you looked at swim performance the same way a race team looks at race car performance, you might change the way you do things. The typical triathlete is focussed on being fitter and stronger and pays sole attention to these two things. In race car terms you are lot oking simply at the engine as being the key to success, however with race cars performance characteristics comes down to chassis, aerodynamics, engine and driving technique (the lines used through conrers and points of braking and acceleration). A fast performance in a race car needs a ,balanced coimbination of acceleration, braking and cornering speed.
Race car enginners and drivers work to develop the car and spend the most time on the chassis. The car's chassis is coomplex and determines how the car can perform when the loads of acceleration, braking and cornering are applied. The capabilities and functioning of the chassis and aerodynamics package have a huge influence on their driving style (technique) over a lap. They know how they would like to drive the car and spend time setting these elements up to suit. A well balanced chaissis means the most efficient use of the engine , fuel and tires while delivering a faster lap time - ie faster with less effort and stress on the car which improves the endurance perormance. So to summ up, the technique the driver is able to utilise to drive the car and achieve a good perofmrance is determined by the chassis, not the engine.If the lap speed is more reliant on power, compared to competitors who have better balance, then the endurance capacity of that car is comprimised as fuel and tires are used up quickly and lap speed drops off rapidly as does the longevity of the car.
If we look at swim performance, the same three elements apply of chassis, engine and technique. The chassis and aerodynamics is your musculoskeletal system, technique is a function of how you move from one position of balance to the next and your streamline ability). Engine is less important as most triathletes have been out paced by the 11 year old skinny boy at swim squad (so I am not entirely sure why everyone is focussed on more strength for strengths sake). Given we are not unlike ace cars, our focus before developing engines should be on the chassis and aerodynamics as this is going to determine our technique, which in turn determines our economy and how big an engine we need.
The first step to tuning your chassis is an examination of it. Repeatedly we read about the importance of streamline to reduce drag and also of technique, however it's not that uncommmon that many of us are actually unable to mechanically acheive some of the positions. As triathletes most of us are 30plus in age carrying various degrees of reduced flexibility and injury so we typically need chassis work so that we can actually make improvements. There are enough challenges in the water to swim with correct technique and if mechanically you can't do it on land, then you really have no chance of improving your swim technique and speed in the water.
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