Swim faster by not swimming slow

bryancd - 2010-04-20 5:01 PM Yep. And sometimes you need to also swim as hard as you can until you can't anymore, regardless of how your form looks. I don't look pretty running 800M repeats...but I do look fast.

The only time I look fast running is when some one thinks they saw me on a track (I never train on a track  - long story).

Actually you are not increasing the speed of your arm during the underwater pull phase. You are just speeding up the recovery and then taking advantage of pulling while in a streamlined position. Think of doing a catchup drill. If anything that feels very slow to most people. Try to move your stroke timing more in the direction of the timing of your catch up drill. It will feel very awkward at first. That is why you should do the catch up drill. It is a gross exaggeration of the adjustment in your stroke timing that you are trying to achieve. 

The principles of hydrodynamics compel you to reduce drag and maintain a constant speed. Making this correction does not require you to get stronger to implement it. It is one of the reasons that I spend so much time on form even after all these years.

Here is my simple take on swimming: Swim speed is proportional to Stroke Length x Stroke Frequency. The biggest 'bang-for-the-buck' most novices can get is by improving their stroke length as it gives you more speed without much more effort.

 Once you have 'decent' reach technique its hard to increase your stroke length (unless your arms can grow) – so the trick to more speed is to swim ‘faster’

I started back into swimming after getting involved involved in triathlons. Because of a chronic shoulder problem I could not swim hard in training so I spent most of my pool time working on technique. On race day I would just swim as fast as I could and I was surprised to find out that my overall conditioning from training the bike & run carried over to swimming, and my good form made me quick enough to swim FOP. Keeping in mind that I never trained to swim a fast 100. I trained to swim a fast 1500 (and 5K for my OW races).

I think that's a good workout. I personally repeat workouts without getting bored, but most like more variety.

You observation about falling into the bad habit of trying to muscle through rough water is a good one. It is critical in open water that you find a rhythm in rough water or it will exhaust you.