This week, for kicks, I decided to take one workout to see if I could lower my SPL for 25y to as low as I can get it.
My best SPL before this was 12 strokes for 25y. I was determined to do better, but also figure out what I needed to do to actually get a low SPL.
On my first 2 tries, I hit 11 SPL. Then I hit 10 SPL and held that for 4 lengths, and then ping ponged between 11 and 10 SPL as I got tired.
Some thoughts on getting to a lower SPL:
1. For this exercise, I had to lower my tempo a great deal. This increased my glide time for each stroke.
2. At higher tempos, I try to ride my speed curve, meaning that I try not to let my speed drop too far as my current stroke ends, before my next stroke picks up the acceleration again. But for this exercise, I let myself get further down the deceleration part of the curve after my current stroke ends, and I let myself maximize my glide before my next stroke begins. This minimizes my stroke count and maximizes the distance I glide for each stroke.
3. I found that I for each stroke, I had to really stroke back with great force, as well as shooting the lead hand forward at the same time. This is to maximize the distance I cover with each stroke. However, I tried to do so with proper form, not throwing water with my rear hand backward, really engaging the core in my stroke for more energy, and using my kick to give my rotating hip extra energy.
4. My bodyline needed to be perfect. It needed to be straight and extremely streamlined, so that on each glide I would minimize deceleration due to body drag.
5. My body also needed to be stable, and not be rocking back and forth during a stroke and glide. Any kind of extra movement creates drag.
6. I need to be as relaxed as possible and just let my body glide in between strokes. A tense body creates all sorts of disruptions leading to more drag in the water. Besides, it also wastes energy.
In some ways, I felt like I was cheating; I would just stroke once and then ride the glide for as long as possible. In thinking more about this, I think this is a beginning to a set of exercises to increase efficiency in the water. I had to go through this first to figure out what it would take to get to 10 SPL. What did I need to do to my body? My stroke? How much force do I need to generate with each stroke?
Obviously to maintain my SPL at a higher tempo, I would have to be moving faster and farther with each stroke or else my increased tempo would add a stroke before I would cover the same amount of distance per stroke, at a lower tempo. This means I have to do all those items I noted above, but just at a higher rate and with more forward acceleration and momentum.
My next task is to slowly increase my tempo and seeing if I can still maintain my 10 SPL, and then find my breakpoint tempo-wise where I cannot maintain 10 SPL no matter what I do. This is a critical point at which I’ll have to practice a lot.

Monday I swam, thinking a lot about what Coach Shinji and I worked on Saturday.
I warmed up and then instead of only practicing Strokes Per Length (SPL) I did SPL with the tempo trainer.
As one workout, I will practice SPL without caring about tempo. I just keep trying to maintain the lowest SPL for as many 25y lengths as possible, until I start to tire. This time I decided to do something slightly different. I wanted to see if I could maintain the same SPL but at a higher tempo. In doing so, I could practice efficiency but at higher speeds. I can start practicing what it takes to be efficient at higher tempos, and what I need to do in my stroke and body position to make it so.
I started at 2.0 seconds on my tempo trainer and did the first 25y length at 13 strokes then got to 12 strokes on the next three 25y lengths. I then went to 1.9 seconds and maintained 12 SPL for four 25y lengths. I then dropped to 1.8 seconds and so on, swimming four 25y at 12 SPL at every tempo setting. I finally found my limit at 1.5 seconds where I was feeling like I was gliding a little bit longer at my 12th stroke to the wall. At 1.4 seconds I lost 12 and did 13. I tried for the next three lengths to hit 12 and think on the last one I could have finally glided to the wall on 12, but took the extra stroke anyways.
It was very interesting to note exactly what I had to do to maintain 12 SPL especially at faster tempos. At 1.5 seconds, I really had to shoot the forward arm fast while stroking back with the other arm with more speed/force. But I also had to do this by being more relaxed and not tense, and also making sure my body streamline was more precise. Just more stroking force and forward arm speed was not enough. At 1.4 seconds tempo, it took me 3 lengths to get the right technique to barely make the 12, even as I took the 13th stroke to firm up hitting the wall.
I was also getting tired too so that didn’t help. In addition, as my tempo rose, it seemed my breathing technique got messier and I was not gliding as much when I took a breath.
I sent this to my coach for feedback and he told me that this is a good thing, which is to be able to control my speed at the same stroke count. He estimated my time to hit the wall on a 25y length at 2.0 seconds tempo to be about 30 seconds (12 SPL x 2.0 seconds tempo + 2.0 seconds tempo x 3 additional strokes my coach adds for the push off the wall and glide = 30 seconds). Using the same formula, at 1.5 seconds tempo it took me about 22.5 seconds. So between 30 seconds to 22.5 seconds I could control my speed and still maintain my SPL.
He also told me that my body position must be more precise as I increase my tempo, and that being tense will make me slower. He mentioned that as I practice the various tempos, I can eventually determine what part of my body I should loosen and tighten up to maintain SPL.
He then told me to practice the same process with 13 strokes, but now at a faster tempo range like 1.6 to 1.3 seconds. Then I repeat until I get to 15-16 SPL at a super fast 0.8 seconds. If I can master this tempo control and maintain efficiency, then I can employ a variety of speeds during races.
Cool stuff. I think over the next few weeks I will work a bit on seeing if I can maintain 12 SPL at higher tempos for some of my workout sessions. I will also try to figure out what it is my body needs to do to be more efficient at higher tempos. It will be critical in figuring out how to get faster in the water and not just be exponentially increasing my effort needlessly to get a tiny increase of speed.

