Interesting Article: Counting your Strokes
AquaticQuests
Posts: 947 Member
Here's an interesting article on counting your strokes.
Count Your Strokes
http://lessons.ctaponline.org/~ptrujill/strokes.doc
It’s the closest thing there is to a “magic pill” for better swimming.
By Terry Laughlin
Let’s imagine a match race between you and two of the world’s greatest athletes. Suppose you could persuade Michael Johnson, the fastest 400-meter runner in history, to match strides with you around a 400-meter track and Alexander Popov, the fastest 100-meter swimmer in history, to race you up and back in a 50-meter pool. Unquestionably both would beat you with ease. That wouldn’t shock you. But something else about these two races might.
If you and Michael Johnson compared the number of strides it took each of you to cover 400 meters, he would undoubtedly take fewer, but the difference would not be stunning--probably something on the order of 10 percent. And you could, if you really tried and ran quite slowly, increase your stride length enough to match his. But in the pool, the difference between Popov’s stroke length and your own would shock you, and if you tried to match his number, the only way you could do it is by kicking halfway down the pool before you took your first stroke. If you have access to a 50-meter pool, you can check the math. At moderate speed, Popov swims 50 meters in 23 to 24 strokes (12 arm cycles); at top speed he takes no more than 33 strokes.
In a 25-yard pool, Popov could swim for hours at 7 to 8 strokes per length, while the typical lap swimmer takes 25 to 28 strokes per length. I know because I take an informal survey every time I watch lap swimming sessions; the highest number I’ve ever counted was 63 strokes for 25 yards. Even a good high school competitor takes at least twice as many strokes as Popov. So the efficiency differential between an elite runner and a recreational runner might range from 10% to 20%, while the efficiency differential between an elite and recreational swimmer would probably be closer to 100% to 300%, What makes this difference even more striking is the substantial efficiency gap between Popov and Michael Johnson, the result of Popov doing his racing in water, while Johnson gets to race on land. Kinesiologists estimate that the energy efficiency of world-class swimmers peaks at just 9%, while that of world-class runners is probably close to 90%. This means that when Popov is racing at top speed, a maximum of only 9 of every 100 calories he burns are translated directly into propulsion; the other 91 are lost to the inefficiency of the body’s interaction with water.
So if you take, say, 20 to 24 strokes to swim 25 yards, your energy efficiency may be less than 4%. In other words, only 4% of your available fitness is going toward true forward motion; the other 96% is “consumed” by the water and gets you nowhere. So the smartest path to swimming improvement is not more or harder laps to get in better shape--a process that, yes, does make more energy available, but doesn’t keep you from wasting 96% of it with every lap you swim. Only when you train your body to use that energy more efficiently will you see real progress.
Stroke counting is important because it’s the clearest marker of how well you’re using your energy. Remember: Stroke length equals stroke efficiency. Only about 2% of the human race swims with instinctively long strokes. The rest of us have powerful instincts telling us to swim faster by stroking faster. Ask yourself: When you want to swim faster, what's your instinctive response? Right, churn your arms faster. This means that any time you’re not consciously monitoring your stroke length your instincts will probably have you lapsing into arm churning. You'll make poor use of the fitness you’re working so hard to build.
How do you count strokes? I’ve found the simplest way is to count each hand entry. At first, just try to develop the habit of counting each stroke. This may initially take great concentration, and that concentration may crowd out your ability to think of almost anything else--like how many laps you’ve done. But within a few weeks you’ll probably find yourself counting automatically.
Here are several creative ways in which you can use those numbers to improve your awareness and efficiency.
Be willing to swim slowly. The sprinters I coach at West Point do at least 80% of all their training yardage at speeds that are 75% or less of maximum effort because it’s the surest way to guarantee that they maintain efficiency. You have to swim well slowly before you can swim well at faster speeds. For a 6-foot male, any count over 20 per length is unacceptably inefficient. I have taught petite women on the West Point swim team to swim 12-stroke lengths routinely. Swim as slowly as necessary to make a real difference in your stroke count. Once you’ve gotten it into at least the mid-to-high teens (men) or high-teens-to-20 strokes (women), then continue swimming slowly enough to keep it there, at least for a few weeks. Since you’ve probably been swimming for several years with a much higher stroke count, this is the only way you’ll have any chance to make even a faint impression on your nervous system. It would not hurt your swimming to refuse to “practice” inefficiency by swimming exclusively at moderate speeds even for a period of several months.
