On Tuesday night, I had the pleasure of attending a swim clinic with Sheila Taormina. For those of you not familiar with Sheila, she is the only woman to compete in 3 different sports in the Olympics, earning a gold medal during the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta. If there was any need for verification, she brought her gold medal with her to the clinic and passed it around, which was really cool!
I was really eager to attend this clinic and see what Sheila's stoke was all about. I had done a decent amount of research about her and her form and knew it was a bit different than the stroke I recommend to most of my clients. There were a lot of similarities between the two, but definitely also a couple differences. She is a big advocate of the high elbow, which was great. However, she recommends keeping your hand under your body and having more bend at the elbow during the pull part of the stroke. This felt a little bit weird to me during the in water portion of the clinic, but started to feel a bit more comfortable as it went on. She also had a different approach to the kick. She recommends more bend in the knee and propelling more forcefully on the way down with the leg and then straightening the leg on the way back up. This also felt odd at first, but it does seem to work. The clinic was only 2 hours and it went by very fast. I wish it was a bit longer, but Sheila was incredible. She was extremely knowledgeable and she has done so much research and spoken to so many people about technique. However, her stroke is definitely more of what I like to call the "competitive" swimmer style as opposed to the "triathlete" swimmer. Almost all coaches and documentation I have read about triathlon swimming is all about being as efficient as possible and saving as much as you can for the bike and the run. There's no question that triathletes have been getting faster in the water and the swim has gotten more and more important so I really think she's on to something. I stayed after the clinic and spoke to Sheila for a while after the clinic. She was so nice and had so much passion for the sport which was terrific. I've been playing around with her style during my swims this week and I really liked a lot of the differences in her technique. I will continue to play around with it and offer it to any of my clients that are interested in it. I am a very big believer in treating everyone as an individual and I do not think there is a right and wrong way to swim for everyone. Sure, there are some key principles that you should be applied, but something that works for one person may not be whats best for another person. As a result, I look forward to offering this style to my clients.
As for my training, I had a good week. I had another great week at DSC and things are starting to get more comfortable there. I'm starting to pick up the weight and can already feel the difference. The swim clinic with Sheila did throw my schedule off a bit, but I still got everything in. I went to a Christmas party Saturday night and took Sunday off. Here's what I did for training: Monday- Swim- 3000 yds in 54:05. Bike - 40' spin class. One of the other instructors was sick so I filled in for her. Yoga - 1hr in the pm. Tuesday- Strength- 1:15 at DSC Swim- About an 1hr in the water during the clinic with Sheila. Wednesday- Bike- 40' spin class Swim- about 20' and prob about 1000 trying Sheila's technique Thursday- Strength- 1:15 at DSC Swim- 1600 yds in 30:14 Run- 8 miles in 1:00:33 Friday- Bike- 45' spin class Swim- 4000 yds in 1:13:43 Saturday- Strength- 1:30 at DSC Bike- 25 miles in 1:10:11 with Chad at my office ROTB- 2.68 miles in 20' Sunday- Off Day