Inducing success Are you lucky? Does luck favor you? It is worthwhile to approach this rationally, you cannot expect that you will be lucky on your own, otherwise you will constantly have to explain to yourself why this does not happen or what happened led to something there.

Proper nutrition- 50% success! The health of a woman after menopause to a certain extent depends on what and how she eats. A balanced diet means the inclusion in the usual food set of a variety of foods that are appropriate in composition.

Libor Janek admits that there is no way to quickly master the perfect crawl technique.

However, he offers some tips that you can follow to gradually improve your technique.

Maintain correct body position

Many beginners, when swimming freestyle, raise their upper body strongly above the water, performing intense strokes in order to swim faster. In this case, the legs fall. This swimming style is ineffective.

In crawl swimming, the correct position of the body plays a very important role. Without this, the swimmer wastes energy inefficiently due to the fact that he has to overcome additional resistance.

“In the correct position, the body is near the surface of the water, in a horizontal plane. The hips and legs should not be allowed to sink, deflecting the body from the desired plane - says Janek. - Key point in maintaining such a position is the realization that one must swim not over water, but through it. At the same time, the body naturally keeps at the surface of the water. "

Swim in a straight line

Another reason for the inefficient use of energy, and, as a consequence, the decrease in speed, is the zigzag forward movement. In this case, the swimmer moves not in a straight line, but along a broken curve, deviating now to the right, then to the left.

One of the reasons for this movement is the excessive skidding of the arm to the opposite side during the strokes.

Imagine that a straight plane passes through the swimmer's body from head to toe, dividing it into 2 equal parts: right and left. So this plane should be like a wall through which you cannot carry your hands. That is, the right hand should work only in the right zone, the left in the left.

When you get rid of the zigzag motion, you will notice a noticeable increase in speed and an improvement in stroke efficiency.

Change sides of breaths, but not always

You have probably heard of such a concept as "bilateral breathing". This is a technique in which you take alternating breaths from the right and left sides.

When asked if it is worth sticking to the bilateral breathing technique at all times, Janek replies that, in terms of health benefits, this is by far the preferred option. However, you don't always have to swim like that.

During competitive swims, some athletes may improve their speed by breathing in one direction only.

Work with your feet

Some freestyle swimmers intuitively use their feet at a high enough intensity to increase their forward propelling power.

For many others, leg movements are relegated to the background.

Janek believes that intense footwork is an integral part of proper freestyle swimming technique.

“For sprint heats, it helps you turn better, and for longer runs on open water, helps to maintain the desired pace. "

"In addition, footwork provides balance and improves torso rotation."

Janek explains that when swimming freestyle, the body rotates from side to side. Correct hip movement helps the torso rotate more efficiently.

“Another benefit of footwork is that it maintains correct position corps, says Janek. If the legs are not used for work, in most cases they begin to sink, because they are not as buoyant as top part the hulls, where they are located, are the lungs full of air. Thus, by including the legs in work, we ensure the desired body position. "

Original article

Current page: 1 (the book has 10 pages in total) [available passage for reading: 3 pages]

Sheila Taormina
Fast swimming secrets for swimmers and triathletes

Greg Phill, my swimming coach. You lifted a boulder off my shoulders before the Olympic qualifiers when you quoted the English scholar John Lebbock:

When we have done everything we can, we need to calm down and expect results.

Thank you also for reminding me that at least two billion people do not even know that I am going to compete, and they will never know if I swam well or badly.

From the author

After the publication of the first edition of this book in 2010, teams of swimmers and triathletes from all over the world began to visit me and I taught them the most important elements of the stroke. The delight of the people I met confirmed that athletes are ready to work hard to achieve better results. Feedback from people who read my book or attended my workshops helped me understand how best to explain the concepts behind this book. The second edition of the book was aimed at supplementing the original text, finalizing the descriptions of techniques, and, where one can go too far in implementing the author's ideas, to warn the reader about this.

