One might ask: “Why make such a point about getting the timing right in Spear?”  The answer, which will be important to her as a teacher, is that there will be certain circumstances in which you would be more particular and others in which you might choose to be less.

In the 100s of workshops I’ve taught I can recall countless instances where some aspect of SpearSwitch — most often Patient Catch — proved elusive for some student. Because the Weekend Workshop follows a formal structure limited by (i) the allotted pool time and (ii) the fact that we can’t hold up a class of 10 to 20 people because 1 or 2 haven’t quite got it, I decide to move on to SwingSwitches. At first I was troubled by progressing to the next drill, when the previous wasn’t quite right. But I often saw that the problem resolved in the next step.

So the question is, if a particular aspect of skill finds resolution in a later step in the progression, why revisit it?

In the case of a teacher trainee, the answer is simple. Students learn movements far faster and more clearly by visual means. Thus the most valuable skill as a teacher of skilled movement is the ability to demonstrate impeccable form.

(It’s also essential that they be able to accurately mimic the incorrect form of a student. I’ve learned that the fastest way I can correct a student’s movement error is to demonstrate a few cycles of what I observed them doing, then, without pausing, smoothly segue into a few cycles what I’d like to see them do.)

The other aspect is: Should she encourage a student to revisit the earlier drill in pursuit of ‘perfection.’ It’s less about pursuing perfection, than it is (i) Encouraging an unquenchable kaizen passion for real Mastery; not every student will choose that path, but we always encourage it. And (ii) Swimming with the highest level of skill is such a complex art, and the path to that level has such individual unpredictability, I have had ‘unexpected epiphanies’ on countless occasions – noticing some sensation I had not noticed before that made such a difference in my whole stroke, that I made it a focal point for hours of practice.

In the case of nailing the timing in SpearSwitch, I’ve found that it helped me get the subtle distinction between holding the water and pulling. When I took that distinction to Swing and Swim, both got better – even after the general form of both had been ‘acceptable’ or even quite good.

SpearSwitch with Patient Catch

Segment 2 showed me sharing the pool with a single ‘human swimmer.’ The underwater view revealed the critical differences that allowed me to travel twice as far on each stroke. The most significant is that Perpetual Motion Freestyle (PMF) prioritizes active streamlining, while human-swimming prioritizes pulling and kicking.

We showed that contrast to illustrate that swimming ‘like a human’ is normal . . . a relaxed and streamlined stroke is a learned skill. From 1966 to 1991, I swam ‘like a human’ too. I only began learning PMF at age 40 — and have continued improving my form for 20 years. Such enduring improvement is possible because human-swimming instincts are encoded in our DNA. However, as the TI coaches and swimmers in Segment 2 illustrate once you learn PMF you replace wired-in struggle with flow.  Segment 3 reveals the starting point for learning it. (Note: One of those swimmers, Dave Barra, completed an English Channel crossing yesterday, Sept 1.)

Humans naturally swim like other terrestrial mammals, head high and limbs churning. PMF consciously mimics the swimming of aquatic mammals (whales, dolphins, walrus, manatee, sea otters) to whom evolution has given a naturally streamlined shape. Another natural advantage of aquatic mammals is aquatic balance – a low-drag horizontal position. The designed-in balance we humans have is vertical – great for walking and running, but a source of drag when swimming.

Thus the first step in learning PMF is to rewire your brain.  This creates new circuits of motor neurons,  which allow us to move differently. Even more critically, it creates new cognitive circuits, so we can think differently.

Superman Glide, illustrated here, begins the creation of motor circuits that guide my head (hanging) arms (wide tracks) and legs (passive and streamlined) into new positions. Cognitively, it replaces the almost-universal sinking sensation with a ray of hope that ‘weightlessness’ is possible. Once I felt the possibility of weightlessness, I gained the freedom to make a conscious choice to use my arms to (i) extend my bodyline and (ii) ‘pierce’ the water instead of churning — an inevitable legacy of the sinking sensation.

