Earlier I mentioned a German swimmer named Thomas Lurz, who is probably the best open-water swimmer in the world right now.

Here is a video of him (purple cap) racing in the RCP Tiburon Mile:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_GfYzBLCg0

100 strokes per minute, super-thrashy stroke. Chuck would probably advise him to lengthen out his DPS, to be more "smooth" and "deliberate." LOL.

There is more than one way to swim well.

Is anybody actually advocating swimming longer strokes to artificially bring down your stroke count. Having a look at the swim link http://www.swimsmooth.com/slowsr.html if I swim 60 strokes per 50 metre lap and swim at 60 strokes per minute. I am looking at about a 2 minute hundred.

Sounds like a lot of effort for a 2 minutes hundred and not much to be gained by turning over even faster which might well make me even more stuffed than I was at 60.

Ian Thorpe ranged 27-32 strokes per length and at a rate of 72 to 76 per minute. Richard stannard did about 88 spm at the London tri and shelly taylor smith 88 spm for a 70 K open water swim.

the very best swimmers seem to have very good DPS and high turn over. The top triathlon guys and OWS seem to just smash the arms in.

60 strokes per minute to go 2 min hundred would indicate some serious stroke problems however and maybe there is a compromise

Here's a measuring stick: If it takes you more than 18 strokes to do 25 yards, you need to work on your stroke a lot. If you can then do that in under 10 seconds without needing to take more strokes, you're on your way to being an okay swimmer. So yeah, combining fast turnover and good dps is the way to go fast. You shouldn't separate them.

I don't understand why my advice isn't getting through to you guys but I'm going to shift my attention to reading other threads. Good luck, fellas!

I don't know anything about swimming. From what I can see of Popov, Thorpe Hackett etc, they all have greta DPS and a great SPM. No surprise they are the very best and are very good at all aspects of the sport.

Richard Stannard a very good tri swimmer was rate at 88 SPM at the London OD tri on the back of an 18 min swim (over the years he has been a pretty good OWS in tris).

This stroke rate for his time converts to a high 40's DPS which by your metric says he needs to work on his stroke. Now as I said I know nothing about swimming. My swim coach who does, like you tries to get my stroke count down and when focussed I can get this to 35. She also tries to get rid of dead spots and is not preaching long and smooth, so maybe I just suck at both DPS and stroke count.

The evidence of some of the very best open water swimmers, Stannard, Taylor Smith and Ky Hurst (at the high 30's) suggest that a much higher turnover is used in the open water.

I don't know why as their numbers transferred to the pool would suggest appalling stroke. Figure that with rough choppy conditions in the open water (especially oz surf life saving real waves) that you are better of just getting the arms in as fast as possible and pulling whatever water you can

So that's another thing you don't understand.

I admit to not understanding, would these good OWS reduce thier stroke rate in the pool?

Yes. You have to learn proper stoke technique, first. Then you can incorporate faster, less efficient stroke as required to deal with waves. Go watch Andy Potts swim...he has long strokes and a decent glide when he can. He also doesn't do anything too weird like Ian does. I mean, nobody swims like Ian, lol.

I was an above average pool swimmer (AA cuts in distance events) despite having essentially zero athletic ability. Somewhere around 18-19 strokes per 25 yards was my 'sweet spot' in terms of max speed in the pool. Two beat kick, which, while pretty efficient, meant that I couldn't afford to glide on the front end because I'd get deceleration.

Open water, it varies. If it's choppy or if I'm going into the current, I shorten stroke and increase turnover even more to maintain constant forward propulsion. If I'm with the current, I'm actually glide a little bit because I can get away with it if the current's going to be helping me maintain forward propulsion.

Tried some things today at the pool. During the main set I focussed on making sure the stroke rate was up, not counting just making sure there were no dead spots.

I found that by doing this my time per 100 was better and more consistent and that when I was paying attention it also resulted in an increase in DPS ending up with 34 to 35 strokes per 50.

There does appear to be a downside to spm as when I was getting tired focussing on spm ended up with me going no where, but this could be my fittness

back to the pool today to see what happens when I keep the count up but ensure that I don't forget about catching and pulling. Yesterday's workout suggested that by raising the SPM from a lousy 45 to an equally lousy 50 I swam faster (no surprise) but also had an increased DPS, without wasting anytime gliding.

Gliding logically would only help if the momentum that could be achieved gliding was better than it was by just getting on and pulling some water (leave this one to the physics and swim types).

Anyhow will see how this thing goes but forgetting all off the DPS SPM stuff upping your swimming from 6000 to 15000 metres per week really makes a difference

you need to go read brett sutton new post on http://www.teamtbb.com looking for clues: Hold the line. triathlon swimming is complete different than pool swimming.

also, riding at higher cadence isn't for everyone...find what works best for you.

good luck

Hi Brett, thanks for reading ST, we feel honored.

That advice was for those racing primarily in wetsuits, yes? Mine don't, so I guess I have no good reason to grab for the buoy...

no...it goes for non wetsuit swims as well.
i was 3rd out the water at wc 70.3 non wetsuit swim (45-49) without even trying.
you every reason to grab the buoy mate! :)
i did get to spend 3 days with brett on my swim. he knows his triathlon, thats for darn sure.

where i live, i get see struggling 3rd tier pros with bad swims, practice their swim drills and perfect strokes go backwards for the last 3-4 years. it's really sad.

In that vein, here's my nomination for most unintentionally revealing swimming article of the year:

http://www.swimwellblog.com/archives/1485

On one level they fairly reflect the training I’ve done in the past two months, relatively leisurely, more focused on efficiency than speed. They also reflect that I’m a year older. But my most valuable perspective was to view them, essentially, as a math problem that I could spend the next several months solving, and from which I expect to derive many hours of enjoyment.
You see, my time of 13:42 represents a particular combination of SPL (stroke count per 25-yard pool length) and Stroke Rate–a combination that could only result in that time. As the phrase goes: “It is what it is.”


class article ! thanks for sharing.

Chuck, any feedback? Where I struggle with just do it is if and I do/did have severe technical flaws that were holding me back. Ie arm flapping out to the side.

Option 1 keep doing it and up stroke rate to 60 which I probably want to do anyway, but will require significant training and adaptation

Option 2 do some proper squad training with drills technique, count DPS and swim 37 strokes per 50 within 2 weeks and 6 sessions improving my 100 time from 1:54 to 1:32

Now time to raise the stroke count