Swim shorter repeats. If your stroke count remains over 20 per length on your daily mile of nonstop laps, then do that mile as a series of 30 to 40 50-yard repeats. You’ll find it much easier to reduce your stroke count and keep it low than if swimming a marathon. It’s more important that you train yourself to cover more distance with each stroke than to cover more distance between pauses for rest. Then gradually rebuild the distance of your repeats. When you can routinely swim 50-yard repeats in, let’s say, 36 strokes (18 per length), then increase your repeat distance to 75 yards and stay there until you can consistently complete these repeats in 54 strokes. At that point you can “graduate” to 100-yard repeats. And don’t jump to 150-yard repeats until every 100 you swim requires 72 or fewer strokes. Continue in this way until you can consistently swim your mile at 18 strokes per length. When you accomplish that, you might drop back to shorter repeats and try to increase your stroke length again.
Do less swimming and more drilling. There’s no particular magic in stroke counting as you swim. It simply keeps you continually aware of your Stroke Length as you swim and immediately alerts you when you’ve fallen back into inefficient Human Swimming-- using Stroke Rate (arm-churning) instead. Quite often the habits of inefficiency are so deeply ingrained that more swimming only reinforces them. The only way to make real change is to refuse to do whole-stroke swimming for a while, because your body knows only one way to do it. When you practice drills, your nervous system doesn’t recognize what you’re doing as “swimming,” which gives you a blank slate on which to practice new habits of efficiency. If you spend two or three months doing 8 of every 10 lengths in stroke drills, you should soon see some real change in your efficiency. For information on which drills to do, I recommend the Total Immersion Fishlike Freestyle Video and the Total Immersion Swiminar Workbook.
Make stroke counting more interesting and challenging. No matter how good it is for you, after a time just counting stroke after stroke could become boring. But I’ve been doing it for years and never tire of it because I’ve found numerous ways to make it more interesting. Here are two that could keep you engaged and improving for years: Practice “stroke elimination.” If you’re not yet an efficient swimmer, the main point of your practice should be to develop habits that move your body farther through the water so you need fewer strokes to go any given distance. More work from less energy. Stroke elimination means nothing fancier than disciplining yourself to use fewer strokes than you usually do. If you normally take 17 to 18 strokes per length, your mission now is to do all repeats in 15 to 16 strokes and not one more. Seems simple at first, doesn't it? You swim a series of ten 50-yard repeats, feeling fresh on the first few and easily holding the 15-16 stroke count. This stroke elimination's a breeze!
Then on the 2nd length of the 4th repeat, you head nonchalantly down the pool, take your 16th stroke, and find the wall is still five yards away. And what can you do about it? You've sworn not to take the 17th stroke so there's only one thing to do: roll to your side and kick to the wall. Hmm. Evidently this stroke elimination business will take some work after all.
So as you begin your next length, and every length from now on, you become the miser of arm turnover, keenly aware of how you spend every stroke, making sure that you make 16 of them stretch 25 yards. The clock is forgotten. The rival in the next lane is forgotten. The only thing that matters is how you're spending what you have to spend, which is how you learn to save. Just like real life.
You're working on how well you get there, not how fast. At first, the lower count will slow you down because you'll also have to stretch and glide more. Expect that, and don't worry about it. Your old count was "normal" for so long that it will take some time for your body to adjust. Eventually, the lower, more efficient count will become your "new normal" and somehow your speed will come back, too, without your even trying. As good teachers have always known, discipline teaches what indulgence never could.
Once efficiency has become habit, you can begin to trade strokes shrewdly for speed. "Spend" the fewest strokes for the most additional speed, and if you're not satisfied with the cost, try it again. As you master the 50-yard transaction, try it with your 100-yard repeats, which will give you a larger field on which to play the game. The game of swimming golf. Take time out for a game of swimming golf.It's possible to get too carried away with this business of eliminating strokes, and you’ll know you’ve arrived in this state when you're down to such a triumphantly tiny number that you're taking forever to get to the other end. Clever types can also figure a way to "cheat" the stroke-eliminator system so the numbers are better but the swimming is not (Hint: try gliding or kicking half a length after your pushoff). If the real point of all these efficiency gains is swimming faster, you want to know whether that's happening. Well, just tee up for some swimming golf.
