More comfortable swimming faster?

Triathlon Forum
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Anyone else notice that they are more comfortable swimming at a faster pace compared to a slow pace? I am in the middle of a swim focus and have upped my swim volume from the usual 3x per week to 5-6x per week. I am still working on building up endurance from taking several months off, but have noticed that I struggle to hold 1:45-1:50/100 pace for intervals longer than 200, yet I can swim fast 100s in sub 1:30. Obviously I am still lacking swim endurance and strength, but I seem to feel much better when I swim faster. It feels like when I try to go fast I am getting on top of the water more (feels like swimming downhill), pulling more water, rotating better, kicking better, etc. The problem is that I need a lot of rest to repeat the sub 1:30 100s. When I slow way down and try to concentrate more on technique, it feels like I am stalling in the middle of my stroke. Basically I am more comfortable swimming faster than slower.

I think I need to worry less about technique at this point and just focus on the pace clock. I have never been able to swim 100s in sub 1:30 on a consistent basis before, so the increased volume is really helping. As they say, the pace clock is what matters and it is showing that I am improving, even though I am still painfully slow compared to real swimmers.

For you mediocre swimmers out there that swim at my pace, I guess my advice is to keep working on technique during warmups and drills, but when it comes time to swim fast, just hammer as hard as you can and let the clock tell you if you are getting better. As a former coach told me when he saw me swim, a triathlon swim does not award prizes for the prettiest stroke. All that matters is how fast you are.

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I think I need to worry less about technique at this point and just focus on the pace clock.

No, but you can do whatever you want. You really need to focus on technique at speed, and then replicate that to slower paces. Why aren’t you able to use the same form going slower?

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I have had good results asking slower swimmers to increase their cadence. They are usually very reluctant, but once we get over the initial reluctance it usually produces good results. I think 1 reason is the shorter times between breathing intervals. It seems to allow slower swimmers the opportunity to simply get more air in and out, giving an increased confidence in the water.

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I suspect your changing your stroke significantly when you slow down. I’d swim at a range on speeds and try and pay attention to what’s changing. I’d guess that you kicks gets less effective or non-existent…followed by body position, body roll all falling apart. From there, it’s a downward spiral.

I’ve heard of some tri pros that will simply stop a swim workout short once they get significantly fatigued and can’t maintain good form. the theory is that efficiency is most critical and they don’t want to practice poor technique.

The real killer to swimming slower, is that you expend more energy to cover the same distance. The same holds true for runners with poor run economy, and cyclists with poor aerodynamics (the guys carrying 4-5 bottles for a 70.3 because they don’t want to take 1-2 hand-ups). You have to expend the same amount of energy, longer, covering the same distance.

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I know exactly what you are talking about. Just last night I was feeling slow and weak in the pool. As soon as I did some harder efforts it really loosened me up. And I noticed that when I was swimming harder, of course I was going faster, but I felt better in the water. I felt like I was gliding through the water more efficiently. I felt my body position be higher compared to when I swim slower and feel very low in the water. I definitely think it had to do with the increase in pulling which allowed me to be higher.

All I know is it felt great and had me thinking about my swimming a little differently.

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Have someone look at your body position when swimming fast vs slow. I would suspect part of why you feel better going fast is because you are in a better position when you are going quicker. As you said, “getting on top of the water more.” Your lower body is most likely high and not creating drag as opposed to going slow and your legs might be sinking some. That would make it feel like you are working a lot harder at the slower pace and less comfortable. Just a thought.

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Your lower body is most likely high and not creating drag as opposed to going slow and your legs might be sinking some.

I would bet on this. When you go fast, you probably kick hard, your legs raise, and you are in a much better position. The increased kick also means you are using a lot more oxygen and you can’t maintain it as long.

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I’ll add that sometimes a good way for me to warm-up is after a 5 minute easy swim to loosen my arms out, I’ll do some 50y sprints on long rest to remind myself how to do a good catch, good turnover, strong kick, etc. Then I’ll jump into my main set.

I’ll again add a +1 on legs sinking. Once your legs sink, it’s game over. If you can’t feel your feet just breaking the surface, your doing something wrong.

Here’s the funny thing about swimming because drag is so critical. If you could put a power meter on the arms of a top swimmer that cruising at lets say 1:10/100M pace. If you dropped his power output in 1/2, he’s probably only slow to about 1:20/100M Think about cycling and going from 300W to 150W. You don’t slow from 26mph to 23mph… more like down to 20mph. Running of course is much more linear.

OT… but I’m still amazed when I read about the top marathon runners. Their “Easy” pace is 5:30-6:00. Easy pace! Like… lets go for a easy 75 minute 13.1 mile run … heart rate at about 130bpm just chatting away. That’s crap is just super-human.

