All we have done all our lives is just sit around. Surely that is what I have done up to now. I sat in class, I sat to study, I sat in front of a TV, I sat in my office in front of a computer for countless hours. And all that resulted in my glutes forgetting how to fire. The fact that my glutes are not participating in any of the kinetic chains related to running or cycling means other muscles are overworked, get injured faster, cramp up during a race, and a host other problems.

By reactivating the glutes, the whole kinetic chain of muscles works more efficiently and better, being more resistant and tolerant of heavy and long efforts. By the way, you'll also run/cycle faster too; isn't that our real end goal?

To combat this, I started on a program of getting my glutes to activate in the kinetic chain again. Here are the things I've done:

1. First, I learned how to Hip Hinge. Hip Hinging is critical for performing the exercises that will activate the glutes. If you can't Hip Hinge, any potential exercises you would do for glute activation endanger your spine and back so make sure you learn how to do this.

Prevention of proper Hip Hinging can be the result of a nervous system which is unused to letting the hips hinge like that, and tight and/or weak muscles in and around the hips. It is possible that a program of stretching and physical therapy is required to help speed the muscles and nervous system to allowing this movement to happen.

I managed to figure this out on my own, but there are a number of exercises to help pattern the movement. Here is a good one:

I practice Hip Hinging whenever I can, especially if I am squatting down like when I'm playing with my kid. Or if I'm reaching down for something on the ground. Or going from standing to sitting. I make sure that my hips are hinging correctly in any kind of squatting type movement.

2. I then had to learn how to flex and tighten my glutes. Pavel describes this as "closing off the sphincter." It's not a bad way to start learning, but ultimately the glutes are to the side of the sphincter but you can start figuring out what nerves to fire in order to flex the glutes. I practiced flexing both at the same time, and also each one side separately.

3. Next come exercises to engage and activate the glutes, whereas previously they were completely inactive and other muscles were taking up the load. The core exercises I use, in terms of movement, are the deadlift, Bulgarian single leg deadlift, and the Romanian single leg deadlift.

It would be highly advisable to rehearse the movements with only body weight before you try extra weights like dumbbells, kettlebells or barbells. Go to a gym and perform the movements in front of a mirror multiple times. Make sure your form is perfect each time. Then once you have some mastery of the form, then you can move on to using weights.

If you don't rehearse the movements with body weight only, you could really hurt yourself. This is what happened to me when I tried to find my 1 Rep Maximum in deadlift and didn't have proper form nailed down. The moment I stopped and found help was the day after I hit a max and my back was bending down due to the heavy weight, and my back was very sore for 2 days afterwards. This was completely avoidable. I could have really messed something up badly in my back.

This is why I mention this now before I list some demonstration videos of the deadlift, Bulgarian single leg deadlift, and the Romanian single leg deadlift which all show weights being used. But read onwards to see how each one is done, and practice them without weights first, and master the form before adding weights.

4. After I get the hang of Hip Hinging, then I started into deadlifting via Tim Ferriss's 4 Hour Body, Pavel Tsatsouline's Power to the People, and Barry Ross's Underground Secrets for Faster Running. My blog posts on this subject are: Deadlifting for Faster Running and I also give a description of deadlift form in Deadlifting is HARD (and Dangerous). A great video on form is here:

The key here is to squeeze your glutes at the top of the lift. This really helps the body learn how to engage them during the lift. Later, you can attempt to maintain flexure of the glutes all the way from the bottom of the lift to the top. If you can do that, your glutes are on their way to be activated.

5. I also started doing some single leg exercises to isolate the glutes on each side. The first is the Bulgarian single leg deadlift. Check this video out:

Key point again is to squeeze the glute at the top of the movement, a bit awkward with this exercise, but still doable. Also, there is a temptation to flex the quads in an attempt to get up. Resist this and focus on the glutes instead. You will be amazed that you can get up by using more glutes, and without doing what feels more natural which is to use your quads.

This is also a great balance exercise, so do each movement deliberately and slowly so that you don't lose your balance and tip to either side.

Start with no weights, practice/master the form, then try very low weights, like 10-20 lbs and move up from there. A lot of people like to use 2 dumbbells, one in each hand. I like to use one dumbbell, held by the hand that is opposite the leg that is forward. This provides a bit more stability challenge to the core and body which I like.

I started with only 4 reps with body weight each side and my glutes were sore the day after! So start with low reps and body weight, do only one set on each side to start and then move up from there.

6. The second glute isolation is the Romanian single leg deadlift. Check this video out:

The person in the video is using two dumbbells which you can graduate to after you practice and master form without weights. Once again, I like using one dumbbell for more of a balance/stability challenge, the dumbbell held by the hand opposite the leg that is placed on the ground.

Key points are, keep that slight curve in the back and do not let it curl forward - very bad! You can bend the knee of the leg that is on the ground. Watch your balance, use your leg behind you to help counterbalance your body going forward. Maintain focus on your glutes during this movement.

Again, I started only with 4 reps with body weight on each side. Start low and move from there. Always maintain strict form; fatigue is the enemy of form! If your form falters due to concentration/focus or fatigue, stop immediately and take a break.

The bigger brother to the Romanian single leg deadlift is using a barbell with both legs on the ground, bending down with the bar and then standing straight up while keeping both legs in a slightly bent, braced position. I would recommend mastering the dumbbell version first and on one leg before attempting this one. This move is much more advanced and requires more mastery of bracing your upper body and back against the stress of a heavy barbell held with both hands. I do not think it is necessary, however, in a program to help runners or cyclists. The single leg deadlift is more than adequate.

