Open water has waves and currents and such. A higher stroke rate allows you to compensate better for this. I believe this is the main reason. Hopefully someone who knows more than I do can explain more

It's because the pool is a static environment and there's nothing to disrupt your momentum. Long "gliding" strokes work well here.

In open water lots of stuff disrupts your momentum, thus a higher stroke rate ensures you're moving forward quickly and maintaining correct body positioning all the time.

Interesting.

So if I want to go faster in the OWS, I should focus on increasing my stroke rate rather than increasing my distance per stroke?

The opposite of what my masters swim coach has been telling me all these years...?

never focus on increasing distance per stroke. that s not the way to learn to swim fast.

high stroke rate is a very good quality to have and essential part of ows

another element no mention is drafting. when swimming in someone s feet..the front of your stroke catch very turbulent water and efficiency is greatly reduce. Having a high turnover is a way to overcome that aspect.

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Jonathan Caron / Professional Coach / ironman champions / age group world champions
Jonnyo Coaching
Instargram

Your masters coach has how much experience with OWS and/or coaching swimmers for OWS?

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

If you want to go faster at swimming, you should focus on fundamentals, which neither stroke rate nor distance per stroke are. They are effects of fundamentals.

Open water swimmers seems to average higher stroke rates than their pool counterparts, and successful adult onset swimmers seem to develop higher stroke rates than their lifelong fish counterparts. But that ain't sayin' much about what you should do.

You can play around with stroke rate as you practice other things which are more important. One great way to play is to spend some time at the opposite ends of the stroke rate continuum.

https://www.youtube.com/...video_id=gmL2EaZdDPU

It's funny I had an 20 year old EDR athlete come to me from a year round swim program since like a kid. One of the first sessions on OWS tactics, I was talking about increasing strokes, etc., and she looked at me so weird...."This isn't what i was told nor grew up doing"....My reply "swimming in an pool and ow are 2 drastically different environments, what you learned was great for indoor/static/non turbulent water, but what you must realize now is that I'm preparing you for an environment that you arent used to and must practice (drafting, sighting, strooke rate, etc)."

To this day, she's the only "swimmer" that I've seen and worked with that her swim ability in an pool didn't translate into ows success. She routinely would out swim another girl on our team growing up and in swim meets....put them in the lake, and the 2nd girl would out swim her by large margin every time.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

another element no mention is drafting. when swimming in someone s feet..the front of your stroke catch very turbulent water and efficiency is greatly reduce. Having a high turnover is a way to overcome that aspect.//

You are correct, but I would put it another way as related to higher stroke rates. The catch phase while you are drafting is much less important to your overall speed, as the water you are swimming is not only turbulent, but it is moving in the direction you are now swimming. So you have less resistance and thus can spin your arms easier. Almost like drafting on the bike, only there you get to actually coast because of the mechanical advantage.In pool swimming you are always hitting still water, so the catch phase is critical to overall speed, not so much in OW drafting.


In swimming behind someone you get to spin and go faster at the same time. Lots of good things happen when someone moves the water right in front of you. And since in most OW races, most athletes will swim most the race sitting on someones feet. That is a lot of your answer as to why they have higher stroke rates. Few other things too mentioned in the thread.

Of course the stroke rate is higher. Duh. I mean.. sharks (and sea lions) and what not. It is like Tai Chi at the public park versus that boxing thing with that little tear drop shaped bag out in the big bad wide open water.

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Hillary Trout
San Luis Obispo, CA

Your trip is short. Make the most of it.
https://www.slogoing.net/

Actually, not all elite OW swimmers have a high spm, just as not all pool swimmers haver lower spm. Laure' Manadou in the Swim Smooth example is at 108 spm for the 400 m free, and the legendary Janet Evans was somewhere around 110 spm. As for elite OW swimmers, Ous Mellouli won the 2012 Oly 10K event with a slow turnover stroke rate, maybe 70-ish spm, and in the 2016 Oly 10K, Ferry Weertmann of the The Netherlands won it with around a 60 spm stroke rate. Stroke rate is all about what works best for the individual; some naturally gravitate to fast turnover and some to slower, longer strokes, both in the pool and in OW.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

So what's the strategy in OW, work on being LESS efficient per stroke? Certainly that can't be the answer. Fist-swim the entire distance. Lol.

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https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm

That's what I was wondering. My default stroke rate for long distance swims is 60-65 SPM. I can swim any SPM above that up to, and even slightly beyond, 100 SPM, without shedding much DPS, but only for limited time. I can see if I was drafting in a pack I might pick up a few SPM. But the only way I'm gonna swim 80+ SPM for a half hour is to induce a lot of additional slippage in the catch and stroke.

I used to poo-poo Fist drills, until I gained a good understanding of what the purpose was. Been working it into my warm up routine lately, and now only lose one SPL compared to my normal swim stroke.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Lol? Sheesh.

A higher turnover, among other things, allows you to spend more time in the most powerful part of the stroke (the middle). Starting the recovery earlier gives up the less-efficient finish for more proportional time (and effort) in the middle of the stroke. I don't think you understand what "efficient" means.

Feel free to pedal in circles, while you are at it.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Why don't you tell me how you define efficiency in this context, then I'll tell you how I define it. And why don't you expand upon "among other things", as it sounds like you've got a plethora of them. If you have the time, of course.
Having a higher stroke rate alone will NOT allow you to spend more time in any part of the stroke unless you increase the proportion of time that you're in that part of the stroke. Yes? Yes.

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https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm

A higher stroke rate generally sees less glide and set up on the front and a shorter finish on the back, allowing a greater proportion of time to be spent in the fat part of the pull.

I see. Thanks for a logical answer!

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https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm