杏吧原创

THERE鈥橲 humiliation and then there鈥檚 real humiliation.

While swimming in the local outdoor pool in Canberra, a guy swept past me
like a torpedo to my tugboat. I felt bad. I actually rocked in the water as he
swam by. But the feeling didn鈥檛 last long once I realised that the torpedo was
Alexander Popov, two-time Olympic gold medal winner and holder of the world
record for the 100 metres freestyle. In the next lane gleamed the menacing
shaven head of Popov鈥檚 training partner, Michael Klim, who has swum the fastest
time ever in the 100 metres butterfly. I had unwittingly crawled into part of
the pool where these elite athletes occasionally train for a change of scene
from the indoor pool at the nearby Australian Institute of Sport.

Popov seemed to slide effortlessly through the water, elbow bent overhead in
classic freestyle position, long arms slicing forward with elegant ease. In
contrast, Klim crashed ahead with his arms locked straight as they emerged from
the water in his trademark 鈥渨indmill鈥� version of the freestyle. Each man鈥檚 style
is unique, but both are world beaters. And both are the product of the
unorthodox ideas of the same coach, Gennadi Touretski.

Touretski, a colourful and sometimes controversial character, studies the
motion of fish and writes physics equations on the whiteboard of his poolside
office to explain the principles of hydrodynamics. His brand of science-based
training has done much to promote the idea that it is not raw power that makes
champion swimmers, but efficiency. Klim and Popov are taught to behave like
fish, to 鈥渇eel鈥� the water and glide through it.

Now a naturalised Australian, Touretski is a product of the old Soviet
system, in which as many as eight scientists would monitor the performance of
the national team. He is a former swimming champion with a degree in engineering
and training in biomechanics, biochemistry, fluid mechanics and sports
physiology. He is known for using unusual props to get his ideas across: he once
brought inflated condoms to the pool to show his fellow coaches the importance
of maintaining a rigid torso while kicking forward. When deflated, the condoms
flopped in the water; inflated, they skimmed across the surface with just a
light push.

Touretski鈥檚 swimmers swear by him. It was Touretski鈥檚 idea, for example, for
Klim to switch to the windmill style. 鈥淚鈥檝e made straight personal bests ever
since he made me make this change,鈥� Klim told me later. Popov is just as
enthusiastic: 鈥淗e鈥檚 the reason I left Russia.鈥� Popov and Klim have the status of
pop stars in Australia, while magazines and newspapers hail Touretski as the man
who transformed top-echelon swimming in Australia. But amid all the hoopla, the
question remains: how do Touretski and his swimmers do it?

The answers, say Touretski as he paces the poolside, lie partly in genetics
and partly in technique. Elite swimmers tend to be born with certain advantages,
such as superefficient metabolisms. Some long-distance swimmers, for example,
have cardiovascular systems capable of delivering twice as much oxygen to
starved muscle cells as the average fit young person, giving them a tremendous
advantage before even entering the pool.

Olympic swimmers also tend to be tall and long-limbed. When seen on land,
Touretski鈥檚 swimmers are as long and lanky as basketball players. Klim is 1.91
metres tall (6 feet 3 inches), while Popov, at 1.97 metres (6 feet 6 inches),
can touch the bottom of the deep end of the Canberra pool and still keep his
head above water. The pair are designed for swimming. Or, as Touretski told
them: 鈥淵ou have something given to you by God. You must develop it.鈥� Fair
enough. But how?

There are two ways to swim faster, says Touretski: increase the force that
swimmers use to propel themselves through the water or decrease water
resistance. Both approaches come down to technique, but he thinks the second is
by far the best. To propel yourself through the water faster you might, for
example, increase your stroke rate. But there鈥檚 a problem here, Touretski says.
You鈥檇 soon run out of steam. He cites a passage from his favourite book,
Fish Swimmingby zoologist John Videler of the University of Groningen in
the Netherlands, which states that energy consumption in water increases as the
cube of the stroking rate. In other words, doubling the speed at which you move
your arms through the water takes eight times as much energy.

