Home Chat General Chat

Total Immersion

Has anybody got the Total Immersion book, Ive ordered it just wondering how usful it is!
«1

Comments

  • madnursemadnurse Posts: 782
    hi Vega ! - Have been told many good things about T.I. swimming am also waiting on a copy - it may just be the minor miracle i need to become dolphin like lol .... let me know how you get on with it



    madnurse (phil)
  • duphduph Posts: 13
    I bought the book but found it hard to do the exercise plan on my own. As a result I have signed up for one of their lasses -very expesive but all I have heard has been good.

    Check out www.totalimmersion.net or the british site at http://www.totalimmersion.co.uk/

    The british courses run 300 pounds, $500 in the USA.

    My advice just do the course!
  • loonytoonloonytoon Posts: 673
    I got the book and found the same as Duph that it is damn hard on your own .. also I couldnt get any speed when just using my legs (someone here recommended using training fins)



    I have shelved it for now but I am using some of the things I learnt from it which has improved my swimming (Pressing My Bouy and swimming tall)



    Let us know how good the course is?

  • bigmatbigmat Posts: 20
    hi guys,



    have got the book and the dvd, and although quite hard to start with, if you stick with it, it'll all come good.



    fins are a must if you're a weak kicker like me.



    matt
  • madnursemadnurse Posts: 782
    finally have my copy of T.I. seems to be the holy grail offering me slippery and effortless swimming instead of thrashing myself to death like a psycotic egg whisk .... reads good so far .... lets see how it begins to shape up in practice .... but to be fair I have already come on leaps and bounds compared to how i was with my frontcrawl ....



    madnurse (phil)....... soon to be known as the slippery eel [;)][;)][;)][;)]
  • I think T.I. is excellent. I haven't had too much trouble with the drills so far. The weightless hand thing has helped a lot, stretching and gliding now means that I can freestyle the length of my small gym pool in twelve strokes, whereas before i'd do around twenty. And what feels really good is watching other swimmers who, before, I would have thought, they look good, are doing between eighteen to twenty five strokes for the same pool. Stroke effeciency is a bit energy saver - perfect for triathlon!
  • madnursemadnurse Posts: 782
    am off the pool later to see how it works if it is that good I may bin my swimming teacher who is insitent on the fast 'S' stroke approach .... and yeh i could do with reducing my stroke count down .. was about 25 - 30 per length last time ... eeeek but only 19 - 20 on breast stroke ...



    madnurse (phil) ... i will be the fish !!!!!!!!
  • loonytoonloonytoon Posts: 673
    Thats one the big things I got from TI was lowering the strokes....Although I struggled with the drills I try and put the lessons into practice



    Made a big difference I found with breathing by doing less strokes means that it easier to breath when you want and get less out of breath as a result.



    I can't count far enough to count for the 50m pool I use (why did they build it in coventry) but I use a lot less (and less kicking) than my old "flail and flap" approach

  • madnursemadnurse Posts: 782
    [color=#ff0000]blimey it works !![/color]

    [color=#ff0000][/color]

    [color=#000000][size=2]well it made a huge difference once i stopped thinking about it and just did it.......even got a bit of a bow wave thing going on for a while (that happened once and then only until i hit the end .. silly fecker LOL) [/color][/size]

    [color=#ff0000][/color]

    [color=#ff0000]madnurse (Phil)[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][/color]
  • loonytoonloonytoon Posts: 673
    Nice one [:D]



    I have never managed the bow wave just get a mounth full of water each time I try
  • madnursemadnurse Posts: 782
    Hi Loonytoon !!!!



    the biggest thing i found was forcing your head down to aid with the bouyancy lag of the legs. The breathing thing is a pain until you find a rythym that works for you. most breathe every 3 strokes I coundt (yet) grasp that happily) so i breathe either every 2nd or 4th stroke. trick is to relax as much as possible not to rush each stroke but to almsot hyper extend your reach forward from the shoulder as you roll your body. I found I was also over compensating with my legs paddling like a mad thing instead of doing the man from atlantis thing slow fliper like movement letting the feet flop. the oh so weird thing is when i get it right i move like a train with little effort but when i go back to mad thing swimming (more effort ) I go slow ... stick with it and remember its practise not training ..



    madnurse (phil) [:D]
  • loonytoonloonytoon Posts: 673
    Cheers Nurse



    I had noticed that I swim better when following a "slower" swimmer in the pool I was more relaxed and able to think about what I was doing more. Haven't managed to get the same speed/calmness when not "held up"







    Loonytoon (ian)

  • pugwashpugwash Posts: 8
    Hi folks



    I'm glad you are all doing well with the TI way.

    I have been swimming with a very hit and miss attitude for the last few years. I am please to say this year it has all changed. I have the TI book and DVD (I would say the book on it's own is just too hard to follow) and will never be swimming the same again. My times have not really changed but the effort required to swim the same distance has massively decreased. Before TI I would be looking at about 18 strokes for a 25M pool I now average 12-13 and can if pushed do 10. I would say it's totally worth spending the time to slow down so you can speed up!



