Huh. Visual fail.

Yang comes in right about a 70 stroke average per 100m. If he is the extreme on the low side, where are the others coming in?

(This was calculated by watching a couple of video's such as his 200m China nationals and his world record 1500m and counting strokes. He runs an average of 120 per 200m, with approx 7m of glide/push into and out of walls. So using 120 strokes for 172m gives a .697m/stroke, rounded to 70).

Given the numbers tossed around so far in this thread, I'd put a stroke rate of 70/100m on the low end of a high cadence. So, if the slowest rate among elite swimmers is 70 (Actually, it would be a touch higher, since his average 100m split is below 1:00), how can you justify saying that most pros/good 1500m swimmers have a low cadence?

John

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Taking it to an extreme in the pool, there's the old Berkhoff blastoff. Somewhere around 7-10 strokes per 50M gets you a world record in the 100 back.

It also gets you into full on oxygen debt right quick.

dead on correct IMO

John Ngugi, 5 time world cross country champion. He'd be around 80-85 even when winning world XC titles.

(I assume you're talking about only when racing, not when warming up or cooling down)

Definitely one of the lowest cadences in elites runners, but still right up at 90
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAt_-EsAr0o

Very few spots where you can count, but you can between 7.06 and 7.16 and you get 15-16
strides in 10secs.

Depends on when you count him. I have him up to 90 there but below it on some of the long shots. And at the Boston World XCs even less. I actually own the video to that one but fortunately someone else had done some counting for me. Has him at... well 85.5

http://johnlvs2run.wordpress.com/.../strides-per-minute/

Interesting and I don't disagree with you, but...I'd love to see evidence to support this. I could believe their performance decreases and then returns to original, but to say that changing technique will eventually have "adaptation and better performance" can't possibly be true for all changes in technique, and possibly is only true for very few changes.

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Dude, were you seriously that fast in highshool? I can only assume that you're quoting short course as that is pretty much an Olympic level time in a long course pool.

Either way, your point about height seems valid. Swimmers are getting taller & taller. Phelps is now one of the smallest on the US relay teams and I think he's around 6'4".

there are many posts about swimming and so i want to focus on that. obviously stroke rate is measure of efficiency in the sense
that a person who does not have a good swimming technique will do the same distance in less strokes once he improves his technique
if he applies the same effort.
that said, that is not the subject of my question... (i'm the one who posted the original question)

take a swimmer whose swimming technique is just perfect.
now this swimmer has to decide on what is the best stroke rate for him.
suppose the swimmer wants to finish a distance in X minutes no matter what stroke rate he chooses.
(keep the legs out of this question or assume that this person has no legs or does not use his legs or uses them equally effectively)

so as i see it, the swimmer can choose a high stroke rate and use less effort stroking,
or choose a low stroke rate but for that he must put more effort forcing each stroke.
so theoretically this swimmer can swim the distance in the same amount of time, but wouldn't he be less tired doing a high stroke count?

Suppose swimming was a magical race by which your body was magically suspended over the bottom of the pool, and each time you extended
your arm you wrapped it around an actual barrel and you had to push and roll the barrel underneath you, then reach with the other arm to grab the next barrel. the winner is the one who pushes a total of 50000 lbs the fastest. so you can choose to do this with 100 lbs barrels or 50 lbs barrels or 25 lbs.
i think you can push a 25 lbs barrel faster than you can push a 100 lbs barrel. maybe 4 times faster....
do all these people that advocate "lower number of strokes is better" would absolutely say choose the highest weight barrel you can push?

what if had an endurance race by which people simply lift weight. the first one to lift a total of 50000 lbs wins and each person can choose
how much they want to lift per repetition. would the best strategy be "do as few repetitions as you can"?

The use of a high turnover stroke is, in my opinion, much like using a small gear on the bike. Sometimes choosing a lower turnover is appropriate for an individual, just as for some it might be appropriate to go 75 RPM on the bike. But I don't know if anyone is going 60 RPM on the bike for a long distance. Similarly, I don't think there are any elite, or even semi-elite swimmers who take longer than 1 second per stroke (2 seconds per cycle) in any swimming race of any distance (I may have already linked this in this thread for all I know: http://www.findingfreestyle.com/?q=node/47 ).

My $0.02,
r.b.

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He said yards, which implies scy... since that's what everyone swims in hs.. don't think there are too many long course yards pools anywhere.

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Our masters coach,Mike Burton, who has gold in the 1500 in 68 and 72 was at a large swimming conference and was asked this question. "What is the biggest difference between the swimmers today and then?" He said he simply stood up. Took awhile for everyone to get it. He is about 5' 9

Simplistic and not always true. You are assuming facts not in evidence.

