Different Strokes for the Same Folks

(Larry Weisenthal) said:

Scholarship begins with observation, inference, and theory.

Only in swimming have I seen *scholarship* so utterly dependent on
observation that so-called theory was nothing but an acceptance that
what was seen to work for the winner is a priori the best mechanics for
the stroke, regardless of the body performing that stroke. After Evans'
spectacular wins, I saw many strong tall long-limbed women with strong
kicks swinging their arms stiffly up in the air, bouncing around and
flailing, certainly adhering to the new theory. Remember that
Australian crawl with its scissors kick won and the theory followed that
observation. Johnny Weismuller's head-up was the prevailing theory for
a while. Whatever the peculiarity of the winning Olympian, however oddly
his bones fit into their sockets, however he overcomes this with an
adjustment to his stroke, if he wins, his peculiarity becomes our
mandate, the pet theory until the next Olympics.

Theoretical physicists are

Quoted message said:

hardly poor scholars, simply because they lack access to particle
accelerators and space telescopes to prove their theories.

The theoretical physicist
(http://www.phys.psu.edu/people/display/?person_id=250)
who is kindly making me a nice cup of cappucino right now, doesn't begin
with observation; in fact I think he's allergic to the idea. If I ask
him how does he like this new whatever, he'll go to the next room to
deduce its qualities. He's had whatever machine available to him at the
U of Chicago and U of Cambridge, but that's for others. Theories give
birth to theories and it may be a hundred years before the evidence
follows. Obviously, swimming is an applied science and the swimmer
cannot be relegated to a different discipline, far from the theorist.
But I do think the theories must be formulated on the basis of
biomechanics and dismiss individual swimmers with their pecularities.

rtk

That Terry coached the sprinters wasn't a secret; it was stated over
and over that he was the sprint coach.

And he did not coach his sprinters to have big kicks - quite the
opposite. Yet they did quite well.

Why do you keep misinfroming people that Davies has a weak kick? His
kick used to be *the* sprinter's kick.

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Scholarship begins with observation, <<<

Then tell me what is most different between Jensen's and Davies' kicks.
No one has mentioned it yet.

I saw the same thing in tennis, back in the 70s. All these little Borg
or McEnroe wannabes imitating their heroes eccentricities.

And I thought the secret to physics was having weird hair. Does the
hair contribute to theorizing? Perhaps the physicist wants to get away
from people that poke fun at his hair, and that gives him time to
theorize.

Man o' Tea said:

I saw the same thing in tennis, back in the 70s. All these little Borg
or McEnroe wannabes imitating their heroes eccentricities.

And I thought the secret to physics was having weird hair.

Ummm....it's the Samson syndrome although top hair isn't significant.
Above the lip and overlapping the ears - essential. However, he came up
Saluki. Who knows how that happened!

rtk

Ian S R Smith said:

However, at
least I have had the benefit of being able to test TI methodology with the
many hundreds of swimmers that have passed through our workshops here in the
UK over the last 3 or 4 years.

What were your tests?

Quoted message said:

These being in the main very poor swimmers
who we generally manage to turn into pretty competent swimmers, who leave us
and over time tend to take significant chunks out of their previous best
times. In fact we have plenty of video footage of people that come to
workshops with an existing stroke that looks like the style Larry postulates
for distance swimmers (loads of Janet Evans', but it isn't working for them,
it's killing them, that's why they come to us. We help them rebuild their
stroke and I have plenty of post-workshop feedback from folks saying not
only is their stoke not killing them anymore, they are swimming much faster
too. I could dress this up as empirical evidence supporting TI theory, but
these folk are not already established elite distance swimmers are they? I
would love to have the access to a few of those on a regular basis by way of
experiment (I'm betting so would TL), but it isn't likely to happen is it?

I don't see that you have proved anything about TI except that it is a
useful way to improve a swimmer's technique. I don't think Larry every
claimed TI wasn't a useful way to improve one's stroke.

