Swim Smooth: What Is An Efficient Freestyle Stroke? Part 2

I am delighted to see this, and has confirmed what I always thought about stroke rate. Since I have been trying to reduce it, I have not been able to maintain or improve on my swim performances. I can now relax, go with what feels natural and belief in what I am doing is ok, and concentrate on the right things that will make me faster! Excellent video, great work swimsmooth.

I' m curious. How many strokes does Jono van Hazel take for each 25 meter?

swimming is hard :D

awesome video!!!swimsmooth rocks

Thank you! Great coverage on a controversial subject!

Big flaw in your argument. Efficiency doesn't equal speed. Janet Evans was incredibly fit. Her fitness is why she was so fast not her stroke technique. She achieved despite her poor mechanics not because of them. Her speed and others like her doesn't prove that short strokes are efficient. It proves that more important than technique is fitness.

this is like the opposite way of Terry Lauglin Total immersion, how come when gliding its not gonna be efficient.? what a bollocks. Sorry i think im gonna stick to Total Immersion way, my ultimate goal is become like Shinji Takeuchi 9 strokes in 25 metre.

This is the best series for clear instructions and demonstrations of styles. What I really like is Paul saying that you do not have to be a certain style, you have to find the style that you are comfortable with and work on some of the components just as I am doing. Thanks so much for being easy to understand and giving some of us hope to do better.

@richardlanejordan We beg to differ! In swimming, efficiency has an over-riding influence on speed. It's impossible to swim at Janet's speed without an efficient freestyle stroke - not even sprinting. And the reverse is also true, it's nearly impossible to swim slowly with an efficient stroke. If we asked Janet to swim at 1:40/100m pace she would have to deliberately disrupt her stroke (for instance adding glide) to lose efficiency and slow down.

@swimsmooth I agree there is a threshold that your technique must meet, and Janet clearly passes that. I strongly disagree with your insinuation that just because a swimmer like Janet is fast she is a model of efficiency. If I train 10k meters a day and you 8k while your stroke is perfect and mine some efficiency threshold, I will out race you. The swimmer who wins the race is usually not the most efficent but the most fit.

A question: Was Phelps dominant in Bejing because of his technical efficiency or his incredible fitness and natural physical gifts? I.e. was he more likely the most efficient swimmer in the world or fittest?

Wow!

@richardlanejordan While Janet was incredibly fit, so was every other gal in the pool. This isn't a he said she said argument, it's been proven repeatedly with science. I don't care how you slice it Richard, efficiency or lack of is the biggest limiter in the water. The the USOTC in Colorado Springs didn't pay to have hydrodynamic studies of water velocity done on and around swimmers bodies so they could tell them to swim an extra 5K every day to get faster.

@RonixCorp You have the references to @swimsmooth and me opposite.

@upndown68 My argument shows there are 2 different factors that comprise speed: (1) technical efficiency and (2) fitness. My main problem with the video was it did not properly address the fitness factor. Holding Janet Evans up as a model of efficiency to further an argument for short strokes is not convincing because it is not fair to assume she was like "every other gal in the pool" in terms of fitness. I argue she trained harder, swam longer, and was mentally stronger so won.

Thanx, nice video. For those who's argument is not addressing fitness or physical ability to efficiency is because this video assumes it's audience as a trimmed swimmer of some extent.

I think you failed to establish your definition of 'efficiency'. how do you define as 'efficient swimming'? Is time a factor? If distance and number of strokes are your only two parameters, then guy A who swims 50m at 30 strokes is definitely more 'efficient' than guy B who swims 50m with stroke-count more than 30 in this example.

Hi there, efficiency is just the standard definition nothing fancy! It's the ratio of how fast you are going versus how hard you are working. How hard you are working is hard to measure precisely but oxygen uptake and heart rate are certainly indicators of this. How many strokes you take is a very poor measure of efficiency - so poor in fact that you can pretty much disregard it. Many swimmers have short strokes but swim extremely quickly at low effort levels.

In fact a study conducted at the university of texas showed decreasing efficiency with longer strokes - a fascinating read if you are a little technical yourself. You can find it with google: McLean SP, Palmer D, Ice G, Truijens M, Smith JC. (2010). Oxygen uptake response to stroke rate manipulation in freestyle swimming. Med Sci Sports Exerc., 42(10):1909-13.

Very interesting - I am learning total immersion method which seems to have the opposite view regarding the importance of glide. I am a mature (53) learner & TI appeals to me, but I lose momentum on the glide, so this video is an interesting point of view. There are a lot of similarities though (good rotation, body position).......

V intetsting. Im a v inerficiant swimminer. Being short and lean i find it v hard to keep rytham and speed. I shall experiment today

swimsmooth has the best instruction hands down.

excellent

bitch please DPS means damage per second

Good explanation

Smash the water is better than glide? Sorry, I don´t buy it?

I find you verry correct!Finally i dont feel so guilty when i am saying to my trainer that somethings dont fit to me...

Sloppy analogy and explanation. If we describe efficiency as energy consumption as the basis, then I can safely assume most average Joe swimmer tires out after a lap or two. We're all not Olympic swimmers also with crappy endurance, thus to keep up the high stroke rate style is not viable. Ironically, a more gentle, slight overglide, short dps type of style make the average swimmer last longer in the pool.

Efficiency shouldn't even be the correct term to use in this discussion, if your concern is bout the speed or lap times

Great video, especially for saying there is not one way to swim. Thank you for showcasing some women swimming - maybe men and women need to swim differently as women, generally, have stamina and men have strength. Looking forward to viewing the next videos, but I’m off to the sea for a swim now!

How do you define as a stroke?

Still true today