This thread is reminiscent of the recent thread 'Stroke Length versus Rate' by Bill White, if I recall well.
In another recent thread -'Distance per stroke'-, it appeared that slowing down the stroke -which easily increases the distance per stroke-, is a benefit.
It is a benefit to some degree, but it is not an absolute benefit.
To slow down the rate just to increase the length, that's detrimental overall in speed.
An absolute benefit is when an optimum rate to length ratio is found for each swimmer.
For my improvement now, with my current length, I need a higher rate, or cadence.
At the beginning of today's workout, the approximate following discussion took place between me and a teammate, who used to swim in age-group swimming at Mission Viejo, California.
Me: "Look at that swimmer. He is my height, takes one or two strokes per 25 yards more than I take (i.e.: takes 16 or 17 strokes per 25 yards) , yet he is faster than me."
She: "It's not in the Stroke Length that he gets you. Your Stroke Length is fine. It is with a faster cadence that he gets you."
Me: "There are people posting in the Masters Swimming Forum and there is the Total Immersion book, that emphasize to slow down the cadence only, and therefore to increase the stroke length."
(My note: the Total Immersion book does this emphasis only, by dismissing the benefits of cadence, starting in page 31; it wrongly believes that in time it is more worthy to work on stroke length than on the quickly declining stroke cadence).
She: "I never bought into Total Immersion."
Me: "Neither did I. In 1990, when I was in Canada at my peak, and being coached in a club by a coach who is now coach of the Canadian Olympic Team, when swimming the 100 meters freestyle, he was urging me to increase my arm cadence. Since that peak, I lost in cadence, because I lost alertness."
Me: "How do I increase the cadence?
Isn't this higher cadence obtained with VO2Max (i.e.: oxygen fueling the swimming muscles), with fast-twitch swimming muscles and striated tissue that are developed best when a swimmer has a teenager growing body, and obtained also by physical conditioning?"
She: "It's the mental that commands the physical conditioning.
Think of the rhythm: tak_tak_tak... (type 1, like Matt Biondi is),
as opposed to: tak___tak___tak... (type 2),
as opposed to: tak_____tak_____tak... (type 3),
and as opposed to: tak_______tak_______tak... (type 4).
In distance swimming, you are a type 4 in the arms.
(My note: in the 2002 Long Course Nationals, I think that I was prepared by another coach -a neglectful coach-, as a type 4 in the arms).
When swimming distance, force yourself mentally to turn your arms in the rhythm tak_____tak_____tak... (type 3), and when swimming sprints, force yourself mentally to turn your arms in the rhythm tak____tak____tak... (type 2)."
After today's workout, the approximate following comments took place between me and the coach.
Me: "Kelly says that I have a type 4 cadence in the arms.
How do I quicken my cadence?"
Coach: "What we can do is to slow down your aerobic base send-offs, so that with more rest you can increase the quality in each swim, and develop more gears for speeds."
Me: "What I don't understand is how come I have a quick cadence in kicking, and a slow cadence (type 4) in the arms."
(My note: there were days around Christmas 2002, training Long Course, when I was kicking with a kickboard, 50 meters repeats leaving every 55 seconds while coming in 50 seconds. This is a very fast kicking for the Masters Swimming level. Overall, swimming in Masters Swimming in my age group, I am not very fast, but in long endurance swims I rank higher than in sprints).
Coach: "Are you coming tomorrow at UCSD, and watch the dual meet between UCSD and UC Santa Cruz? I have a late starter in swimming like you, who can kick fast and cannot move her arms quickly. Late starters in swimming are like that."
(My note: the coach is also coaching the middle-distance and the distance group of swimmers for the UCSD college team).
Me: "Isn't this because of VO2Max (i.e.: oxygen fueling the swimming muscles), and because of fast-twitch swimming muscles and striated tissue that are developed best when a swimmer has a teenager growing body?"
I think so.
I started to swim in public swim at age 25, and joined my first swimming club at age 28.
Under these conditions, what I did is very good, and now what I hope for, is to restore my own level from mid-90s and go from there...
Ion,
Permit me to clarify and simplify, from my point of view, what you are saying.
There are two basic components in swimming freestyle: stroke length (SL) and stroke rate, otherwise known as turnover or cadence (C).
TI says that SL is the thing we chiefly need to worry about, and that any way you can maximize SL (that is, increase distance per stroke) is pretty much an unadulterated good thing.
The objective experience of world class sprinters, on the other hand, according to your statistics, Ion, shows that C is equally if not more important. To sprint fast, in other words, you need to be able to really turn over your stroke. Sure, it helps if each of these strokes allows you to travel a long distance. But you need to be able to stroke, stroke, stroke, etc. quickly.
Furthermore, you are suggesting that C declines with age, much as maximal heart rate itself declines with age.
Are these assumptions correct?
If so, factor in a few other semi-random thoughts I have had while debating the merits of SL vs. C.
One of the things that has bothered me a bit about the TI emphasis on SL is that this is supposed to make swimming more effortless. Intuitively that makes sense--you take fewer strokes, so it's got to be less tiring, right?
