Last week’s post described the proven principles of swimming faster, using a specific algorithm for speed– if you’re wondering what this looks like in practice, this entry from Terry Laughlin’s 2015 training log models that algorithm in a practice set. Enjoy… and Happy Laps!

This article is an adaptation of an archived TI forum post from Terry Laughlin’s training log on Nov. 5, 2015.

On Tuesday (Nov 3.) I read “The New Yorker” magazine article, WHAT WE THINK ABOUT WHEN WE RUN. In part, it was of “Poverty Creek Journal,” a collection of 51 brief reflections on a year’s worth of runs. The article also included a summary of a study published earlier this year in the International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology. Sports psychologists gave clip-on microphones to 10 distance runners and asked them to narrate their thought process during a run.

What did these runners think about?
How hard it was to move at their desired speed: “Come on, keep the stride going, bro.”
How soon they could stop: “Come on, you have enough energy for a mile and a half.”
And, quite often, about how miserable they felt while running.

The researchers summarized: “Pain and discomfort were never far from their thoughts.”

It made me wonder why people carry on with such a masochistic exercise. If they knew how it feels to practice Kaizen Swimming, would they give up running? Or would they run differently–the way it’s taught in ChiRunning?

In any case, the contrast between the runners in this study and the practice I’d done just one day earlier could not be more stark.

Before I describe my practice, I’ll review several principles of TI Fast Forward training methodology:
1.) Always focus on improving your swimming.
2.) Create a feedback loop– either subjective (Focal Points) or objective (Strokes Per Length/SPL, Tempo, Time). If the latter, use two metrics. Tempo+SPL or Tempo+Time or SPL+Time.
3.) To swim faster, design problem-solving exercises that strengthen your ability to hold Stroke Length, while increasing Stroke Rate. We call this the “Algorithm of Swimming Success.”

 Mon 2 Nov Approx. 3500 meters at Hampton Lido, London

Sean Haywood (he was among 27 members of a TI-UK training group who went to Ironman Mallorca the previous month) invited me to swim with him at the Hampton Lido, an outdoor 36-meter pool. We swam from 6:45 to 8:00 AM. Having never swum in a 36m pool, I went in with no idea what my SPL or pace might be. But that’s never a problem. I can “create meaning” in any pool, just by counting strokes during my tune-up, which I swam in the “medium speed” lane.

Swimming with a feather-light catch and barely-there kick, I took 24 strokes the first length, then added one stroke on each of the next three laps–reaching 27 SPL on the 4th. (I later did a calculation and found that the “Green Zone” for my 6-foot height in a 36-meter pool should be between 24 and about 28 strokes.) Then the tune-up effect began to take hold, and I shaved a stroke, bringing me to 26 SPL. I swam continuously for another 10 to 12 minutes, holding 26SPL pretty steadily (except when I overtook another swimmer and sped up to pass).

Feeling ready for a challenge, I moved into the “fast” lane and turned on my Tempo Trainer. It was set to 1.17 sec/stroke. I figured that was as good a place as any to start. I swam 4 lengths (144m) continuously and averaged 27 SPL. Armed with that information, I decided to swim a Tempo Pyramid, slowing tempo by .02 each 100 until my SPL returned to 26–or 104 strokes for the 4-lap swim. I reached that at 1.23– taking 25 strokes on the 1st length, 26 strokes on the 2nd and 3rd, and 27 strokes on the 4th.

Next, I would test how long I could hold this stroke count, while increasing tempo by .01 sec after each 144m rep. With a brief exception, I held this stroke count for 11 reps–to a tempo of 1.13 sec/stroke.

I missed my intended count on only one length, taking 27 instead of 26 strokes on the 2nd lap at 1.15 tempo. Because I was a bit too slow on flip turn and pushoff, I had to rush a bit to synchronize the hand entry of my first stroke to the 4th beep. I knew in that instant that the cost of the momentary lapse would be an extra stroke. This happens commonly because while each stroke must be only .01 faster, each turn must be .05 faster (.01 x 5 beeps from final stroke on one length and first stroke on the next).

I made my approach to the wall a little stronger and somersault a little faster on the next two turns and regained my target stroke count on the final two lengths, then held it for one more rep, at 1.14. At 1.13 I exceeded my target count again and knew I’d reached my limit. I then dropped down to 3-length (98m) reps and held my 26 SPL average (25-26-27 strokes) until I reached 1.09.

At 1.08 my SPL rose again, so I cut another length from my repeats, carrying on with 2-length (72m) repeats, holding 26 SPL to 1.06. Then I cut another length and finished my practice by holding 26 strokes from 1.05 to 1.02 sec/stroke. My final length was 27 strokes at 1.01.

If a researcher had given me a waterproof mic and asked me to record my thoughts between repeats, I’d have said that I was having the time of my life. I spent over an hour focusing on every single stroke–the definition of mindfulness–and consequently remaining completely absorbed.

As I solved the challenge of holding SPL as Tempo increased, I swam almost exactly one second faster on each rep (104 strokes x .01 sec). But the experience of swimming faster was enormously pleasurable. As I progressed through the set, my movement through the water felt better and better–more integrated, more fluent. And the overall effect produced a highly satisfying Flow State. Does it get any better than that?

Take Your Swimming to the Next Level!

Learn the Habits of Mastery and develop expert-level skills with Total Immersion’s 2.0 Freestyle Mastery Complete Self-Coaching Course. Do you love learning, practicing, and swimming the TI Way? Are you excited about attaining personal mastery in the most efficient and exacting skills available in freestyle? Have you mastered the TI Foundations in prior videos or the Effortless Endurance (formerly Ultra Efficient Freestyle) Self-Coaching Course? If yes, the 2.0 Freestyle Mastery Course is for you.

The post Terry’s Practice Log: A Detailed Sample Set of Strategic Speedwork appeared first on Total Immersion.

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.