Do a 1500 swim and that’ll be close
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Cheers did 1:45 at 150 bpm at the London Tri Olympic ‘21. I’ll use that.
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So you’re setting your run LTHR as 167 but swimming as 150. Aware some say swim HR can be much lower (I don’t see it in myself, maybe a couple of beats) but that does seem a big gap?
My next thought would be a triathlon 1500m is presumably a lot easier than a standalone 1500m swim if you’re saving yourself for the next couple of hours.
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Right disclaimers - 4 months off. This was swim no.3 and first time I’d ditched the pull bouy.
Seeing what the go pro was like poolside - underwater stuff prob be ok if I weight it down - my huge push off clearly caused a tidal wave to send it flying.
Not great shots above the water… but figured I’d throw em on here so you can rip the pi55 on a Sunday evening…
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One of the problems I have with swimming is a sort of illiteracy- someone says or explains something, but I can never quite translate that into being more fish in the drink.
So just popping in to this thread to say that I read a swim post on slowtwitch this week that seemed to make a lot of sense.
Can’t link to it but the post title is “improving your DPS (distance per stroke)” and it is by Gary SR.
There’s science too!
Ironically the one thing I didn’t take from the post was improving DPS but I did take from it 4 other things. I just did a set of 8*200m off 4 minutes where on every single length I concentrated on all 4 of these things.
- head low in the water.
I know you should do this, but I never do. I always look where I’m going instead. Maybe it’s a primal defence against sharks, or not bumping head. But today the very first thing I did on pushing off the wall each length was make sure the lugholes were between my deltoids and eyes looking directly at the bottom of the pool, then tried to maintain that position.
- pointy toes
Gary SR reckons that in testing, the single biggest mistake people make is swimming with toes pointing down. reckons adds +40% drag. Actually think I’m ok at pointing the toes, and can show you if you like @APM . But the second thing I did today each length, coming out of the glide from the wall, was check in with those trotters.
- fast arm turnover
seems like kind of the opposite of what the slowtwitch post was meant to be about, but he convinced me to try speeding up the stroke rate. today I did 61spm.compared with 51spm on last timed swim. So checkpoint 3 each length, about 10 metres in, is the windmill thing going on?
- powerful shoulder entry
This is an example of where someone says something and I read the words but they make no sense. how can a shoulder entry be powerful? I get it can be splashy, fast etc. But “powerful”? Anyway, I gave it a go for the remainder of each length, and it kind of dawned what this might mean. Normally I just gently stick the arm out in front, a bit like I’m trying to stroke a cat, and then pull it back. Not today. I attacked with that whole shoulder downwards as if trying to do a one-armed push up off the surface of the pool. There was a definite power vibe about it, and also it seemed to cause the rotation that I have never really figured out how to do properly.
anyway, just thought this might be of some interest to someone maybe. Apologies if it’s stating the obvious
There are much more knowledgeable folk here about swimming, if anything sounds really stupid please correct it!
result today: first 5 "200 felt nice and quick but then I was knacked and slowed down But hopefully with some practice will be able to hold this pace for 1500m which is my target.
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Who is this Gary SR and what are his swim credentials?
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Seriously though, I read that post and know I need to re-read it. Like you I wanted to check that what I think GH sr means is what he meant.
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yep much of that is right, far be it for me to correct Gary Hall also 
but I can address a few of those points and add to them :-
-
I get people to test as its not a simple as just look down, but he isn’t wrong. Do a test, set a tempo trainer to your current SR, say 60spm and swim lengths, looking straight down, 3m in front and 6 m in front . see which works best for you. the problem is some people when you say look down end up burying their head where as the water should break across the forehead. By getting them to actively think about it, they will pick the right position for them. (it will be looking down, but may feel like the 3m in front option to you!)
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yes, this can be worked on at home also. try sitting on your ankles to watch TV or lay on back and do “flutter kicks” as part of a dry land routine
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yes but no but yes. I will work to get the kids up to minimum 70spm, sprinters 80 or 90 even, but not at the expense of DPS. I will have them do low stroke rate work to build DPS, 17 SPL is the goal for most. Once there we will work (maybe with a tempo trainer) to gradually up that SR to 70.
-
this means hard arm entry and extension. A good drill here is Breaststroke arms front crawl legs focus on very fast recovery and the drive forward. Its tiring so 1 length at a time
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Fair point, swimming with a PB massively reduces HR too. I’ll do a 1500m TT this week to see if it differs.
Although…I suppose that raises a question around it’s relevance to any set that isn’t pure FS.
I’d describe it as like taking a single dumb bell and lifting it as high as you can.
You’d naturally turn and tilt slightly to extend the shoulder up.
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See the stroke rate thing is where I get thrown because usually, if I’m doing more strokes per minute it means I’m going slower and either I’m just spinning wildly thinking it’s making me speedy and have lost feel of the water, or it represents me getting tired, losing power and so I’m needing to do more strokes to cover the same distance. I’ve still not quite found my sweet spot of turnover vs DPS there (although I’m talking a difference between like 25-28 strokes per minute over 750m, not the numbers of you boys 
).
The exception to that is short sets, so 50s and 100s, where if I can notch up just over 30 strokes per minute that’s about as quick while staying efficient as I can get at the moment (I know that’s still crap, bear with me I’ll get it up eventually).
The head thing @fruit_thief is something I am really conscious of and for me makes a big difference. I think part of the difficulty is especially if you are lane swimming and it’s busy you sort of feel you have to look forward rather than down to stop crashing into the old dear sculling on her back. But if it’s quiet and I really focus on doing it consistently it definitely shaves a couple of seconds off my per 100m pace.
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Pervert.
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Working on DPS has definitely improved my swimming. A lack of fitness means my triathlon race times haven’t yet reflected that yet but much faster through the water over short distances. The guidance coming from @Hammerer
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@mw22 – Don’t know how I missed this first time around, but that was very funny.
Sorry, can’t offer much advice, as I’m trying to re-discover some old form myself. 
However, there was one thing that stood out for me…
Around 41 seconds in on the second video your right hand appears to very high in the air.
Whereas, I believe the hand should be lower than the elbow during the recovery phase.
Here is a clip of what I’d expect to see.
Hope that helps, Paul. 
PS
@APM – You didn’t actually click on a @fruit_thief arrow/link did you? 
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Recently been finding that pointing but not ‘straining’ is a useful thought to hold.
I’m going to be consciously controversial here. For even most “good” swimmers how much difference will pointing toes make? Most half decent triafleet swimmers I see regularly barely kick their legs anyway which is perhaps the bigger problem. Balance or body position in the water seems to be the limiter for most and they’d be better off doing 100 hours of Total Immersion drills than anything else . That is my uneducated opinion as an ok swimmer but no coach of course.
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I agree toes pointing down aint good but most Trafletes are making far worse mistakes. Head too high, leading to sinky legs. Wild scissor kick creating masses of drag. Pointy toes is easy to fix by working on ankle flexibility
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Burn him 
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I see your point, but its a very simple change to make. One of the biggest issues I see, and this is in 11-15year old boys as well swimming sub 62second 100’s is they are like spaghetti in the water and not raw either! Girls have a lot more core stability and control, hence at the younger ages seeing them outperform the boys in many instances. Draw the belly button towards the back, clench the butt cheeks (keep that pound coin in there Swimsmooth Paul used to say!) Also learn to float! keep those legs up without propulsion and then pull yourself through the water!
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