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(Continued from page 5)
gine he's got? What's better? Allowing a neophyte swimmer to do more yardage with bad technique? To swim until he can't hold his technique, even if he can't hold his good form for very long? Or to swim with good technique slowly, to gain more distance before losing form?
The first element to answering this question is in understanding that good technique does not come free. It has a cost associated with it. There are three things you need in order to utilize proper technique and, in truth, "proper technique" is sometimes variable. There are elements of technique that are appropriately matched with various abilities and effort levels. Consider cycling cadence. Cycling requires an element of neuromuscular ability, and also a capacity for aerobic performance. The harder you work, the faster your cadence ought to be, in order to minimize neuromuscular fatigue. The lower your output, the less you'll want to fatigue your aerobic system. This explains in part why those in an under-1-hour time trial will pedal between 90rpm and 105rpm, while RAAM riders will spend a lot of time riding between 60rpm and 70rpm.
This is great theory to know.
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It's hard to practice. Through training you generate muscles that overcome tremendous obstacles. In order to preserve the ability of these muscles to work over time you increase your cadence (not, however, in swimming--that's a special case we'll consider later). All this assumes, however, that a fairly high power output is contemplated. Increasing your cadence comes at an aerobic cost. When you're untrained, you can't exercise at a high level. Therefore, increasing your cadence--one element in optimizing your technique--only has cost associated with it (there is no initial obvious benefit realized from increasing one's cadence). In other words, the novice realizes no benefit to training with "proper" technique, because this technique is only proper for a power output he can't yet sustain. What's the use of teaching an albatross how to fly properly if he hasn't yet grown wings strong enough to get him aloft? And why will he want to practice flapping these appendages when it's simpler and easier to just waddle along the ground?
So, back to the question. Do you swim only what you can while holding good form? Or do you swim the proscribed yardage, even if your technique falters? Any triathlete, and any triathlon
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coach, and any single sport coach, has experienced these quandaries, and heard the accompanying questions from his or her disciples. The answer in practice is, you do everything. You swim with proper technique. And you swim the proscribed yardage, even if you can't do it with proper technique. And you swim it as fast as you conceivably can. You do all this even if you can't really do any of it perfectly. Eventually things work themselves out.
Swimming or running with proper technique requires a variety of skills and abilities. First, you've got to know what proper technique looks like. In running, it might consist of a footfall occurring with the ball of the foot landing just below the front of the knee, and an arm swing during which one's hands don't cross the centerline of the body. In swimming it might mean forearm flexion occurring prior to any movement of the upper arm. In other words, the catch, the glide, forearm flexion, all occurring with a motionless elbow --the upper arm is parallel to the surface of the water until the pulling surface is set.
These are elements of running and swimming that are universal to good athletes. But they presume a high (Continued on page 7)
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