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When people are new to open-water training I recommend using a stroke count interval similar to one’s SPL (plus 3 to account for the glide-from-wall part of the length).
As one develops stronger attention span I suggest convenient divisors of 100 or 120 – 20/30/40/50. Why? Because it can also be used as a rough distance gauge in open water when one’s stroke length is approximately 1 meter per stroke (which most people will be near that +/- 10-20 cm).
A few years ago I have taken to counting just one arm to reduce the frequency of the mental ‘beep’ in head and free up a bit more the channel for more detailed attention on some stroke feature. I notice that I tend to emphasize the movement of that moment on the arm I am counting, so I will switch the side I count on when I switch the body part I am focusing on.
I might correspond the count generally to rotation to one side so it doesn’t use up so much of the channel while I focus on something else. Or I might count both left and right but double count each number, once for each side, 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, 4-4, which seems to have an emphasis-balancing effect and prevents my loss of count. Or one may count one arm stroke but split the syllables between the two arms – Twenty-One, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, and so on. And one may count breaths – this is particular good for practicing bi-lateral breathing on every 3 strokes. / / 1, / / 2, / / 3, / / 4, etc.
One pattern may be:
- 3 sets of 20 strokes, with focal point A.
- 3 sets of 20 strokes, with focal point B.
- 3 sets of 20 strokes, with focal point C. Etc.
Within that pattern I may do:
- 20 strokes focal point A.
- Stop counting and do active rest for an approximate 30 seconds.
- 20 strokes focal point A.
- Turn off counting and do active rest for an approximate 30 seconds. Etc.
Another pattern may be:
- 100 strokes at tempo 1.20,
- 50 strokes at relaxed tempo (quickly set tempo to upcoming number while keeping the device in my swim cap, then ignore),
- 100 strokes at tempo 1.15, then
- 50 strokes at relaxed tempo,
- 100 strokes at tempo 1.10,
- 50 strokes at relaxed tempo, etc.
Other patterns may be:
- 2x 150 strokes (counting one side) working on a smooth breathing focal point (approximately 660 meters for me).
- 2x 150 strokes working on synchronization pairs AB, BC.
- 2x 150 strokes working on gradual tempo increase each 50 stroke mark.
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