The Rio Olympic Champions In Numbers
Northampton Swim Squad
West Lothian Video Analysis
1 Day Clinic Stockholm (English language)
Prague Junior Swim Club
Dublin Video Analysis
Swim/Tri Camps Alicante (English language)
Nijmegen Video Analysis & Stroke Correction
Zwevegem Video Analysis (English
Montreal Clinic (French Language), Oct 22nd
SS 1 Day Clinic Campbell California, Oct 9th
Hong Kong Video Analysis
Dubai Video Analysis
If you've been following Paul Newsome's twitter feed this week you'll have seen that he's been digging into some of the data from the pool at the Rio Olympics. A big shout-out to Triton Wear for making this data available to everyone on their website.
If you like your numbers, hold onto your hats! The results firmly dispel some of the age-old myths about swimming, such as the idea that the difference between mere mortals and great swimmers is that Olympic champions take fewer strokes than anyone else.
Men's 1500m
Here's the stroke count per 50m for the men's 1500m, clearly showing Gold Medallist Paltrinieri (orange line) taking considerably more strokes (average 39 per 50m) than those finishing behind him:
Notice also how silver medallist Connor Jaeger starts with a super-long stroke (28 strokes per 50m) but simply cannot sustain it, with his stroke continually shortening out to 39 strokes per length (the same as Paltrinieri).
Two take home points from this:
- If your natural style is to swim with a shorter stroke at a higher stroke rate, stick with it. Of course you should always look to fine tune your technique within that style but there's nothing fundamentally wrong with this way of swimming - just look at Paltrinieri's amazing 14:34 for 1500m.
- An overly long stroke simply isn't sustainable. Try and find the right balance between the length of your stroke and the rate of your stroke for you (see Ledecky's data below).
Women's 400m & 800m
We're sure you admired Katie Ledecky's dominant performances at the games, winning the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle. What's her secret? Here's one of them, amazing consistency in her stroke, here shown in the 400m (orange):
After the first length (from a dive of course) the top 5 are taking between 40 and 48 strokes per 50m, which aren't particularly long strokes for Olympic swimmers. However it's Katie who's stroke is so incredibly consistent - not too long, not too short, perfectly judged and sustainable at 40 strokes per length.
In the 800m Katie maintains her stroke rate at a high 89SPM throughout but actually *increases* her stroke length in the second half, something you rarely see happen:
Some observers have suggested she starts gliding as the race goes on to lengthen her stroke but if that was the case her stroke rate would drop:
(Note this chart is time-per-stroke-cycle, so a lower number indicates a faster turnover: 1.35 sec/stroke-cycle = 89 SPM)
What's actually happening is that she's uses a stronger kick pattern in the second half which lengthens her stroke from the additional push it provides. Katie's got a great ability to switch between a 2 beat kick and a 6 beat flutter kick and over the first half of the race uses the 2 beat for 60-70% of each length before finishing with the more powerful 6 beat kick. However in the second 400m, she employs the drive from the 6 beat kick much earlier, lengthening out her stroke.
You can clearly see this from the race footage: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAGXNs0MXzI
The data suggests that she's totally under control aerobically at the 400m mark with the majority using a 2 beat kick. At this point, rather than slowing she adds in additional drive from the legs to bring her home in a new world record (which she was chasing of course!). Whilst it wasn’t a negative split, she swam the first half in 4:01 and the second in 4:03 (the dive start being worth ~2 seconds).
Mens 100m
And in the men's 100m we witness in numbers Kyle Chambers gold medal performance (blue), pacing things perfectly and coming through the field in the second 50m:
If you watch the race it looks like Kyle negative splits but of course the dive start always means a faster first 50 but only slightly in his case - perfectly judged pacing under extreme pressure!
Mens 400m
Last but not least is Mack Horton's (blue) take-down of Sun Yang in the Men's 400m with a fantastic surge in the last 100m, in stark comparison to James Guy (yellow) who went out fast but slowed throughout the race:
How did Mack surge so well? By actively shortening his stroke...
