I’m new to the sport but have worked hard for a few months now. The bike and run are coming along great. Swimming is another story. I read T.I. swimming and many other sources but after 20 swim workouts my times and endurance are still poor. I went back to basics according to T.I. and simply tried to reduce my stroke count per length then add speed later. No matter what I try I can’t get my count below 21 (including a big push off the wall to start). Any ideas?
Notes:
-I’m 6’, 180 lbs, long arms, good strength, 10.5% body fat
-My technique appears to be “by the book” from the sources I’ve read
-I’ve tried relaxing and making my pulls as long and slow as possible without sinking too much
-I’ve tried increasing my shoulder rotation and pressing my chest down to bring my hips up
I would think you’d be best served by having a good swimmer, not necssarily a coach, watch what you are doing. It’s REALLY hard sometimes to see just what it is your body is doing while you ar swimming. For example, people who cross over with their arms always swear that their is no way their arms cross. I’d start by doing that…shouldn’t be too hard to find someone willing to take a look.
The most important thing about swimming is having a coach. A “real” coach. Books, seminars, videos and “cyber” coaches may be an entertaining and interesting way to pass the time and spend money but won’t do much good.
Try and find a coach that is certified by US Swimming or ASCA.
Yeah…often people with poor form do that, don’t realize they are doing it and that leads to all sorts of other problems with their bodies in the water.
You could also look for a TI instructor in your area. I meet with mine 1X/month or so just to have her give me feedback. She’s only $20 for 1/2hr and well worth it.
I have been working with a swim coach via local Masters swim and the coach really nailed the problems and showed me what I was doing wrong. Helped me improve form which contributed to improvement in speed very quickly. I am still working with the coach and continually refining technique as fitness improves.
As everyone else said, get a coach. Either pay for individual lessons, or join your local masters swim team. A coach (individual or team) will be able to spot what you’re doing wrong straight away and set you on the right track.
In the long run the money spent on a coach will be less than what people claim to spend on some silly videos and books. Nothing beats some educated eyeballls and some hands on instruction.
I’m biased as I’m a former swimmer and swim coach
It’d be cool to have a coach for sure. At the least, it’d probably help a lot just to have someone who knows what a good stroke looks like watch you for a couple of laps. Next time you’re sharing the pool with someone good, why don’t you ask them for some quick help?
Best way to get good in the water is to spend a lot of time swimming. And concentrate on what’s going on around you- swimming isn’t like running, where you can put your brain on auto-pilot for an hour and get a good workout. You need to be paying attention to your body, your stroke, the resistance of the water, etc, etc.
Are you “wind-milling” your arms? Try to keep your elbows high during the pull, close to the surface.
I just picked up the T.I. stroke this year also and I’ve really noticed a huge breakthrough in the last month and a half. I felt the same way you did for 4 months before the breakthrough. I think the T.I. tapes help more than the book. I’ve watched the tape about 10+ times. I think it’s good to read the book for the concepts, but the tapes are better for visualization. I bought a digital camera with an underwater case that can do 30sec MPEGS and that helped a lot also. I noticed that I wasn’t pressing the buouy as much as I should and therefore I was dragging my butt and legs. I also noticed that I was creating a lot of drag by lifting my head out of the water. Don’t give up on TI because it really does work. At least it has for me.
I know what you mean…I have the TI book, and either I am stupid as hell, or just totally uncoordinated, but I cannot grasp the concept of pressing the buouy.
Before the typical TI versus Propulsion debate breaks out here, I’m going to just tell you, you just haven’t worked hard enough. That’s just you thinking you have worked hard enough. Not me, or us. We’ll have you doing 45 100s in 1:20, holding 1:10 in no time. But its going to hurt. And you will vomit and may have a few trips to the ER Room. And, you may choke during a lap or two, and have to stand up and stop. But, gollee, Graig, what we will do is “work hard enough.” Not what Graig thinks is “hard enough.”
First, let’s get some things straight. Take your mind out of it. Never. Repeat never, describe your own workouts as done “hard enough.” Our weak bodies and minds recoil and finch from pain. Of course, your body is going to tell you a bald face lie always, “Graig, that was hard enough. Stop now. You did good. Take it easy. Go get an orange gatorade, or one of those nice blue thirst quenchers.” Or, “Graig, you can stop now, and go hop in the hot tub over there when that fat man gets out of it.” It’s not going to say, “Graig, lets do another 100 as hard as we can go, where we almost feint in the middle of the pool, as the lactate acid just crushes your every living being and spirit to further demoralize you.”
