The ‘Over Glider’

by CoachToddE

THE OVERGLIDER

There have been a lot of articles recently, especially from one of my often-visited sites ‘down-under’ that talk about the ‘over glider’ and how bad it is. It almost seems as though they are surreptitiously taking aim at TI. The over gliding has been a large ding against TI technique from the mainstream coaches. As best I can understand them they tend to view the extended skating arm as gliding. But yet, when they are doing the distance per stroke (DPS) drill they so love to do in warm-ups and Coach Suzanne so recently blogged about, they encourage their swimmers to glide more, streamline longer, and kick harder to take strokes off each length. They really don’t seem to understand the purpose of the extended arm in holding the streamlined edge, cutting the water so the body can slip through the water and to aid in balance. They only see the extended arm doing absolutely nothing other than sticking out there. The ‘down-under’ organization also tends to believe this to some extent and came up with some technical graphs depicting the time the extended arm is left out before moving into the catch and propulsive phase upon the recovery of the opposite arm. They showed all types of swimmers from novice to elites to make their point. Which I took as the pause perceived by the patient lead arm is a negative. I find that those who do not understand TI, take the time to research TI or generally dislike TI based on no fact but on others opinions, look at the extended arm in the skate position as ‘over gliding’ and use this as one reason for bashing the TI swimming technique. They don’t connect ‘over gliding’ as passive streamlining decelerating speed and not passive streamlining transitioning into active streamlining seamlessly synching the entire body for rotation and adding to speed. As if to underscore this belief, they do endless drills of catch-up, touching hands (although I have noticed most have switched to wide tracks vice touching hands), or worse yet using the kick board and holding one hand on the board till the other hand grabs the board (which inhibits teaching proper roll from edge to edge and fixes the shoulders in place instead of allowing them to rotate three dimensionally). And in these drills they are teaching ‘over gliding.’

The term ‘over gliding’ immediately conjures up the swimmer who is doing absolutely nothing for a set amount of time except for decelerating which is why they are against over gliding. I agree that ‘over gliding’ with no purpose is not necessarily helpful.

So with this as their mindset they see the TI swimmer with the patient lead hand waiting for the spear of the opposite hand as ‘over gliding’ and they do not see that there is really no stoppage in the stroke at all. TI swimmers are holding the streamlined edge to maintain their efficiency in the water allowing them to slip through the water more easily with less drag, resistance and effort all while the opposite arm is recovering. For all TI swimmers starting out or changing their strokes, as I have after many, many years, it takes time and hours of slow mindful, purposeful practice. This to most mainstream master’s coaches is viewed as garbage yardage and they get caught up with the routine of number of repeats, distance in the set, and interval and don’t look beyond.

The other day I was reading back through “How to swim a faster 1500M” and noticed a comment about Terry often swimming with his tempo trainer and going as slow as 2.0 and how that really brings to light any balance and streamlining issues. I thought about this as I have rarely gone swimming in the last year and a half without my swimming partner the tempo trainer (but that’s another blog) and that I had rarely gone above 1.40. It always felt too slow and labored. I decided that I would do 50’s in a LCM pool starting at my general warm-up tempo of 1.20 and each subsequent 50 decrease the tempo by .05. I started at a SC of 42. Part of this was due to my not being warmed up. Each 50 I started reducing until I was at 1.70 at 34 SC. I initially thought that it was getting harder and I would not be able to go much slower and keep reducing SC. I then thought of the balance and streamlining that would show at this slower tempo and kept going, focusing on the extended patient arm, extending through the axilla not the hand and arm, relaxing on that dangerous edge, holding the feet as motionless and together as I could, standing tall, being the laser beam and low and behold my SC at 2.0 was 31. From this point I started increasing the tempo the same way but holding onto those balance and streamlining thoughts. As I reached 1.20 my SC was at 36 so I decided to keep going to see what my tempo would be at the starting SC. I ended up a 1.0 and 42 SC.

So what does this have to do with the ‘over glider’ you’re asking by now. As I was decreasing my tempo I am sure to the casual observer at the pool I was just increasing my glide between strokes not knowing what was lurking below the surface.

So if you are faced with being called an ‘over glider,’ just smile, knowing that you understand what is really taking place. Call me crazy but I like being referred to as an ‘over glider.’

May 4th, 2012 CoachToddE. 6

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jsacco

The difference between gliding and over-gliding is measured in fractions of a second. Watch the famous Shinji video clip in slow motion and you will see that: (a) Shinji does not over-glide, and (b) His hands and arms move continuously.

Over-gliding becomes problematic when the deceleration during the glide becomes severe enough to effect body orientation. If a swimmer’s speed during a complete cycle goes up and down like a yo-yo, there is a high probability that the swimmer will bounce up and down like a yo-yo, which will cause the swimmer to plow, rather than glide, through the water.

