You could buy a Vasa Erg which measures the watts of each arm pull and gives an estimated equivalent swim pace per 100. I've never used one but other ST users seem to feel the watts vs pace is pretty accurate. This erg is the only swim-specific power meter I'm aware of. IIRC, these ergs are about $1750 new but you might find a used one on the web for half that, and my understanding is that these Vasa trainers last for many, many years.

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

Pace clock is all you need.

You over think things. All you have to do... pick one technical thing that is slowing you down. Work on that. It doesn't have to be THE thing, just A thing.

While you are working on that, learn to hurt in practice.

When you have improved a bit on that thing , move to another thing.

Simple. Not easy, but simple.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

The STR Aquanex System is the droid you are looking for. Combination of palm force sensors, underwater recording equipment, and software that syncs the two so you can analyze the effectiveness of your stroke. Not cheap, though.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

My old coach would put a bucket at the end of each lane for sprint 50's. We were allowed to leave only after we 1) completed the set (usually 20x50 on the 35), or 2) used the bucket.

You gotta swim fast, if you want to swim fast

You know the only time I've had dry heaves is in hockey years ago, perhaps early season. Nothing recent. On the bike - race, hill climbing, low cadence/wrong gearing..yeah came close to putting a foot down a few times this year.

Swimming can't seem to peak the effort like that. I would like to be able to get a hold of the water enough to do that. Question is where to direct the effort, what to apply training time to. This is where data comes in and sure a clock is good but it's like the final element, after all things come together.

I just looked at my swim times as I have some history from 2013. And I'll use my points system where 1000 points is top event score (not AG but top score). So like ~ 5:15 min/400M:

2012 Did not swim, unable to complete 50M w/o holding onto lane rope :)
2013 625
2014 n/a
2015 725
2016 790
2017 850
(vs top swimmer = 1000 points)

That's about right too. I would need another 15% improvement in pace to home-in on top event score & keep pace with what I would group as fast swimmers.

I have a suspicion that 15% isn't going to be easy or even possible, hence this post. I am pretty sure I'll shelve the running shoes for a bit and start a swim block. I have not been swimming much.

My run is the worst tho, needing a boost of 25% at this point so that is where I have been spending my time. I'm kinda like a kid in a candy store I want to do it all (SBR) but geez kinda have to pick one thing!

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
FM Sports: http://fluidmotionsports.com

Seeing what the folks at Stryd have done and having used their product for a while now, I think the next thing is a similar product for swimming that, like Stryd, will be able to provide a power number that correlates well with the individual's metabolic cost while swimming. So, like with running, the power number will provide a lot of information on biomechanical efficiency, something the pace clock won't tell you.

power will be associated with lift, and efficiency will correlate with lift maintained in association with consistency of forward movement, whereas inefficiency will show spikes in lift, followed by sharp decreases in height in the water and surging in forward movement...

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wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

The key could be the application of accelerometer chips. For those that don't know - highly accurate and precise measurement of changes in velocity, angle, direction. These little chips are responsible for all of the automotive dynamic, safety controls, speed control (boats) etc.

I googled it today and off-the-shelf you can buy a set for your running shoes for $150! I might get a pair of them, both for the run and see what they do for my hands.

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
FM Sports: http://fluidmotionsports.com

It exists.

http://www.trainesense.com

Am not affiliated, I met with them a few times when working with an athlete in Helsinki (as they are a finnish company).

I was very impressed with the product and the data one got back and the insights they provided as a consequence.

Regards

David

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David T-D
http://www.tilburydavis.com

Pace clock is pretty much the only thing you need in a pool. Given that conditions don't change from pool to pool too much - although a deep pool and good lane ropes can help you go faster.

From what I recall Popov was putting out the least power of any of the top sprinters in his day, but he was still the fastest.

That's right! We've talked about them before on here, but there still doesn't seem to be a product available that I can see. Or is there? Thanks

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wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

I can't say if the have gone live with a viable product as yet, I worked with a prototype about 18 months ago. I'll reach out and ask for you.

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David T-D
http://www.tilburydavis.com

Wouldn't disagree that pace clock tells a lot on an outcome basis, assuming one knows how to read a pace clock versus a garmin on the wrist ;-)

Pace clock doesn't tell you asymmetries in stroke or 3D mapped power production *if* such detail is relevant and necessary to your cause.

David

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David T-D
http://www.tilburydavis.com

I think the problem is that you can't put sensors everywhere. Your upper arms, forearms, hands all apply force to the water. Even you core as it rotates provides force to the water while is amplified as some of it gets out to the finger tips like the force at the end of the propeller shaft, but unlike the propeller and shaft the shaft (core of the human body) also applies force to the water, not just the blades (arms, hands). Finally you have the hips, quads, hamstrings, calves, tibia, dorsi and plantar side of the foot and each side of each toe all applying force to the water. You do you measure each point from the human that is applying force? Well you can't....but you get the intergral of all the incremental forces, minus the integral of all the individual drag forces, to get the net forward forces implied in the pace clock....so what Jasoninhalifax said. I don't think measuring forces at any point provide any meaning because they don't exist in isolation of drag forces. It's like on the bike just worrying about your power, without worrying about your coefficient of drag. But on the bike the forward force is only coming from one contact point between the rubber and pavement. That's super easy to measure with a powermeter (be it pedal based, crank based or hub based).

