Strokes p/length - do I stink?

Steph -- You can reduce the number of strokes. First off, someone mentioned body type. I have a long, trim body. I take fewer strokes than most. Another guy who swims at the same time I do is stocky and muscular. Used to be a wrestler. He swims at a good clip too, but he takes almost 50% more strokes than I do per length, and I just can't see him and his build improving on that much. Here's what you can do to take fewer strokes. When your hand strikes the water, don't start pulling immediately. (Most people do.) Instead, push your hand forward in the water, as if you are sliding your arm into a coat sleeve. As you push your hand forward, you should be doing it as you are rolling to that side and are extending your other hand down by your thigh at the end of its stroke. Several things are occurring as you do this. 1) Many people imagine their stroke like paddlewheels. Their shoulders stay perpendicular to their spine, even if they rotate their body. In fact, your shoulders should be pivoting relative to your spine. The shoulder for the hand that is pushing forward in the water should be tipping forward, and the other backward. This will gain you 6 inches or so on each arm stroke simply by making your arms reach further by that much. And while the other shoulder is tipping back, you are getting another 6 inches on your pull. (Just sitting where you are now, tip your shoulders without moving your spine. If you extend your arms above your head and tip your shoulders, you can see the lengthening in your stroke by the amount that your hands move relative to each other.) This won't happen overnight (if you are not doing it already.) It will feel awkward. Will probably make you breathe harder at first. But give it a chance. 2) As your hand is pushing forward in the water in front of you, you are sort of "surfing" over a wave of turbulence that you naturally create beneath you as you swim. Imagine yourself catching that wave beneath your armpit as you swim. As your body rolls, you are rolling over it. Take full advantage of it. It may seem counter-intuitive to be pushing against the water below the surface, but it is the riding of this turbulence that gains you more than you lose by pushing against the water. And if you have good hand placement, you slice through the water rather than push against it anyway. (And the use of hand paddles will help you quickly discover inefficiencies in your hand placement as the paddles amplify drag from your hands.) Caution, there is a point of diminishing (and then negative) return in pushing forward and riding this wave. You will have to develop a "feel" for this over time. I have no idea how to describe it. 3) I find that concentrating on this technique helps me get better body roll. Hope this helps! BTW, I am by no means a master of this myself. I do pretty well (13-14 strokes average per 25 yards, and I can do 10 at my very best. But I recall reading somewhere that Alexander Popov could do 8 per 25 meters.) And as someone else mentioned, the faster you push, the higher the count gets. But if you are looking to do a tri, then doing that distance leg in a race would probably be at the aerobic pace you would do in workouts, so you can get a pretty good sense of what you'll do in a race by the progress you make each day in the pool.

Steph -- You can reduce the number of strokes. First off, someone mentioned body type. I have a long, trim body. I take fewer strokes than most. Another guy who swims at the same time I do is stocky and muscular. Used to be a wrestler. He swims at a good clip too, but he takes almost 50% more strokes than I do per length, and I just can't see him and his build improving on that much. Here's what you can do to take fewer strokes. When your hand strikes the water, don't start pulling immediately. (Most people do.) Instead, push your hand forward in the water, as if you are sliding your arm into a coat sleeve. As you push your hand forward, you should be doing it as you are rolling to that side and are extending your other hand down by your thigh at the end of its stroke. Several things are occurring as you do this. 1) Many people imagine their stroke like paddlewheels. Their shoulders stay perpendicular to their spine, even if they rotate their body. In fact, your shoulders should be pivoting relative to your spine. The shoulder for the hand that is pushing forward in the water should be tipping forward, and the other backward. This will gain you 6 inches or so on each arm stroke simply by making your arms reach further by that much. And while the other shoulder is tipping back, you are getting another 6 inches on your pull. (Just sitting where you are now, tip your shoulders without moving your spine. If you extend your arms above your head and tip your shoulders, you can see the lengthening in your stroke by the amount that your hands move relative to each other.) This won't happen overnight (if you are not doing it already.) It will feel awkward. Will probably make you breathe harder at first. But give it a chance. 2) As your hand is pushing forward in the water in front of you, you are sort of "surfing" over a wave of turbulence that you naturally create beneath you as you swim. Imagine yourself catching that wave beneath your armpit as you swim. As your body rolls, you are rolling over it. Take full advantage of it. It may seem counter-intuitive to be pushing against the water below the surface, but it is the riding of this turbulence that gains you more than you lose by pushing against the water. And if you have good hand placement, you slice through the water rather than push against it anyway. (And the use of hand paddles will help you quickly discover inefficiencies in your hand placement as the paddles amplify drag from your hands.) Caution, there is a point of diminishing (and then negative) return in pushing forward and riding this wave. You will have to develop a "feel" for this over time. I have no idea how to describe it. 3) I find that concentrating on this technique helps me get better body roll. Hope this helps! BTW, I am by no means a master of this myself. I do pretty well (13-14 strokes average per 25 yards, and I can do 10 at my very best. But I recall reading somewhere that Alexander Popov could do 8 per 25 meters.) And as someone else mentioned, the faster you push, the higher the count gets. But if you are looking to do a tri, then doing that distance leg in a race would probably be at the aerobic pace you would do in workouts, so you can get a pretty good sense of what you'll do in a race by the progress you make each day in the pool.