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Explaining Different Kinds of Tempo Sets

by | Sep 24, 2020 | Practice Design, Tempo

When working on improving or expanding the range of tempos you can use in your training, there are a few kinds of sets we may use, with different purposes and names. Let me explain each for you…

 

Tempo Pyramid

A Tempo Pyramid is a set that has you monitor your stroke count while having you swim with gradually slower tempos, up to a certain point, and then work back with gradually faster tempos until you reach your original starting point. From there, it may have you continue into faster tempos for a while.  [Note: Counting strokes with slower tempo assumes you are using a 2 Beat Kick or a minimal flutter kick, so that your torso and arm stroke itself is being challenged to affect a longer stroke rather than just kicking your way farther.] 

By gradually slowing tempo, this often allows the brain time to improve stability and streamline, adapt and lengthen the stroke in ways you could not do if you just suddenly slowed the stroke to an extreme amount.

Once the stroke is lengthened, then the tempo is gradually increased while you attempt to hold onto the changes made in your stroke that allowed it to be longer. Often, you are able to return to the starting tempo with a longer stroke (a lower stroke count) than you had when you started. This means you are swimming faster, without actually trying to swim faster. You simply focused upon improving your stability and streamline to keep momentum flowing forward in longer periods of time between strokes (slower tempos), then you aim to maintain that superior stability and streamline as the tempo speeds back up again.

Example of a Tempo Pyramid

Round 1:

  1. 2x 25 at Tempo 1.30
  2. 2x 25 at Tempo 1.40
  3. 2x 25 at Tempo 1.50
  4. 2x 25 at Tempo 1.60
  5. 2x 25 at Tempo 1.70

Round 2:

  1. 2x 25 at Tempo 1.60
  2. 2x 25 at Tempo 1.50
  3. 2x 25 at Tempo 1.40
  4. 2x 25 at Tempo 1.30

Bonus Round (if you ended up with a lower stroke count at the end, than you started with)

  1. 2x 25 at Tempo 1.25
  2. 2x 25 at Tempo 1.20

 

Asymmetrical Tempo Pyramid

This has the exact same purpose as the regular Tempo Pyramid with the only difference being that (in Round 2) you speed up the tempo in smaller increments, allowing more time to adapt and preserve that longer stroke.

The ‘asymmetry’ part comes from the fact that there are more (smaller) tempo increment steps back down the pyramid than on the way up.

Example of an Asymmetric Tempo Pyramid

Round 1:

  • 2x 25 at Tempo 1.30
  • 2x 25 at Tempo 1.40
  • 2x 25 at Tempo 1.50
  • 2x 25 at Tempo 1.60

Round 2:

  • 2x 25 at Tempo 1.55
  • 2x 25 at Tempo 1.50
  • 2x 25 at Tempo 1.45
  • 2x 25 at Tempo 1.40
  • 2x 25 at Tempo 1.35
  • 2x 25 at Tempo 1.30

Bonus Round (if you ended up with a lower stroke count at the end, than you started with)

  • 2x 25 at Tempo 1.25
  • 2x 25 at Tempo 1.20

 

Inverted Tempo Pyramid

Where a regular Tempo Pyramid is moving UP (toward slower tempos) and then back DOWN (toward faster tempos), an Inverted Tempo Pyramid is going in the exact opposite direction, first working down into faster, more challenging tempos and then slowing back down.

By counting strokes and monitoring perceived effort, you can measure how much your brain has adapted as you move back up into slower tempos. If your stroke count stays lower at each step on the way up, lower than it did on the way down, and the effort feels a bit easier, then you know you have adapted.   

The purpose here is to help you make your starting tempo feel even easier than it did when you started. By challenging your neuromuscular system to execute the movements of the stroke at incrementally faster tempos, its sense of time is stretched. You start with a tempo that is just at the fast edge of what you can handle, then work down into faster tempos that push you to adjust, correct, and adapt. You will experience some failure in precision. But then when you back off to slightly slower tempos, your brain will perceive an abundance of time at a tempo that felt rushed to you just a minute ago. This is a way to trick the brain into figuring out how to adapt your current stroke precision to slightly faster tempos as a matter of skill rather than a matter of power. 

