As a Christmas present to myself I ordered Sheila Taormina's
Swim Speed Secrets For Swimmers and Triathletes. The basic premise of her book is that the pull is the most important aspect of fast swimming along with the following equation:
Time = (Number of Strokes) x (Rate of Turnover).
Meaning, if you want to get fast you have to reduce your number of strokes and increase your rate of turnover from the point your arm enters the water, pulls, recovers, and touches to re-enter. And, in order for that to happen you have to move through the water with more power which comes down to an effective pull. An effective pull comes from a high elbow catch along with a diagonal element and the "feel" of the water.
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| Bath County, Virginia |
Sheila Taormina gives you drills in order to develop the underwater pull and many of these drills incorporate bands/exercise tubes into your workout routine. However, in reality, I will loose my mind if I incorporate anything else into my training schedule.
While I understand the first 1/3 of the pull should be a high elbow catch, after that I am completely lost and more confused than when I started reading the book. Somehow after that 1/3 of the pull there is a diagonal element and an element in which you are supposed to feel the water and continually "find" the water while you are pulling. I have to be honest that the explanation was not clear enough for me to understand how you are supposed to "feel" and "find" the water.
The book also discusses some of the history of the thoughts and changes in swim theory. This helped me understand some of the drills present and prior coaches have incorporated into our lessons. It also tells me that the latest research shows that some of the drills and theories have been shown to be ineffective.
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| Luray, Virginia |
So what I did get from this book is that we should be spending more of our time working on pull technique and that pull technique will pull us through the water faster and therefore decrease your strokes. However, you have to break down the pull slowly at first. The top swimmers range from 1.15 to 1.6 seconds per stroke cycle (hand entry, pull, recovery, and hand back in the water). I'm pretty sure I am taking a nap in my pull after reading these numbers.
The book was a quick and interesting read with scattered humor. Sheila Taormina is one interesting athlete as well. She is only 5' 3 " so there is hope for people like me (not quite 5'2"!). She is a USAT Hall of Fame Inductee and considered one of the world's best athletes. She has competed at four Olympics in three different sports: swimming, triathlon, and modern pentathlon (shooting, fencing, horse eventing, and running). She won silver at the 2003 Pan American Games, gold at the 2004 ITU World Championship, and podium finishes at 10 ITU World Cups in which three were overall wins. Talking about super woman! Pentathlon sounds kind of cool. She even sold her house and moved to train for Pentathlon. Now if we could just come up with the sport: swim, bike, run, dressage, quad skate, ------I would be in serious love.
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| Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia with Eva, Arie, and Thijs |
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| Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia |
In conclusion, I am extremely happy I have such an amazing swim coach. I'm hoping to discuss Sheila's techniques with my coach to see if she can further explain the "feel" and "find" of the water. I know my swim coach Eva Steib is always saying "you have to feel the water". On New Years Day I did take a moment to reflect on my swimming progression during 2012 and I did make huge leaps and bounds. I guess I'm always so busy trying to improve that I never realize how far I've come! In January 2012 I had lost 47 seconds on a 100 and after the season was over I had lost even more time with Eva's help at about 10 seconds per 25, so about a 40 second improvement on a 100! Now I'm going to go put Sheila Taormina's principles into action to see if I can pick up more speed! Happy Swimming and Happy Reading if you happen to get this book!
Hi Kimberley,
ReplyDeleteAllthough it sounds confusing, she must be right. In Erfurt where I live, there is a sports gymnasium, it is a special kind of high school for people who want to become professional athletes, and they do swimming amongst other things. When I used to swim, I was always amazed at those semi-professional swimmers, how their movements were slower then mine, but their speed through the water seemed to be twice as high.
I think the "feel" for the water means that you must not accelerate the arm in the water too quickly, because then your arm is more like cutting through it as apposed to shoving it backwards. But you also must not accelerate too slow or too short. So you must find the right rate of acceleration.
My son is a good, trained swimmer. He told me that the position of the arm should be such that your hand is more under your body then beside you. So that you are pulling the water under you.
It is quite a science, this swimming ;-). There really is a lot to it. One of the tricky things is that you can only use the right technique if your speed is high enough. But you can only become fast if your technique is right. So that makes the beginning very hard...
See you,
Bob
Man! Your English is REALLY good! Compliments ;). Nice points on the swimming! It's a cumbersome thing! The Age Group World Championships will be in Zittau, Germany in 2014!!!!! Great opportunity to hang out if I can qualify again! Thanks so much for the post card! It was a NICE surprise!! Can you send me your contact information? Phone, e-mail, address, etc? kimberlynadine@yahoo.com Hugs :) Kimberly
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