Ian Thorpe Documentary Reveals Swimming Technique Tips
Effortless Swimming Head Coach Brenton Ford says the Ian Thorpe swimming documentary gives handy pointers to swimmers wanting to improve their style and stroke.
Melbourne, Victoria (PRWEB) August 02, 2012Ian Thorpe’s documentary 'Ian Thorpe: The Swimmer' has revealed some useful tips for swimmers of all levels.
The documentary, which aired on ABC1 last month, follows Ian Thorpe’s swimming comeback as he trained for the Olympic trials in Adelaide in March.
Ian Thorpe, who is Australia's most successful Olympian, began his comeback in October 2010 after a four-year break, with the London 2012 Olympics as his goal. Thorpe has previously won nine Olympic medals, five of them gold. His success has been attributed to his work ethic, mental strength, powerful kick and ability to accelerate.
His friends and filmmakers Gregor Jordan and Simone Kessell started interviewing and filming him as he prepared for the trials. The documentary is an intimate portrait of Ian Thorpe and his journey, but it is also gives some handy pointers to swimmers wanting to improve their
style and stroke.Thorpe has previously relied on his trademark six beat kick during his middle-distance races. However, his concentration on shorter distances during his comeback meant he had to change his
swimming technique.Effortless Swimming Head Coach Brenton Ford says it is a good opportunity to see how a successful swimmer works to improve his stroke to become more efficient.
“Thorpe had to change his stroke to suit 100 and 200 meter events. He had to move from a front quadrant style freestyle to a more rotatory style,” Brenton says. “This increases the stroke rate and changes the timing of the stroke. Rather than gliding long, the stroke is focused more on throwing yourself forward into the next stroke.”
Brenton says the technique Thorpe talks about in the documentary is something that every swimmer can aim to perfect.
“He spoke about 'easy speed', which is the feeling of swimming fast and feeling relaxed at the same time. That's the basis behind the Effortless Swimming Mastering Freestyle program that we created. To get faster, you need to stay relaxed as you swim,” Brenton explains.
Brenton has trained thousands of swimmers through Effortless Swimming, an innovative program to help swimmers rapidly improve their
swimming style and technique, and squad training and says efficiency in swimming comes down to small changes to technique and trying different training methods.
Ian Thorpe has arrived in London to commentate for the BBC on the Olympic swimming events this week.
