Stroke count?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Awesome job. Thanks :)

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.

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:

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.