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I have found that the key to swimming slow is not to slow down your *entire *stroke rate. What I do to slow down is typically keep a similar kick cadence to maintain my body position, decrease the amount of force I produce on my pull, and then lower my stroke rate quite a bit (at times other than the pull). I.e. I am slowing down everything BUT the components of the stroke that create force (the pull and the kick).

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**I’ll again add a +1 on legs sinking. Once your legs sink, it’s game over. If you can’t feel your feet just breaking the surface, your doing something wrong. **

When you say your feet just breaking the surface…do you mean constantly or just each time you kick? My foot definitely breaks the surface when I kick but not necessarily when I’m not kicking. I also think I might have a weird kicking pattern where my right leg is really the only leg kicking; my left leg kind of just hangs out. I’m sure this is horrible technique, right?

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Anyone else notice that they are more comfortable swimming at a faster pace compared to a slow pace? I am in the middle of a swim focus and have upped my swim volume from the usual 3x per week to 5-6x per week. I am still working on building up endurance from taking several months off, but have noticed that I struggle to hold 1:45-1:50/100 pace for intervals longer than 200, yet I can swim fast 100s in sub 1:30. Obviously I am still lacking swim endurance and strength, but I seem to feel much better when I swim faster. It feels like when I try to go fast I am getting on top of the water more (feels like swimming downhill), pulling more water, rotating better, kicking better, etc. The problem is that I need a lot of rest to repeat the sub 1:30 100s. When I slow way down and try to concentrate more on technique, it feels like I am stalling in the middle of my stroke. Basically I am more comfortable swimming faster than slower.

Could the problem simply be pacing properly?

You go your fast 100’s on 1:27? How much rest? You didn’t really specify but work off of this:

For me when I am in shape these are my 100M repeat interval and goal times:

Fast 100’s with 2+ minutes rest target 1:03
Fast 100’s with ~40 seconds rest target 1:08
Fast 100’s with ~20 seconds rest target 1:11
Hard 100’s with <:10 rest target 1:14
Big sets of 100’s at cruising pace target 1:16
Easy 100’s target pace ~1:21

The easy pace could just as well be 300’s or even 1500’s. It makes no difference when I am in shape the easy pace is 1:21.

I am not saying these are perfect, but I have been working on it for 30+ years so I have some idea of how to pace.

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I don’t have the endurance yet to hold sub 2:00 pace for anything longer than a 500, but for now my all out sprint 100 is 1:26, and 50 is 38 seconds. If I did a set of 100s with let’s say 10-15 seconds rest at most, the best I would be able to do is 1:45-1:50 pace. But I do not feel as smooth or comfortable swimming at that pace.

I realize that I need to swim more to build up the endurance, which is what I will be doing until June.

If my sprint 100 time is 1:26, with more volume and better endurance, shouldn’t I be able to eventually hold sub 1:40 pace for much longer sets such as 500s, 1500, etc? My goal is to be able to swim an Olympic tri at sub 1:40 pace, which is also going to require better open water skills, such as swimming straighter, sighting better, drafting, etc. I can’t work on that until the lakes warm up.

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I don’t have the endurance yet to hold sub 2:00 pace for anything longer than a 500, but for now my all out sprint 100 is 1:26, and 50 is 38 seconds. If I did a set of 100s with let’s say 10-15 seconds rest at most, the best I would be able to do is 1:45-1:50 pace. But I do not feel as smooth or comfortable swimming at that pace.

I realize that I need to swim more to build up the endurance, which is what I will be doing until June.

If my sprint 100 time is 1:26, with more volume and better endurance, shouldn’t I be able to eventually hold sub 1:40 pace for much longer sets such as 500s, 1500, etc? My goal is to be able to swim an Olympic tri at sub 1:40 pace, which is also going to require better open water skills, such as swimming straighter, sighting better, drafting, etc. I can’t work on that until the lakes warm up.

I think you have your answer. You don’t have the aerobic capacity to hold pace. Swim longer repeats (200s, 400s, heck why not 1000 or 1500?) with low rest at a comfortable (slow) pace. You will get more comfortable as your endurance builds. Keep doing hard 50s and 100s, but I think you’ve demonstrated your top-end speed needs relatively less work than the endurance. You may be surprised what it does to your top-end speed too. You’ll get there. -J

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I would imagine you have relatively poor technique, and when you slow down your cadence is also slowing, meaning you are in a gliding position longer, and when you are in a gliding position longer with bad technique you are slowing down more which gives that feeling of stalling.

Swimming is a funny thing. On one hand you need to slow down to work on technique. But on the other you need to speed up to really feel the resistance of the water sometime and get your muscles used to swimming hard too. If you’re aware enough to notice the difference between what you’re doing when you’re swimming faster and slower, which it sounds like you are, you’re aware enough to be able to slowly make changes to both your strokes.

