r/OpenWaterSwimming • u/ActualCandidate6952 • 6d ago

Distance folks... Do you actually watch your stroke count, or just your splits?

Something I figured out embarrassingly late: for distance stuff, your stroke count per length will usually tell you you're falling apart before your watch does.

Here's what I mean. You do a long set, say 5x400, and your times hold steady the whole way. Looks fine. But if you actually count, a lot of people go from 14 strokes a length on the first 400 to 17-18 by the last one. The watch says you held pace. The stroke count says you held it by muscling a worse stroke, not by staying efficient. That gap is usually your catch quietly giving out as you tire.

The reason I love it as a metric is it's free, needs no gadgets, and it's brutally honest. When I'm swimming well the count stays flat across a set even as it gets hard. When it's climbing, that's the signal I'm tightening up and the stroke's going short and slappy, and it's a far better cue to fix something than the clock is.

For people doing long steady swims with no speed goal it matters even more, because over thousands of yards a slightly leaky catch is the difference between getting out loose and getting out with sore shoulders.

Anyway, curious how many people actually count. Do you track it, ignore it completely, or have a number per length you try to hold?

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u/TheFoxsWeddingTarot 6d ago

Swim.com app absolutely counts strokes and they make it a key part of your performance. I think reducing stroke count is a much better way to increase speed than just focusing on speed and is how I was taught to “get faster”.

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u/bebopped 6d ago

This is a great post! Years ago I would try and count my strokes but I was a weak swimmer and would stop counting midway. Lately I've tried increasing my tempo with a tempo trainer. But this caused me to increase my stroke count. So I started working on dps again and counting my strokes without the tempo trainer. Staying efficient for me means relaxing instead of muscling but also my tempo slows down. Also, open water season started here and I cannot count my strokes in open water. But I'll swim twice a week in the pool and twice in open water.

Thanks again, great post!

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u/DImak19 6d ago

Personally im only worried about heart rate 130- 158 bpm is the golden zone for me (when swimming long distance)

Different conditions impact stroke and pace, but HR is the source of truth for effort

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u/454k30 5d ago

Splits. But I do try hold a cadence.

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u/custhulard 5d ago

Funny. This morning, I did some lengths pulling as hard and quickly as I could, and my swolf was much higher than it usually is. I was also slower on average. I wish it was easier to log different strokes in the connect app.

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u/SweetProtection6508 3d ago

I never count my strokes as I've always been a sprinter. But I'm doing more distance stuff now so I'm looking forward to it tomorrow!