Total immersion Swimming techniques
nevertoolate
Posts: 19
in General Chat
Thought i would share my experience of practicing these technique drills.
Prior to this i could swim 25m in 24 strokes and approx 27secs. (including push off and taking it very easy)
I am part way through the drills and can now do 25m in 17/18 strokes (16 if i get it just right) and about the same time. Again, taking it very easy.
i would recommend this book to anyone. not bought the DVD as free clips of most of the drills are on the Total immersion website.
Watched a clip of Alexander Popov practicing some of the drills. if its good enough for him its good enough for me.
Prior to this i could swim 25m in 24 strokes and approx 27secs. (including push off and taking it very easy)
I am part way through the drills and can now do 25m in 17/18 strokes (16 if i get it just right) and about the same time. Again, taking it very easy.
i would recommend this book to anyone. not bought the DVD as free clips of most of the drills are on the Total immersion website.
Watched a clip of Alexander Popov practicing some of the drills. if its good enough for him its good enough for me.
0
Comments
Its a fantastic style thats taylor made for wetsuit bouyant conditions IMHO.
Opened my eyes to learning to swim, Bigtime.
The 'Triathlon swimming made easy is a great book, is this the one you have?
Cheers
I think all the drills are the same though.
Cheers.
If it is helping then great - by the way was that 17 strokes counting both arms or just the one arm.
Ian
It is counting both hands i.e. each hand entry.
http://www.totalimmersion.co.uk/ti-workshop-day.html
I have started to concentrate on the roll and pulling as I roll. This allows much more forward motion while my recover elbow is high in the air before entering the water at full stretch. I keep my head low in the water as the do in TI but my arms are totally different.
I still do not see the nenefit of entering as soon as possible but then everyone to their own.
Ian
I keep in my mind "extend"----"pause"------"pull". Seems to be working. Its hard to say really as I am always training on my own. Might look like a complete plonker to an experienced swimmer.
Going to get some coaching in new year after I join Manchester tri club.
will be trying lesson 1 tonight
let me know how you get on. My swimming is also not brilliant and I need to gt to grips with some proper trainng rather than just ploughing up and down the pool each time. I would be really interested to know how you progress.
Cheers, Matt
be patient with the drills and don't move on until you have got to grips with the drill being practiced. it has taken me between 12 - 15 sessions to work through all the drills.
also checked how many strokes i was doing per 25m length and averaged 30!! so think i need to have a one to one lesson or two before i really get stuck into the lessons
If you can learn balance first then it makes the more advanced stuff easier by far.
Good luck with it, those 30 strokes could be down to 20 within 3 to 4 weeks.
It does take a while to get used to but it's well worth it. You do seem to used a lot less effort using this method.
going twice a week has seen massive improvements with now head in water properly and hit stroke count of 50 per 50m last week and yesterday managed 50m in 44 strokes
this goes to show that you just need to stick at it and improvements will come
Even though I think my freestyle tecnique is poor, as I couldnt make a County final on it, I could always do 25m in 16 strokes and normally out of the water in top 5 - 10% on the swim leg (12th in 35-39 men at London)
But........I decided I needed to re-look at my swimming and through TI have got it down to 12 - 13 strokes for 25m, but I find it absolutely knackering, compared to how I am used to. Havent swum any real distance in anger yet using TI, but not convinced I will not be able to hold the technique for 800, never mind 1500, having swum so long with the same style.
How TI breaks it down is fascinatiing and this video really shows it off well, but I wonder if its just too late for me!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJpFVvho0o4
oh I'm so glad it isn't just me!! I have a pretty poor stroke count - 15 for a 20m pool I blame this on my rubbish technique, the fact that I haven't been swimming front crawl all that long and the fact that I'm short - my coach says the latter is an excuse but I'm convinced it makes a difference!
Anyway, if I plod up and down in my usual comfortable manner I can happliy do 2km in around 45 mins and at the end of it I feel fine. BUT when we do stroke count drills - 8 lengths and I'm gasping for air and trashed!!
and so stroke count drills help me because.....
(I know they do really but sometimes it's hard to see it)
When I learnt the TI technique i changed from a flutter kick to 2 beat, its not a very good 2 beat to be honest, and doesn't instigate the amount of body rotation it should.
So the first thing I have noticed is that I now have a more pronounced pull, i think it was to compensate for my loss of speed thanks to the reduced kick. I now have a pretty good and powerful pull, but its a bit too powerful, i find i try and pull back far too much to maintain speed, i think this is the first thing that knackers me out.
next thing, when i swim normally I have a really good rhythm, i think this is the most important thing in swimming, my body never stops rotating, as a result i never loose much momentum between pulls. However with the TI swimming, taking advantage of the glide phase I find i rotate- pause-rotate. I find this causes a more stunted rhythm, so i am trying to accelerate each time I pull, which goes back to the knackered arms from the first point!
I like the idea of the TI technique, i do. I think the way it is taught helps people get a real appreciation of the principles of swimming, i.e. rotation. And can teach people to swim, where other methods have failed. But, i dont think its anything revolutionary, yes it would have been about 30-40years ago prior to Spitz, as the whole body rotation concept was pretty new back then. I think a quote about spitz went something like, "he could go alot faster if he didnt do all that body rotation" when we know now its the rotation that made him go fast.
