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Topic: Stroke Count (1 of 3), Read 100 times
Conf: Freestyle
From: Allison Marie
Date: Monday, April 24, 2006 12:44 PM
Hi, I competed in my first meet in five years
this weekend, swimming mostly freestyle events.
I normally do 17 to 18 strokes per 25 yards
in practice, but I noticed in my 50 free that
I did about 22 or 23. Should my stroke count
increase this much when sprinting? I am thinking
I probably didn't roll/reach enough in the
excitement of the race. What should I work
on to be able to sprint with a lower stroke
count?
From: Robert McAdams
Date: Monday, April 24, 2006 01:24 PM
It is normal to have higher stroke counts when
you're sprinting, because reaching top speeds
in shorter events, requires you to raise your
Stroke Rate to a level where it’s extremely
hard to maintain Stroke Length. But, while
your stroke count may increase, you want to
avoid becoming sloppy, or the increase in drag
and turbulence will cost you more speed than
you're gaining by having a faster stroke rate.
To avoid this, in practice try to achieve the
highest stroke rate you can while maintaining
perfect form, and then, over time, work on
gradually increasing that stroke rate while
still maintaining perfect form.
From: Terry Laughlin
Date: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 08:28 AM
As Bob said some inefficiency is likely while
sprinting…and often in distance races
too. Maintaining efficiency at racing speeds
is a much more exacting skill than maintaining
it at slower practice speeds. And sprint races
are hardest of all to do this because you literally
don't have time to think.
Racing Efficiently is a LEARNED skill
for which the learning process is to:
- patiently
acquire a higher level of efficiency
at slow speed;
- lock in that
efficiency with thousands of correct repetitions;
- from
time to time, experiment with adding a
bit more pace or rate and monitor
what happens to your efficiency – i.e.
how many strokes do you add, how much
control do you give up;
- seek to incrementally
improve your
ability to maintain a LITTLE more
control at SLIGHTLY
higher speeds.
All of these steps happen in training
and constitute a never-ending,
hopefully progressive,
process.
- Then fill out
an entry form, mount a starting block, and
discover
how
easily all those
gains you thought you'd made
can evaporate when nervousness
and eagerness conspire to break
down your muscle memory.
That experience you had is valuable
because it prepares you to
swim better in your next
race. To become an effective
competitor, begin making
race plans, consciously
rehearsing those
plans in training, then – after the starter’s
horn sounds – focus
so intently on executing
your race plan that the sources
of nervousness
and distraction become far
less potent.
I've spent many years acquiring
the wisdom and experience to
race successfully
and I'm
happy to report that the older
I get, the better I get at
making smart
race
plans and
executing
them with reliability and consistency.
At 55, I haven't had a "bad" race
in three or four years...ever since I made
it a habit to devote EVERY length of practice
to refining some skill that helps me race more
effectively. The most important of those skills
are focus and concentration. I've learned that
I will inevitably lose focus at some point
in the race, and – when it happens – to
non-judgmentally recognize
that I have and to refocus.
Because you don't have the
luxury of recapturing lost
focus and
execution in a 50 that I enjoy
in a 1500, it's even more critical
to practice what you want to
do
well in a sprint, while
in practice.
Topic: Question About Your
Approach to Practice (1 of
2), Read 55
times
Conf: Favorite Practices and
Sets
From: Greg Stevens
Date: Tuesday, April 25, 2006
02:42 PM
Terry – in your books
and postings, you take the
approach of doing mindful
practice
repeats of 100, 200, or up
to 500 for long events, and,
generally not doing swims
equal
to or greater than the length
of the event. In general,
experienced distance runners
who
do long events, even ultra-marathoners,
don't do the long runs that
less experienced runners
will do to prepare for the
long events.
Do you attribute your ability
to compete well at long distances
without long
training swims,
to the fact that you've “practiced” long
swims by doing the events
themselves? For example,
I'm doing my first triathlon
with a 1500-meter
swim. I am following your
advice and, in general, doing
sets of 100's, as suggested
in Triathlon
Swimming Made Easy and on this Forum.
I've also found it helpful
to do what I did today, which
was
to
warmup with
drills followed
by 5 X 100 with Fistgloves and then 2 X 500 without Fistgloves;
and then
repeat 5 X 100
with Fistgloves and then some
fast 50's. Still, though I
did
do a
couple of 500's
in there,
and found them especially beneficial
in doing them slowly and with
focus on various points,
I haven't done anything at
or greater than the 1500 distance.
From: Terry Laughlin
Date: Tuesday, May 02, 2006
08:51 AM
Greg,
You're precisely right in saying
that experience in racing a
particular distance
is the most
valuable teacher for how to
race it effectively, while
the most
effective way to train for
that race is shorter repeats.
If I
swam regular 1500 repeats in
practice, I would only be
training
myself to swim 1500 at practice
speed. But by doing 3 rounds
of 5 x 100
or 5 rounds
of 100 + 200 or other variations
of 1500 in training,
I train myself to swim at a
good 1500 racing speed.
However, while I may do only
one or two 1500-m or 1650-yd
swims
per year
in training, I
can see some potential value,
for someone who has
never raced one, in doing
one (or two) prior to one's
first
race
at the distance.
Your
goal for that practice swim
should be to experiment
with a limited number of
focal points (not more than
three)
to evaluate
how they work
for you – and just
as important to practice
maintaining an unblinking
focus on executing
the details of your swim.
I've swum three 1650-yard
races since March 5, and
will swim
one more on
May 11th at
Masters Nationals. I've only
done one in training – because
that's what our coach told
us to do that day. I approached
it with a goal of descending
my
three 550s (one-third of
a 1650) by adjusting my stroke
count as I went. I split
7:14 (at
14SPL) - 7:12 (at 15SPL)-
7:10 (at 16SPL) on the way
to a 21:36, which made that
practice
swim valuable.
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