Just wonder how fast can you get with Total Immersion techniques. I see a lot of YouTube videos of slow motion and it looks super relaxed, but how fast can you do say an OLY 30min? 25min?
I was given the video and wonder if I should just jump into this for the next 9 months or not.
I’m a 36min/0.9mi, so just about anything will help. I’d like to find something and just stick with it, but if this is not for speed then I’m going to look for other info.
Thanks
In my opinion, you are already swimming as fast as TI is liable to get you to. Find other info.
As
A non-swimmer, TI got me down to a 2’/100m before my first 70.3. I rocked a 37’ at GCT (ocean, wetsuit) and was pumped with it.
I’ve been tying to get rid of the glide ever since.
Just wonder how fast can you get with Total Immersion techniques. I see a lot of YouTube videos of slow motion and it looks super relaxed, but how fast can you do say an OLY 30min? 25min?
I was given the video and wonder if I should just jump into this for the next 9 months or not.
I’m a 36min/0.9mi, so just about anything will help. I’d like to find something and just stick with it, but if this is not for speed then I’m going to look for other info.
Thanks
I had a 42 min swim in my first oly (.9mi) in May. My last most recent oly was last week and I did 30 mins flat (.9mi). Try interval training in the pool. 10x200y with 60 second rests, as fast as you can. Do this for two months, I bet you will improve a lot. Leading up to the tri, do open water swimming once a week to get used to open water and sighting. Thats what I found worked for me. My goal next year is to get closer to 26min swim.
What would total immersion technique be?
Keeping your head low when you breathe? looking down below you as you swim?
I had a 42 min swim in my first oly (.9mi) in May. My last most recent oly was last week and I did 30 mins flat (.9mi). Try interval training in the pool. 10x200y with 60 second rests, as fast as you can. Do this for two months, I bet you will improve a lot. Leading up to the tri, do open water swimming once a week to get used to open water and sighting. Thats what I found worked for me. My goal next year is to get closer to 26min swim.
Yes.
Read this: http://www.amazon.com/Swim-Speed-Secrets-Swimmers-Triathletes/dp/1934030880
Hard work is going to get you where you want to be.
Join a masters group if you can… now. Chances are you’re hanging on the edge of the pool after an hour just trying to breathe and keep up.
This happened to me, and i’ve gone from 2:00+/100m and just trying to ‘finish’ open water sprint races, to < 25min oly swims because i kept getting my ass handed to me 3 days a week.
best decision i made (masters)
Just wonder how fast can you get with Total Immersion techniques. I see a lot of YouTube videos of slow motion and it looks super relaxed, but how fast can you do say an OLY 30min? 25min?
I was given the video and wonder if I should just jump into this for the next 9 months or not.
I’m a 36min/0.9mi, so just about anything will help. I’d like to find something and just stick with it, but if this is not for speed then I’m going to look for other info.
Thanks
TI teaches you to be able to complete the swim, not necessarily compete the swim.
What does your typical week and/or workouts look like in the pool? What’s your swimming background?
John
I’d go the masters route and get coached feedback on your stroke. Plus, even the native fish I swim with argue turnover, turnover, turnover to help better prepare you for OWS. Smooth, long gliding strokes as told by TI are great in a pool, but are not always practical during OWS events.
I looked at TI lots and read his book while learning to swim last summer. I probably got as fast as about 1:30 / 100 for 1500 using that method.
I am not not much faster if any, but as fit either. I agree with almost everyone that TI won’t get you to your potential. It’s all about the catch and fitness after a certain point.
A TI topic!
Aoooga! Aooooga! Dive! Dive! Dive!
i’ve never heard of ‘total immersion’. If it means totally immersing yourself in water and swimming as long as you can while holding your breath, then coming up for air, then immersing again. It would be inefficient.
Just wonder how fast can you get with Total Immersion techniques. I see a lot of YouTube videos of slow motion and it looks super relaxed, but how fast can you do say an OLY 30min? 25min?
I was given the video and wonder if I should just jump into this for the next 9 months or not.
