Summary: after practicing swimming with various techniques for months, he bought a book titled "Total Immersion" and was saved. Not exactly what the title states.
Despite claiming that he's tried to learn to swim for years this is the sole blog post on swimming. But the blog _does_ have ads for "endless pool" swimming machines.
The hand-written notes, difficult to read for a non-swimmer, are a perfect lead-in to get a browser to buy the book. He could have typed in those notes, but that they're hand-written may give them more credence. In browsing the notes questions arise: what is a "Russian", how do I do "sensory drills" and how do they differ from "skill drills"? Guess I'll have to buy a book, a DVD or pay for a special course to find out.
This is good blog spam for Total Immersion, which has been around for years. Maybe it will sell some books for them. I wonder how much they paid for it.
As Astro Zombie stated on Metafilter:
"I learned that simply avoiding Tim Ferriss saves you a lot of time."
I like to think of Tim Ferris as a person with some brilliant insights who come off as a narcissistic individual and smell like a motivational snake oil saleman.
I did the TI program and went to one of the bootcamps. My stroke count for a pool length went from 27 to 14 during the bootcamp. If you're skinny, you may have trouble with some of the buoyancy drills - you may actually have to lean downwards (not straight horizontal like more normal body-mass folks). The TI drills are tough - as always if you want to learn quickly - take a workshop.
Swimming like a fish is like a sort of meditation. And like any meditation it requires concentrated practice. Timothy Ferris is somewhere between the elite athletes who come to New Paltz, NY to perfect their technique and average recreational swimmers.
The difference between an elite, National-level swimmer and normal swimmers is that they are up to three times more efficient. Instead of 97% of your energy going into fighting water resistance, elite swimmers can put 9% into propulsion. The reason why we feel like we've run the 100 yard dash when you are a beginning swimmer is that you've fought a wall of water 25m long.
Good luck. I highly recommend TI. Swimming is one of the best exercises for counteracting the strain of bad posture+typing.
After I read this article several months ago, I went out and tried it out myself. Prior to trying it out, I could swim about 20m freestyle before becoming exhausted (yet run 10 miles without an issue). If he in fact learned TI well in 10 days, that would be an impressive feat. I swam for about 1 hour in the morning for about a month and am now able to swim several 100m without too much difficulty. Still, I have a long ways to go to become what I would consider effortless in the water (and even further to conform to the TI techniques). Although my technique is 10x more effective and efficient now, my main issue, though, has always been poor breathing techniques. Learning how to properly breathe was the most important thing I learned during the time - which oddly enough I did not learn from TI even.
Still, although far from an expert (yet), I'd definitely recommend the TI techniques to learn how to swim efficiently and well.
I've just taken up swimming myself, and this is exactly what I was looking for: a good technique which builds up your stroke. I'll definitely be trying it out.
For anyone out there who wants to start exercising but hasn't started, give swimming a try. One tip that changed my mind completely about swimming: wear goggles. I'd never worn them before, but it really made swimming much funner for me.
I just started swimming yesterday. Do you recommend getting a coach or can one learn swimming by himself? How long does it typically to start swimming? I've just learnt to swim at the moment.
If you can spend the money, get a coach that will take a video of your stroke above and below water. The feedback from watching those videos will be invaluable.
Learning swimming is like learning Lisp. The ultimate objective is grokking the 'glide', which is similar to that 'profound enlightenment experience' you get when finally grokking Lisp.
Prior to that, you struggle to push yourself through the water, fighting with every stroke and kick. After, you're just sliding through the water, letting the water do almost all the work, and you hardly even have to kick anymore (more to stabilize your body and provide torque to your stroke than to propel).
The key is to understand that the longer a vessel in the water is relative to its width, the faster it can go in a straight line with the same propulsive input. This works with people too. So when you swim you want to make yourself as long as possible for as long as possible.
You do this by keeping one arm extended straight in front of you, perfectly inline with the side of your body, until you bring the next arm forward to replace. Pull with the first, keep the second extended until you can bring the first back up to replace it again, repeat.
Also, rotate your body into the water. Submerge the shoulder and side of your body of whichever arm is extended. Rotate back each time you switch arms. This keeps the longest part of your body constantly in the water.
It feels weird and unnatural, until you start feeling yourself gliding (by 'glide', I mean keeping your momentum between strokes), and that's the point of enlightenment.
Of course, you have to do other things as well, like keep your entire body in as straight a line as possible. Many fail at this by keeping their head and shoulders too high, which pushes their waist and abdomen down into the water, creating too much hydrodynamic drag to glide.
Total Immersion fixes this with their 'Pressing the T' idea. Eg, your shoulders form the horizintal bar of the T and your spine forms the vertical bar. Your center of buoyancy is somewhere in the middle of verticle bar, perhaps a little toward the top. If you force yourself to press the horizontal part down into the water, it rotates your lower part upwards (like a fulcrum around your center of buoyancy).
