What all three have in common is that the physical activity that leads to excellence—what your body is doing at the moment you experience flow or demonstrate mastery—is far less significant than what your brain is engaged in. Below is a list of actions or processes identified as requirements for Flow or ingredients in Mastery:

• Visualize
• Plan
• Focus
• Observe
• Measure
• Analyze
• Strategize
• Adapt . . . and finally
• Learn, Memorize, Imprint.

All occur not in some abstract realm, but as observable, measurable electrochemical activity among cells—called neurons—in the brain and nervous system. The activities listed above not only lead to excellence in the physical realm–they have also been proven to stimulate the growth of new brain cells!

Activating Neurons

For me the most eye-opening and empowering example was this:  Dr. Richard Davidson, professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Wisconsin brought 32 subjects to his Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience in Madison for brain scans. Half were Buddhist monks, each of whom had practiced meditation for at least 10,000  lifetime hours. Half were “control subjects” of similar age with no previous training, who were taught the fundamentals of compassion meditation for two weeks before the brain scanning took place.

All were placed in an MRI scanner and asked to think loving thoughts about people close to them, then to think compassionately about the human race in general. When the monks meditated this way, their left frontal cortex—the brain’s “positive-thinking muscle’– showed an average of 100 percent greater activation; two showed increases of 700 to 800 percent! The inexperienced meditators increased activity in that area by just 10 percent.

This study was the first to use an MRI to document that thinking patterns can be learned in the same way as skills for, say music or sports–by stimulating cell growth in the region of the brain where that kind of neural activity occurs. The scans revealed that the monks had “grown” dramatically more robust brain circuits than those who had not . . . and consequently had far more “brainpower” in that region.

“People are not just stuck at certain preset points,” Dr. Davidson said. “We can take advantage of our brain’s plasticity and train it to enhance chosen qualities.”

In a study at Mass General Hospital, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MRI scans showed that regular practice of mindfulness increased cortical thickness in an area of the right hemisphere that we use to sustain attention and increase sensory awareness.

This proves that attention and self-perception are improvable skills that can be developed by targeted practice. Researchers also found that regular meditation practice may slow age-related thinning of the frontal cortex.

From Aspiration to Achievement

For me game-changing insight in these reports was the realization that literally everything that happens from the moment you  cross the threshold to the pool deck, or approach the shore of a lake is controlled by the brain—and that any rational objective can be brought to fruition by the application of ‘informed and strategic mindfulness’.

• If you expect to improve continuously at swimming, you will.
• If you interpret something in your environment—crowded lanes, rough water, not enough time, too-warm or too-cold water—as an opportunity. . . no matter that every other person in the pool finds it annoying or inconvenient . . . you will turn it to your advantage.
• If you focus on finding and fixing an inefficiency in your stroke, it will improve before you leave the water.
• If you decide to complete a 20-mile marathon—no matter that you can barely complete a 25-meters now—you will!

How different from the wishful thinking I had done for the first 25 years of my life as a swimmer.

Originally Posted by HandsHeal

The co-founders of NLP believed that four essential patterns of behavior underlie success in an endeavor:

1) set specific goals and outcomes
2) maintain flexibility to attain specified goals and outcomes
3) seek feedback and adjust behavior and/or goals that are not working
4) monitor one’s internal state and adjust as needed

NLP techniques change behavior by modifying internal representations to aid the attainment of desired goals.

Both TI swimmers and coaches have significant roles in practicing the four NLP patterns of behavior. Bedause of experience  TI is better  positioned than individuals for teaching the internal representations that will improve swimming behaviors.

My internal representations include both visual impressions and Terry’s phrases like, “Yield to the water”, “Feather feel”, etc.

“Ease” has a rather abstract meaning. That stroke thought might not be generally effective, because of the wide variation in skill levels, andinternal representations of swimmers who hear it.

The new swimmer needs to be taught first how to float, then themechanics, then coordination, and so forth. Then, and only then, can they begin to put those fundamentals together with the advanced thought  “swim with Ease.”

I’m looking forward to ever more interesting internal representations to consider, and methods to modify them, that flow from the Kaizen thinkers at TI headquarters.

Terry replied

Hands, you raise two key points here: (1) the influence of the concepts that guide our actions (NLP calls them internal representations); and (2) the importance of visual and verbal instruction that help the student translate those concepts into progress toward their goals and outcomes. So let’s consider the word “ease” in both of those contexts:

1) A concept that guides our actions. Positioning  EASE as  motivating goal of swimming is critically important because it counters the  prevailing orthodoxy that hard is good and harder is better. If you believe the prevailing orthodoxy then as you start a repeat, set or race you’re likely to think “Swim hard.”