The rules are simple. For a given distance, count your strokes and add that to your time in seconds.
A reasonably good swimmer can usually swim the two lengths of a 50-yard repeat in 40 strokes and 40 seconds. That's a score of 80. A "duffer" can usually aim for a score of 90; serious swimmers might be in the mid-60s. My West Point swimmers can record scores between 40 (men) and 50(women).
Always lower your score by reducing stroke count first, and later by trying to swim faster. Just a few rounds should be eye opening. You'll be amazed how quickly a bit more effort can add a lot more strokes. If those strokes don't translate into enough speed to lower your total score, you know right away how wasteful you've been. Remember: Speed equals stroke rate (SR) multiplied by stroke length (SL), and just about everyone has enough SR. It's your SL that needs work. Your golf score will be an unerring measure of how well you're using SL to create speed.
Even if you elect to do nothing more advanced than count your strokes a few times during each practice, even this modest change in awareness, if you haven’t done it before, will do more than anything else to move you in the direction of greater efficiency. Happy laps!
Count Your Strokes
http://lessons.ctaponline.org/~ptrujill/strokes.doc
It’s the closest thing there is to a “magic pill” for better swimming.
By Terry Laughlin
Let’s imagine a match race between you and two of the world’s greatest athletes. Suppose you could persuade Michael Johnson, the fastest 400-meter runner in history, to match strides with you around a 400-meter track and Alexander Popov, the fastest 100-meter swimmer in history, to race you up and back in a 50-meter pool. Unquestionably both would beat you with ease. That wouldn’t shock you. But something else about these two races might.
If you and Michael Johnson compared the number of strides it took each of you to cover 400 meters, he would undoubtedly take fewer, but the difference would not be stunning--probably something on the order of 10 percent. And you could, if you really tried and ran quite slowly, increase your stride length enough to match his. But in the pool, the difference between Popov’s stroke length and your own would shock you, and if you tried to match his number, the only way you could do it is by kicking halfway down the pool before you took your first stroke. If you have access to a 50-meter pool, you can check the math. At moderate speed, Popov swims 50 meters in 23 to 24 strokes (12 arm cycles); at top speed he takes no more than 33 strokes.
In a 25-yard pool, Popov could swim for hours at 7 to 8 strokes per length, while the typical lap swimmer takes 25 to 28 strokes per length. I know because I take an informal survey every time I watch lap swimming sessions; the highest number I’ve ever counted was 63 strokes for 25 yards. Even a good high school competitor takes at least twice as many strokes as Popov. So the efficiency differential between an elite runner and a recreational runner might range from 10% to 20%, while the efficiency differential between an elite and recreational swimmer would probably be closer to 100% to 300%, What makes this difference even more striking is the substantial efficiency gap between Popov and Michael Johnson, the result of Popov doing his racing in water, while Johnson gets to race on land. Kinesiologists estimate that the energy efficiency of world-class swimmers peaks at just 9%, while that of world-class runners is probably close to 90%. This means that when Popov is racing at top speed, a maximum of only 9 of every 100 calories he burns are translated directly into propulsion; the other 91 are lost to the inefficiency of the body’s interaction with water.
So if you take, say, 20 to 24 strokes to swim 25 yards, your energy efficiency may be less than 4%. In other words, only 4% of your available fitness is going toward true forward motion; the other 96% is “consumed” by the water and gets you nowhere. So the smartest path to swimming improvement is not more or harder laps to get in better shape--a process that, yes, does make more energy available, but doesn’t keep you from wasting 96% of it with every lap you swim. Only when you train your body to use that energy more efficiently will you see real progress.
Stroke counting is important because it’s the clearest marker of how well you’re using your energy. Remember: Stroke length equals stroke efficiency. Only about 2% of the human race swims with instinctively long strokes. The rest of us have powerful instincts telling us to swim faster by stroking faster. Ask yourself: When you want to swim faster, what's your instinctive response? Right, churn your arms faster. This means that any time you’re not consciously monitoring your stroke length your instincts will probably have you lapsing into arm churning. You'll make poor use of the fitness you’re working so hard to build.