What鈥檚 more, increasing stroke rate inevitably means taking shorter strokes,
which is at odds with how most animals behave. When they want to move faster,
they increase the distance covered with each movement. Touretski points to video
clips for support: horses, Touretski points out, speed up by increasing the
distance they cover with every stride, not by increasing the number of strides
per second. Kangaroos do the same hopping on their two feet. Touretski believes
swimmers should do what animals do, stretching as far forward as possible to get
the longest pull with each stroke. Popov鈥檚 first gold medal in the 1992 Olympics
in Barcelona provided evidence to support this approach. When he beat the
American swimmer Matt Biondi, Popov covered 50 metres with just 33 strokes to
Biondi鈥檚 36.

So if increasing stroke rate isn鈥檛 the answer, what about pulling harder and
bulldozing through the water? Until the 1980s, swimmers and their coaches
focused on power. They took inspiration from mechanical models such as
propellers and paddle wheels. The typical swimmer had shoulders like a Bulgarian
weightlifter, and the emphasis was on lots of long-distance training sessions,
according to renowned coach Cecil Colwin, author of Swimming into the 21st
Century. The science of biomechanics 鈥渉as been incorrectly focused on
emulating the actions of mechanical propellers instead of . . . mechanisms more
akin to natural flight and fish propulsion鈥�, he wrote.

Touretski agrees with Colwin, for reasons based on physics. Fluid dynamics
tells us that drag depends upon form and friction. Dolphins swim as fast as they
do, for example, because they have a streamlined shape and because their skin is
designed to reduce friction by stopping the formation of energy-sapping eddies
around their bodies (鈥淪ecrets of a perfect skin鈥�, New 杏吧原创, 18
January 1997, p28).

Making waves

Humans have neither of these advantages. But the real killer for competitive
swimmers is a third type of resistance that arises at the interface between air
and water鈥攚ave drag. Moving along the surface of the water inevitably
creates waves. Physically speaking, swimmers force a mass of water in front of
them to rise up against gravity. This not only robs swimmers of energy, but it
has a disproportionately greater effect the faster they go.

The problem is that wave drag increases as the cube of any increase in
swimming speed. And it gets worse if a swimmer makes jerky or uneven movements,
either bouncing in the water or moving from side to side, because this wastes
still more energy making waves. Because of this, Touretski believes that trying
to increase speed by propelling yourself harder through the water is pointless
beyond a certain point. 鈥淢ore propulsive force will only produce higher waves,
not higher velocities,鈥� he says.

If you can鈥檛 beat water into submission, Touretski argues that it鈥檚 better to
learn how to avoid its obstructive influence. For a start, reducing friction
with the water is important. This is one reason why Klim shaves his head.
Form鈥攐r shape鈥攊s also a factor. For swimmers this means streamlining
themselves with tricks such as pushing the head and chest down into the water,
and rolling from side to side with each stroke, to present a narrower profile.
To avoid wave drag, Touretski urges swimmers to eliminate jerkiness in their
stroke. (One of the other curious consequences of wave drag is that it penalises
short swimmers more than it does their taller rivals.)

To achieve a reduced resistance technique, Touretski鈥檚 swimmers are trained
to improve their balance, locomotion and 鈥渇eel鈥� of the water. The emphasis
during training is on quality of performance rather than mileage. His idea is
that with constant repetition, precisely practised movements become second
nature鈥攍ike reflexes.

To work properly this training method demands meticulous attention to detail.
鈥淚f you can鈥檛 do it exactly right, don鈥檛 do it at all,鈥� Touretski says. He鈥檇
rather have his swimmers do a few movements properly than do a lot of movements
incorrectly. Touretski and his swimmers talk in terms of 鈥渕uscle memory鈥�. 鈥淚f
you鈥檙e not doing the right type of training or not doing it correctly, then
you鈥檙e not storing the right information,鈥� says Klim. 鈥淵ou want to do as much of
your swimming as possible with the correct strokes.鈥�

So much time is spent on proper technique that by Olympic standards, Klim,
Popov and the rest of Touretski鈥檚 squad have relatively leisurely
workouts鈥攖hough they still swim about 70 kilometres a week. To outsiders,
his methods appear odd. American coach, Bill Irwin, once told a reporter: 鈥淧opov
does long sets with meticulously precise strokes and a consistently beautiful
flow. In three weeks, I never saw him do a single lap that looked hard.鈥�

Slowly does it

Part of what he saw is Touretski鈥檚 鈥渟uperslow swimming鈥� method. Touretski
demonstrates by walking across his office in exaggerated slow motion. By moving
extremely slowly, he has to concentrate on the exact placement of each muscle.
Balance becomes imperative. 鈥淧eople are more wobbly when moving very slowly and
they have to constantly shift weight to get their balance right,鈥� he says. The
same applies in the pool, and when swimmers can travel smoothly at a very slow
speed, they can move more smoothly at high speed.