    Paul

  • loonytoonloonytoon Posts: 673
    Madnurse...



    when swimming today I really consentrated on keeping my head down and it really worked. I normally try and "press the bouy" but today I made a real effort on this one point and as my "what training ..." post says I really found swimming today "a joy"



    Pugwash



    I may well invest the DVD as I find the book really hard to follow and I am basically (bad I know) applying the principles of TI (swim tall, press the bouy etc) as much as I can without doing the drills it is working so I can't wait to get it all sorted
  • madnursemadnurse Posts: 782
    HI Guys !!



    I was lucky enough to get a swim session this weekend with a T.I swim coach.



    He advised me to pay close attention to bouyancy inthe water .... it seems you only need enough pushing of the buoy effect (ie forcing head under as you swim) to have forehead under rather than head and shoulder right under.



    He got me to stop breathing. As mad as it sounds !!! What he said was leave your head face down and swim for 6, maybe 8... strokes with focus on technique (long body, leaving arm forward as long as possible) without breathing then simply stop and either stand or treadwater. then repeat.



    Following this he then had me swim, breathing every 4th stroke emphasis on flutter kicks and long slow arm strokes.



    Finally from this he had me roll my hips as the start point for each arm stroke, so as the stroke comes from the hip not the shoulder, and the body thereby rolls side to side as you swim aiding forward momentum. Remembering to flutter kick throughout the entire roll.



    My biggest flaw he said was that would let the leading arm drop far too quickly loosing the streamlining of the body (so now not as long) .. he got me past this by only allowing to breathe when my leading arm was stretched out fully and my lower ear was in contact with the leading arm. took a bit of co-ordination and practise. but it makes a difference



    for those of you that have have sussed TI ... i applaud you for those like myself who have yet to get there .. keep practising & if possible get access to the couse or at least the dvd .. the book does cover all we need but it is so open to interpretation
  • DOtriHarderDOtriHarder Posts: 307
    Mad - My coach, not TI aslo told me about the lead with the hips in the roll and it certainly cured some of my problems. I used to have my forehead just in the water but my legs wouldn't stay up when doing arm only drills. Now i tend to look down more and keep my head slightly lower but it keeps my legs up.

    DAvid
  • duphduph Posts: 13
    Just done a two dy TI workshop this weekend

    Superb, great, well woth the expense!

    I had a 30% reduction in strokes.

    My technique improved phenomenally

    I would never have managed all of this with just the book.

    The workshops are expensive but worth it in my book



    A word of caution it takes practice, practice, practice after the workshop too!
  • madnursemadnurse Posts: 782
    swimming backwards !!!!!



    grrrr ... tried evrything the other day with my swimming but all i seemed to do was get worse bad technique poor breathing blah blah blah upshot was i ended up sat in the sauna extremely frustated with myself. its like i am getting worse and the more i try the worse it gets argh .... have decided to take a few days off from training completely (maybe overdue) and see if that helps



    not what i needed



    madnurse
  • DOtriHarderDOtriHarder Posts: 307
    Nurse - heal thyself!! relax, take a break and then attack it again you'll be fine. Seriously though, sometimes it feels like this but it just means that we have learnt and that we are trying harder. Sometimes it maybe that when you don't feel it's working you then tense up which puts undue tension on the wrong parts. relax your body and then concentrate on something unrelated like counting or singing (not aloud). this will allow the training to show through and your body will take over naturally. When running if you always run at the same pace your body gets used to it and you find it difficult to break out, doing interval sessions teaches your body to run at a different speed (faster) and aids your recovery time as well. This is the same, train the body with lessons and instructions and chastisement! (masochist) then relax and let it get on with the job.

    The great thing about Triathlon is that if you get bored doing one discipline you can change priorities and concentrate on a different one for a week or two.

    DAvid
  • loonytoonloonytoon Posts: 673
    madnurse wrote:


    blimey it works !!





    Nurse me ole' china remember the above?



    Pretty sound advice from DOtriHarder there me thinks....The singing if it was aloud would make for interesting breathing



    "burble burble burble...."huge breath"...burble burble burble" like beverly craven





  • madnursemadnurse Posts: 782
    i never said that ....... seriosuly tho i was overdue some time out so a few days might kick things back on track .. id i had a phobia about my swim compared to bike and run .. it got worse the other day .. but is early days yet .....much to acieve and time to do it in i suppose. everyone has to have a bad event ... it aint as bad as it used to be so can only get better



    grrrrr



    madnurse
  • guv001guv001 Posts: 227
    I'm having some joy mixing the book with my swimming lessons as my teacher has heard of TI and uses most of it anyway. Still like to drink Chlorinated water though it just tastes better!!!!
  • madnursemadnurse Posts: 782
    did some reflection on how my swimming seems to going backwards - so spent an hour or so right back at square one going over basics.