How do you count strokes? I’ve found the simplest way is to count each hand entry. At first, just try to develop the habit of counting each stroke. This may initially take great concentration, and that concentration may crowd out your ability to think of almost anything else--like how many laps you’ve done. But within a few weeks you’ll probably find yourself counting automatically.
Here are several creative ways in which you can use those numbers to improve your awareness and efficiency.
Be willing to swim slowly. The sprinters I coach at West Point do at least 80% of all their training yardage at speeds that are 75% or less of maximum effort because it’s the surest way to guarantee that they maintain efficiency. You have to swim well slowly before you can swim well at faster speeds. For a 6-foot male, any count over 20 per length is unacceptably inefficient. I have taught petite women on the West Point swim team to swim 12-stroke lengths routinely. Swim as slowly as necessary to make a real difference in your stroke count. Once you’ve gotten it into at least the mid-to-high teens (men) or high-teens-to-20 strokes (women), then continue swimming slowly enough to keep it there, at least for a few weeks. Since you’ve probably been swimming for several years with a much higher stroke count, this is the only way you’ll have any chance to make even a faint impression on your nervous system. It would not hurt your swimming to refuse to “practice” inefficiency by swimming exclusively at moderate speeds even for a period of several months.
Swim shorter repeats. If your stroke count remains over 20 per length on your daily mile of nonstop laps, then do that mile as a series of 30 to 40 50-yard repeats. You’ll find it much easier to reduce your stroke count and keep it low than if swimming a marathon. It’s more important that you train yourself to cover more distance with each stroke than to cover more distance between pauses for rest. Then gradually rebuild the distance of your repeats. When you can routinely swim 50-yard repeats in, let’s say, 36 strokes (18 per length), then increase your repeat distance to 75 yards and stay there until you can consistently complete these repeats in 54 strokes. At that point you can “graduate” to 100-yard repeats. And don’t jump to 150-yard repeats until every 100 you swim requires 72 or fewer strokes. Continue in this way until you can consistently swim your mile at 18 strokes per length. When you accomplish that, you might drop back to shorter repeats and try to increase your stroke length again.
Do less swimming and more drilling. There’s no particular magic in stroke counting as you swim. It simply keeps you continually aware of your Stroke Length as you swim and immediately alerts you when you’ve fallen back into inefficient Human Swimming-- using Stroke Rate (arm-churning) instead. Quite often the habits of inefficiency are so deeply ingrained that more swimming only reinforces them. The only way to make real change is to refuse to do whole-stroke swimming for a while, because your body knows only one way to do it. When you practice drills, your nervous system doesn’t recognize what you’re doing as “swimming,” which gives you a blank slate on which to practice new habits of efficiency. If you spend two or three months doing 8 of every 10 lengths in stroke drills, you should soon see some real change in your efficiency. For information on which drills to do, I recommend the Total Immersion Fishlike Freestyle Video and the Total Immersion Swiminar Workbook.
Make stroke counting more interesting and challenging. No matter how good it is for you, after a time just counting stroke after stroke could become boring. But I’ve been doing it for years and never tire of it because I’ve found numerous ways to make it more interesting. Here are two that could keep you engaged and improving for years: Practice “stroke elimination.” If you’re not yet an efficient swimmer, the main point of your practice should be to develop habits that move your body farther through the water so you need fewer strokes to go any given distance. More work from less energy. Stroke elimination means nothing fancier than disciplining yourself to use fewer strokes than you usually do. If you normally take 17 to 18 strokes per length, your mission now is to do all repeats in 15 to 16 strokes and not one more. Seems simple at first, doesn't it? You swim a series of ten 50-yard repeats, feeling fresh on the first few and easily holding the 15-16 stroke count. This stroke elimination's a breeze!
Then on the 2nd length of the 4th repeat, you head nonchalantly down the pool, take your 16th stroke, and find the wall is still five yards away. And what can you do about it? You've sworn not to take the 17th stroke so there's only one thing to do: roll to your side and kick to the wall. Hmm. Evidently this stroke elimination business will take some work after all.
