Counting your strokes is one of the most under-appreciated aspects of tracking your improvement and speed.
I’ve already discussed how to pay attention to and develop your speed, which is a critical aspect of improving your swimming.
If you know how fast you’re swimming, you’re going to be motivated to make adjustments if you believe you can be better, or continue to do what you’ve been doing if you’re happy with where you’re at.
However, there’s more to performance than speed alone.
Measuring your stroke counts provides you with information about HOW you’re swimming.
It’s a simple and effective measurement of how efficient you’re swimming.
Less strokes = more efficient and more strokes = less efficient.
Are you swimming more or less efficiently than before?
Is your efficiency changing within a repetition or within a workout? Is that good or bad?
How does your efficiency relate to your speed?
These are all questions you can answer when you know your stroke counts.
How should you start using stroke counts?
Find out here.
#3 Strive for Less
Once you’ve developed the habit of counting your strokes, you should have a sense of what’s ‘good’ for you.
That will change depending on what you’re doing, which you should have noticed as you developed the habit of counting your strokes.
Now, the goal is to slowly take less strokes.
The goal is NOT to see how few strokes you can take.
Just try to take 1 less stroke per lap during any type of training you’re doing.
Importantly, aim to do so without losing any speed.
If you’re able to do so consistently, you can try to take off another stroke, again while aiming to keep the same speed.
Over time, you’ll be more efficient, which sets the stage for more speed.
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