(Terry Laughlin and Shinji Takeuchi synch-swimming– Eleuthera, the Bahamas, December 2006.)

This post was originally published by Terry Laughlin on Feb. 12, 2011.

At the bottom of this post is video of Shinji [T.I. Master Coach and Head of TI Japan– read Shinji’s T.I. story in this 2012 blog interview] and I “synch-swimming” at TI Teacher Training in December 2010.  Here I’ll focus on WHY we practice Synch-Swimming.

Synch-Swimming started as an exercise I came up with about 10 years ago [circa 2001 at the time of this writing] to practice with friends (including TI Coaches Dave Barra, Greg Sautner and Hash al-Mashat) at Lake Minnewaska in New Paltz. At first we just practiced swimming two to six swimmers abreast along the 200-meter line, as a pacing exercise. Then we tried to squeeze the group as close together as possible, until our hands and forearms —  and occasionally hips and shoulders — were brushing lightly as we stroked.

We did this to simulate both the not-infrequent crowding and occasional physical contact of open water races. Our goal was to make this experience something we could accept, then even welcome. While most swimmers shy away from, or become anxious or distracted in such situations, we enjoyed it and were able to turn it into an aid to concentration.

Finally, we began trying to synchronize our strokes. This last piece was the icing on the cake. The experience of concentrating on your own stroke, while also being aware of other swimmers’ strokes — adjusting position, direction, length and tempo to theirs — proved so engrossing that we all experienced a powerful “swimmer’s high” in these practices. Synch-Swimming was so enjoyable and valuable it became a central  and distinguishing feature of all TI Open Water camps.

Now I try to synch-swim with every TI Coach– and many TI swimmers– I have the opportunity to swim with, in open water or the pool.

This video shows two forms: In Synch-Swimming, you match the timing of right-arm to right-arm. In Mirror-Swimming, you match the timing of the inside arms. Enjoy!

Editorial Note: To view Terry and Shinji’s archived 2011 discussion forum Q &A about this synch swim video, click HERE. 

Learn how to synch swim and other open water skills– including drafting, sighting, pacing, pack swimming, and more– in our video “Outside the Box: A Total Immersion Swimming Program for Success in Open Water”

The post VIDEO: Why Synch Swim? Terry Laughlin and Shinji Takeuchi Demo This Practice appeared first on Total Immersion.

I initially credited my success in open water to “natural endurance” and to having an instinct for racing without walls and lanes that others lacked.

I left the ocean behind after moving to Richmond VA in 1978. When I resumed swimming in open water in the early 1990s, I picked up where I’d left off—competing successfully in open water with people whose ‘wake I’d eaten’ in the pool.

In 2001, turning 50, I began to think of myself as an “open water specialist.” In part because the ‘sky lakes’ in Minnewaska State Park, became available for wide open swimming after years of being restricted to roped-in areas, not much bigger than a pool.

Committing to ‘Open Water Technique’

At the time, I trained in Masters workouts and swam pool meets occasionally. It occurred to me that the stroke I used in open water races—mostly between 1 and 3 miles—felt long and integrated, while the stroke I used in the pool–especially in the heat of a race (including with teammates in training)–felt more hurried and choppy.

Since I’d had my greatest success in open water races, I thought I should ‘put my eggs in that basket,’ using my open water stroke exclusively, even when racing teammates on short repeats. This meant limiting the number of strokes I would allow myself in training to 15, while keeping my average SPL between 13 and 14.

My stroke limit of 15 strokes put me at a disadvantage on 25- and 50-yard repeats, when many of my Masters teammates would take 20 or more

Thought I trailed significantly at first, before long I began closing the gap on high-revving teammates.  Taking fewer strokes forced me to get more out of each stroke, but I adapted fairly quickly. And on longer repeats or sets—where I’d always finished near the top of the group–I saw even more improvement.

