We had a nice practice yesterday. I'd like to expand on it further, but I'll wait for a separate post. This post will be to briefly detail this video. If you'd like, fast forward to the 1:51 part of the video where, for the next 1:15 we will follow Cole as he gets better at his Butterfly stroke count. You can see toward the 3:00 mark, when Cole finishes the length, that he "times the wall" perfectly. He has zero glide, but he also reached full extension. This point of full body extension is the fastest part of the stroke and so an athlete must finish in this position (otherwise, if they are short and they finish on a bent arm they are not reaching their final stroke's full speed, and if they are long they hit their highest velocity and then decelerate into the finishing touch).
The stroke count ensures that the athlete is constantly working on their finishes, which come into play on not only every finish, but every turn. The athlete must also count kicks to go along with strokes; it makes no sense to know you are doing 6 strokes, but not sure if it's 6 kicks or 11 kicks….which will make a big difference in the amount of strokes taken down the pool.
Cole is working toward a stroke count of 6, and a time of 12.0 seconds. There is plenty of value to training at 7 strokes in 13-14 seconds as well. 12.0 is a high-velocity swim and there is plenty of high value to training anywhere within 10% of 12.0, which would be between 12.0 and 13.2, and some good value as well for Cole to swim between 13.2 and 14.9s….there's not much value to Cole swimming a 16.7 25 fly, ever, in practice for a single 25. I'd prefer the drilling that you will see in the video be at a 15-16 second per 25 speed for 25s, 50s, and anywhere up to 100.
It's clear to me that working on stroke count 25s forces athletes to get better each of these things: Streamlining
Kicking in a streamline
Stroke efficiency
Stroke efficiency at pace
Wall anticipation
Turn and finish confidence (ability to attack the wall).
You have to work on these things to get better at stroke count swims, and the getting better at this stuff can only help one swim really fast! Let's do better with it! We function at a C or D level without verbal, on the spot coaching -- and I think this is one thing we can do more of without being told to work on it. We are probably at a B+ level when we are focused on it, but we can't take one step forward and then two steps back the next day!
Athletes should be able to drill fast, and as they get older (and presumably taller, stronger, and more efficient in the water) they should be able to decrease their stroke count per 25, while increasing their speed at both drilling and swimming. Drilling slow should be a small percentage of your weekly drilling.
Drilling fast doesn't mean drilling sloppy. I find that when a young athlete drills fast, and has a time goal, their technique with the drill improves. This is what I am going for.
I'd love to see the group do this {50 Fly drill plus 25 Swim} set in a week, and go :30-:32 for the drills (2.2.3 or 2.2.2) and 12 in 6, 13 in 6, and 14 in 7 for the 25s, with 90% of the group. 25s pretty much take nothing out of an athlete when done 1 or 2 at a time….so we should be all over this as a group of individuals!
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