When working with faster-than-comfortable tempos you should usually use smaller incremental changes, giving your brain smaller steps to adapt to as the tempos get more and more challenging. Use change increments (D=delta, or ‘change amount’) of -0.03, -0.02 and -0.01 seconds – smaller deltas for more extremely challenging tempos. And, you should provide more distance (more number of repeats) at each tempo step to give the brain proper time to adapt – you may need 100-300 yards/meters at each step.

Example of an Inverted Tempo Pyramid

Round 1:

  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.10 (at the fast edge of what you can handle)
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.08
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.06
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.04
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.02
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.00

Round 2:

  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.02
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.04
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.06
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.08
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.10

 

Tempo Ladder

A Tempo Ladder is a series repeats at gradually faster (or slower, but more typically at faster) tempos.

You start at a fast-but-comfortable tempo and work down then, using small increments, work into faster and faster tempos, giving your brain and muscles time to adapt to each tempo step. You keep going down until you can no longer adapt and maintain precision in your stroke movements. When you reach failure at a certain fast tempo and can no longer correct it, even with some additional rest, then you know you are done with that set for the day.

You need to monitor stroke count as well because this is the primary way you tell when you reach your failure point. Your stroke count will go up as you go into faster tempos, but you must resist that count going up too quickly. As a rule of thumb, you are allowed to add one stroke for every -0.06 seconds you increase the tempo – and by this you are assured that you will gradually increase pace as the tempo gets faster. If you give up a stroke earlier than that, then you may actually be slowing down although your arms are spinning faster, and that is not what faster tempos are suppose to do for you.

Example of a Tempo Ladder

Round 1:

  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.10 (at the fast edge of what you can handle)
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.08
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.06
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.04

Let’s say you did 3x 50 at Tempo 1.04 and you did not feel adapted yet. So stay at this step one for another cycle to see if your brain and body can adapt with more time. If so, you may move on to the next tempo step, and so on.

  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.02
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.00

 

Tempo Step Ladder

A Tempo Step Ladder is essentially the same thing, and same purpose as a regular Tempo Ladder, with occasional steps back to slower tempos, before resuming the gradual progress into faster tempos. This occasional step-back in the series can provide an active rest while continuing with the series. When you step back and work at a tempo slightly slower than the one you were just challenged with, you may feel a great more ease that you did, thus increasing your sense of confidence that you can handle the next faster tempo.

Example of a Tempo Step Ladder

Round 1:

  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.08 (at the fast edge of what you can handle)
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.06
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.04

Round 2:

  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.06
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.04
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.02

Round 3:

  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.04
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.02
  • 3x 50 at Tempo 1.00

How to Personalize Your Practice

by | Sep 24, 2020 | Practice Design

Our training courses have provided structure and a general practice pattern for you, choosing the skills, the drills and the cues. But, there may be some decisions you should make in order to make each practice fit you even better…

These are the basic decisions you make when either designing or modifying a practice plan to fit you better:

 

Decision #1 – Choose Skill Projects

In each week of the training plan there are certain skill projects assigned, so you don’t need to change this unless you have a reason to.

In most of our training plans you will work on the same skill projects for the entire week, and work on them in different modes according to the practice type. In each practice of the week, you may decide which of those assignments you will work on today. You may work on more than one.

 

Decision #2 – Choose Appropriate Drills

There may be a combination of drill and whole stroke activities assigned. You will need to choose which drill fits the skill project. The drill activities you choose should match the complexity level you feel you need to work at in this skill. See Choosing Your Activities and Complexity for a description of those levels.

You may select a drill from those you learned in your live training experience, or you may take one from the Perpetual Motion Freestyle (PMF) video series, or from the Ultra-Efficient Freestyle (UEF) video series.

