Nicodemus
08-09-2009, 05:53 PM
Hi,
I have just joined the forum, and want to share my TI success story. (The story so far anyway... I can see this being a lifetime project!)
Today I comfortably swam 1500 meters freestyle in 40 minutes. I know that is not a record-breaking achievement, but 4 months ago (before I did a TI workshop) I could barely do 50 metres freestyle. Also, as emphasised by Terry I felt like I could have carried on and done another mile!. (In fact I stayed in the pool working on various drills for about another hour).
I have always been comfortable in the water, I have a good breaststroke (I did 1 mile award when I was about 10 years old). I also have experience of scuba diving & snorkelling. But the freestyle has always been a problem for me. Being taught to swim flat probably didn't help! After 2-3 lengths I was exhausted. Clearly this was a problem with technique rather than strength/stamina.
Eventually I decided to get some proper tuition, and luckily I found UK TI head coach Ian Smith. The workshop totally changed how I think about swimming.
After the workshop I still found it hard to put all the pieces together to swim whole-stroke. So I spent about 8 weeks just working the drills. Then I had a month off swimming due to other commitments. After that break, I decided to throw myself into whole-stroke. At first it was awkward, but over about 4-6 weeks it has all come together.
At first I was alternating lengths of breaststroke with lengths of freestyle. This is what I always did in the past so I could 'recover' from the freestyle lengths. But about 2 weeks ago I started to question why this was necessary. I realised that my freestyle was not using much energy - so the real problem must be that I wasn't breathing correctly. [I'll post more details under the H2O section].
Then I started working on my breathing technique. The funny thing is that I was so busy practicing my technique that I forgot to do my breastroke 'recovery' lengths. So I was freestyle swimming 30+ lengths of a 33 metre pool with just a few yoga breaths between each one.
Yesterday I was reading some of the posts on this forum, and I decided to try to do a mile myself. And it turned out to be pretty easy - the title Easy Freestyle is spot on!
I took it at a nice comfortable pace, kept good form throughout, and primarily focused on comfortable relaxed breathing. I made a deliberate choice to only breathe on my good side. [I did some work on the weaker side afterwards - 1500m breathing on the other side is already on my list of goals]. My SPL was 21-22 on every length (15-16 at the 25m mark), taking my first stroke under the 5m flags.
So my advice to anyone who thinks they need to 'build up' to swimming a mile is that TI swimming is NOTan endurance challenge. It is all about technique. If breathing is your problem, work on it as a technique. Swim relaxed... lazy even. Glide through the water, get plenty of air - and you should be able to swim your last length just like your first.
Good Luck!
I have just joined the forum, and want to share my TI success story. (The story so far anyway... I can see this being a lifetime project!)
Today I comfortably swam 1500 meters freestyle in 40 minutes. I know that is not a record-breaking achievement, but 4 months ago (before I did a TI workshop) I could barely do 50 metres freestyle. Also, as emphasised by Terry I felt like I could have carried on and done another mile!. (In fact I stayed in the pool working on various drills for about another hour).
I have always been comfortable in the water, I have a good breaststroke (I did 1 mile award when I was about 10 years old). I also have experience of scuba diving & snorkelling. But the freestyle has always been a problem for me. Being taught to swim flat probably didn't help! After 2-3 lengths I was exhausted. Clearly this was a problem with technique rather than strength/stamina.
Eventually I decided to get some proper tuition, and luckily I found UK TI head coach Ian Smith. The workshop totally changed how I think about swimming.
After the workshop I still found it hard to put all the pieces together to swim whole-stroke. So I spent about 8 weeks just working the drills. Then I had a month off swimming due to other commitments. After that break, I decided to throw myself into whole-stroke. At first it was awkward, but over about 4-6 weeks it has all come together.
At first I was alternating lengths of breaststroke with lengths of freestyle. This is what I always did in the past so I could 'recover' from the freestyle lengths. But about 2 weeks ago I started to question why this was necessary. I realised that my freestyle was not using much energy - so the real problem must be that I wasn't breathing correctly. [I'll post more details under the H2O section].
Then I started working on my breathing technique. The funny thing is that I was so busy practicing my technique that I forgot to do my breastroke 'recovery' lengths. So I was freestyle swimming 30+ lengths of a 33 metre pool with just a few yoga breaths between each one.
Yesterday I was reading some of the posts on this forum, and I decided to try to do a mile myself. And it turned out to be pretty easy - the title Easy Freestyle is spot on!
I took it at a nice comfortable pace, kept good form throughout, and primarily focused on comfortable relaxed breathing. I made a deliberate choice to only breathe on my good side. [I did some work on the weaker side afterwards - 1500m breathing on the other side is already on my list of goals]. My SPL was 21-22 on every length (15-16 at the 25m mark), taking my first stroke under the 5m flags.
So my advice to anyone who thinks they need to 'build up' to swimming a mile is that TI swimming is NOTan endurance challenge. It is all about technique. If breathing is your problem, work on it as a technique. Swim relaxed... lazy even. Glide through the water, get plenty of air - and you should be able to swim your last length just like your first.
Good Luck!