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Practice Set for Stroke Counting

by | Sep 24, 2020 | Advanced Skills

As you are getting acquainted with stroke counting, you may try these practice ideas to gradually increase how often you count or how much you can pay attention to when counting, while the counting is helping to build your strength and skill. 

 

Practice Accurate Counting

The more attentive, accurate and honest you are in your counting, the more useful it will be for helping you monitor your progress. 

As you approach the end of the lane, you may find that you might not need a full stroke to reach the wall or that you might need to glide a bit farther to reach the wall (rather than take one more stroke). If you’d like to be more accurate in your counting, then add this ‘half’ stroke unit into your counting – some lengths you may find that you don’t end on a whole number but need ½ half more or less of a stroke to reach the wall. 

Maintain the exact same push off intensity and glide distance to your first stroke. 

Swim 4x 25

  • First length count strokes
  • Second and third length do not count, and focus on your cue
  • Fourth length count stroke

Swim a chosen distance and count strokes on only every 4th length. 

Swim a chosen distance and count strokes on every other length. 

 

Practice Consistent Count

The first strength that stroke counting can help you build is to learn to swim with the same exact stroke count on every length, even as you get farther into the swim or practice and start to feel some fatigue – this will push you to increase strength and skill. 

Most often swimmers will find they naturally use 1 less stroke on their first length of a swim. So, the challenge here is to practice maintaining that same level of skillfulness and strength on the second length, or practice restraining any over-effort on the first length so that it matches what you are capable of on the following lengths.

Swim 8x 25 and aim to hold the exact same stroke count on every 25. 

Swim 4x 50 and aim to hold the exact same stroke count on first and second lengths. 

Swim 4x 75 and aim to hold the exact same stroke count on all three lengths. 

 

Practice Shifting Stroke Count “Gears”

The more you count strokes and get a feel for what your current ‘normal’ (N) stroke count is (which reflects your current strength and skillfulness) the more you can memorize what it feels like in your stroke to be on the way toward a precise stroke count result. You may possibly come to know, by feel, when you are swimming, for example, an ‘18-count length’ or a 19-count length’ before you even get to the wall and finish counting! When you are doing long swims and don’t want to count all the time or swimming in open water, you may be able to estimate your own stroke count just by how it feels, because you have done it so much attentively. 

The next step is to learn how to adjust your stroke count with precision, like shifting gears on a bicycle. You can practice ‘shifting up’ one number or ‘shifting down’ one number. This will help you develop more familiarity and control over the features of the stroke that directly affect your stroke length (count). 

Choose your normal stroke count ‘N’. Swim 4x 25 and aim to shift the stroke count ‘gear’ a certain amount on each length:

  • First length: N
  • Second length: N+1
  • Third length: N
  • Fourth length: N-1

 

Practice Stretching Your Stroke Count

As your strength and skills improve your stroke length should naturally increase (you slide farther on each stroke). This means your stroke count should go down, approaching what would be an optimal count for your body and event (or purpose for swimming). While it might be tempting to try to reach for a really long stroke (a really low stroke count) right at the start, this is not recommended for many reasons, the foremost being the safety of your body. Instead, you may engage in a small, gradual challenge to your strength and skill which will give your body more time to adapt to this. 

Choose your normal stroke count ‘N’. Swim 3x 100 (4x 25) and aim to shift the stroke count from N to N-1 for greater % of the swim. 

First 100

  • 75 at N count
  • 25 at N-1 

Second 100

  • 50 at N count
  • 50 at N-1 

Third 100

  • 25 at N count
  • 75 at N-1 

You can follow the same pattern for a swim of any distance…

  • First swim aim for 75% N count and 25% N-1.
  • Second swim aim for 50% N count and 50% N-1.
  • Third swim aim for 25% N count and 75% N-1.

Lesson for Stroke Counting

by | Sep 24, 2020 | Advanced Skills

The most common way to count strokes is to count each arm entry. When you push off from the wall, you will glide for a moment with the arms extended in streamline in front of your head. As your body approaches the surface you set the catch with one arm and that becomes the “0” stroke count. That arm exits and swings forward to entry, and as it enters, that becomes “1” stroke count, and then you count every entry after that until you touch the wall on the other side of the pool. 

Another way to count is to count that first underwater catch (rather than wait for it to go all the way around to the entry), and then count every catch after that. This will result in 1-stroke higher count than the previous method. 

It does not matter which way you choose to count as long as you are always counting the same way every time you do stroke counting. If you want to compare your count to someone else’s count make sure the pool length is the same and that they are counting the same way you are. 

Your count will be affected by your push off from the wall. You should practice pushing off and gliding the exact same intensity and distance every time (when you intend to count strokes). If you push off and glide the same distance to your first stroke on every length of the pool, then your stroke count can be compared from length to length. But if you push off and glide less or more distance on each length then your stroke count will be affected – if you glide less distance then you have to take more strokes, if you slide more you take fewer strokes. 

 

What Is A ‘Good’ Stroke Count For You?

There is a lot of variability in what would be an appropriate or ‘good’ stroke count for different people in different situations and purposes for swimming. 

You can read more on the discussion of stroke counts in these articles:

Stroke Count Charts

When Choosing Optimal Stroke Count

Back Story on the Stroke Count Charts

Regardless of what is a ‘good’ stroke count for you, your first objective is to get in control of your stroke count and learn how to shift it up or down and develop the strength to hold consistent your current stroke count for longer durations of swimming. Then you will be in better position to know how far you should aim to improve it and what kind of work will be involved to do that.

Intro to Stroke Counting

by | Sep 24, 2020 | Advanced Skills

Stroke counting is not the only, but it is one of the first, most convenient and important ways to measure your skillfulness in the pool. 

While you are taking strokes, your body slides forward some distance on each stroke. The farther you slide on each stroke the closer you come to the other side. The farther you slide on each stroke the fewer strokes it will take to get to the other side. By counting the number of strokes you are taking, you get a measurement of that distance you travel. You can travel farther on each stroke by either increasing effort or decreasing drag (water resistance). Strength is important to move forward, but shape is more important. As you improve your skillfulness in the fundamental and advanced skills your stroke will get longer as a result. 

Now, one can try to pull much harder, use more effort and travel farther, but that approach has very limited potential without at least as much skill in place to support it. And, it is possible to try to slide too far on each stroke, to overdo the rotation and strain the body in an attempt to go father, but that will not be comfortable, it will not be sustainable, and it is rarely a problem we see in the first stage of developing the stroke. 

Some people complain that they are concentrating too much on some aspect of their stroke to be able to count strokes at the same time. This might be the case at the beginning stage of learning a when the level of concentration on a newly introduced skill is high. However, the process of turning skillful swimming into something you can do without thinking about it will require dividing your attention. By counting, you get to occupy both sides of the brain – one side is focused on a quality in the stroke and the other side is focused on counting. Counting strokes gives you immediate feedback about what your stroke is producing, right there in that moment. If you are concentrating so much on making your body move forward better, then seeing how far you travel is a logical and convenient way to monitor how well your body is moving forward. You will only get comfortable with stroke counting by doing it more and more.