CADENCE COUNTING IN SWIMMING
There is no official standard of how to count cadence in
swimming, but there are commonly accepted ways that swim coaches
and athletes utilize. This article is written from the Pose
Method® point of view and explains how Dr.Romanov counts
cadence in swimming which is similar to how the majority of
prominent swim coaches do it.
Cadence is a measure of frequency of repetitive movement
per unit of time. Movement is change of support. In Pose Method
cadence is a measure of frequency of change of support per
unit of time. A "stroke" in swimming is calculated
on one side only, i.e. a complete cycle of one arm starting
at the point of entry and ending at the same point. It is
easier to count that way.
SPS or "Strokes per second" is used mostly for
scientific study purposes since calculations can get pretty
complex. It is more practical to calculate cadence in "strokes
per minute" in training.
SPM or Strokes Per Minute is exactly what it is - an average
number of strokes you take per minute, it is measured to determine
our cadence and all beginning swimmers should operate with.
It is calculated by taking a given number of strokes, it could
be any number but Dr.Romanov uses 10, then using stop watch
time how many seconds it takes you to make those 10 strokes,
then divide 10 strokes by the number of seconds that's clocked
on your stop watch and multiply the result by 60 seconds.
SPL or Strokes Per Length is a number of strokes you take
per length of pool, pretty easy to count that. SPL is used
to calculate our swimming stroke length. Better swimmers have
a lower SPL since their average stroke length is higher. It
is calculated by taking the length of a given pool (say 25m)
and dividing it by the number of strokes it takes you to cover
that length (SPL). Then time with a stop watch how many seconds
it takes you to cover the 25m and divide the number of strokes
by the time that it takes you to swim 25m.
Counting cadence on video is sometimes complicated by technological
differences of various cameras. Regular standard video cameras
films at about 25 - 29 frames per second.
Article by Dr. Nicholas Romanov
Composed by L. Romanov
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