7. This one is really tough but awesome. It's the Natural Glute Ham Raise. Check this video out:

This move is REALLY HARD. The first time I tried it I could not even lift my nose off the ground at all! If you try from the high position and lower yourself down, you'll end up face planting for sure. To do this move requires not only strength, but also activation of a chain of muscles down your back, glutes, and hamstrings that you've probably never ever used before. But as Barry Ross says, people with strong hamstrings never ever get injured during running. So this is worth aspiring to. For a better process to mastering this move, see this video which shows the Assisted Glute Ham Raise using a pole or lat pulldown bar:

Much safer to start with as you won't faceplant and embarass yourself in the gym!

8. I'm not in love with other movements on the ground but you can try them and see if they work for you. I've tried these:

Bridge Exercise
Quadruped Hip Extension
Single Leg Bridge Exercise

I haven't found them to be as effective as the deadlifts and glute ham raises. Nowadays I mainly use them when I'm travelling or not at a gym, or just want to switch things up. There are many others that you'll find if you search on the internet.

9. After you start on a program of glute activation, now you need to integrate this into your daily life or else they'll just get amnesia again!

First, stop sitting. Stand or squat if possible. Hard for sedentary workers, but do what you can. Sitting is the enemy of activated glutes.

Second, whenever you squat or bend down, practice your hip hinging. When you bend or stand back up, focus on the glutes as you come up. Resist flexing the quads to get up. Keep activating those glutes!

So far so good. I've been doing all this since about March this year and things are looking up. My speed on the low end is climbing, and I think the glute's contribution to the kinetic chain is showing in the speed increase as well as less muscle problems.

I'm going to start to incorporate this simple exercise/drill into my weekly routine.

To recap, on my long run, I planned on building 15 minutes each week starting with one hour but given the 2 months, I could not allocate any weeks for recovery, as per a standard periodization training plan (ie. 2-3 weeks of heavy training, followed by a week of less heavy training to recover, then repeat). So I kept building 15 minutes per week and let the time in between the long runs be more variable as I adjusted for the weeks where I may feel the need to rest more.

Within the week between long runs, I would run a treadmill neuromuscular workout and then a track workout. The treadmill workout would typically be no more than 20 minutes and only functioned to help condition my nervous system to move my legs at faster speeds. These fast speed intervals were no more than 20-30 seconds, and I managed to raise that up to 4 or so intervals at 12-13 MPH, with about a minute rest in between.

The track workouts started with 400m repeats until I got to 8. Then I started on a simple 800m progression which began with 4, and I got up to 6. By this time, there were only 3 weeks left before the marathon and I began doing mile repeats of about 4 times, with about 3-4 minutes of rest in between. Remarkably, I managed to PR on both 400s (1:21), 800s (3:01), and also my mile repeats (6:46).

I find that traditional notions of fitness do not explain thoroughly enough for me of my new PRs in speed. However, I do attribute it to two new things I started this year: the ASRSpeed program and Russian strength training techniques.

Quite frankly, I'm a weakling. I do not have real strength in my legs to withstand the constant activity of running. I may have muscle, but I did not have the ability to activate the strength inherent in them, which is a function of activated muscle tissue and the nervous system. Regular training does not give enough focus to these two areas. After improving my strength and nervous system via fast run training and deadlifting, I am pretty sure this is why I am running faster now as I build towards the marathon.

But when I began the build, I only weightlifted once a week, as opposed to twice a week before. Although the strength training program was supposed to not wipe out my body as traditional bodybuilding might, I still found that strength training often could mean a tough run day the day after lifting. So I chose to just lift one day for maintainance and slow strength build while I focused on running.

I did go to ART every week as long as I was in town. This was to relieve the muscle adhesions that would form from my fast build to the marathon. I also used my TPMassage Roller twice a day. It was important that I did not let my muscles get too tight due to the fast build or else I could really get injured and I could not afford any time off.

For crosstraining, I swim every day in between running. This both helps me recover between runs, and also supports the run training through stimulation of my metabolic system.

So far so good, my body is holding up. I have only 1.5 weeks until the marathon. This week, I am gauging my recovery from my last long run of 21 miles last Friday. If I feel good enough, I may attempt another 21 miler, or if I am not recovering fast enough, then I'll do 18 miles and then have a week long taper. I don't want to arrive on race day with tight legs but am trying to maximize my training and allow enough time to recover fully for a good race. This will be an interesting experiment - normal dogma says that a two week taper is preferred for a marathon, but there are those who are pushing their training up to the limit, gaining training benefit from it, AND still can arrive on race day fresh enough to do well.

We will see...

At the end of the coach certification classes, I asked Dave Cameron (aka Distance Dave) if he would do a short private coaching session with me. As always, the comments were fascinating. I will talk about them as focal points during the swimming laps he had me swim:

1. Swim with fists, then point the index finger, then point the index finger and pinky (the "longhorn"), and then open up the hands and swim with fully open hands
As I went through this progression of swimming with each hand position for 10 strokes (on a 50m pool), I was told to focus on the hip drive into spear to drive the body forward, and not rely on the hand stroking back because my ability to catch was hampered by the closed hands. As a second observation, I could see the effect of catching on the forearm and not only the hand.

2. Open up the axilla on the recovering arm and use the hip drive to open it up and catch more water. The axilla is a fancy name for the underarm/armpit. We talk about opening up the axilla on the spearing arm, in order to get extra body length on the stretch forward, as well as a longer stroke back since it begins further forward. However, this was the first time someone talked about opening up the axilla on the recovering arm! If I do it right, this makes the EVF even more effective by catching a big volume of water underneath the curve of my arm because I am extending my axilla of the recovering arm as I spear with my forward arm. Definitely an exercise in coordination here! Then, Dave told me to use my hip drive to create the opening in the axilla which was another interesting but effective notion.

