This post was originally published by Terry Laughlin on May 20, 2016.

There are two ways to try to swim faster. One way is what I call the “Limbs, Lungs, and Muscles” approach: Move your limbs as fast as you can. Put more muscle into your stroke. Hope that your fitness will outlast failing muscles and that you can “push through pain barriers” as coaches often say. For most, this approach is a path to failure and frustration.

Total Immersion teaches a second way— speed as a problem-solving exercise. The fact that you’re solving the most exacting problems in swimming can also transform this into a Mastery pursuit. The TI way to swim faster is based on three well-proven principles.  Although the success of these principles is widely-documented, I refer to them as the “secrets” of swimming faster because so few people take advantage of them.

1. Start with Stroke Length. The foundation for fast swimming is Stroke Length. For over 60 years, every authoritative study of factors that correlate with speed found that longer strokes matter most. This has proven true in all strokes and all ages—from 10 and under to 80 and up!

How far should you travel? For freestyle, from 55% to 65% or more of your height. We’ve converted that into Strokes Per Length (SPL), recorded on our Green Zone charts of height-indexed efficient stroke counts in any standard distance pool, available as a free download here.

When stroking at the lowest SPL for your height, your hand leaves the water– at the end of the stroke –pretty close to where it entered. In other words, most of your energy is converted into forward motion. When your stroke count is above the highest in your Green Zone, too much of your energy is moving water back.

Once you can swim your Green Zone counts with ease and consistency, strive to patiently increase the distance and/or speed at which you can maintain those counts. If you’ve been swimming at higher counts, try this simple exercise: Compare the speed of your arm moving back with the speed of your body moving forward. Slow your stroke until they match.

2. Train your Nervous–not Aerobic–System.

In 2005, just before I turned 55, I set several goals that were far more ambitious than any I’d contemplated before. I asked Jonty Skinner, Director of Performance Science for USA Swimming’s Olympic program, for training advice. Jonty said: “It’s neural conditioning, not aerobic conditioning, that wins races.”

Jonty meant that swimmers who trained to maintain a long stroke as they swam farther and faster would be much more successful those who simply focused on swimming longer or harder. Rather than train for the capacity to work harder, focus on creating and encoding the highest quality muscle memories—to make it easier to maintain longer strokes at faster rates. Not only will it require less oxygen to swim any pace, but cardiovascular conditioning still “happens.” Only it’s now specific to the stroke length and rate to which your nervous system is highly adapted— rather than to non-specific hard efforts.

3. Master the “Swimming Success Algorithm”

The term algorithm was coined in mathematics over 1000 years ago and has become widely familiar in the last 20 years due to its use in computer science. Its use in modern technology suggests something complicated, but it’s definition is pretty simple: An algorithm is “a process that solves a recurrent problem.”

A recurrent— indeed, nearly universal —problem in swimming is how to swim the fastest of which you are physically capable. The overwhelming majority of swimmers fall far short of their true potential (I was a prime example in high school and college) because they choose ineffective means to solve the problem— stroke faster and swim harder. This is what I did in high school and college. It led to frustration and a feeling that I lacked the “right stuff” to swim fast, whatever that might be.

Stroking faster isn’t so much a choice as a primal instinct, which is why so many do it. Fortunately there is a solution for this problem that is so foolproof– I call it the Algorithm for Swimming Success. It comes from 40 years of data collected by USA Swimming on their very best swimmers.

Since 1976, USA-Swimming has assigned staffers to sit in the stands and record the stroke count and stroke rate of every swimmer, in every heat, of every event at Olympic Trials— the most competitive meet in the US, and sometimes, the world. Every swimmer at this meet is hightly talented and supremely fit, but in each event only two competitors— of 60 to 70 entrants –will come away with the most precious prize of a slot on the Olympic Team.

USA Swimming collected this data to learn if there was some stroking or pacing pattern which maximizes a swimmer’s chances of being among the fortunate few.

After 40 years, the data shows most clearly that a rare and completely counter-intuitive skill is the key to success in swimming.  That skill is the ability to maintain Stroke Length while increasing Stroke Rate.

Why counter-intuitive? Well, what does everyone do naturally when trying to swim faster? Work harder and stroke faster— while ignoring Stroke Length! No wonder this virtually always leads to failure and frustration: They have it exactly backwards!

With this information, you can ensure that your efforts to swim faster will have a vastly greater chance of success. To do this, plan sets which:

1. Reveal your current ability to maintain one stroke count (say 18 SPL), while increasing Tempo.
2. Make a tiny increase in tempo (as little as a hundredth of a second) and count strokes. If your SPL holds, increase tempo and count strokes again.
3. Continue until your SPL increases.

When your SPL increases, you’ve discovered your current level of Conscious Incompetence at this combination of SPL and Tempo. Work at this level until you can easily and consistently swim this Tempo+SPL combo. Then raise tempo again until you find the tempo at which it’s a struggle to maintain your SPL.

Learn to swim with greater ease and speed in your “Green Zone” with our downloadable Ultra-Efficient Freestyle Complete Self-Coaching Toolkit.

