Tempo Rate

If you dont have access to a coach who can time your strokes for a given distance to work out your stroke rate. The next best thing is the Speedo Stroke Monitor. This is a watch that you wear when swimming. It will give you info such as your stroke length, stroke rate, number of cycles, speed and overall effeciency. However, the readings are not 100% accurate as your push offs and turns are counted as part of the distance used to calculate stroke length and stroke rate. BTW a stroke cycle is two arm strokes. Mark's post showed a rate of 20 cycles/min. As a guide Ian thorpe has a very low stroke rate of 38-40 cycles/min in his races, about 1.10 seconds per arm stroke. Most mid-long distance swimmers use 40 - 50 cycles/min when racing. Sprinters are in the 60 cycles/min range. Stroke rate is higher for shorter swimmers and if you don't have a great kick. Taller swimmers have lower stroke rates in general. Experiment with your stroke rate to find what works best. A rate of 20cycles/min is fine for slow swimming, but will not win any races. Your stroke count of 20 per 25m is still quite high, if you have good push offs and turns then 17 - 18 is a good target. In practice try 50m repeats where you increase your stroke rate but focus on allowing your strokes per length to increase by only 2 or 3 strokes for your fastest swims. A drill of doing 25m repeats where you try to keep the same stroke count, say 20 while increasing your speed and stroke rate will help. Think of each hand entering the same spot in the water as you get faster. If you can steadily increase your rate to 25 cycles/min over the next few months and to 30 cycles there after you should see your times come down

If you dont have access to a coach who can time your strokes for a given distance to work out your stroke rate. The next best thing is the Speedo Stroke Monitor. This is a watch that you wear when swimming. It will give you info such as your stroke length, stroke rate, number of cycles, speed and overall effeciency. However, the readings are not 100% accurate as your push offs and turns are counted as part of the distance used to calculate stroke length and stroke rate. BTW a stroke cycle is two arm strokes. Mark's post showed a rate of 20 cycles/min. As a guide Ian thorpe has a very low stroke rate of 38-40 cycles/min in his races, about 1.10 seconds per arm stroke. Most mid-long distance swimmers use 40 - 50 cycles/min when racing. Sprinters are in the 60 cycles/min range. Stroke rate is higher for shorter swimmers and if you don't have a great kick. Taller swimmers have lower stroke rates in general. Experiment with your stroke rate to find what works best. A rate of 20cycles/min is fine for slow swimming, but will not win any races. Your stroke count of 20 per 25m is still quite high, if you have good push offs and turns then 17 - 18 is a good target. In practice try 50m repeats where you increase your stroke rate but focus on allowing your strokes per length to increase by only 2 or 3 strokes for your fastest swims. A drill of doing 25m repeats where you try to keep the same stroke count, say 20 while increasing your speed and stroke rate will help. Think of each hand entering the same spot in the water as you get faster. If you can steadily increase your rate to 25 cycles/min over the next few months and to 30 cycles there after you should see your times come down