3. Keep the hands facing back at all times during stroke and recovery, as it lifts out of the water and comes forward. I was turning my hand at the end of the stroke, which can cause a chicken wing elbow as it lifts out of the water. This inhibits proper elbow led recovery.

4. Move the shoulder blade as far forward to enhance elbow led recovery. I was not moving the shoulder blade forward enough, which sometimes encouraged a hand led recovery which is very bad. Moving the shoulder blade helped keep my elbow leading the recovery and also put my hand in the right place to drop into the water.

5. Practice hip drive on all of the above. We would run through each of the focal points, and then Dave would ask me to insert a stronger hip drive while maintaining the previous focal point. Yes, lots of practice maintaining not only one focal point but two, sometimes three!

It's always invaluable to continue my private coaching with Shinji and Dave!

Alcatraz swims can generally be held in two conditions, either starting with a flood or ebb. Then there is a slack where it changes direction and the current is zero or very low for some time, and then it fully switches to the other direction. Depending on which current it starts with determines what landmarks you sight on, and therefore, what direction you swim to work with the current and not against it in reaching Aquatic Park.

For this swim, I stuffed my Garmin 305 GPS watch under my swim cap to track the results. I am always curious on my actual track - did I go off course? How far did the current take me? Was I fast enough to get across or was I too conservative? Here is the track:

Disregard the track around Alcatraz Island; I turned on the tracking before I hopped off the boat as I wanted to make sure the timer was on before I stuffed it under my swim cap. The swim started at that little jog in the track, to the right and slightly lower than Alcatraz Island in the image.

In this case, it started with a flood, and a very mild one at that. Faster swimmers always can go directly for the opening at Aquatic Park; I thought it best that I should point slightly off from the opening in case I could not get across before the flood would start coming in and sweep me past the opening (this happened to me once; it was a tiring trick to achieve the opening when the current is going against you). So I sighted on Fort Mason and you can see the my initial track was slightly left of the opening.

As I swam across and got closer and closer to Aquatic Park, I began to steer towards the opening. But given that my track was pretty straight to Fort Mason, the current was nearly nil and I probably could have gone directly for the opening and gotten to the finish line faster.

I steered to the opening of Aquatic Park, and then made a beeline for the beach where the finish line was. By my personal watch, I made it from leap off the ship to beach timing mat in 33:43, a new personal record! (NOTE: the results say 35:09 which is probably total clock time).

I was very ecstatic - If I did not count incorrectly, this was my 15th crossing and I have been frustrated to not be able to lower my time from the usual 42-45 minutes that it takes me. Finally, I was able to come in below 42 minutes.

In future swims, I think I will be confident and go directly for the opening. I think that rebuilding my stroke via Total Immersion has helped a lot, and I shouldn't be fearful that I will mistime the currents, although given the varying conditions of the San Francisco Bay, I am sure it will happen more than once still in the future!

Normally, I like at least 4 months to prepare for a marathon. It gives me plenty of time to build, and also use periodization to rest between 3 week build blocks (I use 3 weeks, the usual number is 4 weeks; this is 2 weeks of heavy work and then followed by 1 week of lighter effort to recover). I also like to spend more time at longer distances/longer times (ie. 18-20 miles) building my tolerance to maintain tempo speeds.

But this time, I have only two months to get to marathon shape! The last marathon I ran was back in April: the LA Marathon. But since then, I have not run distance but focused on strength building with deadlifting (see Deadlifting is HARD (and Dangerous)), short distance speed (ASRSpeed.com: Ultimate Speed Training), and swimming as I am going for Total Immersion coach certification soon.

Looking at the calendar, I planned out my next 2 months. For my long run, I knew from past experience that I could build about 15 min/week relatively safely. If I could get up to 3 hours of running at least once, preferably twice, I knew at least I could finish the race.

Thankfully, the calendar looks like there are enough weeks to start at 1 hour for my long run and then building each week by 15 min and then right before the marathon, I should have time for 2 weeks of 3 hour runs. However, I would get no rest via normal periodization training blocks. Thus, I would have to be careful in my build.

Next, I would need to build up my anaerobic speed capacity at the low end. These would fill out the other 2 workouts of the week. One would be a neuromuscular workout on the treadmill, focused on training my nervous system to move my legs as fast as possible. The second would be a track workout, starting gingerly with 400s and hopefully moving to 800s and then a few mile repeats by race day.

For injury prevention during this build, I planned to use my TPMassageBall QuadRoller at least once, preferably twice a day to keep my calves and flexor halicus pliable and not tight. Those muscles seem to get tight very easily and I must make sure they do not get too tight for too long. Otherwise, that might wreck a training week and I don't have time for that. To help further, I am making sure I take Sportlegs supplements and Acid Zappers to keep lactic acid from collecting in my legs and causing further tightness and soreness.

I would continue my deadlift/bench press/weight lifting but drop that back to once a week and maintain my strength.

As of this week, I have run up to 1:45 and things seem OK. I am running conservatively out and then pick it up for a gentle negative split on the way back.

It was painful running 400s. The first day I tried to run 10x400 but ended up only running two laps, even if those my fastest ever 400s. The next week was much better, running 8x400 at slightly slower, but still faster than my fastest, 400s. The speed increase here was definitely gratifing. However, my "stirrup" muscle chain, running from the inside of my left lower leg around the bottom of my foot and back along the outside of my lower leg, was very sore. I had to give time to let that recover.

