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.
A further point I think is worth making is to view the tempos, etc. displayed by elite swimmers with a degree of perspective and a clear-eyed sense of your own goals and abilities. It's interesting info to me that 25 y.o. highly trained elite athletes swim with tempos ranging from 75 to 87 or more.
It's an important point. My thought process goes something like this:
If the world's best OW swimmers maintain higher stroke rates in a 10K than the best pool swimmers do in a 1500 - remarkable, given that the event is 6.7x the distance - is there a lesson for us mortals? For instance: If I'm a 65 SPM 1500 freestyler, is there value in learning to maintain 70 SPM for a 10K (with perhaps some loss in stroke length)? Perhaps it is worth exploring. My intuition about the "why" is that higher SRs are more adaptable to rough water, navigation, and other swimmers encroaching on your space. But possibly there is some other, unknown reason.
Coincidentally, someone just posted a video of the 2008 Olympic 10K in a different thread. Here's some quick n' dirty stroke rate data:
elapsed time swimmer stroke rate (per min)
start various 110+
2' Davies 88
32' Dyatchin 86
33' Gianniotis 100
40' Davies 94
1:28 Lurz 98
Davies 90
Dyatchin 83
1:39 Gianniotis 97
1:43 Davies 102
1:49 Davies 95
Van der Weijden 78
Lurz 102
1:51 Lurz 102
Davies 94
finish (1:52) Van der Weijden 87
Davies 95
Lurz 102
Before someone points out that the gold medalist (Maarten Van der Weijden) curiously seems to have a lower SR than his competitors, I should note that Maarten, at 6 ft 8 in, is also substantially taller than his competitors (implying a lower SR).
And here's for the women's Olympic 10K:
Cassie Patten (bronze)
0:20 90
1:11 87
1:38 87
Keri-Anne Payne (silver)
0:10 94
0:20 88
0:30 89
1:11 89
1:38 89
finish 99
Larisa Ilchenko (gold)
0:02 88
finish 104
-----------------
www.freshwaterswimmer.com
A further point I think is worth making is to view the tempos, etc. displayed by elite swimmers with a degree of perspective and a clear-eyed sense of your own goals and abilities. It's interesting info to me that 25 y.o. highly trained elite athletes swim with tempos ranging from 75 to 87 or more.
It's an important point. My thought process goes something like this:
If the world's best OW swimmers maintain higher stroke rates in a 10K than the best pool swimmers do in a 1500 - remarkable, given that the event is 6.7x the distance - is there a lesson for us mortals? For instance: If I'm a 65 SPM 1500 freestyler, is there value in learning to maintain 70 SPM for a 10K (with perhaps some loss in stroke length)? Perhaps it is worth exploring. My intuition about the "why" is that higher SRs are more adaptable to rough water, navigation, and other swimmers encroaching on your space. But possibly there is some other, unknown reason.
Coincidentally, someone just posted a video of the 2008 Olympic 10K in a different thread. Here's some quick n' dirty stroke rate data:
elapsed time swimmer stroke rate (per min)
start various 110+
2' Davies 88
32' Dyatchin 86
33' Gianniotis 100
40' Davies 94
1:28 Lurz 98
Davies 90
Dyatchin 83
1:39 Gianniotis 97
1:43 Davies 102
1:49 Davies 95
Van der Weijden 78
Lurz 102
1:51 Lurz 102
Davies 94
finish (1:52) Van der Weijden 87
Davies 95
Lurz 102
Before someone points out that the gold medalist (Maarten Van der Weijden) curiously seems to have a lower SR than his competitors, I should note that Maarten, at 6 ft 8 in, is also substantially taller than his competitors (implying a lower SR).
And here's for the women's Olympic 10K:
Cassie Patten (bronze)
0:20 90
1:11 87
1:38 87
Keri-Anne Payne (silver)
0:10 94
0:20 88
0:30 89
1:11 89
1:38 89
finish 99
Larisa Ilchenko (gold)
0:02 88
finish 104
-----------------
www.freshwaterswimmer.com
