Comments on: Should you quantify performance?

By: Harry Smith

Harry Smith — Tue, 07 May 2024 23:14:00 +0000

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By: Pasmoisa Toisa

Pasmoisa Toisa — Mon, 22 May 2017 07:45:00 +0000

I can totally relate to Marcus. Sounded just like me. Really love reading this discussion thread as well as all comments and advice. Thank you

By: KearneyHimself

KearneyHimself — Sun, 21 May 2017 13:31:00 +0000

I have to agree with both the previous comments. I don’t have the physique to be a competitive swimmer, but I enjoy being in water and have concentrated on swimming distance, which is rewarding in it’s own way and (arguably) more useful.
Also, timing oneself over a short distance is difficult to do accurately, especially in a pool that doesn’t have a timing clock.
I am 80 years old, 64″ tall and weigh 135 pounds. It takes me 96 minutes to swim 3km – 60 lengths freestyle and 60 breaststroke, which averages out at 48 seconds per length.
Quite often some kid will dive in and show me how it should be done and in those moments I wish I was able to swim a bit faster, but after about a dozen lengths, they seem to have had enough, so I don’t feel too humiliated.
So maybe I will get that 96 minutes down to 90 one day, but I am not convinced that it will make all that much difference to my enjoyment of my Sunday morning swim.

By: Dan Hope

Dan Hope — Sat, 20 May 2017 15:06:00 +0000

I agree with Wayne’s focus on feeling consistency in “moving through the water with a relaxed, graceful, no-splash stroke.” Graceful, relaxed swimming is what attracted me to TI. As I approach my 74th birthday I am less interested in competitive improvement of my speed and more interested in the mindfulness, Kaizen aspects of TI. When I was 69 a friend did talk me into a 5K Lake swim which I enjoyed because of TI.

I enjoy being in the water or under it scuba diving. Quantifying my time in the water is a distraction from the pleasure and I do not keep track of SPL. When I last paid attention it was 19-21 for 25 Yds. My routine is to swim a mile or so for health, fitness & relaxation which takes between 37 & 41 minutes.

After 2 rotator cuff surgeries on my right shoulder, however, I started using short fins to protect against another injury. Perhaps my next challenge will be going back to finless swimming

By: Su-Chong Lim

Su-Chong Lim — Sat, 20 May 2017 14:35:00 +0000

I’m 69 and I started TI at 64. I recently hit a plateau in trying to decrease SPL at speed, and what I did was return to slow repeats of short lengths to focus on SPL. During this process I ignored speed/time measurements, as I viewed them as a distraction. In the process I discovered that I had some residual balance issues which my slow speed accentuated and thus were easier to focus on. I continued to train at this slow speed as I found my balance and technique issues were not masked, and thus found that by isolating the balance issues in this way they were and still are, easier to work on. It’s not that I didn’t care about speed ultimately. It’s just that I realized that at the moment speed/time was a distraction when technique was the outstanding issue which was needed to be corrected with singular focus.