It will be interesting to see how fast I race NYC marathon on only a two month build. I hope that my LA marathon fitness comes back, and that all my swimming and weight training has paid off.

This time out, I tried mapping my swim with my Garmin 305 GPS Watch. I've heard from numerous people on how they have done it by stuffing under their swim caps. Some put on a swim cap and then they put the watch into a ziploc bag, put it on their head, and then put another swim cap on top. Others put a swim cap on, then duct tape the watch to this swim cap without ziploc bag (it is supposedly water resistant), and then put another cap on top.

Two days ago, I had to make sure that one method would work so that on race day I would not be fiddling with the GPS watch right before race start. I didn't have duct tape but I did put the watch into a ziploc bag to help reduce its water exposure. I put on a swim cap but I could not put on another swim cap over my watch and my head no matter what I did! I was definitely feeling like I would rip my second swim cap for sure. So I just stuffed the bagged watch under the back of my swim cap, right above my neck. That worked fine - it was a bit bulky but it didn't bother me.

I then tried to hit the start button but no dice. I could not tell if it was started or not! When I thought I had hit the button and took it out to check, it was not started. So I just decided that I would hit start and then stuff the bagged watch under my swim cap and hope that the swim cap's tightness wouldn't re-hit the start button, which stops the timing. After stuffing the bagged watch under the cap, I put on my goggles and adjusted the double strap so that it would loop around the watch face and not put pressure on the start/stop or lap buttons.

Hitting the start button before the actual race start meant I would not get actual race timing this way, but I could GPS location data for the swim course. I had another Timex watch anyways so I would time the race with that.

This morning, I did all this and jumped into the water when the start horn went off. Here are the mapped results, downloaded into the Garmin Training Center and then uploaded to Google Earth application for Mac OS.

According to the GPS track, at least I did not go wandering around the course much; I was pretty much following the buoys closely. I just was slower than the last time I did it and to pour salt on the wound there was a current going in our favor too! Oh well, I got some cool GPS data to show for it and will dig later into the data to see if the speed data is worth looking at. I also look forward to jumping back into the pool to keep fine tuning my technique and hopefully improve my open water speed. Next up: Alcatraz crossing in two weeks.

1. Strength - lack of strength in your muscles means they are faster to tire and cramp up due to lack of ability to keep up with your demands of the muscles.

2. Fitness - poor or lowered fitness in that activity or overall can cause cramping as muscles unaccustomed to an action are forced to do that action repeatedly.

3. Overworked muscles - muscles that are pushed beyond their ability to keep up will inevitably cramp. This can be either a function of 1 or 2 above or something more non-obvious like your nervous system not working right to make all your muscles in a kinetic chain fire off in the right way or at all. This will put more stress on the muscles that are doing the work versus ones that are shut down. The glutes are a typical muscle group that has shut down due to inactivity of sitting, which overworks the back erectors and hamstrings when running and squating.

4. Not enough blood/nutrients getting to your muscles - this can happen in situations like windsurfing in cool seas where hypothermia starts to set in and your muscles simply stop getting enough blood flow to function properly. I encountered this during the LA Marathon 2010 when my right quad cramped up under rainy, cold weather. I thought it was lack of strength which may have contributed in general, but an examination of my heart rate trace showed a slow drop in heart rate, which meant that not enough blood was getting to my muscles while I was demanding so much from them during a race.

5. Electrolytes - you may not have enough electrolytes in your system to support that level of activity, or through sweating and hot weather racing/training you lose it through the skin and it is not replenished. electrolytes are important for proper functioning of muscles and the nervous system. Without proper levels, you will undoubtedly cramp. I sweat a lot, more than other people, and I take 3 Saltstick pills per hour during Ironman races in moderate warm to hot weather. This has become more of a preventative measure now as my strength and fitness has increased.

Science has not been able to pinpoint the exact causes of cramping but suffice to say that training over the years and trying many things, these are things that I've worked on the most and have nearly removed cramping situations, except for the extra cold, wet conditions experienced during the LA Marathon 2010.

My latest experiments have been in the area of increasing strength (but not bulk or weight) via Russian strength training techniques in benchpressing and deadlifting. Another has been in the area of recovery between intervals, relative to my fitness level. I have found some great results in training intervals with full recovery in between them, versus trying to use set minimal recovery intervals in order to build endurance. The last has been in the area of removing "gluteal amnesia", which is getting my glutes to reactivate in the kinetic chain involving running. This has all but removed issues with hamstring cramping and I have also improved my running speed as well.

Sun Yang is the new TI poster boy. (No we are not claiming him as a TI swimmer, only as a demonstration that longer strokes ARE the way to superior swimming.

with this comment and query:

Terry,

I have been working towards a race and using the TT to prepare. My goal has been to gradually raise the tempo and practice relaxing and maintaining proper form. So far, I've made it to 1.08s where I find my 50s are still getting faster. However, once I move past 1.08s I find that my 50s are slowing down quite a bit, and even slower than 1.08s. So faster SR doesn't necessarily mean faster times!

But your statement intrigues me above, that longer strokes are the way to superior swimming. It would seem that when my TT goes faster, a few things happen:

1. My ability to recover between left and right arm strokes reduces exponentially. It's amazing how sensitive that is to minute drops in tempo.

However, training with the TT means I can change that week over week which is pretty amazing.

