I was going through my stack of swimming rags yesterday, and I came across an interesting analysis of the straight-arm recovery in freestyle in Swimming World’s December, 2014 issue (“Freestyle Straight-Arm Recovery” by Rod Havriluk). The article’s main intent is to put to the test the conventional wisdom that a…
It might seem premature to talk about swimming in December, but winter breaks and summer are right around the corner. With the lake and a pool in every neighborhood, it’s important for every child to learn swimming and water safety. Swim lessons teach essential safety skills. Swimming is an activity…
A few months ago, I was asked at a talk how to use a Tempo Trainer effectively in a swim practice. For those not familiar with Tempo Trainers, they are little plastic discs that can clip to your goggles or go under your cap when you swim. You can set…
One of the main issues that we hear about with children and adults coming in to learn to swim with us is the fear of deep water. Many will tell us that they are comfortable in the water, just not in deep water. Years of swimming instruction has taught us…
We periodically get questions about whether we teach “survival swimming” to infants and toddlers. The interest is usually driven from watching that viral video of the unattended infant falling into a pool with clothes on rolling to the back, swimming to the wall, and hanging on crying. We don’t teach…
I took off in the middle of the day to do my swim today. I wanted to play around with some Tempo Trainer sets in this practice and see how I would do. If you are interested, you can see the detail on the practice on our website. For those…
I read an article on the American Swim Coaches Association (ASCA) website a while back. It’s written by John Leonard, the head of ASCA, and it’s a response to an email that he got from a coach about practicing with good swimming technique. His response highlighted the importance to coaches…
My office manager forwarded an article from the Sunday April 20th edition of Salon called “Ditch the 10,000 Hour Rule.” It takes the position that improving your skills is not just about grinding out the 10,000 hours of practice that Malcolm Gladwell allegedly depicts in his books. Whether it’s an…
I was thinking of a set of drills and focal points that I could use in the first month after my MAF test. Total Immersion has embraced the 2-beat kick and integrating the kick with the body rotation. Kick cadences is something that I have never done. Since I come…
For those not familiar with the Chicago open water swimming scene, the Big Shoulders 2.5K and 5K open water swim is one of the big open water swims in the Midwest. My mentor, Terry Laughlin of Total Immersion Swimming sent me an email a week or so ago saying that…