Want to master the Swimming Success Algorithm? A Tempo Trainer is the essential tool. 

The post The Algorithm of Speed: 3 Proven Principles for Swimming Faster appeared first on Total Immersion.

I initially credited my success in open water to “natural endurance” and to having an instinct for racing without walls and lanes that others lacked.

I left the ocean behind after moving to Richmond VA in 1978. When I resumed swimming in open water in the early 1990s, I picked up where I’d left off—competing successfully in open water with people whose ‘wake I’d eaten’ in the pool.

In 2001, turning 50, I began to think of myself as an “open water specialist.” In part because the ‘sky lakes’ in Minnewaska State Park, became available for wide open swimming after years of being restricted to roped-in areas, not much bigger than a pool.

Committing to ‘Open Water Technique’

At the time, I trained in Masters workouts and swam pool meets occasionally. It occurred to me that the stroke I used in open water races—mostly between 1 and 3 miles—felt long and integrated, while the stroke I used in the pool–especially in the heat of a race (including with teammates in training)–felt more hurried and choppy.

Since I’d had my greatest success in open water races, I thought I should ‘put my eggs in that basket,’ using my open water stroke exclusively, even when racing teammates on short repeats. This meant limiting the number of strokes I would allow myself in training to 15, while keeping my average SPL between 13 and 14.

My stroke limit of 15 strokes put me at a disadvantage on 25- and 50-yard repeats, when many of my Masters teammates would take 20 or more

Thought I trailed significantly at first, before long I began closing the gap on high-revving teammates.  Taking fewer strokes forced me to get more out of each stroke, but I adapted fairly quickly. And on longer repeats or sets—where I’d always finished near the top of the group–I saw even more improvement.

In 2002, I swam the 28.5-mile Manhattan Island Marathon, completing it with far longer, and more leisurely, strokes than any other competitor. From then through 2004, I had strong results in races of all distances.  But it wasn’t until reading an article in 2005 by Jonty Skinner—at the time Performance Science Director for USA Swimming–that I realize how uniquely suited were the techniques I’d been practicing for open water.

Hip-Driven vs. Shoulder-Driven

Skinner’s article analyzed the contrasting techniques employed by freestylers who were more successful in Short Course (25y/m pools) vs. those who shone in Long Course (50m pools). Because the Olympics are held in Long Course, success in a 50m pool is highly valued.

After studying video from 20 years of national championships in both courses, Skinner observed that elite Long Course freestylers  swam with longer, lower-tempos ‘hip-driven’ strokes. In contrast, elite Short Course freestylers swam with shorter, higher-tempo   ‘shoulder-driven’ strokes.

Skinner explained the disparity this way: Among elite freestylers, in a 25-yard pool, the ratio of swimming to non-swimming (turns and pushoffs) is approximately 2.6 to 1. In a 50-meter pool, the swimming to non-swimming ratio rises to nearly 8 to 1.

I.E. During a minute of Short Course swimming, an athlete could spend as little as 43 seconds swimming and as much as 17 seconds “not-swimming.” In a 50-meter pool, he or she would spend about 53 seconds swimming and only 7 seconds “not-swimming.”

As Skinner explained, a shoulder-driven stroke allows the swimmer to achieve higher tempos and generate higher arm forces. This can create more speed in short bursts,but has great potential to cause fatigue. Frequent ‘rest breaks’ received by the arms on turns allow the swimmer to recover sufficiently to sustain a fast pace for distances up to about 200 yards.

But in a 50m pool, and when swimming over 2 minutes continuously, the hip-driven stroke proved to be the far better choice.

Upon reading Skinner’s article, I instantly recognized that what provided a significant advantage in 50-meter pools ought to be even more advantageous in open water, where the swimming-to-recovering ratio rises to infinity.

‘Lose’ the Pool Repeat to Win in Open Water

My instincts had already led me in the right direction. To complete 25 yards in 15 or fewer strokes, I had to use the hip-driven style. At 18 or more strokes, my teammates were shoulder-driven.  After reading Skinner’s article, I redoubled my commitment to hip-driven technique. (I also put more focus on understanding and teaching techniques which would maximize the advantage of hip-driven technique. I’ll note those in the next installment of this series.)

And of course since most open water competitors and triathletes do the majority of their training in 25-yard pools—and especially if they race others, as in Masters workouts—the pace clock and their natural competitiveness provides a strong incentive to revert to shoulder-driven strokes. It requires a conscious decision to limit stroke count–and strong restraint when swimming next to a shoulder-driven swimmer—to hardwire the hip-driven style.

Back in 2005, I was willing to ‘lose’ the 25-yard in the present moment to  be better prepared for an open water event that might be several months in the future. The following year I won the first of six National Masters open water titles and broke two national age group records. I feel certain none of this would have been possible had I not committed to the hip-driven stroke.

This article has been excerpted, in part, from the ebook Outside the Box: A Program for Success in Open Water

Hip-driven technique is illustrated on the DVDs  Outside the Box and TI Self-Coached Workshop.  Get all three items for 20% off in our Open Water Success bundle.

Or learn open water technique, strategies and tactics at any TI Open Water Camp.

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