 

Decision #3 – Choose Cues

For each skill project there are a menu of cues you have learned already in your live training experience, which are also listed on the lesson notes. You may review the standard cues on the lesson notes or use some from our 101 Cues for Freestyle page, or one from your live training notes. Cues (aka ‘focal points’) are tools-not-rules, so please use one that works best for you to achieve the assigned quality, and use it properly.

Choosing Your Activities and Complexity Level

by | Sep 24, 2020 | Practice Design

When designing or remodeling a practice for your own personal needs, you need to select the right activities and the challenge (complexity) level that fits your needs.

Once you have chosen your skill project for the practice set, you need to choose the activities and quantities to use in that set. When you experienced a live training experience with your coach, he/she was making those decision for you, but they were also setting an example for how this works.

In your lesson notes you will see that the activities are listed in the order of their complexity for the neuro-muscular system, starting with most simple activity in which to practice control, to the most challenging activity.

 

Complexity Made More Simple

Not much can be done to reduce the overall complexity of swimming smoothly. But we have an effective way to break down that complexity into smaller pieces we can master, one by one, then gradually blend together into a marvelous stroke.

microskills-whole-stroke-b-800x500

The complexity of the full freestyle stroke is broken down into skill sets. In each set there are skills, and each skill can be further broken down into micro-skills. In our approach we use cues which are specific commands we give to our body parts, to train them for their role in that full stroke.

 

Practice Activities

You will need to choose activities for each assignment that fit the level of complexity your brain needs – activities that fits your skill, your fitness, and your pace of learning.

This is a menu of activities that you may use to develop your control over each skill. These are in the order of their complexity for the neuromuscular system, starting with most simple activity in which to practice control, moving to the most challenging activity.

  1. Standing Rehearsal
  2. Drill (with no strokes)
  3. Drill plus 4 strokes (no breathing)
  4. 8 whole strokes (no breathing)
  5. 8 whole strokes (with breathing)
  6. One single length
  7. Multiple lengths with rest between
  8. Multiple lengths with no rest between

We recommend that you choose three of these to use in a practice set, and use them in the order of complexity.

You may use a lower complexity activity as a form of active rest between rounds with more difficult activities.

 

Choose Your Complexity Level

Level 1 – Choose activities from 1 to 4

  • Standing Rehearsal
  • Drill (with no strokes)
  • Drill plus 4 strokes (no breathing)
  • 8 strokes (no breathing)

Generally, at Level 1 we encourage you to do short segments within the amount of time you can hold your breath comfortably. Wait to add breathing after you have started to work on the breathing skills.

Level 2 – Choose activities from 3 to 6

  • Drill plus 3 or 4 strokes (no breathing)
  • 8 strokes (no breathing)
  • 8 whole strokes (with breathing)
  • One single length

This level assumes you can swim across the pool without great stress, and have some control over your stroke. It assumes you can breathe while swimming without great struggle. If not, consider working with Level 1 activities for a while.

Level 3 – Choose activities from 4 to 8

  • 8 strokes (no breathing)
  • 8 whole strokes (with breathing)
  • One single length
  • Multiple lengths with rest between
  • Multiple lengths with no rest between

You may feel you can start at Level 3 for some of the skills, and that is OK. But at any time you run into a skill that is difficult to get control over, we recommend that you switch to a lower level for a while to get your first sense of control. Once you can consistently get control over it at a lower level, you may switch back up to a higher one.

 

Fine-Tune The Complexity

To make the practice sets fit your skill level and time just right, you may adjust the activities in these ways:

  • add or remove one practice set
  • adjust the number of repeats in a set
  • adjust the distance or duration of each repeat
  • adjust the amount of rest you take between repeats or sets
  • add a Tempo Trainer that is set to a comfortable (easy) tempo – not too fast, not too slow

Guidance for Warm Up and Cool Down

by | Sep 24, 2020 | Practice Design

There is some benefit to making parts of your practice quite routine. We want to suggest that you do this with your Warm Up and Cool Down time in each practice. This would lower the amount of new things you need to track in each new practice, and it would allow you to more easily compare and evaluate your body signals at the start and at the finish of practice, from day-to-day.

