Sun Yang....technique and training for efficiency leads to speed

Sun Yang won the 800m free in Barcelona this July.  Watch and learn.  His stroke is so easy, long, strong, and efficient.  He leads, barely kicking, just holding beautiful form, and then blows everyone away in the last 100m.  (He takes 27 strokes per 50 meters).




Terry Laughlin of Total Immersion talks about efficiency and training:

"Invite speed.  Don't chase speed, let it come.

Train in thoughtful, personalized ways.

Swimming faster has little to do with how many yards you swim or at what heart rate.

Speed comes as a natural outgrowth of the Kaizen pursuit of continual improvement.

The secret to speed isn't the yardage or intensity of the workouts but by making your strokes more effective, then maintaining efficiency while dialing up the stroke tempo in small, controlled increments.  

This kind of practice is mentally and physically energizing instead of exhausting."

What if we radically rethink our traditional methods and assumptions of swim practice and swimming?
Can we do more with less?
What kind of quality would the "less" have to have?
People have gone fast with lots of intense yardage for years... is it a traditional rite or passage or could we do the same with a focused swimmer in half the time and yardage?  In 1/3 of the time?  In 1/4 of the time?
If we increase quality and decrease quantity, what would the quality be made up of?

We say swimming "garbage" yards is a waste.  What does it take for a swimmer to swim every yard with a highly conscious, mindful focus?  Can we train swimmers to stay focused and not "zone out" during swims?  Swimming can be done in autopilot and you won't drown, unlike a rock climber who would most likely fall if they weren't paying close attention.  How do we keep the mind engaged, problem solving constantly, improving, learning and adapting at an increased rate?

The tools Total Immersion uses for training efficiency are stroke rate, distance per stroke and the tempo trainer, demanding totally focused conscious intentional swimming, solving puzzles with every set.

Read this by Joe Novak, an NCAA West Point swimmer who trained with Terry Laughlin:
http://archive.totalimmersion.net/2005articles/january/novak.html