2. In order to achieve speed, I find the limiting factors are:

a. My hip connection to the spear is diminished, as I'm trying to keep up with the TT but I can't seem to generate the same authority in the spear with the hip.

b. My hip rotation is diminished in order to keep up with the TT. I find that a tiny bit more hip rotation means I can get a little more oomph in a spear. But hip rotation is lowered as the TT interval is diminished.

c. In reference to 1. above, each stroke has less force pulling since I'm tiring faster. With less pulling force, I diminish my speed when compared to pulling with more force.

d. My pull also shortens in an attempt to keep up with the TT, while I get tired and can't pull back fast enough to maintain a SL from earlier when I am less tired.

e. The recovering arm must also move very quickly forward. Getting tired can make this slow down.

Is the goal to then train such that at higher tempos:

1. maintain SL, which means a faster pull to make the tempo interval.

2. As I maintain SL, I must also train to maintain the force of the pull. Simply swishing my arm fast through the water doesn't have enough effect.

3. I also have to work on maintaining the authority of the hip's contribution to the spear/pull.

Thoughts? Any other insight you could share about training at higher tempos and actually getting faster versus just getting tired faster?

Also, my goal to reach higher tempos is driven by the fact that my next race is in OW and in choppy waters, I am challenged to swim at lower tempos as the waves batter my body...

Thanks in advance!

To which Terry replied:

David As a tech guy, you'll appreciate the following: 1) Your Tempo is a Data Point 2) Your SPL at any given Tempo is a Data Point. 2) Every sensation you experience when you approach or cross your current threshold of 1.08 is also a Data Point.

The more data points you have the better your information and the more targeted your efforts can be.

Key tenets of Mastery, Deliberate Practice and Flow are
i) Be error-focused. Constantly practice in ways calculated to expose weak points.
ii) When you find an error or weak point, develop strategies to strengthen them.

All those sensations you experience at or below 1.08 are things to focus on improving as you patiently work your Tempo Threshold to 1.07, 1.06, . . .

As you improve them, you'll reduce then eliminate the extra strokes, and your times will continue improving as you continue increasing Tempo.

Just a month ago I was hitting a point of diminishing returns above 1.00. Since then I've improved my tempo threshold down to .95. I feel as if .90 by Labor Day is not out of the question.

PS: The process you are describing will produce intuition that will be invaluable to your clients when you earn your Coach Certification.

and also, member dobarton replied:

I could not agree more with all your observations. The trick seems to be to use the TT to do exactly the same thing at 1.07 as you do at 1.08 secs. Synchronizing hip drive and spear, setting the catch perfectly, timing the re-entry of the spearing arm, shaping the recovering arm perfectly, kicking at the perfect time to assist the spearing arm to move forward... The faster your stroke, the more perfectly timed all these components must be while still doing so with grace, balance and streamline!! Your observations are spot on!!

The trick with increasing tempos and increasing speed is to figure out how to maintain your stroke length while your tempo is getting faster. At my current breakpoint of 1.08s tempo, I find that it is impossible right now for me to stroke faster and increase speed; in fact, my efficiency drops so much that I actually slow down!

As I approach the Waikiki Rough Water Swim on Labor Day, I am using the tempo trainer to keep practicing maintaining similar, long stroke length while my tempo increases. My goal is to get as close to 1.0s (or faster) as possible since I find in open water, I need a higher tempo to combat waves and choppy conditions that force me to stroke faster in order to maintain control in the ocean.

FOOTNOTE: In reference to that guy, Sun Yang, mentioned in Terry's initial post, check out this 400m race. Sun is the guy in lane 4. Check out his stroke rate relative to his opponents especially on the last lengths of the race. Notice how much slower his stroke rate is but yet he is pulling away from the pack!

One of those contentious topics is the spearing angle. I replied on one of the forum posts with this:

Like all things taught in TI, spearing angle, depth and width, is dependent on so many factors:

1. Skill level of the swimmer
2. Natural body buoyancy of the swimmer
3. Fatigue level
4. Water conditions
5. Drilling vs. Training vs. Racing

It isn't entirely accurate to say that one way is the best way. After all, we humans are of different body sizes and shapes, our fitness levels differ, our brains are wired differently as are our nervous systems by the time we attempt our swimming.

Throwing out some observations on spearing:

1. Drag in part is caused by the amount of frontal area you present to the direction of travel. That means that when you spear deep, you are presenting more of the area of top of your arm to the direction of travel and thereby produces more drag than if you are spearing horizontally.

2. Spearing deeper can improve your body's balance in the water. For drilling, it can be a much easier experience if you spear deeper as you are generally moving slower and lower speeds will cause your butt to drag a lot more readily than at higher speeds.

For example, I used to struggle with kicking across a pool in skate position. It wasn't until I speared deeper than I normally do while swimming, that I realized that my body was higher in the water and kicking actually propelled me more.

So spearing deeper (in conjunction with other things like weight shift forward and reducing the time that your arms are lower than your head) will help improve body balance.

3. At higher speeds, you can spear more horizontally since your momentum helps you stay higher in the water.

4. Spearing higher also means you can execute an early vertical forearm easier since your elbow is already high.

5. I would definitely say the drag produced by a lower spear is pretty inconsequential compared to the drag produced by your lower half of your body dragging through the water. So if you spear more horizontally before you have mastered good body balance in the water, you may find you're struggling a lot to gain speed but this speed could be regained by spearing deeper because you're counterbalancing your butt dragging.

6. Your fatigue level will drive how deep you will want to spear. Swimming with EVF can be very tiring over long distances. You may want to rest and spearing deeper will allow you to minimize drag, maintain good body balance, and decent speed while you rest.

7. Pool water conditions are very sedate and consistent. Once you jump into the open water, all bets are off. You will find that waves (and other swimmers running into you) will constantly be challenging your balance. You may find that in order to maintain balance and some control in certain water conditions, you'll have to spear deeper (and potentially wider too).