So as you begin your next length, and every length from now on, you become the miser of arm turnover, keenly aware of how you spend every stroke, making sure that you make 16 of them stretch 25 yards. The clock is forgotten. The rival in the next lane is forgotten. The only thing that matters is how you're spending what you have to spend, which is how you learn to save. Just like real life.
You're working on how well you get there, not how fast. At first, the lower count will slow you down because you'll also have to stretch and glide more. Expect that, and don't worry about it. Your old count was "normal" for so long that it will take some time for your body to adjust. Eventually, the lower, more efficient count will become your "new normal" and somehow your speed will come back, too, without your even trying. As good teachers have always known, discipline teaches what indulgence never could.
Once efficiency has become habit, you can begin to trade strokes shrewdly for speed. "Spend" the fewest strokes for the most additional speed, and if you're not satisfied with the cost, try it again. As you master the 50-yard transaction, try it with your 100-yard repeats, which will give you a larger field on which to play the game. The game of swimming golf. Take time out for a game of swimming golf.It's possible to get too carried away with this business of eliminating strokes, and you’ll know you’ve arrived in this state when you're down to such a triumphantly tiny number that you're taking forever to get to the other end. Clever types can also figure a way to "cheat" the stroke-eliminator system so the numbers are better but the swimming is not (Hint: try gliding or kicking half a length after your pushoff). If the real point of all these efficiency gains is swimming faster, you want to know whether that's happening. Well, just tee up for some swimming golf.
The rules are simple. For a given distance, count your strokes and add that to your time in seconds.
A reasonably good swimmer can usually swim the two lengths of a 50-yard repeat in 40 strokes and 40 seconds. That's a score of 80. A "duffer" can usually aim for a score of 90; serious swimmers might be in the mid-60s. My West Point swimmers can record scores between 40 (men) and 50(women).
Always lower your score by reducing stroke count first, and later by trying to swim faster. Just a few rounds should be eye opening. You'll be amazed how quickly a bit more effort can add a lot more strokes. If those strokes don't translate into enough speed to lower your total score, you know right away how wasteful you've been. Remember: Speed equals stroke rate (SR) multiplied by stroke length (SL), and just about everyone has enough SR. It's your SL that needs work. Your golf score will be an unerring measure of how well you're using SL to create speed.
Even if you elect to do nothing more advanced than count your strokes a few times during each practice, even this modest change in awareness, if you haven’t done it before, will do more than anything else to move you in the direction of greater efficiency. Happy laps!
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Replies
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Good info.
I do count strokes. When I'm more focused I can keep it down to 20. Sometimes 18 in a 25 yard pool. But my typical is 24.
I still have to focus on the stretch.
Having not been a team swimmer in my yute, I don;t have the latent muscle memory other swimmers my age that were swim team kids. Nor do I ever expect to hit 1 minute per 100yd. But I'd be happy if I hit 1:30. The best sustainable time o far is about 1:50 per 100 for 1000yard.
I swim 6000 yards each morning. For me it is all about the burn, not competition
But getting more efficient in my technique means I can finish the 6000 in less time or increase my morning swim distance 0 -
My situation as you may have gathered on here is unusual.
Spent most of my swimming days, trying to count strokes and use as few as possible.
Recently, upped my turnover rate drastically, substantially breaking down/ apart/ the stroke I'd been working on, and my priority for the past month (and probably the next month or two) has been to simply survive the aerobic demands at this rate through the distance I ordinarily swim, despite the negative impact this had on my speed.
Only now, as I begin to get more comfortable at this rate, am I once again rebuilding my stroke and revisiting and reminding myself about lengthening my stroke once again. The difference from before being that, this lengthening is being done in the context of an imposed much higher stroke rate. The theory being that if I am able to regain my previous stroke length (ie low stroke count), while maintaining a much higher stroke rate speed, then my swim speed will rise.
So this morning I tried to remind myself to really lengthen the stroke, with the pull going all the way back to the thigh as it emerges from the water, even as my turnover held steady at 67.5 strokes per minute.
It's not easy, but hopefully my muscles are slowly building up the capacity to sustain that stroke length and form over the distance. Currently I start at 18 strokes per 25 meters but this quickly deteriorates closer to 22 to 24 as the swim wears on.
