Wetronome Eye-opener: tips to increase stroke rate through regular training?
Mike Robert's swim breakthough thread highlighted a few things he successfully implemented to make huge achievements in the swim (if you haven't read it, you should). One of these was stroke rate work.
After a few stroke rate tests, I've landed at 63 spm as my sweet spot, but I've found that this becomes tough to sustain after about 100m. at 100, the rest of the stroke falls apart, and I end up with arms like a windmill instead of grabbing and pulling water. My catch erodes, my elbows drop, my pull ends early. It goes to crap.
For those who have introduced a wetronome to their swimming, how have you progressed in its use? Do you just decide "I'm now swimming only at XX spm, and will do shorter (but perfect) intevals with recovery intervals that are adequate in ensuring I can go back to another perfect interval? Or, do you blend the new higher stroke rate with slower recoveries (for example, I've been doing many, many repeats of 100m@63spm, followed by 50m very easy, slow rate with no counting, focussing on perfect stroke, then long enough RI to do another perfect 100. ) Any tips?
Oh - and the wetronome beeping drives EVERYONE in my lane cray-cray. So, I love it. I'm 100% sure that I'm the topic of an "annoying swimmers in your pool" thread somewhere.
Comments
Dave, I just got mine and plan to start when my pool opens back up in two weeks. I watched a video on the "Red Drill" to find that sweet spot. I'm not too sure I will be able to do that without someone to count my strokes for me. I am aware that any higher stroke rate is just like a new FTP. It is going to take an amount of work at that level to become comfortable with it. I like what you have been doing.
Been there. When I too found a sweet spot around 63 spm, I figured "I'll just swim that rate at all times, and all will be good." But by 150 or 200, form was falling to sheet trying to keep up with the beeps. So, my "organized" Friday wko became more free-form. Instead of 15x200, e.g., it became swimming until I couldn't keep up or hold form at 63, rest, repeat regardless if the next interval was 200, 150 or 50, until I hit 45 or 60 minutes. After a few months - yes, it took me months - I was able to start doing consistent 10x200 and then 300s at that rate. By the time I could hold eight 500s at that rate, I knew I was in a good position. I have no doubt that if you can get to where you can hold good form @63 over 8x500, you'll be able to hold that over 3.8k and will be out of the water in well under 60.
@Steve. Geez . . . that's awesome work, even better results. Very impressive. I'm an absolute disaster at 72spm. Makes me wanna ditch work and go to the pool. Kinda.
@Chris,
Coach R's mantra about racing only as hard as you can hold form may sound like an overly simplistic way to address swimming in a sport where the bike and run dominate, but every way I've tried to dice effective IM swimming, much of it comes full circle back to that mantra. Here are some examples. Folks may worry about RPE. If the perceived effort is really hard during the swim, am I ruining my race? For me, my form falls apart long before I start gasping for air or otherwise feeling signs of "over-doing it." So, RPE is a non-issue: I simply don't allow form to falter (in training or racing) and I never experience that "too hard" effort. Or folks worry about HR - if I swim in Zone 4, am I going too hard? Again, once I go anaerobic, my form is on borrowed time and is going bye-bye in very short order. So, if I maintain form, Z4 isn't an issue. We also do threshold tests (1000 straight or the SwimSmooth 400/200), and it spits out a TP number (e.g., 1:25/100yds). My experience? When I go and swim intervals at 1:25 pace, I find that it feels like the hardest I can push and still hold good form. In other words, it helped me find the fastest pace I can hold form over longer distances, without going too hard, without going anaerobic. Full circle. Of course, that's just me.
RPE is just one small piece of the Ramp Test. I set the wetronome at 50spm or so, and went 50 yards. Wrote down my time. Way too easy. Then, 55, 57, etc. Times were getting faster each 50. By 60, the RPE let me know that I was starting to work and reaching a pace I wouldn't be able to hold over long intervals, so the sweet spot should be nearby. By 65, my times started flat-lining (more work for no gain). By 70, I was flailing and my times got slower. So, I figured 65 was the number. But over the next few workouts, I couldn't consistently finish 100s at that pace with decent form. But I could at 63. So, I called 63 my sweet spot and built up fitness doing lots of 100's, 200's at 63spm - whatever interval I could keep pace with the beeps and hold form (again, they all go hand-in-hand: if it feels too hard, your form is already gone, and you won't be coming close to hitting the beeps). Rest whenever form falters. Repeat. It also taught me how to pace better. In the old days, I'm positive that I would take out the first 150 of a 300 too fast, then slow the stroke rate and really have to work hard to finish. With the wetronome, the first 150 feels almost too easy, and the finishing 150 feels smooth and strong. I eventually improved my stroke rate up to 67 or 68, but I'll have to do a lot of work to get back to that point.
Sorry to ramble on way beyond your question. Enjoy the wetronome.
MR
Question: what kind of target did you have for increasing your stroke rate? Something like 10% per month?
FWIW - I tried a wetronome and just couldnt get used to it....
Hoping Jenn Edwards chimes in, I think she uses one and if you look at her descending sets in red mist it looks like a robot swam them, total control over pace from one interval to the next!
I looked at the last race I did, Boulder 70.3, and I had a stroke cycle rate of 35/min, or 70 strokes/min. So my stroke rate is good, possibly even too high. I probably need to focus on my catch and technique then.
