Just wondering if anyone uses the TI approach to swimming. I notice a lot of people swimming this way, but I notice that the fastest triathletes really do not appear to have this particular form.
I’ve read the Total Immersion book and done some of the drills periodically and it has helped me get a better position in the water. Now that is from someone that was totally alien to swimming a couple of years ago when I found the book. Since then my swimming has progressed and I’m very comfortable in the water. I still do some of the drills to warm up and get a feel for the position I would like to attain while swimming. However I’m told that swim training time (according to a TI instructor) should consist almost ENTIRELY of drills. A couple of friends attended one of the weekend clinics in Atlanta recently and I was just wondering if anyone had positive or negative views of this approach to swimming faster.
saw the DVD, tried some of the techniques. LIke them, don’t love them… my sense is that it will help me on my quest to move from BOP swimmer to MOP. it doesn’t seem like it’ll get you to the front of the pack, though.
Here’s my take-$.02 on this. TI is great for people learning to swim fast. Once you are fast (once you can swim 1500 meters faster than 22 min) it makes sense to branch off of that school of thought to one more aligned with the “real swimmers” -not me. I mean the way elite collegiate and olympic swimmers swim. These swimmers are way more focused on propulsion than balance. For them, their balance is completely dialed so it’s a nonissue but for everyone else it still makes sense to work on your balance while building endurance and speed; not to mention shoulder and ankle flexibility.—another trait of really fast swimmers.
Regarding the propulsion comment look in the ST archived articles for one by Sheila Taormina. It specifically talks about this and how TI does not focus on propulsion.
i’m interested in hearing feedback on this as well. i am bop swimmer, but with strong bike/run i manage to place top ag, somehow. i’d like to swim faster but nothing seems to work. i mimic all the techniques in the total immersion program, but it doesn’t help. i only swim about 4k a week since swimming bores me to death.
i’m wondering if i double my swim volume, would this help?
Spindogg hit it right on the head - use TI to get your body position right because this is critical. After that, I think the next most important area to work on is the catch. That is, how quickly and effectively you can get your arm engaged in the water to provide propulsion. I high elbow and a smooth pull are essential. When you do this, however, don’t lose sight of the basic TI principals of body rotation, etc. You should not think about pulling your arms past your body when you pull, but rather moving your body forward past your arm - which should be anchored in the water.
I’m afraid that the best way to improve the catch is through drills - which are about the only thing more boring than swimming endless laps.
I went to a TI camp and I concur with many of the others on the site, ie the worse you are the more it helps. FWIW, my experience allowed me to swim about the same but with LOTS less effort. I can “feel” myself “slipping” thru the water and I definitely feel more efficient but probably not more powerful…not being a swimmer I’ve always "muscled’ my way thru the swim leg of a race. I think “real” swimmers already have that whole “body position” thing down and that’s probably why TI is less helpful to these folks.
AFA speed is concerned my TI coach went 55 min for his swim at IMC and by his own admission that was more than 30 minutes faster than what he could do for 2.4 before he went to the TI technique.
Yes… how are you going to swim faster if you don’t swim alot?
try 4*week, 3-4k a session… and you’ll get faster… if you want to get even faster… join a masters team.
Doing TI drills will do nothing if you don’t back those up with actual swimming.
My sidenote - I don’t understand why people think they’re going to swim fast if all they do is drills in the water all day… yes… you’ll become proficient at drills, but that is a very different animal to swimming fast.
If you want to swim fast… swim lots, and do most of it fast.
ooops. i posted a new topic as you were responding. so more volume = faster, david? great, thanks! gonna try it. don’t know how i’m gonna deal with twice/thrice the boredom though.
In my opinion, the assessment that the “worse you are, the more it helps” holds true…IF you’re only using the book and/or the dvd. Remember - the book is full of exagerations to get you to feel what it’s like to get into good positions. It is lacking in propulsion because they are of the belief (with which I agree) that first you need to get balanced and into a managable position, THEN, add in proper propulsion. If you master propulsion before form and balance you’re going to be nothing but one tired and frustrated hombre (or chica). I’ve had several private sessions with a TI coach and I can tell you that once I got my balance and basic form down, we worked exclusively on propulsion and swimming faster. I highly recommend working one-on-one with a TI coach. They take the basic TI technique to the next level.
