So swimming still sucks, probably the worst sport in the world, genuinely can’t think of anything worse that torturing myself in the pool! Anyway self pity over.
I’m stuck at 2.20 pace for 400m in the pool and don’t seem to be getting any better, been working on catch with sculling and body position with drills etc… went back and analysed all my stats and my stroke rate is 40 - 44 strokes per minute (20-22 on Garmin but it only measures one arm correct?)
Is this going to be the biggest limiting factor for me? Do I need to get this up into the 55/60 range to see my times come below 2 mins?
If I do need to increase it then what is the best way to do that? I tried it today and was exhausted
for one reason, as you have just discovered, at present at least a faster stroke rate is likely to be far less efficient…
That said, when swimmers do try and increase stroke rate they tend to go crazy rather than gradually increasing the rate over time.
SR is important (@Hammerer will be along in a minute to say it is vital), but not as important as initially developing distance per stroke…and this is developed by becoming more efficient in the water - streamlining, balance, body position, breathing, head position/movement, rotation, kick, hand entry, catch initiation, pull, push, recovery etc…
Not sure if you can still get them but the finis tempo trainer was very good to work on stroke rate, bit awkward in a small pool with turns but helped.
An interesting part of Gary Hall Snr’s book is on strike rate. He describes 3 types of freestyle, hip driven, shoulder driven and a hybrid of the two. With the hip driven style the stroke rate is slower and suited to long distance pool events. Shoulder driven for sprints and hybrid is somewhere in the middle.
In a video or two he describes coaching a triathlete from hip to shoulder driven so as to improve his OWS times.
Without creating an arbitrary number, anything in the lower mid 20s and above is insufficient distance per stroke to be worrying about SR unless it is extremely low…
That number is based on good dps (~1.2m per stroke) and feet to flags! Id say 16 or even 15 are better targets. Racing, it will drop. Thorpe did 34 strokes/50m racing but could get 24 in training
To what extent do you think 17-ish strokes per 25 m should be when you are really concentrating on dps v just trying to swim good form? I can do a length in 17/18 strokes without a silly amount of gliding, but I think it’s more like 20 if I’m “just swimming”.
This is priority over SR, but a higher SR can help body position, so it depends