In 2002, I swam the 28.5-mile Manhattan Island Marathon, completing it with far longer, and more leisurely, strokes than any other competitor. From then through 2004, I had strong results in races of all distances.  But it wasn’t until reading an article in 2005 by Jonty Skinner—at the time Performance Science Director for USA Swimming–that I realize how uniquely suited were the techniques I’d been practicing for open water.

Hip-Driven vs. Shoulder-Driven

Skinner’s article analyzed the contrasting techniques employed by freestylers who were more successful in Short Course (25y/m pools) vs. those who shone in Long Course (50m pools). Because the Olympics are held in Long Course, success in a 50m pool is highly valued.

After studying video from 20 years of national championships in both courses, Skinner observed that elite Long Course freestylers  swam with longer, lower-tempos ‘hip-driven’ strokes. In contrast, elite Short Course freestylers swam with shorter, higher-tempo   ‘shoulder-driven’ strokes.

Skinner explained the disparity this way: Among elite freestylers, in a 25-yard pool, the ratio of swimming to non-swimming (turns and pushoffs) is approximately 2.6 to 1. In a 50-meter pool, the swimming to non-swimming ratio rises to nearly 8 to 1.

I.E. During a minute of Short Course swimming, an athlete could spend as little as 43 seconds swimming and as much as 17 seconds “not-swimming.” In a 50-meter pool, he or she would spend about 53 seconds swimming and only 7 seconds “not-swimming.”

As Skinner explained, a shoulder-driven stroke allows the swimmer to achieve higher tempos and generate higher arm forces. This can create more speed in short bursts,but has great potential to cause fatigue. Frequent ‘rest breaks’ received by the arms on turns allow the swimmer to recover sufficiently to sustain a fast pace for distances up to about 200 yards.

But in a 50m pool, and when swimming over 2 minutes continuously, the hip-driven stroke proved to be the far better choice.

Upon reading Skinner’s article, I instantly recognized that what provided a significant advantage in 50-meter pools ought to be even more advantageous in open water, where the swimming-to-recovering ratio rises to infinity.

‘Lose’ the Pool Repeat to Win in Open Water

My instincts had already led me in the right direction. To complete 25 yards in 15 or fewer strokes, I had to use the hip-driven style. At 18 or more strokes, my teammates were shoulder-driven.  After reading Skinner’s article, I redoubled my commitment to hip-driven technique. (I also put more focus on understanding and teaching techniques which would maximize the advantage of hip-driven technique. I’ll note those in the next installment of this series.)

And of course since most open water competitors and triathletes do the majority of their training in 25-yard pools—and especially if they race others, as in Masters workouts—the pace clock and their natural competitiveness provides a strong incentive to revert to shoulder-driven strokes. It requires a conscious decision to limit stroke count–and strong restraint when swimming next to a shoulder-driven swimmer—to hardwire the hip-driven style.

Back in 2005, I was willing to ‘lose’ the 25-yard in the present moment to  be better prepared for an open water event that might be several months in the future. The following year I won the first of six National Masters open water titles and broke two national age group records. I feel certain none of this would have been possible had I not committed to the hip-driven stroke.

This article has been excerpted, in part, from the ebook Outside the Box: A Program for Success in Open Water

Hip-driven technique is illustrated on the DVDs  Outside the Box and TI Self-Coached Workshop.  Get all three items for 20% off in our Open Water Success bundle.

Or learn open water technique, strategies and tactics at any TI Open Water Camp.

The post Get Hip to Open Water Technique appeared first on Swim For Life.

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Which—other than the last week of March at our Open Water Experience in Kona–will be the longest I’ve swum since January.

Since 2007, from November through April, I’ve experienced chronic achiness and fatigue, which is exacerbated by even mild exertion. My doctor diagnosed it as an autoimmune condition. But now I suspect it’s actually a reaction to chlorine. Or at least the ‘chloramine fog’ blanketing the surface of the 50-year old, poorly-ventilated college pool in New Paltz.