Total Immersion has this drill called the Superman Glide. You basically push off the bottom of the pool (not the side; that’s cheating!) and launch yourself forward into the “Superman” flying position.
The object is to practice good streamlining, relaxation and no tension. If you do it right, you will zip farther in the pool before you stop than if you have poor streamlining or have an extremely tightness in your body.
My Coach Shinji can glide 18y on a single push off. It’s pretty freakin’ amazing:

One exercise I did was to see how many Superman Glides it would take to get to the end of a 25y pool. At first, it took me about 4.5. Over the last few months, I experimented with a lot of tweaking of my body positioning and finally made it in 3 glides. Some things I found that worked:
1. Relaxing is much better than stiff or tight. I just exercise enough tension to hold my arms straight out in front of my head, and to extend my legs. But no more than that.
2. However, relaxing totally didn’t work either. It meant that my body was a bit too loose and resulted in a less streamlined profile than holding enough tension to extend my body more sleekly.
3. I discovered that narrowing my body profile by extending my arms forward of my head is better than just putting them out there in a “V”. my shoulders are actually extended forward with my arms so it reduces the width of my shoulders.
4. I straightened my back, which feels a bit like arching the back to remove the natural curve of the spine. This is also achieved by rotating the hips forward a bit. A flat back seems to make me go further.
5. My legs do not just hang back relaxed. There is too much drag if they are just hanging out straight. Instead, I make a conscious effort to keep them straight back and touch my feet gently together, which puts my legs in my slipstream.
6. On the push off from the bottom of the pool, I plant my feet firmly before pushing off. I also try to push forward, which is tough because the bottom of the pool is slippery. It is better to plant the feet on the non-tile portion of a lane. Tiles are much more slippery than the other non-tile surfaces of the pool bottom.
I push off as straight as possible. Any angle or upset in my direction will either push me into a lane line or cause me to rock, which increases drag.
I try to push off as hard as possible. This is very hard because my feet slip on the bottom, even if they are not on the tiles. A harder push means more forward momentum, but is hard to achieve because your feet don’t have a nice surface to grip onto.
7. As I glide and slow, there is a tendency for my legs to drop. I try to flex whatever muscles in my back I can to keep my legs as high as possible, and to extend the time before my legs drop. Letting your legs drop is OK as far as the exercise goes, but it does not let you achieve your maximum length glide.
I only let my legs drop when I come to a complete stop.
8. By the way, you should be rested and not out of breath from warming up, or doing laps before. Gliding a long time also means holding your breath a long time until your forward motion stops so you don’t want to stop the glide early just because you’re running out of air!
9. I am very sensitive to the water flowing around every inch of my body. As I develop my position, I try to sense where is water causing drag on my body and where it is not. If there is drag, I try to change something on the next glide to see if I can remove the drag. This is also helpful during regular swimming, which is to see if anything on your body is slowing you down.
One of these days, I hope to achieve an 18y ultimate Superman Glide!

Another great session with Coach Shinji this last Saturday. It was a rainy, cold day but us swimmers don’t care; we’re wet anyways. It’s not so nice for coaches who have to stand in the rain though.
Everytime I work with him, I always get a few more tidbits of insight from him. Some notes:
1. Practice varying the entry point from very wide to very narrow. Find the place which is most comfortable and also generates the most speed. Open water swimming tends to have a wider entry point than in the pool. Narrow entry points allow for longer hand motion under the water as the hand shoots forward, generating more momentum.
2. Wetsuits don’t allow as much roll so you have to learn how to generate motion on a wider track.
3. Push down on the instep when snapping the kick.
4. If I increase tempo too fast, then I could spin, which is when my arms are just cycling but I stop after each stroke and there is no glide. I must learn how to increase the tempo but do not spin.
5. If my SPL jumps at a certain tempo then this is the point at which something is wrong or something has changed.
6. At each tempo, I should count stroke and look at how it changes as tempo changes.
During this session, Shinji and I started at 1.2 seconds tempo, and did 25y lengths counting strokes, with each length decreasing the tempo by .1 seconds. I did this all the way up to 2.0 seconds tempo, and my SPL ranged from 15 in the beginning to 12 at the end. Then I increased the tempo by .1 seconds for each 25y length, all the way down to 1.2 seconds. I discovered that at around 1.3 seconds, my SPL jumped to 15 and realized that at this point, I needed to concentrate on what had changed, and how to maintain SPL.
7. Slower tempo requires more relaxation and good balance. There is more gliding, so you need to glide with balance and not rock.
8. Eventually I need to get to .8-.9 seconds tempo, which is sprinting and used when you’re trying to break out of a pack of swimmers during a race.
9. I need to turn the elbow slightly inward which will prepare my hand for the catch. This is also done my turning the thumb in and down. If my elbow is turned the other way, then I will waste a bit of time getting my arm in position for the catch, which can deter me from achieving a higher tempo.
10. When skating, I need to end my hand on top of my thigh, or else my body will more easily over rotate.
11. When I swim, I am throwing water backward with my right hand and not my left. Need to examine this further. I should not be throwing water back.

