Total Immersion Question

Short answer.....no.

TI is a great way for adults without a swimming background to learn how to swim in a relaxed, efficient manner. I believe it works best for adults who are very inefficient in the water and tend to take any advice very literally. Kids on the other hand can take a little bit of advice and apply it fairly easily to their training and develop their own "feel" in the water.

This is just my opinion from a few adults that I have helped out when they came to me with TI drills. Don't get me wrong, TI is a great tool for triathletes. I think it has it's limits with elite swimmers.

I never swam competitively and started swimming about 4 years ago. I picked up the TI book and videos and found them very useful but felt pretty goofy doing the drills and didn't stick with them.  I still try to take what I learned from TI, but I still don't like drills.  I like swimming with good swimmers that I can peak at their technique while swimming and get some pointers that way.

The TI books reference Michael Phelps and other great Olympic swimmers.  TI notes that Phelps takes fewer strokes(a TI mantra) to swim a 50 than any other swimmer.  Plus he is a "front quadrant swimmer", etc.  So, I would say the short answer is "Yes, Olympic swimmers do follow TI".

There just seems to be some resentment toward TI from non-TI coaches.  I think it is because TI claims to have created this "New" method of swimming, that goes against many of the old swimming recommendations.  While I dont believe TI created a new method of swimming, they definately created a new method of teaching.