What do you do when your pool becomes toxic? I’m fortunate to have an Endless Pool, which is well-ventilated and has a sanitation system that needs only a trace of chlorine. I usually swim for just 30 minutes, mostly in a quite gentle current. Not the kind of preparation traditionalists say you need to reach your potential in open water distance races.

With my first race, the 2 Bridges 5K in the Hudson River just three weeks away and a planned crossing of Gibraltar Strait in October with three friends, should I feel concern about being under-prepared for long open water swims? Well, I’m not, and I believe I have good reason for my sanguine attitude.  Three good reasons in fact.

On three occasions, I went into an event or open-water season woefully-undertrained by conventional standards. Once by plan, and twice because of circumstances beyond my control. Each time, I was pleasantly surprised—even stunned–with how well things turned out.

June 2002 Manhattan Island Marathon Swim

In Dec, 2001 I decided to enter the 2002 MIMS, in part to celebrate having reached life’s half-century mark a year earlier. I’d swum only perfunctorily since the previous summer, and one day after I registered the college pool began a 3-week holiday closure.  With travel for work in late January, I finally began swimming regularly in early Feb, leaving just four months to prepare for a 28.5-mile swim.

While I lacked an aerobic base, I felt confident in my efficiency base and decided to focus on making that even stronger. I wanted to test the proposition that it’s possible to comfortably complete an ultra-marathon swim on non-ultra training volume.

For the next 16 weeks I averaged about 16,000 yards per week (a half to a third of what other MIMS’ers were doing), with the exception of swimming a 10,000-yard, 3-hour pool practice in weeks 14 and 15, raising my total for those weeks to a bit over 20,000 yards.

I swam those not with the intent of building extra endurance, but to see if I could finish each session feeling more energized than when I started by swimming with consummate ease. Doing so showed me I was on track for a successful marathon.

On marathon day, I swam as easily as possible, but intent on making every stroke count. Or, put another way, not wasting a single muscle contraction. Taking a quite leisurely 49 strokes per minute, it was essential I travel a good distance on each.

Swimming like a tourist, (and slowed by relatively sluggish currents where my paddler guided my hugging the Manhattan shoreline—the rest of the field was closer to mid-river where the currents are much faster) I reached the Harlem River, about 8 miles into the race, well behind the rest of the field.

But over the next 20 miles I passed three other soloists and a relay. Not bad for an ‘undertrained’ swimmer. And despite being badly dehydrated in the final miles, because of inexperience planning my nutrition and hydration regimen, I felt only moderate fatigue upon reaching the finish, which I reached in 8 hrs 53 minutes. After drinking 64 oz of water on the drive home, I felt fully recovered the next day.

2005 Betsy Owens 2-Mile Cable Swim (US Masters National Open Water Championship)

In October 2004, while doing a bench press set—mindfully, with moderate weight and impeccable form—I ruptured the biceps tendon in my right shoulder. For a swimmer, this is normally a very serious injury requiring 9 months or more to return to full strength. HMO requirements delayed surgery for 5 months, while I did more conservative therapies.

It was evident I’d need surgery (I didn’t have a diagnosis yet—an MRI was inconclusive)  because, after months of therapy I experienced disabling pain attempting undemanding tasks like pouring tea from a kettle, flipping a wall light switch, donning my seatbelt. However, two months after the injury, and before surgery, I could swim pain free.  By modifying my stroke to avoid pain—the origin of the Mail Slot focal point—I was able to swim pain free, and even a bit faster than before the injury!

I had surgery in Feb 2005, followed by 3 weeks with my right arm in a sling and 3 months under doctor’s orders not to swim any whole stroke. I used the Endless Pool to replicate exercises I was doing in PT and to gently explore range of motion. For that time, ‘swimming’ meant easy reps of the TI SpearSwitch drill, in which I could hone balance, streamlining, and rhythmic rotation without lifting arm from water. To avoid over-eagerness, when I applied water-pressure with my right hand, I visualized the staple holding tendon-to-bone pulling out.

