Increasing Distance Per Stroke

Enygma

Hi,

I've been trying to increase my DPS for a while now. A few months back I used to take approx. 22-23 strokes per 25m which I've managed to get down to about 18-19 per 25m. Over any distance greater than 200m this drops back pretty quickly to 21-22 again.

If I really go for it with strong kicking and loads of dolphin kicks I can get it down to 14 but I don't think that really counts for much as I know I'm not really increasing my true distance per stroke. I'm just making up distance underwater.

My question is, what elements of the stroke have the largest impact on distance per stroke?

BTW, just to avoid confusion, I define 1 stroke as 1 pull.

hunnymonster

making your glide as efficient as possible is certainly the easiest way to improve DPS but I'm not sure if it has the biggest influence. Have you tried swim golf? I find it more useful than DPS.

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

Enygma

Thanks, I'll try swim golf tonight, my times have been coming down considerably so I must be doing something right.

AngryHippie

Do some sculling to improve your LME on the small arm muscles, that'll help over distance, paddles help a good bit, I'm in Brisbane at the moment and most of the lappies over here use them, but its a 50m pool, which is a little bit different, but I'm doing a length in 33 strokes (11 breaths) and can hold it to 36 over a 200, Haven't tried Swolf in years. Will give it a go and put summat up.

interested

AngryHippie wrote: »

Do some sculling to improve your LME on the small arm muscles, that'll help over distance, paddles help a good bit, I'm in Brisbane at the moment and most of the lappies over here use them, but its a 50m pool, which is a little bit different, but I'm doing a length in 33 strokes (11 breaths) and can hold it to 36 over a 200, Haven't tried Swolf in years. Will give it a go and put summat up.

Would agree that paddles do help identify any short cuts you might be making as your hands enter the water - BUT - when it comes to paddles just be careful regarding upping load on your shoulders. As you're probably aware you can get different size paddles - http://www.swimshop.co.uk/category.asp?cat_id=HAND
For building shoulder strength Id try the larger ones - the finger ones are sometimes useful when doing stroke work IMHO since alot of distance can be lost due to small things like fingers slightly spread or doing something quirky at the start of the stroke / glide.

Only injuries I saw in swimming over alot of time came from not stretching shoulders before using paddles.

Times are dropping ? always good - personally I wouldnt get too stressed about distance per stroke

Enygma

Thanks for the advice guys, I tried swimming a bit more on my side the other night which made some improvements I think. I was swimming quite flat.
Also a friend of mine is going to take a look at my stroke next time I'm in the water, which will be a while unfortunately. My earplugs (custom moulds) were a tiny bit too small and now I've got two ear infections to show for it! lovely.

AngryHippie

Let the manager of the pool you were in know about the ear infections, unless you're prone to them, they might need to up the chlorine for a bit