Re: swimming technique - Washington Post Article (long)

[Guest guest]

This is a long article but with so many of us swimming I thought there

might be a good audience - apparently the techniques many of us

learned many years ago are very inefficient.

RC2K Dr. Gross 3/24/04

Text of Washington Post Article:

washingtonpost.com

Adult Swim

Winded and Weary? It's Time To Update Your Stroke

By Ruth Kassinger

Special to The Washington Post

Tuesday, May 25, 2004; Page HE01

When the whistle blows on Memorial Day for the first adult swim of the

season, I'm in the pool. All the pleasures of a summer swim -- the

near-weightless slip through cool water, the wavering patterns of

sunlight on the pool floor, the calming silence below the surface --

return.

For a few lengths. Then I recall an unfortunate defect in this pool:

There seems to be a peculiar shortage of oxygen in its vicinity. I

keep swimming, but the lovely silence under water is now punctuated by

my gasps above it. Then I remember that this pool is filled with

particularly dense water (could it be all that lead in the Washington

water supply?), which surely explains why my arm muscles ache and my

kick is tapering to nothing. Then the final problem emerges: The

distance from one end to other gets greater with every length. I

decide I'd better get out before I find myself trying to swim to infinity.

The story would be the same this year, except, inspired by yet another

article about how good swimming is for you, this winter I decided to

look a little further into my swimming problems.

What I find is that I'm not alone in having trouble swimming easily. A

flurry of books and videotapes aimed at adults who want to learn to

swim better has recently been released. This spring, for the first

time in 12 years, the American Red Cross revised what has been the

bible of swimming instruction, its swimming and diving manual, along

with its instructional video.

The fault, I now learn, lies not in the pool, but in the fact that

many of us learned to swim too long ago. Swimming techniques and

instruction methods have changed dramatically in recent years. So, if

you would rather be swimming in the pool than lounging by the side of

it, take heart. Updating your technique can make swimming not only

easier, but, I can attest, downright pleasant.

The Water's Fine

There is no better fitness activity than swimming, said Steve Jordan,

educator for the National Academy of Sports Medicine. It is one of the

best cardiovascular activities and it conditions most of the large

muscle groups. Best of all, it puts almost no pressure on the joints,

making it a sport for life. Because the water supports most of a

swimmer's weight, it's a particularly good activity for overweight

people. And since water is dense, moving through it takes a lot of

energy, which means burning calories at a high rate.

It's also difficult to injure yourself swimming. ,

president-elect of the American Physical Therapy Association, said

muscle strains resulting from swimming are almost unheard of. The

resistance of water -- in essence, its weight -- is a function of how

hard you push or pull it. You simply can't move more water faster than

you have strength for.

Shoulder rotator cuff injuries occur occasionally, noted Jeff Berg, an

orthopedist in Reston and team physician for the Washington Redskins.

But these are the result of poor technique. Berg frequently sends

players with knee injuries to the pool to maintain conditioning while

resting the damaged joint.

Of course, these benefits accrue only if you swim regularly. According

to the American College of Sports Medicine, to get the aerobic

benefits you need to swim at least three times a week for about 30

minutes at a time.

So, how do you get good enough to swim comfortably for that long,

instead of clinging to the wall, sucking air after five minutes?

If you learned to swim before 1980, you were probably taught to swim

by an instructor certified in the 1938 American Red Cross method. The

group's manual for swimming instruction, which was not significantly

revised for four decades, taught beginning freestyle swimmers to

" thrash " their legs up and down and to move their arms in a " windmill

type of two-beat stroke. "

More-advanced swimmers were instructed to kick like " pedaling a

bicycle of very low gear " and to " fling the forearm beyond the head "

to prepare to take a stroke.

Body roll was anathema. The pulling hand was cupped and pulled under

water to a vertical position. Swimmers were advised to keep the

waterline just above the eyebrows.

Mechanical Improvements

Instruction began to change in the 1960s, starting at the competitive

level, when " Doc " Counsilman introduced the study of

biomechanics to swimming.

Counsilman, who coached Indiana University swimmers and the U.S.

Olympic men's teams in 1964 and 1976, pioneered the use of an

underwater motion camera, strain gauge devices to measure a swimmer's

propulsion and other tools to collect efficiency and effectiveness data.