As with the first edition, this book is short, in order to concentrate all attention on those elements of the stroke that drastically affect speed. The changes and additions made are minor in volume, but nevertheless very important, so read the book carefully.

Thanks for your enthusiasm. The example of each of you gives me inspiration.

Sheila Taormina

Introduction

How did it happen that at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and at the 2009 World Aquatics Championships in Rome, the best athletes beat all records so actively that it was breathtaking, and at the same time, many triathletes, swimmers of the "master" category and amateurs ask the question: why, if their personal results improve, then only slightly, and more often they do not grow at all?

Elite athletes show almost unrealistic time at distances. The current world records for women are the same as those for men in the early 1970s. This means that the time shown by Mark Spitz at the 1972 Olympics is now being shown by the best swimmers. The 200 m freestyle distance is an excellent example of this. The world record for women to date is 1: 52.98, and Spitz's Olympic gold in Munich was 1: 52.78.

It doesn't matter what style or what distance you are talking about. In 1976, Jonty Skinner of South Africa set a world record with a time of 23.86 in the 50m freestyle. On August 2, 2009 German Britta Steffen swam it for 23.73. The world record for the 1,500m freestyle for women is 15: 42.54 - 10 seconds faster than the world record for men, set by the gold medalist of the 1972 Olympics.

The best male swimmers, like the women, are breaking past record marks so fast that most can only scratch the back of their heads. All this lends an almost comic character to the assertion made at the time by the famous Johnny Weissmuller. Weissmuller, who won five Olympic gold medals in swimming at the 1924 and 1928 Games, wrote in his book Swimming the American Crawl (Putnam, 1930) in the chapter “Can the crawl be improved?”:

My technique is called "crawl, brought to perfection", because it allows you to reduce water resistance to a minimum, to bring breathing to the most natural, involuntary, conceived by nature itself. My technique gives the body a position in which it becomes possible to use all its strength and energy as freely and without any restrictions as possible, to create the necessary emphasis and at the same time receive the maximum thrust per unit of applied effort. Some say that this style can still be improved. I don’t see how such an improvement can occur.

Let's be condescending to Weissmuller for thinking that no one could ever improve the time he showed him in the turbulent 1920s. If only because during his swimming career he set 67 world records. Johnny hasn't actually lost a single official competition. Just think - I have never lost! In his place, I would also, perhaps, have decided that I have brought my crawl to perfection. Besides, Johnny didn't just dive and swim as he wanted to. In his book, he describes in great detail the reasons why he used his technique. Everything is carefully thought out.

What is this technique? You may know it as the Tarzan Technique, a technique you practice in training with your head above the water. If your coach likes to have fun, he probably insists that you also hoot during the swim, like Tarzan (mine, for example, insisted).

This is Weissmüller's style of keeping the chest and shoulders high in the water. And the exercise itself is called "Tarzan", because Weissmuller, after finishing his professional career as a swimmer, played Tarzan in several films. Here is another excerpt from the same book:

I swim with my chest and shoulders high in the water. This allows me to glide along the surface of the water like a speedboat, reducing drag to a minimum. I hold my body closer to the surface than anyone before me, taller than anyone to this day ... The high chest position allows me to avoid the tension resulting from the forward bend performed by many swimmers when turning their heads to inhale. The high position of the chest and shoulders, and the arch of the back to the back, my feet are low in the water and maintain grip on the water.

Continuing, Weissmuller writes that the hips should not sway in the water, otherwise the corresponding arm and shoulder go deeper into the water and because of this additional resistance arises.

Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) swims with style that earned him five Olympic gold medals and 67 world records

The modern freestyle as we know it is the exact opposite of the one described above. The only people who don't put their heads in the water are people who don't want to get their hair wet (my mom, for example). And now everyone, without exception, is vigilant to ensure that the hips participate in the movement process.

What am I getting at?

No, I'm not talking about reducing resistance. In fact, I'm going to use the names of Johnny Weissmuller and the other "kings of the pool" of the past fifty years as examples to paint a picture of swimming history that has been lacking for a long time - a picture that will help answer so many questions.

