swimtraining with TI like stuff in it

[Zenturtle]

I am not a TI swimmer or a swimsmooth swimmer or whatever.
Just a guy who started swimming 6 years ago already, and trying all the dishes available on his own.
That means, trying differnt swimming styles to see what makes them tick as far thats possible for a middle aged guy with an avarage engine size.
Still havent found my personal style by all this messing around, but its converging to a certain stroke. Luckily the very raw basics for a good stroke are the same for any style.

But whats wrong with unco? One of the best drills around if you execute it properly I think.

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

Right, I showed that video a few times also. indeed the differnce is subtle from the outside, but when you know the differnce, the diffeence in swim perception is substantial.
When I started swimming I was intrigued by the power from the hips mantra and rolled my hips a lot to extract that mystical power from it.
Simply rolling the hips is useless and even counterproductive.
The hips are part of a kinetic chain and need to be controlled in amplitude to extract the optimal amount of power following that kinetic chain.
Just when throwing a ball or boxing or throwing a spear or golfing; swinging your hips without proper connection to the rest of the motions of the body is just silly.

you might focus on the roll of your low side hip when swimming slow. Mostly the hip overrolls and has to be rolled back all the way to the other side every stroke. Like a big mass is attached to your hips that keeps on rolling when it has gained momentum. females suffer more from it than males usually, which makes sense.
Now control that hips roll and transfer the rol of the hip to the shoulder , so that the shoulder is taken along with the hip rotation, while you lenghten and reach with the low side of the body.
Now the roll of the hips decreases and the roll of the shoulder increases a bit.
That takes some muscle tension and tone to accomplish, but you will get rid of the overshoot and feel that your body tracks more straight and forward.
You simply eliminate superfluous and unneeded extra motion from your stroke.

Yes, tone on the skate edge, i went to the pool tonight with that in mind and i opened up with that fingertips to toes then relaxed through the transition and firmed up again on the other skate edge, that is how you get the fast skate on egde, without tone it's very lacklustre, i must have had the apperance of doing virtually nothing but rocketing along :-)

[daveblt]

Originally Posted by Mushroomfloat

Yes, tone on the skate edge, i went to the pool tonight with that in mind and i opened up with that fingertips to toes then relaxed through the transition and firmed up again on the other skate edge, that is how you get the fast skate on egde, without tone it's very lacklustre, i must have had the apperance of doing virtually nothing but rocketing along :-)

So, you roll to one side , extend from the shoulder while keeping the arm relaxed with pinky down and at the exact same time the leg on the same side is poised in the upbeat position ,the whole body is long stretched and balanced like you are on your tippy toes then repeat to the other side .

Dave

[CoachStuartMcDougal]

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

I am not a TI swimmer or a swimsmooth swimmer or whatever.
Just a guy who started swimming 6 years ago already, and trying all the dishes available on his own.
That means, trying differnt swimming styles to see what makes them tick as far thats possible for a middle aged guy with an avarage engine size.
Still havent found my personal style by all this messing around, but its converging to a certain stroke. Luckily the very raw basics for a good stroke are the same for any style.

But whats wrong with unco? One of the best drills around if you execute it properly I think.

ZT, six years? Triathlon, open water or pool comp? Where are your from, what pools do you swim, open water, ocean or lake - both?

Re: Unco. This is what SS has named the single arm drill - short for uncoordinated or something? Single arm free drill has been around forever. I would hope a swimmer could coordinate one arm in freestyle if they're swimming with two and if they have two functioning arms. Some of us in TI use single arm drill and some don't - Terry used for specific reasons too. I prefer single arm fly as opposed to single arm free. Being "one of the best drills" what specifically do you use it to improve where two arms just get in the way? What is the point of the drill other than to feel a lack of coordination or being unco'd?

Stu
mindbodyandswim.com

[Zenturtle]

Just swimming a bit up and down in the pool a few times a week.

Unco is good for:

Timing
Roll from the core
Balancing and staying aligned while being thrown off course by the recovering arm, or the pulling arm
Connection your catch and pull with your body twist/roll
Breathing while not disturbing the process.

Because you are more concentrated one one side of the body you can focus on whats happening better.
Unco or one arm swimming is a very difficult action to do perfect. Even the olympic swimmer cant keep perfectly aligned and struggles a bit if you watch her in slowmo.
The beauty is that its very close to the starting point of swimming, that is being in balance rotationally and between front and rear.
Now you add disturbing actions and you have to stay balanced and also make sure you are making forward progress while staying aligned.
With every action you can focus on the effect of that action.
How does lifting of the arm out the water effects my rotational balance and where does the body sink during that action? How does the body react on a fast recovery, on a slow recovery? How does the lifting of the non working arm help rotation? Can I use more core and legs or a smoother recovery to do that work in the water?
What part of the body is bending a bit instead of only rotating around the axis? In what sequence connect all the bodyparts if I imagine them to be seperate parts, only allowed to rotate around a spit? Can I add abit of that bending and twisting to my advantage without creating too much drag, or loosing the rotation around a spit idea too much?
How do I make the whole cycle smooth? How can my legs help rotation a bit?
At what time do I add a bit of shoulder twist and reach, and how do i set up the arm in the water so that the following actions dont cause the body to be steered off line or the body starts to bounce?
Because there is only one arm thats anchoring, its more important to get the connection with the water and all the following actions in the body timed just right. You are having a one cilinder engine that you are trying to operate as vibration free as a 2 cilinder engine.
If you can do that, your 2 cilinder engine will run as smooth as a 4 cilinder engine.

