This is not intended to be rude but as a former world top 50 I am humored by the way those that have come to the TRI ranks from running and cycling view “my” sport. This TI thing is simply a marketing spin thrown together so that a simplistic version of freestyle could be sold in a convinent package. Yes, it is a wonderful tool to assist begginers in their efforts at learning a new sport but please DO NOT refer to what is being swum in the Olympic pool in Athens as TI. What you see there is a combination of beautiful raw talent, a natural feel for the water and refinement brought about by 10’s of thousands of hours in the pool. When I am asked “how I do it” i cannot really say. I really dont know, i just “do”. In the water i am in my element and i intuitively “know” what to do. I never think about pressing the “T” or my chest. I dont dwell on my kick and what it is doing… i just go. Such is the case with the athletes you are watching on TV. They know the water and the water knows them… The principles that guide them DO NOT relate to begining swimmers. They are governed by a whole other set of hydrodynamic rules… their natural talent and feel for the water have allowed them to reach that point.
Regardless of the rude reply you got from Larry. I appreciate your post. I live in Billings Montana. At the YMCA I work out at,the swim coach is Mike Burton. Gold medal in the 1500 in 68 and 72. Just put in the Olympic Hall of Fame. I asked about T1 ect… He told me this…Nothing wrong with drills,but what He tells the high school kids that ask about their strokes, " Do not ask me how your stroke looks till you can hold it hard for 1000 to 1500 yrds". His feeling is it really does not matter what it looks like for a 100. Got to have at least some endurance and strength before He will even comment. Once you have a feel,some endurance, then He can help. Oh by the way,I went from no swimming to a 1:05 Im in 9 month, then to a 1:03 within 21 months at 44 and 187lbs.
Aren’t you a little bit pleased that all these people are so keen to get better at your sport? At least, as spectators, they have some idea of how hard it is to swim at that speed, even if most of them will never swim a sub 17 1500.
I salute those who can do what you do, who have that natural flair and gift in the water. But what triathlon has done is expose a whole lot more people, non water people, to the joys of swimming. Swim coaches everywhere must surely be happy at the extra interest (and income) from these keen folks. And if TI is suddenly flavour of the month, surely that is a small price to pay for all the extra bodies doing your sport?
Hi Mark,
You are so right about everything in your post. I know that you have that gift for the feel of the water. Everybody would know if they see you swim. But triathlon is a big business and many people earn their money through the sport. Not so many doing the sport, but the ones selling tri gear to the people that buy $5000 bikes… Simply put, triathlon is an expensive sport and people spend $$. I fully agree with your opinion on TI. I couldn’t even read that thread.
I think there are two categories of “swimmers” out there. You’re in the first, that are those swimmers that can swim fishlike. And then there are those “swimmers” (me included) that have to work their asses of to swim a decent time. While the “swimmers” in the second category have to work like crazy, spend many hours in the pool for little improvement, I want to encourage them to do so. Although the extra time doesn’t help them much in regards to improving their swim time in a triathlon, I noticed through cycling VO2max testing in a lab that, when I reduced my weekly swimming volume, my ventilation rate became reduced and was the limiter to my performance. Therefore, the benefit from swimming laps is not simply reflected on your swimming split. The breathing muscles receive a good workout from swimming and benefit your breathing (O2 consumption) rate. You also use those muscles during cycling and running. Just keep swimming…
Mark, are you racing Oceanside in March of next year?
greetings,
Daniel
We could compare Radcliffe with Pose and how she carries herself, or prehaps HGS and his arm carry, about the only thing a triathlete AG’er and, in a lot of cases Pro’s, have in common with “runners” (world class) is that they put one foot in front of the other.
Cycling is the same, an amateur may ride a bike and sit on it the same way (one leg either side of the top tube) but thats about where the commonalities end…
I think there is some validity for people looking at what the swimmers are doing and if putting a name to it and having something to focus on makes them better then so be it.
Swimmers dont think about HOW they swim at world record pace and neither do runners think about HOW they run at WR pace, for the rest of us we need to work on technique and if giving it a name makes it more palatable and easier to talk about then that can only be a good thing.
thats one of the most elitist posts ive read in a while. I know youre super-awesome, but im not. TI was a technique developed by looking at the natural swim techniques of amazing swimmers. I know you, “just go”, but when i “just go”, i move through the water like a tank. So, i dont see how its bad to learn some sort of technique. I dont have a coach, or the schedule to attend masters classes, so i have to settle. As for the posts, whats so bad about comparing certain techniques to top swimmers? Next time, ill be sure to skip watching the swim events, so that my discussing them doesnt offend the swim gods. Cycling’s the best sport anyway.