I'll wager that all your swimmers would have improved just as much if
you had coached them without using TI. You haven't proved anything that
contradicts that.

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I don't think Larry every claimed TI wasn't a useful way to improve

one's stroke.<<<

Well, Larry wrote this a few days ago:

"But it (TI) has been harmful to distance swimming and to many
triathletes, ... "

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I'll wager that all your swimmers would have improved just as much

if
you had coached them without using TI. You haven't proved anything that

contradicts that. <<<

I agree that inidividual coaching is great, if you can get it, but what
constitutes coaching without using TI? Not correcting poor swimming
posture? Any coach should do that. Not using their specific drills?
OK, but many coaches prescribe drills. Not using the TI terminology?
I'm not sure what you mean.

Man o' Tea said:

Quoted message said:

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>I don't think Larry every claimed TI wasn't a useful way to improve

one's stroke.<<<

Well, Larry wrote this a few days ago:

"But it (TI) has been harmful to distance swimming and to many
triathletes, ... "

But that isn't saying TI isn't a useful way to improve one's stroke.

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>I'll wager that all your swimmers would have improved just as much

if
you had coached them without using TI. You haven't proved anything that

contradicts that. <<<

I agree that inidividual coaching is great, if you can get it, but what
constitutes coaching without using TI?

Suppose you had never read the TI book. Then you would be using coaching
techniques that have been around for quite a long time.

Quoted message said:

Not correcting poor swimming
posture? Any coach should do that. Not using their specific drills?
OK, but many coaches prescribe drills. Not using the TI terminology?
I'm not sure what you mean.

I mean not using any technique that is credited to the advent of TI.

Quoted message said:

Unlike Dr Jekyll, I don't think harmful and useful coexist very well.

I'm sure there are many coaches that, with individual attention, could
have made me a better swimmer. By and large, the ones I had, on a HS
team, a college team, and three masters teams, did not give me much
individual attention, and did not make me a better swimmer. TI used
about five coaches to impart some specific ideas to about 25 of us in
one weekend. They really helped. Could it have been done another way?
Yes, but it wasn't.

Man o' Tea said:

Unlike Dr Jekyll, I don't think harmful and useful coexist very well.

I'm sure there are many coaches that, with individual attention, could
have made me a better swimmer.

I don't think individual attention is required, unless you just mean the
typical attention a good coach gives any swimmer who appears to have a
stroke flaw. There are well-known corrective measures for most flaws,
and they work for almost everyone.

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By and large, the ones I had, on a HS
team, a college team, and three masters teams, did not give me much
individual attention, and did not make me a better swimmer. TI used
about five coaches to impart some specific ideas to about 25 of us in
one weekend. They really helped. Could it have been done another way?
Yes, but it wasn't.

Are you saying that a rerquirement of TI is for about five coaches to
impart specific ideas to a swimmer in one weekend?

It sounds like we are confusing two issues here. You are talking about
coaching techniques, not stroke techniques. The original poster posted
an article about different golf stroke techniques all being used by a
single golfer, who was successful with all of them. It wasn't about his
coaching. I'm sure that intense coaching in swimming is just as valuable
as intense coaching is in any context, but that isn't an argument for
the stroke technique that TI claims all swimmers should use.

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Are you saying that a rerquirement of TI is for about five coaches to
impart specific ideas to a swimmer in one weekend?

No, I said they had about five coaches and about 25 swimmers.

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...the stroke technique that TI claims all swimmers should use.

TI does teach certain fundamentals to all their students, but they
don't claim that all swimmers should use a particular stroke technique.

Man o' Tea said:

Quoted message said:

Are you saying that a rerquirement of TI is for about five coaches to
impart specific ideas to a swimmer in one weekend?

No, I said they had about five coaches and about 25 swimmers.

Then what was your point about there being about five coaches?

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...the stroke technique that TI claims all swimmers should use.

TI does teach certain fundamentals to all their students, but they
don't claim that all swimmers should use a particular stroke technique.

What do they claim?

