I’m an AOS swimmer and have heard great things about Tower 26 from both the forum and youtube. My question is I’m a pretty awful swimmer (race pace is around 1:50/100) and I’d really like to get better. For those of you that either have a coach and/or have done T26, which do you think would be a better investment? I’ve taken the odd private swim lesson but without consistent swimming and lessons I find I fall back into my old habits quickly. Maybe structured swim workouts would help?? Thanks!
Your best approach is to get regular on-deck feedback of your stroke (at 1:50/100 (scy, I assume), you are definitely doing something(s) wrong). Failing that, you are likely to habituate your stroke flaws and make them harder to correct going forward. It’s a truism in swimming that you are not doing (stroke-wise) what you think you are doing.
Totally agree. Your first few video analysis sessions will be horrifying.
Agree!
While I can’t comment on lessons vs T26, one thing for sure that is very, very valuable and very inexpensive/easy is to have a friend or random lanemate take underwater video of you both front & side position. You don’t need a lot of footage - like 1 length of your typical stroke is fine, and you can buy a cheap <$10 waterproof phone case on Amazon to do it, works great.
I’ll bet with high certainty that you will find a few really obvious things to fix right up front without evening needing to pay the $$$ for a coach. And then it really helps to repeat the video later after you feel like you’ve improved or gotten faster. Video don’t lie.
I was totally horrified at my first swim vid, and even though I’ve gotten a lot better (and faster) since then, I still have enough things to fix that I won’t post it here on ST!