Posts Tagged ‘stroke efficiency’

How Stroke Drills Can Strengthen Focus
by Terry Laughlin

Posted on June 9th, 2015

Saturday, June 6, I was a guest at the first anniversary celebration of the Catskill Recreation Center, in Arkville NY, deep in the heart of the beautiful Catskill Mountains, an enjoyable 75-minute drive from my home in New Paltz. In her email inviting me to participate, Becky Manning, the center’s director described it as “an […]

Video: How We Build The “World’s Most Efficient Freestyle”
by Terry Laughlin

Posted on April 27th, 2014

This beautiful short film is by TI Coach Johnny Widen (of Lulea Sweden, near the Arctic Circle.) Johnny shot it in Oct 2012 at Total Immersion Level 1 Coach Training  in Windsor England. Johnny’s first purpose was to create a pre-training study video for future TI coach trainees. He used excerpts to also create an artistic view of […]

Listen Up: Podcast on Efficiency in Triathlon
by Terry Laughlin

Posted on March 31st, 2014

While attending the 2014 Tri-Mania show in Bethesda MD on March 22, I joined Andy Weaver of the website From Doughboy to Ironman and the Ironman Year One podcast series for a ‘guerilla podcast’ as he calls it.   Andy had just attended a panel discussion I did with Danny Dreyer of ChiRunning and Shane […]

Which Kick is Best for YOU? 2-Beat or 6-Beat
by Terry Laughlin

Posted on March 16th, 2014

This is a guest post by TI Coach Gary Fahey.             A blog post discussing kick strategies landed in my inbox a couple of weeks ago, much of it advocating a six-beat kick (6BK) for all but the most skilled of swimmers. While I disagree with this premise and the example presented […]

From Focal Point to Muscle Memory: Part One
by Terry Laughlin

Posted on March 5th, 2014

Last weekend, Friday Feb 28 to Sunday Mar 2 I joined coaches from Total Immersion-UK at a Triathlon Show in Sandown Park near London. Each day, I spent an hour demonstrating TI teaching methodology in an Endless Pool, coaching five swimmers for  only 10  minutes apiece in each hour–a total of 15 swimmers over three […]

The (Re-) Education of a Competitive Swimmer
by Terry Laughlin

Posted on February 23rd, 2014

This is a guest post by TI Coach John Fitzpatrick, head coach of the Chicago Blue Dolphin swim instruction and fitness program. I’d been a swimmer since early childhood, but I don’t feel like I started to understand swimming until the fall of 2000 when someone recommended I read Total Immersion:  The Revolutionary Way to […]

The Evolutionary Instinct to Efficiency
by Terry Laughlin

Posted on February 15th, 2014

What’s the connection between evolution, snow-shoveling, and swimming-improvement? The past few days brought a snow-storm of historic proportions–18 to 24 inches, atop 10 inches from a week earlier. For me, that meant opportunity for my own ‘Winter Games.’ I’ve been skiing on a rail trail for the past week, and was anxious yesterday to get […]

Why I Count Strokes the Conscious (‘Hard’) Way
by Terry Laughlin

Posted on February 1st, 2014

Earlier this month, TI Coach (and ‘Head Librarian’ of the TI Swim Academy) Mat Hudson wrote a  blog titled Why Count Strokes? I urge you to read it — all the way through. It’s packed with invaluable insight and clear, compelling explanation. At the top, Mat enumerates his reasons for counting strokes. My favorites include: Counting […]

Allen Rosenberg Transformed Olympic Rowing: What can his methods do for your swimming?
by Terry Laughlin

Posted on December 15th, 2013

This week, TI Coach Bill Lang sent me a link to a NY Times obituary for Allen Rosenberg,the US national coach for rowing in the 1960s and 1970s, a period of transformation in rowing form and philosophy. Bill shared this with me because he saw such strong parallels between Rosenberg’s principles and those of TI. […]

Swim Faster; Be Healthier (Maybe even live longer!)
by Terry Laughlin

Posted on December 6th, 2013

When you train the TI way, efforts you expend to swim faster aren’t for the momentary ego gratification of the time itself, nor for the higher placing it may bring in an event. The more compelling reason is because those efforts can bring proven benefits to physical and mental health. [Also because time provides an […]