A little more about the Tim Sheeper article

Triathlon Forum
1

I just noticed the article on masters swimming on the front page, and for all you non fishes out there, there are a lot of great words of wisdom there. I’ve known TIm since the mid 80’s, when he was a very young pro just starting out. He became my daily training partner, and in the beginning, swimming was his worst event. He was one of those guys that would just do what ever it took to improve himself. HE learned the proper technique, then spent countless hours in the pool. Later on he went to Australia to train with Cole Stewart(Miles Stewart’s father), who was one of the best pro coaches in the world. Tim was just one of those guys that would try anything to get to the next level, and along the way he banked all that knowledge, threw out what didn’t work, and saved the gems…

He is one of the top 3 triathlon coaches in the world in my opinion, and to my amazement, one of the best masters swimming coaches in the world today too. Not long ago he was voted masters coach of the year here in the US, and he grew a team of less than 10 swimmers to over 300+. He has many that now place in the nationals championships, and he continues to improve himself along the way. He was 3rd pack when I knew him in the beginning, worked his way to the back of the 1st group, and at 45 years old, still races pro, and comes out 1st or 2nd group in the water…This should make a lot of ST’ers happy, he has yet to take one AG medal from any of you!!!

Tim has a large triathlon contingent too that he coaches, and I had the pleasure to work at some of his camps a couple years ago. If you are ever in the central/norcal area, check out his schedule of camps, they are a blast, and are little mini epic adventurs. I sat in on a lot of his talks, and I likened him to Jim Jones(drinking the triathlon koolaid). He has a way of expressing his message about training, that really gets through to people in a way that they can understand. He doesn’t bull shit them to make them feel better, but uses straight talk that adults appreciate…

Tim loves to do those one off crazy events too. We once did the 4 day Border to Border race, set new records for the 440 mile bike legs(averaged 30mph), and led up until the 52 mile canoe, which neither one of us had done prior, but that is another story for later on…He did the 24 hour MTB race solo, and I see that he is entered in the 24 hours of tri in Colorado this summer. He just loves to push the envelope…

Anyway, just a little more about Tim’s history for those that are interested, if you haven’t already read it, jump over to the front page and give it a read…

2

Monty, thanks for the amplification on Tim. The cool thing about swimming for most of us non fishes is that it is the only sport that many of us can get better at with zero improvement in fitness…just by doing to with better technique…that’s not to say that fitness is unimportant, but the article really pointed out need to treat swim more like a skill sport (like batting, tennis or golf) than simply mindlessly hammering out more meters ingraining our already lame technique!

3

Ya, Dan and I were talking about it the other morning. If you could improve your Ironman swim by let’s say 5 to 10 minutes, with no extra swimming, but an improvement in stroke technique, it is not just that 5 to 10 minutes off the end of your race. There is a physiological savings that goes along with that time. The extra calories and muscle strenght that it takes to go 10 more minutes in the water have to be figured in, and of the 3 sports, I would think that swimming is the biggest savings, with running 2nd, and cycling 3rd. That is an often overlooked factor when people try and budget their training time for their best possible race outcome, they only compare a minute to a minute in the different sports. They are not equal…

4

I think the other advantage, (and slowman has written about it extensively) is that the better you swim, the better the “group of athletes you emerge with”. Its easier to elevate your overall game by having better athletes to race and more energy to do it with…it really is a virtuous cycle!!!

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How you go about improving that technique, while still improving fitness… that’s the trick. :slight_smile:

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Agreed…but it is more of a mindset for terrestrial types to flip into become amphibian. Most triathletes with running backgrounds take to swimming like running, in general, not devoting much attention to the “how” instead just hammering harder and harder in a viscous medium, effectively going knowhere. There are examples like Tim Sheeper, or Emma Carney that moved themselves from third pack to back of front pack to become competitive…this option is pretty well available to all age groupers…most of us never take it up.

Look at slowtwitch…any bike thread has a zillion views and posts. Meanwhile the swim threads where there is a lot to be learned from some pretty knowledgeable folks (all for free) perhaps have 1/10th the participation…I guess you can’t buy free speed and look cool in the water…well you can look cool with cut upperbody and sixpack abs, but you can’t buy cool gear to get fast…

Dev

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Actually, most people don’t “hammer” enough in the pool, they slog away with slow mindless swimming, just putting in the time…

Most of the swim threads are full of information on training for pool swimming and not about training for open water triathlon swimming, so probably best that people avoid them anyways.

