Advantages
Improvements in technique and efficiency help any level of swimmer, beginner or elite. Terry Laughlin's claim is that while gains in fitness will produce gains in speed and endurance, improvements in technique are more important. Beginners being trained with the TI method may be more comfortable in the water, encouraging them to swim more, and letting them swim farther and faster than they would have without the training.
The emphasis on balance and streamlining removes the need for a strong leg kick (so often needed to prevent the feet from sinking) and directs more of the force from the kick to forward propulsion. The stroke is thus less tiring, and can be sustained for long distances. Many triathletes use Total Immersion methods because their sport is very endurance based, and TI lets them conserve their legs for the cycling and running stages of the competition.
Read more about this topic: Total Immersion
Famous quotes containing the word advantages:
“There are great advantages to seeing yourself as an accident created by amateur parents as they practiced. You then have been left in an imperfect state and the rest is up to you. Only the most pitifully inept child requires perfection from parents.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“In 1845 he built himself a small framed house on the shores of Walden Pond, and lived there two years alone, a life of labor and study. This action was quite native and fit for him. No one who knew him would tax him with affectation. He was more unlike his neighbors in his thought than in his action. As soon as he had exhausted himself that advantages of his solitude, he abandoned it.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Men hear gladly of the power of blood or race. Every body likes to know that his advantages cannot be attributed to air, soil, sea, or to local wealth, as mines and quarries, nor to laws and traditions, nor to fortune, but to superior brain, as it makes the praise more personal to him.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)