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 is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“Can you conceive what it is to native-born American women citizens, accustomed to the advantages of our schools, our churches and the mingling of our social life, to ask over and over again for so simple a thing as that “we, the people,” should mean women as well as men; that our Constitution should mean exactly what it says?”
—Mary F. Eastman, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4 ch. 5, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“When the manipulations of childhood are a little larceny, they may grow and change with the child into qualities useful and admire in the grown-up world. When they are the futile struggle for love and concern and protection, they may become the warped and ruthless machinations of adults who seek in the advantages of power what they could never win as children.”
—Leontine Young (20th century)