Back in the pool this morning vs using my suit in the lake. The Kits pool big lane was pretty busy.
With the big lane you swim with everyone, so there are all levels.
There were some just ripping it (fast), so for fun I went from say 6/10 to 8-9/10 just to hang with a few & experiment a little.
That 9/10 effort is a bit of a mystery to me. How much effort are other swimmers expending (ie watts)? Where do I apply the effort? Bigger reach/sweep, or faster turnover, stronger kick, wider catch and higher elbows? What is actually sustainable over distance?
Are fast swimmers expending as many watts as it takes me to go that slow :)? Maybe I need to HTFU and re-define effort?
I know I am quicker & with less effort breathing 1:3, probably due to less body distortion or drag caused by breathing.
I seem to be faster as well making sure I get all of my range in the pull, while not going too deep with the catch. These are kind of known. But geez it’s a lot of work.
I pretty much submitted my resignation letter that I’ll never be a fast swimmer, like my OW champ neighbor, my kids or the 'twitch fish crew. It would interesting to truly solve the puzzle though - what does it take to swim* fast*?
You could buy a Vasa Erg which measures the watts of each arm pull and gives an estimated equivalent swim pace per 100. I’ve never used one but other ST users seem to feel the watts vs pace is pretty accurate. This erg is the only swim-specific power meter I’m aware of. IIRC, these ergs are about $1750 new but you might find a used one on the web for half that, and my understanding is that these Vasa trainers last for many, many years.
You over think things. All you have to do… pick one technical thing that is slowing you down. Work on that. It doesn’t have to be THE thing, just A thing.
While you are working on that, learn to hurt in practice.
When you have improved a bit on that thing , move to another thing.
The STR Aquanex System is the droid you are looking for. Combination of palm force sensors, underwater recording equipment, and software that syncs the two so you can analyze the effectiveness of your stroke. Not cheap, though.
My old coach would put a bucket at the end of each lane for sprint 50’s. We were allowed to leave only after we 1) completed the set (usually 20x50 on the 35), or 2) used the bucket.
Pace clock is all you need. You over think things…what does it take to swim* fast*?
My old coach would put a bucket at the end of each lane for sprint 50’s. We were allowed to leave only after we 1) completed the set (usually 20x50 on the 35), or 2) used the bucket.
You gotta swim fast, if you want to swim fast
You know the only time I’ve had dry heaves is in hockey years ago, perhaps early season. Nothing recent. On the bike - race, hill climbing, low cadence/wrong gearing…yeah came close to putting a foot down a few times this year.
Swimming can’t seem to peak the effort like that. I would like to be able to get a hold of the water enough to do that. Question is where to direct the effort, what to apply training time to. This is where data comes in and sure a clock is good but it’s like the final element, after all things come together.
I just looked at my swim times as I have some history from 2013. And I’ll use my points system where 1000 points is top event score (not AG but top score). So like ~ 5:15 min/400M:
2012 Did not swim, unable to complete 50M w/o holding onto lane rope
2013 625
2014 n/a
2015 725
2016 790
2017 850
(vs top swimmer = 1000 points)
That’s about right too. I would need another 15% improvement in pace to home-in on top event score & keep pace with what I would group as fast swimmers.
I have a suspicion that 15% isn’t going to be easy or even possible, hence this post. I am pretty sure I’ll shelve the running shoes for a bit and start a swim block. I have not been swimming much.
My run is the worst tho, needing a boost of 25% at this point so that is where I have been spending my time. I’m kinda like a kid in a candy store I want to do it all (SBR) but geez kinda have to pick one thing!
Seeing what the folks at Stryd have done and having used their product for a while now, I think the next thing is a similar product for swimming that, like Stryd, will be able to provide a power number that correlates well with the individual’s metabolic cost while swimming. So, like with running, the power number will provide a lot of information on biomechanical efficiency, something the pace clock won’t tell you.
power will be associated with lift, and efficiency will correlate with lift maintained in association with consistency of forward movement, whereas inefficiency will show spikes in lift, followed by sharp decreases in height in the water and surging in forward movement…
Seeing what the folks at Stryd have done and having used their product for a while now, I think the next thing is a similar product for swimming that, like Stryd, will be able to provide a power number that correlates well with the individual’s metabolic cost while swimming. So, like with running, the power number will provide a lot of information on biomechanical efficiency, something the pace clock won’t tell you.
power will be associated with lift, and efficiency will correlate with lift maintained in association with consistency of forward movement, whereas inefficiency will show spikes in lift, followed by sharp decreases in height in the water and surging in forward movement…
The key could be the application of accelerometer chips. For those that don’t know - highly accurate and precise measurement of changes in velocity, angle, direction. These little chips are responsible for all of the automotive dynamic, safety controls, speed control (boats) etc.