Five months to the day after surgery—following just two months of quite moderate whole-stroke training—I swam the Betsy Owens 2-Mile Cable Swim.

In 2004, I’d swum a personal best of 49:20. Swimming with modest expectations, I was dumbfounded to see 45:40 displayed on the race clock as I reached the finish line. I led the 50-54 age group for the National Masters title for 3000 meters, being passed in the final 200 meters to finish 2^nd, to that date, my highest finish ever in a National championship.

What could be the explanation for improving my personal best for two miles by over 3-and-a-half minutes after having my training severely restricted for most of the 10 months preceding the event?

Summer of 2012 – Top 10 Percent 4 Consecutive Weeks

Last year at this time, I was looking toward the upcoming open water season with rather modest expectations. Because of a torn meniscus in my right knee at Christmas, then four months hampered by autoimmune symptoms, I was restricted to swimming in the Endless Pool three times a week for 30 minutes (the equivalent of less than 5000 yards per week) at very gentle current speeds and minimal effort levels.

As I began my racing season (also at 2 Bridges), I told myself I’d take pleasure in the social aspects of attending the events races, seeing friends and enjoying the experience, not allowing finishes below my usual standard to detract from the pleasure of simply swimming.

In that first race , on June 2, I finish in mid-pack but enormously enjoyed being there nonetheless. A week later I began swimming regularly in Lake Minnewaska, and my symptoms also began to abate. I began swimming at steadily brisker tempos, using my Tempo Trainer.

During my five months of gentle stroke tuning in the Endless Pool, I’d acquired an unprecedented feeling of silky synchronicity in my strokes. That feeling held as I increased tempo from 1.10 to 1.0 to 0.9 seconds/stroke. Soon I felt as if I was flying effortlessly up and down the 200-yard line at Minnewaska.

On July 22, I swam my second race of the season, a mile in the ocean at Coney Island. I maintained that silky feeling throughout, but didn’t expect the finish I had. I won the 60-64 age group by a minute. I also placed in the top 10% of the field overall—something I hadn’t done in at least five years!

Over the following three weekends, I swam three more races—another ocean mile, followed by two races of two miles. I won my age group in each by steadily larger margins. And in each I again placed in the top 10 percent in the field—the most exciting, and least expected, level of sustained racing excellence in my 40 years of open water racing!

Again, how to explain this in light of entering the season significantly undertrained —by conventional standards—in both volume and intensity for the rigors of open water distance racing?  In particular, all three occurrences of hard-to-explain success occurred in my 50s and 60s.  When I was much younger (I swam my first open water race at 22) I never raced well unless I’d done long, hard training.

Do Less, Get More

The short answer is that—to a far greater extent in open water than in pool races– it’s possible to do quite well with smart, strategic—yet fairly modest–training. This seems counterintuitive—isn’t open water racing reputed to be far more grueling than pool racing. But there are far more opportunities for error in open water—in starting, pacing, navigation, etc. And it’s like that most of the field will make those errors.  Minimizing error can compensate for gaps in training.

Doing more with less in open water swimming is of great interest to aging swimmers like me. And of even greater interest to triathletes, who have to make time for three sports.

In next week’s blog, I’ll share the particular lessons I’ve taken from these experiences and will apply in my training for the upcoming open water season.

COACH YOURSELF IN OPEN WATER SKILLS AND STRATEGIES (click links below for details)

Outside the Box DVD

Outside the Box ebook

LEARN OW SKILLS AND STRATEGIES FROM TERRY LAUGHLIN AND TI COACHES (click links below for details)

August 1-4  Open Water Camp in New Paltz NY

Aug 13-17 Open Water Camp in Lake Placid

The post How Age and Cunning Can Win the Day in Open Water appeared first on Swim For Life.

The post How Age and Cunning Can Win the Day in Open Water appeared first on Total Immersion.

