Ken Lehner has more strokes per length than 95% of the good swimmers here (maybe 99%) and very few would beat him at 1500m, including you. I can't do that, but I wouldn't mind if I could--stroke that many or swim that fast.

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Dick

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

Lower stroke count is better and is absolutely the result of better technique. If your stroke lacks power, then you have to turnover more to keep your speed up. But you will eat up a lot of energy. This is probably a bad idea for distance events when you have to bike and run afterwards. Also, I completely agree about the wetsuit and kicking.

You sound like an expert, please expand on what you're saying. Start out by explaining what is "eat up a lot of energy." Is this a battery-powered athlete?

One thing folks are forgetting is we are concerned only with open water swimming in triathlon. OWS, while sharing similar aspects of the sport, is quite different than pool swimming. You have the effects of the environment and equipment you are in. Often in OWS, you will decelerate with low stroke count due to motion of the water/waves, shorten the stroke because of swimming on someone's toes or being surrounded by others, etc. This was discussed at the 2010 Art & Science of Triathlon seminar & the presenters/experts agreed that for open water swimming a higher turnover rate for OWS was better. We do not race in a pool in 99% of triathlons. That said, I noticed in my own racing that I tend to have faster swims relative to my competition when I use a higher turnover on the swim than not--although will be first to claim I pretty much stink at swimming although I'm still working at it.

If your stroke "lacks power" & eats up a lot of energy why is that? Answer...? Because your mechanics stink. Sounds like you're saying bag working on getting a solid underwater pull & scratch the long stroke/low stroke count in exchange for faster turnover if your stroke lacks power. Totally the backas*wards way of going about it. Working your stroke/pull focused on a few basic fundamentals will take you a lot further than the trade-off you suggest. One of the most common mistakes of age group swimmers is they swim too flat. Take care of that (and lose the "dropping of the elbow") & you will see much more improvement. OWS is a lot like mountain biking, you will need to adapt to the "terrain" and conditions throughout the swim so you can't just work on getting your count down to 11 or whatever in the pool. It just doesn't apply well in the open water. This isn't even taking into account a wetsuit either--that's an entirely different thread.

No, I'm saying that's what you DO need to work on, the underwater pull. That's where the business end of all your strokes is! It's not flailing your arms around and splashing about. I don't like the faster turnover stuff. Distance Per Stroke is one of the most important aspects of every stroke, not just freestyle.

Open water swimming can promote terrible technique. But it's just not worth talking about how to swim with and without waves. If you know how to swim properly, you just adjust to the conditions of the open water. Guys who are fast in a pool are also fast in open water because they know how to swim correctly. Adjusting to the waves is a mental game, too, for swimmers who are used to glass like conditions of a pool.

The entire flailing arms comment made me think of something a co-worker said.
Management: "So & so must be a good worker because they are ALWAYS really busy, non-stop!"
Another worker to management: "Yeah, so is a drowning person!"

Just about lost it after that one I laughed so hard (true story!)

The other important aspect is Stroke Rate. It's as important as DPS.



No, OWS promotes OWS technique.

Have you ever tried to train an adult triathlete with no lap swimming background to become a good OWS (not occupy wall street)? The advice you are giving is great for child lap swimmers, but is totally the wrong advice for adults. ' The long glide, reach for the top shelf, pause then pull' just slows you down if you did not grow us swimming laps. Especially in the open water when you can never get a good catch anyway. I spent 3 years working on that stuff and only got faster when I left my swim squad, and got away from the (well-meaning) pool swim coach drilling that stuff into me three times a week - he was a lovely guy and had coached kids to the Olympics, but had no idea about adult triathletes. I now work on karate-chopping the water and 'spearing the fish' and keeping my turnover high and did 53 in Roth earlier this year.

The advice I'm giving is proper swim advice regardless of age. If adults have more problems following it, then they are going to have a problem. And the main problem I have with most people's stroke technique and teaching them to swim is that they are impeded by lack of power. It's difficult to hold form is you don't have muscle for it. So you have to do drills until you can hold it together...and even then you should always do drills to keep yourself honest about technique.

I remember starting out swimming when I was five and having to do drills. I thought they were a time for being lazy and floating around. But fact is they are the base for technique. If you do enough drills, then all you have to do thereafter is put in the yardage and you will be fast enough.

Interesting you see the problem adults have, but kind of disregard it in your teaching.
Then you say power is the issue and address it with drills.
There is a difference in child and adult coaching. Lets just say that a child can be easier shaped into doing something than an adult .

Last week, I did a pool 1000scy TT in 11:59. I took between 19-21 strokes per length, and used a weak two beat kick. That's about 800 strokes over twelve minutes, or more than one stroke per second. If you think the ability to do that is related to power and not to endurance, you are incorrect. It was all about grabbing water efficiently during whatever pull I had, and recovering rapidly into the next stroke. I have particular physiological reasons for the stroke I employ, particularly shoulder stiffness that restricts a good glide.

The biggest issue I've seen with triathletes in the water is their turnover sucks. I don't care how "efficiently" they pull, if their arms aren't moving they ain't going anywhere fast. Yes, they can do 4000yds without breaking a sweat, but racing is about speed, not who expends the least energy. I'm fine after sprint and Olympic distance swims: up and running through T1, and I'm at speed as soon as I get my feet in the shoes on the bike. And short triathlons, like long distance triathlons, are almost entirely aerobic.

And as Gerry Rodrigues has said many times, the best OWSers have a higher turnover than me, for a number of good reasons.

(edit)

I'm 53, and started swim training when I was 26.

