if you don't always do it yourself. Just repeating the same bad actions over and over again will not improve technique, but knowing what you do wrong and learning how to fix it, will ultimately end in "mastering" the skill. You've got to be ready to experiment and see "what happens if I do this". If I'm in the pool more, I will get better. If I move the interval from the 1:30 to the 1:25 your going to learn, but if you're uneducated in proper technique this goes nowhere. I could(and did previously) thrash all about in order to swim faster, what I learned was how to thrash, not how to swim. But after coach review, self education and the like I've learned rather then thrash to lengthen out my stroke, maybe raise my cadence, work on high elbow, or pulling all the way through the stroke. So now when a workout is tough I don't thrash but I focus on proper technique and that has ultimately lead to me being faster in the water.

The other part of his statement where he says "working on your fitness works on technique. The opposite is not true." If I go and slow down my stroke in order to work on technique, I am not building fitness. I am building technique. While I do still do drills when swimming, they are not the highlight of my workout, rather a piece of the warmup, something that is added to get the yardage up. You will become faster with proper technique, that much is true. Just having a smooth technique though, does not make you an automatic top swimmer, that is fitness. A lot can be said for your bodies unconscious learning of something as well. The more you are in the pool the more you will learn.
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [TravisT] [ In reply to ]
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Its really simple. Join a masters, swim 20k+ a week pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and listen to any comments from the coach on deck and make necessary adjustments as needed during the sessions. Day in day out. You'll get faster.

Exactly! and after doing that for a solid year and gaining 2-3 minutes in an IM, you will say, "... what a waste of time. I should have been biking..."





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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [Rappstar] [ In reply to ]
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>Ironically, no one seems to miss this connection with running. Very few people waste as much time doing running drills as they do with swimming drills.

What's the irony? Most of us learn to use our legs for mobility at a very young age, and develop substantial technical proficiency in running. Thus running drills tend to pick at marginal benefits in technique (though certain Newton/barefoot-philes might disagree with me)

For both running, and swimming, though, I'd suggest that improvements in technique and fitness are a constant leapfrogging process, with each reinforcing the other. About 95% of my "technique" time is done in the middle of strenuous sets where I'm just mentally focusing on something without doing a "drill." Working on technique doesn't necessarily mean lollygagging back and forth.
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [cjathey] [ In reply to ]
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The sutton article is not saying that technique in unimportant. It's saying that doing drills to develope technique is a waste of time. This whole argument is totally off track.
Sutton is advocating the use of "toys" to enforce these technique changes. The benefit is that you can still get in and hammer out a solid swim set while being forced to work on you catch with paddles or body position with the band.
This Tweet was based on the TeamTBB blog post. No one is saying you should just get in and thrash around for 4k and you'll be a top level swimmer.

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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [eganski] [ In reply to ]
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eganski wrote:
You're not fooling me.

I thought it was a nice deflection as well.


Steve

http://www.PeaksCoachingGroup.com
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [trail] [ In reply to ]
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If we take what Sutton/Paulo/Rapp are saying and apply it to running, we get proficient at running, simply by running more. Most humans learned how to walk and run long before they became triathletes, so this makes sense. On the other hand, many triathletes perhaps have not graduated fromthe equivalent of walking to jogging to running from a swim "perspective". They need to learn how to swim first before improving their swim endurance...then everything that Sutton and Paulo are saying definitely applies.

Dev
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [Mallen4574] [ In reply to ]
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I wasn't arguing, merely explaining.
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [DarkSpeedWorks] [ In reply to ]
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DarkSpeedWorks wrote:
Nope.

You know what happens when you swim 30,000 m per week with poor technique? Most of time, you get worse technique.

Or in other words: Practice Makes Permanent.
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [JoeO] [ In reply to ]
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JoeO wrote:
DarkSpeedWorks wrote:

Nope.

You know what happens when you swim 30,000 m per week with poor technique? Most of time, you get worse technique.


Or in other words: Practice Makes Permanent.

To an extent, but with my running, moving from 30-35 miles/wk to 60+ the past two months, has made me more efficient as well as faster. My fitness has allowed me to stride as I'd like without breaking down.

Brent

DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Slowman,

Don't you have an article somewhere about how minimum fitness is necessary for good technique? I don't know where to look for it, but wasn't it on the main page several years ago?

salmon - not because I'm a fish
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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>...then everything that Sutton and Paulo are saying definitely applies.

Agree 100%. I just think that if they spent a few months teaching the "Prepare For Your First Sprint Triathlon" class at the local tri club, they might temper their broad generalizations about training efficacy. They're preaching to people similar to those they deal with on a daily basis, which are the top ~.01% to top 10% of triathletes.
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [Pedalsaurus-Tex] [ In reply to ]
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Pedalsaurus-Tex wrote:
Its really simple. Join a masters, swim 20k+ a week pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and listen to any comments from the coach on deck and make necessary adjustments as needed during the sessions. Day in day out. You'll get faster.

