After recognizing that my stroke is much longer than most OWS, I decided to poke around and see if stroke was different for OW as opposed to swimming in a pool. I found this (There is a part 2 if you click on the channel and scroll down the right side):
YouTube - Swim Smooth: What Is An Efficient Freestyle Stroke? Part 1
I would love to get reactions. I know that when I quicken my stroke rate and shorten my stroke I seem to fatigue much more quickly. However, this could be due to not pursuing this long enough to re-establish breathing patterns. (When I concentrate on my stroke, I tend to hold my breath without realizing it).
I do know that while my per 100 pace is slowly improving with more speed work in my work outs, it has dropped now where near what it used to be 20 years ago.
Correlations on tightly grouped data are not obvious and sometimes don't show up.
Kevin that's a great point, and one that I appreciate as a data nerd. Again I'll refer to the idea of "low hanging fruit." For somebody swimming 27 SPL, their time is probably best spent figuring out how to get below 20. For somebody already below 15 SPL, there may be gains to be found on the SR side of the equation (usually, through increasing strength and fitness). The latter point is, I believe, somewhat underappreciated in some circles.
My lack of efficiency at 17 SPL in a 25 yard pool is due to lack of breath exchange efficiency rather than my arms and body expending more energy.
Without having seen your stroke, my best guess is that you may be rotating your head too far while breathing? Try rotating just far enough to breathe out of one side of your mouth, and this might help speed up the breath exchange. Another thing to try is swimming with a snorkel... this removes the head-rotation element and you may not have the same issues raising SR.
Correlations on tightly grouped data are not obvious and sometimes don't show up.
Kevin that's a great point, and one that I appreciate as a data nerd. Again I'll refer to the idea of "low hanging fruit." For somebody swimming 27 SPL, their time is probably best spent figuring out how to get below 20. For somebody already below 15 SPL, there may be gains to be found on the SR side of the equation (usually, through increasing strength and fitness). The latter point is, I believe, somewhat underappreciated in some circles.
My lack of efficiency at 17 SPL in a 25 yard pool is due to lack of breath exchange efficiency rather than my arms and body expending more energy.
Without having seen your stroke, my best guess is that you may be rotating your head too far while breathing? Try rotating just far enough to breathe out of one side of your mouth, and this might help speed up the breath exchange. Another thing to try is swimming with a snorkel... this removes the head-rotation element and you may not have the same issues raising SR.
