Arm recovery/stroke question

Hey A&C, you wrote: i have an important question, how can i get my arm recovery / stroke to get faster (increase arm speed)? I go 23.19 in the 50 free, and i recently went 27.28 in LCM but my arm speed is very slow.... any tips? i would like for my arms to go as fast as cesar cielo or nathan adrians. jazz hands i think you may be right about me pulling all the way through, im going to try to post the video of my 50 LCM freestyle within the next two days. thanks for all the help thus far though jazz hands , i think you may be right about my hand pulling too far out, im ging to try and send in the video of my LCM freestyle within two days, thanks for the help thus far though and im 16 years old, 145 , if you mean strength numbers by lifing weights i go to the weight room alot but havent went in almost a month. i bench 200 lbs (max), but i do sets of 175, and 180. i do dumbells curls with 35 lbs ( sometimes 40lbs ) I too would love to swim like Cesar & Nathan. How tall are you? What kind of training are you doing? First you're just 16, you should train for many events. 100's, 200's 500's & 1000's 16 is the perfect age to do a lot of serious focused training. Build a great base. Don't worry about the 50 just yet, have an awesome 200 & 500, you can go down to shorter events when you're older. That foundation will help you finish 50's & 100's faster when you're older and stronger. Get the conditioning, endurance & technique then add strength when you're 18, 19, 20 & on. Read Swim Faster Faster Improve your flutter kick Improve your SDK (streamline dolphin kick) Improve your SPEED here's a few of my favorite SFF tips Tip 347 Eddie Reese on 4 Ways Swimmers Improve Tip 340 Go On a Vision Quest to Become your Best Train harder, smarter, faster, further, more often with a positive attitude, coached by a great coach, with fast fun positive hard working team mates, in a convenient facility with adequate lane space & at convenient times while having tons of fun Swim fast in practice Kick fast in practice Swimming fast is fun Have lots of fun Ande

Rather than faster hands - more muscle to propel you thru all phases of the stroke !!

I watched a video of Cielo doing underwater freestyle (25's with flippers completly submerged) specificly for snappy arm recovery.

There's zero evidence that this is actually true. Jazz, We're just going to differ on this point. Alot of swimmers trained for everything and did longer events when they were younger. I am absolutely sure it helps. Jesse Vasallo still has the 13 14 boys 1500 m free record and he wound up breaking WRs in the 200 IM Tom Jager sometimes swam the 1650 when he was 13 14 & maybe 15 16 John Smith's son Clark, who's now 16 went 20.9 in the 50, 48.5 in the 100 fly, 4:32 in the 500 & 9:10 in the 1000. Missy Franklin can swim anything. so could Tracy Caulkins, she broke several WR's & American Records in every stroke. Jazz, my guess is at some point in your life you probably did some longer harder training which to this day enables you to lift and do a few short sprints for practice and still go fairly fast. It doesn't hurt to train hard and it helps to be good in many events. There aren't any short cuts. Ande

Short cuts? What about training specifically for what you want to get good at? Suppose it was customary for swimmers to all train on unicycles. Everybody does it. Coaches all believe in building a unicycle base for swimming. All of the swimmers you listed, in this alternate reality, would have extensive background in unicycle training. Guys, did you know that Tom Jaeger's first nationals cut was in a unicycle race? Would you then suggest that skipping the unicycle training is looking for a non-existent short cut around all of the hard unicycle work that all fast swimmers obviously need to do? What about training specifically for what you want to get good at? I'm all for training specifically for what you want to get good at. I don't think young swimmers know, if they haven't put in the work at some point in their lives they aren't likely to maximize their ability. Your unicycle point is silly. Brian, what do you need to do to go faster? Ande

jazz hands i think you may be right about me pulling all the way through, im going to try to post the video of my 50 LCM freestyle within the next two days . thanks for all the help thus far though Let me preface this by saying that I'm not a sprinter, though I can fake it at times. I prefer mid-D events. So take whatever I say with a grain of salt. I agree with Jazz, I am not certain that "pulling all the way through" is conducive to top speed. My impression, possibly incorrect, is that most top sprinters are more focused on the front quadrant, where there is more power, than a good finish. They might sacrifice some DPS, hand exiting a little earlier, in order to get a higher stroke rate. If it's your quest (for what it's worth, I think it's a legitimate one), then one good way of increasing the rate is first to at least be aware of it. Two ways... Either you use a wetronome device which will give you your target stroke rate. You set it to 90SPM, it beeps 90 times per minute. http://www.wetronome.com/ The other way is to use some computer which will compute both stroke lengths and rate for you. In this case, the guizmo won't beep at all. Instead, it allows you to actually see what your rate was after a set. www.finisinc.com/.../swimsense.html I would suggest the Tempo Trainer before either of the above devices. One possible thing to try: -- get used to using the Tempo Trainer at a variety of stroke rates. Set for a variety of SRs and repeat until you are certain you have a good feel for the technique needed to achieve a given SR. -- do some experimenting. What SR results in the fastest times in sprint 25s? How sensitive is the time to SR? You maybe can find your "sweet spot" in this manner. Then condition yourself to be able to hold that SR over longer distances. Possibly as you get stronger or develop more lactate tolerance, your sweet spot might shift over time to a faster turnover. Good luck.

Cullen Jones' stroke rate is around 0.8 seconds per cycle in the 50. Distance guys are around .93 for the 1500. It's a noticable difference but not as big as you would think. Concentrate on what gets you down the pool the fastest. I think stroke rate is dictated by many things: height, reach, leg strength, kick cadence, frontal profile and resistance etc. Remember you need traction in your kick and pull, you can't just spin, you need to grip. Make sure you can swim a fast 500. This is a measure of streamlining and efficiency, then take that efficiency to your 50 with bulging muscles from the weight room (someday, you are still young).

How tall are you and how tall are your father and your mother?How high is your vertical jump.If you are over 6'2" now,your dad is 6'5" &/or your mom is 6' and your vertical jump is over 30" then forget what Ande said and really focus on sprinting,otherwise,yes diversify for now(Actually, don't blow off what Ande said entirely anyway,while Jazz is right that good data is nonexistent,an aerobic base at 16 is probably a good thing to have.).By the way at 12 I knew I was going to be a breaststroker.In age group I did all the strokes(we had to) and ended up a breaststroker(when you are short and walk like a duck,everyone knows you are going to be a breaststroker.)

jazz hands , i think you may be right about my hand pulling too far out, im ging to try and send in the video of my LCM freestyle within two days, thanks for the help thus far though

and im 16 years old, 145 , if you mean strength numbers by lifing weights i go to the weight room alot but havent went in almost a month. i bench 200 lbs (max), but i do sets of 175, and 180. i do dumbells curls with 35 lbs ( sometimes 40lbs)