Counsilman, who died this year, discovered that the freestyle kick is

not propulsive. Use it gently and with as few as two beats per arm

cycle, he advised, simply to keep the hips from sinking and for

balance. Body roll, from the hips through the shoulders and head,

makes breathing easier and is essential for avoiding rotator cuff strains.

After the arm finishes a stroke, it should be lifted out of the water

with the elbow held high and close to the body. (No forearm-flinging,

please!) The pulling hand is most effective in a relaxed position with

fingers close to each other but not glued together. The pulling arm

should be bent and pass under, not straight alongside, the body.

Counsilman's 1968 book, " The Science of Swimming, " brought these and

other concepts to a more general audience. In 1979 the Red Cross began

to modify the techniques it taught to instructors.

Over the next 10 years, successive versions of the Red Cross manual

gradually incorporated the changes swimming coaches were using. The

current manual, videos and DVDs -- have been prepared with the help of

USA Swimming, the governing body for competitive swimming in the

United States. The YMCA teaches similar techniques; its materials have

been vetted by the American Swimming Coaches Association. Many of

today's instructors have been trained through Red Cross or the YMCA.

The changes, such as slowing your kick or recovering your arm elbow-up

and close to your body, may seem small, but incorporating them into

your swimming can make an enormous difference. That's because

swimming, like golf and skiing, is a technique sport.

On land, people expend about the same amount of energy whether they

run or walk a mile. But exercise in the water is different, said

Stager, professor of kinesiology at Indiana University and director of

the university's Counsilman Center for the Science of Swimming.

Because water is a thousand times denser than air, " a swimmer with

poor technique expends three or four times the energy to cover the

same distance. That means that a slight woman with a well-honed stroke

that barely ripples the surface can outdistance the muscular fellow

kicking and beating the water to a froth. "

Technique also trumps a lack of natural buoyancy, in case you're a

" sinker " who thinks you're fated by your build to struggle in the

water. While it is true that some people naturally float more easily

than others (it's one benefit of a little extra body fat), many

lean-bodied competitive swimmers do not float well.

The bottom line is that if you learned to swim before 1980 and haven't

had a lesson since then, it's a good bet your technique needs a tuneup

-- or a revamping.

Different Strokes

There are three major approaches to improving your swimming technique:

lessons (either group or private), stroke clinics and Masters swimming.

If you are uneasy in the water and struggle to swim more than a length

or two, group or private lessons may be the best approach. Donnie

Shaw, aquatics director at the National Capital YMCA in Washington,

reports that for many adults, " overcoming fear and learning to relax

in the water is a real challenge. That can take some time. "

One common swimming error that is easy to fix and makes a world of

difference, he adds, is remembering to always exhale completely while

your face is under water.

If you can swim several consecutive laps without a sense of panic, a

stroke clinic can fine-tune your technique be a good solution.

Typically, such clinics meet once a week for six to eight weeks.

If you can swim about 30 laps, even if slowly and with rests, and want

to refine your skills, a Masters swimming club may be for you. United

States Masters Swimming is a national organization whose 43,000

members are associated with more than 450 clubs. Lap swimmers with a

wide range of abilities join in order to swim with others at a set

time and place. Some have highly structured workouts and active

poolside coaching; others are informal and camaraderie is the most

important draw.

I stumbled across a fourth option, a choice for do-it-yourselfers,

offered by a company called Total Immersion.

Total Immersion, founded in 1989 by Terry Laughlin, who has been

coaching swimming professionally for 32 years, is aimed primarily at

adults who already swim but want to do it more easily. Rather than

fine-tuning a swimmer's strokes, the method develops an entirely new

swimming technique.

The program is taught in two ways: through two-day clinics, several of

which are held most weekends across the country, or via a video/DVD.

Laughlin reports that in 2003 about 2,000 people took Total Immersion

clinics and more than 30,000 bought instructional books, videos and

DVDs. I opted for the DVD and joined an indoor swim club.

According to Laughlin, the first step adult swimmers need to take is

to forget everything they have learned about swimming. Swimming " is

not about using your hands to push water toward your feet, " but about

slipping through the water with as little drag as possible.

To achieve streamlining, Total Immersion swimmers keep the head just

below the surface of the water, which lifts the hips and legs and

ensures that the swimmer stays parallel to the surface, offering as

narrow a profile as possible to water in front of the swimmer.