And increasing his stroke rate (cadence), the exact opposite of what we've been told since the 90s is efficient swimming:
(Note this chart is time-per-stroke-cycle, so a lower number indicates a faster turnover: 1.6 sec/stroke-cycle = 75 strokes per minute, 1.8 sec/stroke-cycle = 67 strokes per minute.)
Fascinating!
If you like your numbers, hold onto your hats! The results firmly dispel some of the age-old myths about swimming, such as the idea that the difference between mere mortals and great swimmers is that Olympic champions take fewer strokes than anyone else.
Men's 1500m
Here's the stroke count per 50m for the men's 1500m, clearly showing Gold Medallist Paltrinieri (orange line) taking considerably more strokes (average 39 per 50m) than those finishing behind him:
 |
| (Click to enlarge) |
Notice also how silver medallist Connor Jaeger starts with a super-long stroke (28 strokes per 50m) but simply cannot sustain it, with his stroke continually shortening out to 39 strokes per length (the same as Paltrinieri).
Two take home points from this:
- If your natural style is to swim with a shorter stroke at a higher stroke rate, stick with it. Of course you should always look to fine tune your technique within that style but there's nothing fundamentally wrong with this way of swimming - just look at Paltrinieri's amazing 14:34 for 1500m.
- An overly long stroke simply isn't sustainable. Try and find the right balance between the length of your stroke and the rate of your stroke for you (see Ledecky's data below).
Women's 400m & 800m
We're sure you admired Katie Ledecky's dominant performances at the games, winning the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle. What's her secret? Here's one of them, amazing consistency in her stroke, here shown in the 400m (orange):
 |
| (click to enlarge) |
After the first length (from a dive of course) the top 5 are taking between 40 and 48 strokes per 50m, which aren't particularly long strokes for Olympic swimmers. However it's Katie who's stroke is so incredibly consistent - not too long, not too short, perfectly judged and sustainable at 40 strokes per length.
In the 800m Katie maintains her stroke rate at a high 89SPM throughout but actually *increases* her stroke length in the second half, something you rarely see happen:
Some observers have suggested she starts gliding as the race goes on to lengthen her stroke but if that was the case her stroke rate would drop:
(Note this chart is time-per-stroke-cycle, so a lower number indicates a faster turnover: 1.35 sec/stroke-cycle = 89 SPM)
What's actually happening is that she's uses a stronger kick pattern in the second half which lengthens her stroke from the additional push it provides. Katie's got a great ability to switch between a 2 beat kick and a 6 beat flutter kick and over the first half of the race uses the 2 beat for 60-70% of each length before finishing with the more powerful 6 beat kick. However in the second 400m, she employs the drive from the 6 beat kick much earlier, lengthening out her stroke.
You can clearly see this from the race footage: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAGXNs0MXzI
The data suggests that she's totally under control aerobically at the 400m mark with the majority using a 2 beat kick. At this point, rather than slowing she adds in additional drive from the legs to bring her home in a new world record (which she was chasing of course!). Whilst it wasn’t a negative split, she swam the first half in 4:01 and the second in 4:03 (the dive start being worth ~2 seconds).
Mens 100m
And in the men's 100m we witness in numbers Kyle Chambers gold medal performance (blue), pacing things perfectly and coming through the field in the second 50m:
If you watch the race it looks like Kyle negative splits but of course the dive start always means a faster first 50 but only slightly in his case - perfectly judged pacing under extreme pressure!
Mens 400m
Last but not least is Mack Horton's (blue) take-down of Sun Yang in the Men's 400m with a fantastic surge in the last 100m, in stark comparison to James Guy (yellow) who went out fast but slowed throughout the race:
How did Mack surge so well? By actively shortening his stroke...
And increasing his stroke rate (cadence), the exact opposite of what we've been told since the 90s is efficient swimming:
(Note this chart is time-per-stroke-cycle, so a lower number indicates a faster turnover: 1.6 sec/stroke-cycle = 75 strokes per minute, 1.8 sec/stroke-cycle = 67 strokes per minute.)
Fascinating!
Swim Smooth