I'm 35 years old 175cm 64kg male self taught swimmer starting from zero 5 years ago. I swam laps for a while, but soon developed interest and passion in swimming fast over short distances and relentless daily practice.
I have times in all strokes, but use freestyle as main benchmark. First time I tried to swim short course 100m freestyle I timed around 1:40. Over time this improved to 1:35, 1:27, 1:17 and reached a plateau there.
So I went through a year or so of the Starting Strength program, deadlifted 100kg in sets of 5 and squatted 80kg. I began to feel like my body line, explosiveness, starts and push offs improved. Freestyle time didn't improve dramatically, only down to 1:15.
At that point I felt I knew plenty about training of energy systems from Olbrecht, so I decided to only focus on improving my pure speed. I take 17 seconds for a push 25 in 18 strokes at 90-100 spm.
I followed Boomer's Freestyle Reimagined and took my stroke apart 4 weeks ago. A stroke change is clearly going to take 4 months or years to happen, not 4 weeks, but I am beginning to lose the enjoyment. I am hugely motivated to see myself break the 15sec 25m and ultimately the freestyle minute, and have no idea whether it is possible with no youth swimming background.
I posted on the UK Swimming Forum, but had no reply and thought I would post here too in search for tips or similar experiences. Would appreciate any comments!
I've seen an adult successfully join an age group program, and haven't tried that myself. I swam with a masters club for 2 years, which was a lot of fun, but these seem to be geared towards fitness and training rather than focused development of speed. Moreover, I am not quite so fast and fit to join some of the higher profile clubs. I've been to see a number of coaches/swimmers for advice, including Swim Smooth, who all had valuable input, but nothing seemed to really point me towards some a big area of improvement. I feel like I might be missing an obvious one. There are definitely areas like "feel for water" and "stroke efficicency" that remain mystical to me despite having read volumes.
Stroke rate is very dependent on the individual. I'll take myself as an example.
There's another guy on my team who is about the same height and we are proportionally pretty similar, though I carry an extra 30 lbs or so that he doesn't...and less of that extra weight is muscle than I'd like, but that's a whole 'nother topic...
We're both about a 24.5 for a 50y free, but he has a much higher tempo than I do. We got a video of us both on a 200 free relay last year and I counted our strokes from the same point on the surface. For the 2nd lap of the 50, from the same point I was 15 strokes to the wall, he was 18.
Admittedly, I'm by no means a drop dead sprinter and my technique turns to utter crap on anything shorter than a 100, so a 50 might not be a great example for me. In a 100y free, I normally do 5 butterfly kicks off the wall, then take 14 strokes per lap. My time is about 54.5, but I'm not sure what my stroke rate comes out to, given the amount of time I spend underwater. I believe the other guy I mentioned is about 18-20 strokes per lap in the 100 with less time/distance underwater than I do and about the same time, but I haven't watched him do that race in a while.
EDIT: I went back and watched a video of a 100 free from last spring--I took 57 strokes and was on the surface for 39 seconds, giving me a stroke rate of 88 per minute.
Stroke rate is very dependent on the individual. I'll take myself as an example.
There's another guy on my team who is about the same height and we are proportionally pretty similar, though I carry an extra 30 lbs or so that he doesn't...and less of that extra weight is muscle than I'd like, but that's a whole 'nother topic...
We're both about a 24.5 for a 50y free, but he has a much higher tempo than I do. We got a video of us both on a 200 free relay last year and I counted our strokes from the same point on the surface. For the 2nd lap of the 50, from the same point I was 15 strokes to the wall, he was 18.
Admittedly, I'm by no means a drop dead sprinter and my technique turns to utter crap on anything shorter than a 100, so a 50 might not be a great example for me. In a 100y free, I normally do 5 butterfly kicks off the wall, then take 14 strokes per lap. My time is about 54.5, but I'm not sure what my stroke rate comes out to, given the amount of time I spend underwater. I believe the other guy I mentioned is about 18-20 strokes per lap in the 100 with less time/distance underwater than I do and about the same time, but I haven't watched him do that race in a while.
EDIT: I went back and watched a video of a 100 free from last spring--I took 57 strokes and was on the surface for 39 seconds, giving me a stroke rate of 88 per minute.