Vary the sets… I swim with a team, so i’m never bored as 15 y/o girls constantly kick my ass up and down the pool…
but switch up what your doing… you won’t improve just by “swimming”… each practice should have a purpose…
ex - 3 day/week
mon - endurance - 4400 progressing to 8400
nothing hard… though as time progresses you can vary stuff…
(we did 10*400 last night…SCM
free/back by 100’s, fist/swim by 50’s on 7.30
IM, 75 drill/25 sw 7.30
IM (kk/sw/drill/sw) by 25’s, on 7
choice on 6.30
5/6) on 6
5.50
5.40
5.30
5.20)
but none of that was “hard” except the last one and only cause i decided to go hard… it was long endurance swimming
wen - I like threshold work… so fast short intervals with little rest…
3*(5*100 on 5 sec rest)… and by the last one you should barely be making it… long rest between sets…
fri - IM work for different muscle activation, or medium distance work… 200’s or 300’s… more medium hard aerobic work… i’d do 12*200
1-3 on 3.10
4-6 on 3
7-9 on 2.50
10-12 on 2.40
(obviously adjust times as needed!)
You are right on. As I dropped weight my swimming got worse and I realized that I was getting by more because I could float and was strong. As my body comp changed I got to focused on drills and didn’t swim enough and now that my position is better in the water I am no faster since I didn’t spend enough time just swimming.
Well… you obviously read my post but didn’t bother searching… so here you go:
“Strength and endurance dictate technique. With limited time, you can make a huge difference in the former two. Without the strength and the endurance, you can’t hold technique. The level of skills achieved by Olympic swimmers is worlds apart from what even the top triathlon swimmers can achieve – it is futile looking there for ways and means to improve neophyte swimmers.”
Let me repeat the most important part:
“Without the strength and the endurance, you can’t hold technique.”
I’ll echo what the others have said. I took a TI clinic because I could barely swim at all and wanted to move from Duathlons to Tris. I did the drills religously for several months and got very comfortable with them and made great progress. I continued to work with a TI coach on a periodic basis for a few months after the clinic.
I think TI is outstanding for getting you comfortable in the water, developing good balance, developing a streamlined position and learning to swim in a relaxed manner. If you’re as poor a swimmer as me, then I believe that TI is the way to go to build a solid foundation; no use pushing hard if your feet are dragging the bottom of the pool. With that being said, there is a gap when it comes to taking it up to the next level. There is (at least when I did it) very little focus on propulsion and with so much emphasis on glide, low stroke rate, etc. it’s very easy to find yourself gliding too much and just plain swimmning slow. I still struggle with swimming hard, upping my stroke rate and going fast because that nice easy gliding stroke got so ingrained in me.
With all of that I still believe TI deserves a lot of credit. When I went to the clinic I could barely swim a couple lengths (at about zone 5) but 10 months after the clinic I had completed 5 Triathlons, including an IM & a 1/2 IM. My swim wasn’t fast, but I got through them fairly comfortably. TI has a very easy to follow drill progression that I would highly recommend to any new swimmer.
I purchased the TI book and then the DVD to learn to swim. As others have said it will teach balance but IMHO focuses too much on drills and not enough on actual swimming.
Establishing a satisfactory stroke was followed by two years of little improvement. I recently came across some swimming video and articles on the web that confirmed (for me at least) that I was over rotating (breathe with your belly button).
The guy I share a lane with has always swam faster than me. Flattening my body (fish don’t swim on their sides) and keeping elbows high during the catch have been the keys that allow me to catch and pass my lane partner.
I concur with comments re: TI. If you haven’t mastered body position, you need to do that first and TI is good for this. But I agree it won’t get you to the front of the pack alone - front quadrant technique may. Use the TI as a base and then learn to grab the water and generate force from your core, all the while maintaining balance. In my opinion TI teaches you to over-rotate. Look at Thorpe from the front (there is a clip out there somewhere on the web). He rotates no more than 45 deg past horizontal.
Because most of the good long distance swimmers have very idiosyncratic strokes. I’m not overly fond of modeling Thorpe for tri swimming because his stroke relies so much on propulsive kicking. But he’s actually a better template for free technique than Grant Hackett, or, God forbid, Yuri Prilukov. (who has a stroke developed through stress-testing during workouts, not through something a coach taught him)
IMO, the best swimmers to model are the elite distance women because most of them are light two-beat kickers. Look at what Manaudou, Ziegler, Shibata, etc. are doing, and it makes more sense than a stroke style with a six beat kick where you overuse your legs.
I seem to recall Thorpe swims the 1500?? I wouldn’t call him a sprinter.
I agree to not look at his feet. But what most of those swimmers do, including the women mentioned, is swim wide entry, high/early catch/catchup-rhythm front quadrant freeestyle.
