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.
Former Member
I think the best way is to do it is keep the fastest stroke rate posible while still maitaining good form and finishing each stroke thats what is going to get you down the pool the fastest.
Basically one of my faster 100s in practice was like 57-58 seconds (from a push) and my stroke counts were 13,14,16,15 by 25.
Do you guys find that your race stroke counts are significantly higher then your fastest practice counts?
I will often impose a stroke count on sets in practice.
exaples:
5 x 200 descend
#1 @ 12spl, #2 @ 13 spl, #3 @ 14 spl etc
5 x 200 build
1st 50 @ 12spl, 2nd 50 @ 13spl etc.
I don't often do sprints, but if I am doing a few dive start 25's, I will usually spin too fast on the first one, with each additional rep, I will try to hold or beat that time with fewer strokes until I can go no faster.