Swimmers also reduce drag by performing most of the stroke cycle on

their sides, switching quickly from one side to the other as the

recovering hand enters the water. The switch, Laughlin asserts, also

produces torque for additional propulsion.

In addition, Total Immersion-trained swimmers keep one arm extended in

front of them all the time to lengthen the body's profile, which, like

a sleek sailboat hull, encounters less water resistance. That constant

arm extension leads to what is called front-quadrant swimming, in

which the extended arm doesn't start to pull until the recovering arm

is in front of the head and about to enter the water.

Laughlin's method relies on a series of 14 drills. Each one adds a

small, incremental skill until all the elements of the stroke are in

place. The emphasis is on balance, fluidity and careful perfection of

motions rather than on building strength by powering through laps.

The method worked beautifully for me: I can now swim freestyle for 30

minutes, and with pleasure. The drills were easy to do, and I enjoyed

mastering the progression. The sequential nature of the method

motivated me to get back to the pool day after day. But it took me

several weeks to get a complete stroke again. Total Immersion is not a

quick tuneup.

Although I've become a fan of the method, I have no doubt I would have

improved with a stroke clinic or by getting coaching at a Masters club.

Many of Total Immersion's techniques -- as opposed to its instruction

method -- are similar to those of the YMCA and the Red Cross. Some of

the differences are merely matters of degree: how far to roll the body

or how deep to hold the head.

The feedback of an instructor has great value. In fact, at the end of

the tutorial I found a Total Immersion-trained instructor to give me

some one-on-one coaching.

One thing that all the experts agree on is that you need patience to

make a new technique your own. Steve Jordan explained: " To create a

new habit on a clean slate takes a few repetitions. To replace an old

habit with a new one sometimes takes many hundreds of repetitions. "

But if you'd like to do more than sit by the side of the pool this

summer, it's worth it.•

Ruth Kassinger is a Washington area freelance writer.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

[Guest guest]

Thanks! I suspected that. I have been using the pool as my physical

therapy 'lab' and rehab clinic. First I water walked after my resurf,

last July. Many variations and many hours marching up and down in the

4' flat section of our pool.. I believe it was tremendously helpful. I

have transitioned to swimming. Today, I swam 36 laps, or a mile, and I

do this M, W, F, S, on a good week. It took me all this time--since

July--to get there. I was in really poor shape prior to hip repair.

One thing about swimming--it gives you plenty of time to think. The

more I thought about my 'technique', the less impressed with it I was.

Many of the things mentioned in the article you provided coincided with

my own thoughts, and many never even crossed my mind. I'm so grateful

you were kind enough to share it with us.

I used water walking within days after surgery--using waterproof

dressings--and am convinced it contributed immensely to a smooth and

gentle recovery. Dr. De Smet did his part, too . I would not

hesitate to repeat the experience, and encourage anyone else considering

it to act as soon as it's practical. The pain is not a character

building experience. Best wishes to you all...

danz

BTW, I guess I owe a special debt of thanks to richierich, whose

pioneering experiences with Dr. De Smet, and his success and enthusiasm

for the process, convinced me to consider the Belgian option. Of

course, thanks to and all the other contributors who've made this

forum such an oasis in an, otherwise, dry hot desert for hip pain sufferers.

d

ecm56 wrote:

> This is a long article but with so many of us swimming I thought there

> might be a good audience - apparently the techniques many of us

> learned many years ago are very inefficient.

>

>

> RC2K Dr. Gross 3/24/04

>

> Text of Washington Post Article:

>

> washingtonpost.com

>

> Adult Swim

> Winded and Weary? It's Time To Update Your Stroke

>

> By Ruth Kassinger

> Special to The Washington Post

> Tuesday, May 25, 2004; Page HE01

>

> When the whistle blows on Memorial Day for the first adult swim of the

> season, I'm in the pool. All the pleasures of a summer swim -- the

> near-weightless slip through cool water, the wavering patterns of

> sunlight on the pool floor, the calming silence below the surface --

> return.

>

> For a few lengths. Then I recall an unfortunate defect in this pool:

> There seems to be a peculiar shortage of oxygen in its vicinity. I

> keep swimming, but the lovely silence under water is now punctuated by

> my gasps above it. Then I remember that this pool is filled with

> particularly dense water (could it be all that lead in the Washington

> water supply?), which surely explains why my arm muscles ache and my

> kick is tapering to nothing. Then the final problem emerges: The

> distance from one end to other gets greater with every length. I

> decide I'd better get out before I find myself trying to swim to infinity.

