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 Eliminating
and Creating:
How to
Move from Basic
to
Emerging
Skills
By
Terry Laughlin
Eliminating
Skills involve improved body position to reduce
water resistance. Creating skills involve the
use of arms and legs to increase propulsion.
Eliminating skills have the effect of reducing
heart rate and work output. Creating skills – while
they improve propulsion when executed well – tend
to increase heart rate and energy expenditure.
In a recent issue of Triathlete magazine, a triathlon
coach named Marc Evans wrote an article that
created a bit of a stir among readers familiar
with Total Immersion, who thought the article
implied criticism of our method. Dozens of them
wrote to me asking me for comment. So I read
the article and here’s what I found. Marc
included much sound advice, which any swimmer
or triathlete would do well to follow, including:
- The
best way to swim effortlessly is to work
on technique.
- Balance
and symmetry are fundamental and should
be maintained throughout the stroke.
- Good
technique practice should improve a swimmer’s
kinesthetic awareness.
- The
most propulsive stroke is produced by an
early catch
and early exit.
- There
should be continuous movement – i.e.
no pauses – throughout the
stroke.
At
other points, Marc makes comments that
seem inconsistent
with the
above or for which there’s
ample support for other points
of view – and
it was these points that many
readers interpreted as at odds
with the
Total Immersion approach.
These include:
- Balance
and drills are not the solution for improved
swimming.
- Drills
do not teach competencies.
- Balance
drills put the swimmer in a faulty body
position.
- Hand
and arm mechanics are far more important
than balance.
I’ve used myself as
Guinea Pig #1 for anything we teach, so
my three-decade evolution as a swimmer
may be instructive.
As a college swimmer 35 years ago, I raced
the mile (1650 yards) twice a season,
finishing in 18
to 19 minutes, having taken about 1600
high-rate arm-churning strokes. Afterward
I’d be so
exhausted it would
take 30 minutes
to recover and
my lats and triceps
would be so sore
that, for several
hours, it would
be painful
to lift my arms
above my head.
Today, in my
mid-50s, I swim
the mile
in 20 to 21 minutes,
taking
about 600
fewer strokes
and
feel fully recovered
within a few
minutes. I no
longer
suffer
post-race
muscle
soreness, rather
a pleasant sense
of having used
my
whole
body vigorously
but
harmoniously
and well. I used
to dread these
races as a painful
ordeal;
now I look
forward to
them. I expect
that anyone
who must cycle
and run for one
or
more hours after
such a swim will
value
that feeling
even
more.
What’s the primary difference between my
swimming then and now? First my body position – balanced,
long and sleek – creates far less resistance.
Second my stroke is far more effective. I couldn’t
have achieved the latter without first mastering
the former. Let’s examine the role of balance
and drills in that kind of transformation. To
do so it helps to examine the difference between
two pairs of complementary skills – Eliminating
and Creating skills as well as Basic and Emerging
skills.
Eliminating vs.
Creating
Eliminating Skills
involve improved
body position
to reduce water
resistance. Creating
skills involve
the use of arms
and
legs to increase
propulsion.
Eliminating skills
have the effect
of reducing heart
rate and work
output. Creating
skills – while
they improve propulsion when executed well – tend
to increase heart rate and energy expenditure.
Marc’s article mentions the importance
of balance and symmetry in passing, but says, “hand
and arm mechanics are far more important” and
10 of his “14 points to remember” focus
on Creating. So what are the relative contributions
of Eliminating and Creating skills? Researchers
estimate that at 50 percent of maximum speed,
highly skilled swimmers employ about 40% Eliminating
skills and 60% Creating skills. At 75 percent
of max speed, that proportion shifts to 60% Eliminating
and 40% Creating. And at 90 percent or above,
it’s 80% Eliminating and just 20% Creating.
Eliminating becomes steadily more important because
drag increases dramatically with gains in speed.
While Marc
writes that
balance
is not the
solution
for improved
swimming,
the fact
is that
humans are
land-based
animals
by
design – like
fish out
of water
when we take
up swimming.
Physical
laws that
work in our
favor on
land become
disastrous
in water – gravity
pulls your
legs down
while the
air in your
lungs pushes
your chest
towards the
surface.
This hugely
increases
drag – and
makes it
impossible
to use your
hands and
arms effectively
for propulsion;
in unbalanced
swimmers
the arms
and legs
are almost
entirely – albeit
ineffectively – preoccupied
with countering
gravity.
So balance
is utterly
fundamental
to every
other aspect
of effective
swimming – just
as is true
in all land-based
movement.
How did I—and thousands of other swimmers – learn
balance? Not by swimming, in which we tended
to stubbornly reinforce inbred habits. My teaching
experiences have suggested that fewer than 5
percent of all humans have an instinctive sense
of aquatic balance; the rest of us need to learn
it…which brings us to consider the difference
between Basic and Emerging skills.
Basic vs. Emerging
Skills
Basic skills
have several
characteristics.
By
definition,
they’re fundamental to swimming
well. They also tend to involve gross-motor skills,
and thus can be mastered with relative ease.