Amen brother, you said it before I could! And all this time I thought this was a DISCUSSION forum. 
Chris
TI advocate to Phelps “Do you press the buoy whilst front quadrant swimming?”
Phelps “do what?”
or POSE advocate to Paula or HGS “Do you know that your arm carry and head bobbing waste an inordinate amount of energy?”
Paula or HGS “So what you’re saying is if I correct this I might hold a WR? what are you trying to say?”
I’d have thought having some way of quantifying technique for those of us that are not in the top 50 in the world in both running and swimming would be a good thing.
Secondly, TI and POSE both share fundamentals of the technique used by elites in both sports, its not going to replace 70k meters a week, nor is POSE or Yessis going to make up for 10 years of running 100+ mile weeks but they both help you improve.
Yeah, I don’t get this thread. Isn’t this a forum for discussion of anything that might help us get better? Don’t most of us subscribe to magazines or read books on how to get better? Why then, when the best swimmers in the world are right there in prime time, wouldn’t we take a look to see what we can take away from their performances? And since we are not all “top 50 in the world” swimmers, why wouldn’t we see if there is a practical application or system that can move us in the right direction towards those elite swimmers? Just because he doesn’t have to “think” in the pool doesn’t mean the rest of can do that, and I never understand anyone who doesn’t want people to learn.
In absolute fish terms, I suck. Really. Could barely make AA or state meet time standards, and never came close to zones or sectional times, much less anything on a national level. Never had a natural feel for the water either.
And that lack of natural ability has actually made me better at coaching swimming. I had to figure out why and things worked like they did at an intellectual level rather than a gut level, and from those rationalizations and thoughts, I learned how to explain and break things down to component level and explain them to new swimmers. I realized how little I really knew, and set about trying to learn something. And I was lucky to swim forr some good coaches along the way- the guys who had been around long enough to seperate trend from breakthrough, and know that there are multiple perfectly correct ways to get from one side of the pool to the other.
IMO, the worst swim coaches are often new coaches who had that natural feel for the water because they never did have to think about what they were doing, and haven’t a clue about how to explain it all. Have had a couple of those along the way, and they’re useless.
I understand your argument against attempting to extract TI instruction techniques from Olympic swimmer’s technique. I also agree with your contention that TI forms an easily understandable basis for teaching swimming technique to relative beginners.
But I completely disagree with your statement that the athletes swimming at the Olympics are governed by “a whole other set of hydrodynamic rules.” Hydrodynamic rules do not change. The physics of swimming DO NOT CHANGE. The ONLY thing different between Olympic swimmers and the BOP tri or masters swimmers is in their respective ability to apply and work within these hydrodynamic rules. Of course the gulf in those abilities results from the hundreds of thousands of meters of training, and the talent (stemming from an inate sense of feel for the water) of the elite swimmers. To suggest otherwise is simply elitist.
Your argument equates to saying that aerodynamics on the bike apply differently to Lance Armstrong than they do to you. That is wrongheaded thinking. Part of Lance’s superior ability relative to you is his ability to apply the SAME rules of aerodynamics better than you can.
You write that you cannot express “how you do it.” I contend that if you put some critical thinking toward the problem, and then tried to relate that to the lowest common denominator (exactly the problem Terry M tackled in formulating TI), that you would end up speaking much the same as TI. Your inability to express “how you do it” gets to the root benefit of TI teaching. All of the “press the T” and other buzzword teachings of TI are, in the end, attempting to get the novice swimmer to pay attention to “feel,” which, as you rightly contend, makes the difference between swimming like a fish a fish or a barge.
Please, give it some CRITICAL THOUGHT. Let us know what you come up with. Simply dismissing the novice by claiming you can’t teach them how you do it defies all the laws and theories of teaching/learning. You can if you try, and I’ll put $$ that your end product would echo TI more than you think. Why? Because you’re 100% correct. Its all about the “feel” of the water.
Imagine Einstein saying, "Don’t bother learning all that velocity =mass x acceleration crap. We master physicists just “feel” the physics.
