Fitness Book Review

Total Immersion: The revolutionary Way to Swim Better, Faster, and Easier
by Terry Laughlin and John Delves
©1996 A Fireside Book, published by Simon and Schuster
ISBN 0-684-81885-X

A Musclehead Gets Wet

As a musclehead my swimming ability was comparable to that of the dumbbells I lifted. Glug. Glug. That didn't matter until I discovered triathlon–you know: swim, bike, run. My third race, which kicked off with a mile ocean swim was a rude awakening. I survived the Cuisenart that was the 200 yard sprint from shore to the first buoy. But, as the froth from hundreds of overlapping, slapping hands and feet gave way to calm, the faster swimmers, including the race winner who was in my wave pulled ahead. For the next 15 or 20 minutes I was gasping for each breath, but wasn't tired. I was fit . OK, out of the water. Onto the bike. In ten minutes–about 40 minutes after I'd started–I began passing most of the women's wave which had entered the water some four minutes behind me. Quite a few of the couch-potato figures (and physiques) I overtook led me to understand that for success in swimming, and triathlon, too, muscle is nearly useless. Damn.

Taking The First Step

Total Immersion. I'd been aware of their weekend clinics, videos, website and book advertised in the multisport magazines promising fins and gills, in short order, but had resisted their call to enlightenment. Afterall, I'm a trainer. Time in the water is all I needed. Yeah, well, just as there is more to weightlifting than pushing some iron from point A to point B, swimming is a subtle and complex endeavor. It was time to stop fighting the water. I dispensed with my pride and stuck my toe in…

First step: the book–it's gold. Gifted writer and teacher, Terry Laughlin cuts the complexities of swimming into bite-sized pieces and feeds them to you with an easy, conversational tone.

Instead of trial and error, it's trial and success. Drills stack the learning deck in your favor. You can't lose. Because mini-skills can be mastered quickly and easily, you begin practicing smooth movements right away.

Surprisingly Interesting

A potentially dry (no pun intended) subject –learning to swim –becomes an entertaining journey through hydrodynamics and physics. Laughlin describes swimming as 70% mechanical efficiency and 30% fitness. Balance in the water is a huge part of that 70 percent. For instance, swim downhill   was an easy cue to remember and sense in the water. Swimming downhill requires that we press our buoys  into the water, which causes our lower bodies to rise, placing us in a more horizontal position which cuts drag, our enemy in the water. This buoy is our chest area and like an air-filled beachball, when pushed under the surface it pushes back. The drawings in the book detail this exactly and once in the water it's easy to feel.

Then there's body roll. A barge is not a fast vessel, but a sloop is. A barge is wide and flat whereas a sloop is long and narrow. It slices through the water and a barge pushes against the water. So, by rotating–rolling side to side–to execute each stroke several things are accomplished.

First, shoulders, which are similar to a barge when we're face down in the water now become trim leading edges that reduce drag when our bodies turn. Also the shoulder is shielded from the water because the leading arm is parting the water well ahead of it. Not only that, the head makes contact with the leading arm and further streamlines our swimming vessel.

Next, when we roll around our long axis to stroke all we have to do to breathe is turn our heads a bit to the side, instead of lifting up. Head lift causes our legs to sink and ruins balance.

Finally, when the stroke is produced by the body's rotation its much more powerful than if the arm is left alone to pull us through the water. Most of us never think that in swimming, as in other sports–tennis, golf, baseball, boxing–arm swing is the last, and least powerful of a linked series of actions, each of which uses momentum from the one before. Power originates in the body's core (midsection and hips) and flows outward to the extremities. Swimming well is a rhythmic application of this power.

Since the powerful midsection and hips are the engine, our hands and arms become anchors and stabilizers. After one hand enters the water we reach, grab some water and hold onto it, like a rung on an underwater ladder and then roll while drawing that hand straight toward the navel, which conveniently gets out of the way as we pass over our anchor point. Try this: Walk over to a wall, and facing it reach high overhead. Place your palm flat on the wall. Lift your elbow and turn your hips about 45°. Can you picture this movement being more powerful than just trying to pull with your arms?

Maximum Efficiency versus Maximum Effort

The book includes plenty of drills, workouts and techniques as useful as they are novel in name. Swimming golf  for one, makes a game out of balancing stroke count, exertion and lap time. Your swimming speed is determined by stroke rate and stroke length. Terry observes that we probably aren't lacking stroke rate. So the idea is to save strokes and become more efficient. A reasonably good swimmer can cover 50 yard repeats in 40 strokes and 40 seconds. Score: 80. Without swimming harder right off the bat, er…tee you eliminate one stroke per length while shooting for the same 40 second split. Score: 76! If you just swim harder, your time might drop to 35 seconds but your stroke rate may increase to, say, 44. Score: 79. Soon, your heartrate will rise and your technique will likely fall apart, too. Lower score equals greater efficiency.

This stroke efficiency objective ties right in with no sweat swimming  which is a low intensity approach to swimming faster. Olympic champion, Alexander Popov is cited numerous times as a swimmer who's main training concern is technique refinement, mostly below his anaerobic threshold. He trains his neural system so well that he maintains his low stroke rate even at race pace–34 strokes for a 50 meter freestyle in under 22 seconds– while other swimmers could at best hold 37 strokes. Popov knows that correct neural pathways–skills–are best ingrained at, say, a heartrate of 130 instead of 180.

Underscored throughout this text is the idea that practice makes permanent those things–good or bad–you are practicing,  and that fitness is something that happens to you while you're practicing good technique . So, slow down and practice precisely. It's working for me.

I just did the Half Vineman Triathlon (39 year-old age group) and I'm doing the Ironman Florida, November 4th, 2000. Check me out on IronmanLive for progress reports from Panama City, as it happens. With any luck at all, and some more training I'll be able to keep up with the senior women.

Beyond The Book

I have to admit that I was so impressed with the book I enrolled in an upcoming Total Immersion "swiminar". At the same time I ordered their Freestyle and Backstroke video.

Their tape is a must-have! Pop the TI video into your VCR and this whole system comes to life, step by step– dramatically shortening your learning curve. You see in six steps each piece of the puzzle interlocking with the others, to complete the picture of swimming well  the freestyle and backstroke. Under- and above-water and slow motion photography shows clearly the correct technique as Terry's narration describes the key points and how your strokes should feel when you're doing them right.

The Total Immersion weekend freestyle clinic combines updated book info, new training drills to add to the ones from the video, personal insight from the TI instructors and a real good time in the water. No one needed to be especially conditioned, either. The point of the swiminar is not to workout, it's to learn and refine. The name of the game here is efficiency.

And, in continued pursuit of swimming each stroke well I've received guidance from a couple of TI instructors: Michael Collins on the West Coast and Sandra Cathey on the East Coast. They both teach swimming, compete themselves and write for various swimming publications. I highly recommend both. Also, Hayden Woolley of FutureDreams Swimming, Down Under offers a similar brand of swim coaching. His expertise is featured on sportfit.com, as well as other popular websites such as Extreme Tri Magazine. Plus, for TI swimmers or anyone, for that matter there are swim workouts and training gear posted online at Total Immersion. Also check out SwimInfo as well as three-time Olympian, Clay Evans' site Swim.net for pool workout examples and swim community news.

As Terry Laughlin would say, "happy laps".

Christopher

Just So You Know

These are the original versions of the articles I've written for the popular Hungry Minds educational website. Read the unabridged versions here and read the edited pieces there.