Specificity

On Saturday at the collegiate swim
coaches I had a rather long and fruitless discussion on specificity with one of
the vendors selling an isokinetic training system. My point was that in
swimming or any other sport the highest degree of specificity is the sport
itself. You can imitate movements, but similar is not the same. When I divide
my work up I think of it in three classifications:

1)   
General – No relationship in terms
of speed or patterns of movement.

2)   
Special – Some relationship in terms
of patterns of movement, but not much in terms of speed of movement.

3) Specific
– Very similar in terms of patterns and speed. Looks a lot like the movements we
are going to do in the sport.

Over the years I have found it futile
to send too much time trying imitate the exact movements of the sport. That is
why they practice the sport. It is important to condition for those movements not
repeat those movements. I have learned that is import to train across the
spectrum from general to specific and to carefully correlate this with what
they are doing in the actually practices.