I'll start with shocking information: although Weissmüller's records have long been broken (his record time in the 100 m freestyle distance was improved already in 1934), they still remain unattainable for 95% of triathletes (even professionals of the highest class), swimmers in the category "masters »And amateur swimmers. It’s even strange to write about it, but Weissmuller would have won against almost every reader of this book today.

Let's turn to the Weissmüller era: in February 1924, he scored 57.4 in the 100m freestyle on long water. Of course, the world records of Brazilian Cesar Ciela and German Britta Steffen are higher - 46.91 and 52.07 (set at the 2009 World Championships). But how many readers of this book have the audacity to think they can show Weissmüller's time?

But Weissmuller set world records not only in short-distance swimming. He held records for 400 and 800 m: 4: 57.0 - 400 m (1923), 10: 22.2 - 800 m (1927). Although these results are nowhere near as impressive as the time shown by him in the 100m freestyle, thanks to them, even today in the triathlon, Johnny would be among the leaders (or very close to them) in the swimming stage.

I understand that Weissmüller's achievements may not impress anyone in the modern swimming world, especially his results at distances of 400 and 800 meters (Weissmüller was definitely more a sprinter than a stayer). And it may seem that I was counting on an audience that is still reaching out and reaching the records set almost a hundred years ago. But don't close the book so quickly: it will surely prove useful for both national team level swimmers and the coaches of those swimmers, because it talks as much about thought processes as it does about swimming technique itself. You may already be on the verge of breaking into the upper echelons of the swimming elite, but simply don't know how to climb the next step. The ideas outlined here will help you take the right step.

The reason why many cannot find the answer to the question of how to improve their time or how to move to a new level is not a lack of information in general, but rather a lack of systematized information. Some swimmers try to do everything at once and end up doing nothing. Others practice skills that have minimal or no impact on their time. And all because no one explained to them what is most important and what should be developed in the first place. This book aims to change that state of affairs.

Every second of time that you practice a technique or direct a workout, you should know what you are doing and for what purpose. It is definitely doable. And this is the only thing that is lacking in modern sources. Many textbooks contain a huge amount of information, describe the stroke technique to the smallest detail, but almost none of them organizes information in such a way as to direct attention to the most important elements, and therefore to develop an effective plan of action.

I have my own mantra both in sports and in life. It concerns responsibility for the decisions made and reads as follows: "Appoint a trump card!" In yuquera, my favorite card game, each player during the game is given the opportunity to assign the trump (strongest) suit. The players must look at the cards they received in the next deal and, when their turn comes, decide whether they take on the role of leader in the game or give it to the opposing player. I always welcome it when players decide on a suit. Be bolder! Decide on the cards you have in hand, and then make an informed decision on how to play the game.

We are rarely taught how to do this in life. My goal is to show you what a way of thinking should be so that you can develop this quality in swimming, and in fact become a launching pad for applying the same approach in all other areas of life.

In the book, I limited myself to describing only one swimming style - freestyle - for two reasons. First, I wanted to write a book primarily for triathletes. It seems to me that they were the ones who adhered to only one swimming technique for too long. All the time they were given only a fraction of the information they needed. And with assurances that the "swimmers" are doing just that. I want to show triathletes a real picture of what real swimmers do.

The second reason why I concentrated exclusively on the freestyle is that I myself know this style, as they say, inside and out. This style I swam at four Olympic Games, spent endless hours in the pool, thinking only about him. And I studied it. My height is only 157 cm, so I ended up in the Olympic team not because of the reach of my arms, but because of my understanding of how to get the necessary information and effectively apply it in practice.

If you're new to swimming, don't be intimidated by what this book is about. The principle is simple: you will definitely understand everything, and this will help you see the path that leads to the achievement of goals.