I’m a slow 100m swimmer. My stroke is almost the same as it is for a 400m. When I swim in masters, on hard sets of 100 or 50’s, the faster lane beside me always beats me to the wall by 1 or 2 seconds. On 200+ sets, I’m beating them to the wall by 2-5s. I really need to work on my cadence as well.

I’ve generally started picking one or two things to focus on per practice, and during my slow and easy warm up I’ll really try to exaggerate them, or play around with them, then just make it my focus during the main set to hold on to that technique for as long as possible. Seems to be working ok.

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I can’t swim distance during the masters workouts, so I was thinking of making one day when I swim solo a distance set, something like 400 warmup with drills, then 3x500 on 10:00. I know the consensus is to swim hard just about every day, but maybe the longer distance day would help me to build endurance. If I swim 5 days a week, do masters 3 days, distance one day, and threshold the other day, like 10x200 on 4:00 (or work up to 10 eventually).

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I don’t have the endurance yet to hold sub 2:00 pace for anything longer than a 500, but for now my all out sprint 100 is 1:26, and 50 is 38 seconds. If I did a set of 100s with let’s say 10-15 seconds rest at most, the best I would be able to do is 1:45-1:50 pace. But I do not feel as smooth or comfortable swimming at that pace.

I realize that I need to swim more to build up the endurance, which is what I will be doing until June.

If my sprint 100 time is 1:26, with more volume and better endurance, shouldn’t I be able to eventually hold sub 1:40 pace for much longer sets such as 500s, 1500, etc? My goal is to be able to swim an Olympic tri at sub 1:40 pace, which is also going to require better open water skills, such as swimming straighter, sighting better, drafting, etc. I can’t work on that until the lakes warm up.

Your all-out 100 sprint pace is very close to mine (I’m like 1:23) and I can cruise at 1:40/100m pace for 1000+ (I’ve only done up to 1000 at that pace, but it’s far from all out for me.)

I suspect that you do need a combo of technique and volume work - the technique because with short sets, you can still ‘power’ your way to the times you and I are hitting for 100m (which are pretty average for a MOP triathlon swimmer), but your inefficiency is likely killing you once your going longer. The volume and longer sets DO help as well, and will help you maintain closer to your all-out pace for longer distances.

If your 500 pace is 2:00/100, you almost certainly have to be swimming a lot more, and with a good dose of attention to technique. Have you tried the ankle band to lock your ankles? If you dont’ have regular coach access, it’s at one method of getting some of the real ugliness of out a stroke, as it disallows the compensating scissor kicks that all beginners use to offset an inefficient/errant pull. It’s hard, and it doesn’t solve everything, but you will definitely learn a LOT from it as a 2:00/100 swimmer.

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I just bought the ankle band, tried it and promptly sank. I could not swim more than a stroke with it. I was going to try it next time with a pb.

My 500 sets would be leaving on 10:00. I can comfortably swim a 500 in 9:00 now, so should be able to leave on 1:00 rest.

I am going to start working with a private coach tomorrow for 4-5 sessions. Our masters instructor has pointed out my mistakes, so I know I am doing several things wrong. Knowing how to correct them is another issue.

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Good - start with the coach’s recs, and after that, at some point you can try the ankle band + pull buoy again when you feel like you’ve done most of what the coach has recommended. It benefited me a lot - there were things I felt the band forced me to fix that would have been extremely difficult even for a coach to tell me to visualize/do.

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I’m a completely new swimmer (started two days a week last August and am now doing 3-4 days a week). My times are similiar although i don’t know them for sure. Haven’t really started using the clock, just want to swim on feel! One thing I notice is that when i slow down I over rotate especially to breath. Almost creates like a wiggle effect in the water with my hips which as you can imagine creates a ton of drag. My kick also goes away which doesn’t help keep the body flat in the water. My kick is not used for thurst one bit but it does help keep me upright! I have actually done a lot of work with my kick so that when i start to swim slow it becomes more atural. Also, I work with the pull bouy a lot to help keep my body alligned.

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If my sprint 100 time is 1:26, with more volume and better endurance, shouldn’t I be able to eventually hold sub 1:40 pace for much longer sets such as 500s, 1500, etc? My goal is to be able to swim an Olympic tri at sub 1:40 pace, which is also going to require better open water skills, such as swimming straighter, sighting better, drafting, etc. I can’t work on that until the lakes warm up.

Is your 100 free in yards or meters?

Either way, a 1:26 100/freestyler is unlikely to ever go a 24:00 1500. ESPECIALLY if the 100 time is in yards.

15-18% slower is about the best you can hope for in terms of converting a 100 (M) free time to a 1500m meters/100 pace.

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