Superman Glide and Laser-Lead Flutter, shown in this segment, are examples of a new form of TI drill – called Tuneups – introduced in the Self-Coached Workshop. Tuneups are intended for practice  in short intervals–usually 6 to 10 yards, rather than  full lengths.  They’re designed to narrownly target your attention on an essential aspect of the stroke, making it easier to maintain as you progress to more complex movement and longer reps. They also help you relax when you feel yourself becoming tense or — as human swimmers usually do — working too hard.

Segment 1 of the “Work Less, Swim Better” series showed me moving smoothly through a pack of other swimmers in rough water in the 2006 World Masters Championship. Segment 2 uses underwater video to reveal what was happening underwater as I did. The key points include:

Pierce the Water

Human swimming, exemplified by the swimmer in the next lane, is all about pulling and kicking. His hand goes in, down and back in one motion. As the video shows, I travel twice as far on each stroke, taking 4 to 5 strokes, to his 9 to 10 over about 10 yards. His stroke moves water back, My stroke moves my body forward. One reason is that I use my extending hand to “separate water molecules” (as does the tapered snout of a barracuda) then line up my body to slide torso and legs through the human-sized sleeve I create. That habit – taught in Lessons 2 and 4 of the Self-Coached Workshop – significantly reduces drag so I travel farther on each stroke.

Hold your place

Human swimmers press the hand straight down by instinct – and because they need constant propulsion. When drag is high, you lose momentum quickly, so you have to stroke ceaselessly. Streamlining helps me conserve momentum, which gives me the luxury of more time to firmly trap water behind my hand. My solid “grip” is another reason my stroke propels me twice as far. It also means lets me use the “free energy” of a weight shift, rather than weaker and easily-fatigued arm muscles, as my human-swimming lane mate does. The patient catch and synchronized weight shift are taught in Lessons 5 and 6.

Cocoon of Calm

We all start out as Human Swimmers.  It takes targeted and patient focus to replace deep-seated habits with Separating Molecules and Holding your Place. This not only helps you hold form in  rough water; it also builds powerful focus that converts into a “cocoon of calm” when you encounter a churning crowd in a triathlon swim leg or open water race. Practice like that demonstrated by TI coaches from 2:14 to 2:38 helps swimmers not only accept, but enjoy, close quarters. Even while crowding each other, and intentionally creating contact, none change their form. (Click here for an expanded version of this video .) This builds resistance to the loss of form and focus experienced by many triathletes in the first minutes of a race.

Anyone can learn PMF.

There’s nothing accidental about the form those TI coaches display. Besides the seven coaches in a pack, the three swimming under the bridge, and the four swimmers following the rope all look virtually the same. PMF is the first example in swimming history of a precisely-replicable technique . . .  and one that’s highly effective: All three TI coaches swimming under the bridge — Greg Sautner, Dave Barra and me – have won USMS national open water championships. PMF is a form anyone can learn by following the  step-by-step stroke-building procedures in the 10-Lesson Series.

From Chapter 5 “Different Strokes: Open Water vs. Pool Technique”

While others at Masters workout focused on pool speed, I used every repeat, no matter how short, as a rehearsal for open water races.  On short repeats, most would swim with aggressive, high-turnover strokes – some taking 21 or more strokes for 25 yards, while I limited myself to 15 SPL, regardless of how brief the swim or how hard the coach urged us to swim.

I probably could have swum those sprints faster by taking more strokes. But since my favored races were long open water swims, rather than pool sprints, I preferred to imprint the optimal way to swim during them. On “sprints,” rather than take more strokes, I focused on getting more out of those I took. I felt this would help program my muscles for the faster parts of open water races-–the start and finish. I was unconcerned that my sprints were slow by pool standards, so long as they developed open water speed.

Beyond the question of stroke count, I’d also begun to refine my sense of technique adjustments that minimized fatigue without sacrificing pace, a years-long process that included an unhurried catch, a higher-elbow-but-lighter-pressure stroke, and a patiently-tuned 2-Beat kick.