Last and perhaps most importantly, let's not overestimate the significance of what has been said in this book - after all, you and I are not solving a global problem. Everything should be joyful. I'm pretty sure that if I had to make a choice between coffee and sports at one time, I would probably quit sports. (Just kidding, I guess ...) Let's move on and look for the answer to the question I asked at the very beginning of the "Introduction".

I wish you a pleasant journey towards understanding the wonderful sport of swimming!

USA Swimming Team Members Allison Schmitt and Sheila Taormina demonstrate that speed in swimming is not only achieved by arm swing!

Chapter 1
Pareto principle
Applying the 80/20 rule in the pool

Swimming is an incredibly dynamic sport. During the swim, all parts of your body work. Even the head, which is in neutral and stable position, must rotate for inhalation. In terms of information management, this can be a nightmare, not only for beginners, but also for experienced swimmers trying unsuccessfully to determine what exactly is missing to advance to a higher level.

In case you have never thought about the complexity of this task, let's compare swimming with other sports that are less dynamic in terms of technique. As an example, I will cite two others whom I know well and in which I competed at the Olympic Games.

Bullet shooting. This sport presents significant difficulties (in particular, it is necessary to remain calm and concentrated under stress), but the shooting technique itself is very static. The shooter methodically performs a series of actions, consistently concentrating on one or another specific element, until he fires a shot. Thus, practicing the shooting technique does not overload the athlete in terms of information. How to stay calm under the stress of competition? This is a separate question and a topic for another book.

Cycling. This sport is in the middle of the static-dynamic spectrum. The legs pedal dynamically, the body remains relatively motionless. Any time a cyclist decides to concentrate on technique, such as making pedaling smoother, he only needs to pay attention to the lower half of his body. Thus, the process of learning the technique and its application is perfectly understandable here. There are as many difficulties in this sport as in any other, but the technique of controlling the thought process cannot be attributed to them.

Controlling your swimming technique compared to other sports is a heck of a challenge. At any time, the athlete is free to choose one of the many elements of a particular style for improvement. But while practicing this particular element, the swimmer must also understand how to synchronize it with the rest. Add to this exposure to an aquatic environment that is not natural to humans, and the resulting combination is confusing. I guess this is the reason why such a high percentage of readers of this book are desperate that their swimming performance is not improving despite spending long hours in the pool. I understand you perfectly. I myself experienced the same despair when I was preparing for a pentathlon competition.

Vilfredo Pareto, Italian engineer, economist and philosopher

Fencing is no less dynamic than swimming. All parts of the body perform a task every second - even fingers grip the handle of the weapon, and the coordination of movements is of critical importance for the fencer. Although in this sport the athlete's environment is natural - he is standing on the ground - the real difficulty comes out when the opponent is opposed, thwarting every attempt to attack. In those years when I tried to comprehend every detail of fencing technique, namely from 36 to 39 years old, my coaches constantly shouted: "What are you doing?" If I watched the work of my arm, my legs began to get tangled; as soon as I started to track the movement of my legs, I stopped getting into the rhythm. One coach advised me to lean forward more, and the other, on the contrary, to straighten up. It was necessary to keep so many things in my head at the same time that I did not know where to start, nor any coach to trust anymore.

Believe me, I share the feelings of everyone who tries to learn swimming, and everyone who has been involved in this sport for a long time, but cannot improve their results. I also understand many coaches and swimmers who have achieved success in swimming and want to know what it takes to move to the next level, and maybe in order to break into the sports elite. And if I am not your advisor in fencing, then I can definitely help you in swimming. What we need to do is sort and organize the information properly.

