Granted if it takes 50 gals of displaced water to do a race, then the person who displaces it the fastest wins. It does not mean they are the most efficient. The person to win the swim portion of the tri is not necessarily the person who wins the whole tri. Someone could win the swim portion and expend all their energy where a person finishing a few seconds back might only used half of that. Who is more efficient?

you could just glide downstream if it was a point to point river race and use hardly any energy, but would that win you a triathlon?

youre confusing pacing with an optimal stroke versus stroke rate.

I'll match your n=1: http://athlinks.com/...&courseid=175245

And I take 19-22 strokes per 25scy (and I'm 6' tall). A smaller number of strokes for the same speed means greater effort per stroke, just as in cycling (higher cadence => lower torque for the same speed).

I've found one of the biggest stroke flaws among triathletes is low turnover.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

In my opinion, the main thing that has changed in swimming since 1990 are the turns and the underwaters, but that's a whole different topic.

The kick is likely what determines the stroke rate. You take a person who is used to having a 6 beat kick and they are going to have a slower stroke rate or longer stroke length than someone with a 2 beat kick. Trying to teach someone with a 2 beat kick to have a better kick or longer stroke is likely going to do nothing more than make them slower overall. Likely. It is not an absolute fact because if their stroke is total garbage and they are taking 30 strokes for 25 yards, then they can probably improve. But, I have seen some really good...as in front pack pros...who take 25 strokes per 25 when at race pace (1:12 or so for scm or 1:08 or so for scy). Should they go work on their 'efficiency'?

So, if you take someone who naturally has a higher kick rate (4 or 6 beat) and tell them not to kick in the race, they are 'probably' going to go a lot slower in open water. In short, just like an athlete is likely going to develop the most natural running cadence for them, they are naturally going to have a way of swimming that works 'best'. So, you have to tweak that for each athlete.

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Brandon Marsh - Website | @BrandonMarshTX | RokaSports | 1stEndurance | ATC Bikeshop |

The biggest researcher of biomechanics in running has arguably been Dr. Peter Cavanagh, formerly of Penn State. Here is his most pivotal book on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/...vanagh/dp/0873222687. It may not be as ell known as Dr. Ernie Maglischo's Swimming Fast, Swimming Faster, and Swimming Fastest series, but definitely a great reference tool to have in any tri coach's library.

One of the main research topics he did was taking runners and altering their stride length coupled with the cadence and comparing to speed based on PRE. They actually found that runners are at their optimum when they choose a self-selected cadence/stride length as mentioned above. If I have time, I'll try to find it on pubmed. I might still have a paper copy of the research. I only know because I interviewed with him for grad school and wasn't goal-oriented enough:)

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Sub-9 IM. Navy SeaBee deep sea diver. Can Do!

Janet Evans had a pretty high stroke rate, which means her 2 beat kick was pretty frequent. Don't under estimate how much an efficient powerful 2 beat kick will improve swim speed

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2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

The fallacy in that argument is that you're assuming it takes the same amount of effort to reach peak swim speed as it does to maintain it. Simply put, the opposite is totally true- if you're extending the glide on the front end of your stroke with no kick, you create a huge 'dead spot' in the cycle where all you're doing is decelerating and it takes a lot of effort to then stop that deceleration and maintain speed overall.

The guys with the superlow stroke rates are all uterrly awesome kickers who use their kicks to fill in that dead zone. (and remember that an excellent and highly efficient kick doesn't always look like much, so you can't rally judge good kick efficiency by eyeballing it.) Even the elite guys who claim they can't kick can easily kick 1:15/100 yards.

See also Brooke Bennett and Laure Manaudou for what's probably a better stroke model for triathlon swimming than Ian Thorpe.

You proved my point exactly. Your swim time is very good. You must of expended way too much energy swimming as reflected in your bike and run times.