And because they rely on gross-motor movement,
it’s also relatively easier for the student
to distinguish between correct and incorrect
execution of Basic skills, but they first have
to understand the sensation of: correct head
position, good balance, proper angle and depth
of the extended arm, right degree of body rotation – all
of which are exacting, not forgiving in nature.
Getting an
accurate
feel for
correct
positions
comes from
what I call “Examined Drill
Practice.” In this sort of practice, one
usually does repeated pool lengths in a fairly
static position – for instance balanced
on one side, nose pointed down and bottom arm
extended. In the course of perhaps five to 30
minutes, the student does little else but explore
various angles or positions to learn which feels
best. Then it usually take several hours of further
practice to “lock in” the new awareness
and begin imprinting it as habit, so it doesn’t
degrade when you shift your attention to something
else. When I first worked on changing my head
position, after 20+ years of looking forward,
it took me fully six months of steady focus to
feel that a neutral position had grown into a
habit. Twelve years later, I still check it from
time to time and find room for improvement.
Emerging
skills are
those that
tend to
evolve over
years – because they involve fine-motor
coordination. With these you never feel that
it’s “finished;” rather that
you can always improve your control or consistency,
by small degrees over years, and indeed decades.
An example from my own swimming: I’ve improved
the symmetry of my stroke through bilateral breathing,
as Marc recommends. But one skill remained elusive
for years – because I’d been a left
side breather for 20 years before I began breathing
to both sides, my right hand was never quite
as good as my left at achieving a firm “grip.”
It took me
several years
of concentrated
practice
to (a) cultivate
a sense of
how
it felt
to
have a good “grip” with that hand, (b)
be able to do it consistently at slow speeds
and (c) continue to maintain that good grip at
faster or racing speeds. Five years into the
process it’s dramatically better than before,
but still feels like a work in progress.
The direct
movement
of either
hand
through entry,
extension
and into
backward
pressure
is also
an emerging
skill. I
spent 10
years – approximately
1990 through 2000 – focusing almost exclusively
on eliminating drag and improved my efficiency
continuously throughout that period. Since 2001,
my attention has been far more on Creating skills – the
timing between both arms and the fine movements
of each stroke; that attention has continued
to produce gains in efficiency that have allowed
me to continue performing at the same level in
open water in my 50s as I did at age 40.
My process
for learning
to
get a firm early
grip – just
one small part
of the stroke – has
involved all
these steps:
- Learning
to
angle
my forearm and tip
my hand
down at just the
right angle
to (a)
assist my
balance
and (b) trap water
behind
my hand/forearm. I did this
with hours
of static
practice of what we
call the “Skating” drill – balanced
on my
side, looking down, with my bottom arm
extended. I
still check or tune up this habit
with
balance drills today.
- Learning
to maintain
firm pressure through
the
first few degrees
of “catch” while
creating
the energy to move forward by driving
the opposite hand – and hip – down
in
UnderSwitch and ZipperSwitch drills.
Quite a few mindful
hours invested there as well and
I still
do tuneups.
- Putting
it
all together in slow
speed
whole-stroke swimming
in
which
my sole
goal
(i.e. no lap counting,
or
clock-chasing) was to feel
the
coordination
described
above
working well. I’d estimate
easily
a hundred hours in making that fine
movement consistent
and I work on this in warmup at literally
every
practice.
- Patiently
experimenting with
doing the
same at
slightly higher
speeds (and
stroke counts)
often feeling
the control
I had at
slower speeds
disintegrate, then
trying again…and
again…and
again until
I felt
the same
control and
consistency at
60%, then 70%,
then 80%
of race
speed….or
at 13,
14 and
15 strokes
per length.
- Last
summer,
for the
first time,
I felt
impeccable grip
and control
at racing
speeds in
every race.
With one
brief exception:
In the
first 200
strokes of
the New
York City
Ocean Mile
in August,
when I
swam more
aggressively than
usual to
stay with
a faster
pack, I
felt myself “rushing” the
catch and “spinning my wheels.” But
that patient, mindful practice paid
off
in being able to correct it and end up
having my best
race of the summer, finishing in 15th
place
in a field of 250
The
lessons I
draw from
my own
practice as
well as
teaching are
the following:
- Eliminating
skills are the most critical for
any swimmer, but especially for developing
swimmers (and thus for 90% of triathletes)
because Eliminating
skills by and large fall into the category of Basic skills.
- Eliminating
skills should be considered a higher
priority for at least the first few years of your development as a swimmer.
Perhaps not for
10 years as I did, but if they account
for 60% to 80% of your performance at
racing speeds,
you should at least devote that much of
your attention to them.
- Balance
and drills will be essential in developing
your Eliminating skills.
- Creating
skills are primarily Emerging skills.
Consequently you will generally have more success in developing them after
your Eliminating skills
have become consistent.
- Drills
will still play a part in developing Creating
skills, but whole-stroke practice takes
on increased importance and will be
instrumental to preparation
for racing.
You can reach Terry at terry@totalimmersion.net.
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