Good thread -- it's got me thinking!
@Chris, I swim in a short pool. Garmin probably says I'm doing 41spm. But I haven't looked at Garmin stroke rate in a long time b/c it became meaningless once I got the 'nome.
Tim raises some good points (shocked face). Pace and turnover will go hand-in-hand, with some 1,500m swimmers in the 30spm range and some sprinters above 95spm. Which brings us full circle to beg the question: what are we trying to accomplish here? For me, the Ramp Test was part of the process to identify a good stroke rate for an IM swim, which is threshold effort for me. Now, if I was focused on Short Course Nationals, I'd be looking to build a huge anaerobic engine that could spin my arms at 85spm for 12 minutes. Which may be your objective.
The other thing I have to remind myself is that I'm not increasing stroke rate just for the sake of it. Run speed is basically the product of stride length x turnover. Increase one or both and you're faster, right? But what if your stride length gets so exaggerated that you're bounding through the air, now spending a higher percentage of your energy moving upward instead of forward? You're squandering energy, losing efficiency. Same with swimming - it's really just length per stroke x stroke rate. But like running, if you overdo stroke length and over-glide, you're creating dead spots and squandering precious forward momentum. So, for me, I want to find the fastest stroke rate at threshold that still allows me to maintain great form and rhythm, with no dead spots. Once found, I train it into muscle memory and build the high-aerobic engine to sustain pace for 60 minutes by doing lots of work at 90-100% of TP just like I do on the bike.
Last, I see this focus as really beneficial for someone like Dave, who's a low-60s swimmer looking for that last piece to the puzzle. If he could measure his stroke rate over the last 1500m of his IMs, he'd probably find that he was turning over pretty slowly, maybe low-50s. I can tell when I'm spinning my pedals at 85rpm without looking at cadence, just like I know when I'm running 180 without looking at my Garmin. I guarantee Dave can do the same thing. Now, if he can drill 63spm into his muscle memory and train a lot at/near that turnover, he could add that final piece that will have him coming out of the water sub-60, in the top 10 in his AG. If you're a 1:20-30 IM swimmer, stroke rate may indeed be an issue for you, but I suspect you will make much bigger gains by focusing primarily on position and mechanics.
Just my take, which may not even be worth $.02.
@Bob, I described briefly my work with the Ramp Test and stroke rate work in the post, but here's the info that led me down this path:
Background on proper stroke rate: http://www.swimsmooth.com/strokerate.html
Ramp Test: http://www.swimsmooth.com/ramptest.html
(the YouTube link at the bottom of Ramp Test page was also quite helpful)
-I'm not worried about swimming intervals longer than 200m for now. If the longer stuff comes, terrific.
-I'll probably repeat the test every 3-4 weeks.
-the week will probably be something like:
*1 hour session as Mike described above.
*1 hour session with main set as 10 x (100 at perfect rate, 50 easy recover), 10-15 rest. pullbouy the remainder using high stroke rate.
*1 hour session with mainset as 40 or so 50/50s: 50 w wetronome at harder effort, 10s rest, 50 easy recovery, 10s rest. remainder as 100s or 200s, maybe bouy, maybe not.
-30 min session, probably as Mike describes above.
-Probably add a handful of 25 very hard/25 easy at correct stroke rate at the end of these sessions as well.
-continuing to work on all the other stuff - core engagement, rotation, catch - through these, and particularly during the easy recovery intervals outlined above.
-I accept this is about putting in the time and punching the clock to entrench the muscle memory, as Mike describes.
Mid-March, I'll flip to longer stuff and start to follow a fitness swim plan.
The first race of the season is now October, so there's plenty of time to build this out correctly.
Status update: after about a month, I'm now able to comfortably put out 200m sets at the sweet spot rate of 63, and uncomfortably put out 300-500 blocks. The pace is about 3s/100 slower than I was in my previous non-wetronome days. In addition, I've started folding in a weekly set of 10x100 (50 rec) with the 100s as hard uptempo at 66spm. These are <g class="gr_ gr_203 gr-alert gr_gramm undefined Punctuation only-del replaceWithoutSep" id="203" data-gr-id="203">challenging,</g><span style="line-height: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> but doable. I know it's early to bring in the fitness swimming, but I just needed something to keep me interested. </span></p>
The hardest thing I've experienced is having to accept that I'm not working at going faster during this block ... just focussing on one skill. I've had to manage a lot of episodes where I wasn't able to accomplish what I wanted to in a workout (or in a set), and still find a reason to come back for another. It's hard to swallow that thought that not only do i have to be patient for the next 60 minutes, but also for the next 2.5 months.
What I am finding helpful is Mike's comment on focussing on just a few stroke elements. I have had many, many bouts of wanting to add in additional skills and drills to remedy / improve my catch, core, body position, and others, but I have managed to refocus and keep a narrow view of just maintaining stroke count. Of course, this work has been revealing a number of dead spots in my current stroke that can only be improved with a focus on different skillset, but this will come in time, and I'll start on those in earnest after March.
Also happy to be continuing with a consistent 10,000m per week across 4 sessions. Once I've kicked this friggin cold, I'll jump that to ~12,000 and 4h per week.