That keeps your upper and lower body more equally submerged, reducing your hydrodynamic drag and better enabling you to glide.
If you have trouble mastering this on your own, then a coach would be good. Other alternatives are to join the local US Masters Swim Team (where I first heard of Total Immersion), or a local, well-organized triathlon team. Alot of Tri teams will have swimming workshops where they video your stroke, have a pro swimmer/coach critique and fix it, then make you practice it.
Swimming is generally the most difficult part of tri's for most people to learn, so the teams that are halfway serious devote alot of attention to improving their members' swimming.
Some interesting tips, but in my experience (also swimphobic) the technique wasn't the hurtle - being comfortable underwater was. Maybe his suggestion of goggles helps, but getting over this hump seems more psychological than technique. In that case, it's personal will/discipline.
I think learning in a swallow pool with my girlfriend would be the best bet for me.
You get more comfortable underwater with practice. I did swimming in college, and the first few times, I could't swim a full length because I always started coughing, taking water through my nose (very unpleasant), in my ears. Soon enough, you stop doing that - you just learn reflexively how to avoid it - and you get used to what you cannot avoid. And you start asking yourself what the big deal is when the beginners go though the same ordeal.
I'm not sure this was your type of comfort problem, but I hope it helps.
I don't get the ear thing but I don't think it's uncommon. I met a young lady last week who claimed she couldn't swim without earplugs. She said the feeling of water entering her ears freaked her. I told her to treat it as a phobia, since she had such a strong aversion.
Water entering the ear can cause temporary disequilibrium. But once the water in the ear heats to body temperature that disappears. Of course if you have a hole in the eardrum you should see a doctor before considering swimming.
To clean the ears after swimming and to prevent ear infection use a few drops of either
1. a half-and-half mixture of alcohol and vinegar or
2. wine.
Put a few drops into each ear, then turn your head on the side to drain completely. The alcohol reduces the surface tension of the H20 and reduces risk of infection; the vinegar helps prevent fungal infections.
You nailed it. I actually had an incident when I was in swim class when I was very young where I sucked in a lot of water through my nose. It left an deep impression as I often flashback to this when I smell pool chlorine. I like to think I'm over it, but I haven't been in a pool since. Soon enough though.
His tips are very good. I also like the book "Breakthrough Swimming". It's really amazing how the techniques change/improve. About 8 years ago I was taking "triathlon" swim lessons and they were showing things unveiled at the recent olympics. I went from being a slow swimmer to one of the faster ones.
Incidentally, as a kid I was a lifeguard and even taught some swim lessons. I developed a fear of water after nearly drowning saving someone in the ocean and took up triathlons to get over it.
In general I think people try to swim too fast and get out of breath. They don't "feel" the water to sense when they are gliding or impeding the motion. I' especially impressed the author mentioned reaching down further than you expect because that really helps you get your feet up and reduce your "frontal area".
i'll vouch for total immersion. i can't float while laying still in water (my legs sink). i could barely swim 2 pool lengths.
friend got me the total immersion dvd, there's a series of exercises that help you focus on balanced weight distribution in the water, full body rotation for more efficient swimming motion and easier breathing, etc. the exercises slowly work you into a easy freestyle. i went from basically unable to swim 4 laps to .75km swim in open water in about 6 weeks.
not really anything special, its just that a lot of people haven't invested the time into good technique. just like any other skill, follow the pro tips, dedicate some time and you'll get better.
As someone who regularly swims 100 plus 25 meter lengths in a session, I can testify that the Total Immersion book and swimming style can make a big difference. It's all about balance in the water and builds it up over a series of 'karate kid' drills that break the stroke down into learnable chunks that all eventually come together.
One of the things he doesn't mention is that all of these improvements in technique can be learned more easily by simply swimming long distance in open water. When there is no turning point and no way to rest you are automatically forced into longer, more gliding strokes. Also, the colder water forces you to focus on efficiency. I've been a decent swimmer all my life but when I started swimming in open water last year I first was intimidated by how much more challenging it was & then by how quickly your body and technique are forced to adapt to the new environment.
That sounds like a good technique if you're relatively fit already, e.g. runners who want to branch out into triathlon, as opposed to someone who wants to take up swimming for health reasons. Am I right?
Like any piece of code that claims to do xyz, the best way to try it is to run it. So, I tried the TI hints and such at the pool today. It definitely helped me feel more comfortable in the water and the less is more helps. Perhaps the most useful bit was that rotating shoulders.
I've always loved water and I've always been swimming and diving for fun but I've never been taught to swim for real. Never went to swimming school or had anyone teach me swimming.
So I'm a self-learner, as in programming.
