I tried running through a few pages of search results, but didnt really find relevant results.
For the past few years i have been working very hard on stroke length in practice and have improved a ton in this area (can hit 14 pretty regularly and like 11 if i really focus on lengthening it out (5'10)), but when i get on the blocks and race the 50 or 100 i feel like a lot of that goes out the door and i fall back on only stroke rate.
Do you all have any advice on finding an "optimal" length/rate ratio? or any advice on how to control this urge?
I have been improving consistently, but i just feel that there are greater gains that i could be making.
One of my favorite warm up sets to prep for a high intensity speed workout is the following (stolen from Sun Devil Masters):
16 x 25's @ :40 (also can be done as a set of 50's @ 1:15)
#1 DPS (distance per stroke)
#2 Rev (over spin)
#3 Fast (should be your optimal...falling somewhere in between the first 2)
This often is followed by something like 10 x 50's @ 3:00 from a dive..best average
I find that one way to increase my awareness of something that I may need to tweak is to over exagerate it. For example....if I'm taking to many strokes then try to actually take even more....then drop back to DPS. If I'm starting to drop my thumb on entry...increase that drop....then come back to level.
Warren....just as I responded to george I disagree with this approach. In a 50 or 100 where improvements often times are tenths or hundreths...efficiency is key and slightly lengthing your stroke can have a huge impact. SPL in my opinion is a constant variable in progressing in all distances/strokes.
One of my favorite warm up sets to prep for a high intensity speed workout is the following (stolen from Sun Devil Masters):
16 x 25's @ :40 (also can be done as a set of 50's @ 1:15)
#1 DPS (distance per stroke)
#2 Rev (over spin)
#3 Fast (should be your optimal...falling somewhere in between the first 2)
This often is followed by something like 10 x 50's @ 3:00 from a dive..best average
I find that one way to increase my awareness of something that I may need to tweak is to over exagerate it. For example....if I'm taking to many strokes then try to actually take even more....then drop back to DPS. If I'm starting to drop my thumb on entry...increase that drop....then come back to level.
Warren....just as I responded to george I disagree with this approach. In a 50 or 100 where improvements often times are tenths or hundreths...efficiency is key and slightly lengthing your stroke can have a huge impact. SPL in my opinion is a constant variable in progressing in all distances/strokes.