>

> The story would be the same this year, except, inspired by yet another

> article about how good swimming is for you, this winter I decided to

> look a little further into my swimming problems.

>

> What I find is that I'm not alone in having trouble swimming easily. A

> flurry of books and videotapes aimed at adults who want to learn to

> swim better has recently been released. This spring, for the first

> time in 12 years, the American Red Cross revised what has been the

> bible of swimming instruction, its swimming and diving manual, along

> with its instructional video.

>

> The fault, I now learn, lies not in the pool, but in the fact that

> many of us learned to swim too long ago. Swimming techniques and

> instruction methods have changed dramatically in recent years. So, if

> you would rather be swimming in the pool than lounging by the side of

> it, take heart. Updating your technique can make swimming not only

> easier, but, I can attest, downright pleasant.

>

> The Water's Fine

>

> There is no better fitness activity than swimming, said Steve Jordan,

> educator for the National Academy of Sports Medicine. It is one of the

> best cardiovascular activities and it conditions most of the large

> muscle groups. Best of all, it puts almost no pressure on the joints,

> making it a sport for life. Because the water supports most of a

> swimmer's weight, it's a particularly good activity for overweight

> people. And since water is dense, moving through it takes a lot of

> energy, which means burning calories at a high rate.

>

> It's also difficult to injure yourself swimming. ,

> president-elect of the American Physical Therapy Association, said

> muscle strains resulting from swimming are almost unheard of. The

> resistance of water -- in essence, its weight -- is a function of how

> hard you push or pull it. You simply can't move more water faster than

> you have strength for.

>

> Shoulder rotator cuff injuries occur occasionally, noted Jeff Berg, an

> orthopedist in Reston and team physician for the Washington Redskins.

> But these are the result of poor technique. Berg frequently sends

> players with knee injuries to the pool to maintain conditioning while

> resting the damaged joint.

>

> Of course, these benefits accrue only if you swim regularly. According

> to the American College of Sports Medicine, to get the aerobic

> benefits you need to swim at least three times a week for about 30

> minutes at a time.

>

> So, how do you get good enough to swim comfortably for that long,

> instead of clinging to the wall, sucking air after five minutes?

>

> If you learned to swim before 1980, you were probably taught to swim

> by an instructor certified in the 1938 American Red Cross method. The

> group's manual for swimming instruction, which was not significantly

> revised for four decades, taught beginning freestyle swimmers to

> " thrash " their legs up and down and to move their arms in a " windmill

> type of two-beat stroke. "

>

> More-advanced swimmers were instructed to kick like " pedaling a

> bicycle of very low gear " and to " fling the forearm beyond the head "

> to prepare to take a stroke.

>

> Body roll was anathema. The pulling hand was cupped and pulled under

> water to a vertical position. Swimmers were advised to keep the

> waterline just above the eyebrows.

>

> Mechanical Improvements

>

> Instruction began to change in the 1960s, starting at the competitive

> level, when " Doc " Counsilman introduced the study of

> biomechanics to swimming.

>

> Counsilman, who coached Indiana University swimmers and the U.S.

> Olympic men's teams in 1964 and 1976, pioneered the use of an

> underwater motion camera, strain gauge devices to measure a swimmer's

> propulsion and other tools to collect efficiency and effectiveness data.

>

> Counsilman, who died this year, discovered that the freestyle kick is

> not propulsive. Use it gently and with as few as two beats per arm

> cycle, he advised, simply to keep the hips from sinking and for

> balance. Body roll, from the hips through the shoulders and head,

> makes breathing easier and is essential for avoiding rotator cuff strains.

>

> After the arm finishes a stroke, it should be lifted out of the water

> with the elbow held high and close to the body. (No forearm-flinging,

> please!) The pulling hand is most effective in a relaxed position with

> fingers close to each other but not glued together. The pulling arm

> should be bent and pass under, not straight alongside, the body.

>

> Counsilman's 1968 book, " The Science of Swimming, " brought these and

> other concepts to a more general audience. In 1979 the Red Cross began

> to modify the techniques it taught to instructors.