This virtually guarantees you will swim harder. It’s nowhere near as certain that you’ll swim better.  As Amy noted in an earlier post, a likely side effect of an intention to “Swim Hard” is that you’ll increase muscle tension. And that will hurt your effectiveness.

So for TI to position EASE as a foundational goal is important in changing concepts.

2) However simply doing so isn’t enough. Therefore we translate ease into specific stroke thoughts in many ways. Here are just a few:

• “Hang” your head.
• “Hang” your hand.
• Cooperate with gravity.
• Marionette Arm
• Featherlight catch. (Or “Gather moonbeams.”)
• Rotate less. (Swim OFF your stomach, not ON your side.)
• “Nudge” your hip.
• Get your legs to “draft behind” your torso.
• “Flick” your toes.

Those are just instructions on “mechanical” ease. In addition, we have a whole range of instructions for “strategic” ease, such as  ”how to swim faster”: (1) Focus on sustainability, not velocity. (2) Reduce the resistive force of the water before increasing the propulsive force you generate. (3) Work the “math” of speed – building “neural circuits” for high-skilled combinations of SL and SR – rather than heedlessly churning your limbs faster.

And finally there are “illustrations of ease” such as the image below of Shinji, from the Outside the Box video shoot demonstrating the Marionette Arm.

Perpetual Motion Freestyle: the picture of ease

Posted by elk-tamer

Since you’ve moved this discussion from the TI Coaches Forum to the General (public) Forum  I’ll assume our usual uninformed thoughts are welcome:
One reason for more rotation that I can think of is to compensate for reduced flexibility.

Posted by Terry

ET,   ALL thoughts are welcome especially if they advance discourse. Your thoughts, and those of most who post here regularly, aren’t uninformed. When you share your reflections on how you experience and think about swimming you give us a useful window into how others may do so.

Your reason for rotating more is completely valid – compelling even. Comfort and freedom of movement are essential to optimizing your own efficiency.

I find it important to emphasize repeatedly that TI is not about rigid diktats or “rules” about swimming. Our goal is to provide principles and guidelines that help you explore and improve your own swimming experience.

If you remain mindful that improvement should:
1) increase your “mojo”  and
2) if you’re really serious be empirical - i.e. try to measure your improvement in some combination of greater efficiency (fewer strokes), enhanced pace (hold same pace for longer, or faster pace for fixed distance) or greater ease (which will lead to both more endurance and efficiency)

That confirms you’ve used your practice time effectively.

So here’s another guideline. Try not to over-analyze/intellectualize things. Instead:

• Have a new experience.
• Think about it.
• React to it.
• Repeat.

There was a fascinating  article in today’s NY Times about an actor who has had cerebral palsy for life. A meeting with inventive choreographer Tamara Rogoff resulted in a collaboration in which she created a dance piece specifically for him, and while teaching it to him taught him to move in more liberating ways than he had ever experienced. She also taught him to feel his body in ways he had not previously.

The article will uplift any reader. I drew something more from it. My greatest insight this year has been a more profound understanding that we learn and improve at swimming by training the brain and nervous system — and allow aerobic training to “happen” while we do. I’ve become far more familiar with terms like Neural Strength and Neural Plasticity.

Thus, this graf from the article really grabbed my attention. “In the past, people thought that a neurological deficit was fixed and immutable,” Dr. Paget said. “Now there’s this whole concept of neuroplasticity: the neurological system has this ability to change itself and constantly grow.”

It also started a set of “conceptual neurons” growing. For many people a better path to swimming mastery may be to understand it as a “neurological deficit”  to be addressed by learning methods that focus on the brain’s capacity for neuroplasticity.

As his source, he cites Christopher McDougall’s “Born to Run.” Unfortunately I found his overheated prose style – “encoded” by writing for mags like Men’s Health, Men’s Journal and Esquire – left me with a sense of cognitive dissonance as he described a people, the Tarahumara tribe of Mexico, so utterly lacking in pretense. I couldn’t maintain the motivation to read past Chapter 5. (Exactly the opposite is true of Egan. I look forward to each of his columns.)

However the idea of running as an “ancestrally coded necessity” has been advanced most authoritatively and eloquently by Harvard  evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman. Early man often needed to run for hours – sometimes days – to chase down faster, but less enduring, prey. Those who were best suited to this task ate more regularly and thus survived in greater numbers to pass down their characteristics to descendants. Thus modern man has inherited a physiognomy well suited to endurance running.

As anyone who has experienced keen frustration with learning or improving at swimming (i.e. virtually everyone) will recognize precisely the opposite. Despite the theory that at some point our ancestors crawled from the water and gradually grew more erect and land-adapted, eons late, humans are “wired to struggle” in the water and the solutions to our struggles are counterintuitive.

This means that learning and improvement at swimming depend to a far greater extent than running on “rewiring” your brain and nervous system.

