Should i hire a private swimming instructor or attend TI workshop?

Although there are certain fundamentals that overlap with all swimming approaches, TI teaches a method that is unique in certain ways.  Their emphasis is on a hip-driven stroke that focuses on body position and drag reduction over propulsion.  It's a very efficient method and is often well-suited to adult onset swimmers and those new to longer distance OW swimming.

On the other end of the spectrum are shoulder-driven methods that focus more on propulsion with a high elbow catch and pull.  It's typically a faster way to swim, more derivative of competitive swimming.  Bu it is somewhat tougher to learn and requires more physical strength.

TI does a good job with their workshops, but ongoing feedback is invaluable if you want to continue to improve.  If the OP has access to a local coach, then I would be inclined to recommend that approach.

Mark

I have had the very unique prospective over the past few years to have gone through a TI race prep program run by Suzanne Atkinson, attended a couple of clinics put on by Dr. Genadijus Sokolovas (former high performance coach for USA Swimming), and then for the last year had Sheila Taormina as my masters coach, with Ernie Maglischo filling in for Sheila for a few days when she had to be out of town.  I would dare you to tell any of them that  "Front crawl is front crawl".  

Thanks to Suzanne's coaching I was 2nd out of the water for my AG ( & 35th overall) at St. Anthony's sprint race last year.  That was using a hip-driven stroke with a fair amount of body roll, and a two-beat kick, as is typical for TI.  Nice & smooth, and almost effortless, but I subsequently ended up hitting a plateau speed-wise swimming that way.

Over the past year I've completely re-worked my stroke with Sheila T.  It's now a much flatter, arm & shoulder driven stroke with the primary focus on the catch & pull at  the front end of the stroke, plus a much greater emphasis on kicking.  With Sheila, it's all about propulsion.  It's more demanding physically at first, but much faster once you get the hang of it.  It took me about six months doing a lot of drill work to get the new stroke ingrained to the point where I could worry about  training rather than just technique.  And just for the record, I can't remember Sheila saying anything about body position in the last year (I asked her about my head position once and she told me not to worry about it, just concentrate on my catch.  Somewhat ironically, we do a lot of Tarzan drill sets with our heads out of the water.  Hated them at first, but a great strength-building drill).

Granted, if you go to a typical masters swim meet, the guys swimming the 400 will use a 'longer' stroke with some glide, as opposed the the sprinters swimming 50's and 100's.  In reality, elite level swimmers vary their tempo or turnover rate, not their stroke mechanics, with the exception of switching kick patterns on longer races. One exception are elite sprinters, such as Nathan Adrian, who will switch from a high-elbow to straight-arm pull at the end of a race.  

I still maintain that TI is probably a better route for the typical time-challenged adult onset swimmer doing triathlons.  It's easy to learn, efficient and less taxing physically.  It's just harder to swim fast using it.

And yes, TI is a great marketing company.  They've done a good job of identifying and exploiting a niche in the market.  Good for them.  

Mark 

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