You will notice that we rarely give a specific assignment for your Warm Up or Cool Down. Since each person will have different needs, we would like you to design this for yourself, following our guidelines.

 

Warm Up

First, please DO NOT SKIP your warm up time. It is so important to gently bring your performance systems online and coordinated before you increase the intensity of work you require of these systems.

It is recommended that you provide about 8 to 12 minutes of warm up time.

Start moving as gently as you can, letting your body indicate when it is eager to increase intensity. It takes some minutes for the tissues to loosen, the bio-chemistry, the motor, and the cardio-vascular systems to prepare for your main work. The better your tune-up, the more you can accomplish in your main sets.

You may do what we call a Silent Swim for the first 300 to 600 yards or meters. If you are comfortable to do so, we recommend that you swim continuously, but as gently as possible at first so that it is not difficult for the body.

A Silent Swim is where you swim in such a way to make the least amount of noise, splash, waves, or turbulence in the water around you. It gives an assignment to every part of your body to work together toward this single, sensory objective.

Then you may add next 200 with a variety of stroke styles (like breaststroke and backstroke) to work your joints in different movement patterns.

And you may do a short interval set where you change the tempo of your stroke.

 

An Example Warm Up

Silent Swim for 200

4x 50 of alternate stroke styles (no freestyle)

4 rounds of:

  • 3x 25
  • 10 seconds passive rest between each 25
  • Repeat #1 at gentle stroke tempo
  • Repeat #2 at moderate tempo
  • Repeat #3 at brisk tempo

 

Cool Down

This is when you will review some focal point that you worked on today. Choose one focal point from today’s assignments and use that during this final swim.

Swim 200 to 300 (continuous or in pieces) in what I call ‘Pure Pleasure’ swimming mode. With a calm effort level, choose a tempo that is very comfortable, tune in to your focal point and swim with the goal of using that focal point to make the swim as pleasurable as you know how to.

You are certainly welcome to add other activities to your Warm Up and Cool Down time, if those are enjoyable and productive.

If you feel an unpleasant urge to add more to these we would challenge you to search for the justification of those activities – note whether they clearly contribute to the skills and enjoyment you are trying to build. If those activities don’t contribute clearly to your main goals, consider using your precious time in the pool for other activities that will.

What is Silent Swimming?

by | Sep 24, 2020 | Practice Design

The first objective I have in swim practice is to bring my body and my mind into the water. The next objective is to bring my mind into my body. The third objective is to bring all my internal systems online and into a unified, cooperative state for higher performance. Then I am ready to work for the day.

If I cannot achieve this unified state within the normal time frame it usually indicates that I am fighting an illness and need to get out to rest for the day. Or it may be that I should remain in this Tune-Up process longer.

Silent Swimming is a very useful activity in Tune- Up (a.k.a. Warm Up) for accomplishing these objectives.

I recommend at least 8 minutes for this. 12 minutes is about minimum for myself.

Basically, the task is to produce as little noise, splash, bubbles (= lowest turbulence) as possible. It is not about moving slow, but rather it is about moving gently and that usually compels us to start slow and wait for the systems to unify and tell us when its time to turn things up. This is based on the premise that our bodies really do want to work hard and perform at highest capacity. The body has inbuilt wisdom for how to get there each day and a signal language through which it communicates that wisdom. We need to learn how to read those signals and respond cooperatively.

Silent Swimming is an exercise, or more so a discipline, in listening and responding to those signals.

In Silent Swimming you may start out gently and increase tempo as you feel your body relaxing, the joints loosening up, the tissues starting to slide and yield to a full range of motion. Blood will migrant to the areas of your body that need to work. Heart rate and respiration will increase and come into a working rhythm. Your attention to your nervous system and especially to the surface of your skin will awaken and focus. Energy production will turn up and urge you to use it.

