Our most primal swimming instinct is to churn our arms and legs to avoid sinking. We start out swimming that way for pure survival and with more laps, limb-churning becomes a stubborn habit. Traditional technique, with its emphasis on pulling and kicking, reinforces that habit. Limb-churning wastes energy in two ways:
1) It disconnects the arms and legs from our most tireless power source – rotation of the core body – and leaves the work to easily fatigued arm-and-leg muscles.
2) Careless stroking movements are far more likely to move the water around, while doing relatively little to propel us forward. We ‘spin our wheels’ like a car on an icy patch.
The TI Method addresses these energy-wasters in the order listed. Reducing energy waste will bring an immediate and dramatic improvement in your ability to swim any distance or speed with more ease.
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An excerpt from the Effortless Endurance workshop manual written by Coach Terry Laughlin. A copy of this manual may be read in the TI Academy.
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