Stroke count?

RE: Stroke count?

Former Member — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:20:15 GMT

Jeesh. Awesome job.

RE: Stroke count?

Former Member — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:07:12 GMT

53.9, 59.0 lol. That back half will come way down after taper for nats. I haven't swam this event since last april, but last year was 1:51.3, and that was tapered/shaved and 35lbs heavier ;)

RE: Stroke count?

Former Member — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:55:57 GMT

After reviewing footage from my 200yd free this weekend: Strokes per length, each length: 9 12 11 12 13 12 13 13 Time 1:52.9 And my 100 free: 11 13 13 14 Time 50.0

RE: Stroke count?

Swimosaur — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:00:52 GMT

... 200yd free this weekend: Strokes per length, each length: 9 12 11 12 13 12 13 13 Time 1:52.9 Nice swim! What were the splits?

RE: Stroke count?

GregJS — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:10:00 GMT

Apart from losing weight, what has worked for you to reduce your stroke count per length? I'm at around 18-20 with a six-beat kick. I don't feel I can reduce the count without adding an element of glide. (why did my quote of olegmeister come out looking like that instead of the nice blue box?) I'm working on getting my hip rotation coordinated with my arms and legs. Whenever that happens and it feels like my hip rotation is "driving" my stroke, my SPL goes down. It feels good too. But I'm not used to it and it wears me out quickly. But they say once those core muscles get conditioned, they don't get tired as quickly as arms and legs do. Hope so.

RE: Stroke count?

habu987 — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:04:41 GMT

I counted mine in practice last night and it was roughly 800 per 100. I'd like to see your turnover in a 100 ***, if you take 800 strokes!!! :bolt:

RE: Stroke count?

Former Member — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 08:55:31 GMT

I swim in a 33 meter pool. If I am relaxed and warmed up and concentrate on keeping my SPL down I need 11 strokes (starting from the wall; one underwater pull at the beginning). Normaly I need 12 or even 15 - if I'm tired. Sometimes I swim like a torpedo, or at least I fell like one :). I do not watch my times, but I got a few compliments on my speed from swim team members). I wish I could swim like that all the time. At the begining of my swims I am generaly tense and slow. I need to swim a few hundred meters to propely function. After that it is so much better. What is this sensation? Is this due to not being warmed up? BTW I was talking about breaststroke and not freestyle. As for freestyle, I need 22-25ish. Again in 33 meter pool. No dolphin kick at the beginning, just a push-off the wall and a little streamline.

RE: Stroke count?

Former Member — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 06:48:32 GMT

Awesome job. Thanks :)

RE: Stroke count?

Jimbosback — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 06:47:29 GMT

Apart from losing weight, what has worked for you to reduce your stroke count per length? I'm at around 18-20 with a six-beat kick. I don't feel I can reduce the count without adding an element of glide. thanks I have been working hard on my kick (first I had to learn to swim with 6-beat instead of 'maniac' kick, and also really working on my catch and being strong pulling through the entire stroke, mostly with pull buoy drilling. My DPS is much improved, though not exactly great.

RE: Stroke count?

habu987 — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 04:24:10 GMT

Apart from losing weight, what has worked for you to reduce your stroke count per length? I'm at around 18-20 with a six-beat kick. I don't feel I can reduce the count without adding an element of glide. thanks The biggest thing for me is working your underwaters. If you've got good lung capacity and a strong dolphin/flutter kick, you'll be able to pick up quite a bit of ground at speed under the surface. If I'm swimming at aerobic pace, I do 3-4 dolphin kicks off each wall and take 11-12 SPL. If I just flutter kick off the wall, I take 12-14 strokes, depending on how far I kick. All that said, it also depends on how strong you are in the water; more specifically, how strong your pull is. We've got one guy on the team (probably the strongest guy) who just thrashes the water when he swims, no matter the pace--he's at ~20 SPL at aerobic pace. I watched a video of him on one of our 200Y free relays, and his SPL was 18/24 with a relay start. He just spins through the water and doesn't really work his walls. He's a slightly faster sprinter than I am, so it works for him to at least some degree, but I personally think he needs to work more on catching the water. I went back and looked at videos of my freestyle races from the last year, 4x50 (two relays and two individuals) and 1x100. Here were my stroke counts: Spring Regular 50 free #1: 12/18 Fall regular 50 free #2: 13/17 (last event of the meet, so I didn't have as high a turnover as I wanted) Nationals Relay 50 free #1: 12/18 Fall Relay 50 free #2: 9/14 (I tried galloping and wasn't running at 100% speed, to boot) Fall 100 free: 12/14/14/16 (last event of the meet, so I was completely burned out and had no turnover) My underwaters on a relay are better than in the individual 50 free, but I've been working at increasing my turnover, so my SPL is about the same now as it was at Nats last year.

RE: Stroke count?

olegmeister — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 06:20:45 GMT

RE: Stroke count?

Karl_S — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 01:50:19 GMT

This thread prompted me to investigate the relationship between speed and SPL in my swimming. Today's effort: SPL time 15 1:25 16 1:23 17 1:19 18 1:15 19 1:13 21 1:10 21 1:10 19 1:16 18 1:19 17 1:20 16 1:23 15 1:25

RE: Stroke count?

