Cesar Cielo is fastest swimmer in the world -- 25 yards in 8.88 to the foot -- he was just trying to "maintain" on the second 25...
There are 3 ways to swim faster in any given race:
1) Improve your technique -- if you become more effecient in your technique, your times will drop across the board
2) Maintain a pace as close as possible to maximum speed -- You can hold your maximum speed for 6-8 seconds. There are no swim races of that length - so when training for any swimming race (50 up the mile), you are trying to maintain a pace as close to your maximum speed as possible.
3) Get Faster = improve your maximum speed
I would say on average, Masters swimmers (and age-groupers) spend their in the water workout season according to the following breakdown (rough guess):
1) Improving technique = 20-30%
2) Maintaining close to max = 65-79%
3) Improving Max Speed = 1-5%
Think about it -- if you swim 4-5 times per week, that equals about 20 hours a month. Did you spend more than a full hour in October on maximum speed ?
This Thread is all about Category 3 -- Improving your Max Speed --
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So how do you get faster ?
Again - it's actually pretty simple - there are 2 ways to improve your maximum speed:
A) More distance per stroke while maintaining the same stroke rate. Part of this is usually technique - but there are other ways - like strength.
B) Swim with a higher stroke rate, while maintaining the same distance per stroke
For me - my stroke rate is simply too low. At maximum speed, my stroke rate is 52 -- meaning it takes me about 1.14 seconds to complete a full cycle (left and right arm - some watches have a stroke count feature or you can have somebody time 2-3 full cycles; it's more accurate than timing just one).
Some of this depends of course on your height and arm length - but I just watched Matt Grevers (he is 3 inches taller than me) go at a rate of above 60 in his 50 Free.
My new best friend for the Spring season will no doubt be the tempo trainer -- I already started working with it this week even though I have one more fun race this weekend. I am just planning the Season now - so more to come
So how do you get faster ?
Again - it's actually pretty simple - there are 2 ways to improve your maximum speed:
A) More distance per stroke while maintaining the same stroke rate. Part of this is usually technique - but there are other ways - like strength.
B) Swim with a higher stroke rate, while maintaining the same distance per stroke
For me - my stroke rate is simply too low. At maximum speed, my stroke rate is 52 -- meaning it takes me about 1.14 seconds to complete a full cycle (left and right arm - some watches have a stroke count feature or you can have somebody time 2-3 full cycles; it's more accurate than timing just one).
Some of this depends of course on your height and arm length - but I just watched Matt Grevers (he is 3 inches taller than me) go at a rate of above 60 in his 50 Free.
My new best friend for the Spring season will no doubt be the tempo trainer -- I already started working with it this week even though I have one more fun race this weekend. I am just planning the Season now - so more to come