Exactly! and after doing that for a solid year and gaining 2-3 minutes in an IM, you will say, "... what a waste of time. I should have been biking..."

This statement is a bunch of crap.

If you #1 fixed technique issues and then #2 swam 20k per week, you should be getting much more than 1-3 min out of the deal. Especially if you are starting at a 2:00/100 pace.

My first years in swimming in HS, I had never swam before. I started at the 500 and was swimming that in maybe 9 minutes at my BEST. (A bit faster than 2:00/100yds) By the end of that season...4.5 months, I was swimming it in 7:30's. Why? Technique and fitness. If I had only done drills I would not have been that fast.

I made the decision to swim year round after that seasono as I fell in love with swimming. By the time my sophomore year came (1 full year) around I was swimming 6:30's. At the end of that season I was below 6:00 and by the end of my senior year I was swimming 500's close to 5:00.

Do the math...after 1 year of being coached and swimming a fair amount (5x per week, 3-4k as I was slow) I dropped 3:30 in my 500yd swim. If I am doing my math correctly (1 mile = 1650) that is close to a 23 minute drop.

And while I do have a certain degree of natural talent when it comes to swimming, I am really...nothing special in the water. there are many, many people on this board that would put me to shame in the water.

I am not saying it is reasonable for people to expect a 20 minute drop in one year. Especially as an adult since it gets tougher. I was a kid when I saw that drop. But in all seriousness...if people would actually dedicate themselves to swimming. Get a coach that would watch and help them quite a bit at first, but then taper off as you improved and then actually swim on a consistent basis, there is no reason you can't see big improvements in the 10-20 minute range up front. If nothing else you'd become competent enough to add the yards and use the tools and see more improvements from there.

The people that flounder about in the pools never improving but doing drills all the time will never get better doing what they are doing. Of that there is little doubt. But actually taking the APPROPRIATE steps to improve can lead to some pretty significant gains pretty quickly. And those gains are the type that stay with you forever.

Lets not forget the overall triathlon improvement from coming out of the water that much earlier and getting in nutrition and fluids, etc.

Yeah, you may not be able to win the race in the swim...but you can very easily lose it.

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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [dfru] [ In reply to ]
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dfru wrote:
JoeO wrote:
DarkSpeedWorks wrote:

Nope.

You know what happens when you swim 30,000 m per week with poor technique? Most of time, you get worse technique.


Or in other words: Practice Makes Permanent.


To an extent, but with my running, moving from 30-35 miles/wk to 60+ the past two months, has made me more efficient as well as faster. My fitness has allowed me to stride as I'd like without breaking down.

Brent

Admittedly, pithy little sayings like the one I repeated above never capture the whole truth. But I have also seen far too many slow runners with really bad form become faster runners with really bad form after training a lot. Your body can become much more efficient at any form. (Not saying this is you, just that form isn't the only limiter)
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [TravisT] [ In reply to ]
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If there are folks out there doing 20K+ a week swimming plus what it takes on the bike and run to race a fast Ironman, well then hells bells, I will call them divorced/single and broke.

I swim 8 or 9K a week tops and swim 57mins in wetsuit. Double my time in the pool would get me what, an extra 2 minutes in the water? It's a triathlon; not a swim race.

IMO.

@rhyspencer
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [rhys] [ In reply to ]
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rhys wrote:
If there are folks out there doing 20K+ a week swimming plus what it takes on the bike and run to race a fast Ironman, well then hells bells, I will call them divorced/single and broke.

I swim 8 or 9K a week tops and swim 57mins in wetsuit. Double my time in the pool would get me what, an extra 2 minutes in the water? It's a triathlon; not a swim race.

IMO.

Divorced/single/broke and fast. That said I definitely don't swim that much every week all year around. That's what it'll take for me to make a big jump in speed though. My swim needs some work so I'm doing a big block of swimming in the offseason that's 20-30k a week. Its a trade off of time spent on my bike though since I'm happy with my riding comparatively. Once I've (hopefully) made some gains I'll be back to swimming 10-12k a week during the season to maintain. Also, you already swim IM under an hour. I don't and need to put in more work to get there.

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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [Rappstar] [ In reply to ]
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I like to compare swimming to xc-skiing. If you stared young you will always have an advantage since both are technical and you need to feel/know what is correct. Also, you cannot expect to be good in either swimming or xc-skiing by just working on drills. Why? The first thing you will lose when you get tired is your form/technique.