It’s been almost a month since my last lesson with Shinji. My blog was busted until now but finally I can post my notes from my last swim session with him.
This session was focused on improving breathing, and also learning TI’s sighting method which was slightly different than what I was doing.
Previously I noticed that my speed would suffer when I took a breath. Every time I would breathe, I would take the breath and turn my head and look back downward in the water and notice that I had come to almost a complete halt. I needed to figure out how to breathe and still be gliding and not at a dead stop due to bad streamlining.
We went through some drills to improve breathing and not slowing down. The drills were very basic, which was to break down the movement and drill each part partially until the whole movement was perfected.
Generally, the head turns with the body and remains in neutral position with respect to the body position until the very last moment as the head is almost breaking the water, at which point the head turns slightly to take what they call a “sneaky breath”. The water is still sticking to the mouth at this point, and you have to exhale slightly to clear the water away from the mouth so that a breath can be taken. If you move the head too much, you create drag which slows you down.
Also, I’ve found that after reading the TI forums, that slowing down occurs when I do not completely shoot the lead arm forward and complete a strong stroke, and that when I breathe, sometimes I forget to complete the stroke sequence correctly.
These drills were:
1. Take 4 strokes with head down, then turn the body and head until you look at the raised arm (after the stroke and arm recovery, but holding it up in the air) but no taking the breath yet.
2. Take 4 strokes with head down, then turn the body and head until you are almost breaking the water, then turn the head slightly and exhale (to clear the sticking water), and take a breath. Then turn the head down and glide, leaving the recovering arm in the air after its stroke.
3. Do 2, but then recovering arm completes the next stroke after breath.
Since I breath on the right side primarily, I start with the left arm leading and do the 4 strokes, at which time the right arm is the last stroke and can breathe on the right.
For sighting, Shinji says to sight when I shoot the right arm forward. It needs to shoot a bit shallower, as I lift the head up to look above the water. Then drop the head down and complete the stroke.
Drills to practice:
1. Take 4 strokes, then when I shoot the right arm forward, look up to sight and glide.
2. Do 1, then take a stroke after looking up.
3. Do 2, but take a breath after a stroke to get the rhythm of sighting regularly and breathing.
4. If 1-3 too hard, try stroking a few and then shoot the right arm forward and left head to sight, and scull the arms to practice gliding a bit while looking.
I practiced this extensively in the oceans of Hawaii a few weeks back. It works pretty well but the timing is a bit funny for me in the beginning, but I think I got the hang of it.
Other notes:
1. To improve breathing, practice active balance drills. Practice glide and while kicking, rotate the body and practice the ease of doing so.
2. I was still kicking with a lot of splash, so practice silent kicking. Quick, smooth, minimal splash.
3. Same with stroking. No bubbles, enter the arm smoothly into the water, no splash. Focus on quiet entry and shoot forward.
4. On left arm forward skating, I tend to tilt my head to the left. I must keep it straight.
5. Overhead arm recovery is not choppy, but smooth.
6. Another arm recovery drill, while underwater, is to lift the arm circularly up from the bottom.
7. We talked about improvements to practicing rhythm and SPL control. I have not done this yet, but one practice to try is to continually swim lengths at a SPL, and then figure out how to increase or decrease from there. So if the base SPL is at the “0”, then do this:
0 – at the base SPL, it should be an easy pace
-1
-2 – focus on power, more speed
-1
0+1
+2 – less power per stroke, focus on rhythm
Repeat this. Don’t worry about the tempo.
Today, I have another lesson with Shinji on extending TI swimming for speed and time. TI has been running seminars for Advanced Total Immersion which is to drill with TI techniques for speed and distance. I’m hoping Shinji can help me to extend my TI skills to swim longer and faster. I also signed up for an Advanced TI seminar in January. Looking forward to taking that!