<<Duke Kahanamoku>> What were your tests?>> Simple progression really.
Post-workshop feedback. Folks coming back to us telling us how they have
improved, not only because they feel better/easier, but often because they
are moving faster. I could, but won't, cut and past many such testimonials.

<<DK>> I don't see that you have proved anything about TI except that it is
a useful way to improve a swimmer's technique. I don't think Larry every
claimed TI wasn't a useful way to improve one's stroke.>> Erm sory mate not
only has he said that he's even said we are harmful to them, so I would ask
him to back that up with evidence, i.e. exactly how many TI taught swimmers
has he seen swim that we have caused harm to. It was a ridiculous statement
to make. In any case all I ever want to do for any swimmer I coach is
improve their technique, and no one has shown me a more comprehensive and
logical structure for doing that then TI. Pre-TI I spent ten years teaching
and coaching swimming by traditional methods. I was taught by expert
tutors, in fact my real mentor with the British ASA, Lynn Hogarth, wrote
much of and edited the ASA Swimming Teaching and Coaching mauals, and she
was the first person I contacted when I was invited by Terry laughlin to
come to the US to study with him. I was at that time enrolled on the ASA
Tutor's Course, i.e. to learn how to teach swim teachers to teach. Right
away Lynn advised to go study with TL, so I did and I learnt more about how
to make real meaningful improvements from him than I ever did before that.
It's really as simple as that.

<<DK>> I'll wager that all your swimmers would have improved just as much if
you had coached them without using TI. You haven't proved anything that
contradicts that.>> You can wager all you like mate, but since they were
coached the TI way and across the board made significant improvements
where's the debate?

And for trk from down the link <<<trk>>he seemed like a normal coach who was
able through inventive language to reach and help many swimmers>>>. TL is
not a normal coach mate, if he was a normal coach he would be coaching using
the same old traditional methods which don't, in my experience, do much to
help poor swimmers become proficient swimmers. TL took the time to work out
a systematic way to teach ordinary unskilled individuals how to become
skilled at their swimming, and you are quite right to say he is inventive
and that he has reached and helped many swimmers. But he is an ordinary
genuine nice guy, and we don't always agree on everything. Also, he is very
open to new ideas, consequently the method of delivery is constantly
evolving still and why, for us coaches, it is still fresh and challenging.
All great fun.

Cheers all

Ian

<< Then what was your point about there being about five coaches?>>>

The simple point here is that at TI workshops you can expect a ratio of at
most 5 to 1, swimmers to coaches. That way folks get individual
feedback/instruction usually every length or so, depending on what they
need. On a traditional swimming course you would be lucky to get 25 to 1
and little or no individual feedback/instruction.

<<TI does teach certain fundamentals to all their students, but they don't
claim that all swimmers should use a particular stroke technique.>>
<< What do they claim?>> There are certain aspects of the way we teach at
TI that are for us non-negotiables, but for other aspects there has to be
individualisation, usually to do with an individual's physical make up, for
example poor shoulder mobility. It would be difficult or even impossible to
deliver that in a workshop situation with a higher ratio of swimmers to
coaches. Even coaching on a 1 to 1 basis I have never had to move far away
from the model to achieve great success for folks. I'm very happy with what
we deliver and how we deliver it. But it's not for everyone, so if you are a
poor swimmer and you think by joining a club and joining in with
traditionally coached training sessions is the way for you then great, good
luck to you.

Ian

"Ian S R Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

<<Duke Kahanamoku>> What were your tests?>> Simple progression really.
Post-workshop feedback. Folks coming back to us telling us how they have
improved, not only because they feel better/easier, but often because they
are moving faster. I could, but won't, cut and past many such

testimonials.

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<<DK>> I don't see that you have proved anything about TI except that it

is

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a useful way to improve a swimmer's technique. I don't think Larry every
claimed TI wasn't a useful way to improve one's stroke.>> Erm sory mate

not

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only has he said that he's even said we are harmful to them, so I would

ask

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him to back that up with evidence, i.e. exactly how many TI taught

swimmers

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has he seen swim that we have caused harm to.

