by Admin Mediterra | Sep 24, 2020 | Stroke Length
These charts below will help you estimate your optimal Strokes-Per-Length (SPL) range for various pool lengths. This is sometimes referred to as your Green Zone.
These charts are just to help you aim in the right direction. There are many factors you should consider when fine tuning which range of stroke counts are best for your body and event. Read When Choosing Your Optimal Stroke Count for more insight, and you might enjoy reading The Back Story Of The Stroke Count Charts to learn about how they were created.
Your Precise SPL Range
This chart estimates a range of about 5 SPL points. However, through testing and practice we recommend that you narrow your personal range down to 3 SPL points.
For example, for a male swimmer about 40 years old, 180 cm tall, the chart above suggests a 16-20 SPL in a 25 meter pool. If he has highly developed streamline and stroke efficiency he may aim for 16-18 SPL as his target SPL range. If less developed he may aim for 18-20 SPL.
What Is This Range For?
Changing SPL during a swim functions a bit like switching gears on your bicycle, allowing you to adjust the pressure and frequency of the stroke to use energy just the way you need to for a particular event or conditions.
Your higher SPL count is generally for shorter distance, higher tempo, or lighter pressure strokes. Your lower SPL count is generally for longer distances, lower tempo, or higher (steady) pressure strokes.
25 METER Pool
This chart is for SPL in a 25 meter pool, assuming you take a 5 meter from push-off to first stroke.
25 YARD Pool
This chart is for SPL in a 25 yard pool, assuming you take a 5 yards from push-off to first stroke.
50 METER Pool
This chart is for SPL in a 50 meter pool, assuming you take a 5 meter from push-off to first stroke.
Switching Between 25 METER and 25 YARD
If you switch between 25 m and 25 yd pools a rough rule-of-thumb is to allow for a 2 stroke count difference between your SPL in the two pools. A 25 meter pool is approximately 2.3 yards longer than a 25 yard pool, and that extra distance equals about 2 strokes for people of middle height range.
Terminology
In practices listed here on the TI Academy, when we refer to SPL, we will use terms like N, N-1, N+1, etc. N = the lowest number in your optimal SPL Range.
It’s not the lowest SPL you can possibly achieve, but the lowest within the range of appropriate SPL for your continuous swimming – in that range that is good for your energy use and shoulder health.
If you have an SPL Range of 16 to 19, then your N = 16, N+1 = 17, N+2 = 18, N-1 = 15, etc.
How These Charts Were Calculated
Based on observation of swimmers and comparison of data we see a strong case for setting a swimmer’s SPL range between 55% and 70% of their wingspan. The minimum SPL on this chart corresponds to 55% of height and the maximum corresponds to 70%.
We chose to use height for these charts because most people know immediately what their height is, and for estimation purposes, that is close enough. Wingspan is the measurement of your arms spread wide, measured from finger tip to finger tip. Wingspan provides the more accurate estimate of what your stroke length potential is. In humans height is approximately the same as wingspan, within +/- 5% margin of difference.
We see this difference between height and wingspan also matters but we’ll save that discussion for another article.
Precise Personal Metrics
If you want to do the math to get more precise, personalized SPL for yourself you need this data:
- Your wingspan (W)
- Your pool length (PL)
- The distance of your glide to stroke #1 (DG)
Then we start the calculations working with Stroke Length (SL).
Calculate your minimum 55% SL: W x .55 = min SL
Calculate your maximum 70% SL: W x .70 = max SL
Then we convert from SL to SPL which is dependent on your pool length and glide.
Calculate your minimum SPL: (PL – DG) / max SL = min SPL
Calculate your maximum SPL: (PL – DG) / min SL = max SPL
Consistent Push-Off Matters
How far you glide after pushing off from the wall to your first stroke affects your stroke count. If you followed the math calculations above you’ll notice that a short push-off will require you to take an extra stroke or two to reach the far wall, while a long one will allow you to take one or two strokes less.
Work on keeping this push-off and glide distance consistent on every lap. If you have a long glide (5-6 meters) you can aim for a lower end of your SPL range. If you have a shorter glide (3-4 meters) you can aim for the higher end of your SPL range. 4-5 meter push-off to glide is a good average to aim for.
by Admin Mediterra | Sep 24, 2020 | Tempo
Swimming at faster-than-comfortable tempo you will challenge your ability to maintain precision and consistent timing of the stroke choreography.
It will expose weakness and limitations in your skills that are still present when you swim at your normal tempo, but you may not be aware of how those weaknesses are affecting you. When you swim with faster tempos your brain will try to take short cuts to get the movement roughly completed within the shorter amount of time – your movements will degrade in their precision, and some parts will rush too fast and others go too slow. Working at faster-than-comfortable tempos will give you the opportunity to observe where your stroke breaks down and give you the opportunity to improve them.
If you spend more time at uncomfortably fast tempos, working hard to improve timing and control, you’ll notice things get even easier when you return to your previously ‘normal’ comfortable tempo!
Practicing with Faster Tempos
When you would like to challenge your stroke with slightly-uncomfortably-fast tempos, you do this by gradually increasing the tempo until your stroke starts to feel rushed. At this point you are forced to make the movements more quickly than your brain is prepared for.
By counting strokes you can measure how much your stroke breaks down by how much the stroke count goes up each time you increase the tempo. You can also see when your brain begins to adapt to the fast tempo by when your stroke count holds steady or even starts to go back down (while staying at the same tempo for a while).
When you first start increasing tempos away from your comfortable tempo (TC) you may be able to hold the same stroke count (SPL) for a few steps. But at some point in increased tempo you may not be able to resist adding strokes to you SPL. But why? Is it a matter of strength? A matter of your ability to hold precise movements? That is what you want to use faster-than-comfortable tempo sets to discover.
What tempo starts to feel fast to you is quite personal and depends on what you’ve been training with. You can shift your comfortable tempo range a bit over a few weeks with a systematic adaptation process. This is not nearly as difficult as shifting your SPL range, but it still requires a gradual process over time.
When you work into faster-than-comfortable tempo range, the harder it becomes (i.e. the more failure you experience) the more incremental the steps of increased tempo need to be.
For example, while inside your comfortable tempo range you may be able to increase tempo by steps of -0.05 seconds and you don’t need any adaptation time – you can get by with 50 or 100m distance for each round. When it gets near your comfortable limit you may need to make the increments smaller by steps of -0.03 or -0.02 and provide more distance for adaptation at each step – more like 150 to 200m distance for each round. When it gets extremely challenging (where failure is 40-50%) you may need to make the increments just -0.01 seconds and provide even more distance for adaptation at each step – more like 300m or more for each round. When failure is over 50% it is too much.
by Admin Mediterra | Sep 24, 2020 | Tempo
Swimming at slower-than-comfortable tempo you will challenge your ability to maintain balance, stability and streamline.
It will expose weakness and limitations in your skills that are still present when you swim at your normal tempo, but you may not be aware of how those weaknesses are affecting you. Working at extremely slow tempos will make you aware of those weaknesses and give you the opportunity to improve them. It will create even more ease for you at your normal Tempos.
It is not recommended that you swim often with extremely slow tempos because this can put a strain on your joints – some people try to increase the power of each stroke and distort the extension of the body to squeeze more distance per stroke – but if you do this occasionally, and for short periods of time, you can make some important observations and see where you need to work on improving control in balance, stability or streamline skills.
by Admin Mediterra | Sep 24, 2020 | Tempo
If you don’t already have a guess as to what tempo to start with, in Mode 1 set your TT to 1.45 seconds and swim one length. If that feels too fast, slow down the TT by +0.03 and swim another length. If that starting tempo of 1.45 feels too slow, then speed up the TT by -0.03 and swim another length.