Therefore, when you say, you have “worked hard” that is merely your body lying to you because it does not want to go further into pain and wants pleasure. This is your problem. When you want to quit, keep going hard until you get right on the virge of passing out. You’ll go a little further and further each day.
Now, I can accept VISA or Paypal. That will be $45 dollars.
With regards to the “TI vs Propulsion” debate. . .The simple (and obvious) truth is you need both. That is, you need to be hydrodynamic, AND you need to be able to propel your body through water. I don’t care how streamlined you are, you aren’t going to get anywhere if you’re not pulling yourself through the water. And I don’t care how strong you are in pulling yourself through the water, if you’re in a vertical position, you may as well have rocks in your suit.
Is the stroke count the only problem that you have? Or is the speed you’re going at not up to what you think it should be? Or maybe you’re not comfortable breathing?
21 really isn’t too bad for a beginner. If you are swimming around 1:50 for 100 yds then you need to start working on propulsion as well as balance. I’ve read that this is the speed where things start to come together.
If you feel propulsion is your problem, do a couple of laps of closed fist drills. Just keep your hand in a fist and try to use the rest of your arm as a paddle. You might find that you don’t have very much propulsion from just that. Use this drill to get you catch and pull the best it can be. Remember to keep your elbows high. Your humorus (upper arm) should be straight out from you body and your lower arm should be bent at about 90 degrees. After a couple of laps, open your hands again and try to keep the same form.
Just ask the fast swimmer to take a look. I am always agonizing in the pool when I see someone with an obvious flaw in their stroke where one little change could save them a lot of effort.
I am having good results following the advice of Marc Becker as posted on Gordo’s forum. I have good TI form but I lacked pure strength and stamina. Putting TI together with his ideas is working for me.
First step is to get a coach or knowledgable swimmer to look at your stroke and make corrections in gross stroke deficiencies. This holds the possibility of great gains for new swimmers but it is not the end of the story.
Next, you need to do some serious work if you want to go faster. The stuff the previous poster said about throwing up etc is, while a little over the top, basically true. If you are new to swimming, it should hurt like hell every time you swim if you want to get faster. Since you are using muscles you have probably never used before doing something that most likely does not come naturally to you, you will need to put more intensity into your swim workouts if you want to see serious improvement.
Many of the flaws in your stroke your coach will point out can only be corrected by developing swimming specific strength. You kind of need to think of your swim workouts as weight lifting sessions rather than just aerobic training, particularly when you are starting out. Your arms should hurt like you have spent time in a weight room much much more than your legs would hurt after a run or bike of similar intensity.
Why does it seem like everyone readily accepts that you have to train hard to bike or run fast but that you can just “learn” how to swim fast?
Wow! thanks for all the help. First off, I realize I was asking the impossible because none of you have seen my stroke. Second, it wasn’t from lack of effort. If anything, I’ve pushed my body too far a few times in the last few months. I never get sick but I have twice lately and I have had weeks of major fatigue. I’m one of those that actually likes painful workouts because you feel your gains. I had just reached a plateau in the pool and additional effort wasn’t helping.
Anyway. I drove by the pool last night and couldn’t resist another try. It had been bugging me all day so I read all of your posts and went back and read more TI so I had a few things I wanted to try. I got in and, without a warm up, tried the first thing on my list. I got to the other end with a count of 17. I thought that couldn’t be right so I swam back and got 17 again! And it felt fast. I soon got it to 16 fairly easy! Like I said, the night before I swam twenty 50s and couldn’t get below 21 no matter what I tried so I was shocked.
What was it? Before, I would make my pull then pause with that arm at my side and the other in front to glide as much as I could. All I changed was to cut out the pause until that stroke arm was back in front of me and not start my pull with the other arm until they were both in front for a brief time (sort of like a catch-up drill). TI calls it Front Quadrant Swimming (FQS) and gives the example of watching Alexander Popov do it for his endurance workouts at the Goodwill Games. What is does is it moves your center of gravity forward and planes your body out more. To me, it’s like driving a ski boat. From a stop if you push the throttle forward slowly you drag in the water and don’t go very fast. If you do the same thing but “goose” the throttle forward to the same position you plane out and go much faster at the same power setting.
Soooo…I’m sure I have other major stroke flaws but now I’m looking forward to getting back in the pool with the stop watch. Thanks again for the help and sorry for the long post.