Total immersion

Total Immersion (TI) is a swimming teaching method that focuses on the most energy-saving and calm swimming style possible. This method was developed primarily for crawl swimming by the US swim coach Terry Laughlin, who is known among other things through the swimming style of Alexander Popowwas inspired. Through efficient movement sequences and concentration on a balanced and streamlined swimming posture, the swimming students should be able to move quickly and persistently through the water even with little effort. The basic principles include a continuous effort to improve swimming technique, avoiding water resistance and a harmonious interplay of body movement. To make learning easier and to be able to replace bad habits, the sequence of movements is first broken down into sub-steps through individual exercises (drills) that build on each other and then put together to form the new swimming technique.

"Total Immersion Swimming" was registered as a trademark in the United States Patent and Trademark Office for Total Immersion Inc of New Paltz ( NY ) in 2006 .

Development and precursor

Terry Laughlin was appointed to develop TI et al. a. inspired by the Russian swimmer Popov and his trainer Gennady Tourezky . Another influence was Laughlin's own trainer and mentor Bill Boomer and the Australian swim trainer Bill Sweetenham , as well as Scott Lemley, a longtime Aikido instructor, swim trainer in Alaska and the inventor of the fistgloves , which prevent swimmers from having the opportunity to use their hands when training of propulsion to use.

Principles

The principles of the swimming method "Total Immersion" are based on the physical laws of the body's movement in water, methods for learning new (and overcoming stuck) movement sequences and a "conscious" movement practice (mindful practice) , the Laughlin with Far Eastern meditation and Comparing movement exercises. Overall, it is about developing balance and a feeling for the dynamics of swimming, instead of just relying on strength and performance.

balance

Total immersion is about the application of general hydrodynamic principles. This is illustrated by the goal of “fish-like swimming” (fishlike swimming) or exercises that are metaphorically referred to as “shaping the boat hull”. Laughlin attaches great importance to energy efficiency and a reduction in water resistance. An important approach for this is that swimmers bring their hips as close as possible to the water surface in order to reduce the surface area and avoid turbulence. The right balance should keep legs, hips, shoulders and head at the same height as possible. The body is compared to a seesaw that rotates around the rib cage, which has the greatest buoyancy in the water. Since the legs usually have a higher specific gravity, swimmers must try to shift their weight forward and bring their hips up. This is to be achieved by a balancing position of the head, which the swimmer should immerse in a straight extension of the spine, and by stretching the arms in front of the chest so that the stroke cycles of both arms almost overlap towards the front. This stroke technique is also known as " front quadrant swimming ".

In order to learn and perfect balance in the water, there are various exercises, starting with a kind of " dead man " position with a light crawl kick to preliminary exercises for the crawl, in which the swimmer dives in to the side and face down and chest diagonally “glides” down with a relaxed kick. To exercise dynamic balance, the swimmer turns from one shoulder to the other around his own axis, taking a deep breath in between in the so-called sweet spot , with his face pointing upwards and his chest pointing upwards.

Streamlined alignment

After the balance in the water, the next learning goal is the streamlined alignment of the body. So-called streamlining can reduce water resistance and learn a more efficient swimming style. Static streamlining refers to positions like skating , in which one arm is stretched forward to provide a point of guidance and the body follows, propelled by a light crawl kick. With active streamlining , the body rotates alternately from the right to the left skating position and vice versa, taking in air in the so-called “sweet spot” position. Various exercises should make it easier for the swimmer to change from one position to the other until the sequence of movements is automated. An added benefit of a streamlined body position is that it helps maintain a long body line in the water. This reduces water resistance and helps the swimmer slide more easily through the water. For the efficiency with which swimmers slide through the water, the number of strokes per distance covered is a guide. Good TI swimmers only need 9 to 12 crawl strokes to cover a 25-meter lane.

Propulsion

In contrast to many other swimming methods, maximizing the propulsion plays a rather subordinate role with TI. Here, too, the aim is rather qualitative improvements, for example that the movements of the limbs develop harmoniously from whole-body movements and that weight shifts are used.

In the total immersion teaching concept, drive methods are only taught after the exercises for balance and streamlined alignment. The starting point is the consideration that swimming speed results from the difference between propulsion and water resistance. The propulsion requires a far greater effort than avoiding water resistance through the smoothest possible movement and long gliding phases. Wanting to swim faster simply by using more force is inefficient, since the increase in speed is in the ratio of a power of three to the additional energy expended, i.e. doubling the speed is eight times as strenuous. According to TI founder Terry Laughlin, only a fraction of the energy used in traditional swimming is converted into propulsion. The increase in the number of trains would often go hand in hand with a shortening of the train length, ignoring the fact that the propulsion is a product of the train frequency and the train length.

The swimming movements should therefore be as simple, controlled and calm as possible in order to reduce the turbulence. A more static balance technique also eliminates swimming movements, which are supposed to stabilize the body dynamically, but do not provide efficient propulsion.

When doing crawl and backstroke swimming, swimmers should use shifting weight as skillfully as possible (especially by rotating the trunk) to generate propulsion. In the butterfly style and breaststroke, both buoyancy and gravity should help with propulsion. In these types of swimming, the leg kick is prepared by a sequence of movements that encompasses the whole body.

