Amazing!
Another new high water mark on my swim today.
Main set was 1500m, with an aim of swimming 1:40 off 2 mins. I managed pretty much all in 1:37 - 1:38. Looking at my swim after, my HR was consistent at 145-150 bpm, possibly a bit of drift upwards towards the end. Biggest plus for me was consistency, I managed with no drop in pace.
I wouldn’t have been able to swim 1:38’s without a pause though
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First swim of the year
4x25m breast WU
4x50m fs easy 1:40 pace
4x75m fs easy
4x25m fs sprint @21s
100m fs WD
Went to a new pool at Biggin Hill. 50mins driving, for 20mins swimming - not a great return on them fossil fuels and it would take ages to cycle up there too. So a short term stop gap I hope.
Massive breakthrough tonight
We were focused on front quadrant swimming, high turnover with catchup. Suddenly I was swimming 100’s comfortably at 1:35, but with 66 spm rather than my usual 56 spm
Its very strange as I have been focused on decreasing stroke rate and more on final phase of stroke
Trouble is I have no idea what is going on
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Don’t bother understanding, just trust the coach and technique. Seems to be working.
I’ve also had a breakthrough week and gained a load of speed for no extra effort. Club swim, moved up lanes. Admittedly some on feet but I led some of the intervals including the 400. I can now swim 1.50 comfortably and mid 1.40s with effort. Huge improvement from the 2.05 / 2.10i was until recently.
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The front quadrant swimming (had to look up what this was and discovered this is probably how I swim!!) probably put your body in a better position in the water and made you more streamline. It also most likely set you up to catch the water better, giving your stroke more power because you were able to use your lats more - which are now super strong from all the pull-ups and strength work you’ve been doing. Anyway, just my thoughts. I’m sure @Hammerer will come along and explain it better. Good job on the progress 
Our coach explained that this was indeed the point
Coach explained that catchup delays the catch until the body is already rotated, therefore the catch and pull is much closer to the body and therefore more steamlined. As you also point out using Lats more and shoulder muscles less
In some ways it is frustrating to find breakthroughs like this, however, I think that as I have become a better swimmer over the past 3 months, I am far more aware of what I am doing and what works and what doesn’t
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how close are you to full catchup to do this? One of the big issues with catchup drill is that you are flat when you start to move the arm down into the catch position.
It wasn’t a full catchup. If I understood the coach correctly, one of the reasons for focus on front quadrant, and starting the recovery early was to improve the timing and being able to do a 3/4 catchup without the leading arm being static (Hope that makes sense). So the idea was never to be in a glide position, but also to coordinate rotation with the catch.
yes , i misunderstood your explanation. the exit to the stroke is often prolonged, I prefer an early exit at the back, one key reason is so the hand is still pointing backwards and not pressing up on the water as you remove it (newtons 3rd law) and it means you get a faster turnover also. The catch should be set up so you start the pull at the early part of the recovery. What you describe i term “continuous swimming” the arm should never be left anywhere, it must always be making progress, either recovering, extending, or moving into the EVF. One of the key issues you see with the front end is overgliding and the arm rests out front, elbow drops and that creates drag, causes an imbalance and makes it harder to get the arm into the EVF. Continuous movement has the added advantage of upping SR also as you’ve seen. Only 2 ways to go faster, improve the distance you gain for each stroke or take more strokes for same distance and time. You should be looking to raise to 70 minimum , so well on your way!
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I find swimming is always a work in progress. One of the reasons I never got bored of it as there was always something to think about - as an adult! As a kid I just swam and did what I was told!!
And yep, you hit the nail on the head, the more you swim and the better swim fit you get, the more you feel what works and notice the small differences. Now you just have to repeat exactly what you did yesterday and hold that technique for an hour.
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As high as that?
Watch every elite swimmer, 80+ not even uncommon. There are outliers but typically yes.
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Good job! How are you calculating your spm?
Edit: I think I’ve been going the wrong way about calculating it. I was looking at garmin strokes per 25, doubling it and using Stroke Rate Calculator | Alan Couzens
I’ve just installed this swimming stopwatch app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mackslydev.swimwatch which I believe calculates the stroke rate based on 3 single arm strokes. Using that method my spm is coming out at 75 (based on a 400m swim)
Surely the simplest (and relatively cheap) way is to get a Finis Tempo Trainer, stick it under your cap and get going. To determine your stroke rate just set it at a value (say 60) and then try to swim naturally and see if you’re turning over faster or slower than the beep, and adjust the setting after a few lengths and repeat until you’re in sync with the beeps.
Even if you start falling onto the beep you’ll quickly feel if the rate is quicker or slower than your normal rate.
From there you can use it to guide/alter your stroke rate - I found Hammerer’s 25s at pace warm up drill (aiming for 70spm whilst maintaining Strokes Per Length at something reasonable) really great for improving turnover. The tempo trainer keeps you honest about mainting the SR and you count the strokes per length. Apologies Hammerer if I’ve misremembered that warm up set - think it was something like 16*25s quick focussing on Strokes Per Length and Stroke Rate
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This is how my finis stopwatches do it, i click, count 3 strokes and click again
You can use it for any gosls, but in that context yes i use it as a pre main focusing on holding distance per stroke whilst holding target race pace/stroke rate
Yeah, I might look for a cheap one on ebay. Now that I’ve worked out that I’m in the right sort of ballpark I might leave it anyway
I have been using Form goggles for about a year now. One of the most useful metrics is SPM
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Surprise CSS test at the club tonight. 1.41 
I don’t know why I’m still so surprised that my swimming has got faster by you know, actually swimming.
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