One Year TI: Lessons Learned
By Pete Attia

I can still remember the first time I stepped into the poorly-lit Tae Kwon Do gym as a 13-year-old who wanted to learn how to fight. Within weeks, I was “sparring” for my first time against a 30-something 3rd degree black belt. His goal was not to harm me, but to see what I was made of. He hit me at will. In stark contrast, nothing I threw came close. Soon, he had me pinned against the ropes, flat-footed, and he landed a picture-perfect spinning back kick right between my arms under my xiphoid. I dropped to the ground like a sack of rocks, unable to breathe. At that moment I realized, more than anything in the world, I wanted to be able to do that some day. I struggled to my feet and resumed getting my butt kicked.

I showed up the next day, bruised but game, obsessed with that spinning back kick. It was so powerful, yet so easy to disguise in a barrage of other kicks and punches. It harnessed all the force a human body could generate via the torque and snap of the hip. I wanted that as a weapon. Over the next several years, I never wavered in my desire to master it. I practiced it alone, every day, for one hour. I threw it from all angles, both legs, retreating, attacking, jumping, 180 degrees, 360 degrees. I dissected the spinning back kick into a series of steps and focused mastering on each, before ultimately reconstructing it into a sum of less complex parts.

It’s been a year since I attended a TI workshop in Towson MD, led by Rick Wullschleger. On Sunday afternoon, it was a bit frustrating to think that everything I’d been doing until then may have been “wrong.” I had been swimming about 30,000 – 35,000 meters per week, a significant distance for any adult swimmer. But the TI instructors told us that practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. I’d been doing so much wrong. Fortunately, you’re never too old to change. As Terry puts it, we all have human DNA, and therefore capable of unlearning the wrong and learning the right.

Rick put me in touch with a great TI coach named Ann Svenson, who lived near me. We worked together for several weeks, then she introduced me to her good friend and longtime Masters coach John Flanagan, who is simply the most amazing coach I’ve ever trained with. He has a real passion for coaching and – though not a TI coach himself – is a complete believer in the TI philosophy. The combination of daily TI practice and meeting Ann and John, has a dramatic impact on my swimming in a relatively short period of time.

The numbers tell part of the story: I have decreased my “cruising” stroke count from 19 to 15 in the 25 meter pool and 18 to 14 in the 25 yard pool. My times are faster at all distances; my mile improved from 25 minutes to 21+ and my 100-yard time from 1:15 to 1:00. Those drops are surprising and, I’m confident, will continue – but there’s more. My stroke is more efficient. Strangers keep commenting on how “fluid” it looks. A year ago no one ever said that. And I just feel better than I ever had. I’ve developed a real kinesthetic sense for relating effectively to the water at all times. And the best part is I have the rest of my life to improve.

As I reflect on the last year, critical insights come to mind. Many of them have been spoken by others, but nevertheless, for me, the key to continuous improvement (Kaizen Swimming as Terry has written) can be summarized below:

1. Associative, rather than dissociative, swimming

In my pugilist days, I ran 6 to 10 miles a day. I enjoyed it, in part, because I could let my mind wander. In other words, running was a dissociative activity for me. Contrast this with TI Practice. In the water, I’ve disciplined myself to examine every movement, to think about the way the water flows over my body and how the water “feels” as I hold it, or slide through it, always focusing on just one thing, and sequencing among several focal points.

During my TI Workshop, Rick explained that our goal should be to evolve, through the following progression: Unconsciously incompetent – Consciously incompetent – Consciously competent – Unconsciously competent. For my first Year of TI, I’ve oscillated between steps 2 and 3. Regardless of how long you have been swimming, or how many bad habits you have developed, you will overcome them in time if you practice associative swimming. It requires an act of discipline to focus on every movement for an entire practice, but in time, you’ll wonder how you could have ever swum any other way.

2. Drill…a lot. And use fistgloves.

I can’t overemphasize the importance of drilling. Don’t focus on yards or meters; aim instead for quality time – however much you have. After the workshop I spent about two hours a day going through the drills. Over and over. Sometimes other Masters swimmers questioned my judgment. I had to starting cycling again to find a way to get my endorphin fix. Some people I speak to after taking a TI workshop say they drop the drills after a while. I think this is a mistake. After all, if Terry still drills, I think we (i.e. everyone else) should still drill. In addition, I found that using the fistgloves greatly improved my stroke efficiency and sense of balance. In particular, Skating with fistgloves really taught me to “lean on my lungs”, rather than my arms. After swimming with them for half an hour, there is no greater feeling than taking them off and feeling like your hands have instantly doubled in surface area.

3. Protect your shoulders (you only have two)

Last summer, my right shoulder started to nag me. I tried to ignore it, thinking “Hey, I’m doing TI, I can’t possibly be hurting my body, right?” Actually, I was wrong. I was reaching to the opposite end of the pool with each glide (a good thing), but was catching the water too wide and high, using the muscles of the rotator cuff to pull . The “rotator cuff” is a term used to describe four muscles that stabilize the shoulder joint: teres minor, infraspinatus, supraspinatus, and subscapularis. They are relatively small muscles, ill-suited to bearing the loads many of us place on them. Their intended purpose is to stabilize a very flexible, mobile joint. The muscles that should be engaged in “the catch” – the latissimus dorsi, pectoralis major, deltoid – are large, with thick fibers, designed to bear a strong load. I’ve used two focal points over the past year to recruit the right muscles for each stage of the stroke.

