How To Improve Your Swim Stroke Rate | The Optimum Swimming Cadence For Triathlon

Your swim stroke rate is how many strokes you take per minute. What should this rate be? And how can you improve your front crawl stroke to reach this number?

Stroke rate is important because it affects the rhythm of your stroke and is directly related to the distance you take per stroke in the water.

If your stroke rate is too slow, it’s a good indication that there is too much glide between successive strokes. A 'glide' in the stroke slows you down as you need to re-accelerate yourself again with the next stroke - and that's more effort!

If however, your stroke rate is too fast, it suggests that your arms are slipping through the water and there isn’t good propulsion coming from a solid catch, pull and push phase of the stroke. Ultimately, this means losing distance per stroke.

Therefore, finding the optimal stroke rate is about the right balance between stroke rate and distance per stroke (and this certainly will be different for each athlete).

What is your natural stroke rate? Let us know in the comments below 👇

If you enjoyed this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up and share it with your friends. 👍

Submit your content here:

Watch more on GTN...

Music: Epidemic Sound
Split - [ocean jams]
Wave - [ocean jams]
Concrete Jungle 3 (Sting) - Jan Chmelar (1)
Beats And RnB (Sting) - Merlean

Photos: © Triathlon / Getty Images

The Global Triathlon Network (GTN) is the best triathlon YouTube channel, with videos for anyone who loves triathlon: from seasoned Ironman racers to first-timers – and everyone in between.

With the help of our pro and Olympic medal winning team, we’re here to inform, entertain and inspire you to become a better triathlete; including videos on:

How to swim, bike, and run faster with expert knowledge
Beat your PB with record-breaking expertise
Get the best from your bike and gear with pro-know-how
In-depth, entertaining features from the heart of the sport
Chat, opinion and interact with us across the channel and on social media every week

Join us on YouTube’s best triathlon channel to get closer to the sport and to become a better, faster and fitter triathlete.

Welcome to the Global Triathlon Network.

Thanks to our sponsors:

[mikedickerson]

Heather has a relatively deep pull; her left arm especially. The further one reaches and the deeper one’s arm is, the slower the cadence. It’s like grinding a big gear on a bike. Bending your elbow a bit more so your hand doesn’t go so deep will allow a quicker turnover. Also keeping that elbow like 2 inches higher will speed up your cadence. Or you could keep doing what you’re doing but get a lot stronger; that’ll speed it up, too. The mechanics of swim stroke rate vs power are exactly like spinning vs grinding gears on a bike.

[skykaptain]

I approve of the dolphin kicks Heather! Good breakout discipline.

[ross]

I'm hitting 28-31 strokes/min, which is half what's being shown in this video. I can't imagine doing twice the strokes but will try the drills.

[redmcclaff]

I do 1 second arm pull for front crawl, that's for distance swims or easy training sessions. I used to do more, for example in 25m pool I used to do 23 arm pulls 4m glide off wall! 20seconds per length. (average length)
I brought that down to 18 per length then 15! The difference was in maximizing the glide and maintaining power, I got faster on my lengths, bear in mind everybody has a slight difference in their stlye. I'm 30 years surfing as well so laying on a board with head up wide arm pull prob helps my stroke in the long run. So important point is the distance you do within 60 second timed swim, counting your arm pulls. Watching better swimmers and timing them while counting their strokes, will give you some idea.

[chunyuenlau]

If you increase your stroke rate without going quicker (ie: compromising your stroke length), then what's the point? Wouldn't your arms get tired faster? Shouldn't you aim for higher cadence AND quicker speed (ie: maintain your stroke length)?

[bjornkinding]

Q: Heather took off with some powerful dolphin kicks, making it more likely that her stroke rate was 37 strokes over 45 m (alt. 33 sec.) or so. In open water, that would translate to a higher stroke rate, right?

Q: My Garmin measures every left-right cycle as one stroke, giving me the score of 21 strokes/50m and a SWOLF = time + 21. You count each push as one stroke, which means my SWOLF = time + 42. Which is the correct way to count strokes and to calculate SWOLF?

[jm]

Increasing stroke rate for long open water swimming seems a bit crazy to me for long ocean swimming, (I’m still learning). One should think an energy efficient stroke with a bit of glide would be better to keep up endurance. Perhaps the hectic 'dogfighting' we see among the fittest most competitive triathletes has brought this on. They’re able to do this without getting out of breath and anxious in the ocean. But should age groupers really pursue this.. I get exhausted after 50m going like this.

[normanwoods]

Great video. I once heard having a short stroke that was quick was needed for Triathlon do to the crowded environment we swim in at times. Allows for better swim stroke adjustments. Acceleration, slowing down, fighting through and over crowds, or having someone swim up your back. Any truth to this?

[MrJhockley]

I find for a more accurate measure of stroke rate is to use a tempo trainer. I find the match the tempo trainer to my css or race pace. In a pool you need to account for the push and dolphin kick off a wall which can take 5meters off the length of the pool and a few seconds you are not stroking. This is important because in open water there is no wall pushing to affect your swim. Taking this into consideration e.g. Heather did an estimated 37 strokes in around 34 seconds thus her stroke rate is around 65-66spm.

[helgearnewinkelbauer]

I don't quite understand how it is physically possible to have a faster stroke rate without sinply putting more effort in, i.e. swim faster. I try to pull as much water every stroke as possible and work on my arm movements. Pulling the same amount of water per stroke, but having more strokes per minute makes it more exhausing, but fast.

Of course professionals have a faster stroke rate, they are extremely fit, but their arms are not bigger so they have to have faster strokes.

Increasing the stroke rate seems just like tempo training to me. Am I missing something? I'm quite new to swimming and open for advice.

[legrandempereurcosmique]

Pwaaaah, I’m at lower than 40 spm, still a long way to go

[twigle]

doggie paddle drill, (basically swim like a dog with the arms “crawling” under water continuously) gets the glide out of the stroke fairly quickly. On a sciensce note, I wonder how much propulsion can be generated on the rear end of the pull. I wonder if the front part of the pull (until the lower rib cage) isn’t generating most propulsion. That would mean that shortening the stroke could be a good strategy, except when you are swimming with elite athletes that all have the high turnover well under control and need the last bit of pull to make the difference?

[helmut.jansen]

What do you think about Terry Laughlins "Total Immersion"?

[dannybishop]

More strokes for the same speed? That really isn’t a positive outcome. More strokes and a higher speed, yes, but more strokes at the same speed just means you’re expending more energy than you need to.

[knuj]

Incredible pool! I want to swim there! Where is that?

[jakeh]

What's the point in going from 37 to 41 strokes per minute if you didn't swim any faster?

[corywaltz]

As a poor swimmer I was excited to see this video.  But in a 5 minute long video you spent 40 seconds on the drills without actually explaining how to do the drills.  Dissappointing.

[drdancoughlan]

I assume stroke rate can be reported as the same arm (left, left, left), or alternate arms (left, right, left, right)? My Apple Watch says I have a 28 rate, which based on this video I guess is actually a 56? It seems unlikely I’m that far behind (28 vs 60+ in the video). Anyone got any experience with this? Seems like a couple of other comments have suggested similarly low rates. Or maybe I’m just really slow...!

[pawetarsaa]

I'm swimming 1km in ~21mins with a stroke rate of 23/min. I thought that I should increase my propulsion power but it seems that my stroke rate is way too low.

[frankeeeej]

After doing some quick math, I'm at...
30ish strokes per 50...
I guess I know what I have to work on then :p
(Big power strokes do work wonders for my 50m freestyle races tho, but I guess that´s just a case of the swim speed finally catching up with the stroke lenght, haha)