Looking for reviews of the Total Immersion Swim Video and the Total Swim Power Video, thumbs up or down? Have a safe and Happy New Year Slowtwitch forum members. Thanks.
Let me preface this by saying I know I did this wrong: I had a reservation at a total Emmersion Swim Camp but couldn’t attend. I got all the class materials though and watched the video carefully. The video is well made but it totally screwed me up. My swimming is already poor and I think that video only served to confuse me to a greater degree- certainly not all the video’s “fault”. When I mentioned it to a former Olympic Gold Medalist swimmer and triathlete (after she said, "Why do you swim like THAT!?!) I told her, “Oh, I learned it from this video…” She was like, “Nope, do this, this and this and you will be better.” I followed her advice to the best of my ability and did see some form of damage control or at least a return to my previous level of mediocrity. It didn’t produce the desired results for me. Your results may vary. Happy New Year.
Tom,
Maybe we could start a forum for the aquatically challenged. Happy New Year!
Mark
hey Tom isn’t Sheila T. a total immersion girl?
Hmmm, not that I’m aware of. Or, perhaps my interpretation of the “Total Immersion” techniques looked more like Cirque de Soleil than fish like swimming. At any rate, we later viewed a video of an Olympic freestyle event as shot from above and below the surface. Swim Coach and Bon Vivant Doug Stern was also in attendance (we were at his swim camp in Curacao). His comments were basically, “Do it that (the Olympic) way.” Like I say, likely my interpretation.
I just received the Total Immersion Freestyle like Fish (or something like that) so I can’t give a results-based review, but I have watched it and like the approach. There is no question the approach takes a lot of patience (something I’m certainly lacking). It basically takes you from the point of effortless floating to a very fluid swimming style through NUMEROUS small incremental drill steps. I have no doubt that if I work my way through the drills, I will improve. Of course, I am a LOUSY swimmer, good rock, natural bottom dweller, whatever you want to call it, and there is really nothing but “upside” for me.
Anyway, breathing and balance are my two biggest swimming problems and this video addresses both in a way that appears achievable. After watching the video, I believe that it will be possible to breathe bilaterally and swim in a relaxed manner, which is saying a lot.
Also, I have the first TI book and the video is MUCH better. It is much easier to follow a video than static illustrations in a book.
-Dave
I’ll give you my experience with Total Immersion.
To give you some background, I’m not a very good swimmer. (I’m not a very good biker or runner either, but that’s another post) So I bought the Total Immersion book a few years ago and it sounded great. I tried to follow the book, but some of the drills seemed confusing. I thought it was hard to figure out based only on reading the book. But I tried to follow what I could and it seemed to help. It’s sort of hard to tell since you can’t see yourself swim. I felt like I was swimming faster, and I know swimming was definitely getting easier.
Anyway, I borrowed the Swim Video last year and this didn’t help me any. For me, the drills seemed too hard to follow. But I kept trying to follow what I thought the book was saying.
Well, for Christmas, my wife got me the Fishlike Freestyle and the Triathlon Swimming book. (I’m persistant if I’m not anything else.) I’ll tell you, the video was awesome. My memory could be bad, but it seemed to be much easier to follow than the last video I watched. Again, I don’t have the previous video available to compare, but the FF video was exactly what I was looking for. It showed me the drills, and it showed me what I was supposed to look like when I swim.
About the triathlon book. I haven’t read the whole thing, so I can’t give a good report (although you didn’t ask for one on the book, I’ll give it anyway) but it seems like the first part is just a recap of his previous book, just directed towards triathletes. Maybe as I get further in the book it will have different materials, but so far he just explains his philosophy. (Which I guess I would expect since some people may not have his previous book.)
So that’s it. I didn’t watch the Power Video, so I can’t comment on that.
Hope this helps.
First, I have to say that I havent watched any of the TI videos. But, I have read the book “fishlike swimming” or something like that. And I think that the TI method is great from turning a nonswimmer i.e. a runner into someone who can survive 45 minutes in the pool doing some version of freestyle. I’m not going to turn this into a TI bash session, but what I’m trying to do is say that TI will not turn a nonswimmer into a competitve Age Grouper coming out of the water within minutes of the leaders in your age group. But it will give you a general understanding of body position, which is very important. The problem that i had with TI was: okay now im balanced in the water what’s my arm supposed to do. I have never seen TI (in the 2 books ive read or looking through their website) address the actual happenings under the water, maybe i missed it.
