By Mat Luebbers

Establishing training and racing paces for maximizing good swimming technique

Sure, technique can always get better with more skill training, but if you already have decent swimming technique and feel like you are in good physical condition for swimming, what else can you do to improve your swimming speed? How about working on your training and racing paces with tempo work!

As part of a regular training routine, you are probably already working on your efficiency - getting the most distance out of each swimming stroke at the fastest speed. Maximizing your distance-per-stroke (DPS) is the first part of swim tempo training. The next part is maintaining that DPS (or as close to it as possible) and varying your stroke rate or swimming tempo to find what works best for you (check out Mat's aricle on DPS here).

Here's an example: If you take 25 strokes when swimming 50 meters, you are getting 2 meters/stroke. If your rate is 2 seconds/stroke, 50 meters will take you 50 seconds. Increase your tempo to 1.75 seconds/stroke and your time drops to 43.75 seconds for 50 meters. With practice and the help of someone observing you during races, you can determine what stroke rates work for you in various situations. The tempo you maintain for a given set of repeats versus a race will not always be identical, but you can do sets at race tempo once you learn what that race tempo is. Conversely, you can work on learning to swim at a faster tempo, then transfer that to a race.

One useful tool for tempo training is a device called the Tempo Trainer. This little wonder fits under a swim cap or goggle strap and beeps at the intervals you set, working like a waterproof metronome (like what is used during a 'beep / shuttle test' on land). It is adjustable in 100th's of a second units and other than the simple time adjustments, the unit has a small time display.

The Aquapacer and the Solo are other great tools that you can use to work on tempo swim training. The Aquapacer is a two piece coach-controlled model with a wide variety of settings that includes a handheld controller and a remote beeper that clips to a goggle strap. The Solo is a single user unit that clips on a goggle strap. It can be programmed for split times, stroke rates, rest intervals, and repeat count.

You can also watch a pace clock or stopwatch, count out a beat, and then swim while keeping that count going in your head. But, if you are like me and lack the rhythm gene, one of these tempo aids will do the trick for you.

Swim On!

Reprinted from About Swimming - http://swimming.about.com

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