About lowering stroke count.

Hi - I am new to this forum and this is my first post. I had a similar discussion on this topic on another swimming technique forum. I disagree with the statement that the fewer the strokes, the better. This should really depend on how long your race is. If you look at the Olympic level swimmers, for men's 50m race, they are generally around 38 strokes after a dive in (so that left them pretty much 40 meter or less to swim). For men's 100m race, they are around 42 in the second half after a push off. For men's 200m race, they go down to around 34-36 after a push off. If you divide these numbers by two, you get your stroke counts for 25 yards (25yards are slightly shorter than 25 meters, but you already know that). I think there should be a balance. You obviously don't want to be just swinging your arms like a windmill and not moving forward. At the same time, if you go too low on your stroke count, you are, for a short moment in your stroke cycle, lying on your side without any arm propelling force. All you are doing is to propell yourself forward by gliding and kicking. You will save some energy but it's not necessarily the fastest. You can try the Popov drill where you lay on your side with one arm out front and the other arm by your thigh and do nothing but kicking. Kick for five yards on one side, then do one pull and switch to other side. That way you will cross the pool in five strokes. But is that the fastest? Freestyle is not my favorite stroke but from my personal experience, the key thing is rotation. When you have great rotation, everything else falls into place naturally. You extend your arm to the front with your body almost on its side, and pull back immediately when you have reached full extension that way. You get the longest pull that way and you are not pausing to lose momentum.

Hi - I am new to this forum and this is my first post. I had a similar discussion on this topic on another swimming technique forum. I disagree with the statement that the fewer the strokes, the better. This should really depend on how long your race is. If you look at the Olympic level swimmers, for men's 50m race, they are generally around 38 strokes after a dive in (so that left them pretty much 40 meter or less to swim). For men's 100m race, they are around 42 in the second half after a push off. For men's 200m race, they go down to around 34-36 after a push off. If you divide these numbers by two, you get your stroke counts for 25 yards (25yards are slightly shorter than 25 meters, but you already know that). I think there should be a balance. You obviously don't want to be just swinging your arms like a windmill and not moving forward. At the same time, if you go too low on your stroke count, you are, for a short moment in your stroke cycle, lying on your side without any arm propelling force. All you are doing is to propell yourself forward by gliding and kicking. You will save some energy but it's not necessarily the fastest. You can try the Popov drill where you lay on your side with one arm out front and the other arm by your thigh and do nothing but kicking. Kick for five yards on one side, then do one pull and switch to other side. That way you will cross the pool in five strokes. But is that the fastest? Freestyle is not my favorite stroke but from my personal experience, the key thing is rotation. When you have great rotation, everything else falls into place naturally. You extend your arm to the front with your body almost on its side, and pull back immediately when you have reached full extension that way. You get the longest pull that way and you are not pausing to lose momentum.