stroke length/speed

zardette

hi,

I have been working on my stroke length and am down to 9 strokes /25m but my overall speed is so slow that even the OAP are catching up

I used catch up drill to improve this and it got me down from 15 to 9 but they say thats its bad for body roatation is this true ?

Is there any drills that can speed up my stroke rate without effecting my stroke length?

Thanks,
Zardette

hunnymonster

It's a tough one, inceasing stroke rate will almost inevitably lead to a shorter stroke. Swim golf is a good way to find the balance

http://swimming.about.com/cs/techniquetips/a/swim_golf.htm

BendiBus

When you say 9 strokes, is that 9 full arm rotations or 9 times that a hand hits the water? I'm never sure which is which?

Clseeper

I’m presuming it single stroke counts, hands hitting water. 1 left, 2 right, 3 left etc.

While decreasing your stroke rate is a good way to improve efficiency, there’s obviously a trade off i.e. going so slow you start drowning . Or in this case the OAP’s catching up.

I know this is totally contradictory but, now you have to speed up your stroke. The whole point of slowing down your stroke is to force you to concentrate on a smooth entry and really work on your ‘catch’ and feel through the water. Now you want to capitalise on that.

Start by speeding up your pull, after the catch, underneath the water. Try to get the power out of the stroke and make sure to follow through the whole way with the push until your arm is straight and elbow locked. You’ll hopefully notice it’s a bit harder and the backs of your arms [triceps] will probably get tired quicker.

So now work on power and lift, a strong kick should help with this. Overall the stroke should still be very smooth with minimal splash. Don’t worry too much about adding to your stroke count, this will happen but your times should drop over the 25m. Your stroke count will probably increase by ~6-8 strokes but as you get more powerful in the water this will start to drop again.

Now you have another variable to rate yourself against, time. If there’s a pace clock at the pool, start using it to get rough times that you’re completing your lengths in. Now you need to find the happy balance, speed vs stroke count (& efficiency)

Keep it up, sounds like very good progress so far.

zardette

Thanks all for your help !


- hunnymonster,

The golf swimming is fun and from it I found out that I was breathing too
often. I now only do so on every third stroke and this has made me faster without changing my stroke length


- Clseeper

Catch underneath the water has given me more glide and power in my stroke but now my body is so sore
Unfortunately, I cannot kick very wel atm because I am just out of knee surgery, but I think I need to work on this as I have not been working out on my legs for about 6 months ...
My aerobic fitness was mainly from a upper body ergometer and legless swimming (sounds like a pool crawl :rolleyes:).
Maybe some drills to improve my kick might help! I was always curious to see how important kick is in swimming.

As for the 9 strokes cycles -

A cycle is each time your left hand (or your right hand, but only one hand) enters the water.

Anyways thanks again for yer help,

Zardette

Mellor

zardette wrote: »

Thanks all for your help !


- hunnymonster,

The golf swimming is fun and from it I found out that I was breathing too
often. I now only do so on every third stroke and this has made me faster without changing my stroke length

breathing very three is still way too often,
try get to 5, then 7 (always odd if possible)
by the way, thats counting each arm, so left, right, left, breath, right left right breath,
is every 3, etc

hunnymonster

I breathe every three, most swimmers I know breathe every 2-3

Green Hornet

hunnymonster wrote: »

I breathe every three, most swimmers I know breathe every 2-3

Me too. I breathe every three. Used to breathe every 4 but found that one side seemed to be getting "stronger" while the other was not developing at all.

DolphinMasters

I breathe every 4 - always to my left side. Have done for years. My coach gets me to do Bi-Lat every so often to help even my stroke while training. But in competition if I was doing anything over 50M I'd breathe every 4. If it was a 50M swim though I would breathe twice a length. I'm nearly the same in Butterfly to be honest over a 50M swim. And I'd probably breathe every 3 on longer distances.

Every 2 seems very short but then again I saw the Olympic swimmers do it. It's all a matter of what you are used to I guess.

Gael23

I breathe every 3 strokes, I was told to always breathe on the opposite side each time. It takes me 8-9 breaths per length so I would think 15 strokes is quite impressive.