Coming at it from the other end.. IME a lot of the gains (I) made in the pool in terms of fixing sinky legs, kick etc don't really translate to wetsuit swims because the wetsuit had solved them anyway. Just a thought.

Just a general response, but I am surprised that everybody knows their stroke cadence. I have no idea what mine is but I swim a respectable pace. I have truly never thought about it.

You can get faster without knowing your cadence--just like everybody did the entire 20th century*--but it sure is helpful to know WHY (or maybe it's how? i dunno) you're getting faster, especially when faced with seemingly confounding results like OP

* I realize it can be calculated manually without a watch, just not realistic in a race scenario so wouldn't have been helpful for OP's problem

I am surprised that everybody knows their stroke cadence.//

Its not that hard, just count your strokes in the pool, for some distance you swim in a minute. Then add in a few more for each turn you have to do, 50 meter pools will be more accurate fo course, and there you have it, strokes per minute. So if you take 20 strokes per lap in a 25 yard pool, and you can do a minute for the 75, then it is 60 + 6 to 10 more I would say, accounting for turns and the original push off..

 
Its not that hard, just count your strokes in the pool, for some distance you swim in a minute. Then add in a few more for each turn you have to do, 50 meter pools will be more accurate fo course, and there you have it, strokes per minute. So if you take 20 strokes per lap in a 25 yard pool, and you can do a minute for the 75, then it is 60 + 6 to 10 more I would say, accounting for turns and the original push off..

I get the how, just not sure of the why? Unless you are counting every time you swim I don't see the benefit. I do see the benefit of increasing cadence (sort of anyway, I could definitely be convinced that the average triathlete has cadence that is far too high) but again, don't know that I need to count them to know if my cadence is higher or lower. I guess I am more focused on my 100 time knowing that to go faster I need to increase cadence, etc.

That being said, I would love to hear why I should be focusing more on my cadence. Always looking to get faster in the water.

That being said, I would love to hear why I should be focusing more on my cadence. Always looking to get faster in the water. //

For me, it is meditative to count my strokes each and every lap. Plus I dont have to look for the wall, I know when it is coming. IT also lets me know when I start to falter, when I slip a stroke I can tell I'm gettng tired. But I can maintain speed my taking another extra stroke, so that is all good stuff to know. It is just about information, gathering it all in, and being able to use it either in a race, or some other workouts. Information will make you faster, so that is why you count your strokes..

Or for us lazy people, we let our watch do the counting for us.

I usually am busy keeping track of my laps in my head.

My problem is that when I extend my arms, my arms get very fatigued. So I no longer extend my arms and as the result my stroke length has decreased.

If you try to extend your arms a little further during each swim workout, then you probably will be able to get past this fatigue issue. Further, it may be that your arms are getting too tired b/c you are trying to pull too hard at the very beginning of the pull, which is counterproductive. You want to gradually build the force during each pull such that your forearm speed increases during the pull and hits a maximum during the 2nd half of the pull. Don't pull much past your hip, e.g. no splash of water upward as you pull your arm out of the water. Watch the good swimmers at your pool and try to emulate their strokes. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

This is so complicated - even videos couldn't help of my fatigue problem. And I'm actually encouraged to pull past my hip, trying to reach the knee in order to get the maximum pull length out of my stroke.

My coach thinks that in the past I extended too much which became overreaching and overgliding, and my video analysis showed that, when I tried to overreach, my upper arms actually entered the water first which is wrong. My coach then gave me drills to make my arms enter shorter.

Ya, this whole swim technique thing can seem overly complex, but really it isn't. Just watch other good swimmers and try to emulate their strokes; this is really the simplest best way to go. It really helps if you can take a mental picture of a good stroke and then reproduce it.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I wouldn't focus on extending arms, I would make sure you have good hip rotation. That will in effect force your arms to get the extension needed to get the high elbow catch. Which isn't necessarily "gliding" but it's just getting good hip rotation.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I had done that (emulate others) for a few years and it didn't help me at all. I tried to reproduce but it either tired me too much or made me very slow.

If you can hold the good swimmer's form for 100 yd/m, then maybe next week you can hold it for 200 m, then 300, etc. Eventually perhaps you can hold it for 1500 or 2000 m, then 3000, etc.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Telling an adult onset swimmer to just "do what they are doing" is imo terrible instruction. Good swimmers are good swimmers because they did years and years of good swimming with very likely good feedback. They were shown how to do it and was taught how to do it. That's the part that is missing when you tell them to just essentially just "swim better".

ETA: Those great swimmers make it look easy because it's easy to them. They have 100% control of their body, they have complete awareness of everything at any moment of their stroke. It's clock work to their stroke, it's auto pilot for them. It just happens, but that's not really close to what adults are really able to get to. But yes that's what you want them to be mimicking, I just think telling them to mimick it is pretty futile when they mostly don't have anywhere close to the control/awareness in their stroke.

A D1 swimmer took 6 months off swimming and swam at the pool I coach at yesturday. "I needed a break from the pool and today was 1st swim back", yet gets back in the pool and has the most beautiful stroke, everything just fell back into place. The same thing happens to piano players or riding a bike, etc. It just clicks when you make it 2nd nature. It's a thing of beauty just how "effortless" it is.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Aside from my "learn to swim" lessons back at age 3-5, my swim coaches from then on out have hardly ever given out instruction unless I was doing something really wrong, like an illegal breaststroke kick. I just absorbed reasonably good form by osmosis, so to speak, from watching the faster better swimmers. I've seen other adult onset swimmers do this, but most never really catch on. However, this is true of kids also, e.g. many struggle to catch onto swimming. I think the ability to visualize what you're supposed to do and then be able to actually put it into practice is one of the key abilities that good swimmers have. Just a guesstimate but I think maybe 10% of the overall population has this ability.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."