What’s your strategy for improving stroke rate without losing much DPS in sprint free? (My LCM 50 is 24.5 with 35 strokes but very low stroke rate)

Question

Bruno Fratus · Answer

So, OK, I'm going to make you think a little bit. You're talking about improving stroke rate, but without losing much DPS. What does that even mean? So you don't want to lose DPS at all. You want to swim as efficient as you can. And if you don't want to sacrifice DPS, what's your priority here? And why shouldn't you be solely focusing on your priority?

James Gibson MBE · Answer

OK. What is your strategy for improving stroke rates without losing much distance per cycle in sprint freestyle? My long course 50 is 24.5 with 35 strokes, but very low rate. OK. So to improve your stroke rate, you need to be doing some overspeed work, whether that's dead start sprints, starting without pushing off the wall, assisted speed with the cords, maybe some-- not the fins. The fins actually make your rate go slower. So a lot of people use fins thinking it's overspeeding and getting the rate up. Yes, it is overspeed but it actually makes your rate slower because just mechanics and biomechanical and how that extra, sort of, pressure through the legs goes. So I would use some dead start sprints, get sprinting from a dead start and lots of them. So it's over rev, over rev, over rev. Also if you have a beeper, if you have a stroke rate beeper, get that on your swimming hat. Put it in and set it above rote rate stroke rate. So watch your video. You can take your stroke rate. You can do it the European way using the stopwatch. You count like one 1, 2, 3, six cycles or sorry, three cycles to get your time. You can do it the American way, which is like every stroke cycle. So American way will be 1.0-- that stroke rate 60. Every three cycles is stroke rate 60 as well. So go over stroke rate with the beeper, do some dead start sprints and really practice that over rate-- over rate work and then what will generally happen is because if you've got a low rate, that will come in. It will actually make you go a bit faster. But the critical thing, buy yourself a beeper. One of the beeper monitors. FINIS sell them, I think. Get one of them [INAUDIBLE] onto you, and then you can actually practice and you'll know if you can hit those rates or not.

David Marsh · Answer

Well Eugene, that's the million dollar question actually, is if you start with distance per stroke, how do you increase the stroke rate without losing that distance per stroke? It's actually the best way to improve for really all swimmers, especially young swimmers that are transitioning from age group swimming into higher performance. One of the ways is just strength. Having some more strength that becomes power will allow you to move through the strokes a little bit better without losing efficiency. You also need to practice short bouts of holding the proper form many times over in order to get your nervous system used to holding the proper patterns while picking up the tempo. So great question and good luck with working on that. 24.5 is a pretty good time for 50 meters, so I think you'll have a lot of success as you play with this and get better and better.

Roland Schoeman · Answer

Hey, Eugene, the way I see things and once again, I can only speak to the way. I see things. I believe that starting with a good distance per stroke is really crucial. I think it's imperative. Now, what you can really look to do is start implementing spindles. And once again, I think it's important to understand that if all we used to is doing distance per stroke over and over and over again. Well, that's what our body really knows. So if we wanting to look at doing sprints and increasing our turnover, and it's going to be a skill that our body isn't you really used to? So think about if I can benchpress 50 kg and I do and that's all I do over and over and over again and I try to throw 80 kg or 100 kg on the bar. It's going to be very, very different. Very, very difficult. If I get used to being able to do 50, several times I can get to 80 and do that several times. I can do 100 120 then all of a sudden, my bandwidth, my ability to go from 52. Under and whatever it is, is better because that's a trained bandwidth. So if you can look to your incorporate spindles into your into your training, so your body gets used to that and then just trying to like those Tempo. Timers are also really, really good using those four sets. So whether you're doing repeat 25's shorter, Sprints sort of having that in your cap as a as a reference point to use over and over again, and then the more you use it, the more you're going to tap to that, the better you're going to get it being able to maintain that Tempo at a specific distance per stroke.

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What’s your strategy for improving stroke rate without losing much DPS in sprint free? (My LCM 50 is 24.5 with 35 strokes but very low stroke rate)

Bruno Fratus

Bruno Fratus

James Gibson MBE

David Marsh

Roland Schoeman