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Can swimmers reply to swim strokes by a short guy
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All the articles I have read and seen posted on this site indicate that one should swim around 18 strokes per length in a 25 yard pool...and that you should even strive to get down to 15. Now I know I am not the best swimmer, but I am not the worst either and generally only loose at the most a couple minutes to the top swimmers; however, I have tried and tried to achieve these magical numbers and it just isn't happening without the aid of a wet suit or a motor hooked to my fins. Is this stroke count figure just a low baseline and does it matter if you are only 5' 7 1/2" with short arms as opposed to 6'7" with an arm span like a Condor. I am sure reach and also the size of your feet (if you have flipper like feet that are size 13) must make a difference. I swim in a 50 meter pool and can only eek out 20 strokes per length and that is when I am really concentrating on the glide generally it is 21. Most individuals at the pool who have analyzed my stroke mechanics say it looks good. I take it there has to be a limit on what I can physiologically achieve. Even if I were having my best day, it still would not match up to the same effort of a taller individual. Is that correct? What can I do to try to even the score, other than crush them on the bike? Are there any drills that will help me to achieve this reduced stroke count or should I just continue on with my training and not worry about it?
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Re: Can swimmers reply to swim strokes by a short guy [Greg Hartman] [ In reply to ]
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I'm 5' 9" when my hair is puffy. I started "swimming" in early March and I was doing 22 per 25 yd. Just before WildFlower, I was doing 20 when really concentrating on my glide/stroke. After the race, I joined Caltech Masters, and last week, just for kicks, I counted my strokes. 16-17 per 25 yd. Drills, drills, drills ... Two months of training by myself did basically nothing, but 6 weeks of Masters made a big difference.

Dre'
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Re: Can swimmers reply to swim strokes by a short guy [Greg Hartman] [ In reply to ]
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Just be patient. I am 5'9" with short arms and I am about 14 strokes per length. Keep focusing on your form and swimming and you will see the stroke count come down slowly.

____________________________________________

"which is like watching one of your buddies announce that he's quitting booze and cigarettes, switching to a Vegan diet and training for triathalons ... but he's going to keep snorting heroin." Bill Simmons, ESPN
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Re: Can swimmers reply to swim strokes by a short guy [Greg Hartman] [ In reply to ]
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Distance/stroke is a rough estimate of stroke efficiency, but it's not some sort of absolute determiner of speed. If you look at the elite distance swimmers, the men are typically somewhere between 34 and 42 cycles/50M midrace in a long course situation.

I'm 5'9", but with an above average wingspan for that height. 18 strokes/25 yards is pretty typical for me. (or 42 strokes/50M in long course situations) But it's not like I could ever keep up with Chris Thompson or Fran Crippen even though there's not a huge difference in cycles/length.

Time to start thinking higher cadence on the swim. In your practices, think about increasing the velocity of your pull without dropping water in the process or cutting short the pull.
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Re: Can swimmers reply to swim strokes by a short guy [Greg Hartman] [ In reply to ]
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(Not an answer to your question and possibly way off)

Are we comparing apples to apples?

You indicate 21 strokes per length - but say you are in a 50 meter pool. Most of the replies are quoting strokes per length in a 25 yard pool. Are you converting your strokes per 50 meters to strokes per 25 yards?

I'm not a swimming expert, but 50 meters and 25 yards aren't the same thing in my book.

Josh
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Re: Can swimmers reply to swim strokes by a short guy [Josh_MN] [ In reply to ]
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I'm short, and not so fast, but I can do a solid 18 per 25metres. (I know m and yards aren't the same, but they're "close enough" in my metric head, ok 1 yd is 0.91 m). So call it 19 for 25yd then. I am 5'5", usually place a third of the way down the full entrant list for shorter swims, and about dead middle for longer open water ones. We do heaps of stroke count and other drills. Makes a big difference swimming with a coach I tell ya! ;-)
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Re: Can swimmers reply to swim strokes by a short guy [Greg Hartman] [ In reply to ]
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Greg,

Honestly, all you need to worry about what works best for you. I train with a guy who is 6'1" and when we do hard efforts (in a 25 yd pool) he holds about 15st/length, and I hold 16. This is all well and good, and I am 5'6". If we do stroke count sets, he kills me, he can do 9/length, and to maintain the same pace he does, I need 13, and I need a killer turn too. When it comes to all out, we are equals only in terms of time. I have learned from coaching kids of all sizes that stroke count is as individual as a fingerprint to a swimmer. In training you may want to strive for a more efficient stroke, so if I can do 100's, hold 14 strokes a lap and holding 1:08's, but if I do 16 I hold 1:02, I believe I will gravitate towards the faster time. That doesn't mean I don't do the set at 14 and attempt to hold the count at a faster time. It always helps to strive for better efficiency. There is a point of diminishing returns, though, and this I think can be a sticking point with some athletes. At 5'6" I will never do a 500 in a race and hold 13 strokes a lap and expect to excel. I do have a swimmer I coach who does hold 13 st/25. He is wicked fast, swims D1, and is 6'2" tall. It is unrealistic to impose the standards of an athlete with different dimensions in a sport where wingspan is a factor. A interesting story is the Aussie who won the 100m free in 1968, when Mark Spitz was supposed to win 7 golds like he eventually did in '72. Spitz had the most "efficient" freestyle, and was the WR holder, but this guy who actually kicked MS's ass took something like 15% more strokes. Instead of trying to emulate Spitz, like most of the swimmers in the world were doing, this guy swam like he always did, and thanked God his coach knew well enough to leave it alone. All this above b.s. just to answer your question: Do some stuff to keep getting efficient, but not a whole lot, and if people who have knowlege say your stroke looks good, really don't worry about it. (my wife always tells me that obsessing about stroke count won't make me a faster runner. She's right.)

"Maybe you should just run faster..." TM
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No wonder they crahsed that mars lander [ In reply to ]
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20 strokes per 50 meters is quite good.

That would probably translate into 7 or 8 in a 25 yard pool. It's easy enough to measure, place a cone or something on the side of the pool at 25 yards and check it next time.

It's no half because in a 25 meter pool you get 2 push offs and glide per 50. But in a long course pool you only get one push off and therefore take more than twice as many stroktes.
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Re: Can swimmers reply to swim strokes by a short guy [JM] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks for all the replies. Quite a bit of good and useful information. I find like all other phases of the tri. that you hit a form of plateau and getting better, whether it is more efficient or faster is more difficult but worth the effort. I have never been able to find a masters clinic in our area where they work out early in the morning. The tough part is that with swimming there are so many different training programs and ideas as to what is the proper way to swim that it is tough to determine which ones are crap and which ones are good without wasting a lot of your time trying them out and modifying your stroke technique in the process.
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