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I think Total Immersion is ruining my form....
garyroberts
Posts: 869
in General Chat
.....have been reading total immersion and went to the pool today to run through a few drills. After about 30 mins of drills and being thoughtful of my recent reading i decided to do just a few easy lengths to relax.........
....it felt like my stroke was less natural than ever....
....just wanted to know who has read and followed TI and what your thoughts are about it, and hopefully i would like to hear from you if you have found it a revelation!
....it felt like my stroke was less natural than ever....
....just wanted to know who has read and followed TI and what your thoughts are about it, and hopefully i would like to hear from you if you have found it a revelation!
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However i do think that its concept of utilizing the glide is not for me, I find I swim much better if I am in a good rhythm and if I try and glide too much I loose momentum. I am a runner, so therefore I have big dense legs, therefore I find balance an issue. I find if I try to glide too much my legs sink a bit and then I have to pull extra hard to get going again. If i do it the non TI way I dont have this problem.
......interesting......
However I recently did a weekend swimming course where they film your stroke and give you instand feedback and they use a lot of similar drills. REVELATION!
After a few weeks of swimming things are slowly starting to click and my last pool session I could really feel a big difference starting to happen. Its definitely worth getting a coached session or two, if only to make sure that the drills you are doing are being done correctly, otherwise you'll be hard coding bad practice.
Stick with it I reckon.
I've not studied TI at all, but I get the impression that it encourages a very long glide phase in an effort to extend the stroke. This is fine so long as you concentrate on the other arm, ie make sure it is completing the stroke fully rather than both arms gliding.
I only ever use a long glide stroke if I'm swimming in salt water in a wetsuit... in this case being over-bouyant seems to make it worthwhile to swim as though you are on a surfboard. Otherwise I prefer to keep my hands moving.
@garyroberts: you've spent most of your life swimming badly, probably. Learning to swim properly, whether TI drills or anything else, is going to feel really odd and unnatural. You have years of muscle memory to undo and re-make. It is hard, but worthwhile.
I also have never used TI so I can't comment on them.
David.
With two other sports to concentrate on maybe we should be less obsessive about swim technique.
That said, a beginner can make some massive improvements very quickly with the right coaching and drills. Doesn't take long. 6 weeks, maybe?
I have my eye on this. I'm mindful that swimming class on a Sunday morning is giving me less opportunity to go out on the bike, but I feel for now my stroke needs improving. But hopefully my stroke will eventually improve to the point that further improvement is not worth the extra training time i.e. diminishing returns.
About TI: I did it a month or three and learned some valuable things as pointed out above by others: lenghtening stroke, side swimming, reaching, pushing out till past hips,....
If this is all new, I don't know. I do know that TI combines them all, so that is handy.
TI is more about swimming economical than about swimming full speed, but since most tri's start with reasonable distances, I suppose economy is the way to go (with Two sports still following).
I'd say: stick with it, you can't undo years of repetetive wrong technique(muscle memory) in a few weeks. I remember it was weird at first, but often find myself doing some of the drills still now.
Good luck
PS: previous thread: http://forum.220magazine.com/fb.asp?m=23727&key=total%2Cimmersion
http://forum.220magazine.com/fb.asp?m=13159&key=total%2Cimmersion