Simplified, Intuitive Practice

Here’s an exerpt from an email I received from a recent workshop student. I felt his question and my response may be helpful to those who feel overwhelmed or confused by what to do with TI in your practice times… I`m a little bit unstructured in my swim training so I need some advice. I`m [...]

Slide, Don’t Hammer

I had a great practice set in the pool early this morning- 1600 yards broken into 16 x (4x 25 yard sprints), with a rest interval based on my heart rate*. The objective- holding SPL (at 16) while increasing tempo from 0.95 to 0.83 seconds, using a Tempo Trainer. In the winter I like to [...]

Be Slippery When Wet

For the last several practice sessions in the sea I was working on improving my ability to hold a long stroke at higher tempos. For me, my goal is to take the long-stroke I enjoy effortlessly at 1.20 tempo, down into my race level tempo range of 1.00 to 0.90. Here was my open-water set [...]

Overlap For Length

I was inspired to write a few essays on this topic of stroke length because of my open-water swims last week. I was working with a Tempo Trainer, concentrating on my stroke-lengthening skill over 3km distance- increasing tempo, while holding stroke length. Stroke length is perpetually being attacked by water resistance (which increases with speed), [...]

Don’t Burn Rubber

Anyone can crank their arms around wildly in the water. You don’t even have to try to go anywhere. You don’t even have to be a swimmer! Yet the swimmer who increases his stroke tempo* without maintaining a long stroke is like a hotshot who’s spinning out his car, burnin’ rubber on the asphalt. Without [...]