biggest time accomplishment

I once made 25 yards just with a dive, it was not fast but zero strokes and no kicking. We called it the long plunge. George www.swimdownhill.com

I now see it was fisgrrl with the nice stroke count.....and I also noticed that she does seem to like long distance freestyle, so I'm guessing that my first inclination was the correct one....Necessity is the mother of invention....(i.e. if you swim enough long distance freestyle, perhaps you eventually have to develop a stroke count like that out of necessity). I am a little afraid to even use the clock at workout these days b/c I don't want to know how slow I might actually be swimming......I will, eventually, need to actually use it as our first official Masters practice is this Tuesday (It's a brand new team that just formed at my local YMCA)....I have met the coaches many times on the pool deck and we've talk about various drills and such....but so far, My interval training has been based on 30 seconds rest per swim, or 20 seconds rest per swim (all approximations in my head) without ever really glancing at the clock.....I HOPE I have a big drop in time this year.....but I have to realize that coming back to swimming after an 18 year layoff means that I probably will not swim very fast times this year.....but who knows?? Nationals isn't until May!

Geez louise folks! Keep your drawers on!! 8 stroke cycles, ok? That's 16 strokes. I count by stroke cycles. I have long arms, OK?

Originally posted by newmastersswimmer My freestyle stroke count is around 10 to 12 strokes per 25 yards (so 5 to 6 stroke cycles per 25 yards) WHEN I am at "cruising" speed (as opposed to full blown out race speed) ...and then I am really stretching my stroke out and trying to get as much distance per stroke as I can.....I have never heard of anyone who could average 8 strokes per 25.....But I'm not saying it's impossible by any means....Maybe that person is some kind of distance swimmer that has naturally developed a longer stroke?? In my program we focus a lot on juggling DPS and turnover rate. I've got a number of people capable of cruising in the 8 to 9 strokes per length area. In general, these are my fastest swimmers. Some are sprinters. Their fastest swimming does come at higher stroke counts. We put an emphasis on increasing DPS at all speeds. Likewise, we also work toward developing a wider range of speeds the swimmer can do at various different stroke counts. In general we think in terms of each swimmer developing sufficient skills to be able to swim the distance of one "wingspan" for each stroke, at a moderate pace, all day long, as a no-brainer habit. So a person with a 6-foot wingspan who gets 7 yards glide off a wall would have 54 feet left to travel in the length and thus a goal of being able to cruise at 9 spl. At that point, depending on how seamless that swim style looks I might encourage an even lower stroke count. I have a 76 yr old woman who manages 12 SPL on good days.

Originally posted by emmett In my program we focus a lot on juggling DPS and turnover rate. I've got a number of people capable of cruising in the 8 to 9 strokes per length area. That's strokes, not stroke cycles.

"I can't imagine any speed could be generated by 8 strokes per lap. That's a lot of gliding and reduced turnover." Well, my times have dropped, and so has my stroke count. But for me it is currently a constant "battle" of figuring out how to keep my stroke count down while dropping my times, especially on those long, long distances.

Regarding the misunderstanding about strokes per length: Sorry if any of my posts may have upset you??.....Like I said, I was impressed and jealous that's all .....(I even said that you may have meant stroke cycles instead of strokes when I responded to another persons response about it)......I think that when you said 8 strokes per length it just "grabbed our attention" b/c we can't do that (yet??)....you know it just sounded unusual to us....but as Emmit said, he has lots of swimmers who go close to that....I personally wouldn't mind decreasing my strokes (and stroke cycles) down for obvious reasons. newmastersswimmer

So a person with a 6-foot wingspan who gets 7 yards glide off a wall would have 54 feet left to travel in the length and thus a goal of being able to cruise at 9 spl. Unfortunately, my wingspan is not very wide...(at least I don't think it is??)...I stand around 5'11'' and I have a medium to small frame....my arms come down a little below my waist in a resting standing position....so I'm guessing that my wingspan is below 6 ft. I think it's great that you guys are getting such good results though!....I can get around 10 strokes per length when I'm pulling with hand paddles (and there again, I am really concentrating on DPS). I also try to glide as far as I can off of every turn to minimize the amount of strokes I have to do per length....I think I am getting around 7 yards glide off of every turn since I believe I am traveling a little more than a quarter of the way down the pool off of each turn....it's something I have really focused on lately....I can get farther on Butterfly and Backstroke turns then on freestyle turns though...(and obviously on breastroke turns as well).....I'm not sure why??...I seem to recall that I had been told somewhere down the line that you can stay on your back for a little while after the turn on a freestyle turn and then roll over onto your frontside after most of the glide....Is that true?...and do you think that is advantageous? newmastersswimmer

No, not at all - no offense taken! I guess I should have made myself more clear in the first place as I count cycles rather than actual strokes, but then Emmett shows up and says that he actually has people who can swim 8 or 9 strokes, not stroke rotations! Which is completely impressive to me; it is a real struggle to keep your form together and stroke count low and work at 80-90%! Anyway, it's all good. When I was a kid the YMCA swim lesson lady took one look at me and said, "my, what long arms you have. You look like an ape." I was kind of offended but little did I know how much my "ape" arms would help me out down the line!

Yes, you can stay on your back when you push off the wall - when I do a freestyle flipturn I flip over and push off on my back and twist onto my stomach as I'm gliding. I find this to be much faster than trying to twist onto my stomach right off the wall (so that I'm pushing off on my stomach). Does that make sense? What has also helped me decrease my stroke cycles per length is better flip turns. Mine aren't great but they've gotten better; squats at the gym help.