Some interesting TI videos

[ashby]

Originally Posted by CoachSuzanne

Not sure what you mean?

This kick -



We see it time and time again on videos of swimmers on here, I have questioned it before but still do not understand. It must be creating a huge amount of drag to show his thigh forward like that and yet it seems to be part of the TI stroke. The website that cannot be mentioned call that the kickstart after the glide - is it an inherent part of this stroke style?

[ashby]

Originally Posted by andyinnorway

I've just realized that your signature isn't a self expression but a dig at TI.

LOL Andy now your getting paranoid! It's a reference to my own swimming, which is pretty mediocre and if anything is getting worse by the day. I have many swimming friends here in Brighton who are much better swimmers than me and defending my TI-glide to them is very hard work, trust me!

[andyinnorway]

Originally Posted by ashby

LOL Andy now your getting paranoid! It's a reference to my own swimming, which is pretty mediocre and if anything is getting worse by the day. I have many swimming friends here in Brighton who are much better swimmers than me and defending my TI-glide to them is very hard work, trust me!

I thought you were in Dover? If you are in Brighton then I may start bumping in to you in the lanes from next year. Assuming I can sell my house.

Terry and Coach Toby (also in Brighton) both race with a stroke rate around 0.95 so at that speed I think they are more focused on position rather than glide? Using a glide at slower stroke rates when learning freestyle or drilling streamline helps imprint the position.

For me its the position that's the goal not the glide? the glide is just a bi-product of holding the position at training stroke rates.

[CoachSuzanne]

Originally Posted by ashby

We see it time and time again on videos of swimmers on here, I have questioned it before but still do not understand. It must be creating a huge amount of drag to show his thigh forward like that and yet it seems to be part of the TI stroke. The website that cannot be mentioned call that the kickstart after the glide - is it an inherent part of this stroke style?

Not sure where to start with this as a logical argument.

Yes, that kick is big and he is creatign a lot of drag.
No it is not part of the TI stroke
I did not know what you meant when you described it as "kickstart after the glide"... That is not part of TI

So that other website, if it is what has put these ideas in your head that we are teaching to bring the knees way out after the glide to kickstart is criticising something that is not inherent in what we teach.


However....

The swimmer has a 2 beat kick...we do teach a 2 beat kick.

This swimmers 2 beat kick needs a lot of work to correct.

TI has several focal points to help swimmers overcome what is seen above. If you search for threads on 2BK you will find many of them. Search threads by Terry on his "2 beat kick project" and you'll hear his own focal points that he as been working on. Search for threads referring to "kicking a slipper off your foot", and you'll see focal points that we use for our swimmers.

TI is fundamentally sound any way you look at it from a science point of view...physics, anatomy, biomechanics, kinetics, hydrodynamics, thermodymics (laws of motion).

Those who think it may not be do not know what TI teaches...they make assumptions.

And you DO know about assumptions right? When you A$$Ume... you make an A$$ out of "U" and "Me"

BTW, This kick you see above is common in many swimmers learning a 2 beat kick for the first time.

[CoachSuzanne]

Originally Posted by ashby

This kick -

It must be creating a huge amount of drag to show his thigh forward like that

Last thought is that this kick is extremely common among ALL triathletes due to excessive flexion in the hips. We are all in a flexed-flexed position most of the day as it is...sitting being the primary culprit. Add on a drive commute, then hours on the bicycle...all involve flexion of both joints...the hip & the knee.

Overcoming this position that most of us are in 8-10 + hours per day is inherently very difficult when placed in a foreign environment (water).

[StuartK]

Originally Posted by ashby

LOL Andy now your getting paranoid! It's a reference to my own swimming, which is pretty mediocre and if anything is getting worse by the day. I have many swimming friends here in Brighton who are much better swimmers than me and defending my TI-glide to them is very hard work, trust me!

Just a thought from a beginner, I wonder if the reason that your swimming has slowed is because your stroke now incorporates this 'Kick start' that you have imported from the 'other site'. If you have absorbed their thinking, and now have become fixated on the glide as being bad you may subconsciously have added this 'kickstart' (which I've never seen mentioned before in TI) to your stroke, in order to make up for the glide. Perhaps you could submit a video of yourself swimming, I'm sure someone here can help.