Your Practice Objectives

by | Sep 24, 2020 | Practice Design

There is a particular way that our skill-mastery-oriented practices are designed and how progress is measured. We would like you to pay attention to this pattern and become familiar with it. Then you will be able to use the same pattern to design your own practices.

 

Objectives

In each section you are given a specific skill objective to work on. For those skills you are given a description of what success for this skill should look like and feel like. There may be additional instructions for the skills or focal points for What To Aim For and What To Avoid.

These assignments have both a quantity and a quality component. Each practice will assign the quantities of distance or duration (like “repeat drill 3 times”, or “Swim 3 rounds of 4x 100 whole stroke”) or have you choose them. Anything you can measure externally, like time and distance and stroke count is what we call a quantity.

And, in each section there are descriptions of the qualities you will aim to achieve – like, “keep your hips and shoulder brushing the surface for 3 seconds”, or “keep your fingers soft”. There are several qualities described in each assignment, so you have a lot to explore.

Becoming a smooth, economical swimmer – getting more work done for less expense in energy and stress – is totally dependent on the development of these qualities, for they all correspond to how you use energy in the body. You can swim faster or farther with more energy expense and stress in the body, or learn to do it with less. Our mastery-minded approach to training specializes in the latter. To this end, your success in the drills and whole stroke is measured by your qualities more than by your quantities accomplished.

The drills and whole strokes are meant to help you achieve these qualities. Developing these qualities are the point of the practices – the better the qualities are the more quantity you will be able to handle – swimming farther, faster and swim more often with eagerness. In practice you may need to decrease the challenge on your brain (complexity) to make it possible for you to succeed, or you may increase the number of repeats in order to give yourself more time to figure it out. Either way, you are aiming to achieve that quality.

Conducting Regular Test Swims

by | Jun 1, 2020 | Practice Design

For measuring progress objectively and for supporting motivation we recommend that you conduct a test swim periodically. Depending on your needs and how demanding the test might be on you energy, you might do this once a week, twice a month, once a month or so. 

First, select the distance and condition that fits your current abilities and that will be long enough to test the skills you are working on.

When you choose a test swim to start with, use that same test swim throughout the course so that results can be more easily compared. If your test swim starts to feel too easy and you want to increase the challenge (a wonderful sign of progress!) you may:

  1. Move up to a more difficult test in that same level (= less rest).
  2. Move up to the next level (= longer distance).

 

Suggested Test Swims

We have some recommendations (distances can be meters or yards):

Beginner – 200 total (choose one of the sets below)

  • 200 (no rest)
  • 2x 100 (20 seconds rest)
  • 4x 50 (20 seconds rest)
  • 8x 25 (20 seconds rest)

Intermediate  – 400 total (choose one of the sets below)

  • 400 (no rest)
  • 2x 200 (15 seconds rest)
  • 4x 100 (15 seconds rest)

Advanced – 800 total (choose one of the sets below)

  • 800 (no rest)
  • 2x 400 (15 seconds rest)
  • 4x 200 (15 seconds rest)

 

Essential Measurements

Try to measure at least one quantity and one quality during the test swim. If you can do more than one that is good, and you might have a friend on deck help you keep track. Remember, the qualities are the first place to look for improvements. Improvement in qualities will eventually produce improvement in the quantities. So, remain observant to the qualities and be loyal to their development over quantities in this foundation training phase.

Quantities to measure:

  • Total time
  • Time per split (for each 50 or 100, if possible)
  • Stroke count on each length (or every 2nd, or 4th length)
  • Changes in amount of rest (taking more or less than assigned)

Qualities to measure:

  • How precise was my control over a certain body part? (how close did it come to my best)
  • How consistent was my control over a certain body part? (how often did I achieve my best)
  • Overall, how much easier to move did it feel?
  • How much smoother did it feel?
  • How much less stress was there?
  • How much less effort was there? (in terms of heart rate, breathing intensity)
  • How much stronger did it feel?

 

Recording Results

We HIGHLY recommend that you keep a training journal and record data from your practices and test swims.

If you are receiving attention from a coach, he/she will certainly want to view these results.