Application of the Pareto principle

Since swimming is a dynamic sport, the only way to figure out where to start is to start organizing all the information you have. The best way I know of is by applying the Pareto principle (80/20 principle). The Pareto Principle is not unconditional; rather, it serves as a practical basic methodology in areas such as business and science. I first learned about it in 1993 and immediately realized that it can be applied to sports as well. I used it in swimming in the run-up to the 1996 Olympics, as well as in all the sports I've been involved in since then. Vilfredo Pareto is an Italian economist at the beginning of the 20th century. who came to the conclusion that approximately 80% of the wealth in his country belongs to 20% of its inhabitants. Subsequently, other scientists realized that the 80/20 concept is quite applicable to many areas of life. In business, for example, a salesperson may find that 80% of sales come from 20% of buyers, or that 80% of problems come from 20% of buyers. On the example of our own life, we can find that we spend 80% of the time with 20% of our acquaintances, etc. The Pareto principle is also known as the law of effective minimum, which says that the minimum share (20%) of efforts provides 80% of what is achieved in the result of the result. The remaining 80% of the efforts do not even come close to the results that bring the effective minimum.

In sports, if we can determine the minimum that will give greatest result, then we will be much better equipped to build an effective work plan, which will ultimately lead us to the intended goal. In doing so, we do not ignore the remaining 80% of our efforts, we just know where "their place" is on the list of priorities.

In this book, I will point you to the most important elements of swimming technique. They provide 80% of what is needed to sail fast. All other details of the technique have much less influence on the result than the components of the effective minimum.

You can also look at this from the other side: improving all the other elements will bring very little benefit if we do not master the effective minimum. Although I'll cover a few more aspects of swimming technique throughout this book, it focuses on the sport's biggest tricks. Believe it or not, most people just don't work them out. Instead, I watch them squander their efforts on those 80% of the elements that have very little, if not none at all, if the foundations of the effective minimum have not been laid before. Gold medalists don't have any top-secret training instructions. The best swimmers in the world have mastered the effective minimum of elements very well and devote most of their time to thinking about them. I dare even say that they spend 80% of their training time on this, including warm-ups.

Technique is 80% of swimming success

When you float back and forth on the pool lane, you tend to be left alone with your thoughts, right? I hope that at this time you are practicing your swimming technique, and not hovering in the clouds. Sometimes there is a coach near your walkway, but for the most part, you decide for yourself whether to concentrate your attention on technique or decide what will be for dinner in the evening. I need to instill in your mind the idea that in swimming, the importance of technique far exceeds the importance of all other aspects of it. There is no reason why we could not apply the 80/20 rule here, and I make a bold statement: technique is 80% of swimming success when considered alongside the physical strength, endurance, height and weight of the swimmer. Stamina and strength are very important in swimming, but without good technique they are worth little. Invite the strongest football player you know to swim at least one lane. If he is not trained in the correct technique, he will look like a drowning rat in the water, and not at all because powerful muscles will pull him to the bottom. It's the same with endurance. You can ask an athlete running a 2:40 marathon to swim some distance, but if he does not know swimming technique, then all the endurance in the world will not help him. This is one of those scenarios where key elements play an important role. Because they act as the foundation upon which all other elements are superimposed. Yes, 80% of success in competitions is achieved through technique, without it strength and endurance are nothing. However, when we achieve decent technique, the ratio will change and fitness begins to play a much more important role. I see a huge number of athletes whose stroke literally falls apart when they get tired during training. Or, even worse, I see people completely forget about technology and mindlessly thrashing on the water with their hands and feet, just to keep up with their neighbors along the path. The only way to really benefit from reading this book is to promise yourself to continue to focus on the key elements of swimming technique. In fact, my goal is to infect you with the idea of ​​understanding swimming technique so that you literally get sucked into the thought of the need to concentrate on it. Then, when your technique is already set, you will be captured (since it will take on much more sense) training of endurance and strength. You must be already fidgeting to find out what these very key pieces of technology are, and you want to scroll ahead and read about them as quickly as possible. Do not hurry. To begin with, it is necessary to form a general understanding of swimming as a process, and after that we will begin to consistently consider the effective minimum of elements and explain how to work them out. And keep the 80/20 rule in mind as I will continue to refer to it. So, in memory of Vilfredo Pareto, brew yourself a nice espresso with Italian roasted coffee, sit back and enjoy the following chapters.