[ashby]

Yup always been Brighton way!

Originally Posted by andyinnorway

Using a glide at slower stroke rates when learning freestyle or drilling streamline helps imprint the position.

For me its the position that's the goal not the glide? the glide is just a bi-product of holding the position at training stroke rates.

They say the problem is that it also imprints the glide which certainly seems to be very hard to shift to me.

[ashby]

Originally Posted by CoachSuzanne

Last thought is that this kick is extremely common among ALL triathletes due to excessive flexion in the hips. We are all in a flexed-flexed position most of the day as it is...sitting being the primary culprit. Add on a drive commute, then hours on the bicycle...all involve flexion of both joints...the hip & the knee.

Overcoming this position that most of us are in 8-10 + hours per day is inherently very difficult when placed in a foreign environment (water).

That's a very good point Suzanne.

[ashby]

Originally Posted by CoachSuzanne

So that other website, if it is what has put these ideas in your head that we are teaching to bring the knees way out after the glide to kickstart is criticising something that is not inherent in what we teach.

OK thats good information thanks. You must agree though that it does seem to be a problem that dogs TI swimmers more than others?

Originally Posted by CoachSuzanne

TI is fundamentally sound any way you look at it from a science point of view...physics, anatomy, biomechanics, kinetics, hydrodynamics, thermodymics (laws of motion).

A lot of good swimmers and coaches seem extremely sceptical about TI in those regards and certainly I cant keep up with the guys swimming with more conventional strokes and Im in my mid 30s so can't use age as an excuse. So whilst assumptions are dangerous there seems to be valid questions there that need to be asked.

Originally Posted by CoachSuzanne

Those who think it may not be do not know what TI teaches...they make assumptions.

And you DO know about assumptions right? When you A$$Ume... you make an A$$ out of "U" and "Me".

Yeah but at the same time we have to questions everything dont we? For instance I questioned some things in the TI book (currently on sale) in another thread and it turned out I was right and the TI has changed! (ironically I assumed the book was up to date - ha!) Is this forum (and those threads you linked to) replacing the book and what it teaches?

Just trying to understand!

Ashby

[CoachSuzanne]

Hi Ashby,

I apologize if my earlier reply sounded cranky...I was in fact a bit yesterday, but not necessarily because of your questions. By all means ask about anything that isn't understood.

While I don't claim to know everything...i've got an asnwer for most things. ;)

And while I may not always be right, it's always well considered.

The swimmers & coaches you mention who are critical of Total Immersion are usually criticising something that TI doesn't explicitly or implicitly teach. (ie kickstart after glide). Furthermore, in their defense of whatever method they are defending, they frequently display a lack of knowledge about one of the previously mentioned science topics, or a misapplication of it.


A perfect example is the premise that you must always be providign forward motion and therefore your hand should always be moving.

What they fail to recognize is that when your hand moves out of streamline, you increase drag, which causes slowing. That moving hand may be providing some propulsion but the initial stage of movment may be producing less return on force-drag for the energy it requires.

We had this discussion regarding Sun Yang, and the so-called "experts" criticism of the length of his glide. Sun Yang knows when to initiate propulsion...he feels when the balance of decelartion and forward movement is no longer in his interests to swim a fast 400 or a fast 1500, and his timing likely changes on the order of microseconds for each style of racing.

For the vast, vast, vast majority of adult swimmers and triathletes, adding MORE glide to their current stroke would actually result in less drag, more foreward movement when COMBINED with a solid anchor and rotiton in the water to create forward propulsion at the right time.

Most people who read about constant propulsion end up just pulling , pulling, pulling...spending a lot of energy and creating some force, but creating so much drag in the process that they waste a lot of energy.

TI thinking and coaching can fix that...but it's really hard to teach in writing, from diagrams and in a book.

the TI book you mention was last updated in 2004 I think? Yet TI continues to change and evolve. TI is an easy target for criticism because Terry has created a written legacy....few coaches have the time or inclination to do that, but TErry has. As a result, he is an easy target for criticism from people who
a) Do not know what TI is currently teaching
b) Have never had the opportunity to swim with or be coached by Terry
c) Have a limited understanding of the things they are attempting to criticize (see the argument above).


I could go on all day...throw me any bone and I'll pick away at it for awhile!