    [ul][*]re-acheiving a point of balance in the water ( i lost a sense of this having trained so much recently in my wetsuit)

    [*]made good use of my fins to assist with basic arm and hip movements thru the stroke

    [*]also revisted my breathing - i found i had revertde to breathing every other stroke which althogh gave me slightly enhaced speed actually had caused me to become 'less relaxed' 'more speed focused' & inclined to loose my fishlike movement to more like that of a wheelbarrow. I also found my relaxed flutter kick once more[/ul]

    stepping back a few paces has enabled me to take better stock of my swimming reminding me that although I had learnt some of teh steps of TI, I perhaps had then moved on too quickly to the next level without spending further time embedding the initial stages to instinctive memory.



    I may be a shade mad (albeit by profession) but I alas only human - luckily I remember this - most of the time



    madnurse (phil)

  • rollorollo Posts: 25
    I've just got the TI DVD and spent a couple of sessions in the pool trying to put what I've learnt into practice. I must admit its quite difficult trying to do this by myself, but its kind of working. I feel smoother cutting through the water. I'm now looking for a coach or considering signing up for a one day TI workshop.
  • TIUK_IanTIUK_Ian Posts: 6
    Okay, just found this forum thanks to one of my clients. First question is how do you 'cut and paste' in here? Seems like you can do just about anything else[sm=rolleyes.gif] So apologising now cus there's gonna be two further posts since I can't figure that out.





  • TIUK_IanTIUK_Ian Posts: 6
    He advised me to pay close attention to bouyancy in the water .... it seems you only need enough pushing of the buoy effect (ie forcing head under as you swim) to have forehead under rather than head and shoulder right under.



    He got me to stop breathing.
    Hi Phil,

    Not sure who your 'TI Coach' would have been. Couple of things here:

    1. Confused about your head position. When you're face down just let it hang there in neutral, never force it or place it. So it's looking straight down and 'hidden', but not buried.

    2. Never breath hold, it causes stress because of CO2 build up. I'm guessing this was a temporary 'fix' to give you the chance to complete multiple switches, but learn aquatic breathing.

    Cheers

    Ian

  • TIUK_IanTIUK_Ian Posts: 6
    Just done a two dy TI workshop this weekend

    Superb, great, well woth the expense!

    I had a 30% reduction in strokes.

    My technique improved phenomenally

    I would never have managed all of this with just the book.

    The workshops are expensive but worth it in my book



    A word of caution it takes practice, practice, practice after the workshop too!



    Hi Duph,

    Which workshop were you at? Thanks for the endorsement. You are dead right when you say "practice, practice, practice". That needs to be your mindset every time you go to the pool. Go to practice never to train. And it can take many months to retool your stroke. There's no magic bullet (if there was we could literally name our price).

    Cheers

    Ian

  • madnursemadnurse Posts: 782
    HI Ian - my swimming is as you seem to have guessed is causing perodic hitches in my training. For years I leant on my breast stroke as my primary stroke until about 8 weeks ago i took the bullet and decided to give crawl a go. (am now 37) & other than swimmming am at a good standard of fitness.



    After acquiring the TI book & following the initial stages it really seemed to have a postive impact. I certainly felt it enabled me to feel more like a swimmer rather than breezeblock. My legs still dropped somewhat but my apparent drag was lessened with an improved t position.



    For some reason i cannot settle into breathing on my right side (feels so rushed & unatural). I was for some time only able to swim breathing 1 in 2 strokes but if i relax enough I can manage 1 in 4 sometimes even 1 in 6 now. I found breathing out underwater very steadily helps somewhat.



    I rehearsed the base drills as per the book and seemed to make progress. As mentioned I found out the tri coach is apparently a ti swim coach also. Your right in respect of the breathing drills he got me to do ie swim wihtut breathing to put in place stroke movement and then stand up to breath. With effort/practise I found i could swim more readily with crawl although still found it tasking from a respiratory aspect. Eventually my crawl becam quicker than my breast stroke.



    My first error was to practise thereafter in my wetsuit (i figured i needed to gan confidence swimming in a tri wetsuit) trouble was it gave me too much cutting my times drastically imroving my balance and stroke & perhaps most enabled easier breathing. My problems came ( as am sure you can guess) came after my first swim session without the suit. It was as if i hadnt learnt anything & was back at square one. thrashing the water rather then swimming through it.



    I have perceveired at stepping back before moving on again. A few days ago I lent some fins and suddenly my balance came back I could rotate better through my hips and was breathing evenly without effort again. I would do sets of 100m with and then without the fins. Even the sets without felt better. ( i do have a pair of fins coming)



    Went back again and once more felt like the breezeblock managing only 250m before frustration kicked in.



    phil
  • madnursemadnurse Posts: 782
    swam again today 250m w/up(breast) ... 10 x 100 m (crawl) ... 250m w/down (breast)



    really forced myself to swim as slowly as possible focusing on a different aspect of the stroke on each set. although still feel like I have ran about 10 miles suprisingly i wasnt hyper ventilating. still tending back towards breathing every left arm stroke. was a big boost for me psychologically completing todays sets.
  • 3speed3speed Posts: 16
    mad,

    have you seen the snorkel on the on the swimshop catalogue. It's a forward facing one but you could get the same effect with an ordinary one (cept your arm might knock it occasionally). It would let you practice the stroke without worrying about breathing which is a good start.

Sign In or Register to comment.