By Olivier Poirier-Leroy on SwimSwam
Fast sprinting means swimmers have to use a fast stroke rate.
It’s one of the defining features of sprint freestylin’—the white water turnover, chaotic arm movement, recovering and pulling on the brink of losing control.
Stroke tempo is also what change the timing and coordination as we shift into sprint speeds. Increasing tempo changes how the arms work together, helping swimmers get into the more rapid turnover and overlapping propulsion required to sprint at elite speeds.
There is also the stroke rate that you think is your max—and then there’s the stroke rate that you’re actually capable of.
Those two aren’t always the same.
Here’s why sprinters should test tempo just beyond their max to see if there’s an extra gear hiding up there.
What Happens When We Crank Up Stroke Tempo to Super Max
Swimmers spend a lot of laps grooving familiar tempo and rhythm. And over time, the fastest turnover we use can feel like a hard ceiling.
It’s “max,” after all.
But what happens when you deliberately push past it?
Researchers (Koga et al., 2020) took a small group of swimmers and had them do 20m max freestyle trials. Swimmers started with their preferred max, and then using a tempo trainer white-knuckled 110% and 120% of their max tempo.
At 120%?
Things fell apart.
Hand angles deteriorated. Propulsive force declined from 34.1 N to 29.7 N Sprint speed slipped slightly (1.75m/s to 1.74m/s)The biggest change in technique was at the back end of the push phase. Swimmers chopped this phase of the stroke to make tempo.
Ultimately, swimmers didn’t have the neuromuscular coordination to maintain proper stroke mechanics. They essentially started slicing the water for no additional propulsion.
But at 110%, some interesting stuff happened.
As a group, swimmers weren’t significantly faster. But individually, three of the eight swimmers went faster while also producing more hand propulsive force.
One swimmer had a really noticeable jump, going from 1.86m/s to 1.94m/s when tempo as turned up to 110%. Hand propulsive force jumped a lot too—so it wasn’t just blind turnover, but higher tempo and still holding lots of water.
In the case of those swimmers, “max” wasn’t so max.
Testing Turnover to Unlock More Speed
Often we get locked into what we think is our maximum based on repetition and time spent in the water. But your max isn’t always a physical ceiling but just what you’ve practiced long enough to feel normal.
Playing with tempo is a way to explore beyond those familiar patterns and find more speed.
A cool study (Silva et al., 2022) showed this by having youth swimmers do eight weeks of sprint training at different stroke rates. Swimmers did fast 25s at, below, and above their preferred sprint tempo.
The goal was to challenge swimmers to find the combo of stroke rate and stroke length that actually led to faster velocities.
After eight weeks, the intervention group increased swimming speed—many without increasing tempo. Just playing around at different tempos gave swimmers opportunities to find more effective ways to solve the challenge of more propulsion.
And that goes to the heart of why we go to the pool each day.
To experiment, test the edges, and see if there is more speed under the hood that we haven’t tapped yet.
So sprinters:
Don’t limit yourself to your familiar “max” tempo. Occasionally go a little higher. A little lower. See what happens to stroke length. And let the clock decide what your tempo should be.
You just might have another gear that’s been hiding in there all along.
For swimmers looking for more evidence-based ways to use tempo in your pursuit of peak speed in the water, check out The 50 Freestyle Blueprint below.
ABOUT OLIVIER POIRIER-LEROY
Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national level swimmer, 2x Olympic Trials qualifier, and author of several books for swimmers, including YourSwimBook, Conquer the Pool, The Dolphin Kick Manual, and most recently, The 50 Freestyle Blueprint.
If you’re working hard in the pool but still struggling to find those missing tenths, The 50 Freestyle Blueprint was built to help you get after them.
Across 220+ pages, the book breaks down the biggest opportunities for swimming a faster 50 free, including evidence-based strategies to boost your everything from starts, underwaters, and breakouts to stroke rate, technique, turns, kicking, dryland, and sprint-specific training.
The book also includes 20 ready-to-go sprint sets, plus a bonus guide to training and racing the 100 freestyle like a pro.
Unlock Your 50 Freestyle Here.
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