front quarter

[freddyboyhouse]

Linny kindly recommended the book 'total imersion' which I've bought, read and am pleased with. One of the drills i tried out this morning was related to the concept of few strokes = faster and more economical swim. Normally it takes me about 26 strokes per 25m length. I followed a 'front quarter' theory which meant that i keep my lead arm outstretched until my trail arm has entered the water - so basically you always have the longest possible overall body length at all times - althought this seemed not to improve my speed the stokes reduced from 26 to 20 !!! - Do you guys agree that fewer strokes is undoubtably a good thing and will result in a faster swim?

[Chris]

I would say that stroke economy is undoubtably a good thing.

Chris

[lane4]

Do you guys agree that fewer strokes is undoubtably a good thing and will result in a faster swim?

There are only two possible ways anyone can swim faster:

you either do longer strokes or you do faster strokes.

Unfortunately though, there is a trade off between the two, i.e. if you increase your stroke rate, your stroke length will shorten (we are talking about whilst swimming at race speed here not easy pace) and vice versa, if you lengthen your stroke it will slow down your rate. Thus, there is a fine balancing act to be worked out to determine what is best for each individual swimmer. In general terms, I would recommend trying to increase stroke length as much as possible and then learning how to improve the rate as much as possible whilst preserving length at the optimum level for that swimmer.

[freddyboyhouse]

thanks for the reply - how do you know (especially when trying to correct your style) what is a good balance, or to start with should one just work on fewer strokes. For example, for a man of 6ft in height who just wants to swim a respectable leg of a triathlon is there an approximate amount of strokes per 25m length i should aim for

[Chris]

This might be useful to you Freddy:

Teaching Distance Improvement Per Stroke (DIPS): Utilising Drills Designed Specifically to Reduce Strokes Per Length (Al Dodson - Head Coach, Egyptian National Team):
http://www.coachesinfo.com/category/swimming/294

Chris

[NotVeryFast]

If I recall correctly from reading Total Immersion myself, he advocates playing "swimming golf" where your "score" is the number of seconds it takes you to swim a length plus the number of strokes. You have to try to make this score as low as possible. I agree with lane4, develop good stroke length first then try to speed it up whilst increasing the strokes per length as little as possible.

One thing to be wary of is that you can easily reduce your stroke count if you stroke excessively slowly. E.g in the extreme case you can do a length of kick and take zero strokes for a length.