Time differentials between strokes

You can click here to compare collective masters swimmers time differences between strokes. I just did a little search out of curiosity. By taking the middle time (i.e. the 250th ranking time out of 500) for each stroke of the 50-54 male SCY swims last season respective to free. Heh. Mine look crazy. I must not be a freestyler comparatively. Which I guess I kinda already knew. Free 1.00 Back 1.08 Fly 1.04 *** 1.23 I swim by myself pretty much, have taken the odd swimming lesson here and there with a coach but nothing consistent. I did swim recently with a gentleman who only swims breaststroke (capable of :40/50yd) who has the flatter-style stroke with a really strong kick. Couldn’t emulate him though, but I can work harder at it. I might bust a knee doing it though. Do you take any video? You might try doing that sometime... You might see something stick out yourself, or you might share with the forum here or a coach elsewhere and they may see something.

Yeah, it's hard because phone cameras aren't great at self-videoing swimming because they generally aren't wide angle enough. Not to mention not usually being waterproof enough to hang around at the edge of the pool (or underwater!). Before I bought my GoPro knockoff a few weeks ago, I'd only gotten myself videoed once recently and only because one of the guys that swims with me was out early stretching. Now with the "FauxPro" I can get some good videos, though I do need to work on the angle to get more of the lap in frame. www.instagram.com/.../

Thanks. I'm 29 and swam through college though, so I have a bit of an age or background advantage over many Masters swimmers. Do you swim alone or with a coach? I would hazard a guess based on your ratios that there are some pretty big improvements you could make in your breaststroke just with some basic technique tweaks - or some work on your underwaters. There are definitely some unique flexibility and strength needs for breaststroke compared to the other strokes, that's for sure, and if you're missing those you are SOL to some degree. We can't all have the same blend of strength, flexibility and feel for the water as, say, Kevin Cordes! I swim by myself pretty much, have taken the odd swimming lesson here and there with a coach but nothing consistent. I did swim recently with a gentleman who only swims breaststroke (capable of :40/50yd) who has the flatter-style stroke with a really strong kick. Couldn’t emulate him though, but I can work harder at it. I might bust a knee doing it though.

You can click here to compare collective masters swimmers time differences between strokes. I just did a little search out of curiosity. By taking the middle time (i.e. the 250th ranking time out of 500) for each stroke of the 50-54 male SCY swims last season respective to free. It was: fr 1.00 bk 1.26 br 1.32 fl 1.10 Yours was: fr 1.00 bk 1.10 br 1.38 fl 1.06 Myself: fr 1.00 bk 1.23 br 1.31 fl 1.13 I thought back was my slowest, turns out to be my fastest How interesting, thank you. I did a search for 2016-2017 Women’s 35-39 in the four strokes (there definitely weren’t enough competitors to make 250 the midpoint but I used the median place for each event) and got the following: Median ratio: Free 1.00 Back 1.19 *** 1.33 Fly 1.08 Myself: Free 1.00 Back 1.12 *** 1.42 Fly 1.06

Heh. Mine look crazy. I must not be a freestyler comparatively. Which I guess I kinda already knew. Free 1.00 Back 1.08 Fly 1.04 *** 1.23 Do you take any video? You might try doing that sometime... You might see something stick out yourself, or you might share with the forum here or a coach elsewhere and they may see something. I’d like to take videos but don’t want to bother anyone, it seems like a lot of people have this dilemma too. I’ll have to do some research on the self-video options.

i would say your a fly/backstroker ... and like me they will be passing you in breaststroke in the IM

Yeah, your breaststroke is pretty far behind your other three strokes. I'd say 5-7 seconds difference between free and *** is probably a good rule of thumb. Backstroke is a bit off compared to your fly, in an ideal world those are pretty much even from a push. Obviously from a dive that would change things some. But keeping the ratios "in line" really only matters if you care to be a generalist or IMer. FWIW, I'm an IMer, pretty even between strokes. Last meet (which was my first meet back from 6-year swimming break so take it with a grain of salt), I swam all of the 50s short course meters, my times were: Fly - 26.5 Back - 27.5 *** - 31.2 Free - 25.3

Oh those are some nice videos (and a nice pool). I might get one and try it out. I took a video of someone swimming underwater with a iPhone, and between the narrow field of vision, the cloudy water that day, the turbulence shaking my hands and trying to hold my breath to see what was on the video, the video didn’t come out too well.

Yeah, it's hard because phone cameras aren't great at self-videoing swimming because they generally aren't wide angle enough. Not to mention not usually being waterproof enough to hang around at the edge of the pool (or underwater!). Before I bought my GoPro knockoff a few weeks ago, I'd only gotten myself videoed once recently and only because one of the guys that swims with me was out early stretching. Now with the "FauxPro" I can get some good videos, though I do need to work on the angle to get more of the lap in frame. www.instagram.com/.../ Have you tried the early dolphin kick in your pullout? Are you faster with the dolphin during the pulldown?

Wow those are great times, I guess my swimming goal would be not to have such a large variance/deficiency between any of the strokes... so breaststroke needs a lot of work. I’m probably too drag-sensitive for big improvements though, and swimming it feels like an accordion that’s being scrunched and stretched out over and over. i think I could see bigger improvements in back and fly, with some marginal improvement in free, but reducing the huge difference in the *** time is going to be a life long goal probably. Thanks. I'm 29 and swam through college though, so I have a bit of an age or background advantage over many Masters swimmers. Do you swim alone or with a coach? I would hazard a guess based on your ratios that there are some pretty big improvements you could make in your breaststroke just with some basic technique tweaks - or some work on your underwaters. There are definitely some unique flexibility and strength needs for breaststroke compared to the other strokes, that's for sure, and if you're missing those you are SOL to some degree. We can't all have the same blend of strength, flexibility and feel for the water as, say, Kevin Cordes!