is this pause helping efficiency?

[Zenturtle]

I wonder what the current opinion is under the Ti coaches.
Do you think this¨pause in his full stroke is helping efficiency?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZJ3Qq56aDQ

[CoachBobM]

I'm not sure what you mean by "pause in his whole stroke". The swimmer is doing a sequence of drills - not whole stroke with a pause.


Bob

[Zenturtle]

hmmm, seems like swimming whole stroke from approx. 1 min 50

[WFEGb]

Hello ZT,

as Bob mentioned it seems to be the end of a sequence of drills (some "oldfashioned" included), not a TI-demo of a competition sprint stroke...

Although: Yes, it will help in the development of a calm sustainable stroke with a patient lead arm and focus on FQ and swimming all well balanced strokes to be improved further. Where around 2:05 I think there is no pause in your sense. (IMHO he's even not patient enough and could set up his catch a little more in front.)

And no, although he seems to have always one arm in movement, his patient lead arm and the under water view of it might be what SwimSmooth led to "develop" the Overglider-term to blame TI. (Yes, I know they stated the term is independent from TI...)

I am aware about Rued's (remembering name right?) researches, he showed here, that windmilling will be the physically best and efficientest way for continues (and fastest) pace, but he never answered about the influence of resulting bad balance and streamline for normal mortal swimmers. So his answer about your question of best efficence is not comprehensive (am away from your quesition...).

And as sometimes posted here, Terry said: A nanosecond full extension is enough... then building a good catch should have started. (So no, it doesn't help his efficency taken literally.)

Last but not least, you won't get one opinion of us coaches. Will be dependent where we are working in our own strokes and where we're working with our students... and sometimes the efficentest way to learn might be not the efficientest stroke for a moment :-)

Best regards,
Werner

[Zenturtle]

again a lot of things to comment on, but one simple question:

Where can i find good footage of a fast swimming TI swimmer on youtube?
(and not only 25m)

[WFEGb]

Hello ZT,

...Where can i find good footage of a fast swimming TI swimmer on youtube?
(and not only 25m)...

Seems your "fast" is much faster than mine... Aren't there some videos from Terry in his Manhatten or other later swims with his friends Europe-Africa or Corsica-Sardina? Heared James Cameron and Stuart are fairly fast. (But if you can't find them...) And most impressive for me were some videos from TI-Coach Johnny Widén. Honestly, it had not been clear to me, that anyone could swim a TI-stroke in this pace and SR (he's working with 0.7s-0.8s). Johnny, if reading this, might you open one of them for general view?

Best regards,
Werner

[Danny]

ZT, I believe that a while ago someone (Stuart?) posted video comparing strokes of the various TI coaches. To my recollection, the fastest was Jai Evans, who is also an English Channel swimmer. Interestingly, he is also quite short. I would suggest looking for film of him.

[novaswimmer]

The worst thing I see in his stroke (I'm a newbie swimmer, so I'm still missing a LOT!), is his early 'pull' really slips. He should try to set up an early vertical forearm. The first third of his pull is wasted. Part of that might be due to lower body drag.

I'd also like to see his head looking down more. He seems to do this scissors kick thing.

Other than that, he seems to be blessed with fairly good fore-aft natural balance, which could probably be improved even more with head-down position and balance drills.