>

> Over the next 10 years, successive versions of the Red Cross manual

> gradually incorporated the changes swimming coaches were using. The

> current manual, videos and DVDs -- have been prepared with the help of

> USA Swimming, the governing body for competitive swimming in the

> United States. The YMCA teaches similar techniques; its materials have

> been vetted by the American Swimming Coaches Association. Many of

> today's instructors have been trained through Red Cross or the YMCA.

>

> The changes, such as slowing your kick or recovering your arm elbow-up

> and close to your body, may seem small, but incorporating them into

> your swimming can make an enormous difference. That's because

> swimming, like golf and skiing, is a technique sport.

>

> On land, people expend about the same amount of energy whether they

> run or walk a mile. But exercise in the water is different, said

> Stager, professor of kinesiology at Indiana University and director of

> the university's Counsilman Center for the Science of Swimming.

> Because water is a thousand times denser than air, " a swimmer with

> poor technique expends three or four times the energy to cover the

> same distance. That means that a slight woman with a well-honed stroke

> that barely ripples the surface can outdistance the muscular fellow

> kicking and beating the water to a froth. "

>

> Technique also trumps a lack of natural buoyancy, in case you're a

> " sinker " who thinks you're fated by your build to struggle in the

> water. While it is true that some people naturally float more easily

> than others (it's one benefit of a little extra body fat), many

> lean-bodied competitive swimmers do not float well.

>

> The bottom line is that if you learned to swim before 1980 and haven't

> had a lesson since then, it's a good bet your technique needs a tuneup

> -- or a revamping.

>

> Different Strokes

>

> There are three major approaches to improving your swimming technique:

> lessons (either group or private), stroke clinics and Masters swimming.

>

> If you are uneasy in the water and struggle to swim more than a length

> or two, group or private lessons may be the best approach. Donnie

> Shaw, aquatics director at the National Capital YMCA in Washington,

> reports that for many adults, " overcoming fear and learning to relax

> in the water is a real challenge. That can take some time. "

>

> One common swimming error that is easy to fix and makes a world of

> difference, he adds, is remembering to always exhale completely while

> your face is under water.

>

> If you can swim several consecutive laps without a sense of panic, a

> stroke clinic can fine-tune your technique be a good solution.

> Typically, such clinics meet once a week for six to eight weeks.

>

> If you can swim about 30 laps, even if slowly and with rests, and want

> to refine your skills, a Masters swimming club may be for you. United

> States Masters Swimming is a national organization whose 43,000

> members are associated with more than 450 clubs. Lap swimmers with a

> wide range of abilities join in order to swim with others at a set

> time and place. Some have highly structured workouts and active

> poolside coaching; others are informal and camaraderie is the most

> important draw.

>

> I stumbled across a fourth option, a choice for do-it-yourselfers,

> offered by a company called Total Immersion.

>

> Total Immersion, founded in 1989 by Terry Laughlin, who has been

> coaching swimming professionally for 32 years, is aimed primarily at

> adults who already swim but want to do it more easily. Rather than

> fine-tuning a swimmer's strokes, the method develops an entirely new

> swimming technique.

>

> The program is taught in two ways: through two-day clinics, several of

> which are held most weekends across the country, or via a video/DVD.

> Laughlin reports that in 2003 about 2,000 people took Total Immersion

> clinics and more than 30,000 bought instructional books, videos and

> DVDs. I opted for the DVD and joined an indoor swim club.

>

> According to Laughlin, the first step adult swimmers need to take is

> to forget everything they have learned about swimming. Swimming " is

> not about using your hands to push water toward your feet, " but about

> slipping through the water with as little drag as possible.

>

> To achieve streamlining, Total Immersion swimmers keep the head just

> below the surface of the water, which lifts the hips and legs and

> ensures that the swimmer stays parallel to the surface, offering as

> narrow a profile as possible to water in front of the swimmer.

>

> Swimmers also reduce drag by performing most of the stroke cycle on

> their sides, switching quickly from one side to the other as the

> recovering hand enters the water. The switch, Laughlin asserts, also

> produces torque for additional propulsion.

>

> In addition, Total Immersion-trained swimmers keep one arm extended in

> front of them all the time to lengthen the body's profile, which, like

> a sleek sailboat hull, encounters less water resistance. That constant

> arm extension leads to what is called front-quadrant swimming, in

> which the extended arm doesn't start to pull until the recovering arm

> is in front of the head and about to enter the water.

>

> Laughlin's method relies on a series of 14 drills. Each one adds a

> small, incremental skill until all the elements of the stroke are in

> place. The emphasis is on balance, fluidity and careful perfection of

> motions rather than on building strength by powering through laps.

