Overachiever’s Diary

How TI helped the Army Triathlon Team become World Contenders – and how the same approach can help you be an Overachiever

by TERRY LAUGHLIN

I met Lou Tharp in 1998 when he attended a TI Workshop in New Paltz as a swimmer whose motivation to learn was as keen as his skills were raw. Because his curiosity about, and passion for, swimming was a match for mine, we became fast friends.

I knew that Lou had an unusually demanding job as the founder of a health promotion company that evidently required long hours (whether I email Lou before 5:00 A.M. or after 10:00 P.M., I regularly receive an immediate reply; this very morning we exchanged messages at 4:30 A.M.) and considerable travel, often international.

Thus I couldn't help notice how readily he would interrupt work to travel 30 to 45 minutes to Manhattan or West Point from his Nyack home and office to swim – or spend an hour on the phone with me talking swimming in the middle of his workday (justifiable as "work related" for me but not him). His efforts paid off in steady improvement and a growing collection of Masters medals.

Lou's interest soon evolved from improving his own swimming to helping others, prompting him to steal more time from work to gain experience as an unpaid assistant coach at TI workshops or camps. Swimming had become a consuming passion for the sake of which he endured the inconvenience of having to pay the bills with non-swimming activities. Seeing in Lou a passion unmatched by many who do pay the bills by coaching swimming I suggested that he was really meant to coach swimming and speculated on when – not if – that would happen.

So it was no surprise when, in 2005, Lou told me he'd begun helping the West Point Triathlon Club as a volunteer swim coach. Soon after, emails from Lou began to arrive in my inbox once or twice a week – copies of messages he composed to announce the day's practice to team members. That's unusual in itself. Most coaches just call out the set from the deck. The more ambitious among them write sets on a whiteboard. Lou – an unpaid assistant – was making sure his athletes could come to each session with the kind of mental preparation that was his custom. But he didn't just detail the day's sets and reps. Each message examined a fundamental aspect of how to develop as a swimmer and explained how that day's practice related to it. And there was more. With a gifted teacher's knack for enriching a lesson with an entertaining story, Lou would usually relate the swimming concept to other aspects of triathlon or life at the Academy. And finally, every message was an engrossing read.

I'd never seen anything like these before. Not just the exceptional nature of thoroughly explaining the effects and benefits of each practice, but how the series cumulatively constituted a seminar on how swimming really works. As Lou's message archive grew I realized that a collection of a full season's worth of "diary entries" would be uniquely enlightening to improvement-minded swimmers, especially those who are self-coached, as well as a complete chronicle of a season of triathlon-swim-training in which every training set had a clearly defined purpose.

So I suggested to Lou that we publish an annotated collection of a full season of his messages in book form. Overachiever's Diary is the result. This surprising book, from an "unknown" coach and swimmer will help you look at swimming through new eyes – and learn something new – every time you visit the pool. It's a fresh, funny and creative look at swimming that is simple to understand and, best of all (as demonstrated by the progress shown by the West Point triathletes), will bring proven results. Spend a season with the Overachiever's Diary and you'll realize the pleasure in swimming comes as much from learning as from winning.

If you’d like to read more, after reading the sample chapter, please visit here to order.


Sinking to the Surface (Sample chapter p. 95-100)

A common problem among high muscle-mass triathletes is sinking. And
while it seems to be true that some people are prone to sinking (and
that often these people have high muscle mass) it's not productive to
assume that because you have some bulk you are going to sink. It is
more likely that you will sink if you are stressed. Fear, lack of
confidence, and lack of technique cause stress and sinking. Before we
go further, we need to separate stress from productive muscle
tension. Productive muscle tension is when your arm and hand achieve
maximum catch during a stroke utilizing core body strength. Stress is
when your arm and hand aren't relaxed during the recovery. Stress
wastes energy. Productive muscle tension turns energy into speed.

Notice how fast and erratically you are kicking. The faster and
goofier your kick, the more stressed you are. Check your heart rate.
It'll be high. A lot of times you'll revert to the leg motion of the
sport you are most comfortable with when you're uncomfortable in the
water. So if biking is your best event, you'll try to pedal in the
water. Same with running. Neither of these works very well, however,
except to define the goofy kick.

You can approach a sinking fix from either end of your body-your head
or your feet. But it's primarily in your head-mass- and in your
mind-stress. You can purposely slow down your kick, or you can
intellectually and emotionally readjust your stress levels and your
head position. Ultimately you'll do all three, but starting with the
one you like the best helps speed the process.

If you start with your kick, it's most efficient and revealing to
look at your underwater video. It's very difficult to manage your
legs in the water or to even understand what they're doing. We live
on land and we rely on the blunt messages from feet hitting ground to
let us know if and how well we're walking or running. There's no
reason to think that your brain can accurately track your leg
movements when the ground isn't there anymore. We have to teach our
legs how to appreciate the nuances of kicking in water in order to
eliminate drag, and then to transmit power from our hips. This isn't
easy, but Barbie and Ken can help.

Their knees didn't used to bend, but apparently now they bend a
little. So can yours. We've talked about kicking in other emails, so
use Barbie and Ken to get your kick under control so you know your
stress level is down. That's all we care about now. A gentle kick
from the hips with your feet pointing toward where you've been.

But you're still sinking. Of course you are. We've only worked out
your kick. You want to calm your kick so you can be horizontal in the
water. Most people who sink will at this point be about 8-inches
below the surface. As long as you're horizontal that's ok for now.

