One time conversion tool I have used only does freestyle for 50 yard/meter distances. For other strokes like breaststroke the turns are a very significant part and I'm wondering how close a simple 1.1 conversion is.
Based on the 50 BR event rankings, I went from 58/90 SCM (38.54) to 50/141 SCY (32.61), so I definitely went faster but it's hard to pin down how much.
I think a large part of this was from changes in my weightlifting routine.
I use the conversion tool on Swimming World, but some others here do not believe they are representative. Based on my own experience with them and converting 50/100/200 Freestyle events, they seem to be pretty good.
My experience is based on 2 meets 1 week apart, where the first was SCY and the next was SCM. I did 2 easy days before both, and my poolwork and dryland during the weeks prior was the same. Granted there are some confounds (e.g recovery from first meet, faster pool 2nd meet) but I believe they cancel out for the most part.
For the 2nd meet (SCM), the (converted times for the) 50 was 0.04sec slower, the 100 was 0.48sec faster (missed a turn completely in the first meet), and the 200 was 0.52 slower. Again, this is one comparison but I don't think the conversion tool does a bad job for these events, and I'll probably be using my converted 100 time as a seed time for Clovis since it was my fastest this year.
The swimming world conversion utility also has only free for the 50 distance.
I understand your question now- disregard my blither then. That tool just uses one conversion regardless of stroke.
However, I'd argue that the turn in a 50 freestyle is also significant. It just takes less time- as does the race. So it may be proportional, and using the same conversion may be appropriate. I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on this as well.
I guess technically its the pullouts that could potentially cause the difference, not the turn per se since you would presumably be using the same style turn regardless of course and there are the same number of turns. I would say the 50 free conversion will give pretty decent results for a 50 ***. If you feel your underwaters are especially good then you'll be slightly better SCY (less percentage of the race done as surface swimming).
The swimming world conversion utility also has only free for the 50 distance.
Former Member
The 50 free conversion gives a 2.15 second time drop.
Comparing my times to Rob Butcher, I went from 8.10 to 4.77 seconds slower than rob, for a drop of 3.33 seconds.
So I think the turns may be more significant than the 50 free conversion provides.
Former Member
I use the Swimming World tool to convert my other 50s by using the 100 distance converter for the stroke. It's not exact, but it's closer than using the 50 free converter for non-freestyle strokes IMO.