>

> The method worked beautifully for me: I can now swim freestyle for 30

> minutes, and with pleasure. The drills were easy to do, and I enjoyed

> mastering the progression. The sequential nature of the method

> motivated me to get back to the pool day after day. But it took me

> several weeks to get a complete stroke again. Total Immersion is not a

> quick tuneup.

>

> Although I've become a fan of the method, I have no doubt I would have

> improved with a stroke clinic or by getting coaching at a Masters club.

>

> Many of Total Immersion's techniques -- as opposed to its instruction

> method -- are similar to those of the YMCA and the Red Cross. Some of

> the differences are merely matters of degree: how far to roll the body

> or how deep to hold the head.

>

> The feedback of an instructor has great value. In fact, at the end of

> the tutorial I found a Total Immersion-trained instructor to give me

> some one-on-one coaching.

>

> One thing that all the experts agree on is that you need patience to

> make a new technique your own. Steve Jordan explained: " To create a

> new habit on a clean slate takes a few repetitions. To replace an old

> habit with a new one sometimes takes many hundreds of repetitions. "

>

> But if you'd like to do more than sit by the side of the pool this

> summer, it's worth it..

>

> Ruth Kassinger is a Washington area freelance writer.

>

> © 2004 The Washington Post Company

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

...How about putting the swimming article in the " files " ?. Susie

> This is a long article but with so many of us swimming I thought

there

> might be a good audience - apparently the techniques many of us

> learned many years ago are very inefficient.

>

>

> RC2K Dr. Gross 3/24/04

>

> Text of Washington Post Article:

>

> washingtonpost.com

>

> Adult Swim

> Winded and Weary? It's Time To Update Your Stroke

>

> By Ruth Kassinger

> Special to The Washington Post

> Tuesday, May 25, 2004; Page HE01

>

> When the whistle blows on Memorial Day for the first adult swim of

the

> season, I'm in the pool. All the pleasures of a summer swim -- the

> near-weightless slip through cool water, the wavering patterns of

> sunlight on the pool floor, the calming silence below the surface --

> return.

>

> For a few lengths. Then I recall an unfortunate defect in this pool:

> There seems to be a peculiar shortage of oxygen in its vicinity. I

> keep swimming, but the lovely silence under water is now punctuated

by

> my gasps above it. Then I remember that this pool is filled with

> particularly dense water (could it be all that lead in the

Washington

> water supply?), which surely explains why my arm muscles ache and my

> kick is tapering to nothing. Then the final problem emerges: The

> distance from one end to other gets greater with every length. I

> decide I'd better get out before I find myself trying to swim to

infinity.

>

> The story would be the same this year, except, inspired by yet

another

> article about how good swimming is for you, this winter I decided to

> look a little further into my swimming problems.

>

> What I find is that I'm not alone in having trouble swimming

easily. A

> flurry of books and videotapes aimed at adults who want to learn to

> swim better has recently been released. This spring, for the first

> time in 12 years, the American Red Cross revised what has been the

> bible of swimming instruction, its swimming and diving manual, along

> with its instructional video.

>

> The fault, I now learn, lies not in the pool, but in the fact that

> many of us learned to swim too long ago. Swimming techniques and

> instruction methods have changed dramatically in recent years. So,

if

> you would rather be swimming in the pool than lounging by the side

of

> it, take heart. Updating your technique can make swimming not only

> easier, but, I can attest, downright pleasant.

>

> The Water's Fine

>

> There is no better fitness activity than swimming, said Steve

Jordan,

> educator for the National Academy of Sports Medicine. It is one of

the

> best cardiovascular activities and it conditions most of the large

> muscle groups. Best of all, it puts almost no pressure on the

joints,

> making it a sport for life. Because the water supports most of a

> swimmer's weight, it's a particularly good activity for overweight

> people. And since water is dense, moving through it takes a lot of

> energy, which means burning calories at a high rate.

>

> It's also difficult to injure yourself swimming. ,

> president-elect of the American Physical Therapy Association, said

> muscle strains resulting from swimming are almost unheard of. The

> resistance of water -- in essence, its weight -- is a function of

how

> hard you push or pull it. You simply can't move more water faster

than

> you have strength for.