I googled it today and off-the-shelf you can buy a set for your running shoes for $150! I might get a pair of them, both for the run and see what they do for my hands.
Pace clock is pretty much the only thing you need in a pool. Given that conditions don’t change from pool to pool too much - although a deep pool and good lane ropes can help you go faster.
From what I recall Popov was putting out the least power of any of the top sprinters in his day, but he was still the fastest.
Seeing what the folks at Stryd have done and having used their product for a while now, I think the next thing is a similar product for swimming that, like Stryd, will be able to provide a power number that correlates well with the individual’s metabolic cost while swimming. So, like with running, the power number will provide a lot of information on biomechanical efficiency, something the pace clock won’t tell you.
power will be associated with lift, and efficiency will correlate with lift maintained in association with consistency of forward movement, whereas inefficiency will show spikes in lift, followed by sharp decreases in height in the water and surging in forward movement…
I think the problem is that you can’t put sensors everywhere. Your upper arms, forearms, hands all apply force to the water. Even you core as it rotates provides force to the water while is amplified as some of it gets out to the finger tips like the force at the end of the propeller shaft, but unlike the propeller and shaft the shaft (core of the human body) also applies force to the water, not just the blades (arms, hands). Finally you have the hips, quads, hamstrings, calves, tibia, dorsi and plantar side of the foot and each side of each toe all applying force to the water. You do you measure each point from the human that is applying force? Well you can’t…but you get the intergral of all the incremental forces, minus the integral of all the individual drag forces, to get the net forward forces implied in the pace clock…so what Jasoninhalifax said. I don’t think measuring forces at any point provide any meaning because they don’t exist in isolation of drag forces. It’s like on the bike just worrying about your power, without worrying about your coefficient of drag. But on the bike the forward force is only coming from one contact point between the rubber and pavement. That’s super easy to measure with a powermeter (be it pedal based, crank based or hub based).
I’d say you could do it with good data capture and an advanced CFD model. But that’s probably out of reach of the casual swimmer (I’d be surprised if even USA swimming had such capabilities).
yeah, I don’t think I am a Luddite, but all you need is the pace clock. And don’t kind of use it, obsessively use it.
Your typical triathlete has know idea how much more data “swimmers” are processing. I might be a little extreme, but from memory last night I think I can tell you what I went on every 100, how many strokes I took, and how many breaths I took with 98% accuracy for my entire 2000M mainset.
I made a tether with a fish-scale with memory marker, to measure swimmer pull force or thrust. Brought it to the pull and fortunate to have the beast - Owen Brown run a test on the rig. In a fury of churning water, he broke the scale/pinned the gauge! At the time I could muster maybe 40lbs?? Last summer I was able to hit the max on the scale too.
The test is for at most 10 seconds and other than peak force measurement, doesn’t really tell you much on how to achieve speed.
I think a starting point are some metrics on the hands. Cadence, range/distance, acceleration, velocity - I theorize would tell me quite a bit for comparing swimmer to swimmer.
As in cycling - are you feeling constant, seamless pressure on the hands?? On the bike there are no gaps, one foot takes over without interruption. Swimming you can delay takeover between the hands, and a lot of swimmers do to a) be lazy/breath recovery and b) extend to setup a catch.
Very few public session swimmers hammer down the lane without some sort of extension delay (me included)
I’ve got a simple one. I should patent it but it’s so simply stupid that I’m sure it’ll get ripped off in seconds.
Get or acquire a high-quality resistant tubing, same as the ones you see sold for cheap online, but make it so it’s reliable enough so that the resistance really is very stable across manufacturing with little variance.
Measure how much force of resistance it generates as you stretch it to various lengths. Like, perhaps stretching out to 10 feet will yield 40 pounds equivalent of resistance.
Then a swimmer would just have to anchor it poolside to anything, the swim hard while wearing a belt connected to it (same as a stationary swim cord). Measure the length of stretch and you’ll have good estimate of the force you’re generating in terms of pounds resistance. You could probably use that in a power calculation (force * distance / time) to roughly computer power. Some physics person could better address this.