My goal was to avoid reliance on fatigue-prone arm and shoulder muscles by drawing ‘free power’ from weight shifts and untiring core muscle. This required the patience to work in a longer time horizon: While my pool-mates were thinking about racing to the next wall, I thought constantly about how I hoped to feel during open-water races months-–or years–in the future.

To swim your best in open water you must make a strategic choice to swim in a way that could slow your pool times, at least on shorter repeats — and, during a period of adjustment, possibly on longer ones as well. However, any swim that lasts over a minute should benefit fairly quickly from the reduced energy cost of Perpetual Motion Freestyle.  But first, you must be willing to defer the immediate gratification of short-term speed for long-term gain.

*  *  *  *

Will myelin improve my  swimming?

At 1:23 of the accompanying video, I play a brief clip from the Outside the Box DVD, showing me swimming in the 2006 World Masters Open Water Championship in San Francisco Bay (clip shot by TI-Japan Head Coach Shinji Takeuchi.) It shows me swimming through a pack of swimmers from waves which started 5 to 10 minutes before mine. The difference between my technique and theirs is striking. I explain their struggles as resulting from “not enough myelin.” This excerpt from the Outside the Box ebook explains the significance of myelin.

From Chapter 10: “Increase Sustainability by Secreting Myelin!”

Muscle memory is a metaphor for a physiological change in your neuromuscular system. Swimming efficiently requires a specific set of muscles to be turned on (and off) in an exacting and non-instinctive pattern. With each stroke, an electrochemical signal travels from your brain to instruct motor units to contract or relax. Each time the signal crosses that circuit, a bit more myelin, a fatty substance that acts like insulation on electrical wires, is secreted, strengthening the signal received by your muscles. A relatively faint signal is good enough to keep the movement consistent while swimming slowly for short distances in a low-distraction environment. It takes a strong signal, i.e., a lot of myelin, to remain efficient as your fatique increases when you swim a mile or more at higher speeds with waves smacking you or avoiding collisions with other swimmers. . . . in the rough water of San Francisco Bay, the main difference between me and those I’m passing is myelin secretion. Thicker insulation, laid down during thousands of focused, purposeful rehearsal repeats allows me to swim with virtually the same stroke as in the pool or a serene lake. Lacking it, most others swim with a “barely coping” stroke.

I’m searching for information on stretching with focus on freestyle swimming.

I’ve found in Total Immersion, the Revolutionary Way to Swim better, Faster, and Easier some exercises and two stretches for the front of the shoulder and two stretches for the back of the shoulder.

I’m definitely interested in shoulder stretches but also back and leg stretches that are appropriate. I’ve noticed with TI swimming a definite change to the muscles in my upper back, and I would like to be sure that lack of correct stretching does not cause a physical problem.
The effects or benefits of stretching are commonly thought to be relief of tightness in muscles and increase of range of motion in joints.  Over time I’ve come to view the question of stretching and its effects differently, and my view today is colored by my age – 59, a time when my muscles seem a bit more susceptible to injury or the occurrence of “hot spots” or knots.

My stretching activities now are more geared to overall health and feeling good at all times, while also–as an athlete–trying to keep my muscles ‘tuned for action.’

I rarely do the kind of swim-specific stretching I did from my teens to my 30s that was illustrated in the original TI book. This focused on muscles like the pectorals, triceps, lats. When I was younger I regularly experienced post-swim soreness in those muscles but that was because my swimming relied on higher arm-forces. By using the drag-evading and whole-body-propelling techniques of Perpetual Motion Freestyle, I no longer experience that kind of soreness.

I deal with more general tension–not uncommon in middle-aged-athletes–by warming up more gently and thoroughly before a practice. Also by having one or two practices a week done entirely at ‘recovery pace’ and devoted to higher levels of technique.