Total immersion style avoids a division into arm work, which is supposed to pull the body, and footwork, which is supposed to produce propulsion by treading water. Therefore, training with swim boards or pull buoys does not matter. Rather, the aim is to integrate the whole body or - in crawl swimming - a distinction is made between the left and right halves of the body, which should be made to glide in a streamlined manner. It is therefore not a question of increasing the frequency of the leg kick and arm pulls, but coordinated and targeted movements with a double leg kick at exactly the right time.

Teaching method

TI tries swimming in a similar way to Far Eastern martial arts or meditation exercises, e.g. As yoga or tai chi , as "mindful practice" (mindful practice) to train. An awareness of body movements and interaction with the water should be developed and continuous improvement in the sense of Japanese Kaizen be encouraged.

The sequence of exercises aims to combine the swimming style from simple movements and balance exercises into an organic movement of the whole body. The division into elementary exercises makes it easier, especially for swimmers with a solidified bad swimming style, to learn to swim from scratch and to overcome old habits.

The aim is to use new knowledge from movement learning by slowly executing and practicing short, simple movement sequences until they sit perfectly and are automated. Then they can be built into more complex movement sequences. Finally, swimmers can train speed without affecting the efficiency of their swimming style.

Swimming styles

Freestyle swimming

There are five key points for crawl swimming:

The weight of the head should be carried by the water so that the head and spine form a line.
By rotating the torso, the effect of the swimming strokes should be improved.
The hands should lengthen the body line rather than rowing hectically in the water. At least one arm should always be in the front quarter of the body line (front quadrant swimming) .
The leg kick is reduced until it organically harmonizes with the arm movements; above all it should support the rotation of the body.
The aim is a calm, balanced swimming style with few waves or splashing.

Breaststroke

Regarding breaststroke , the key points are:

During the gliding phase, it is important to keep your posture as stretched and streamlined as possible.
The arm movement is minimized and does not contribute to propulsion.
- The arms are stretched out in front of the swimmer during the gliding phase.
- The arm movement should only bring the head to breathe over water.
Moving the head over water initiates a whole body movement that ends in the leg kick.
The eyes are directed downwards and do not look straight ahead at any phase of the swimming movement.

butterfly

As with breaststroke swimming, with butterfly swimming , in which the body moves up and down in waves, the power of the leg kick comes from the whole body movement.

Target group and business model

Total Immersion is particularly suitable for adult beginners, triathletes, long-distance swimmers and people who swim for fitness and health reasons. For triathletes, Zendurance Cycling and Chi Running have developed similar offers for efficient and conscious and therefore allegedly less injury- intensive movement sequences for running and cycling, which also refer to their relationship with Far Eastern movement meditation and are jointly marketed in the USA.

The "Head Coach" Terry Laughlin has published numerous books and DVDs that interested athletes should use for self-study. In addition, there is now a worldwide network of certified TI trainers who teach the method in courses and workshops in 17 countries.

rating

The sports scientist Ross Sanders emphasizes in an article that by delaying the arm stroke after immersion (so-called catch-up ), by which at least one arm is always in front of the swimmer's shoulders when swimming, the balance can actually be improved, so that the legs do not sag. In addition, the strong torso rotation, represented by TI, can both have the effect of improving the streamline shape, since the water can flow better around a fish-shaped, vertical body, and it also makes it easier to use force for the crawl moves.

Avoiding a strong crawl leg stroke, which is made possible by the better balance, is particularly advantageous for long-distance swimmers. Because leg strength is needed for the other competitive disciplines of running and cycling, TI is particularly interesting for triathletes .

As Mathias Heinze suggests in the sports and lifestyle magazine Fit For Fun , not all messages from TI are as exclusive as they come across. During technical training, swimming slowly and consciously is, as the former Bundesliga swimmer Jochen Lenz emphasizes, quite common: "Only those who concentrate fully on every movement can swim technically clean, energy-saving and, in the end, fast".

Individual evidence

↑ Terry Laughlin: Improving your 100 free - Lessons learned from Popov. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on: archive.totalimmersion.net@1@ 2
↑ See Ross Sanders: Total Immersion Strategies - A Closer Look . On: CoachesInfo.com.
↑ http://www.totalimmersion.net/store/discounted-bundles/complete-triathlon-bundle-swim-bike-run-with-total-immersion-zendurance-cycling-and-chi-running.html#.UkGEPtLwZOI
↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from February 26, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2
↑ Ross Sanders: Total Immersion Strategies - A Closer Look .
^ ^A ^b Mathias Heinze: Immersion Swimming - Swimming like a fish. In: Fit For Fun.

literature

Ruth Kassinger: Strokes of a Genius . In: Health , pp. 78-84.
There's a right way to freestyle . In: Running & FitNews , pp. 3–7.
Terry Laughlin, John Delves: Total Immersion: The Revolutionary Way To Swim Better, Faster, and Easier . Fireside, 2004, ISBN 0-7432-5343-4 .
Terry Laughlin: Triathlon Swimming Made Easy: The Total Immersion Way for Anyone to Master Open-Water Swimming . Total Immersion Inc, 2004, ISBN 1-931009-07-4 .
Terry Laughlin: Swimming Made Easy: The Total Immersion Way for Any Swimmer to Achieve Fluency, Ease, and Speed in Any Stroke . Total Immersion Inc, 2001, ISBN 1-931009-01-5 .
Ross Sanders: Total Immersion Strategies - A Closer Look . coaches' infoservice: sports science information for coaches. Retrieved November 12, 2006.
Mathias Heinze: Immersion Swimming - swimming like a fish . Fit for fun . Retrieved December 2, 2012.

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