Comments on: What’s your favorite stroke? All of them!

By: Phil Sallaway

Phil Sallaway — Mon, 28 Aug 2017 22:34:00 +0000

I enjoy the three strokes I swim every session, Breath, Side and Free. Because they are all so different and give me a whole body work out. I kind of enjoy the side stroke the most because so few people do it and every so often I can keep up with or pass a free style swimmer and get funny looks. I am a TI swimmer have been coached over the 1 & 2 day classes for over 10 yrs. I have even applied some TI principals to my Side Stroke to make it faster.
Thanks for the Blog Terry !

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 26 Aug 2017 16:39:00 +0000

great post Terry. When I was a runner I was stuck at 90 minutes for a half marathon. I just couldn’t beat it. I upped my mileage to about 100miles per week and still couldn’t beat the one and a half hour barrier. Then I got injured. Eventually I came across a good medic and our aim was to get me running again. He said in the meantime why dont you try cycling and swimming. Yes, you guessed it, that got me into triathlons. I raced over 100 triathlons, won some and represented GB as an age grouper in 1991 Worlds, Gold Coast Australia. Anyway, on less than a third running mileage my half marathon times dropped to 77 minutes and no injury. That’s the power or cross training.

Nowadays I am an occasional long distance open water swimmer (and TI student of about 8 years) and I think I have hit the same barrier. I can keep going forever though at a fairly slow pace of 2:00mins/100m whether I am swimming a 5K or doing 100m sets in the pool, its all about that pace. So I am thinking, inspired by Terry, its time to start swimming cross training. I have got a lake 10k swim in a few weeks after which I am going to start learning the other three strokes. I will be buying the TI programmes and am targeting a consistent 1:50/100m pace at no extra effort by this time next year.

This time last year I was swimming 2:10/100 pretty much for all distances and then I did the TI Fast Forward programme, twice. So I have already improved by the margin I am targeting and am confident I can do it again, though not by doing much more of the same; breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly here I come and I’m excited all over again.

Regards

Dave

By: KearneyHimself

KearneyHimself — Sat, 26 Aug 2017 14:59:00 +0000

Of the four competition strokes, only two are likely to be of much use in an open water situation, freestyle and breaststroke. For survival, breaststroke has has the twin advantages of being able to see where you are going and working well under water.
But you never mention the Combat Sidestroke used by the Navy Seals. They set recruits a target of 500 yards in 10 minutes and some can cover that distance in 7 minutes. That seems to be a skill worth learning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lUHudMN1TU