Thats my TI opinion.
I am a pretty big Total Immersion fan. I am also a pretty big Sheila T. fan. But, as Tom points out in his reply, there is something be said for watching the best in the world do it. I watch these when I need inspiration. It’s all about visualization these days.
http://www.per4m.ca/Swim%20Videos/Swim%20Videos.htm
(You’ll need something to view streaming video on the web, like Windows Media Player or Real Player.)
Until 2 years ago I hadn’t swam one width of a pool. when I decided to do Triathlons I proceeded to get a swim coach (I’m told one of the best stroke coaches locally) and she went through all of the regular drills to teach me to swim. After 3 lessons a week from October to my first triathlon in June I was suitabley prepared to complete a sprint distance with a poor (17 min) swim. By the end of it I was thrashed and my HR was in the mid 150’s
The next year for x-mas I got the 1st TI book and between January and March of last year I did nothing but TI drills ( I did borrow the video from the local masters club) After doing just drills and swimming the TI way I was able to jump to an Olympic distance event and the swim was the least stressful and easiest of all three events. I effortlessly swam the 1500 in 30min with a hr in the low 140’s and was disapointed that I didnt push harder in the swim b/c it was so much easier than the year before.
For me TI was great.
"I am a pretty big Total Immersion fan…But, as Tom points out in his reply, there is something be said for watching the best in the world do it. "
I agree. In fact I started my swimming “career” in high school and learned most of my stroke technique by simply watching how the best guys on the team swam. I didn’t know it then, but they were among the best in the world, so I got some good tutoring. I got the TI video a few years ago just to see if I could learn something from them - I’m always willing to learn more - but I just wasn’t patient enough to do the drills. And watching the video was not that informative because they never swam “at speed” so the movements were grossly exagerated. My opinion is that if you want to see how to swim, watch a good or great swimmer at full speed and look at every single detail of how they move. Maybe a good strategy for a novice or poor swimmer would be to have both: Use the TI to learn positioning, glide, etc, and other full speed videos to see how it comes together in “real life.”
" My opinion is that if you want to see how to swim, watch a good or great swimmer at full speed and look at every single detail of how they move. Maybe a good strategy for a novice or poor swimmer would be to have both: Use the TI to learn positioning, glide, etc, and other full speed videos to see how it comes together in “real life.”
I own both (actually all three as I have the old TI video as well) and all are done pretty well. The new TI video is probably the best of the three.
Having said that, the $80 - $100 I spent would have been better spent on some form of coaching. I just finished a six week endurance swim class ($80) that gave me access to a coach once a week. We did a lot of TI type drills, but with a coach you get feedback on if you are doing them correctly. My problem with the videos is that you can watch how to do a drill 20 times, hop in the pool, do the drill incorrectly and never know it.
Has anyone else bought the ‘Ultimate Swimming’ video from Multisports.com? I have this video and think it’s very good. It’s a short video describing a sequence of drills bulding up to a complete freestyle stroke. Each drill is described by Roch Frey and then shown with above and under-water shots. Total Immersion is not mentioned by name but the philosophy is similar and the drills are virtually the same as those described in the TI book. I have the TI book but was having trouble visualizing the drills until getting the video.
Ken
I kind of agree w/ jeremy, that TI is probably best at teaching a non-swimmer how to swim. But for those who stagnate after TI, they probably just stopped looking. Those of us on the forum seem to be the type who are actively gathering more info. I’ve learned quite a bit from the video’s that someone posted in this thread, and from Sheila’s articles here on slowtwitch and other stuff I find around.
My history - signed up for my 1st tri in the summer of 2001. a sprint of course. I started reading the TI book to figure out what to do. I finished the swim in 15’03, a pace of 1’43/100yd, which put me in the top 41% for the swim.
I took the TI 2-day course, that december and signed up for the olympic distance version of the same race this last summer (same lake, similar conditions, likely a similar base of athletes, etc) and swam the Oly course in 21’08, a pace of 1’17/100yd, which put me in the top 20% for the swim.
Was that all TI? of course, not. but I don’t think I could have made that much gain in my swim that quickly without them.