Superslow swimming also forces swimmers to concentrate on extending their
arms as far as possible, to get maximum range on each stroke. And it improves a
swimmer鈥檚 ability to relax at higher speed. When you absolutely know that your
hands and feet will be in the right place at the right time, there are fewer
frantic actions and less wasted energy during a race. Relaxation is often
overlooked, but the great American swimmer Johnny Weissmuller once said that
鈥渢he greatest secret of freestyle swimming is relaxation at top speed鈥�.
(Weissmuller is best remembered today for his Hollywood portrayals of Tarzan,
but until Popov came along, he was the only swimmer to win gold medals for the
100 metres freestyle in two consecutive Olympics.) Touretski elaborates: 鈥淣ot
all muscles are switched on at the same time. There鈥檚 a wave of muscles
contracting or relaxing simultaneously.鈥� Learning to relax the muscles that are
not in use saves energy and staves off fatigue.

Training at slow speed also helps the swimmer hone the all-important
intuitive 鈥渇eel鈥� of the water to anticipate, control and manipulate its flow.
Swimmers get quite mystical when describing this ability, like artists
describing 鈥渁 good eye鈥� for painting. To a swimmer, 鈥渇eel鈥� lets you know when
you鈥檝e properly caught the water with your palm and pulled your body forward
with minimal resistance.

If superslow swimming does not help to develop this sense, Touretski tries
the opposite approach, using his towing machine. This pulls swimmers through the
water at high speed, so they get a heightened sensation of what happens when
they position their arms and legs properly. It鈥檚 like holding your arm out of
the window of a moving car鈥攚hen your palm is held vertically you feel the
wind resistance pushing it back. Rotate it 90 degrees and your hand knifes
through the air.

Touretski鈥檚 methods are intended to optimise what he calls the 鈥渢hree Rs鈥�:
stroke range, relaxation and rhythm. Rhythm is important for reducing jerkiness
in the water. When a freestyle swimmer鈥檚 hand digs into the water his or her
body speeds up, but when it is withdrawn the body slows down. Like a
one-cylinder engine, this results in uneven propulsion. The larger the changes,
the more energy is wasted.

To move at a constant speed, one arm should always dig into the water as the
other comes out, so that the motion is more like that generated by a
two-cylinder engine, in which one piston drives the engine while the other
recovers. To get their arms moving in synchrony, Touretski has his swimmers
practise a 鈥渒ayak manoeuvre鈥� in which they stand on the poolside with a
double-bladed kayak paddle and take an imaginary trip. Popov demonstrates how,
as he paddles, one arm is always doing the opposite of the other. Once again,
Touretski鈥檚 swimmers drill in this manner until the technique becomes second
nature.

These unusual drills and training methods seem to pay off. Touretski鈥檚
swimmers don鈥檛 waste much energy in creating waves. Besides the evidence of all
his success, a study by Sergei Kolmogorov, head scientist of the Russian team,
has shown that Popov鈥檚 smooth technique allows him to consume 30 per cent less
energy than other swimmers moving at the same speed.

Touretski hopes to improve his swimmers鈥� technique still further. 鈥淚 think
Michael [Klim] will look better over time. He鈥檚 still learning, still growing.
I鈥檓 fighting for beautiful technique,鈥� he says. 鈥淏eauty and perfection are quite
肠濒辞蝉别.鈥�

Further reading: Fish Swimming by John Videler, Chapman & Hall (1993).
Swimming into the 21st Century by Cecil Colwin, Human Kinetics (1992).

鈥淧reparation for sprint events鈥� by Gennadi Touretski, Swimnews Online at
http:www.swimnews. com/Mag/1998/MayMag98/sprintprep.shtml