But for me, no its not for me.
Like Cranmere, I'm not tall and quite heavily built, and I think it maybe has something to offer me too. It very definitely brings my stroke rate down and length up, but I find that keeping my momentum going is a bit tough, and it requires co-ordination of my movements to sglide along.
It's no harder, I'm sure, than conventional freestyle, but because I'm pretty dense (I sink even with my lungs full!), losing momentum is a killer, so the TI concept of reducing drag to waste less effort, rings true for me. Will see how I get on!
I have read this thread with real interest after taking up Ti about 3 months ago.
I am new to swimming and struggle through a 750m OW swim in 17 mins. After taking up Ti (from the book) my 750m swim time is now 19mins but I am in much better shape when I get out of the water and easily make up the lost time on being fresher on the bike. I am attempting to get to sub 15mins over the winter and am really struggling to get this right.
I suspect the body rolling has ruined my speed. A friend has been watching me swim and he says that I am rolling my whole upper body and am waggling left and right up the pool and almost stopping dead when I am not in the pull phase of my stroke. We originally thought it was my legs causing this but several different experiments with Pull Bouys leads us to believe that it is the upper body causing this waggle thorugh the exaggerated body roll.
I have gone back to basics and do several lengths of skating/hand led sweet spot/sweet spot drills etc. about 2-3 times per week but this does not appear to be helping.
Is this a common problem? I was trying to video my stroke to post here but I do not want to be thrown out of the public pool for filming which is not allowed apparently.
I think i had a similar problem when learning TI swimming.
Something that is not really explained in the book, at all. and given a passing reference on the DVD (which I have ripped to PC if anyone wants me to send them a copy!) is how the kick is involved in body rotation. I think this is a huge oversight of the TI because it really is a fundamental principle.
For a six-beat kick for instance it is 2x flutter 1 rotational kick on each side,(2 beat is just the rotational kicks) it is the kick which should initiate body roll. Now from what you've said your problem appears to me as if you are using your upper body a bit too much to initiate your roll hence the waggling in the pool.
Now i think the best way to rectify this is, work on the kick, in particular the use of the kick for rotation, start with vertical kicking. Essentially allowing your kick to rotate your body is by releasing your hips. when you kick with your right, you turn to the right. It is explained well the article below.
The next aspect is core strength, this is of huge importance in swimming, as you need to have a strong core so that the connection between your upper body and lower is rigid, which means when your legs initiate the kick the upper body rolls with it. So you need to be doing core work, i recommend an exercise ball for this.
Does all that make sense? heres the article - http://h2oustonswims.org/articles_whole.html
Thanks for the advice. I reckon you are right in terms of the root cause of the problem. I now also spend a long time on Ti kicking drills to try and strengthen the kick (which was so poor when I first started swimming that I would go backwards when I did them).
Now the major issue I have with this is I really have no idea how to do a 2 beat or 6 beat kick. I try to focus on a big(gish) kick for the breath stroke (bilateral) but it all goes a bit pear shaped. In hindsight I really have no idea what a 2 beat or 6 beat kick is so knowing how to do it is even more remote!
I shall read this article and see what I can glean from it.
On the core strength - I reckon I am pretty in good shape there. I use a swiss ball for my office chair for parts of the day and do core strength excercises each time I go to the gym some with the ball and other times with stability cushions.
Could you help in terms of explaining the 2 beat and 6 beat kicks?
cheers
The 6-beat kick has the same 2 rotational kicks, but has 2 extra kicks on each side, so its rotational (R) flutter (F) - RFFRFF,
r- right L - left
R(r) - F (L) - F (r) - R (L) - F (r) - F (L).
So in the first rotational kick above that turns you to the right, with left arm extended, then a left kick, then right kick, then a left rotational kick that sends you back the other way.
Does that make sense?
When would you opt for a 6 beat flutter vs. a 2 beat kick?
There are so many things to think about for each length I swim that I get so lost half way down the pool, I forget to breath and have to stop! I reckon I am trying to think of at least the following: Stroke length, counting the stroke per length, bilateral breathing every 3 strokes, body roll, reaching forward, high elbow on the recovery, high elbow on the catch, the number of lengths I am actually on, 2 beat or 6 beat kick timing. No wonder I can't swim for toffee as they say.
Running and Biking are a lot easier!
my personal advice is to get body rotation and breathing rhythm sorted, watch any video of thorpe on youtube and you will see his rhythm is flawless.
when you have this down you can start thinking about the quality of your pull and high elbow etc. for me these aspects are definitely 2nd behind the rhythm and breathing.
I think the kick fits in between these things as it is really quite crucial to develop a decent rotational kick to help with the rhythm.
In regards to 2-beat/6-beat in some aspects it can come down to personal preference. Personally i think the 2-beat is really the way to go, as it sets you up better for swimming in a wetsuit. Also the extra energy used in the extra kicks is not really worth the extra speed you gain, in my opinion!
but I really can't tell if it slowed me down or made me faster. I know my stroke count went down, but it feels like I have to put more strenght in it, so I guess there's no real gain in economy!??
Anyway,will give it another try this winter. It certainly makes time go by faster in the pool then just doing the laps back and forth.[&o] (HOORAY for OPEN WATER SEASON [image]http://forum.220magazine.com/micons/m6.gif[/image]).