There are some toys that bind your ankles, and while these little
Marquis de Sade devices will eliminate your erratic kick, they'll
bring any fears you have in the water to a fine anxiety-attack level
as you sink with your ankles clamped together. Don't use them. But as
long as we're talking about anxiety attacks, you'll need to
appreciate two issues. First, depending on ego and a few physical
characteristics, your head weighs about 10 pounds. As a percentage of
your body weight, this can border on insignificant-but just as in
real estate, the determining factor is location. Your head is at the
end of your swimming body, so anything it does dramatically affects
your water position. If you raise your head, the movement will
leverage your hips and legs downward. If you lower your head, your
hips will pop up, but you'll be introducing drag at the bow of your
body. You want your head to be in-line with the rest of your body.
You can visualize a rope coming out of the top of your head, pulling
you down the pool. When this happens, the natural position of your
head will be in-line with your body. You will be looking at the
bottom of the pool. If you can't visualize a rope coming out of the
top of your head, you were correct if you started this exercise at
your feet, because the answer to relaxing in the water from the
head-end means asking your brain to work with you. This is the second
issue.

Water isn't our home. We have to learn to be comfortable in water
before we can swim efficiently. All your drills are designed to help
you become comfortable in the water, to reduce your stress. But the
interesting point about stress is that often focusing on it makes it
worse, so I don't talk a lot about how a drill can reduce stress, I
just watch for the goofy kicking to go away.

In order to reduce stress in the water, you have to deal with your
fears- such as not being able to breathe and out-swimming the sea
monsters. These are both real fears. And if you don't think they are,
ask yourself why you have that goofy kick then?

You want your heart rate to be steady when you first get in the
water. This tells you that you are relaxed. Your heart rate shouldn't
go up until you get into your aerobic range.

Stop thinking about sinking and start thinking about stroke count.
Long, slow strokes will calm you and help you slide through the
water. Be aware of your rotation. There are drills where your belly
button will be facing the wall-usually some form of a hand lead
drill. If you are prone to sinking, doing this drill will be like
asking a dog to dance-it might happen but it won't be pretty. When
you rotate this way there is very little surface area to keep you
afloat. Your drill is stone skipper, which keeps your shoulders at
the top of the water and your pecs flat-unlike a hand- or headlead
drill-and allows you to test the buoyancy of your body through gentle
pressing on your pecs to generate forward motion. If you don't know
what stone skipper is, go to the Total Immersion web site home page
and see the video at http://www.totalimmersion.net.

You will realize that coming to the party with a sinking personality
gives you the opportunity to learn a few things very right while your
less depth-challenged teammates will slide sloppily by. You'll need
to achieve balance and relaxation in order to stay somewhere close to
the surface-good for breathing. Your teammates will need the same
discipline in order to swim better than average- good for winning.
I've seen many swimmers who blast by the sinkers in September and
then draft off them in November. My money's on a dedicated sinker
over a cocky newbie floater any day.

Keeping your shoulders at the surface does not mean becoming the team
barge as you flatten out and plow through the water shoulder first.
It means you get to learn all about body torque before the floaters
do, and you'll learn it because it's the difference between breathing
air and growing gills. Keeping your shoulders high keeps your head
close to the water for breathing, but if you don't torque your body,
you'll lose all the benefits of core power generation. So while
you'll keep your shoulders flat, you'll rotate your hips. The twist
is in your middle back. Keeping your shoulders high is easier if you
keep your elbows high, too. High when you're taking your stroke and
high during recovery. This particular move-high elbows, high
shoulders, and a torqued mid-section- is difficult because you have
to learn it all at once. Floaters have the luxury of learning it at
their leisure. You get to experience the magic of the steep learning
curve.

What else do you have to do to achieve a high water mark? Anchor your
hand. The angle of your arm is more critical than it otherwise might
be. You'll need to find the proper anchor angle for you so you can
leverage it to contribute to buoyancy, while placing it at the
correct angle to achieve an efficient set-up and catch, which will
recruit your lats and abs as you propel your body over your high
elbow and shoulder.

Yes, you get to propel your body over your shoulder and elbow. You
don't take a stroke pushing your hand backwards. Again, the floaters
will do this too, if they ever figure it out. You have to do it. Your
prize is that this is the zen secret to fast swimming-body past
shoulder-and you thought it just helped you stay on top of the water.

The last point: You'll never float totally on top of the water-and
you don't want to. Stay just below the surface. Submarines move more
efficiently through the water than boats-V-hull or barges. Enjoy this
natural tendency. Just be sure to keep your body sufficiently high in
the water so that all you have to do is roll to air. The floaters are
likely to do a little corkscrew dance as they twist their head and
neck up to air. Watch their hips drop while you get a good catch.
Motor by them as their hips drop and they struggle to regain balance.

It's not productive to assume the role of sinker, and it isn't
accurate to assume that a wetsuit is your answer to alleviating your
bottom-feeding tendencies. Sinking is like any other technique
issue - it's fixable with good coaching, relaxation, and attention to
body management. It highlights stroke deficiencies and provides
immediate feedback when they're fixed. I think a so-called sinker
with a desire to swim well has greater potential than a floater who
thinks swimming is easy.

Louis Tharp
Swim Coach Army Tri
Author, Overachiever's Diary (TM)

Tel: +1-845-348-0400
Fax: +1-845-348-0210

http://www.overachieversdiary.com

To read more about the authors, click here.

To view a picture gallery of the Army team, click here.