8. Your skill level in learning TI swimming can dictate how deep you'd want to spear. Generally, beginners in TI (or in overall swimming) will want to experiment with the depth (and width) of the spear to figure out what works best for them. This is like learning to walk before you run; you start with basics and then move up in skill from there, as you master elements before them.

Spearing deeper for beginners will help improve their experience of swimming because their body balance is improved; with better body balance, there is less struggle in the water. Once basic body balance is mastered, then they can learn more advanced TI concepts which generally mean advancement to body coordination in kick/hip/spear and then on to EVF.

But if you are of a body type/shape which has less natural body balance and you try to advance too far by spearing too horizontal, most will find that there is a lot of struggle and they may not know why or how to improve, except to back off and start from the beginning. How impatient we humans are to improve!

9. Spear depth/width will also vary if you are drilling, or training, or racing. When you drill, you practice focal points and some of those will mean deeper spears. When you train, you will want to swim laps with different spear angles to get used to swimming with that style over time. When you race, you'll want to go for speed and hopefully you'll have prepared properly for a spear that will minimize drag and maximize your ability to generate speed.

Flexibility in spearing is just one of those elements of swimming that should be mastered as a goal.

10. Ultimately, practicing all depths (and widths) of spearing will prepare you for the varying conditions of open water racing, and you can remain relaxed in the ocean even while 3-6' waves are battering you. If you start getting distressed or panicking in the ocean because of rough conditions, you will waste energy doing something unfamiliar which is bad. Practice in the pool with different spear angles will help prepare you for the unexpected in open water.

11. People who swim don't all have the same goals. Some want to just enjoy being in the water and swim without feeling like they're going to sink and drown. Others want to experience the joy of swimming from Alcatraz to SF and say they did it. Still many others want to have the race of their life at the next Master's competition or Ironman. Dependent on your goals, you will find that your spear may also reflect what your ultimate swim goals are.

A deeper spear involves swimming in a more relaxed fashion while still retaining a lot of propulsion. If you want to enjoy swimming in a pool or lake for fitness or fun, then you may be just fine mastering TI with a deeper spear. And being like Michael Phelps isn't your goal so why bother trying to practice mimicking his form?

But if you want to have the race of your life, maximizing speed on the swim leg of your next Ironman, then maybe you'd want to try to master the minutiae that generate that last microsecond of speed, including those elements of spearing which accomplish that.

All in all, spearing is a much more complex topic than anyone can realize. I have found it worthwhile to explore the limits of that topic and think that TI provides the best place for that discovery and learning to be accomplished.

ADDITION FROM THE TI FORUMS:

I forgot about injury reduction/prevention. Whenever we raise our arms out of the range of straight down to some angle up but forward of the head, it puts stress on the shoulder joint. It's in a disadvantaged position relative to the muscles and tendons and if you try to flex there, the likelihood of injury is much higher.

So if you spear horizontally, the arms are in the "over the head" position and thus in an unfortunately disadvantaged position relative to our normal ranges of motion. Spearing deeper means your arms/shoulders are in more advantaged positions and our muscles and joints can flex with greater utility.

Overextending your arm out of the shoulder socket can also put stress on the shoulder while stroking. So spear, but if your shoulders are beginning to hurt, you may want to practice not extending so far. It reduces the total length of a stroke's pull but better that than wrecking your shoulder joint. However, not extending so far means you can focus on other aspects of your stroke to increase speed, like coordination of your body/hip rotation/2BK to add authority to each spear, versus extending your arm so far and injuring it.

Here is my application below - wish me luck in getting accepted and I hope to enter the coach training session in Coronado in September!

Briefly tell your "TI Story" and how you became interested in teaching TI.

I started triathlon back in 2002 with Team in Training. I was at a low point in my life and felt that nothing was moving forward, and I was learning nothing new in my career. So I tried something physical even though previous attempts at running had left me with sore knees and nothing but frustration. Still, I chose to get back not only into running but also swimming and biking.

When I started, I still had preconceived notions about training from my past adventures with running and weightlifting, and also from friends and family. I started with TnT training and that got me to the Pacific Grove Triathlon, but it also left me sore and in pain.

After Pacific Grove, I was determined to get myself into racing shape. I made a bunch of friends in the triathlon community in the Bay Area and they seemed to race numerous times a year with little or no injury. Certainly the frequency at which they raced was amazing to me; if triathlon and its individual elements were reportedly so destructive to the human body, then how were they able to race so often and be so fast?

In 2003, I took my first TI seminar in search of ways to increase my swim speed. I was regularly swimming Masters, but somehow, hearing the commands shouted by the coach really weren't effective enough - there wasn't enough individual attention at what I needed in particular. I also dug into several books on swimming, searching for those elusive secrets to allow me to swim faster.

The seminar was good, but it wasn't enough. It didn't reinforce what I was supposed to do after the seminar. I got a bit better but didn't get much better after that. I fell back into the patterns of my Masters class and my performance overall was a bit better, but wasn't consistently advancing beyond a certain point. I certainly didn't know how to improve from there except to cycle my arms faster.

I got through 6 Ironmans and a few Alcatraz crossings but my speed had plateaued, or even see sawed faster and slower. And through it all, my shoulders were getting sore from trying to cycle my arms faster for a longer period of time.

After my last Ironman in 2009, I had a new baby and decided not to race triathlon for a while. Due to the time requirements of bike training, I elected to solely focus on improving my running and swimming, both of which I felt I could achieve better results in shorter workout times than biking which can require hours on the road. However, without the stress for preparing for a race, I could just focus solely on mastering the details of swimming by drilling for as much and as long as I need to.

