I swam in a meet last weekend. For some time I have been working on my freestyle timing and technique, and I think I've made progress. During warm-ups for the 50 free I felt really great--powerful, good acceleration, lots of potential energy. This swimming at maybe 90%. Then, in the race, I found myself hacking at the water--none of the same sense I'd had in warm-ups.
Today, in a workout, I was able to replicate my meet time in the 50 at that same 90% pace I'd used in warmups.
Pause for metaphor introduction: as a kid (and now, for that matter) I was a Cleveland Indians fan. They were uniformly terrible during the 60s, 70s, and 80s. But in the 70s they had an outfielder named George Hendrick, who was a gifted player. Hendrick had an ability to run while looking like he was jogging. He covered a lot of ground, and was quite fast, but he appeared to be dogging it. No strain was ever visible. He got a lot of grief in the press for being lazy, even though it was an optical illusion. He ran really fast but looked slow.
So here's my question: is it possible that I should sprint at less than what feels like 100%, in order to get better efficiency and thus more speed? Or am I kidding myself, and I need to just learn to use a really fast tempo without overswimming?
Parents
Former Member
IMO, drag reduction, stroke continuity (smoothness) and stroke efficiency are the most important aspects of good swimming. Strength and effort are certainly important, but almost secondary. It's particularly true in the sprints.
Well, there're a lot of way to swim, everydoby is unique, so at the Olympic Game you'll find the godzilla Bernard overpowering the water just like the smooth Popov flying over or the water-thrashing Sullivan.
The right blend of power, strenght, efficiency, talent and so on is the key.
There're level on every aspect that when do you pass it do you need a big increase of effort to gain only a little bit so you'll get better return if you'll improving other aspect of your stroke with more upside still. to be the most efficient as you can be alone it'll not maximize your performance. Maybe less efficiency but more power will lower your time. For this reason you'll see very different styles to be equally successfull
IMO, drag reduction, stroke continuity (smoothness) and stroke efficiency are the most important aspects of good swimming. Strength and effort are certainly important, but almost secondary. It's particularly true in the sprints.
Well, there're a lot of way to swim, everydoby is unique, so at the Olympic Game you'll find the godzilla Bernard overpowering the water just like the smooth Popov flying over or the water-thrashing Sullivan.
The right blend of power, strenght, efficiency, talent and so on is the key.
There're level on every aspect that when do you pass it do you need a big increase of effort to gain only a little bit so you'll get better return if you'll improving other aspect of your stroke with more upside still. to be the most efficient as you can be alone it'll not maximize your performance. Maybe less efficiency but more power will lower your time. For this reason you'll see very different styles to be equally successfull