But why then are catch up drills (and TI's beloved front quadrant swimming, it seems to me, is nothing but a modified catch up drill) so utterly exhausting? I find it infinitely easier to swim at a windmill rate of 15-17 strokes per 25 yards than at a front quadrant limping 12-14 that TI suggests I am better off doing. The effort level between the two styles is not even close--the TI philosophy is absolutely exhausting! Not to mention hard on my shoulders.
Maybe partly this is because the fewer strokes per length throws your breathing off. Who knows? But besides being more tiring for me personally, it is significantly slower, as well.
My theory is that TI is best for triathletes who never learned to swim all that well, and who thrash about impotently in the water. In such a case, an emphasis on gliding makes a certain sense. Factor in that many of these folks do their "swimming" in neoprene body suits, which are akin to body kayaks, and it seems to me that TI is more about rowing a boat than swimming a body...
But perhaps I am being unfair here. All I mean to suggest is that I, like many of my friends, have tried to embrace the TI promise and found it just doesn't work for us. In fact, it's a recipe for swimming slower and at much greater expenditure of effort.
Another random thought: human bodies are different. I believe everyone has a optimum resonating frequency, if you will, a kind of musical key where SL and C come together in an individually optimal way for a given event. My own SL and C resonating frequencies are different when I swim a 50 vs. a 1650, but I have gradually learned (or perhaps intuitively discovered) what works best for these two kinds of races.
As far as C slowing down with age, I had not thought about this before, and I am not sure it is true. Or put it this way: we probably all slow down a little, but how significant is the decline. Could my 25 year old self skip rope twice as fast as I can now at 50? I suspect I might have skipped faster back then--but not hugely so.
Final suggestion: the next time you are swimming a longish set, try humming to yourself the 1812 overture, the classical piece with the cannonballs booming at the end. As you swim, start humming this slowly, then gradually pick up the pace and volume. As you reach the ever increasing crescendos of cannons firing, etc., let your stroke cadence increase to reflect this. You might surprise yourself and turnover faster than you thought you could.
Apologies to all TI devotees; didn't mean to be too obnoxious.
Ion,
Permit me to clarify and simplify, from my point of view, what you are saying.
There are two basic components in swimming freestyle: stroke length (SL) and stroke rate, otherwise known as turnover or cadence (C).
TI says that SL is the thing we chiefly need to worry about, and that any way you can maximize SL (that is, increase distance per stroke) is pretty much an unadulterated good thing.
The objective experience of world class sprinters, on the other hand, according to your statistics, Ion, shows that C is equally if not more important. To sprint fast, in other words, you need to be able to really turn over your stroke. Sure, it helps if each of these strokes allows you to travel a long distance. But you need to be able to stroke, stroke, stroke, etc. quickly.
Furthermore, you are suggesting that C declines with age, much as maximal heart rate itself declines with age.
Are these assumptions correct?
If so, factor in a few other semi-random thoughts I have had while debating the merits of SL vs. C.
One of the things that has bothered me a bit about the TI emphasis on SL is that this is supposed to make swimming more effortless. Intuitively that makes sense--you take fewer strokes, so it's got to be less tiring, right?
But why then are catch up drills (and TI's beloved front quadrant swimming, it seems to me, is nothing but a modified catch up drill) so utterly exhausting? I find it infinitely easier to swim at a windmill rate of 15-17 strokes per 25 yards than at a front quadrant limping 12-14 that TI suggests I am better off doing. The effort level between the two styles is not even close--the TI philosophy is absolutely exhausting! Not to mention hard on my shoulders.
Maybe partly this is because the fewer strokes per length throws your breathing off. Who knows? But besides being more tiring for me personally, it is significantly slower, as well.
My theory is that TI is best for triathletes who never learned to swim all that well, and who thrash about impotently in the water. In such a case, an emphasis on gliding makes a certain sense. Factor in that many of these folks do their "swimming" in neoprene body suits, which are akin to body kayaks, and it seems to me that TI is more about rowing a boat than swimming a body...
But perhaps I am being unfair here. All I mean to suggest is that I, like many of my friends, have tried to embrace the TI promise and found it just doesn't work for us. In fact, it's a recipe for swimming slower and at much greater expenditure of effort.
Another random thought: human bodies are different. I believe everyone has a optimum resonating frequency, if you will, a kind of musical key where SL and C come together in an individually optimal way for a given event. My own SL and C resonating frequencies are different when I swim a 50 vs. a 1650, but I have gradually learned (or perhaps intuitively discovered) what works best for these two kinds of races.
As far as C slowing down with age, I had not thought about this before, and I am not sure it is true. Or put it this way: we probably all slow down a little, but how significant is the decline. Could my 25 year old self skip rope twice as fast as I can now at 50? I suspect I might have skipped faster back then--but not hugely so.
Final suggestion: the next time you are swimming a longish set, try humming to yourself the 1812 overture, the classical piece with the cannonballs booming at the end. As you swim, start humming this slowly, then gradually pick up the pace and volume. As you reach the ever increasing crescendos of cannons firing, etc., let your stroke cadence increase to reflect this. You might surprise yourself and turnover faster than you thought you could.
Apologies to all TI devotees; didn't mean to be too obnoxious.