That isn't what he said. What he said was that TI's tenets on technique are
harmful to a distance swimming paradigm. He never said it was harmful to the
average person on the street (or in the water for that matter). From what
i've read in his commentaries (and i may have this wrong), he has claimed TI
to be irrelevant to trained competitive swimmers, and that trying to emulate
TI-style techniques and expecting the same improvement you would see with
the average rec swimmer is improbable. This is something i for one totally
agree with.

Larry's disection of the freestyle timing (kick & arm cycle style) &
advocacy of loping in freestyle i have found very thought provoking and
useful. His proposal that the lumbar arch is crucial to balance i also find
very appealing and have had success with my own swimmers using it.

However, i shall ultimately hold my opinion on the effectiveness of a TI
paradigm in competitive swimming for another year or so and see exactly what
Laughlin can produce with the New Paltz Hawks. I find the example of his
West Point sprinters not too convincing - they're already very competant D1
sprinters. Taking an age group program from nothing to something using his
TI world will be something altogether different. He has a swimmer on that
team who is really rather good - if he can advance her significantly, i may
think again.

It was a ridiculous statement

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to make. In any case all I ever want to do for any swimmer I coach is
improve their technique, and no one has shown me a more comprehensive and
logical structure for doing that then TI. Pre-TI I spent ten years

teaching

Quoted message said:

and coaching swimming by traditional methods. I was taught by expert
tutors, in fact my real mentor with the British ASA, Lynn Hogarth, wrote
much of and edited the ASA Swimming Teaching and Coaching mauals, and she
was the first person I contacted when I was invited by Terry laughlin to
come to the US to study with him. I was at that time enrolled on the ASA
Tutor's Course, i.e. to learn how to teach swim teachers to teach. Right
away Lynn advised to go study with TL, so I did and I learnt more about

how

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to make real meaningful improvements from him than I ever did before that.
It's really as simple as that.

<<DK>> I'll wager that all your swimmers would have improved just as much

if

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you had coached them without using TI. You haven't proved anything that
contradicts that.>> You can wager all you like mate, but since they were
coached the TI way and across the board made significant improvements
where's the debate?

And for trk from down the link <<<trk>>he seemed like a normal coach who

was

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able through inventive language to reach and help many swimmers>>>. TL is
not a normal coach mate, if he was a normal coach he would be coaching

using

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the same old traditional methods which don't, in my experience, do much to
help poor swimmers become proficient swimmers. TL took the time to work

out

Quoted message said:

a systematic way to teach ordinary unskilled individuals how to become
skilled at their swimming, and you are quite right to say he is inventive
and that he has reached and helped many swimmers. But he is an ordinary
genuine nice guy, and we don't always agree on everything. Also, he is

very

Quoted message said:

open to new ideas, consequently the method of delivery is constantly
evolving still and why, for us coaches, it is still fresh and challenging.
All great fun.

Cheers all

Ian

"Why do you keep misinfroming people that Davies has a weak kick? His
kick used to be *the* sprinter's kick. "

Davis uses a two-beat crossover. So that's a total of 4-beats, but two
of them, the cross-overs, are only half as big in amplitude as a full
swing of the leg.

Larsen Jensen keeps a full 6-beat kick going the whole race.

So Jensen kicks more times, has much more white-water at his feet, and
glides quite a bit more than Davies.

Eric

"Only in swimming have I seen *scholarship* so utterly dependent on
observation that so-called theory was nothing but an acceptance that
what was seen to work for the winner is a priori the best mechanics for
the stroke, regardless of the body performing that stroke. After
Evans'
spectacular wins, I saw many strong tall long-limbed women with strong
kicks swinging their arms stiffly up in the air, bouncing around and
flailing, certainly adhering to the new theory."