I often get knots, particularly in the muscles around my left scapula, because I tore the rotator cuff in that shoulder in an auto accident in 1996 so those muscles compensate to keep my shoulder stable. I need occasional massage, adjustments and acupuncture to break open those knots and relieve tension.

But virtually all of my prior active stretching has been replaced by yoga, which feels both holistic and integrative in a way those stretches were not. Yoga not only keeps me feeling more supple–in my spine and joints as well as in muscles. It also keeps me strong in an integrative way. That is, rather than working on isolated muscles, it strengthens them as they work–in combination and by using them as I do outside of yoga.

Finally, it brings the calming and centering effects of meditation. I’m certain the combination of yoga and swimming is among the most healthful things I will do for the rest of my life.

I was involved in the planning of the Yoga for Swimming and More DVD with Susan Jacque who is one of my teachers, and can strongly recommend it both to complement swimming and as a way to become acquainted with yoga.

There are few better examples of simple wisdom that can apply to  nearly anything. Like swimming improvement.

Between unremarkable wood block and impressivly lifelike duck lie three distinct stages, each requiring specific tools.

A band saw to cut a piece of lumber into the general shape and size of the duck. It cuts away large chunks of  not-duck quickly, but not finely.

Carving knives to create a recognizable, yet still rough, head, body, wings and tail. These cut away smaller pieces of not-duck but what lands on the floor are still chunks.

And finally,  rasps and sandpaper to detail beak, eyes,  wings and tail.  The not-duck falling to the floor at this stage goes from chips to splinters to powder.

Improving your stroke follows a remarkably similar process of carving away whatever doesn’t display the fluency, relaxation, and general harmony shown by an efficient stroke. Start with big chunks and progress steadily to ever-finer skills. This also means working from large body parts and “gross-motor” skills, to smaller body parts and “fine-motor” skills.

Balance and weightlessness drills like Superman Glide, Laser-Lead Flutter, or Core Balance, take away big chunks – discomfort, breathing distress, tension, sinking legs, unstable body.

Alignment and streamlining drills, like Skating , SpearSwitch, SwingSwitch, shape a human – or terrestrial mammal – body to have the “slippery” qualities of aquatic mammals.

Propulsion-oriented drills, like OverSwitch and Stroke Thoughts to “tune” the Catch and 2-Beat Kick, create a smooth and effective arm-and-leg action.

Using this clip of Perpetual Motion Freestyle as a model, what can you carve away from your stroke that looks different?

I hope someone can help. I feel I have the TI technique down EXCEPT the two beat kick (2BK). For some reason my leg goes to a 90 degree angle at the knee when I kick. I know this is creating drag and want to correct it. I’ve tried everthing. I have even thought about tieing my feet together in a shallow pool. Any suggestions?

I replied:

I’ve spent years on my own 2BK “project.” But even before giving the 2BK much attention, I had spent over a decade focused pretty narrowly on the many ways in which one can reduce drag.

I began a shift toward efforts to improve propulsion around 2000, thinking mainly about my armstroke for a few years. In 2004 I began to focus on my kick.

Since then my efforts have been organized as follows:
1) Make my legs more passive to save energy and reduce turbulence
2) Get them to “draft behind my torso.”
3) Synchronize leg beats with hand-spear.
4) Use less muscle to accomplish #3 – shifting the work from quads to core.
5) Focus again on streamlining the kick – using toe-flick rather than leg-drive.

Eliminating a scissors — or other leg-splaying habits — falls into #2. The most helpful thing I did to streamline my kicks was improving lateral stability – i.e. controlling rotation. Besides imprinting controlled rotation in Skate and SpearSwitch, I also focused on keeping my elbows as high and wide as possible as I completed extension.

I’ve described my 2BK process and project in detail in Chapter 7 “How to Kick in Open Water” of the Outside the Box ebook.

Streamlined Legs - and Body - in SpearSwitch

Legs Draft Behind Torso in Whole Stroke

I did the set with them and never added a stroke. Indeed I subtracted one. After 21 x 50, and an increase of two-tenths of a second in stroke tempo, I counted myself sufficiently pleased with my improvement to call it a day.