If a swimmer can keep their longitudinal body axis parallel to the surface at all times, then they too will be able to glide effortlessly through the water, just like Shinji. If maintaining your longitudinal body axis parallel to the surface requires you to shorten your glide, then do so.

-Joseph
CoachBobW

Todd,
Well said. Just because the leading arm isn’t digging into a pull doesn’t mean it isn’t of great value, ‘doing less’. I prefer to refer to the too busy lead arm as ‘premature pulling’.
Bob W
CoachStuartMcDougal

Excellent piece Todd! And yes, ‘over glider’ is an overloaded term and misleading diagnosis to the untrained eye. Even the precision of Shinji is characterized as an ‘over glider’ – hysterical. What one sees as an ‘over glider’ is really a swimmer with poor balance, swinging straight arm recovery, recovery elbow dropping on entry, and recovery hand scooping to the surface. The source of the problem is not holding a long streamlined profile, but a list of errors beginning with limited balance. I suspect ‘main stream’ coaches recognize this, but feel the need to jab at TI creating an ‘over glider’ rather than discuss/promote the merits of their own program. Good marketing strategy or insecurity? Possibly both.

Stuart
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Dan The Man

The overgliding thing is really about a truly good catch vs. a catch that feels good but actually isn’t. I believe the “site down under” points this out, and rightly so. While TI has done a lot for my
swimming, it never taught me what a truly good catch is. It taught me a catch that felt good to me because of the strong “locked on” sensation it provided, and the powerful feeling of pulling myself toward a point in front of me. Besides, TI is an excellent way of going from being a so-so swimmer to being a pretty good one, and that understandably makes you so happy with your TI technique that for a long while after learning TI you don’t really want to know about anything else.

But… once I discovered what a truly good catch is, I realized how ineffective my old catch was — I realized that the strong pulling sensation in front actually provided little propulsion and was mostly
just my hand churning the water. A truly good catch requires the lead hand to “join” the water’s motion, and for a moment this *removes* all sense of pressure from your hand. The sensation you get from a good catch therefore, is quite different from what you’d expect: with a really good catch there is almost no locked-on sense at all until the catch becomes a pull. The moment of maximum propulsive pressure therefore, occurs later on in the stroke. Now, one might say: TI is not to blame, but I disagree. TI really does emphasize keeping your lead hand stretched until your recovering hand punctures the water — and that is slightly too long. By keeping it stretched that long, you run out of time for an excellent catch, and so you end up doing this “powerful” TI catch, which as I’ve explained feels great but is not the most effective catch. For the best catch, your lead hand must drop (not push!!) down, slightly out, and back earlier, and must *not* attempt to “grab” the water in front. Try it and be amazed.

By the way, there is a interesting relationship between the two-beat kick (which I learned) and overgliding. The two-beat kick reinforces overgliding because only with a two-beat kick can you “postpone” your kick until you feel that the time has come for your catch and pull. With a steady six-beat kick, this is very awkward. Unless you vary your rhythm (1-2-3-pause 1-2-3 pause — which many swimmers do), a six-beat kick almost forces you to start your stroke earlier.

On a closing note: for anybody interested in learning a better catch, be warned that it will in the beginning make breathing a little harder again. A excellent catch exerts so little pressure in front that your rotation will be less, your head will stay even lower, and the breathing opportunity will occur later. For example, if your left hand is in front and you’re about to breathe on the *left* side at the end of your upcoming stroke, you’ll notice that your pull-through doesn’t really rotate your body that much until your hand is almost exiting the water. In addition, having relinquished the locked-on sensation in front, there will be a sense of swimming even more head-down and being perhaps an inch farther away from the surface of the water. This takes some getting used to and does not necessarily make for a more comfortable swimming experience. If you’re interested in swimming efficiently and/or fast though, switching from a catch as-taught-by-TI to the earlier, subtler catch that I’ve described here can be a major step forward.
pete from utah

I think I am the classic triathlete learning (or at least trying to learn!) how to be an at least compentent and hopefully strong swimmer. The TI approach helped me to become comfortable and develop balance in the water. But my times were not improving. I stagnated at about a 32 min 1500 m open water swim, from 35. 3 years of diligent self teaching and this is where I plateaued. I did the drills religiously and worked on doing workouts while following the TI principals—no improvement. I had some coaches from a more traditional swimming perspective look at me and they gave me the classic TI critiques (without me mentioning practicing the TI method): overrotation, waiting too long to initiate my catch, overgliding, and dropping my elbow and showing the palm. I am in the process of correcting these errors with a coach and my times are dropping dramatically. In the last 3 months my 100 yard base dropped from 2:00 to 1:43–and it’s still dropping. My last tri I focused on high elbow and fast turnover and I was faster and it felt nearly effortless. I am thankful for TI introducing me to streamline and balance as important swimming fundamentals, but it led to my plateauing at a particularly mediocre pace.

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