This is more or less completely false. It's extremely rare to find an
elite doing something while is completely out of the ordinary with
respect to what others are doing. I've studied swmming video literally
by the hour, and it is amazing how the movements of the best swimmers
is so similar to one another once they are grouped according to certain
fundamental chracteristics. (e.g. strong kick or weak kick, lope or
non-lope, etc.)

If tall female swimmers with good kicks were coached to imitate Janet
Evans, then they had lousy coaches. The fastest way for humans to move
through the water is to possess an excellent flutter kick, to use it
prodigiously, and to swim with long forward glide on at least one side,
and sometimes both. It's really quite simple - every person in the
100m freestyle final kicks. Nearly every person in the 200m final
kicks. And it falls off like that on the men's side all the way to
1500m.

Now if you're going to swim distance with a kick, then you must also be
blessed with exceptional vital capacity. (heart and lungs, and high
lactate tolerance.) Or you can do what a Grant Hackett does - use
4-beat rhythms and 6-beat rhythms and different times during the race.

The problem with usa-swimming is not that they follow the "stroke du
jour", it's that they've come up with a single freestyle paradigm which
doesn't fit all swimmers. And they are absolutely daffy about distance
per stroke, which is foolish without giving equal weighting to its
sister metric, stroke rate.

My Master's coach is sucked along for the ride - she marvelled at a
great male swimmer in our group who takes 26 strokes to go 50 meters.
I remarked that Brooke Bennet takes twice as many strokes but would
obviously torch this guy. This Coach, who is a middle aged, short
woman, would be much better to look at how Bennett swims rather than
this 6 foot plus, strong male.

Eric

<<"diablo">>> That isn't what he said.>>>

Yes it is - the direct quote "But it has been harmful to distance swimming
and to many triathletes, because it is a methodology which was derived from
sprinters with flexible ankles and good kicks and thoughtlessly extrapolated
to distance swimmers and other swimmers (e.g. adult fitness swimmers and
triathletes) with poor kicks". The phrase "has been harmful" seems pretty
straight forward to me. And to me all the unproven theories of someone
without the capability to put his postulations to the test for real. But,
like I've said I do love LW and some of the stuff he writes is so
entertaining to read. Nive to have that 'for the craick'.

<<<diablo>>TI to be irrelevant to trained competitive swimmers>> So
irrelevant we get on a regular basis competitive swimmers coming to us for
technique training that they don't get at club. Plus TL getting invited to
talk at seminars and sometime do his stuff with elite squads. But, I agree
that elite swimmers would not be in the slightest interested in TI even if
they had heard of it, but I suspect one or two coaches of elite swimmers pay
a little more attention to it.

<<<diablo> Larry's disection of the freestyle timing (kick & arm cycle
style) & advocacy of loping in freestyle i have found very thought provoking
and useful. His proposal that the lumbar arch is crucial to balance i also
find very appealing and have had success with my own swimmers using it.>>
Good on you mate. Whatever works is great for me. How exactly do you get
that across to a group of swimmers in a squad situation? Cuss I can run
planned practices arround the TI paradigm and get great success across the
pool.

<<diablo>>However, i shall ultimately hold my opinion on the effectiveness
of a TI

Quoted message said:

paradigm in competitive swimming for another year or so and see exactly
what
Laughlin can produce with the New Paltz Hawks>> Yep it's gonna be
interesting so let's wait and see << I find the example of his
West Point sprinters not too convincing - they're already very competant
D1
sprinters.>>> Erm, have you asked Joe Novak about that? I think you'll
find that he progressed under TL from being a distinctly average swimmer
to being pretty damn quick by anyone's standards.