I took 29 strokes on the first 50, 14SPL going and 15SPL returning, and maintained 29 strokes for the next 3 x 50. On the fifth 50, I reduced my count to 28 (13+15). I then held that count for the next 16 x 50, to a tempo of 1.0 sec/stroke. I had never before held the same stroke count over such a large range of tempos, so this was my best Tempo Trainer set ever. In terms of time, adding the 3 beeps I allow on each pushoff to the number of strokes I took, I swam the first 50 (36 beeps x 1.2 sec/beep) in 43.2 sec. I swam the final 50 (35 beeps x 1.0 sec/beep) in 35 seconds, meaning I went over 8 seconds faster yet took one less stroke.

This took keen concentration (I do sets like this just as much to hone my concentration as my stroke) and reflects hundreds of hours of Tempo Trainer experience over the last 5 years. Try a similar set and compare how your own stroke efficiency is effected. If the range of 1.0 to 1.20 is a bit too brisk for you, start at 1.30 or above. Reset the Tempo Trainer after each 50 by depressing the left button once. Happy Laps.

• Physiological improvements – the body’s “superadaptation” to the stresses imposed by training – occur during periods of recovery or restoration. In training cycles, you stress the body, then de-stress, in measured ways, to allow stepwise improvements in strength and work capacity. Those who never de-stress limit the body’s capacity to do that.
• Swimming is unique. In running and cycling 70% to 80% of improvements come from increases in physiological capacity. In swimming, 70% to 90% of gains in speed or endurance come from improving the “neural programs” for efficiency. Those improvements virtually always come during easier practice.
• The vast majority of adult swimmers are more interested in swimming well for a mile or more, rather than for 100 meters. To swim well for such distances, you need to feel very controlled, very much at ease, for most of the distance. If you go “hard” it will likely be for just the last few minutes of a swim that lasts 30 to 60 minutes. If you feel as if you’re swimming hard earlier than that, it’s far less likely you’ll be able to sustain to the end.  Thus it makes sense to spend much of your training time rehearsing and imprinting the thoughts and feelings you hope to have while swimming a longer distance, possibly in open water without pushoffs to give your arms a rest.  This is even more the case if you have to cycle and/or run after finishing your swim. Yet on the occasions when I swim with a Masters group, I observe that the great majority of others there, many of them triathletes, do almost everything hard.

Easy doesn’t mean Lazy. Easy swimming is valuable even if you aren’t doing it to recover from the physical stress of harder efforts on land or in the water. It’s the best pace for examining your stroke, improving your efficiency and imprinting new skills. When I swim easily – something I do as much as 80% or more of the time – my practice repeats include one or more (often all) of the following elements:

1. I think about how I would like to feel on a brilliant long swim. In the middle of a 2-mile, 5km or possibly 20+ mile, swim how would I feel if I swam better than I ever have in my life. Not just ease but complete harmony with the water. I strive to make every stroke feel that way, to imprint the movements and sensations of brilliance into my brain, nervous system, muscles and even my psyche.
2. I strive to maintain lower stroke counts, with a feeling of rhythmic continuity, than I could maintain if swimming harder. Once that higher efficiency begins to feel “settled” I’ll increase effort , tempo, or pace very slightly (often with a Tempo Trainer) to test if I can keep the SPL and the feeling of relaxation I established previously.
3. I strive to maintain – and sometimes even improve – pace as I continue for as much as two to three hours, and often as I increase repeat distance.
4. I strive to avoid sensations of fatigue.
5. In sum I try to swim as fast as I possibly can – and yet do so effortlessly and in a way that feels almost limitlessly sustainable.

Kaizen Ease Swimming easily is most beneficial when it’s technically exacting and when you add as much or more mental energy to make up for the physical energy you subtract — when you still strive to swim better than you ever have before, and to leave the pool a better swimmer than when you entered it.