If you are not sure where to start or what is too fast or too slow compared to others, you may read more in What is a Functional Range of Tempo?
Repeat that process of adjusting tempo and swimming another length, until the tempo feels more comfortable, which means you can maintain your normal SPL at that tempo for a long swim (whatever is ‘long’ for you). As you hone in on that most comfortable tempo (which we label at ‘TC’) make smaller changes in tempo, like +0.02 or +0.01 until you hit the center of what feels comfortable.
When you feel that you have found a tempo close enough to your comfortable center, then that can be your first TC reference point. Keep in mind that as you train more with tempo your TC will certainly shift; as your skills and fitness expand, what feels like a fast tempo to you right now will become quite comfortable later on.
A swimmer might work through a series of repeats trying to zero in on her comfortable tempo, like this…
- Starts at 1.45 and it feels too rushed
- Changes to 1.45 + 0.03 = 1.48 and it still feels too rushed
- Changes to 1.48 + 0.03 = 1.51 and it still feels fast, not as much
- Changes to 1.51 + 0.03 = 1.54 and it feels easy, but perhaps slightly slow
- Changes to 1.54 – 0.02 = 1.52 and it feels better
- Changes to 1.52 – 0.01 = 1.51 and now it feels just right
- She swim another couple lengths at 1.51 to confirm that this feels like the comfortable tempo TC.
by Admin Mediterra | Sep 24, 2020 | Tempo
Tempo is the term we use to talk about the rate at which the arms are moving through the stroke cycle. This is measured in seconds per stroke. The Tempo Trainer Pro gives us a little BEEP at this seconds interval so we know when to time each stroke.
Everyone, without even thinking about it, will start swimming and move the arms at some rate which is ‘normal’ to that person. But once you have learned a little about the role of tempo in the stroke will eventually wonder what tempo should I use?
You first need to learn to be in control of your stroke length. Then you can add training for tempo to it. But, assuming you are ready for it, here is a fuzzy scale on which to see where your current tempo range is, and what direction it may need to shift, depending on what event you are training for.
If you are currently working within the 1.00 to 1.40 second range, this is good range for a lot of swimming purposes.
If you are training with tempos below (faster than) 1.00 then it might be suitable to the kind of event and speed you are training for, or it might be an indication that you have an inadequate stroke length and should instead, slow tempo, and first learn to lengthen your stroke.
If you are training with tempos above (slower than) 1.40 then it may be suitable to doing slow, careful drill work and learning new movement patterns. But this is getting into the range where the density of water makes you slow down too much on each stroke, either requiring much more force-per-stroke to re-accelerate, or your stroke pressure is too light and you do not ever gain momentum in your movements.
The lesson is this: it is inefficient to swim with tempo on either extreme, though there may be good reasons for temporarily training in those tempos.
Also, keep in mind that tempo is meaningless without a relationship to stroke length. One could always jump in the water, spin the arms really fast and go nowhere. There must be traction on each stroke – the body must slide forward consistently on each stroke, no matter how fast those arms spin. And this is why we train first for controlling stroke length, then add tempo training next.
If you are in one of those extremes, the good news is that, when you follow an adaptation process (as provided in many of our Dojo courses) it is relatively easy to adjust your comfortable tempo range when moving it toward that middle zone.
by Admin Mediterra | Sep 24, 2020 | Advanced Skills
In most of our training plans in the Dojo and in live training sessions we will be working with tempo (a form of stroke rate) and controlling it using a device known as a Tempo Trainer Pro, made by Finis.
What is Tempo?
Tempo is the rate at which your arms (or whole body) are moving through the stroke cycle. For convenience in pool training, we measure tempo in units of ‘seconds per stroke’. Over many stroke cycles to get a more accurate average, we can measure from the time between each rotate of the torso, or we can measure the time it takes after one arm has left a position in the stroke cycle for the other arm to reach that same position . For example, we could measure the time between the left arm coming to the entry point and the right arm coming to the entry point in the stroke cycle.
