One of my grandfathers once said that "Everything you do helps you with something else."  There’s a lot of truth in that!  Every piece of knowledge is connected to other pieces of knowledge, every experience prepares us for other experiences, every skill we learn makes it easier to acquire other skills, and every time we develop our muscles it enables us to do activities besides the ones that helped us to build those muscles.

Swimming doesn’t seem, at first glance, to have much to do with playing a musical instrument.  Swimming, after all, is a physical activity that is both a survival skill and a competitive sport, while music is an artistic activity that serves as a form of entertainment.  Swimming helps to keep us physically fit, while playing a muscial instrument isn’t likely to do that.  But music is a means of expressing ourselves, while swimming isn’t.

Swimming and playing a musical instrument, however, are both activities for which expert execution is essential to success.  And, of course, playing a wind instrument requires lung capacity and breath control that are comparable to those needed to excel in swimming.

The Secrets of the Musicians

For about a decade, I’ve played trombone in an orchestra with members who range in age from 12-year-olds to senior citizens.  We were trained in music at different times and places by different people, but when we’re rehearsing and come to a passage of music that we have trouble with, we always use the same remedy, and the director doesn’t even bother explaining it because all of us, no matter where, when, or by whom we were trained, are already familiar with it:  We slow the music down to a speed at which we can play it correctly, and then we gradually speed it up, while still playing it correctly, until we reach the speed at which it is supposed to be played.

All musicians use this remedy because it is the only way to learn precise, intricate movements that have to be executed quickly and flawlessly.  It’s true that if a musician is able to play a passage of music with just an occasional wrong note here or there, they may be able to perfect it while playing it at the proper speed.  But if any more significant corrections are needed, the only way to master it is by slowing it down.

Of course, in music, everyone realizes that the notes need to be played flawlessly, as well as at the proper speed.  But many people think of swimming speed as being purely a function of fitness, rather than technique.  In fact, the term freestyle suggests that it doesn’t matter how you execute the swimming stroke, provided that you stroke quickly.  The trouble with this is that water is a very dense medium (880 times denser than air), so all of the fitness in the world can’t compensate for a stroke that creates lots of drag and turbulence.

The Total Immersion drill sequence is designed to break swimmers out of the faulty techniques they have been practicing for years (or even decades) and to engrain new, efficient stroke techniques.  But swimmers don’t come to Total Immersion to learn how to drill – they come to learn how to swim!  So how do you make the new skills you have been learning in the Total Immersion drills a part of your swimming stroke?

Slowing Things Down and Speeding Them Up

Critics of Total Immersion have sometimes claimed that it teaches swimmers how to swim beautifully and elegantly, but not quickly.  But that is because they mistakenly believe that slowing things down is the end of the Total Immersion teaching process, whereas in reality it is only the first part of that process.  After slowing things down to perfect your technique, you then want to gradually speed things up, while still practicing flawless technique, until you reach race speeds.

Here are some practice plans that will help you to bring your fishlike stroke up to speed:

The Stroke Eliminator

For the stroke eliminator, you will need a pool and a means of timing yourself.  When I’m doing it, I use the SportCount Chrono 100, which fits on your finger like a ring and allows you to time up to 100 separate laps.  I leave the timer running between lengths (effectively treating each rest period as a lap) so that I can save all of my times and record them after my practice is over.

Begin by swimming a length of the pool while counting your strokes and timing yourself.  The goal is not to strive for any particular stroke count or time.  It is just to establish what your typical time and stroke count actually are.

Once you’ve done this, swim another length and try to reduce your stroke count by one while again timing yourself.  Don’t be discouraged if you fail to reduce your stroke count – just try again.  And, of course, it’s okay if you end up reducing your stroke count by more than one!

Keep doing this until you’ve reduced your stroke count as far as you can without distorting your stroke.  Remember that the important thing isn’t the actual stroke count you attain, which can be affected by things like your height, your arm length, and how far you streamline.  It is the reduction in your stroke count that is important.

When you’ve reached the lowest stroke count you can comfortably attain, try to increase your stroke rate a bit while still maintaining the same efficient feeling.  Don’t strive for any particular stroke count, but do count your strokes and time yourself.  You may find that it helps to start the length with the same stroke rate you used on the previous length and to gradually increase it.  Repeat this process on two or three lengths, trying to see how fast you can stroke before you start to become inefficient again.

You should find that the fastest times you attain are the ones you do during the last part of the set, when you are increasing your stroke rate.  But don’t be surprised if you sometimes see your times drop during the first part, when you are reducing your stroke count.  In order to reduce your stroke count past a certain point, you have to find a way to be more efficient, and that added efficiency will sometimes save you more time than you lose by eliminating a stroke.

It’s a good idea to keep a swimming notebook in which you record the things you learn in each practice.  Besides recording stroke counts and times, you should also keep a record of the things you changed to reduce your stroke count.  Before each practice, read your three most recent entries to refresh your memory.

Hitting It the First Time

When you’re at a race, you probably won’t have the luxury of spending a lot of time trying to reduce your stroke count before you begin the race.  So it’s important for your more efficient stroke technique to become so deeply engrained that you can do it the first time.

In the spring of 2008, I moved my swim practices from a 25 yard pool to a 25 meter pool.  When I began doing the Stroke Eliminator at the new pool, I would start with a stroke count of 18 or 19 and work down to a stroke count of 15 or 16.  Nowadays, I usually begin with a stroke count of 14 or 15 and work down to a stroke count of 11 or 12.

Doing It Faster

Once you’re able to hit your lowest stroke count right away, then all you need to do is keep pushing the stroke rate at which you can still maintain the same feeling of efficiency.  Resist the temptation to become impatient and move beyond the stroke rate at which you can maintain your efficiency.  If you feel your stroke becoming inefficient, or if you notice your stroke count skyrocketing without a corresponding reduction in your times, back off on your stroke rate again and spend some more time engraining your efficient stroke habits at the slower stroke rate before trying to speed things up again.

Doing It Longer

The same rules apply when you are trying to increase the distance you can swim efficiently.  First, find a stroke count that you can maintain over the number of lengths you are trying to swim (or find a pace that you can maintain against the Tempo Trainer over the distance you are trying to swim), and then gradually increase your stroke rate from one practice to the next.