Water is a great teacher…

Posted In: Coaching | Me May 6th, 2013 divider No Comments »

It’s very humbling that water. It’s also makes it very hard to cheat. Ever tried to just muscle your way through the water? How long did you last?

Since I started swimming Master’s again last month, I’ve really tried to work on my form. The ChiRunning mind in me never stops unfortunately. I remember starting swimming as an adult, almost 10 years ago. I could go fairly fast but I could only last a few laps, at most. I’m not much faster now but I can swim for much longer. And it’s almost fun now.

I’ve been studying up on Total Immersion (TI) Swimming, a cousin of ChiRunning, since I got back into swimming recently. Even if I wasn’t working on my form, just knowing how the swimming stroke comes together is very useful. But now I also have something of a standard to achieve. All I try to do is float more and cut through the water. I never really looked at it before.

You can see from the video what TI looks like. You can argue against it not being the best form to achieve top speed but it’s hard to argue against its efficiency and simply how smooth it looks.

I know it might sound a bit too zen but I try to be at one with the water now. Less splash and less effort. It’s very similar to running. Do you want to fight the road or just have your body get out of the way while you run? I’ll take the latter for $500 please Alex!

I doubt this will make me the first person out of the water for my next race but I hope to get out of there with more energy and a smile on my face!

I was explaining to someone at practice last week about why we lean in ChiRunning and it got me thinking about trying to fight the water. If you try to grab ground in the water with your legs (like most runners do on the road), you won’t get very far. Try it!

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Had a great trip to Windsor to visit and make some new Americanized friends! Great workshop at the University of Windsor where we got to practice on one of the nicest tracks in Canada.

Great facilities, great weather and amazing folks to hang out with all afternoon long. Does it get better than that?