No Brain, No Gain

By Kerry Allman

Believe it or not, Albert Einstein led me to Total Immersion. Eight months ago, I decided to celebrate turning 50 by doing a triathlon. It’s a dream I’ve kept on the shelf for 25 years because I couldn’t swim. I could easily bike 100km or run 10 miles; only the swim stood in my way. I joined a masters program and quickly discovered one length had me gasping for air. My pool mates said once my fitness improved, I would be swimming more easily. I smiled politely and thought “What insane fitness level is required to swim?”

So I swam length after grueling length. Swim a length, grab the edge of the pool, gasp for air, swim another length. Repeat for 1 hour. After a month of four training sessions per week I was no further ahead and my shoulders were aching. I lift weights regularly and was bewildered at how this could be happening to me.

I looked into several training programs which were all basically the same: Do lots of laps. For variation, do them with a pull buoy. And then do some kick sets. Eventually I was supposed to just “get it.” This was exactly what I was doing with the Masters. Then I remembered Einstein’s famous quote: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I don’t have any mental health issues so I looked for a different approach and found Total Immersion’s website.

The philosophy and reasoning behind TI made sense to me. Once I read the book and saw the online videos I changed my practice routine completely. Suddenly my swimming practice had a purpose. Instead of testing my pain or boredom threshold, I was focused on learning to move effectively in water. I cut back to once a week at Masters to allow time for four self-directed “practices” devoted to mastering the skills and drills described in Extraordinary Swimming.

Swimming became a joy instead of something to endure. I was happy to stop trying to overpower the water – which everyone else advocates – in favor of imprinting the skills to reduce resistance and slip through the water. UnderSwitches really helped me understand this: one arm spear and a bit of body rotation propelled me further and easier than five or six water-pushing strokes and wasteful kicking.

I felt physically and mentally energized after training sessions, partly from the satisfaction of gaining new understanding about working with the water virtually every time I went to the pool. The less effort I used, the better I swam. I could let the water do the work for me! I thought swimming was like many other sports requiring a lot of physical strength and aerobic capacity. I now understand that swimming requires more mental concentration and body awareness. My time in the pool just flies by because I’m focused on exploring ways to make swimming easier instead of exploring new levels of pain tolerance.

When I first started to swim my only goal was to be able to swim 1500m with sufficient ease so I could complete a triathlon. I’ve accomplished that, as well as the unexpected achievement of beating out veteran swimmers on my Masters team at distances of 400 to 800m. But the real benefit is bigger: I’ve discovered a sport that will give me years of enjoyment. Swimming is my fun time of the day; it’s where I find peace for 60 minutes and the satisfaction that comes from learning more everyday. TI provides me with the tools to make swimming a lifelong exercise in perpetual and inevitable improvement.

Kerry Allman is a business consultant living near Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He has two goals: one is to complete his first triathlon this summer, the second is to convince his pool mates to lose the pull buoys.