I've replied to the post with Subject above a number of times but never
seen it posted to the group. So I'm going to try starting a new topic
with the same name and see what happens. So I apologize if the whole
thing comes out confused. My comments are too delicious for me not to
post (IMHO). My original post with the title above had to do with
Peter Vanderkay and how he alters his freestyle technique even within a
given 200m race. It appears Terry Laughlin of TI made a similar
observation but had no idea what he was looking at ...
I found the following quote on the TI website after being pointed there
by Diablo. It's Terry Lauglin writing:
"That post from rec.sports.swimming is unfortunately typical of
attitudes commonly held among "conventional" coaches. Young and
impressionable coaches learn them from more experienced coaches. Case
in point: (I won't name the team involved, but many of you will
figure it out.) In May I was in the Midwest. Knowing that the best
swimmer from the last Olympics is currently enrolled at and training
with a Major University team near where I was visiting, I dropped in to
watch them train on a Saturday morning. The head coach was away at a
meeting and an assistant was conducting the workout. The swimming WAS
very impressive, mostly great technique, but with many surprising
moments of something less.
I happened to mention to the assistant that I'd observed of another
of their swimmers - an NCAA champion and member of a gold medal USA
relay at the Athens Olympics - that while I loved his freestyle
technique - gorgeous "TI style" during 90% of a distance or
middle-distance race - in the closing stages, when pressed by a
rival, I had seen his technique deteriorate strikingly. I noted that
his 25-meter SPL had jumped from 13 to 16, from one length to the next.
At 16 SPL he looked like an entirely different swimmer. I asked if
they'd considered having him do "gears" practice - practicing
transitions from 13 to 14 to 15 SPL, while maintaining the same flow as
at lower counts and speeds. The assistant replied: "Yeah, we've
seen that, but we figure 'why fix what isn't broken'?"
He's obviously talking about Vanderkay since the university he visited
is Michigan, home to the best swimmer in Athens (Phelps). He's noticed
that Vanderkay's stroke rate goes up dramatically when he's going for
maximal speed. He wrongly attributes it to the swimmer not being able
to trade-off distance per stroke and stroke rate. Terry refers to that
as changing "gears". It's quite ironic that the focus of Terry's
comments is to disparage his fellow coaches, and yet he manages to show
some of his own incompetence at the same time.
As the video data reveals, Vanderkay used two distinct styles during
his 200m leg at the Olympics. The second and fastest style Vanderkay
uses has a higher arm-turnover than his so-called "TI style". That's
what Terry was observing. However, instead of picking up on the rather
profound stylistic change that had taken place, Terry assumed that
Vanderkay had not been trained well and was therefore starting to flail
a little bit. So much for the swim acumen of Mr. Laughlin - he should
bring goggles next time and look underwater since he clearly can't
figure out what's going on from the pool deck.
Incidentally, Vanderkay is living proof that Larry was right. For
years Larry has argued that to swim fast using TI technique, you need
to kick often and effectively. That's exactly what so-called TI
swimmers such as Hackett and Keller do. When they want more speed,
they change from a 4-beat broken rhythm to a continous 6-beat to go
faster. But not Mr. Vanderkay. His kick must be inferior in some
fashion to those other men. When he wants to swim fastest, he changes
from a TI style and goes to less kick but higher arm turnover-
something Larry has been saying is the best approach for the vast
majority of rec. swimmers who do not possess good kicks. Vanderkay
obviously agrees.
Eric