John

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Thanks for the note clearing that up. Lets put it down to cultural differences - I'm an Aussie and we haven't measured in yards for 40 years + almost all our swimming is L/Course. The lack of S/C is one of the reasons you guys (Americans I'm assuming) used to be so dominant at the technical aspects (starts/turns) of swimming in the 80s/90s. There are S/C champs here now but pretty much everyone speaks in terms of L/C in my experience. Hence, my amazement at the times.

pete

1) should we then try to get to a cadence of 1 sec per stroke or less (increase cadence)?
2) how can we increase our cadence?

Or read the most recent issue of LAVA, where Gerry Rodrigues has an article.

Edit: Nevermind, late to the party. This is what I get for posting after a race.

This is a hard question, although I am always tempted to say "yes most definitely". That said, I work with an athlete who had another coach who took that approach, and well, in my opinion it was a really wrong one. But still, for about 90% of adult onset swimmers out there, I would guess that it is a good piece to focus on, probably better than working on DPS.

How do you do it? WEll, sprint 25s are one easy way to do it, and passively, so that your not "changing your stroke" dramatically, but giving it stimulus to evolve. Learning to reduce glide is another one, swimming head up is a third.

Regards,
r.b.

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no. the most important factor is the water displaced in a given time in the most efficient manner.
if you don't swim w/high elbow you would probably displace 2x more water (because you're displacing water with your upper arm as well)
and it probably doesn't take you double the time, so "low elbow" results in more water displaced in given time but it's not a good technique...
so the "in the most effcient manner" applies to 2 things 1) reducing drag 2) usage of optimal muscles and/or optimal divisionof work among muscles

I cannot understand all this debate by people who don't know what they are talking about. Swim mechanics are different from run mechanics. You don't need a fast turnover and for distance swimming you should absolutely focus on distance per stroke versus wasting energy by thrashing about in the water. Good swimmers look like they are going slow even when they are going fast. You should achieve this without going crazy with your kick, irrespective of height or reach, and I wouldn't suggest trying to mimic the bizarre stroke of a rare Olympian until you can hold your 100x free times under 50 seconds for long distance. At that point you get street cred to debate this.

You are the one who doesn't know what they are talking about. That is when we are talking about people trying to swim under an hour in an IM when they did not grow up being forced to swim by their parents. None of them will be holding sub 50 and likewise they will not benefit from trying to work on 'swim golf'. Sometimes pre-existing knowledge is a hindrance. Adult swimmers need to work on being able to maintain their high stroke rate for long periods. It's much easier to achieve than a highly effective kick.

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You are right there and all these folks need to stop comparing pool swimmers to what we do which is open water.Two different animals..

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I think the controversy on this debate on ST stems more from the level of swimmer being considered than anything else.

Here on ST, where there a lot of really excellent swimmers chiming in, you can't deny the role of stroke rate. It HAS to be relatively high to swim that fast, even with near-perfect technique.

For most MOPers, and definitely BOPers (who tend to not chime in as much on ST), stroke efficiency is probably a higher yielding fruit than stroke rate since these swimmers are certain to have significant wasted energy in their stroke. Not to say they shouldn't gradually ramp up their stroke rate through training, but to focus on it at the cost of efficiency would be universally agreed as a bad move.

I think when folks talk about increasing stroke rate for higher speeds, it's understood that they're holding essentially correct form. It might not be pool-perfect, but it's nowhere near breaking down and getting god-awful from the fatigue. That changes the equation a lot with that assumption, which is nearly universally true for strong fast experienced swimmers, and nearly universally false for slow, BOP or BOMOP swimmers.

Hrm, if the stroke is ineffective, they are thrashing no matter the cadence. And while distance per stroke is a Total Immersionism, Gerry Rodriguez would majorly disagree with you on the fast turnover for OWS.

John

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

Read this blog post by Helle Frederiksen (former national team swimmer, now Olympic triathlete)

http://hellefrederiksen.blogspot.com/2011/06/training-in-triathlon-part-1.html

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Even though *he* pretty much suggests people taking his findings from race speed and applying those to themselves when they are out jogging along at 8:30 per mile? ;)

I realize people tend to take his "findings" and then boil them down to a simple sound bite and things get lost in translation.

But if you go back and reread the DRF section, he doesn't suggest running a particular number across all velocities - he acknowledges that cadence varies (although in his words "doesn't vary much" and "little change") at different speeds.

I think it's clear he doesn't agree with the "95% of people" part though - he's pretty clear that for less-experienced runners (again, not sure how he defines that) they *don't* self select well.

To me, it always seemed like good generic advice that got people headed in the right direction. Like "pay yourself 10% first". That's not the be all and end all of financial planning, but it generally works better than saying "people self select sound financial planning".

Thanks for the thoughts, and thanks Paulo for the links - interesting reading.