Actually, not: the day was brutally hot and many died on the run (as did I). http://www.dqtridu.com/vce10Results.htm is the next race I did. Although they didn't catch my swim split, trust me that I added them up and I had the fastest swim/T1, the #6 bike and the # 8 run. In fact, that was my fastest bike average time in my 25 years of triathlon.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

I seem to remember some other STer saying that strokes per length one of the biggest red herrings in triathlon. I think I agree. If you are hung up on strokes per length you are hung up on the wrong thing. If you are taking a gazillion strokes per length its because you have some serious stroke flaws. Find out what those are and work on them. In my day (can't believe I'm writing that), most world class swimmers had no idea how many strokes they took per length. They probably don't care today either.

Wow...first of all, way to go assuming that the bike and run times are slow based on a couple of lines describing how ken swims. And second, you may want to read what -Tex and FlaJill (who both know a bit about swimming) have said...

Anyhow, looks like you want to be right, so, fine. The lower the stroke rate, the more efficient you are (at having a low stroke rate).

The people getting out of the very front of the race expended less energy then those swimming MOP or BOP. They happen to be better swimmers then the overwhelming majority of triathletes.

The people who are expending too much energy are those swimming middle to back of the pack. Their poor technique is robbing them of energy and costing them time.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

My bad, I was wrong. Excellent bike and run splits. It would be a pleasure and and honor to race against you at Nationals in Burlington next year. Hope you are able to attend!!!!

Here is a good post on stride rate in running: http://www.scienceofrunning.com/...stride-rate-and.html

Re: swim stroke rate. I believe that the magic number is strokes per minute. Not strokes per length.

Todd

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Seen on ST: NOTSOSWUYD: None of the secrets of success work unless you do.

Why do you have cadence in quotes?

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Any run that doesn't include pooping in someone's front yard is a win.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8SEJpvZSOY
Watch video number 2 as well.

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Dick

Take everything I say with a grain of salt. I know nothing.

If anyone is still interested, Joe Friel in the Triathlete's Training Bible does a nice job explaining efficiency, stroke rate, stroke length and cadence. It starts on page 207 thru 214.

I think he's a disciple of Terry Laughlin, as well as POSE.

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Dick

Take everything I say with a grain of salt. I know nothing.

in general, following friel does a great disservice to yourself.

Deja vu all over again:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=2533509

I'm still puzzled why you seem to be so against Daniels' thoughts in this area. Is your concern that there weren't studies to back up his writing?

I guess what you're saying might be valid if we assumed that 95+% of people were "experienced" runners.

To be clear, I'm not trying to call you out - a lot of your advice is great, so I'm trying to understand where you're coming from on this subject. To re-read that thread (wow, two years goes by fast), you implied that I wasn't understanding his take on this - I still don't think that's the case but would be happy to be set straight.

Do a search on the forums for Gerry Rodrigues. Very experienced and effective competitor and coach in OWS and long distance swimming, and he advocates a high turnover rate. He's got some excellent posts on the subject from a debate a year or so ago (IIRC), and answering other questions on here.

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...=post_time&mh=25

John

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Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |

Nice redirect. Maybe you can measure each others' genitalia while you are at it.

John

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Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |

You know, I don't see anything in there talking about stroke length.

Toussaint's work is pretty sweet in many regards, but I don't see what you want me to see here. Maybe I'm slow.

But on the other hand, work showing improved performance at lower stroke counts is not unknown. Unfortunately being biomechanics work, almost none of it is longitudinal.

These guys found lower strokes counts at a given speed to correlate well with performance. http://www.swimmingcoach.org/...ons/JSRVol172007.pdf (It's toward the back of the paper).

There's more around that looks at the stroke index, velocity x stroke length. Don't have any of those at my fingertips.

You're talking about the paper by d'Acquisto? It's funny because I discussed the paper with him. I was a faculty member at the school here he is until mid 2010.
Anyhow, you may want to read the top of page 37, because what you say is not what Leo says...