>

> Shoulder rotator cuff injuries occur occasionally, noted Jeff Berg,

an

> orthopedist in Reston and team physician for the Washington

Redskins.

> But these are the result of poor technique. Berg frequently sends

> players with knee injuries to the pool to maintain conditioning

while

> resting the damaged joint.

>

> Of course, these benefits accrue only if you swim regularly.

According

> to the American College of Sports Medicine, to get the aerobic

> benefits you need to swim at least three times a week for about 30

> minutes at a time.

>

> So, how do you get good enough to swim comfortably for that long,

> instead of clinging to the wall, sucking air after five minutes?

>

> If you learned to swim before 1980, you were probably taught to swim

> by an instructor certified in the 1938 American Red Cross method.

The

> group's manual for swimming instruction, which was not significantly

> revised for four decades, taught beginning freestyle swimmers to

> " thrash " their legs up and down and to move their arms in

a " windmill

> type of two-beat stroke. "

>

> More-advanced swimmers were instructed to kick like " pedaling a

> bicycle of very low gear " and to " fling the forearm beyond the head "

> to prepare to take a stroke.

>

> Body roll was anathema. The pulling hand was cupped and pulled under

> water to a vertical position. Swimmers were advised to keep the

> waterline just above the eyebrows.

>

> Mechanical Improvements

>

> Instruction began to change in the 1960s, starting at the

competitive

> level, when " Doc " Counsilman introduced the study of

> biomechanics to swimming.

>

> Counsilman, who coached Indiana University swimmers and the U.S.

> Olympic men's teams in 1964 and 1976, pioneered the use of an

> underwater motion camera, strain gauge devices to measure a

swimmer's

> propulsion and other tools to collect efficiency and effectiveness

data.

>

> Counsilman, who died this year, discovered that the freestyle kick

is

> not propulsive. Use it gently and with as few as two beats per arm

> cycle, he advised, simply to keep the hips from sinking and for

> balance. Body roll, from the hips through the shoulders and head,

> makes breathing easier and is essential for avoiding rotator cuff

strains.

>

> After the arm finishes a stroke, it should be lifted out of the

water

> with the elbow held high and close to the body. (No forearm-

flinging,

> please!) The pulling hand is most effective in a relaxed position

with

> fingers close to each other but not glued together. The pulling arm

> should be bent and pass under, not straight alongside, the body.

>

> Counsilman's 1968 book, " The Science of Swimming, " brought these and

> other concepts to a more general audience. In 1979 the Red Cross

began

> to modify the techniques it taught to instructors.

>

> Over the next 10 years, successive versions of the Red Cross manual

> gradually incorporated the changes swimming coaches were using. The

> current manual, videos and DVDs -- have been prepared with the help

of

> USA Swimming, the governing body for competitive swimming in the

> United States. The YMCA teaches similar techniques; its materials

have

> been vetted by the American Swimming Coaches Association. Many of

> today's instructors have been trained through Red Cross or the YMCA.

>

> The changes, such as slowing your kick or recovering your arm elbow-

up

> and close to your body, may seem small, but incorporating them into

> your swimming can make an enormous difference. That's because

> swimming, like golf and skiing, is a technique sport.

>

> On land, people expend about the same amount of energy whether they

> run or walk a mile. But exercise in the water is different, said

> Stager, professor of kinesiology at Indiana University and director

of

> the university's Counsilman Center for the Science of Swimming.

> Because water is a thousand times denser than air, " a swimmer with

> poor technique expends three or four times the energy to cover the

> same distance. That means that a slight woman with a well-honed

stroke

> that barely ripples the surface can outdistance the muscular fellow

> kicking and beating the water to a froth. "

>

> Technique also trumps a lack of natural buoyancy, in case you're a

> " sinker " who thinks you're fated by your build to struggle in the

> water. While it is true that some people naturally float more easily

> than others (it's one benefit of a little extra body fat), many

> lean-bodied competitive swimmers do not float well.

>

> The bottom line is that if you learned to swim before 1980 and

haven't

> had a lesson since then, it's a good bet your technique needs a

tuneup

> -- or a revamping.

>

> Different Strokes

>

> There are three major approaches to improving your swimming

technique:

> lessons (either group or private), stroke clinics and Masters

swimming.