First, protect your shoulder during recovery by externally rotating your humerus (the bone between your elbow and shoulder). I.E. During recovery, the elbow should be bent, the forearm relaxed and impingement is least if the palm faces in. The second point involves the entry of the hand. From doing “Zipper drills” and “Ear hops” we know the hand should slice into the water soon after it passes the ear. In addition, the orientation of the hand as it enters the water determines the initial movement. If the hand enters thumb first (i.e. palm is laterally rotated), the catch will be initiated by holding water outside of an imaginary column of water which you are swimming through, exposing the vulnerable rotator cuff to unhealthy lateral forces. If your hand enters the water pinky down, it virtually ensures you’ll use the proper muscles to hold water, limiting your chances of injury.

4. Lose the toys.

I found pull buoys interfered with my progress more than anything. Before TI, I swam with my hips and feet dragging. This is only natural since – like all humans – my center of mass (where gravity pulls me down) is just above my waist, while my center of volume (where buoyancy pushes me up) is at my lungs. The result: hips and legs sink, head and chest rise. The pull buoy fixed this problem temporarily by artificially supporting my lower body but the fix disappeared as soon as I dropped the buoy – which also impeded my ability to roll about my long axis. By learning to offset this torque with TI balance drills, I gained a “permanent” buoy and the ability to roll freely. As for paddles, theoretically they may of some benefit. However, unless your stroke mechanics are perfect, you are more likely to do harm than good. Any imperfections in your technique, no matter how slight, will be amplified and exacerbated by the paddle.

5. Use your hips.

I’ve learned I swim much better, with less effort when I focus on driving my high hip down and letting my arms take their queue from that. If I focus on driving my hip down – and that arm forward – I generate more power than if I focus on pushing water back and having my hips “catch up” to my arms. If you think about any movement in a sport that requires power such as hitting a baseball, throwing a football, landing a punch (or a spinning back kick), the snapping of the hip, coupled with perfect timing on the part of the rest of the body, always determines the power.

6. Count your strokes.

If you don’t pay attention, you won’t improve. By experimenting with different stroke counts (e.g. see how many and how few you can take over a given distance, while staying technically sound) you determine your range and efficiency. For example, I noticed that as I increased stroke count, so too did my speed, to a certain point. However, if I kept raising my stroke count, my speed decreased because I was losing efficiency. In other words, my speed versus stroke count graph was a bell curve. Somewhere in the middle – at about 14 strokes per 25 yards – I was at my fastest, most efficient swimming. Another point worth mentioning is paying attention to stroke rate, in addition to stroke count. Stroke rate (strokes/min) equals stroke count (strokes/distance) multiplied by speed (distance/time). I put together a spreadsheet to help illustrate the interdependence of stroke count and stroke rate (see example below). Anyone interested in a copy of this should feel free to email me for a copy that you can adjust yourself.

4 Variable Swim Worksheet

You can vary any parameter that is in regular type; the items in bold will be calculated.

Short Course Yards

Step I: Calculate Stroke Rate for a given time, distance, and stroke count

Step II: Calculate Number of Strokes (per lap) needed to achieve given stroke rate and time

Step III: Calculate Time for a given Stroke Rate and Stroke Number

7. Active rest is better than passive.

The human body, including that of Michael Phelps, can not train indefinitely without breakdown. Rest is an integral part of recovery and progress. However, there are different ways to give your body a break. Passive rest basically means taking the day off (i.e. not exercising). Active rest, on the other hand, means still swimming (or biking, running, etc.) but at a very low intensity. For example, after four days of tough workouts, my body begins to ache a bit. My shoulders feel heavy, my lats feel sore. I have found that if, on the 5th day, I spend 45 – 60 minutes in the pool drilling and doing slow swimming, I actually recover better by the 6th day than if I had taken the 5th day off. It is difficult to say whether active recovery rids the body of lactic acid faster than passive recovery (there is a paucity of evidence to suggest that lactic acid is still present in the body the day after a tough workout). However, in my limited experience, there is no denying what has worked for me, week in and week out.

8. Find mentors

Swimming is such a wonderful sport for so many reasons, not the least of which that it is one we can enjoy through all stages of life. Unlike certain contact sports which lose their luster by age 35, swimming can keep you healthy and strong for your whole life. As I competed in both open-water and Master’s meets over the past year I had the privilege of meeting many people from all different swim backgrounds. Almost never is there any discussion of what one does for a living or what social circles we travel in. We are all at the race because we love to swim. I swim against people literally twice my age, some of whom swim faster than me. These people are real mentors to me. They provide a glimpse of what I hope to be swimming like with 30 more years of practice. Seek these individuals out.

9. Be patient

I remember at the end of the TI workshop last year sticking around and talking to Rick. He told me that I would “probably get slower before getting faster”. He told me to be patient and not to give myself deadlines. How right he was. I’m sure it varies greatly from person to person but, for me, it was about four months before I was swimming times comparable to my pre-TI days. Of course, there is more to swimming than time. If one focuses too much on time, at the expense of technique, I believe you’ll forever be in a rut of what Terry described as “Terminal Mediocrity.”

Within a couple of years of that first sparring session I could hit anyone, at will, with my spinning back kick. By the time I was 18, I had won more 1st place trophies than I could count. Every time my spinning back kick kept opponents at bay. From time to time, when I get frustrated with my temporary lack of swimming progress, I remind myself that if it took years to “master” one kick, something as involved as swimming might well take a lifetime…which offers the prospect of a lifetime of progress.