I was always wondering how much time you can shave down in like, 1 year .It is very interesting to know some experiences you had, guys - i.e. what is the biggest time improvement you ever had in one year.Any stroke and distance are welcome :-)))
Former Member
Well, since we gently transformed this thread into a "number-of-strokes-per-length" thread, which is perfectly fine, I got to wonder - what would be the PERFECT range of strokes per length.We saw a few replies here where people claim to do 10 strokes or less, but the point is ... at what stage does it become ineffective to look for further decrease in number of strokes, i.e. you just start going slower (gliding a bit two long)though improved on strokes to a very impressive low count.Watching competitive swimmers I did not notice ANY OF THEM doing less than like 27-28 strokes per 50 meters, which is 14 per 25, even the tallest of them like Thorpe.Maybe there is some kind of perfect stage where you want to keep a certain # of strokes, 'cause decreasing them more will slow you down.Do I make any sense?
Originally posted by hooked-on-swimming
I was always wondering how much time you can shave down in like, 1 year .It is very interesting to know some experiences you had, guys - i.e. what is the biggest time improvement you ever had in one year.Any stroke and distance are welcome :-)))
The first year I trained as a competitor, I literally worked on nothing but 800m freestyle. I cut my time by about 8 minutes during that first year (which is in some degree a reflection on how lousy my time was to begin with!). My improvements were primarily in stamina. My time for my first lap dropped by less than 10% during that year, but I was able to maintain more of that speed over the 800m.
In my experience, it's a lot easier to build stamina than it is to improve sprint speed. Building stamina just takes work. Improving sprint speed takes cleverness (sort of like solving a Rubik's cube).
