SWIMMING : Jacobson Shows That Less Can Mean More

When Brian Jacobson wins, it is as much a personal victory as a triumph for the unusual training system that he adheres to under Bellflower Aquatics Coach Don Watkinds.

Jacobson, who will compete Saturday through Monday in the U.S. Olympic Festival at USC, swims less than half the distance most of his competitors swim each day in practice. Moreover, Jacobson’s workouts are heavy on vertical kicking and using only their arms to stay in one spot. Most swimmers kick horizontally.

“If a synchronized swimming coach saw us they would think we were a synchronized swimming team,” Jacobson said.

Watkinds’ system is also unusual because of the duration of the drills. For example, his team might swim the 25 freestyle 40 times with two seconds’ rest in between whereas a traditional team would swim the 100 freestyle 10 times with three seconds’ rest in between.

“It is the difference between swimming 12 seconds per 25 versus 15 seconds per 25. The body position, the head and hand positions are totally different,” Watkinds said.

The key is the brain and muscles remembering what a certain speed feels like.

“If you always swim consistently fast, your body and your brain get used to going that fast with the correct form,” Jacobson said.

Watkinds also goes against the grain with his practice schedule. There are no weekend practices, and his team does not work out twice per day except for one month each summer. Watkinds claims that his schedule cuts down on illness and injury; Jacobson believes it prevents burnout.

“If I would have had two workouts a day and all that yardage, I don’t know if I’d still be swimming,” Jacobson said. “I’ve always been strong academically, and I would have had to cut back on my studies.”

An honor student at Downey High, Jacobson, 17, will attend Stanford in the fall.

There, he will see how the other half swims.

Until two years ago when he earned a berth on the national junior team and began attending national training camps, Jacobson did not realize how unconventional his training system is.

“The other swimmers said, ‘Oh my God, you actually swim like that?’ ” Jacobson said. “They couldn’t believe it.”

The coaches Jacobson met at the camps also questioned his preparation, but Jacobson has yet to second-guess Watkinds.

“We put a lot of effort into everything we do,” Jacobson said. “I feel I’m doing what I need to do.”

Watkinds limits his practices to 2,500 yards because his swimmers can physically recover between workouts unlike, he believes, traditional swimmers who put in 8,000 to 12,000 yards per day.

He is also a believer in the powers of positive thinking, spending two hours per week on visualization drills.

Watkinds coached in the traditional style until he came to Bellflower five years ago and realized “most of the kids could not swim.”

That’s why he started with 25s, the distance usually reserved for children 8 years old and under.

Jacobson made his first national Junior Olympic time standard shortly after Watkinds’ arrival. In the summer of 1989, he moved up to the next level, qualifying for his first senior nationals in the 50 freestyle.

In December, he recorded his most impressive swim, a 51.38 in the 100-meter freestyle that placed fourth at the U.S. Open in Indianapolis and qualified him for the 1992 U.S. Olympic trials.

The athlete’s representative to Southern California Swimming, the governing body of the sport in this area, Jacobson can’t wait to have the Olympic Festival swimmers in “his town.”

As the No. 1 pick in the NFL-style draft U.S. Swimming conducted to divide the teams, Jacobson will represent the West.

Unlike some of the competitors who are saving their best efforts for U.S. Nationals Aug. 12-16 at Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Jacobson has rested and shaved his body for the Festival.

“He’s always swum real well and come back a few weeks later and swum fast again, so we are planning to go all-out for the Festival and come back strong for senior nationals,” Watkinds said. “I think the environment of the Festival tends to produce fast times.”

Although the Soviets converted backstroker Alexander Popov to sprint freestyle to challenge American world record-holder Matt Biondi on the anchor leg of the medley relay, Popov might prove to be a help in individual events as well.

At the Soviet championships last month, he clocked a 49.27 to become the fourth-fastest 100 free-styler in history.

At the Santa Clara International Invitational last weekend, the 20-year-old turned in a lifetime best 22.78 in the 50 freestyle, which ranks 11th in the world this year.

Vasily Ivanov, the Soviet who tied Hungary’s Norbert Rozsa for the world record in the 100 breaststroke last month with a 1:01.45, swims for the same club as Popov, the Samara Swim Center. According to Soviet Coach Gennagi Touretski, Ivanov was told two years ago to stop swimming.

“It seemed to be he had no talent for swimming,” Touretski said.

Ivanov returned to the water on a recreational basis and became a junior national champion.

Until Ivanov’s record-tying effort, Dmitri Volkov was the reigning Soviet breaststroke champion. Volkov is unmatched at 50 meters, a distance not contested in the Olympics. Sunday at Santa Clara, he was well ahead at the midway point and passed up at the end.

Swimming Notes

Chad Hundeby and Jay Wilkerson became the first swimmers to go under five hours for a 25-kilometer race. Hundeby, of Irvine, won the U.S. Swimming National 25K Championships at Philadelphia in 4 hours 51 minutes 52 seconds, and Wilkerson, of Tallahassee, Fla., followed in 4:57:25. Among the women, Karen Burton (5:18.57) outdistanced Amy Dunleavy (5:28:42). The four advance to the Pan Pacific Long Distance Championships Aug. 21 in Edmonton, Canada.

Eleven Southern Californians are among the 49-member team that will represent the U.S. in the World University Games July 14-25 in Sheffield, England. The group includes Becky Shelton, Kristin Stoudt and Dan Kutler of UCLA; Tara Shriner and Greg Larson of USC; Brian Pajer of UC Irvine; Marilyn Peck of San Diego and Northwestern; Sionainn Marcoux of Orange and Stanford; Hundeby of Irvine and Southern Methodist; Amy Ward of Mission Viejo and Dan Kanner of San Marino. The coach of the men’s team is Jay Fitzgerald of Santa Clara Swim Team. The women’s coach is Karen Moe Thornton of California. . . . The Junior Olympic Zone D Diving Championships will be held at the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center in Pasadena on Friday through Sunday.