>

> If you are uneasy in the water and struggle to swim more than a

length

> or two, group or private lessons may be the best approach. Donnie

> Shaw, aquatics director at the National Capital YMCA in Washington,

> reports that for many adults, " overcoming fear and learning to relax

> in the water is a real challenge. That can take some time. "

>

> One common swimming error that is easy to fix and makes a world of

> difference, he adds, is remembering to always exhale completely

while

> your face is under water.

>

> If you can swim several consecutive laps without a sense of panic, a

> stroke clinic can fine-tune your technique be a good solution.

> Typically, such clinics meet once a week for six to eight weeks.

>

> If you can swim about 30 laps, even if slowly and with rests, and

want

> to refine your skills, a Masters swimming club may be for you.

United

> States Masters Swimming is a national organization whose 43,000

> members are associated with more than 450 clubs. Lap swimmers with a

> wide range of abilities join in order to swim with others at a set

> time and place. Some have highly structured workouts and active

> poolside coaching; others are informal and camaraderie is the most

> important draw.

>

> I stumbled across a fourth option, a choice for do-it-yourselfers,

> offered by a company called Total Immersion.

>

> Total Immersion, founded in 1989 by Terry Laughlin, who has been

> coaching swimming professionally for 32 years, is aimed primarily at

> adults who already swim but want to do it more easily. Rather than

> fine-tuning a swimmer's strokes, the method develops an entirely new

> swimming technique.

>

> The program is taught in two ways: through two-day clinics, several

of

> which are held most weekends across the country, or via a video/DVD.

> Laughlin reports that in 2003 about 2,000 people took Total

Immersion

> clinics and more than 30,000 bought instructional books, videos and

> DVDs. I opted for the DVD and joined an indoor swim club.

>

> According to Laughlin, the first step adult swimmers need to take is

> to forget everything they have learned about swimming. Swimming " is

> not about using your hands to push water toward your feet, " but

about

> slipping through the water with as little drag as possible.

>

> To achieve streamlining, Total Immersion swimmers keep the head just

> below the surface of the water, which lifts the hips and legs and

> ensures that the swimmer stays parallel to the surface, offering as

> narrow a profile as possible to water in front of the swimmer.

>

> Swimmers also reduce drag by performing most of the stroke cycle on

> their sides, switching quickly from one side to the other as the

> recovering hand enters the water. The switch, Laughlin asserts, also

> produces torque for additional propulsion.

>

> In addition, Total Immersion-trained swimmers keep one arm extended

in

> front of them all the time to lengthen the body's profile, which,

like

> a sleek sailboat hull, encounters less water resistance. That

constant

> arm extension leads to what is called front-quadrant swimming, in

> which the extended arm doesn't start to pull until the recovering

arm

> is in front of the head and about to enter the water.

>

> Laughlin's method relies on a series of 14 drills. Each one adds a

> small, incremental skill until all the elements of the stroke are in

> place. The emphasis is on balance, fluidity and careful perfection

of

> motions rather than on building strength by powering through laps.

>

> The method worked beautifully for me: I can now swim freestyle for

30

> minutes, and with pleasure. The drills were easy to do, and I

enjoyed

> mastering the progression. The sequential nature of the method

> motivated me to get back to the pool day after day. But it took me

> several weeks to get a complete stroke again. Total Immersion is

not a

> quick tuneup.

>

> Although I've become a fan of the method, I have no doubt I would

have

> improved with a stroke clinic or by getting coaching at a Masters

club.

>

> Many of Total Immersion's techniques -- as opposed to its

instruction

> method -- are similar to those of the YMCA and the Red Cross. Some

of

> the differences are merely matters of degree: how far to roll the

body

> or how deep to hold the head.

>

> The feedback of an instructor has great value. In fact, at the end

of

> the tutorial I found a Total Immersion-trained instructor to give me

> some one-on-one coaching.

>

> One thing that all the experts agree on is that you need patience to

> make a new technique your own. Steve Jordan explained: " To create a

> new habit on a clean slate takes a few repetitions. To replace an

old

> habit with a new one sometimes takes many hundreds of repetitions. "

>

> But if you'd like to do more than sit by the side of the pool this

> summer, it's worth it.•

>

> Ruth Kassinger is a Washington area freelance writer.

>

> © 2004 The Washington Post Company

[Guest guest]

> ...How about putting the swimming article in the " files " ?.

Probably not a good idea without written permission from the

Post: it's a copyrighted article.

Steve (bilat C+ 4/20/04, Amstutz)