Well, I hope you can see what I try to say..I hardly have time to relax in the pool haha.

[IngeA]

Terry has also a one side drill: Single side swimming.

- I also tried the commonly used single side swimming with one hand outstretched. I didn't like it. At first, this was very easy to perform, but it didn't give me any benefits either. But it hinders a bit the rotation because to do a correct rotation you had to rotate the outstretched arm to the top side. In single fly that's different, because there is no need of rotation.

- Terry's single side swimming is different. You must have a very stable core to perform it because all correcting and stabilising movements of the second arm you can't do. The entire rotation you have to do with the core muscles, you cant initiate it with the arms. I can do this drill now (with 2-beat kick), but not always it's easy to breathe in this drill for me. I will have do practice some more :o)

- As I see in videos, the UNCO-drill very much like Terry's single side swimming. But the breathe is on the back arm side. On the videos I've seen most swimmers use the back arme to initiate the back rotation, but it may be that's because of that is what someone does who does not rally master the drill. I don't know. It looks like me to be the "easier form" of Terry's drill.I think the drill can teach better core control, but breathing on the stroke side is much more challenging than on the other side because the support of the outstretched hand is missing.

Everyone has his own drills he likes or he doesn't like. I like Terry's drill very much even if i felt drowning the first times i did it. And the other two drills may have their point too for other people.

Best regards

Inge

[Zenturtle]

Here you can see how difficult it is to do it right and how revealing it can be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhlsLosj15g

Terrys pulling nechanics can be improved. It causes massive up and down bobbing by pushing water down underwater pushing the body up, together with the weight of the recovering arm pushing the body down a moment later, setting up an up and down bobbing rhythm. He even has to wait until his body floats up again to take a breath. He could also have chosen a strokerate that amplifies that natural rhythm and become a loper, but it seems the rhytm is to low frequency for that in his case.
Terry just didnt have the flexibility to have better underwater mechanics probably, and here it shows up much more than in normal stroke.

Even with those limitations its possible to swim well, as Terry proved, but its interesting to become aware of your limitations, and try if you can limit the negative effect they are causing. Unco certainly can help with that.

if you do unco like this, its indeed useless
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq3Uf5asWJg

cant find a good unco example anymore.
Whell, this is a good one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6PtNd9Z4Hg
this is a very good one, but with fins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYagyjgpzFQ
but looking for a good one with a 2BK...
A good one with a pull buoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1Oc20LbOA8
This proves that the kick is not the only mean to establish rotation.

a beautifull single arm fly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdsYAO2eI4g

well, dont know , but seems more about undulation instead of rotation.

[CoachStuartMcDougal]

ZT,

Terry sinks in the one arm drill since he’s not wearing fins like the swimmer doing the “SS unco drill” wearing fins. So you’re putting a right and wrong context, one wearing fins and one not which itself is misleading at minimum. If you have to wear fins to perform a drill, only masks an imbalance issue created by the drill - and then what’s the point of the drill? So again, what is one becoming aware of using this drill other than creating the impulse to pull?

The single arm fly you posted too creates the impulse to pull with the opposite arm floating below the surface next to hip, may as well be single arm free with some fly undulation. The single arm fly I use with my swimmers, opposite arm remains in front to maintain balance as the high side arm swings forward from the pelvis accessing external forces of the weight and momentum as it swings forward and thus minimizing and being aware of primal impulses to pull to stabilize the vessel.

You noted you are an engineer. Curious, what type of engineering do you practice?

Stu
Mindbodyandswim.com

[Zenturtle]

Just Like Inge, I think the one arm always in front variaty limits the rotation and the possibiliy to feel the proper connection from catch to core. rolling all the way from left to right.

Even with fins, you will get up and down bounce if you dont do it right. The disturbance is at shoulder height, not at the rear of the vessel.
You always get some bounce, but it shouldnt be excessive, or it should be deliberate, in an undulating manner.
There is a lot happening between hips and elbows that can be managed one way or the other, wearing fins or not.
From all these actions only a part is directly related to front-rear balance, what is always your main concern in your reactions.
The rest is concerned with finding an optimal dynamic compromise between propulslon and streamline.
If your basic balance is good, thats not your only purpose anymore. Balance is the platform to work from. Not the main action on itself.

mechanical engineer offcourse :-)

[CoachStuartMcDougal]

ZT,

If you’re an engineer of any discipline, you know to compare tests in the same scenario or environment to get valid results, otherwise inconclusive. Using inconclusive testing to support an argument, well is meaningless, but good marketing maybe. So what’s the point of the “unco” single arm drill if one is to use the drill?

Stu
Mindbodyandswim.com