Since both are technical you always have to work on keeping or improving your technique. But if your fitness is holding you back you need to work out. The fitness will help you to keep the form; good form will not help you to be fit.

If you have the best engine and the best technique you can do what Petter Northug is doing, increase the speed in the end of the race and still keep a good form J
This is how he builds fitness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg5fKfSuluw&feature=related

This is how he use the fitness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU1auIU_Epk

Some good video of Alistair Brownlee and swimming, he has fitness…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t71f1QAmIl8

Last edited by: Halvard: Dec 28, 11 12:35
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [Rappstar] [ In reply to ]
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There's a difference between fundamentals and "technique work." If you truly lack the fundamentals then you need them.

I think that you are wise to make a distinction between various level swimmers and what their "limiting factor" is, but I think that you might employ too narrow aview, like Coaches Sousa and Sutton, about what entails technique development, and more importantly, "proper technique". I wrote a much longer blog on this topic today (https://www.findingfreestyle.com/?q=hammertime), but the gist is as follows:

What Paulo and Brett Sutton both have in common, in my opinion, is that they rebel against the classical view of "proper technique". I understand this. When confronted with schools of instruction that put forth Michael Phelps freestyle stroke as the optimal, and then focus on drills that ingrain "long and strong", they correctly in my view, reject that line of reasoning for most open water endurance swimmers. For their rejection of this view of technique, however, they outwardly offer little antidote beyond the hammer (and a few toys), and thus throw the baby out with the bath water. To me, they imply that drills are either: a) irrelevant to the open water distance swimmer, or b) irrelevant for the purpose of enhancing an athletes condition. Let me be clear, for all athletes and to varying degrees, the hammer works: increasing training volumes CAN improve technique, and in some circumstances it IS just as simple as cranking out some more -- humans are ADAPTATION MACHINES, we do it very, very well. But we CAN optimize our adaptation with proper application of training technique.

If I were a betting man, I would bet that both coaches Sousa and Sutton would see effective hand-speed as a worthy technique, and one that can and should be trained in the context of a conditioning set. So, what aspects, besides hand speed and endurance can make someone successful in open water, and ALSO be part of a sucessful conditioning regimen? I would love to hear their thoughts on this, but for me and mine, it's:
- rhythm,
- free and plentiful air exchange,
- ability to sight,
- ability to turn the legs on and off at will,
- ability to change speeds as the race demands (if swimming in a pack especially).
- And above all, TIMING: The ability to synchronize the movement of the head, hands, arms, legs and torso (and breath).

Rejecting "technique work" as being synonymous with "do slow 25s while having your coach correct your stroke" is a limited view of training, conditioning, and skill development. It's also pretty darn low in terms of effectiveness. It absolutely, positively time that we got past having a classical, 100 meter freestyle-centric view of "proper techinque". But that's not all. It's also time that we stopped looking at "conditioning" and "technique" as two separate entities. They are inextricably linked and the best of us have always acknowledged that on a sub-conscious level. Perhaps it is time that we started to acknowledge it consciously.

Regards,
r.b.

Bringing you Tweets @ http://twitter.com/findfreestyle and Not just a bunch of drills - A Process.
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [DarkSpeedWorks] [ In reply to ]
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DarkSpeedWorks wrote:
Rappstar wrote:
It's that time of year - or it should be - when chlorine substitutes for cologne. You should reek of it. Paulo Sousa tweeted an excellent summary on the matter. It's rare that you find really, really good summations in 140chrs or less. This was one, so I felt compelled to share it. "Technique goes a long way in swimming, but it's nothing without fitness. Working on your fitness works on technique. The opposite is not true."


"Working on your fitness works on technique."
Uh, not really. Actually, it is false.

Just swimming more is definitely not going to have very much of an impact on improving technique. Actually, it can (and often does) have exactly the opposite effect. Just "working on your (swim) fitness" alone readily reinforces bad technique, as you will be repeatedly practicing (1000s and 1000s of times) incorrect and inefficient movement.

So you're telling me that you spent more time in the pool and your swim times got slower? Haha. Hahahaha. hahahahahahahaahahhhhAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
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Re: QFT: Paulo Sousa on Swimming [Rappstar] [ In reply to ]
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I went to take swimming lessons once and I was expecting to get all sorts of critique and methods to improve my poor technique. He first had me doing some laps to look at me in action. Then he sat me up on the deck and just started talking to me. Then he gave me the best advice I've ever received. "You're just not swimming enough." And then he put it into terms I could understand. Imagine if someone came to you and said "I'm running 20 miles a week and want to get faster. How can I get faster?"

I understand that swimming and running are different sports. And good technique is better than bad technique. But, the one facet that holds true in all three sports is there is rarely a substitute for volume.



http://jesse.centuries.com
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