Very specific swimming question

In (most of my) training, I like to feel the "pause," the extra second of gliding.  Each week, I try to do one slow skills-centric day and one speed-centric day,where I focus on turnover.  In sprint races, I go for turnover; in Oly-dist. races, I focus (moreso) on technique, b/c I find it saves energy and I'm less tired coming out of the water. 

You say your legs start sinking - you should be flutter kicking during the entire stroke - don't pause with the legs.  Also, if you are working on pressing your chest down towards the bottom of the pool a bit, the lower half of your body will naturally rise. 

Yeah, that chest down thing doesn't work for me - concept wise.  That's one of the things I"ve figured out in the last few weeks.  I reat TI and began trying that shortly after my sprint in June (and my swimming seemed to get worse).  Well, a couple weeks ago when I ran into Chris (coredump) at the pool he watched me underwater and pointed out that in my effort to push my chest down I was folding like a jacknife and collapsing at the waist.  Schmize had noticed the same thing but I understood what Chris meant better when he said it that way.  So I stopped worrying about my chest and concentrated on my chin staying in tight - like Schmize noticed - and voila!  My legs popped up!  Now when I think about my torso it is to keep my waist open and not fold up.  That seems to be helping quite a bit. 

BTW - I don't want my comments above to turn this into a "Is TI good or bad?" argument.  Lord knows we've had/will have enough of those.  That one concept wasn't helping me perform what I needed to do.  That's all.  There's plenty from the book that is helping me. Not everything works for everyone. 

The glide for me is essential to swimming efficiently. When I swam in high school, I didn't have the glide or pause. But when I was training to teach swimming lessons, this was stressed as being part of the stroke. After practiciing it for a while, I felt a big difference with the glide vs without. For the most part, when you watch Olympic swimmers, they have the glide. They just glide really fast. LOL.

When I am gliding, I reach forward as much as I can. This does not take long. My pause or glide is very quick. My legs do not sink as long as my head stays down and eyes are looking at the bottom.

Suzanne - let me seize on this comment.  Maybe I'm beating a dead horse here, but this is exactly what I'm talking about.  I feel like I reach and stretch and rotate just as much with or without the glide.  But without the pause my forward hand is in near constant motion, only stopping to reverse motion.  When I glide it actually holds position for a pause,         , and then starts going again.  Is that pause the glide I should be trying to make a habit in my stroke?  If so I'll be slowing down a little in the short run but I assume that I will more than make up for it in the long run with a more efficient stroke?

For me, yes, there is a momentary pause before I begin the pulling motion. It is deceiving because it does make you seem like you are going slower, and perhaps you are over a shorter distance. I've timed myself over 400 m with both the glide/pause, and without. And my time with the glide/pause is faster, even though my 25 m time is faster without the pause. I think it has more to do with energy conservation. By adding the glide/pause, I am making use out of the forward momentum in the water; with a momentary pause it my stroke, I am conserving energy, not just because of the glide but because the glide helps me to hold my form. This helps me to keep my stroke count/turnover the same for longer periods of time. When I do not use the pause, I tend to lose my pace and my stroke form easier because I am tiring more and fighting the water a bit.

Does that make any sense whatsoever?

While I think I understand your question, I also believe that "glide" is a misnomer.  If you stop pulling and try to glide, you will decelerate (quickly).  That said, if you swim "front-quadrant" then there will be a very brief time when you are not pulling.  Essentially, you "pause" until the hand of your recovering arm gets to about your head before starting the pull with your reaching arm.  But if you over-emphasize this pause in your recovery (either by actually pausing during the recovery or over-exaggerating a slow recovery), you will go slower.

I'm no swimmer, but my understanding is that this "pause" in front-quadant swimming is more effiecient for most people since the penalty for decelerating briefly is much less than the penalty for "hitting the brakes" by having your legs drop even slightly (which is more likely if your arm is not out front to act as a counter-balance).  Again, that's my undrstanding of the concepts at this stage.

My 2 cents worth...

If your slight pause is allowing your feet to sink and therefore need an extra kick to keep your lower half in a streamline position, than i believe that the additional benefit (lower stroke count, less energy cost of upperbody) is outweighed by increasing work/energy expenditure of an extra kick ....For most people, the kick for distance swimming is far less propulsive and more for body positioning...The less kick you need, less work of legs, save it for bike/run.....

The flip side of this is if you are wearing a wetsuit...The additional bouyancy would probably eliminate the dropping of legs and allow you to have the momentary pause/glide and not need an additional kick..

I think if you really need to increase your stroke count A LOT (vague i know) in order to maintain leg position, than probably gliding more with an extra kick is better overall. If it just reduces stroke count by a little, the maintaining slighty higher stroke count but less kick, better streamline position is probably better.

JT

HL-great thread-FWIW I have had the same question.  I got a GREAT swimmer at our pool to look at my stroke, he told me anything I can do to "stay long" ( including gliding) will help me out in the long run.  Over the summer while I was practicing this more regularly it was s-l-o-w-l-y shaving seconds off of my time without increasing my effort-I actually felt like I was working LESS hard.

 Also, for that body balance thing, I try to tuck my chin to "look at" my feet.  Keeps my butt up.