Personal way... without detours
Aquatic activities has evolved in the last decades into educational programs, based fundamentally on more ludic or hedonistic approaches than pure sport ones. A large sector of society has also experienced this changed, but if we evaluate statistics and results from popular competitions related to our sports (swimming and triathlon) we could think the previous mentioned hedonism is mutating into objectives and purposes which could defy its own definition.
Sports such as swimming, open water swimming, swimming crossing, master or triathlon have experimented an exponential progression, which in fact has turned out into a wide variety of alternatives more attractive than the classic swimming. The tendency to practice sport by a segment of the population that aims to grow personally and overcome endurance and timing challenges, along with the proliferation of aquatic covered facilities throughout the national and global territory (either municipal or private sports centers and gymnasiums), not to mention the loss of fear of swimming in the sea, swamps, reservoirs or rivers; need of aids that coexist with trainings. Especially for athletes in early stages who try to reach the top, rather than practitioners which aimed to improve health, physical condition or esthetics.
If we observe the trainings carried out by many autonomous athletes, such as master swimmers, triathletes, open water swimmers or simply seekers of the wellbeing provided by this environment, a certain type of actions are inexorably perceived. Actions that will eventually lead to the abandonment of these practices due to discomfort in more vulnerable joints, such as shoulders (rotator cuff), tendon of the biceps in its passage through the bicipital groove. Furthermore, back pain caused by a position of lumbar hyper-lordosis because of incorrect position in the grips, isolated kicking work with hyperflexion of shoulders, neck discomfort provoked by neck hyperextension during breathing, or simply performance stagnation as a result of not properly stimulating the Central Nervous System while we try, almost exclusively, to develop the metabolic processes regarding physical performance.
The method that we will continue to plan sequentially on our website, without being pretentious, is usable in the previous mentioned practices and in any training, schedule or project of any coach looking for the highest performance goals.
Our ideas, reinforced with experimental data collated over the years observing swimmers and triathletes nationwide, have shaped these proactive elements based on the common deficiencies which are repited anachronically despite of having enormously evolved in scientific knowledge and educational strategies. Coaches can and should use their own approaches, those that have always given them good results. In addtion, implementing these materials could help those directions and make the most of their positive effects, added synergistically or simply adapting them, with the instructions they are based on and which we will be explaining soon.
“Basically and in a general way, the definition of a system is the composition of a series of elements that make it work and that should and have to always be in action. For us, each training session.”
Basic system elements and its components: kZoomi´s Proactive Swimming
*Input: Haptic Perception.
*Process: brain and peripheral mechanisms which recognize and respond to sought-after objectives.
*Output: personal execution according to the closest patterns of model biomechanics.
*Feedback: usage of elements that string the appropriate executions (video cameras, evaluations of the coach or colleagues, etc.).
The implementation built around the Haptic Perception has been designed to coexist in every training, from the beginning to the end, including warm-ups and back to the calm stages in competitions. Their synergy establishes a language that swimmers and triathletes need in order to understand the deviations from technique daily fatigue causes. In the development of following posts, we will see with clarity and scientific justification the mechanisms that support this system and method within a wide framework, which seeks to increase the performance of athletes without losing the technical, physical, valuable and emotional direction. Combined usage of these tools while also training without them will provide them benefits of elevated value.
The explanations, proposals and justifications should be treated in an open manner, adapting them to the convictions each athlete or coach understands that can complement or provide more value to our contributions, although we will also offer follow-ups for those who need or prefer to take our advice.
kZoomi lends you a helping hand to stay together, in contact, feeling the confidence that proximity generates…
…We keep on working.
J. Bonal Pedrón