Nonetheless, the local pool is closed today while the roads and rail trail are open, so I too will trot through a 5K in New Paltz this morning with a 100 or so others before driving to Long Island for dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving

I am starting on the third year of my self-taught TI adventure.  I progressed quickly from struggle to ease but hip drive has eluded me. Recent forums debated snap versus continuous roll. Two days ago I tried it during a long swim and was thrilled to find that I was experiencing at least some of the feelings we are taught to expect. The first was that my spearing arm felt like cable unspooling from a drum. The second was that the continuous roll kept a steady, light, even pressure on my anchored arm. At the end of the roll a small diagonal flick and foot stretch happened naturally and completed the full body extension and streamlining from toes to out stretched fingers. I found that the roll can be timed to exactly match the travel of the vertical forearm and spear. As well the amplitude of the roll can easily be adjusted for breathing. All the effort seems to be in the torso and the arms just follow through. At present this is all new to me and I have to concentrate to achieve it. Am I on the right track? I do seem to be covering longer and longer distances.

Terry replied: Ken It certainly sounds as if you are. Your “right track” isn’t just the movement habits you describe. Even more important is the behavioral habit of narrowly-targeted attentive repetition. Clear intention is the spark for excellence.

To assist you on that path, here are three stroke thoughts. related to your current skill goals:

1) Focus on the “span” you create between the spearing hand and opposite foot. It won’t change by more than millimeters likely, but I’ve found it’s helpful to focus on maximizing it . . . without strain.

2) Separately tune in to the sense of  deep abdominals being constantly engaged while you swim – maintaining body tone and stability – and of feeling a small extra pulse of power each time you spear the hand and flick the opposite foot.

3) Initiate both actions with a hip nudge, rather than hip drive. How subtle can you make that movement and still feel both of the above occurring?

Experiment with practicing those stroke thoughts using a set like the following. First establish the sensation I describe, then test your ability to maintain it. Swim this set once thinking only about #1. If  you’re not quite satisfied, do it again. If you are satisfied, repeat the set thinking only about #2, then once more thinking about #3.

4 x 25 – If you’re satisfied with the stroke sensation, then do

3 x 50 – ditto to above, then do

2 x 75 – and finally

1 x 100

Between repeats keep “swimming mentally” – using visualization and imagination to keep encoding the neural circuit from brain-to-nervous system-to-muscle. Can you make your visualization as “lifelike” as the actual swimming?

It is simple sets like this that are the foundation for developing a great capacity for mindfulness at the same time you develop beautiful, effective movements. Both are of equal value.

Yesterday i swam like this: 1500 meters very easy and efficient, concentrating on what you said Terry, a short glide each time your hand points forward and concentrating on the forward move. It was quite amazing how easy and relaxed I felt.

I forgot my sports watch so I have no time on the total distance, but checked a couple of100s. I was swimming each 100 meter at about 1:47 . Not fast, but my SPL remained constant at 33-34, which is 2 to 3 strokes lower than my usual.

After this 1500 I was so relaxed I could have swum with that speed indefinitely. I followed that with 3×300, broken as 50+100+150. I set my Tempo Trainer at 1.28 sec/stroke for #1, 1.24 for #2 and 1.20 for #3. Next I swam 3×100 with TT at 1.10 and SPL at 37. My pace on these was 1.30.

I ended with another fantastic and relaxing 800 meters. Gorgeous training session!

Today, just to see if I could get that feeling back, I swam a straight 5000m  in the pool, with TT at 1.32 and holding 34-35 SPL. I didn’t take any water during the swim so I was thirsty afterwards, but apart from that I felt like I could have continued that way for another 5 K.

That post prompted Vol to ask: Congratulations! Was that a 50m pool? How can you swim “straight 5 K in the pool” (not river/lake/ocean) without being bored? It means 100 laps in a 50m pool.

I replied: It’s true that many people would find it boring to “follow the black line” for a straight 5K. The key to avoiding boredom — and to swimming your best — is to be mindful.

Set a goal for the swim. Not a time goal, but a measure of both consistent execution and consistent engagement. Make it your primary goal to stay in the moment for every one of what could be – in a 50m pool – 4000 or more strokes. In other words. 4000 opportunities to improve your stroke and make efficiency more permanent. If you succeed, the 5K will seem timeless and, indeed, when it ends you may even be sorry it’s time to stop.

The challenge of being mindful in a pool is fundamentally no different than in open water, where potential boredom is thought to be far less of an issue. Pool swimming requires you to reset your focus and intention after every turn. As you approach the wall, execute the turn, then push off and break out, you’ll replace your “stroke thought” with “turn thoughts.” Every time for 99 turns. That makes 99 opportunities to improve your turn.