I do know that lately I have been surprised when the wall appears after relatively fewer strokes.
If there is one thing I am learning through all this, it's the patience to implement changes, and wait through months of consistent swimming, before any benefits/ improvements in speed become apparent. To take a long term view on all this.
It's not easy to consistently work harder regularly in the pool and swim slower, when I know that with a quick tweak, I could easily go back to what I have always done, and with less effort, in the short term, swim faster!0 -
I read the article last night, so I counted today for the 1st time. I spot checked as opposed to counting every length, the vast majority of the time I was at 21 strokes in a 25 yard pool. I had the occasional length at 20 & 1 or 2 at 22, but I was pretty consistent with a count of 21......0
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AquaticQuests wrote: »If there is one thing I am learning through all this, it's the patience to implement changes, and wait through months of consistent swimming, before any benefits/ improvements in speed become apparent. To take a long term view on all this.
This. Is. Me. No matter what I'm focusing on each time I show up, this is what I am trying to remember before and after every swim.
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It's the perfect mental approach to take - nobody is going to perfect their technique in 1 lesson, so the smart thing to do is to pick something to work on it & stay with it until it's right before moving on to the next thing. Too many times people bounce from 1 thing to another before getting the first one down pat & then they can't figure out why things don't feel right. Patience is the key & will have a much better long term result.....0
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I have been back to what feel like mediocre swims lately. I know that they are leaps ahead of where I started, but I also know that the improvements take a lot of time, like AQ pointed out above. This morning was my aquafitness class. It's the one workout I do all week that is my planned butt-kicker. I know that I can make my run as hard or easy as I want, I can make my swims hard or easy, but this one class is never easy. Afterward, I went over to do a few laps and boy did they feel good. Long body, long slow strokes, good strong, even kick straight off the hip. It all felt in synch.
So I have to remember too, to fully enjoy those fantastic swims that pop up in the middle of the weeks and months of mediocre ones. Progress is slow, yes, but you're right. Patience pays off!0 -
Just like anything else, we will feel like we plateau, & then we all of a sudden we break through it & make the next bunch of improvements. The key is to keep going through those plateaus, especially since so many of the times we are actually doing better than what it seems like to ourselves....0
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This got me working on stretching out my stroke. Actually got it down to 18 for a bunch of lengths. I found I was actually faster with fewer strokes. By as much as 5 seconds per lap.
I'm typically around 24. Managed to average probably around 21 today. Just have to get the consistency.0 -
Lengthening your stroke gives you the opportunity to "grab" more water for the pull, as well as use the length of the arm to create more resistance. This moves you further with each stroke, & to me is faster than flailing your arms fast & not getting much on the pull. The ideal is to get that long, strong pull at a quick stroke rate....0
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I'm feeling it today. Right at the lower back part of the shoulderLengthening your stroke gives you the opportunity to "grab" more water for the pull, as well as use the length of the arm to create more resistance. This moves you further with each stroke, & to me is faster than flailing your arms fast & not getting much on the pull. The ideal is to get that long, strong pull at a quick stroke rate.... More pulling at the rotated position. Plus I'm probably still recovering from the Sunday 10K. But still doing my 6000 yard swim in the morning. Haven't really taken a full "recovery" day yet. 0 -
Just be careful of over rotating, you can put too much stress on the shoulder. It's good to feel that you're engaging all the way down to there, but if it starts to hurt then back it off just a little. A while back I was concentrating on lengthening my stroke & was really over reaching it - I was starting to get pain in the joints in my shoulders. I backed the length off just a little & started the resistance band exercises which eliminated the pain....0
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Thanks. That is what I do in stretch focus laps. trying to find that sweet spot where I can work toward maximizing efficiency without adding undue strain.Just be careful of over rotating, you can put too much stress on the shoulder. It's good to feel that you're engaging all the way down to there, but if it starts to hurt then back it off just a little. A while back I was concentrating on lengthening my stroke & was really over reaching it - I was starting to get pain in the joints in my shoulders. I backed the length off just a little & started the resistance band exercises which eliminated the pain....
My office fitness center is a set of resistance bands
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Fantastic, Gutzy, glad you're taking care.....0
This discussion has been closed.