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Getting my freestyle faster

Monday 9 September 2013, 12:30PM

By Mark Mathieson

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AUCKLAND

I will attempt to answer the ultimate question, very generally, when it comes to swimming. How do I get faster?

I attribute the answer to a specific ability, the ability to create force.

This passage is going to address the idea of force creation.

Specifically, how can I create more force and more importantly how does force creation make me go faster in the water.

The concept of creating force is very simple.

The more force you can create through your swimming stroke, the more forwards propulsion you will get and the faster you will go.

Obviously there are many other factors that contribute to increasing your swimming speed.

These are efficiencies gained through good technique, your stroke length, the speed of your kick and your stroke rate.

In this passage we are not going to concentrate on these points, it’s all about the force!

The reason I like this concept of force creation is because it is one that can be easily understood and widely applied, regardless of the technique or level of swimmer.

In other words, though there are a lot of things going on with our freestyle to make us go fast, everybody should be able to apply this concept and get faster!

So the creation of force is one that I explain using an equation that I learnt way back in fourth form physics: Force = mass x acceleration

I emphasise from this equation that there are two different parts to the creation of force and I will explain these points now.

First up is the mass aspect of force.

Now when we apply this to our stroke, I want you to think of mass as the mass of water (or amount of water) that you are able to hold onto during your stroke.

The amount of water you hold on to during your stroke is determined by your technique, or the way your hand and arm travels through the water.

In other words the way you stroke will determine how much water you can hold.

Because this aspect is related to stroke technique I want you to think of mass as a constant part to our force creation.

You should not change your technique during a swim, so the mass of water that you hold also should not change.

This brings us to the next aspect of our force equation, the concept of acceleration.

The acceleration aspect is the one that we are going to use to change the amount of force that we create and hence make changes to our speed.

The concept of acceleration relates to how fast we pull our arm through the water.

There are generally two different ways in which swimmers pull their arm through the water, one is correct and uses acceleration and one is incorrect and does not.

First people attempt to move their arm backwards with a constant speed, meaning the arm stays the same speed all the way through the stroke from front to back, this style of stroking is easy and lacks any sort of acceleration which means there is little force being created.

This  is generally incorrect.

The second way is by starting the stroke nice and slow to catch the water and then pulling through the water so that the end part of the stroke is the fastest.

The arm gradually picks up speed throughout the stroke until all the energy is released backwards as the stroke ends, making the arm accelerate through the water.

This style of pulling is correct and will create force dependant on how much the swimmers stroke accelerates.

Accelerating strokes are ones that finish faster than they start and they are powerful!

The bigger the change in speed in your stroke from start to finish, the more force you will create and the faster you will go.

An easy way of understanding the difference between these two different techniques is to use this little test to see how it works.

Pick up a tennis ball or some small object that you are able to throw.

First try and throw the object by moving your arm at a constant speed and letting it go.

Then try doing this even with quite a fast constant speed.

You will see that no matter how fast the constant speed is, the object will not travel very far.

Next try and throw your object by accelerating your arm, making sure that the finishing part when you release the object is the fastest part and see how far it goes.

It is the same with the water you are pulling; more acceleration means you will end up throwing the water more powerfully past your body which will give you more propulsion.

Now after that confusing explanation I will attempt to explain how you can apply it to get faster.

When we swim the amount of force that we create (which is changed by the amount of acceleration in our stroke) should relate to how far we swim.

For example if you are swimming a 50m or 100m sprint you should be trying to create as much force as possible as this will give us a lot of water speed, but it is not something that you can maintain for a long distance.

Conversely if you are swimming 2km then the amount of force in your stroke will be far less in order to ensure you can maintain it for the entire distance.

I like to encourage people to swim to what they believe is the maximum amount of force they can maintain for the desired distance they are swimming.

This should make you swim great times on the longer distance races.

Two great benefits of creating force through acceleration There are numerous benefits gained from accelerating your swimming stroke.

The most obvious one is that by accelerating and creating force, you are putting your muscles under strain which breaks down the muscle tissue which builds back bigger and stronger.

Remember that the stronger you get, the more you can accelerate and the more powerful your stroke will become.

Secondly, creating acceleration and playing around with your acceleration gives you the ability to change your speed and your work output.

By being aware of this force it can be adjusted and this allows you to train more sensibly, ie take the force out on easy sets to recover, and race harder by putting that force back in to achieve fast swimming times.

It also allows you to maximise benefits from training by giving the swimmer the ability to swim hard and fast across every distance.

Finally I will note that force creation is not the be all and end all of achieving faster swimming times, if you are having trouble with catching water or holding the water mass you should approach a coach to help you fix the problem and a swimming coach will also be able to develop training sets that will maximise the benefits you get from training.

Good luck for everybody over the summer and train and race hard, remember to accelerate that stroke and swim powerfully through the water!! All the best.

Mark Mathieson is Head Coach at Parnell Baths Swim Squad for FutureDreams Swimming, www.futuredreams.co.nz.