Around the same time, someone sent me a link to Shinji's Youtube video and that brought me back to TI:

I was further elated to find out that he coached individually and was located in the SF Bay area where I was! When I started Ironman training, I worked with a popular Bay area coach named Michael McCormack. I learned the value of having more individualized coaching versus working in a group. Mike didn't focus on swim training but now I found a TI coach in my backyard and was excited to engage Shinji and learn how to swim as graceful as he does,

I began with Shinji in late summer of 2009 and devoted my entire swim training to constant drilling, without the stress of race preparation. I was determined to train and retrain my nervous system to move like how Shinji moves, and also as directed by TI concepts. I discovered that my drilling tolerance was about 800-1200 yards, after which my brain, muscles, and nervous system got tired and refused to give in to swimming more. I threw my complete trust and devotion to training TI and rebuild my stroke from the ground up.

I saw Shinji monthly and in between I would swim 3-4x per week, picking certain drills and focal points and doing them over and over until I got to some level of mastery. Then I would work on another drill, or different focal points, or increase the difficulty by a little bit, like increasing the stroke rate on my tempo trainer. Slowly but surely over 2 years, and adding in TI Tune Up instruction from Dave Cameron, I was amazed to be swimming with such great ease but yet I was faster than before. Just the other day I jumped back into my Masters swim group and found that, even with rather sedate tempos, I was passing swimmers who were formerly much faster than me.

My personal experiences and successes with TI further reinforced these concepts in my brain:

1. Traditional thinking is often filled with outdated and/or wrong information on training.
2. Individualized coaching is exponentially better than group coaching. Everybody is different; one coaching method or style may work great for some but not for others.
3. We must continue to advance training as time goes on and integrate new discoveries and methods. We cannot remain static in the past.
4. Information that has been trapped within research journals and in the brains of elite coaches must be disseminated to the public in order to help advance their own ability to become better athletes.
5. The right technology can advance training exponentially.

Learning and growing with TI was immensely satisfying, but wasn't complete. A few years back, I underwent life coaching and discovered that not only did I enjoy learning and growing in life, but I also enjoyed teaching and mentoring as well.

As I advanced in TI, I saw others who were still training in the past, using methods that had been established for decades and were the accepted norms. However, I always saw them reach a certain point where they either got injured or they plateaued in their progress.

This motivated me to learn as much as I could about swimming, trying these techniques on myself and understanding them not just from a theoretical standpoint but from a practical, applied standpoint. Then, when I got to a level of mastery and understanding, my interest grew to want to teach these methods to the community and help spread the word about why the past was mired in training methods that didn't need to be only ways, but that they were only facets of a host of methods that can be employed in swim training.

I hope that through TI coach training, I can help be more official in my capacity to teach people to become better swimmers in a more structured manner versus being frustrated at their progress.

What aspects of the TI approach do you particularly identify with?

1. Attention to the subtle details and drilling to imprint
2. Training the nervous system instead of just strength and aerobic
3. Breaking with "tradition" and "dogma" to find the best teaching/training methods
4. Recognizing individuality in performance, goals, and skill development

Who do you feel best qualified to teach? What type of swimmer(s)?

Most likely beginners and intermediates, perhaps some advanced who are open to learning.

I am an Ironman triathlete (completed 6 Ironmans) and identify best with the triathlete crowd. I feel very familiar and comfortable with the issues surrounding the swim leg of triathlon and teaching on this subject.

I have concentrated mostly on freestyle up to this point, so teaching freestyle is where I'll begin.

What are your 3 highest-value reasons for swimming?

1. Learning something new and bringing it to some level of mastery
2. Challenging myself on what my true limits are, and not what other people say they are
3. Solving the neurological puzzle of my body, or mastering the control of my limbs even in water

What are your 3 most important swimming improvement goals.

1. To swim with grace, like Shinji
2. To get faster (of course!)
3. Flawless technique, symmetrical technique

My Demonstration Videos

For the last few months, I've been working on my strength through Russian techniques (see Deadlifting is HARD (and Dangerous) and Deadlifting for Faster Running). I've seen some definite increases in my track workouts, having dropped from 39 seconds to 37 seconds for a 200m run (that after dropping my time from 45 to 39 seconds simply by altering my form and in addition to my normal weekly treadmill neuromuscular speed training).

But having no real race goal in the foreseeable future, I cracked open my copy of Four Hour Body and engaged with ASRSpeed.com, the automated website training program built by Barry Ross using some breakthrough research from Rice University (see High-speed running performance: a new approach to assessment and prediction by Matthew W. Bundle, Reed W. Hoyt, and Peter G. Weyand) which is able to predict the final distance/time or time/distance of a runner from a few meters to a run of about 4 minutes. Then using this algorithm, Barry Ross and his colleague, Ken Jakalski, created a training system which removes two old ways of training:

1. Workouts of set distances and set number of repeats.

They cite the problem here is that a runner is always holding back in order to make sure they make the requisite number of repeats, and therefore, never trains at his maximum potential.

2. Running overdistance.

Running overdistance makes runners too tired and reduces top speed by its very nature to improve the energy system.

They and the researchers at Rice University figured out that for maximum speed, you don't want to train the energy system but rather you want to train the muscles which the energy system fuels and reduce their rate of fatigue.

You first run a time trial. Then the website takes that data and returns workouts for you to perform. The workouts are in the form of distance and a goal time. You are NOT given a set number of repeats to run; instead you run full out each time until you can't achieve the goal time, at which time you stop. If you hit 10 repeats and are still under the goal time, you stop. The website then makes you retest the time trial - in theory, you should be faster this time!