I was thinking this over during my ride this morning, and I think you hit the nail on the head. TI is simply a way of explaining to an anchor like me (and the thousands of other people who came to swimming late in life and didn’t have the advantage of 10 years of 50K weeks growing up) how to do all the stuff that the good swimmers do.
Of course the stud swimmers out there don’t think in terms of TI buzzwords, they just do it. Much in the same way Tiger Woods probably does not think: shoulder rotation…weight shift…hand turnover, he just does it, because he’s swung the club the same way for hours and hours a day his whole life. The trick is to teach what he does to someone who never held a club.
Just because we will never swim like Michael Phelps doesn’t mean that we can’t learn anything from him. And if we happen to discuss our observations using the buzzwords we’re familiar with, what difference does it make.
Chris
BTW - I’ve often wondered if the laws of aerodynamics and physics in general didn’t apply to Lance the same way the apply to the rest of us. :)!
IMO TI is something like “swimming made easy” for those who don’t have a swimming background and who are looking for a fast solution. Fast solutions always cost money (usually more than they are worth) and they will never reach a maximum result. TI is a compromise.
The only time TI really bothers me, is when swimmers with a TI background ask for general advise on how to improve their swimming skills, but don’t mention, that they follow TI rules. TI and classical swimming are completely different, partly even controversial. Both styles may be “freestyle” and both look like crawl, but still they are as different as butterfly and backstroke. ou can’t mix them !
I personally don’t like what TI teaches, I’m a “classical” swimmer thru and thru and I can only advise anyone who wants to improve his/ her swimming , to work hard on it. You might need longer to improve, but once you do, you will reach your maximum results and not live with a compromise.
In your opinion, what exactly is the compromise for beginner swimmers using TI?
Like I said before, it’s swimming made easy. But it is not as effective. Your swimming skills might feel better and you will definitely improve, but I doubt that you will reach the same level as if you worked more on classical techniques.
Alright, I understand the words, but being a non-fish non-swimmer, please elaborate. What is TI teaching me that I shouldn’t be doing?
FLA Jill wrote- IMO, the worst swim coaches are often new coaches who had that natural feel for the water because they never did have to think about what they were doing, and haven’t a clue about how to explain it all.
I totally agree with that… it is why I have found myself unable to be a very good coach or clinician when it comes to the water. I wish I could but seem unable to comprehend the complexities around the “building” of a stroke.
Now for the defense of this original post…
I believe TI is great for beginners or those getting back into swimming after years of absence. I believe any tool that assists one (albeit legally) is fair play. Believe me my running is a disaster and I look for any points of help that I can. But what I couldn’t see was how people were trying to compare TI to what they were seeing in Athens. We’re talking apples and oranges here. When I first started organized running 10 months ago i did not go watch video of the best in the world i didnt even try reading the POSE book. What I did was got with a local coach and had him work with me so as to find the best way to progress. In other words i did not shoot for the stars or even look at them I simply knew that was beyond me. I couldnt even begin to understand what those really fast guys do. What I am saying is that the gap is so large between TI and Olympic swimming in that the understanding is just too much for a beginer to try to comprehend. TI is great to get people started but leave the comparisons to the Olympic pool at home.
**What is TI teaching me that I shouldn’t be doing? **
“Gliding.” More accurately, “slowing down before taking your next stroke.”
Too much time on drills, not enough time swimming. And that bit about getting out of the pool when you’re too tired to maintain perfect technique drives me up the wall.
That said, TI is (or can be, anyway) a great stepping stone for people with no swimming background. It’s great at making the importance of hydrodynamics clear to a new swimmer, and pretty decent at teaching that new swimmer how to start developing a feel for the water. So long as you don’t stop at TI, it can be a good way to start.
I just recommended the book to a friend of mine interested in learning to swim for fitness. I think she’ll get a lot out of it. If she wants to get faster later on, she’ll have to move beyond TI.
Why do you ask, slowguy ? Seeking for help, or are you just checking :-)?
The first thing I tried to tell a friend of mine, who had followed TI was not to look streight down to the bottom of the pool, but to look ahead with a 45° angle frontward and to try the “waterpolo” crawl. The next thing was the breathing technique…then comes the body rotation, cause and effect etc…
But, slowguy, like I said, don’t mix TI and classical swimming. If you follow TI stuff, either stay with it or forget it all and start new…