Swim stroke rate

Since swimming is the most technical of the tri disciplines, it seems somewhat logical to track the metrics you have available.  It's certainly not manditory to track tempo and SPL in order to be a good swimmer, but I think they can provide useful information.  Just like you don't need a stopwatch/gps/HRH to become a good runner, but it can give you some pretty good feedback to help you improve.

When I was an AG swimmer (many, many years ago), mostly swimming sprints, all I really worried about was my turnover rate and going fast as I could. 

Now that I'm swimming longer distances (and am also a lot older), I'm increasingly focused on my stroke efficiency and energy management.  Tracking my SPL, tempo and HR gives me some pretty good feedback in that regard.

I've always been interested in the technical side of swimming, going back to the late, great Doc Counsilman and his seminal book "The Science of Swimming" back in the 70's.  I've gotten re-focused on it over the past year, after having attended a Dr. G workshop, and following an online training program that Coach Suzanne led on the TI site over the summer.

Mark

You can't take virtual power with you to a race, but you can train with it to develop your ability and to enhance your perception. Some of these metrics or stats don't have to be available 100% of the time. Using them when able can leave one better of than if they had never used them at all.

Some HR monitors do work in the water now.

I look at SPL as a measure of stroke efficiency, i.e., how much are my stroke mechanics  actually propelling me forward, versus just stirring up water.  One of the things I've been working on (and found very challenging) is to maintain my same baseline SPL, while increasing my tempo, i.e., turnover rate.  I've seen too many swimmers try to get faster by just increasing their turnover rate.  If they can't maintain their stroke form then at some point they just end up slashing arouind and spinning their wheels inefficiently in the water while burning a lot of energy.  Obviously, the objective is to get faster while staying efficient. 

The pool provides a "laboratory" with relatively controlled conditions that lets you work on isolating and engraining stroke fundamentals.  Yes, OW race condtiions add variables and forces you to adapt on the fly.  But I think it's better making adjustments from a solid fundamental base developed in the pool.  And obviously OWS practice helps; for example I know that increasing my tempo and shortening my stroke a bit helps swimming in swells or choppy water.  (As a sidenote, knowing my average distance per stroke has been useful in helping me to better gauge my progress in OW races without the lane lines or other references you have in a pool.  I know that for every 25 strokes that I'm going to travel approximately 25M.).

I watched the US short course nationals over the weekend found myself counting strokes.  It was enlightening to see how the top freestylers like Connor Jaeger were doing about 12 strokes per 25yd. (while I currently struggle to stay around 20-22).  Gives you something to shoot for.

As far as HR, I just take my pulse at the end of intervals in the pool.  Not every time, but a couple of times during a set, particularly for longer aerobic sets, say 400's where I want to keep my HR 120bpm-130bpm. I look at it as just another a measure of conditioning and/or stroke efficiency.  And obviously it isn't practical to try to measure HR while actually swimming.

FWIW, I gave up on HR training on the bike and run several years ago and now go mostly by RPE and pace.  I still track and log my HR after workouts, but found it was too variable to be useful in gauging my efforts, particularly when training in the summer heat here in FL.

Mark

I guess we could try to get Janet Evans and Sun Yang to weigh in on the importance of stroke rate to speed in distance swimming.

If nothing else, we'd all probably end up with headaches.  

Geez, I didn't know stroke rate was as controversial as flip turns.

To the OP, welcome to BT!  I hope those who completely discounted your question haven't discouraged you from posting further.  There are some very knowledgeable people who have asked questions and offered advice that was relevant to your question.  If you can weed through the chaff, see if you can get the information they asked for and I'm sure they will be able to provide further advice on how you should proceed.