I imagine that the vast majority of TI enthusiasts swim only, or mainly freestyle. In this post, I make the case for becoming a well-rounded, even complete, swimmer.

I’ve been a distance swimmer since the summer of 1964 when—at 13 years of age–I earned the Red Cross 50-Mile Swim badge by swimming a mile every day. Today, at age 66, if someone was to ask my athletic identity, I’d say “distance swimmer.” Distance swimmers, by custom, swim mostly—if not entirely–freestyle.

Yet my proudest accomplishment in a lifetime of competitive swimming came at age 60 when I won medals in all four strokes, at Masters Nationals. My medal-winning races were the 1000 and 500 freestyles, 200 butterfly, 200 breaststroke, and 400 individual medley—100 yards each of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle.

That accomplishment would have been inconceivable to me 40 years earlier, in college, when I swam my fastest times. My training consisted almost exclusively of freestyle, and I raced in other strokes exactly twice in four years, when my coach entered me in individual medley races, despite not having done a lick of training in other strokes.

Following college, I coached for 20 years with great distinction in all strokes and distances, but—when I swam—did almost exclusively freestyle, simply out of habit. At age 37, I joined Masters Swimming and resumed swimming distance freestyle events, certain that they offered the best chance of success—and that I lacked the inborn talent to swim well in other strokes.

It wasn’t until my early 50s that I decided to get serious about mastering the ‘different’ strokes. I discovered that I thoroughly enjoyed the new learning challenges and variety they offered. It never occurred to me that I might win national championship medals in them.  Ever since they’ve been a mainstay in my practice. I’ve since come to believe it’s not a coincidence that I enjoyed my greatest success in distance freestyle and open water competition since becoming a more well-rounded swimmer.

Why Swim Different Strokes?

Let me answer a question that occurs to many triathletes and fitness swimmers: “How will learning other strokes help me if I swim only freestyle events—or swim purely for fitness?”

  1. Too much of anything often leads to staleness. My freestyle is stronger when I do just enough, and avoid too much. Swimming other strokes can give my freestyle muscles a form of ‘active’ recovery. Alternating strokes allows me to swim crisper, faster freestyle with less fatigue. I never go through the motions on my different-strokes ‘resting’ laps. I use the opportunity to hone technique.
  2. Practicing all strokes creates the opportunity for more training adaptations. Once the body gets accustomed to any workload, the opportunity for adaptation or growth diminishes. The more varied a training program, the more potential for growth or improvement. Swimming is unique among movement sports in offering four truly distinct styles. Asked to swim a new stroke, the body’s response is “This is a new task. I’d better attack it with vigor.” A triathlete and recent convert to all-strokes practice described it this way: “I realized that swimming only freestyle, it’s like running or biking the same loop every day—you eventually do it on autopilot. Swimming new strokes is like setting out on a brand new course.” Your body learns to adapt to different demands.
  3. The highest-quality fitness programs use as many muscle groups as possible. Freestyle swimming uses one set of muscles. Other strokes activate other muscles—or the same ones in different ways. Swimming a medley of strokes also minimizes potential for overuse injuries. Using multiple movement patterns reduces the potential for repetitive overwork in any one movement.
  4. All-stroke swimming is more beneficial aerobically. Even EZ-Fly, the style we teach, elevates your heart rate more than an equivalent effort in freestyle, because it’s harder to bring both arms out of the water at once. When you mix fly with other strokes, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at your ability to swim that more demanding stroke longer.
  5. My motivation has been greatest since I introduced more stroke variety. I can devise a much wider variety of challenging skill exercises and set many more personal improvement goals. I sometimes set aside several weeks to see how much I can improve backstroke or another stroke. When focusing intently that way, I always make significant progress—at least 5 percent–in just a few weeks. Because my improvement potential in other strokes remains relatively untapped, personal achievements occur with greater frequency. This refreshes me, both physically and mentally.

The key to these benefits is that I never swim on autopilot. I aim to swim all strokes, at all times, with the best possible form in a specific aspect of technique. The better my interaction with the water in any form, the more I learn about aquatic fluency and economy in a universal sense. And that has kept my freestyle learning curve fairly steep, even after 50+ years.

London 2012 Olympic Champion Dana Vollmer

London 2012 Olympic Champion Dana Vollmer takes a ‘Sneaky Breath.’

Immediately after that Masters Nationals in 2011, I drove from Phoenix, the site of the meet, to Flagstaff Arizona, for a brief visit. While there, I joined a local Masters group for practice one evening. The main set was a series of 200 individual medley repeats in a 50-meter pool. Though I was swimming at the unaccustomed altitude of 7600’ I swam strongly throughout the set. At the conclusion of the set, the coach asked me, “What’s your favorite stroke?” Without hesitation, I replied, “All of them!”

Butterfly Sneaky Breath as performed by 66 y.o. TI Founder Terry Laughlin

At that moment, I realized I’d attained that transcendent state in which all four strokes felt so good that I could experience ‘flow’ while swimming any of them. At age 60, after nearly 50 years, I was truly a complete swimmer.

Want to transform yourself into a Complete Swimmer? Our new downloadable Self-Coaching Courses for Butterfly, Backstroke, and Breaststroke are the most convenient way.

 

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