As usual, YMMV.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Asking adults to do drills is the way to solve the problem with swimming. The Problem with adults is they are too hard headed to listen to advice. They want to find an easy way, or "their" way. It's just not the way to do things. You can lead a horse to water...

Ken you'd go faster if you did things correctly. You are clearly elite among non swimmers, but you probably could be better. Not sure what else to say about your posts. If it works for you and you refuse to change, good on you. And please disregard my advice if you're shorter than 5'5", lol.

I guess you missed this part: " I have particular physiological reasons for the stroke I employ, particularly shoulder stiffness that restricts a good glide". Not sure that "refuse to change" is the appropriate response.

I recently watched the video of my 1989 Y Nats Masters championship 50 free. 16 strokes off the blocks, and 20 strokes back in 23.17 seconds. At least 20 spl for the 200 and 1:53.xx.

Non-fish who focus on distance per stroke are taking the wrong path, IMNSHO.

And I'm 6'.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Totally agree. Please read & heed everything that Gerry Rodrigues has to say on this subject.

Someone please tell Janet Evans her high cadence stroke was all wrong when she was setting records.

This is not complicated. Swim Speed = Stroke Rate * Stroke Length. If you have high SR but low SL (which usually means shitty technique), you will be slow. If you have high SL but low SR (like what Total Immersion teaches), you will also be slow, though you will use less energy doing so.

Fast swimmers have (relatively) high SR *and* (relatively) high SL. Occasionally, either SR or SL will predominate over the other in an individual swimmer. Janet Evans has good SL but incredible SR. Sun Yang has good SR but incredible SL. Usually, this is the result of the swimmer adapting to his/her body type. Janet is 5'4'' so a high-tempo technique suits her perfectly. Sun Yang is 6'6'' so a long stroke suits him perfectly. (It's a little more complicated than just height, but height is important.)

For anyone even marginally familiar with open-water swimming at the elite level, it will be obvious that higher-SR swimmers tend to do better than their lower-SR competitors, compared to pool swimming. Thomas Lurz can't break 15:00 in the 1500m Free, but he's the best OWS in the world at the 5K/10K distances. Not coincidentally, his typical SR is between 95-100 SPM for 10K. Grant Hackett (75 SPM) was the best pool miler of his generation, but couldn't even make the Aussie Olympic team in the 10K OW. David Davies of the UK is another prime example of a high-SR swimmer who is elite in the pool, but absolutely transcendent in open water. Erik Vendt (low SR) was an amazing pool miler but could never seem to break through in OW. The list goes on...

By easier shaped into something i primarily meant that its much easeir to teach stroke patterns to kids due to less muscles, softer joints and generally being more flexible before puberty, than adults vs the 30 something triathlete with a rugby or american football background....

Of course your point is valid and if i can say so , with your one system fits all aproach, you almost seem to fall in the stubborn category you descriped ;-) Right now you are repaeting your point without much substance. I would like you to show some papers that support your point (for open water triathlon that is ).

People who stand to benefit from this thread are not at the elite level.

Sorry ken, missed that stuff. Trying to respond while traveling.

The advantages of higher stroke rates in OWS don't suddenly cease to apply at the sub-elite level. Is DPS the lower-hanging fruit for the average age-grouper? Absolutely. Do those same age-groupers stand to benefit by developing a slightly faster catch to use in OW settings? Yes, they do. Faster turnover is not equivalent to "flailing your arms around and splashing about."

You nailed it in both of your posts. Great stuff.

Hello efesefes7 and All,

For running many sport watches give cadence output info.

For swimming stroke rate from http://www.swimsmooth.com/slowsr.html



There are many articles on Swimsmooth about stroke rate.

Also they sell metronome so you can acutally have metrics for a particular stroke rate.

And Finis also sells a couple of different models of metromones that you can use for swimming and running if you are not self-selecting or want to experiment.





Develop consistency and avoid lulls with a personal pace coach, the Tempo Trainer Pro. The small, waterproof device easily secures under a swimmer’s cap and transmits an audible tempo beep. Athletes use the beep to train smarter and discover their perfect pace. Now with the option to replace the battery, the Tempo Trainer Pro will last multiple lifetimes. The advanced unit also has a new Sync button and a new mode in strokes/strides per minute for increased functionality. The Tempo Trainer Pro includes a clip for dry land exercise.

Cheers,

Neal

Francois,
I have a very self-specific question I know you'll have an answer to. I've heard from a coach-friend that in the off-season he likes to swim slower and focus on technique, and dps. Then closer to the season, about 8 weeks away, he raises his cadence back up to where it used to be, and this is how he went from a 20 minute 1500 to an 18 minute 1500. Besides the obvious fact that he swam during the off-season and built fitness, is there some validity to what he is saying? Or is it better to keep the high cadence? I currently swim about 18 strokes per length in a 25 yard pool, and do not stay under water much past the flags.

I doubt very much that the focus on swimming slower and dps is responsible for a 2min improvement. As discussed before dps per se is
not a cure-all. What matters is getting faster. Focusing on technique is always useful. To some extent. After that, you still need to do sets etc.
There isn't really a secret. It's all about hard work.

Hey john, you cant thrash about if you are swimming properly with a deliberate, efficient, powerful stroke. Just sayin'.

Lotte Friis has a decidedly thrashy/ugly recovery going on here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdlAoQW_0L4

But utterly perfect motion under the water. I'm guessing about 44-45 stroke per 50, which ain't Brooke Bennett, but is still a lot higher than most of the elite men.

And she's arguably the best 800/1500 woman in the world over the past three years. One of those cases where she's got the rhythm to her stroke and can utterly crush the competition.