I knew could get better by hiring an instructor or taking a class but I've decided I like to hack myself. Especially, I wanted to experiment with self-analysis and trying to engage into self-correcting style of swimming, optimizing problems out of my way as I become aware of them. For the setting, I wanted to learn about the art of breast stroke. I wanted to learn to swim breast stroke well.
I first measured my progress by swimming until I felt exhausted (with occasional small breaks at the ends). When I started, I could do a mere 500m doing breast stroke and all my muscles were dead at that point. Then, my muscles got much better and I could swim slightly more but not much. Eventually, through careful thinking, trial-and-error, and finding a way I could move in a relaxed manner, I apparently learned something and within months I could swim 2000 meters of breast stroke in about one hour. There were still faster swimmers in the pool but I had overdone myself by a few times, and that was good enough.
In the second phase, I began to measure my progress by counting how many strokes I would do per 25 (or 50) meters, i.e. one stretch of a pool. I started at about 15 and again, by experimenting, finding the easiest movement, and dozens of hours of trial-and-error I got that down to about 8-9, given I was really really warm and not exhausted enough physically. So, I knew that again, I could do something more right, even if at the slight expense of excess muscle wear.
Now I'm in my third phase which is measuring my effortlessness. I try to swim without feeling the exertion of force at all. If I notice a slip (like a kick that doesn't propel me forward enough) or if I notice that I have to continuously [over]use certain muscles (which then start running out of juice), I try to self-correct myself into not doing that, into not having to use muscle power per se. I can surely walk 12 hours a day if I have to, why couldn't I theoretically swim 12 hours a day? The results so far are that I can occasionally "fly on the water"; that is, engage into some kind of a suitable circular moment that allows me to flow forward as if riding on a sine wave perfectly aligned to my movements, giving me a practically endless slope downwards. I can't describe it but it feels great!
The next phase is to try to get more speed while maintaining the effortlessness that I will hopefully achieve. I will need more muscle power but only slightly: my idea is that by using the slight advance in muscle power and by developing the right timing and alignment, I could apply them both together and gain more than I put in.
I don't know about the fifth phase, or that if one exists. Will see about that.
"The results so far are that I can occasionally "fly on the water"; that is, engage into some kind of a suitable circular moment that allows me to flow forward as if riding on a sine wave perfectly aligned to my movements, giving me a practically endless slope downwards. I can't describe it but it feels great!"
That's the 'point of enlightenment' I mentioned below. Very cool that you figured it out on your own. Gratz!
Your 2nd phase measurement of how many strokes you do per 25m is a good one. Once you've learned how to glide and keep your momentum between strokes, you can really stretch the distance you move per stroke.
Hey, thanks for pointing out the enlightenment. I read your post now and I could totally relate to it. I'm very glad I got the confirmation that I'm onto something now, so thanks for that ;)
Figuring it out on my own was deliberate as I like to decipher how things work, including myself. I don't intend to become a successful competitive swimmer so I could easily afford the time I spent on that. And all that time has been fun as hell!
Of course, like I said, I'm only in the middle of the more recent phase, thus I only get into the "flying mode" occasionally; it will take more practice to be able to stay in it. I'm certain that it will come in time.
One thing I've noticed is that glancing sideways at the passing track markers keeps me better in the rhythm (in breast stroke): I can see exactly when my momentum stalls or would stall so I can adjust my timing accordingly. It's becomes much harder if I keep my head straight ahead, due to the lack of immediate visual feedback.
Ah breaststroke. It's actually harder to glide in breaststroke than freestyle because in freestyle you can at least have one arm fully extended ~95% of the time, keeping you longer in the water (and less draggy) for a longer portion of the time.
Breaststroke on the other hand requires constant bunching up and exploding into a glide, but it's alot easier to lose your momentum between glides when you have to bunch up again.
Cool trick with watching the side lane markers to time your stroke to your momentum. Hacking swimming ftw. Once you've got it down, you might be able write a post with all your hacks and get it posted on Lifehacker.
Summary: after practicing swimming with various techniques for months, he bought a book titled "Total Immersion" and was saved. Not exactly what the title states.
Despite claiming that he's tried to learn to swim for years this is the sole blog post on swimming. But the blog _does_ have ads for "endless pool" swimming machines.
The hand-written notes, difficult to read for a non-swimmer, are a perfect lead-in to get a browser to buy the book. He could have typed in those notes, but that they're hand-written may give them more credence. In browsing the notes questions arise: what is a "Russian", how do I do "sensory drills" and how do they differ from "skill drills"? Guess I'll have to buy a book, a DVD or pay for a special course to find out.
This is good blog spam for Total Immersion, which has been around for years. Maybe it will sell some books for them. I wonder how much they paid for it.
As Astro Zombie stated on Metafilter: "I learned that simply avoiding Tim Ferriss saves you a lot of time."
http://www.metafilter.com/78084/More-than-4-hours-spent-hati...