Add it all up and a 5k in the pool represents 4099, or more, opportunities to improve your capacity (neural circuits) for attentive repetition.

Does anyone know any supplements that will help my 100m freestyle time improve?

These are the supplements i’ve been idvised by the GB swim team are the best supplements for swimmers looking to progress but i don’t know anything about them:

Super Halo
BBS Creatine Ethyl Ester
Waxy Maize Starch
Catalyst
PhD Pharma Blend

Can anyone help shed some light on these products or advise on any other products?

If true, it’s dismaying  to hear that the GB national swim team has advised anyone to take supplements in search of more speed. In the event, here is the advice I would give to anyone asking such a question.

The best way to improve your 100m time is not by ingesting something. The two most dependable and proven ways to improve your time for any distance are:
1) Reduce water resistance. Mindfully reshape your “bodyline” to fit through a smaller hole in the water. When you do, you’ll travel farther, faster, with less effort.
2) Make every stroke count. Improve your stroke so that moving your hand back propels your body forward an equal distance rather than pushing water back.

Most human swimmers convert 5% or less of their “horsepower” into forward propulsion. 95% or more is diverted into creating turbulence or making waves.

You don’t need more horsepower nearly as much as you need to make better use of the horsepower you already have.

I swim for exercise and weight control (and a few other reasons) but I’m wondering if my heart rate is where it should be. I did a vigorous swim the other day and could only get to 108. On the elliptical trainer, I can get over 130 with effort. According to one online heart rate calculator, I should be between 115 and 149. I want to keep swimming but I also want the benefits of exercise.

Your “aquatic heart rate” will be 13% (or 15 to 17 beats) lower than your land HR at a similar level of exercise intensity — mainly because swimming’s horizontal position, and the reduced effect of gravity, makes it easier for blood to circulate out to the working muscles and return to the heart. Thus an aquatic HR of 108 would equate to a land HR of 123 to 125, which is both health-enhancing and sustainable.
Your max and working HR can also be influenced by age, though the “220-minus-age” equation traditionally used to estimate a person’s maximum heart rate is no longer considered accurate.

The larger question is to be clear on your swimming goals. In TI, the first goal is always to improve your swimming. Healthfulness is a beneficial byproduct of spending three or more hours each week practicing for improvement. If you think of HR as a key factor in the fitness side of your training, then you might be curious to learn how various kinds of training affect  it.
Speaking personally, I haven’t checked my HR during a swim practice in nearly two decades – yet still get high marks on my regular physicals, and my resting HR (which I check – along with blood pressure — upon rising every couple of days) is an admirable 42. When you adopt as your goal to improve your swimming, then you’ll practice guided by two key principles. I’ll also explain how to get information about your HR in this kind of practice.

Principle #1 Reduce Energy Waste to swim better.
The traditional approach is to swim better by pushing yourself harder. This creates a priority of raising HR to maximal levels during certain sets. Indeed, the core purpose of such sets is a higher HR. The set is considered a success if HR approaches its predicted maximum. How efficiently you swim is often besides the point. In fact churning heedlessly and inefficiently could be considered beneficial, since it’s more likely to increase HR.

Improvement-minded swimmers have the opposite objective. We understand that human swimmers waste energy massively and therefore focus intently on saving energy. This translates into mindfully seeking the easiest way to complete any task — whether swimming a well-paced and relaxed mile or a fast 200m. Thus we focus on minimizing HR while training. As I noted above, I haven’t checked my HR in years. Instead I use a well-honed “perception of effort” to gauge it.

Principle #2 Improve by Building Neural Circuits (not the Aerobic System)
Improvement comes from energy savings, which come from efficiency. This gives TI swimmers two clear priorities for their training: (1) Strengthen your focus; and (2) Build “neural circuits” for effective movement. In that approach, aerobic system training becomes something that happens while you train your neuromuscular system.

With these priorities, a logical way to get information about HR response while swimming would be to check HR while using a Tempo Trainer. E.G. On a series of 200s, start with a slower tempo and progress in steps to a fairly brisk tempo. Check your HR prior to beginning the set, and recheck it immediately after completing your fastest-tempo swim. That would give you the most useful and functional info – i.e. your HR relative to speed and tempo.

If I were to do this set I’d be most interested in correlating time to tempo. It’s possible I might also be curious – purely for informational purposes – how HR correlates to time and tempo. But in keeping with my first training principle of saving energy, I’d consider the set a success if I maximized improvement in time, relative to tempo, while minimizing increase in HR relative to time and tempo.

Note: While I don’t base any of my training on HR,  if you do plan to include HR level among your exercise goals, consider having your personal MaxHR calculated by an exercise physiologist or sports doctor with a stress test and ask how the results should be adjusted for swimming.