Subject: RE: Interesting swimming experience It's actually very common.....A lot of people try to "speed up" by basically beating the water into submission. They might be kicking more and swimming with a faster turnover, but actually get less efficient. This no doubt includes me. For some reason, short distances don't come naturally. Anything under about 1:30/100m at my current fitness (maybe 1:15 when I was a teenager ) and I feel like I'm just flailing around; yesterday I did 3525m continuously at 1:42/100m (hour swim challenge ) with totally consistent pacing and felt like I could have easily done another km or two at that pace.
I do have some swim background (age group and HS swimming, though not really high-powered ). I was faster back in the day, when we swam as much as 50,000 yards a week, but even then I could feel the difference between 500 or 1500m and 100m. My stroke just feels different, more efficient for the longer swims, and gets better as I go on, assuming I don't go out too fast to start with. Probably some of it is stroke technique and some a matter of fast-twitch and slow twitch ratio. I've asked a couple of coaches and basically gotten the same feedback--my stroke's efficient for long distance and open water, but not for sprinting in a pool--I don't pull with enough power or something. Tried a lot of things to change that with minmal success.
Regardless, I find it helps when getting tired/slowing down to focus on taking powerful, smooth strokes rather than fast turnover. Often if you try to relax and "slow down" you're swimming with a less choppy stroke and may actually be faster. |