This site is devoted to swimming. Why is it called Twenty-Three Seconds? Because my goal is to swim 50 meters within twenty-three seconds. Follow along as I analyze my crawl stroke to death and maybe you'll learn a few things to improve your own time.
My last update, about 6 months ago, was about improving my average freestyle crawl time by measuring my breathing carefully. It is well known that breathing less increases your time. Since that time I have been trying various drills to improve my 50 meter freestyle average time. I’ve dropped it to around 49 seconds still [...]
My average time on 50 meters is around 56 seconds and I take an average of 30 strokes (15 cycles). I was experimenting a bit today and I was able to knock 6 seconds off my time by being more careful about my breathing. I usually breath on every cycle. Meaning every time my right [...]
Coaches often toss around the concept of getting a feel for the water, which, they say, means to learn to hold on to the water. Both of these concepts are interesting, but without further explanation leave a lot to be understood of what they actually mean. The drill I have been working on to develop [...]
First a few stats about Stefan Nystrand Birth Date: October 20, 1981 Birth Place: Haninge, Sweden Height: 193 cm (6′ 3") weight: 85 kg (187 lbs) Stefan Nystrand is the current world record holder in the short course 50 meter freestyle and the short course 100 meter freestyle. There are some fantastic videos of his [...]
It is immensely frustrating to not see any progress on my personal best times. Ten weeks ago I had dropped below 17 seconds on 25 meters and below 38 seconds on my 50, but as the time has passed my times have gotten worse and worse. The funny thing is that I feel like I [...]
This frame by frame analysis was originally on limmatsharks.com. The sequence shown is taken from the 800 m freestyle final in Fukuoka 2001. I won’t repeat the analysis as I think it is enough to see the images and make your own judgements. The only two points to highlight are: 1) Notice how high their [...]
I am really happy with the progress I am making. The week before last (week 39) was frustrating for me, but I learned an important lesson that made a big difference for me. I figured out that if you want to swim fast, you need to practice swimming fast EVERY DAY. Most of my practice [...]
Doing a bit of analysis I had a realization. Here are the basics: My fastest time is a little above 17 seconds on 25 meters. That time is dependent on using the starting block. My natural sprint stroke (meaning the speed I go when I want to go fast, but that doesn’t really wind me) [...]
I found some extremely interesting articles that absolutely every swimmer should read. I will write more as I have time. Amazing! http://www.h2oustonswims.org/articles/get_better_grip_I.html There are many parts to it, but the first two should give you enough to think about. It discusses the importance of having a proper feel for the water and how to improve [...]
One step closer to my new target of breaking 17 seconds. I am always shocked when I beat my targets. I swam every day last week; pushing myself too hard on Sunday without warming up. Afterwards my should was sore so I didn’t swim yesterday. So today I was taking it really easy. I was practicing the roll-over [...]