Just about done with the Total Immersion book. Pretty much, Laughlin is preaching to the choir. I've read other books that have said basically the same things, primarily Hines' Fitness Swimming. I'm finding that most of what Laughlin says I'm already doing. I hope there are some areas that I can improve and thus decrease my 100m time.
One thing I like in Laughlin's book is a small "exercise" on page 55. Walk over to a wall in your house, face it (actually, "lie" on the wall with your entire body) and reach your right arm straight up as far as you can. Rotate and lift your elbow a slight bit. You should feel the stretch in your armpit. Next, turn your left hip and shoulder 45 degrees away from the wall. You should feel the stretch in your back, not in your shoulders.
This one little paragraph has helped me the most this past week. On Friday I decided to do 3 x 20 minutes easy, with some fly, breast and back thrown in. While doing free, I chose one thing to concentrate on. This time, I concentrated on the feeling that once the arm is extended, the hand "grabs" the water, and then pulls the body past that point of the water. In essence, it is like there is a ladder just below me in the lane and I pull myself along the rungs. It was while concentrating on this action that the wall exercise came back. I finally started to feel the stretch along my lats and into my obliques. (And not in my shoulders.)
Imagine a batter (TI book 49-50). The pitcher releases the ball. The batter does what? He certainly doesn't just stand there until the ball shows up. If he swung the bat from where he was initially set up, little power would be transferred from him to his bat. No. He cranks back, twisting his hips away from the pitcher, preparing for the swing. Like a spring. His hips give him the power needed to hit the ball out of the park.
Swimming books constantly preach the hips. "Swimming comes from the hips." Hell, Laughlin says that only 10 percent of your forward motion comes from the arms. (Even less from the legs, by the way.) Swimming power comes from the hips. I've known this, intellectually, for years; I've just never felt it. On Friday, finally, I felt it.
I cannot wait til my next 3 x 300 test sets!
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