If you compare your best times for the various events of a stroke, where does the biggest drop-off occure? Is this different for a sprinter compared to a swimmer of a distance persuasion?
I noticed that there was little difference between my speed for the 800 free compared with my best 1500. In fact, my two best 800s are splits from my best 1500s.
So I decided to take a closer look:
Freestyle Masters PB, SCM:
50: 26.87 (100 m= 53.74)
100: 58.06 (58.06), drop-off=8.0 %
200: 2:05.61 (1:02.81), drop-off 8.2 %
400: 4:27.56 (1:06.89) drop-off 6.5 %
800: 9:19.13 (1:09.89) drop-off 4.5 %
1500: 17:31.38 (1:10.09) drop-off 0.3 %
How would you analyze this? I would think that my 200 is sub standard (biggest drop-off), and so is my 800 (no faster than 1500). There's a lot of variables, of course; was I shaved and tapered for all these swims, what kind of suit did I wear, was it early or late in the meet etc.
For the shorter swims, the drop-off is more substancial than for the longer swims. Is this due to my slow-twitch dominance or is it general? Could it have something to do with the different energy systems?
Freestyle with all its events was the most interesting subject, but of course I checked the other strokes too. Not all to my surprise there was a discrepancy between butterfly and backstroke drop-offs, from 100 to 200 my speed dropped by 2.6 % (backstroke :)) and 18.0 % (butterfly :afraid:).
Cool, I'll use any excuse to crunch some numbers. Here are my stats:
Freestyle, SCY
50 23.77 (47.54) ---
100 50.72 (50.72) 6.7%
200 1:49.31 (54.66) 7.8%
500 4:53.45 (58.69) 7.4%
1000 10:13.00 (61.30) 4.4%
1650 17:07.82 (62.29) 1.6%
Additionally, my 1650 pace is 22.8% slower than my 100 pace. I checked Sun Yang's times and see last year he went a 49.50 in the LC 100 and 14:31.02 in the 1500. Now I'm sure he can go faster than 49.5, but if you use that his dropoff is only 17.3% between his 100 and 1500. Katie Ledecky this year has been 50.26 in the 100 and 15:28.36 (56.26 pace) for the 1650. That's a drop off of only 11.9%!!
I have no idea what these numbers means without more data points. Of course we'll never get to see a sprinters numbers because they refuse to swim anything longer than a 200! :)
Cool, I'll use any excuse to crunch some numbers. Here are my stats:
Freestyle, SCY
50 23.77 (47.54) ---
100 50.72 (50.72) 6.7%
200 1:49.31 (54.66) 7.8%
500 4:53.45 (58.69) 7.4%
1000 10:13.00 (61.30) 4.4%
1650 17:07.82 (62.29) 1.6%
Additionally, my 1650 pace is 22.8% slower than my 100 pace. I checked Sun Yang's times and see last year he went a 49.50 in the LC 100 and 14:31.02 in the 1500. Now I'm sure he can go faster than 49.5, but if you use that his dropoff is only 17.3% between his 100 and 1500. Katie Ledecky this year has been 50.26 in the 100 and 15:28.36 (56.26 pace) for the 1650. That's a drop off of only 11.9%!!
I have no idea what these numbers means without more data points. Of course we'll never get to see a sprinters numbers because they refuse to swim anything longer than a 200! :)