Karl_S — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 11:42:26 GMT

This thread prompted me to investigate the relationship between speed and SPL in my swimming. I blogged about it here: forums.usms.org/entry.php I'd be very interested to see similar analyses for other swimmers.

RE: Stroke count?

Former Member — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 11:17:08 GMT

Huge variance depending on how one starts off the wall as well. Start stroking with no push off? 1 dolphin kick? 3 dolphins? I push off into a streamline with one dolphin kick and treat it like a break out with no breathing until I peel off 2 strokes. One thing I'd suggest to just be keenly aware of with stroke counting is not getting too hung up to where that's all you focus on. I see quite a bit of this where people get dragged into the total immersion voodoo of gliding a bunch which I see a ton of with the triathlete crowd at our pools. Accelerate, decelerate, accelerate, decelerate. Huge pauses and gaps in their strokes leaning on a dropped elbow it's exhausting to watch. All the way down the pool at 2:20 100 yard pace, but they only took 10 strokes! With that said I'm 6'1" and kind of a long torso/average wingspan build. Aerobic sets are 12-13 and 50's typically done ~ 15-16. As a point of reference I did a set of 6 x 200 last week counting my strokes and they were from 2:35 to 2:29 with an average of 14 strokes/25 yard length. The only thing I think about on 200 and above is 2:3 breathing patterns mixed in and stroke count. I know if I get enough air and keep my core speed/rotation driving the stroke count my times will be within a hand full of seconds. The stroke count can kind of be misleading too on shorter stuff b/c I use more of a shoulder driven stroke which lends itself to a higher stroke rate. 200 and up it's more hip driven which lends itself to a lower stroke rate as well.

RE: Stroke count?

Former Member — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:14:28 GMT

I saw somewhere on Swimswam yesterday (maybe their Twitter feed) that Breeja Larson took 25 strokes total in her 100 breaststroke at the SEC championships. I counted mine in practice last night and it was roughly 800 per 100.

RE: Stroke count?

Former Member — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:54:14 GMT

I'll have to check my armspan. Long arms always helped me out in blocking shots for basketball. well that and have a 30+" vert.

RE: Stroke count?

mlabresh — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 11:08:42 GMT

Do you wish you were a baller? Yes! How did you know!? ;) Stroke count might be overrated during a race. On a pb 50 relay leg I took 14 strokes to the turn without a breath, but I turned short. On the way back I took a breath, then had to hussle taking 20 strokes to touch in24.62. I watched a video of it and I was barely under 12 to the feet. My armspan is 6'3". That's good to know. And it's part of why I rarely do stroke counts. Us little people have to make up for our lack of length with more strength. I figure, I can keep up with 13-16yo girls who are taller than me, so I must not be doing TOO badly, right? :P

RE: Stroke count?

__steve__ — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 09:43:39 GMT

Man, reading these posts really makes me wish I was taller! :P I haven't done a stroke count in quite a while.. but I'm usually in the 20+ range for free. I try to focus less on counting them (unless I'm trying to gauge improvement) and work more on lengthening. Being only 5'2", I need all the s t r e t c h I can get!Stroke count might be overrated during a race. On a pb 50 relay leg I took 14 strokes to the turn without a breath, but I turned short. On the way back I took a breath, then had to hussle taking 20 strokes to touch in24.62. I watched a video of it and I was barely under 12 to the feet. My armspan is 6'3".

RE: Stroke count?

__steve__ — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 02:02:16 GMT

Count strokes at practice but take as many as you need in a race

RE: Stroke count?

Former Member — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:22:37 GMT

RE: Stroke count?

mlabresh — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 10:10:24 GMT

RE: Stroke count?

habu987 — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:57:58 GMT

The last couple of days I started using SPL counts on my backstroke to help me not crash the wall on the side without backstroke flags. It's still not fool-proof, I get into a rhythm and 20 seems about right, but every now and again I'll be at 18 and "sense" I need to turn... sure enough. Yesterday I was doing 200s and 20 sPL was the magic number, today I was doing 100s and the SPL was all over the place. I'm new to back stroke, is this fluctuation (17-20) normal? Should I be aiming for more consistency? My stroke count is all over the place, but depending on the speed/number of SDKs I'm doing, it usually falls into the same ballpark given similar variables. For example, my stroke count increases each 25 for the first 75 of the 200 back in a race, but then *usually* stays the same for the rest of the race. All that said, I never go by stroke count when I'm swimming, whether in a race or in practice--I always just go based on feel and the flags.

RE: Stroke count?

mcnair — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 10:42:26 GMT

RE: Stroke count?

Former Member — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 12:16:44 GMT

I did all of my stroke countig with 1 dolphin kick and it was 10 or 11.

RE: Stroke count?

knelson — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 10:05:12 GMT

I presume we are talking about 1 set/ two arms. If so, then I do 25 meters with 10 stroke sets. No, most people are talking about each arm pull being considered one stroke. So 10 would mean five "sets" in your parlance.