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OBJECTIVE
- To gradually adapt to faster-than-comfortable tempos.
The ultimate goal of using a faster tempo is to achieve higher speeds at minimal increase in energy cost. To do this, you will learn to produce a faster tempo stroke with minimal energy cost and make intelligent trade-off in higher tempo and slightly shorter stroke length. This practice set is intended to simply help your body and brain get comfortable executing a smooth stroke at gradually increasing tempos.
Swimming at faster tempos will challenge the timing (precision) and the relaxation of your stroke (minimal energy cost). As the time available for the stroke is compressed at faster tempos, your body and brain will be challenged in several ways:
- You must move through the entire stroke cycle in less time. This will require increasing the speed at some parts of the cycle while holding speed in the others. And this will require cutting out less valuable pieces of the stroke cycle, while protecting the more important pieces.
- You must maintain precision of movements in faster movements.
- You must learn to use as little muscle-firing as possible to move through the stroke cycle.
At first you will use more energy to control the stroke than necessary as you feel slightly stressed at each new tempo. But give enough repeats and your brain will have the time to search for an easier way to produce the stroke at that tempo. You will make decisions about what adjustments in the stroke to make in order to maintain the smooth and precise quality that you feel in your stroke at slower tempos.
You will go through a process of adapting to the faster stroke so that you are able to ‘slow down the perception of time’ and maintain attention on fine details of the stroke more easily, like you do a in your Comfortable Tempo Range. Adaptation takes time and repetition to test and grow. This adaptation to higher tempos will require most of your time and distance during a single practice, and it will require several practices to gradually make you feel comfortable moving your stroke at faster tempos.
DISTANCE
The distance of this practice depends on what tempo you are aiming for, and how much distance you need at a particular tempo in order to adapt to it. The practice set is written at 1400 meters, but you may make it shorter if your tempo goal requires fewer rounds, or longer if it requires more rounds, or if you need to do more repeats in any round.
FOCAL POINTS
I suggest you use Focal Points for Recovery and Catch. But you may use any Focal Points that help you keep your stroke relaxed and smooth. Faster tempos will challenge your timing (precision) and your relaxation (minimal energy cost) so you need to use Focal Points that help you overcome those challenges.
INSTRUCTIONS
Begin at your Comfortable Fast Tempo. Swim at this Tempo for 200-300m until your stroke is smooth and relaxed. Then increase tempo by -0.02 seconds per round. Work at each tempo until it feels smooth and relaxed as your starting tempo. If you do not feel smooth and relaxed at this tempo, do another round at the same tempo until you do. Lower tempo again once you feel that adaptation take place.
Keep in mind that your effort level will go up as you increase tempo – heart rate will increase and you will have to work harder to concentrate – but this is different from relaxation. Even as effort level increases, you will search for ways to relax your body and keep that effort as minimal as possible for each faster tempo. You are building efficiency into your nervous system even as you increase how hard you work.
So, by doing this practice a few times you will develop an understanding of what ‘adapted’ feels like at different intensity levels. Some ways to define ‘Adapted’ = smooth, relaxed, precise, easier, feels unhurried, perception of time is slow.
If you attempt to swim at the next faster tempo before you have felt adapted to this current tempo it will only become harder and harder to adapt. You will prematurely reach a limit for adaptation in today’s practice. The key is to be patient at the current tempo until your brain and body grow accustomed to it and discover how to hold that tempo with less effort, less energy cost than you did at the beginning of that round. Then slightly increase the challenge on the brain by moving to the next faster tempo increment.
Holding SPL is not necessary for this practice set, but you may keep track of SPL just to be aware of how tempo changes will affect it.
How to speed up the stroke?
First of all, protect your stroke overlap. Make it your rule to never set the catch until the fingers of the recovery hand touch the water in Mailslot position. This is your minimum stroke overlap. Try to perotect this as much as possible. If you can no longer hold that overlap then you are losing too much stroke length even if you can hold the faster tempo comfortably. Remember that SL is priority, and tempo can only increase as far as you can also hold SL steady. If you lose SL, faster tempos mean nothing but wasted energy.
These are two ways I suggest you speed up your stroke for a faster tempos. Start with the first one and go as far as you can with it before you start using the second one.
1) Make the recovery swing a little faster, but keep the other parts of the stroke cycle same speed and smooth.
2) As you finish the Catch/Hold pull your hand from the water a little earlier, but keep the same full extension, and keep the Catch moment as far in front of the head as you comfortably can. This means you will shorten the back of the underwater stroke just a little (allowing a faster recovery) and protect the front of the underwater stroke.
PRACTICE SET
Swim 200m at ‘Comfortable Fast’ Tempo T
Swim 4 to 8 rounds, reducing Tempo T – 0.02 seconds on each round.
- Round #1 – 4x 50m, T – 0.02
- Round #2 – 4x 50m, T – 0.04
- Round #3 – 4x 50m, T – 0.06
- Round #4 – 4x 50m, T – 0.08
- Round #5 – 4x 50m, T – 0.10
- Round #6 – 4x 50m, T – 0.12
- Round #7 and more if you can keep going successfully.
Notes:
On each round swim first 50m repeat ‘Fist Swim’.
Then on the rest of the 50s in that round swim with normal (full-hand) stroke.
Count your strokes on some lengths just to keep note of it, but you do not need to constrain SPL on this practice set.
On the first Fist Swim repeat, form the catch and hold the water with your entire forearm. The fist-size hand will allow the arm to move through the water a little faster and make tempo feel a little easier. Use Fist Swimming on any length occasionally to help you relax at the tempo. During Fist Swim lengths you may notice SPL about +2 stroke more than your full-hand SPL.
In subsequent practices start with the 200m swim at a tempo a little faster than in the previous practice T = T – 0.02
EXAMPLE
Jorge swam 300m at 1.20 Tempo (his ‘Comfortable Fast Tempo’) until he felt relaxed and in the rhythm of that tempo. .
Then he swam:
- Round #1 – 4x 50m at 1.18
- Round #2 – 4x 50m at 1.16
- Round #3 – 6x 50m at 1.14 * – Jorge did two more 50s because he felt he needed more repeats to feel comfortable at this tempo. Then he felt it and was ready to move to the next tempo.
- Round #4 – 4x 50m at 1.12
- Round #5 – 6x 50m at 1.10 – Jorge did two more 50s to try to adapt, but he decided to stop after this because he felt his energy and his attention were too tired for today.
He will repeat the exact same practice the next time in order to see how his body will improve adaptation just from the rest in between practices.
* Sometimes you will feel like you have a harder time adapting at a tempo as you are working through the set. But, interestingly, once you break through that tempo you may be able to work down a few more faster tempos before coming to another challenging tempo.
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