What is the Tempo Trainer Pro?
A Tempo Trainer Pro (which we often abbreviate as “TT”) is a small, waterproof metronome we use for swimming. You can read more about this in Tempo Trainer Pro Basics.
Why Train With Tempo?
The first objectives for training with a TT is to provoke the brain to refine control over the precision and consistency of your movement patterns. The Tempo Trainer helps build your focused attention and sense of timing, helping the body ‘memorize’ the movement deeply. When you train enough with the TT, you’ll eventually not need it any more – just like a musician would use a metronome to perfect timing then set it aside for the concert.
There are three ways we may have you first start to use the Tempo Trainer:
- Using a comfortable tempo, set a steady rhythm to the stroke and train the brain to memorize that rhythm.
- Using a comfortable tempo, call your attention to a particular point in the stroke cycle, stroke after stroke.
- To expand your comfortable tempo range by working on the edges of what is uncomfortably fast tempo and what is uncomfortably slow.
By first working with a comfortable tempo you can give the brain a chance to organize and smooth out the motions under the constraint of a fixed time interval.
Then you can begin working with slightly uncomfortably-slow tempos to challenge your balance and streamline skills. Then you can begin working with slightly uncomfortably-fast tempos to challenge your precision under the stress of faster movements.
There are more ways to use it once we get into advanced training, but these are where we like you to start. Later on we use TT training, in conjunction with stroke length training, to bring your stroke rate down to the range suitable for your pace goal. Tempo work is recommended only after you have the four fundamental features working in your stroke.
Using a Tempo Trainer adds a new level of challenge to the brain while training your stroke technique. For this reason it takes some time and understanding to learn to use one, and to enjoy using one. Some people love it immediately, and sense it will help them focus. While some people find it annoying at first. If so, don’t worry. That may be a sign your nervous system is not ready for it yet. But that annoyance could also mean that your brain just needs some time working with it to get used to a new form of stimulation and start to appreciate it.
by Admin Mediterra | Sep 24, 2020 | Gear
Let us introduce you to the Finis Tempo Trainer Pro. It is a waterproof metronome for swimming. You turn it on, place it under your swim cap or one a clip attached to your goggle strap. It creates a BEEP sound on the interval that you set with the buttons – that BEEP is beeping like seconds on a watch, and you control how many seconds there are between those BEEPs.
This is small, but extremely useful device. We would say it would be the most important part of your training gear after after your suit and goggles.
Coordinating The BEEP
In the most simple use of the Tempo Trainer Pro, you simply coordinate the movement of your stroke with the BEEP. You can coordinate that beep with any part of the stroke you want, anywhere on the body.
You could concentrate on timing the beep with one of these easily identifiable points in the freestyle stroke:
- The fingers of your spearing hand cut the surface of the water in front
- Your lead arm reaching full extension point
- Setting the catch
- Initiating the torso rotation
- The timing of the kick
The Tempo Trainer can be used for the other three competitive stroke styles, but it gets complicated when doing it with butterfly and breaststroke so we recommend you get skilled at using it on freestyle or backstroke before trying it on the others.
Tempo Trainer Instructions
You may want to view the official Finis Tempo Trainer Manual (pdf download).
On the Tempo Trainer Pro there are three modes it can be set to. When you depress the top button for 2 seconds, it toggles between Mode 1, 2 and 3.
For most of our training assignments in the Dojo and in live training we use Mode 1, which works in ‘seconds per stroke’. Mode 2 can be set for longer intervals, such as the seconds per length or lap, so that you can try to come to the wall on the BEEP. Mode 3 is an inverse of Mode 1, and works in units of ‘strokes per minute’ (SPM) – this is more useful for open water swimming, or is preferred by those who think more in terms of SPM.
by Admin Mediterra | 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.
