TSC Challenge: Get Yourself a Lower Stroke Count

It's been a while since we did a challenge around here, so I've got a good one for you today. It takes about an hour, it costs nothing, and it can make every length you swim for the rest of your life a little cheaper.

The challenge is: get yourself a lower stroke count.

Every stroke you take costs energy. If you can cover the same length in fewer strokes at the same speed, you're traveling farther on every pull. That’s what it means to swim more efficiently. Think of it like a bike. Two riders spinning the same cadence, but one is in a bigger gear. Same effort per pedal stroke, a lot more road covered.

Most triathletes take far more strokes than they need to, and it's not because they're weak. It's because they're leaking distance on every stroke. Their legs are sinking, their catch is slipping, and they're spending a big chunk of every stroke lying flat in the water, going nowhere.

One quick warning before we start. A lower stroke count only counts if your speed holds. Anyone can drop their count by gliding for three seconds after every stroke. That's not efficiency, that's coasting. So we'll measure both. If you want to make a game out of it, I wrote about swim golf a while back, where you add your strokes and your time together. Lower score wins.

Now let's go find those missing strokes. There are three places they're hiding.

Fix #1: Sit Higher In The Water

The higher you sit in the water, the less drag you create, and the less work every stroke has to do. Sunken hips and dragging legs act like an anchor. You can have a perfect catch and still lose most of its power to the drag behind you.

My favorite drill for this is what I call Body Position #1 Kick.

You'll need fins, paddles, and a pull buoy. Hold the pull buoy out in front of you with your arms fully extended, almost in a full streamline but without your hands stacked on top of each other.

Now work through this checklist:

Head position. The back of your neck is long and flat. Your eyes look straight down at the bottom of the pool. Then make a slight double chin. I always say it this way: wrinkles in the front of your neck, not the back. If you feel wrinkles in the back of your neck, your head is up and your hips are about to sink.

Press the buoy. Press down into the pull buoy just enough that it sits partially under the surface or just below it. Your body is a teeter-totter. When your chest and arms press down in front, your hips rise in the back. This press is what levels you out.

Tight core. Engage your core like you're actively trying to lift your hips to the surface. Don't just wait for them to float up. Pull them up.

Light kick. Then kick just enough to move forward. The fins are there so your kick doesn't have to do the work. Your body position is doing the work.

When you get it right, you'll feel everything from your shoulders to your hips sitting dry, out of the water. That's the feeling you're chasing.

The muscles you're engaging in this drill are the same ones you need to engage when you swim. The head position is the same too. This isn't a drill position you abandon the moment you start swimming. It's your swimming position.

Fix #2: A Better Catch

If your body position is solid and your count is still high, your catch is probably slipping. Most triathletes have one of two problems: they overreach, or they don't pull water backward.

Problem one: overreaching. A lot of triathletes reach way out in front above the water before their hand goes in. It feels like it should make the stroke longer. It does the opposite. When you overreach, your elbow drops before your catch even begins, and your body sinks right along with it. You end up pushing water down instead of back.

The fix is fingertip drag. Swim freestyle, but drag your fingertips along the surface of the water during your recovery. This keeps your hand close to the water and makes it enter on time, near your lead elbow instead of way out in front of your head. Once your hand is in the water, then you extend forward.

Problem two: not pulling water back. Even with a good entry, plenty of swimmers push water down, out to the side, or just kind of slide their hand through without ever grabbing hold of anything.

The fix is the long dog scull. It's basically freestyle with an underwater recovery. Instead of bringing your arm over the water, you slide it forward under the surface. With each stroke, focus on three things:

1. Anchor your hand. Grab the water like you're grabbing a ladder rung.
2. Rotate your elbow out to set the catch. Your elbow stays high and points out to the side, so your forearm and hand face backward.
3. Pull water straight back. Not down, not across your body. Back.

Bonus tip: Do the long dog scull over the black line on the bottom of the pool, and try to trace the outside edge of the line with your fingertips. This keeps your hand moving in a straight line backward and about shoulder width apart, which is exactly where you want it.

Fix #3: A Hip-Driven Stroke

This is the one most triathletes miss completely.

Most triathletes rotate their shoulders. Very few connect their core and hips to the stroke. And that's a lot of free power left sitting on the table.

Here's the idea. The most efficient way to move through the water is on your side. Lying flat on your stomach creates the most drag. So the goal is to get from one side to the other as fast as you can and get rid of the dead time when you're flat in the middle.

To do that, think about rotating from your hips first. Your catch is just the anchor. It gives you something to hold onto while your hips do the rotating.

I like to think about it like sitting in a swivel chair. You use your core to swivel back and forth. If you let your core go, you swivel too far and spin past where you meant to stop. If you don't use your core to keep moving, you drift back to the middle and stop there, facing straight ahead. Swimming works the same way. Too loose and you over-rotate. Too passive and you end up flat at the bottom of every stroke.

Quick, controlled, side to side, powered from the hips. That's the stroke you want.

The Challenge

Here's how it works. Set aside about an hour.

1. Warm up. 200 to 300 easy.

2. Test. Swim one 50 at a strong, steady effort. Count your strokes, counting every time a hand enters the water. Note your time too.

3. Drill for about 30 minutes. Work through all three fixes in 25s and 50s with plenty of rest. Something like this:

• 6 x 50 Body Position #1 Kick (fins and pull buoy)
• 6 x 25 fingertip drag
• 6 x 25 long dog scull over the black line
• 6 x 50 swim, focusing on the swivel chair: quick hip rotation, no dead time flat

Take it slow. The point is to feel each piece, not to rush through it.

4. Retest. Swim the same 50 at the same effort. Count your strokes and check your time. Put it all together: high body position, a catch that holds the water, and hips that drive the rotation.

If your stroke count went down and your time held or got faster, congratulations. You just found free speed you'll carry into every swim from now on.

And if it didn't change much on the first try, good. Now you know which drill to keep doing.

Fewer strokes, same speed, less energy. Every length. For the rest of your swimming life. That's worth an hour.

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