(The poor-man's dynamometer :-)

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Alan Couzens, M.Sc. (Sports Science)
Exercise Physiologist/Coach
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alan_Couzens
Web: https://alancouzens.com

I'd say you could do it with good data capture and an advanced CFD model. But that's probably out of reach of the casual swimmer (I'd be surprised if even USA swimming had such capabilities).

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'It never gets easier, you just get crazier.'

Stryd has done it with one motion sensor, and see my suggestion above, it factors in the outcomes of all of the contact points you mention

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wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

yeah, I don't think I am a Luddite, but all you need is the pace clock. And don't kind of use it, obsessively use it.

Your typical triathlete has know idea how much more data "swimmers" are processing. I might be a little extreme, but from memory last night I think I can tell you what I went on every 100, how many strokes I took, and how many breaths I took with 98% accuracy for my entire 2000M mainset.

I made a tether with a fish-scale with memory marker, to measure swimmer pull force or thrust. Brought it to the pull and fortunate to have the beast - Owen Brown run a test on the rig. In a fury of churning water, he broke the scale/pinned the gauge! At the time I could muster maybe 40lbs?? Last summer I was able to hit the max on the scale too.

The test is for at most 10 seconds and other than peak force measurement, doesn't really tell you much on how to achieve speed.

I think a starting point are some metrics on the hands. Cadence, range/distance, acceleration, velocity - I theorize would tell me quite a bit for comparing swimmer to swimmer.

As in cycling - are you feeling constant, seamless pressure on the hands?? On the bike there are no gaps, one foot takes over without interruption. Swimming you can delay takeover between the hands, and a lot of swimmers do to a) be lazy/breath recovery and b) extend to setup a catch.

Very few public session swimmers hammer down the lane without some sort of extension delay (me included)

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
FM Sports: http://fluidmotionsports.com

I've got a simple one. I should patent it but it's so simply stupid that I'm sure it'll get ripped off in seconds.

Get or acquire a high-quality resistant tubing, same as the ones you see sold for cheap online, but make it so it's reliable enough so that the resistance really is very stable across manufacturing with little variance.

Measure how much force of resistance it generates as you stretch it to various lengths. Like, perhaps stretching out to 10 feet will yield 40 pounds equivalent of resistance.

Then a swimmer would just have to anchor it poolside to anything, the swim hard while wearing a belt connected to it (same as a stationary swim cord). Measure the length of stretch and you'll have good estimate of the force you're generating in terms of pounds resistance. You could probably use that in a power calculation (force * distance / time) to roughly computer power. Some physics person could better address this.

Neat stuff! Would agree that for swimmers of decent ability, you need to go "big game" on the scale size :-)

Re only giving peak force - you can monitor force output over a longer time e.g. swim 60s max effort & see where the scale sits but in terms of smaller deviations, that's where a true 'lab grade' dyno (as opposed to a "poor man's dyno") comes into its own. Many now have the ability to record force data real time so that you can go back and look at force/power profiles e.g.

https://www.checkline.com/...rce_gauges/ZT-Series

But taking this step up definitely takes us out of the 'poor man's' bracket and, at $1,000+, is more restricted to research application (at least currently).

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Alan Couzens, M.Sc. (Sports Science)
Exercise Physiologist/Coach
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alan_Couzens
Web: https://alancouzens.com

something like this for the hands? http://platysens.com/seal/

I bought their marlin gps tracker for open water and ran across the above on their site. It's not something you can buy yet.

When I was on the National Team, USA Swimming had a doohickey at the OTC in Colorado Springs that did all of this, and they would use it in conjunction with underwater cameras and sync the two.

You'd hook up the belt and swim 50m away from the sensor rig pulling a wire out of it's spool. They'd run the underwater camera along. They'd sync the displays up so you could see if there were any gaps in your stroke, or where the flat spots in you power generation were, or what kicking cadence was best, etc.

This was before the BMW sponsorship too, which I know has done a lot of dynamic testing with sensors on swimmers when they go to the OTC.

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I wrote this, you should read it:
https://www.slowtwitch.com/...n_Swimming_6700.html

Actually, you can measure those metrics right now. If you take say 18 strokes/length (spl) on a 25-m pool and you get say 7 meters off the wall, then you're getting 1 meter/arm pull or 2 m per stroke cycle. If you take 40 strokes per minute (spm, excluding turns), then you're going 40 meters/min. If you can turn over at 100 spm, which is about what the Italian guy who won the 1500 at the '16 Oly does, then you can go 1:00/100 m. You can compare him to Sun Yang who takes around 60 spm but gets around 1.67 m/stroke, still translating to the 1:00/100 m pace. Thus we already have the necessary metrics to compare one swimmer to another. In summary, you've got two types of cadence (spl and spm), velocity (m/min), and distance per stroke (m/pull).

JOOC, what was the max on that fish scale you used??? I'm guessing it measures in lb force??? I've read that several studies have shown an 0.9X correlation between max pulling force on the fish scale and speed in a 50 free.

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

Was that with Dr. G?

We had a similar system when I was at the Australian Institute of Sport - dyno (hooked to tether) + cameras for biomech analysis (though we didn't have a window in the right spot so as low man on the totem pole, it was up to me to hold my breath and don the diving belt :-)

I know Dr. G. went into some private biomech work after leaving USOTC but not sure how that developed. Here is an old youtube that came to mind about that project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERV2C4RX3to

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Alan Couzens, M.Sc. (Sports Science)
Exercise Physiologist/Coach
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alan_Couzens
Web: https://alancouzens.com