Without any races on the horizon, I decided to give this a go. In theory, if I get faster at short distance, this should make me faster at long distance as well. Also, it would be a complement to my strength building program from the same Barry Ross.

To prep for this, I got some blue masking tape to tape lines on a track. I also bought a Ultrak 495 100 Lap Memory Professional Stopwatch (using a wristwatch timer is OK but not ideal due to button position and pressing them on a full sprint).

Then I also bought a CST - MeasureMark 31-10M Single 4-Inch ABS Plastic Wheel Measuring Wheel in Meters/Decimeters to measure out the workout distances given by the website. You need this because the workout distances are not standard distances of any sort. Plus, I could never figure out track markings no matter what.

It also helps to bring some objects that you can drop on the ground to mark distances before you tape. I actually found some discarded pieces of flat plastic that worked great. Sometimes I end up just using the plastic and not taping the track ground.

I went to the website for my first workout, which was to run the time trial. This was 3 repeats of a 10m run, with a 25m fly-in (headstart, so that you are at full speed when you hit the start of the 10m). The second time trial was a 300m run, with 5m fly-in.

For the 10m run, my times were: 1.42s, 1.50s, and 1.49s for an average of 1.47s. My 300m time was 53.9s. I entered these into the website and then got another workout. The next workout I did the following day as I was not sure about taking days off or frequency of workouts per week. (The workouts seemed short enough that I could potentially run every day or nearly so - well this proved to be false.)

This workout was 40m repeats with a goal time of 6.30s, and rest interval of 4 minutes, and as many as I could before I could not hit the goal time. I used a fly-in of 25m although the website didn't specify exactly how much. My times were:

I was under the target time by about .3s and was able to do this 10 times. So I called it quits and came back to enter the info into the website, at which time it asked me to run the time trial again.

One thing I found out was that this is more stressful on my body than I thought. Even though I had a whopping 4 minute rest interval which allowed almost full recovery, the hours after and certainly the day after left me sore. Full-on sprinting was a new stress on my body and while I tried to do my best at maintaining a soft but rapid footfall, it was still enough to make me more sore than I thought.

I think that I will adapt to this workout, but I don't think that I could do this every day. I think my starting workout week will be ASRSpeed workouts twice a week, and then a 1 hour run added in. In the past, I have found that without at least one 1 hour run per week, it caused my overall fitness to drop where my track workouts were hard to make gains week over week. I will intersperse this with my strength training regimen, which is talked about on the website but gives no details, and my swimming.

More on this later as the months progress - I had entered my goal race as a 400m and my previously my fastest recorded 400m time was 1:27. I am hoping that this training program added to my strength training will improve that time, as well as my marathon times.

It had been annoying me to no end for months now. I would swim and watch the black tiles go by underneath me. As I speared with my right arm, stroking back with my left with a flick of my left foot in two beat kick, I would glide forward at a certain speed. Then my left arm would come forward and speared forward, again with right arm stroking back and flick of my right foot, I would glide forward again, but always travelling less distance and with less speed than when I speared right.

How annoying!

There would be times when I swam that there would be 1 or 2 perfect left spear strokes for each length and my glide on that side would be as fast and as far as the other side. But most of the time, I would glide more upon the right spear than for my left.

It's amazing to see the asymmetry in my swimming when I began to train Total Immersion. The two ways you could see this was: 1) Coaches Shinji and Dave Cameron could see this with their practiced eye, and 2) constant video taping of myself by me and watching painful videos of myself swimming in slow motion.

So experienced coaches first note the problem, but then after you leave the coaching session you need to keep practicing and have the ability to get feedback on your performance so that you're still practicing the new movement and not reverting back to the old problem. I videotaped myself swimming virtually every session for the last few weeks after the coaching sessions. I would critique myself, swear silently at myself for thinking I was improving a focal point but video evidence would tell me I barely made a nudge or I was still exhibiting the problem. Then, for the next swim workout, I would mentally adjust my focal points a little more and attempt them at that next workout.

This left side asymmetry was definitely a tough one.

The timing of my left arm spear, my body rotation, hip drive, and flick of my right foot in two beat kick were sufficiently off enough to make a noticeable difference between my left and right sides in propulsion. The problems were mostly in the timing of the left arm drop from high recovery into the water and how the hip is connected to that movement. Then the kick itself was not exactly at the right time to send the spear off with maximal effect.

How I worked the heck out of it and brought it to some level of being fixed:

1. I would swim very slowly and focused on using my hip to move the arm into the water, versus whatever I was doing before, which was more about leading the spear with my arm and shoulders.

2. At Shinji's suggestion, I then worked on focusing on my hips to time each stroke versus any other body part. Thus, I would focus on rotating my hips from side to side and let my arms do their normal thing. This increased my awareness of my hips' contribution to the stroke versus just the arms.

3. Dave Cameron made a great suggestion, which was to use a tempo trainer to help fix the coordination and time my two beat kick to each beep. In order to make a beep, I had to use my hips or else my body would just be moving too slow. Then, in order to time my kick to a beep, my side and arm spear had to be in the water before the beep so that my kick would be able to hit on that beep. This really helped even out the difference between my left and right sides.

It took many weeks of focus and drilling with the tempo trainer to start evening my two body sides out. Now I travel much further during my left spear than before, but it is still not up to quite as far and fast as I travel during my right spear.

It's amazing to see how my body has created such asymmetries over my lifetime. I start favoring my right side since I'm right hand dominant and it is so much more coordinated than my left. Now through incessant drilling and focus, coupled with a feedback system - my coaches and videotaping - allows me to address these differences and become a better athlete as a result.