Today marks the “official” start of training for three swim marathons: Tampa Bay Apr 17, Catalina Channel June 7 and English Channel week of Aug 17. I swam sporadically Oct through Jan, averaging about 6000 yds/week, but I’m not concerned with my level of fitness. I’ve swum enough to keep my neural conditioning well tuned and have ample time (it’s still 10 week to Tampa) to get my aerobic fitness to marathon levels. I consider quality neural programs more critical to marathon success and so my training will focus more on practice tasks that require keen attention and strategy to complete successfully. This will  create new connections in my brain, and even new neurons.

I will record my training here regularly.

Warmup: Swim 100 Relaxed and Easy

Set # 1 Swim 100 – 200 – 300 – 400 – 300 – 200 – 100 on interval of 2:00/100

Times (w/pace-per-100m): 1:46 – 3:28 (1:44/100) – 5:05 (1:42) – 6:38 (1:39) – 4:50 (1:37) – 3:09 (1:34) – 1:33

Notes: After taking 36+38 strokes on my warmup 100 I decided to swim a “pyramid” from 100 to 400 then back down to see how close I could stay to that  SPL (Strokes Per Length) as distance increased. I also kept track of my times, hoping to keep both SPL and pace consistent as repeat distance increased and perhaps improve pace as distances decreased. I did hold SPL reasonably well, going to 39 SPL only on the final 50 of the 300 and 400 on the way up. However on the way down I was taking 37 SPL on the first length of each repeat, 39 through the middle and 40 on the last lap. In part this was due to lack of fitness, I could feel both streamline and stroke effectiveness was slightly affected by a creeping edge of fatigue that accumulated slowly throughout the set. However, though I didn’t measure or control it with Tempo Trainer on this set, my Stroke Rate must have increased a fair bit throughout the set as my pace/100 got faster on each successive swim – even as distance was increasing.  I attribute this to the warmup effect at the beginning and relatively consistent stroke efficiency throughout. As my fitness improves my goal will be to avoid the increase in SPL I saw here. If I succeed, my pace/100 should improve even more.

Set #2 “Tempo Pyramid” set of [2 x 12 x 50] with Tempo Trainer and Stroke Count

1-12  – 2 each at 1.11, 1.12, 1.13, 1.14, 1.15, 1.16 sec/stroke          SPL began at 38, improved to 37 at 1.14 and improved again to 36 at 1.16.

13-24  – 2 each at 1.16, 1.15, 1.14, 1.13, 1.12, 1.11 sec/stroke        SPL began at 36 and remained steady until 1.12 when it increased to 37 at 1.14 where it remained til the end of the set.

Notes: This is another “pyramid” set of sorts. Rather than increasing/decreasing repeat distance, I decreased, then increased tempo with the aid of the Tempo  Trainer. I decided to do this set after seeing my SPL increase to 40, because of accumulating fatigue in Set #1. I guesstimated that an initial tempo of 1.1 sec/stroke would result in an SPL of 38. I would slow the tempo incrementally until my SPL decreased to 36. I then repeated that set in reverse. As I increased tempo my goal was to avoid adding strokes, trying to maintain 36 SPL for as long as possible. I allowed 3 beeps on pushoff to keep breakout time consistent. As has happened previously when I did a “tempo pyramid” set I was more efficient when I returned to the 1.11 tempo than I had been at the start of the set. Here’s the “math of speed” for this set. My time at the beginning of the set was 45.5 sec. (38 strokes [41 beeps including pushoff] at 1.11 sec.). My time at the end of the set was 44.4 sec. My fastest 50s were the combination of 36 strokes and a tempo of 1.13  or 44.0 sec. This lets me know that a tempo of 1.13 is, for the moment a “sweet spot” for combining stroke length and stroke rate effectively. Over time I’ll try to move my sweet spot to gradually faster tempos.

Cooldown: 300m as 2 x [50 Back (41 SPL), 50 Breast (21 SPL), 50 Free (37 SPL)]