When it came to sports, I’d always felt unaccomplished–and a bit lazy–compared to my brothers. All four are serious and accomplished power lifters, two with experience in international competition. One of them has twice won silver medals in the South Asian Games and is competing n Kyrgyzstan right this moment. All I could boast of was swimming a little but my awkward and slow breaststroke only reinforced my sense of inferiority in the arena of physical accomplishment.

In the spring of 2010, my best friend, colleague and swimming buddy Ehsan showed me  a self-coaching DVD he’d ordered from Total Immersion.As I watched I was immediately mesmerized. It had only  been playing a few minutes when I decided: I must learn to swim this way!

Ehsan and I began to practice together, comparing each other’s form to what we saw on the DVD. From the start, we began improving steadily. Ehsan and I have the good fortune to be employed by an American company, in a USAID-funded project, and we asked colleagues who visited the US bring back more TI learning tools–the DVDs Perpetual Motion Freestyle and Outside the Box and the Extraordinary Swimming for Every Body book–which we studied avidly. These resources–perhaps the only advanced swimming information in all of Afghanistan–played a vital role in the progress we’ve made over the past three years.

As Ehsan and I  progressed in our mastery of  TI techniques, we created quite a stir among the swimming community in Herat. Everyone wanted to learn this ‘smooth and elegant style.’  We visited pools all over Herat to give demonstrations of TI techniques. The pool owners knew and welcomed us because of the curious crowds our demonstrations drew.

One fine morning in September, 2012, I received a call from one of the pool owners who told me that the Afghan Swimming Federation was planning to establish a regional  team in Herat and the National Team Director had asked to be introduced to me. The Director told me that his search for skillful swimmers had brought up the names of me and my buddy, Ehsan. He asked me to help establish a provincial team for Herat, beginning with a tryout for promising swimmers.

From the tryout, we selected 15 swimmers who showed talent and motivation, after which the director of the swimming federation officially asked me to coach the provincial team. At about that time I uploaded video clips of my swimming to Youtube, then posted links on the TI Forum, asking for feedback. TI Head Coach Terry Laughlin and others responded with encouraging and heartwarming  comments. This inspired me to take my swimming to the next level.

(This video shows Eid demonstrating TI technique to his team members in Herat’s sole indoor pool.)

Last winter, I began coaching the team in Herat’s only indoor pool, which is called Shab Hai Talayi or ‘Golden Nights.’  While this pool is a bit small for training sessions, we find we can teach and practice technique quite effectively here. Our swimmers have shown as much excitement as I’d felt about learning TI–and have progressed as rapidly.

An exciting measure of their progress came just weeks ago when  two of them visited Mashhad, Iran for New Year’s Eve (on the solar calendar). Following my admonition to keep up their practice while on holiday, they swam with members of the Mashhad provincial team, creating a sensation there too!  Upon returning home, they told me proudly that the Iranian swimmers could not believe swimmers with such advanced technique had been trained in Herat!

Three years ago, I could not have imagined the stunning change in my circumstances that would result from watching a TI DVD. From a swimming novice to coaching the provincial branch of the national swim team–and even making waves beyond our borders! Even so, I know this is just the beginning of a long journey.

My unexpected journey is a tribute to TI, to my friends on the TI Forum who have responded with such encouragement and generosity to my posts, and of course to  TI Head Coach Terry Laughlin my swimming ‘Guru’. My dream for the future is to attend a workshop with Terry and continue to develop my teaching and coaching skills to qualify as the first TI Certified Coach in Afghanistan.

Happy Laps!

Eid

Eid (L) and Ehsan proudly wearing TI caps

Eid Mohammad Hamed is 29 years old and married with a daughter who will celebrate her 2nd birthday on June 1. Eid works as an urban planner with the Regional Afghan Municipalities Program For Urban Populations, a USAID-funded project.  Eid speaks four languages and, besides his passion for swimming, also has a passion for mystic poetry, particularly Rumi the 13th Century Persian poet and Sufi mystic. On the TI Forums, Eid posts as Azamy.

Eid’s TI buddy, Mohammed Ehsan Azamy, is an information technology specialist with the same agency.

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