That’s kinda my point though. At my gym, about half of the people I see in the pool are so inefficient that they barely can swim 25 yards without getting exhaus

That’s kinda my point though. At my gym, about half of the people I see in the pool are so inefficient that they barely can swim 25 yards without getting exhausted. But to them, they’re “swimming”. I know you mentioned amateurs, but I’m really considering the average person who can “do the thing” (swim, golf, bowl, play tennis) vs someone who has even spent a little time trying to figure out the proper technique. Hell, Tiger Woods dominated the tour and then spent time trying to work on his swing (before his life spiraled out of control). Also, re-reading the original comments I was replying to, I wanted to clarify that I fell into the “flail around and try to get across the pool” category. I improved my technique considerably even though it’s not proper. I’m at the point where if I really want to improve, I need to unlearn my “good enough” skills and re-learn it properly. Unfortunately, it’s hard to do 1000+ yds nonstop the “right” way right now, so my warm ups are a lot of 50s and 100s where I go slow and focus. Then I can do maybe 50% of a longer interval “properly”