80-20 Swimming

By TALIS APUD-MARTINEZ

Training the TI way has helped me understand that technique-based training is neither easy nor magical. It requires great patience and discipline to learn the technique, teach your body to adjust rhythm and tempo, and particularly to practice for two hours with unblinking attention. But shifting the emphasis from tolerance for pain to rigorous focus, training has become far more satisfying.

Have you heard of the Pareto Rule – that 20 percent of your effort brings you 80 percent of the way toward a goal; while it takes 80 percent of your effort to get the last 20 percent out of your potential? My second visit to the TI Swim Studio in New Paltz reminded me of that 80-20 principle.

Last summer I was introduced to the TI program and was blessed to have Terry Laughlin and Hash Al-Mashat join my quest to medal in the 2008 Olympics. Though I come from a background in competitive swimming, because drafting on the bike is legal in Olympic triathlon, race outcomes are much more heavily influenced by how fast you swim. The fastest swimmers pedal through the bike leg with the lead pack and start the run with a sizeable lead on those whose swim times are slower. My 1500m time of 21:30, while respectable enough in most tri races, put me at a distinct disadvantage in qualifying for the Olympics.

My initial visit to the Swim Studio in July produced huge improvements in my technique and body control, which was happily reflected in a marked drop in my 1500 meter time, to 20:30, within weeks after I returned home from New Paltz. I was feeling that all I needed was to continue the training, maintain my technique and trust in the passage of time.

How wrong I was! As I learned in my most recent sojourn at the Swim Studio, real mastery is in the details. The first minute of improvement came almost as a matter of course; the next minute, which could put me within reach of the faster swimmers, would come from even more self-awareness and subtler understanding of technique, rather than just more months of training.

During our first pool session, on November 7, Hash congratulated me for having consolidated the efficiency gains from my previous visit. But I was also pleased that he pointed out many new opportunities for improvement. The more you can improve your technique the less you have to relay on metabolic and physical development to progress – and technique can change far faster than physiology.

My primary new insight on this visit, and my focus for the next couple of months was learning to make better use of “energy-forward swimming.” As with most swimmers, for the 10 years I’d been swimming prior to TI, I had focused on pushing water back to move forward. In July, while I’d progressed dramatically in body position, drag reduction and stroking “patiently” I still had only a vague grasp of energy-forward propulsion.

Here is the process by which I learned to better use the energy available from linking gravity and my own body mass to my stroke, via the drills and focal points Hash used to teach it to me. As you’ll see, this “natural learning” approach, which is characteristic of TI, yielded far more immediate results than I would have ever expected.

• Fingers down: Hash noticed that my hands tended to scoop upwards as I extended them to the anchor, which didn’t help my balance, and reduced the effectiveness of the first part of each stroke. So he had me concentrate on keeping my fingertips angled down from the time my hand entered the water. This improved my balance and put my arm in position to trap more water before each stroke; I could feel an immediate gain in continuity from one stroke to the next.
  • Drill: UnderSwitches. Focus: Tipping my fingers down as I drove my hand from my goggles to their fullest extension, while feeling light water pressure on my hand throughout that extension.
    
• Leading with the elbows: Hash also noticed that I swung my arm too far from my body’s centerline during arm recovery, which hurt my alignment and made me over-reach. So we focused on leading recovery with my elbow, and having my hand/forearm hang from it, like a “marionette.” As soon as I focused on this, I felt more relaxed and felt my path through the water become more laser-like.
  • Drill: ZipperSwitches with my arms submerged halfway to the elbows and super-slow recoveries. Focus: Having the elbow lead recovery – and the hand trail behind the elbow – for as long as possible. Having more of my arm submerged help retard the progress of my hand and made me more aware of the relative position of elbow and hand.
    
• Deft Clean Entry: I had been entering my hand well forward of my head. This over-reach hurt my body alignment and balance, and disconnected my hip drive from the extension of my hand, causing me to lose power. Entering my hand closer to my head creates a more controlled rotation, a cleaner entry, and connected me to the power produced by my hip drive.
  • Drill: OverSwitches with “Ear Hops.” Focus: Visualize making a hole in the water with my hand and slicing my arm cleanly through that hole, feeling as if my hand is being driven forward and down by my hip drive.
    
• Breathing: On each breath, I tended to scoop up with my leading arm. This caused my body weight to shift back and my grip on the water to weaken.
  • Drill: Skating with “bite of air” breaths. Focus: Concentrate on keeping the opposite hand tipped down and to maintain feeling of light pressure on the water, while breathing (with shoulder barely tipped back, rather than in Sweet Spot) in the Skating position. Also focus on pressing in the side and back of my head as it rotates for a breath.

My second week of intensive coaching at Swim Studio produced results just as encouraging as the first. On Nov. 12, after just four days of retuning my stroke, Hash gave me a time trial for 1500 yards, my time for which was the equivalent of 19:45 for 1500 meters, an additional 45 seconds off my previous best. While in New Paltz, I also trained each day with the Hawks Swim Team, coached by Hash and other TI coaches. I had begun doing TI training at home, but these days of TI training with other swimmers gave me even more insight.

TI practices are radically different from what I’d known before. They are fun and the time passed incredibly quickly because each set had a specific focus, which kept my mind engaged. TI practice is just as much mental training as physical.

We warmed up each day with Fistgloves practicing drills, Mindful Swimming (using focus points like those cited above) and low SPL (“base count” in TI lingo) with perfect technique. The main sets focused as much on “nervous system training” as on aerobic training, by learning to achieve assigned paces and stroke counts with increasing consistency. The pace descriptions used by the TI coaches – Perfect, Cruise, Brisk, Race, and Race-Plus – made for perfectly clear directions and related easily to the feeling I’d want to have at various stages of my race. We also used stroke count as a vehicle for gaining speed with minimum effort. Over and over, we would start a set at our “base” count (individual for each swimmer), then add speed by choosing to add strokes at assigned points in the set.

Staying at base count through the initial laps – while maintaining good rhythm and range on our strokes – required maximum discipline and concentration but provided a basis for maintaining efficiency as we increased SPL. We learned to increase speed by adjusting stroke length and rate – an exercise in timing and coordination, rather than “going harder.” When I first began training this way at home, I found it difficult to translate SPL increases into speed. But with each passing week, it got easier and training with Hash and the Hawks, I began to really feel in control. Each time I chose to add a stroke to my SPL, I gained speed, but without feeling any increase in effort.

Training the TI way has helped me understand that technique-based training is neither easy nor magical. It requires great patience and discipline to learn the technique, teach your body to adjust rhythm and tempo, and particularly to practice for two hours with unblinking attention. But shifting the emphasis from tolerance for pain to rigorous focus has made training far more satisfying.

In the end, at least for someone like me, whose goal is to perform at the elite level, it is about results. I am deeply convinced that TI technique and training are the surest path to my goal of swimming fast enough to join the lead packs in ITU World Cup and championship races. It is also empowering to feel, for the first time, that I control my destiny through real understanding of how to swim the right way. I’m beginning my base period for the 06 season when the ITU rankings begin to count for the 2008 Olympics. Beijing, here we come!! Back to work.

Talis Apud-Martinez lives in Monterrey Mexico. In her first three duathlon races, she won the USA and Pan-America Championships and placed 7th (2nd in U-23) in the ITU World Duathlon Championships in September. She is also the U-23 Mexican Triathlon Champion.


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