I’m a 36min/0.9mi, so just about anything will help. I’d like to find something and just stick with it, but if this is not for speed then I’m going to look for other info.
Thanks
I was a consistent 30min swimmer for Olympic distance. I took one TI lesson to learn the drills, then worked on them for about two months exclusively… no freestyle swimming at all. After that, I did a month of freestyle swimming. Managed to get down to a 24min Olympic swim shortly after. In that whole three months, I never did more than 3500yards per week, one interval session (10x100yd) every two weeks. Longest pool swim was 2000yds. I did an open water 2.4mi swim just to try it, and ended up with a 1:13. Only a handful of tough workouts… the rest were low yardage, focused around form. A lot of people say TI doesn’t work, but six minutes off my Olympic and a 1:13IM swim are good enough for me.
I agree with you. The drills are really, really helpful IMO (although damn I hate that ‘shark fin’ drill).
An efficient stroke will result in more speed.
TI took me from no structure/form swimming to a 32 minute mile with a very comfortable pace. No need for the $500 class, the $20 video will suffice with a little bit of coaching from a friend/group/coach (If you have the money). I really believe the video helped strengthen my foundation and the coaching helped with my further progress. Good luck!
I’ve extensively read/used the Total Immersion books/concepts.
Honestly, the core concepts aren’t any different than regular swimming in terms of maximizing hydrodynamics, building maximum efficiency in the water, and being as smooth as possible with careful attention to stroke form at all times during swimming.
The point where I think it really oversells itself is when it talks about how you never need to swim hard to get fast. Just ‘swim easy’ with ‘focus on form’ and you’ll magically become FOP+, because you’ll allegedly get all the fitness you need by swimming those nonmaximal effort yards with careful attention to form.
That’s probably true for the dirt-slow swimmer (ex-me) until you get to about 1:50/100yds - anybody slower than that probably shouldn’t be swimming hard because they’re almost definitely swimming wrong in a major way. But once you’re below that 1:50/100yd pace, you’ve got to have swim fitness, and if you never swim hard, you’re never going to get much faster than that.
There’s a reason why all competitive swimmers bust their tails in the pool. If it was just all swimming pretty, that’s what they would be doing. But no, instead they’re out doing gutbusting sets, 2x/day, every day.
Other than that whole ‘swim easy’ thing, I don’t seem much difference in what TI preaches and regular swimming, with a possible exception of his emphasis on gliding, which is a good thing for raw beginners who invariably have overshortened strokes (but a bad thing for any nonbeginner who needs to minimize gliding while still maintaining a long stroke.)
Well said
jaretj
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The point where I think it really oversells itself is when it talks about how you never need to swim hard to get fast.
Can you point out where it says this? I’ve heard this criticism of TI before and did not come across it in the book I read, nor the video I watched. I’ve seen it propagated on the internet but I’ve yet to come across a TI source that claims this.
I took a workshop at TI hq. Talked to my instructor, talked to two of the McLaughlin daughters who are TI instructors. The idea that they’d say “One never needs to swim hard to get fast” is laughable. Or that “swim easy” will get one to FOP is bullshit.
I’d like to see some evidence that TI says those things or else this persistent bit of mudslinging should be killed.
I
That’s probably true for the dirt-slow swimmer (ex-me) until you get to about 1:50/100yds - anybody slower than that probably shouldn’t be swimming hard because they’re almost definitely swimming wrong in a major way. But once you’re below that 1:50/100yd pace, you’ve got to have swim fitness, and if you never swim hard, you’re never going to get much faster than that.
There’s a reason why all competitive swimmers bust their tails in the pool. If it was just all swimming pretty, that’s what they would be doing. But no, instead they’re out doing gutbusting sets, 2x/day, every day.
Other than that whole ‘swim easy’ thing, I don’t seem much difference in what TI preaches and regular swimming, with a possible exception of his emphasis on gliding, which is a good thing for raw beginners who invariably have overshortened strokes (but a bad thing for any nonbeginner who needs to minimize gliding while still maintaining a long stroke.)
