Distance Dave

In distance swimming, it’s the stroke you use after a little mental and physical fatigue or distraction settle in that makes the difference. In your own structured workouts, vary things enough so that you never get used to a certain amount of rest. If it’s not enough rest, find ways to focus on the stroke to regain tempo.

Needed: tempo trainer

Warm-up

4x 100 of 25 skating/25 underswitch/25 zenswitch/25 free

Rotate focal points:

• head stability,
• Spear through, down and forward
• Front Quadrant
• Hip Drive

4 x 500 @ varying rest

On each, stop at 200 and put in your tempo trainer JUST for 100 yards. Have it set and beeping before you being in order to check whether your tempo has slipped. After that 100, take it out and try to keep going at that tempo.

Use the focal points above in rotation by 400, and refocus before and after using the tempo trainer

200 long, graceful freestyle

4 x 100 Descending on :20 rest

Descend refers to the time, and likely the tempo. It should not become so high tempo that it is not sustainable

200 exaggerate length of spearing motion and the level of front quadrant timing

This is one that I used to include with the TI Advanced workshop.

200 graceful freestyle- no tempo trainer

10 x 50 playtime- change the tempo by up to .04 after each 50 to find the right balance for a strong, smooth rhythm. This may change day-to-day

Find your tempo for the day and use it with rotating focal points. See if it changes you add patience or remove hitches. Check for the following

• Symmetrical patience
• Flow of elbow to shoulder shrug and gentle, wide roll
• Elimination of pause for pull- let the hip guide the spearing arm down
• Even patience on breath- not exaggerated pull to compensate for a high or late breath
• Keeping tempo within length. Don’t shorten the stretch just to increase tempo

600 build: subtract .01 every 25 or 50 to bring your stroke up to a stronger tempo

4 x 100 at the tempo you finish at @:30 rest. Focus on the aspect of the stroke you feel will slip out if not attended to.

4 x 50 For speed: subtract another .20 and hold the tempo with the hips on every 50. Take :30 rest after each 50

10 x 50 cooldown with attention: beginning with your speed tempo, add .05 every 50 to get long, smooth, and graceful. Add Front Quadrant patience and enjoy the full body glide.

I’m a huge fan of the Finis Tempo Trainer, especially if someone has been rebuilding their strokes from drills or focal points but needs a better awareness of rhythm. <pick one up with a discount here and use code coachdavec>

There are a lot of sets out there to try with a tempo trainer, but it’s important to realize not only that someone else’s tempo might not be right for you, but trying different focal points may change your tempo significantly without changing the effort level of your stroke. For example, moving the arm through its anchoring phase, it’s lift and recovery and everything else at the exact same speed while allowing one arm to come closer to a parallel match-up (closer to front quadrant timing) extends the period of the stroke without speeding up any particular aspect of it.

Here’s a few things to try out or watch out for:

• If you add or subtract time on each stroke, have a mental image of where it will be changed. All too often, people ramp up tempo to try to get faster but just end up spinning their wheels. If you can stay front quadrant at a strong tempo, you’ll be speeding the flow in more important areas of the stroke
• Be careful of trying too hard to catch a tempo. If you drop your elbow to speed up the anchoring phase, you’re sacrificing too much. Back off on the tempo and maintain the perpendicular anchor.
• In a similar way, avoid cutting the stroke short out back. I sometimes see swimmers drawing the elbow out a foot early and giving us a “T-rex” stroke to match tempo.
• Play with sets that go up and down beyond your comfort zone with a strategy. My favorite is to go bit by bit to longer tempos with exaggerated body stretch and front quadrant, then maintain that length and relative timing while adding stronger flow to the recovery initiation and swing
• Alternate what the tempo is set to. If you’ve never connected hip drive to your satisfaction, alternate setting the beep to your strike/rotation with having it set to your kick/hip drive.

I’ll post a tempo training mini-set to give you a start.