I think most of us have experience riding a bike that changes gears. Imagine riding the bike in the lowest gear possible – you can pedal fast, but the bike does not travel at any sort of significant speed – thus the expression “spinning your wheels”. Now image riding that same bike in the highest gear possible – you will likely have trouble pedaling as fast as you were able to in the lowest gear, but with a moderate pedal rate in that gear, the bike will likely still travel faster in the highest gear than it did with a fast pedal rate in the lowest gear. This is because when you shifted gears, the additional resistance during the pedal stroke allowed you to generate a greater propulsive force than you could have when pedaling in the lower gear. The increase in propulsion lead to greater velocity and faster biking. And while there are two ways to make a bike travel faster – by pedaling faster (increasing cadence) or shifting into higher gear (increasing resistance) – it stands to reason that for you to generate your maximum speed, you must find the sweet spot for how much resistance you can tolerate at the fastest cadence you can sustain. In other words, the relationship between cadence and resistance is directly correlated to velocity.
In this sense, swimming is like biking. Cadence (or tempo) in swimming is measured by stroke rate, which is measured in seconds per stroke cycle – i.e. how many seconds it takes a swimmer to complete one stroke cycle. It’s widely agreed upon within the swimming community that there is an optimal range of racing stroke rates for every race. For instance, in the 50 freestyle, the optimal stroke rate is approximately 1.0 seconds per cycle, whereas in the 200 free the range is 1.2-1.3 seconds per cycle. What’s interesting is that this applies to average swimmers and elite swimmers – and there’s no extra benefit for the average or the elite swimmer to try to swim the race at faster than the prescribed stroke rate range. It’s also true that even though both the average swimmer and the Olympian can achieve the optimal stroke rate of 1.0 s/cycle for a 50 freestyle; the average swimmer will swim significantly slower than the Olympian at the same stroke rate.
"The difference between an elite swimmer and an average swimmer is NOT how fast he/she can move his/her arms or legs, it’s how much distance the elite swimmer can cover with each stroke cycle at a racing stroke rate."
So, if the stroke rates of these two are the same, then what is the difference between the average swimmer and the Olympian? Remember with the bicycle, there is more to speed than just cadence or tempo. The same is true in swimming. In swimming, velocity equals seconds per stroke cycle divided by meters per stroke cycle. Stroke rate is only half the equation, the other half is meters per stroke cycle – i.e. distance per stroke. The difference between an elite swimmer and an average swimmer is NOT how fast he/she can move his/her arms or legs, it’s how much distance the elite swimmer can cover with each stroke cycle at a racing stroke rate. While Caleb Dressel can swim a 25 freestyle with 11 strokes per 25 at 1.0 seconds per cycle, most good swimmers will swim with 15-16 strokes per 25 at 1.0 s/cycle, and an average swimmer will be closer to 18-19 strokes at that stroke rate. While it’s true most average swimmers can do a 25 free with 11 strokes, they would need to slow down their stroke rate significantly to swim with 11 strokes per 25, and thus velocity would decrease.
So then what does DPS entail? DPS has a lot to do with the ratio between drag and propulsion. The less drag that you create with each stroke, the more distance you’ll cover with that stroke. Likewise, the more propulsive force you generate with each stroke, the more distance you’ll cover with that stroke. Optimal DPS occurs when the relationship between drag and propulsion is such that drag is reduced to a minimum and propulsion is increased to a maximum. Propulsion in freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly is generated with the arms, with the legs serving as balance and timing mechanisms. In breaststroke, the legs are the propulsive force. To improve DPS, it stands to reason that fixing major stroke flaws that create a substantial amount of drag would be the fastest way to see big gains, but this only works if the stroke is relatively incompetent. Once the stroke becomes competent and most high drag movements are reduced or eliminated, a switch to focusing on maximizing propulsion will lead to the potential for the largest gains.
This brings us back to the idea of resistance in swimming. Just like in biking, the more resistance you incur during the propulsive phase of the stroke, the more propulsion you will generate. Unlike in biking, swimmers don’t have the luxury of pressing a button or moving a stick to change gears and create resistance. We must manufacture the resistance on our own by manipulating the water with our limbs in conjunction with our joints to create a movement pattern that optimizes the amount of resistance we encounter during the propulsive phase of the stroke. The three major joints of the arm are the wrist, the elbow, and the shoulder; and of the leg are the hip, knee, and ankle. It’s up to you to explore your movement patterns to try to find the most appropriate relationship between the movements of each of these joints to create maximum resistance during the propulsive phase of the stroke. It’s very likely the case that no matter how good you get at swimming there is always room to improve this relationship, which is interesting because if you take this concept seriously you can drastically improve the potential for how fast you’re capable of swimming. It’s likely that you will never get to a point where you are generating the maximum amount of resistance possible per pull, so just like an astronaut in outer space you’ll never run out of room to explore this phenomenon.
My final piece of advice would be to work as hard as you can in the water at developing feel. Learning to feel what your body is doing in the water will help you diagnose and repair issues, and fine tune your strengths. It will help you figure out how to manipulate your limbs and joints to create the relationship between them that allows you to generate a more efficient, stronger propulsive movement pattern.
To develop “feel”, practice paying attention to what you’re doing and listening to the signals your body sends you. The more you pay attention, the better sense of “feel” you will develop, and the better you will get at the process of self-improvement. The better you become at coaching yourself internally and relying on your external coaches for guidance and support, the faster you will swim, and the more satisfied you will be with your performances at practice and competition. Your coaches will give you the tools, the information, and the exercises, it’s up to you to do the work to develop yourself and your strokes. And that is a good thing because you have 100 percent control of the process.
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