I don’t disagree with you at all. Thing is, when I started doing triathlon, I just jumped in the pool and figured it out… as do quite a few people in triathlon. Not everyone comes from a background of swimming, or even has any experience doing lap/freestyle swimming. The TI stuff puts you in the ballpark and gives a solid foundation. And yeah, you certainly hit a point where you aren’t going to get any faster without some really punishing sessions in the water… but for me, the TI stuff by itself got me far enough. I don’t feel the need to kill myself in the pool to cut an additional 2min off my Olympic swim.
The point where I think it really oversells itself is when it talks about how you never need to swim hard to get fast.
Can you point out where it says this? I’ve heard this criticism of TI before and did not come across it in the book I read, nor the video I watched. I’ve seen it propagated on the internet but I’ve yet to come across a TI source that claims this.
I took a workshop at TI hq. Talked to my instructor, talked to two of the McLaughlin daughters who are TI instructors. The idea that they’d say “One never needs to swim hard to get fast” is laughable. Or that “swim easy” will get one to FOP is bullshit.
I’d like to see some evidence that TI says those things or else this persistent bit of mudslinging should be killed.
I haven’t seen the most recent edition of TI; they may have changed this, but the edition I read was just 3 years ago so not that old.
In that edition, it clearly says to NOT do hard sets. It clearly, explicitly says that by focusing on form, you will naturally build the strength and speed needed to swim fast. Not once does it mention intervals or overdistance sets, but repeatedly brings up the ‘swim smooth and easy’ concept. At least in the older edition, it was very obvious - and probably a good thing for me, as I bought into the kool-aid, and dived into the pool as a raw beginner most enthusiastically expecting some big gains on easy swimming.Had I known how hard it would be to get faster, I never would have started triathlon in the first place! This is not mudslinging in the least - that’s exactly the thing I remember as most unique about TI - not the techique drills, not the smoothness, which are all exactly what every good swim coach recommends. It was that swim easy focusing on form but get fast concept. Not overstating this in the slightest at least with the edition I read.
There were two concepts in my edition of the book that struck me as flawed (I’m a lousy swimmer so don’t trust me,go see for yourself) but I agreed completely with everything else in the book and it’s still my #1 referred to book when I talk to total newbs asking me how to get into tri.
The whole ‘swim easy’ thing - as discussed above. Didn’t work for me at all - actually for me, didn’t even work at 2:05/100yd pace - I had to swim significantly harder (but not gutbusters) to start improving from even that pace. And yes, I took a few swim lessons which verified that I wasn’t horrendously ugly in the water. Just didn’t have the arm endurance - my max turnover rate then was nearly half as slow as it is now and I’m only at like 1:32/100yds for T-pace.
My edition of TI really emphasized swimming on your side, and had an entire popout box explaining that for heavier lean males like me, you had to find your ‘sweet spot’, which it clearly said could be nearly completely on your back (!!). Yes, that’s exactly what it said, and that’s exactly what I followed - so my breathing rotatin ended up with most of my face completely out of the water, to the point that people in the pool were asking my what stroke I was using since it didn’t look like a freestyle stroke anymore. After nearly 6 months of swimming like this, took me 6 weeks of dedicated drillwork after a coach told me to cut it out, to eliminate that over-rotation, which hugely increased my speed - like a 20sec/100 legit gain with no fitness increase. That corkscrew effect really killed me. I don’t know if the current book still talks about that ‘sweet spot’ being nearly on your back, but that was some of the worst advice I’ve ever gotten in swimming, anywhere.
My last comment in Terry’s defense -
TI is NOT written for the competitive swimmer or triathlete. It is definitely targeted at recreational adult onset swimmers, most of whom will never ever race in their entire lives.
If you consider that as the level of competition of swimming, he is absolutely right - you can definitely just ‘swim easy’ and be amongst the fastest YMCA or recreational swimmers at your local pool. A 1:50/100 is on the fast side of the fast lane in the 4 YMCAs in my area unless a competitive swimmer ringer shows up. The average speed for the fast lane at lunch is about 1:55-2:00/100yds at least around here for all 4 YMCAs I go to (which is quite frustrating.)