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How you go about improving that technique, while still improving fitness… that’s the trick. :slight_smile: \

It’s not than much of a trick. It is harder to swim better. Yesterday I did a workout that I do at least once every few weeks. I swim the entire workout with one less stroke per lap than I normally would, and for me that is 14 strokes for swimming, 13 for zoomer swims, and 12 for pulling, SCY… I don’t worry about time, but do whatever I have to in order to hold those counts. It starts off ok, but as the workout progresses, it really starts to tax my cardio. You have to really hold that high elbow and not slip off the water, or the stroke count creeps up. It was a hell of a workout, even though my times were slower, and it helps build the proper strenght for holding onto a good stroke for longer periods. You fatigue the right muscles for swimming faster, not the ones that hold together crappy strokes. It also builds that feel for the water that is so lacking in adult swimmers…

9

I’ve tried DPS drills with newbie swimmers.
It just doesn’t seem to work very well.
Invariably, they just end up kicking more to get their stroke count down.

DPS come from good form, not the other way around…?

10

When I say “hammer” what I really meant say is “flail and not catch the water”.

Or as you said, lots of people swimming really easy, with stroke rate of 40 strokes per minute, but also taking 40 strokes per 50m…if you do the math, you’ll see that these people are taking 2 minutes per 100m…they look pretty, but they aren’t moving fast… either

…and then they say “but I was told to slow down my stroke…”

Monty, sorry for hijacking the Tim Sheaper thread…perhaps he can weigh in on some thoughts for maximizing stroke length without dropping the stroke rate…I can kick across half the pool and have a fake stroke count of 10 strokes per length…but my rate is way down and I’m really barely moving…

Dev

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Monty, interesting point that your difference between zoomers and just regular “feet” is only 1 stroke…for me it is more like 16 strokes with zoomers (25m), and 19-20 without.

Dev

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I agree with Synchronicity…for newbie swimmers, they just kick a lot, get an articially low stroke count, but their stroke rate becomes absurdly low…and none of this ends up translating to real swimming…most of us just get good at the DPS drill, and get good at the drill but all that goes out the window come race day (or even making the 100m time on the 12th repeat…)

Dev.

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Another thought… isn’t stroke length and glide a bit irrelevant in open water?

I was swimming in some fairly rough ocean in Maui last week. A pretty pool stroke would stall me or knock me onto the reef… high stroke rate is the only way to go.

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Thats great! But, I personally didnt like his article, I thought it was all rah, rah, and no how too.

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I would also assume that in open water if you have 2 guys going the same speed, one at 45 strokes per minute another at 60 (both with minimal slip…assume swimmer 2 is not pushing as hard with triceps to “finish”) and assuming single side breathing then the guy with the higher stroke rate is going through the swim with more oxygen…

Now imagine going through the run and deciding to breath 25% less often than the other guy…To Synchronicity’s point I really think that stroke rate is an underappreciate aspect of triathlon open water swimming.

Dev

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Another thought… isn’t stroke length and glide a bit irrelevant in open water? \

Since we are being real here, it absolutly matters. Since the majority of triathlon swims are in a wetsuit, glide is very important. You will prolong the glide a lot as compared to pool swimming. Since you are riding so high in the water artifically, you do not want to have a high turnover that limits the momentum you have created. You have to give your body more time to slow down before taking that next stroke, otherwise you are putting on the brakes and wasting energy…

And I have done some really rough open water non wetsuit swims, and a slower turnover is preferable. Since you breath every stroke, it gives you more time to set up for a good breath that isn’t covered in chop. It also gives you a chance to glide through small chop so that you do not get caught mid stroke where it really screws with body position. And if you are in the draft, which is usually the case, it makes it easier to stay on the feet to take less strokes… This all pre supposes that you have a good underwater pull that does not give up speed for turnover…

I forgot to add that in really rough conditions the stroke rate will vary widely too. When you get good at it, you can feel what is coming in the way of a swell or chop. Sometimes you will acclerate your stroke to get inbetween chop, and other times you will slow down like I said to plow through it. Most of the time I am plowing though, but there are times you speed up for a couple strokes at a time…

17

Thats great! But, I personally didnt like his article, I thought it was all rah, rah, and no how too. \

That is because it was a rah, rah, piece as you put it. It wasn’t meant to be a how to article, but one that talks about the mindset of the late to life adult swimmer…

18

Monty, this stroke rate discussion is actually a bit irrelevant without actually talking numbers…if you look at all of you FOP triathlon swimmers, your stroke rate is much higher than the average age grouper…your stroke length is also much longer too. So when you talk about “slowing down the stroke rate” you are still way higher than the guy stuck at 30 minutes for 1500m or 80 min for Ironman…watch these guys…its like their strokes are in slow motion…equivalent to a guy running at 45 RPM!!!

I think that what Synchronicity and I are getting at is that it is worthless for the rank and file age grouper to swim with a stroke rate below a certain threshold…just like in running where we’d never recommend a 45 RPM stride rate…what’s the magic range in distance open water swimming? When you are slowing it down, are you going from 65 to 55?..assuming you take 13-14 strokes per 25 yards and do 100 yards in ~60 seconds, you’re already up close to 60 strokes per minute. Meanwhile there are all these guys with pretty stroked going knowhere stuck at 40 strokes (or whatever) per minute.

Dev