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.
I'm a professional swimming coach, and have been for almost 40 years.
It seems you don't see the towering hubris in 'a guy on an internet forum' presuming to advise someone who was swimming OW races and coaching high level swimmers before your birth that his 'ideas could use some revision.'
So you're saying, what exactly? That you have nothing to learn from anyone except... other swim coaches? Or perhaps only other swim coaches who have been coaching for "almost 40 years"? Really? That's what these forums are for (among other things). To test assumptions - even those held by 60-year old swim coaches.
Your defensiveness speaks for itself.
Much advice proffered on this thread has focused on the rates - as high as 90 strokes per minute - used by elites in open water.
...
The 4:12 marathoner... can do little but shake their head in admiration for the capacity of the elite athlete. But that athlete's rate and length has little direct relevance to them.
Nobody has suggested that David try to swim 90 SPM. To continue your analogy: The 4:12 marathoner would obviously be foolish to try to match the stride rate of the 2:06 marathoner. So in that sense, the elite SR isn't "relevant" data. But what if we discovered that elite cross-country runners, across all distances, run with a quicker SR and a "looser" style than track runners? And moreover, we observe this difference only at the elite level - i.e., amateurs run with similar rate/style on both smooth and uneven surfaces.
Now, all of sudden, this is very relevant data. For the amateur runner, the question is not, "Should I match the stride rate of the elite runner?" The interesting question is: "Can I become a better cross-country runner by finding a slightly higher rate and looser style than what I usually practice on the track?"
Overall, I think the advice you just gave to David is quite valuable. I do, however, think there's an important truth that's not quite captured by your advice: Swimming in open bodies of water is fundamentally different than swimming in a pool - for more reasons than just "conditions." Steven Munatones did a great job describing some of those variables in his recent post. The variables of Open Water, it seems, tend to favor higher stroke rates. That's why guys like Thomas Lurz routinely beat guys like Ous Mellouli in open water races - even though Mellouli is about 30 seconds faster in a 1500m pool swim.
I'm a professional swimming coach, and have been for almost 40 years.
It seems you don't see the towering hubris in 'a guy on an internet forum' presuming to advise someone who was swimming OW races and coaching high level swimmers before your birth that his 'ideas could use some revision.'
So you're saying, what exactly? That you have nothing to learn from anyone except... other swim coaches? Or perhaps only other swim coaches who have been coaching for "almost 40 years"? Really? That's what these forums are for (among other things). To test assumptions - even those held by 60-year old swim coaches.
Your defensiveness speaks for itself.
Much advice proffered on this thread has focused on the rates - as high as 90 strokes per minute - used by elites in open water.
...
The 4:12 marathoner... can do little but shake their head in admiration for the capacity of the elite athlete. But that athlete's rate and length has little direct relevance to them.
Nobody has suggested that David try to swim 90 SPM. To continue your analogy: The 4:12 marathoner would obviously be foolish to try to match the stride rate of the 2:06 marathoner. So in that sense, the elite SR isn't "relevant" data. But what if we discovered that elite cross-country runners, across all distances, run with a quicker SR and a "looser" style than track runners? And moreover, we observe this difference only at the elite level - i.e., amateurs run with similar rate/style on both smooth and uneven surfaces.
Now, all of sudden, this is very relevant data. For the amateur runner, the question is not, "Should I match the stride rate of the elite runner?" The interesting question is: "Can I become a better cross-country runner by finding a slightly higher rate and looser style than what I usually practice on the track?"
Overall, I think the advice you just gave to David is quite valuable. I do, however, think there's an important truth that's not quite captured by your advice: Swimming in open bodies of water is fundamentally different than swimming in a pool - for more reasons than just "conditions." Steven Munatones did a great job describing some of those variables in his recent post. The variables of Open Water, it seems, tend to favor higher stroke rates. That's why guys like Thomas Lurz routinely beat guys like Ous Mellouli in open water races - even though Mellouli is about 30 seconds faster in a 1500m pool swim.
