Online Guide to Immersion Swimming Workouts

If you are a triathlete, an all around-athlete or simply an adult who needs to refine your swimming strokes, try the immersion swimming method. Similar to other intensive, short term programs which help adults learn quickly and completely, an immersion swimming course can bring the rewards of excellent swimming technique within your reach.

  1. Streamline

    • If you are training for a triathlon, and the water event is your weakest of the three, use an immersion swimming program to help you develop a better technique as well as become more comfortable in the open water. Rather than practicing repetitive drills, put your mind to work by focusing on streamlining your body in the water to reduce the resistance as you swim. As you go through your immersion swimming workout, concentrate on stretching out your arms and pulling as deeply as possible. Instead of reducing the time it takes to swim a lap, reduce the number of strokes you take to complete that lap.

    Economize

    • If you equate kicking up lots of splash with swimming faster, you must relearn your approach. The Total Immersion goal, as stated on www.totalimmersion.net, is to achieve a smoother, more graceful, more economical stroke which is actually more effective, and equals faster swimming. Visualize your Total Immersion Swimming workout as a journey in which the time you spend traveling is more important than the destination. By learning precision and refinement in all four strokes--freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly--you learn to execute the strokes with the maximum power possible.

    Transform

    • Your immersion swimming workout should be a practice, not a task. Each time you get into the water, your mind must be engaged, evaluating your stroke, striving to improve your technique, reaching for greater swimming prowess. Similar to the practice of yoga, total immersion swimming is an opportunity to discover the grace and natural ability within yourself and apply those qualities to every stroke you take.

    Swim

    • Immersion swimming is not like a fad diet which lasts for seven days and then you are done. This thoughtful, spirit-broadening practice is a lifelong approach to swimming which you must keep with you as an inner coaching voice each time you work out. It encourages you to elongate, streamline, stroke and kick smoothly and precisely, to economize your movements for the best result. As Total Immersion mentor Terry Laughlin puts it, immersion swimming helps you "sharpen the mind-body connection and achieve heightened self-awareness and self-mastery, leading to greater physical and mental well-being".