Cheers

Ian

PS Keep it coming folks :-)

<<Eric>>The problem with usa-swimming is not that they follow the "stroke du

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jour", it's that they've come up with a single freestyle paradigm which
doesn't fit all swimmers. And they are absolutely daffy about distance
per stroke, which is foolish without giving equal weighting to its
sister metric, stroke rate.>>

Simple fact is trow a human into water and what happens, high SR. Humans
are wired to it, it's a basic survival intstinct in us. And tell some one
to swim fast and what happens, even higher SR, cuss that's what's
instictive. However, in water that don't work too well unless lot's of
other things are well in place first. One of the most difficult things to
do is max SL (whilst maintaining momentum or it just becomes an exagerated
drill like action which is no use to anyone - hey this is one of the most
common misnomers about the TI paradigm too). It's dead easy to work on SR,
any idiot coach can come up with a programme that does that. Much more
difficult to master control over SL. The pay off for doing this is as a
swimmer you can then choose how much of that SL to give up to SR to increase
pace. That is always the trade-off, a distance swimmer may want to maintain
SL for a substantial portion of a race then trade some of it off later. A
sprinter will trade off more across the whole race. Your colleague who can
maintain 13 SPL could easily trade off a couple of strokes per length to
increase the SR and pace. But if you can't hold low stroke counts you ain't
got nothing to trade.

Ian

"Ian S R Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

<<"diablo">>> That isn't what he said.>>>

Yes it is - the direct quote "But it has been harmful to distance swimming
and to many triathletes, because it is a methodology which was derived

from

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sprinters with flexible ankles and good kicks and thoughtlessly

extrapolated

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to distance swimmers and other swimmers (e.g. adult fitness swimmers and
triathletes) with poor kicks". The phrase "has been harmful" seems pretty
straight forward to me.

however he does have a qualifier in there which you neglect to account for:
"...with poor kicks". On that ground he makes a good argument that with a
weak kick there is little or no propulsive force generated during the
catch-up portion of a FQS stroke.

[snip]

Quoted message said:

<<<diablo> Larry's disection of the freestyle timing (kick & arm cycle
style) & advocacy of loping in freestyle i have found very thought

provoking

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and useful. His proposal that the lumbar arch is crucial to balance i also
find very appealing and have had success with my own swimmers using it.>>
Good on you mate. Whatever works is great for me. How exactly do you get
that across to a group of swimmers in a squad situation? Cuss I can run
planned practices arround the TI paradigm and get great success across the
pool.

how do i get across the lumbar arch idea to a whole group? The same way i
would to an individual, using drill progressions and explanations. However,
as my sample is comprised of a minimum of regional level up to national
level athletes they tend to already have that postural benefit already.
Reminding them and insistent drilling on the subject yields noticeable
results anyway.

anecdotally however, using this technique with a couple of swimmers to
prevent excessive lateral deviation has given over faster and more durable
success than attempting other balancing drills similar to those emplyed with
TI (to my understanding, long axis drills).

[snip]

<< I find the example of his

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West Point sprinters not too convincing - they're already very competant
D1
sprinters.>>> Erm, have you asked Joe Novak about that? I think you'll
find that he progressed under TL from being a distinctly average swimmer
to being pretty damn quick by anyone's standards.

Not knowing Novak or being anywhere near Colorado during my tenure this
would hard to do. However, i have read his testimonial. It still lends
nothing to the theory that TI can benefit performance swimming. Would Novak
have acheived the same results had another coach using conventional drill
paradigms done the same thing - who knows? Touretski is also very technique
oriented (or was) with Popov. Perhaps the benefit is with technique based
training for sprinters, who, after all, require different conditioning than
their 200m+ peers? Its all speculation. Novak, after all, is only one of
probable hundreds of young men who do not really reach their potential until
their collegiate years and the maturation both mentally and physically that
comes with it.

The fact remains that despite TI being around for a good number of years
(enough that a developmental age grouper would now be in a position to swim
at the elite level) I can't name, or know anyone who can name, an elite from
that school of coaching.

Steve

Quoted message said:

Cheers

Ian

PS Keep it coming folks :-)

Steve,

could you briefly explain what drills you have developed for lower
lumbar arch?

Also, I believe the TI crowd will point to Adrienne Binder as an eilte
who came out of the TI school. Not sure what happened to her - she did
a great 1650 a while back.

thanks,
Eric