So, I am certainly not an expert on how to use a tempo trainer to maximize your training (I have only been using one for about a year), but I would like to share with you the success that I have had over the past few months working with a tempo trainer in the pool and in open water (and even in a couple of races).

First, let’s talk about why you would want to use a tempo trainer:

The most common goal for any swimmer is to swim faster. While I will admit that there may be some out there simply looking to swim with less effort or more comfort, in the end it all comes down to moving through the water with the most velocity possible at a given level of effort or exertion. Forgive me if there are those that don’t look for that but I think that should cover most, if not all, of the people reading this blog.

With that in mind, we should look at what elements make up the speed equation. In it’s most basic form:

Swimming Speed = stroke rate x stroke length.

In other words, it is simply a matter of how fast you move your arms multiplied by much distance you cover on each stroke. Seems simple enough, right? The problem is that most people overlook the stroke length piece of the equation. It is very easy (instinctive even) to move your arms faster when you want to swim faster, but if the result is a faster stroke rate but a shorter stroke length, you may not end up being much faster (if at all). Terry has written fairly extensively about our instinct in water compared to our instinct on land as terrestrial mammals (see some of that here), so I don’t want to go into detail here as this is just a little introduction and not an extensive lesson in stroke rate, stroke length, and land vs. water instincts (I am not the expert).

So, with that in mind, the tempo trainer is a tool that you can use to measure and become more aware of how stroke rate and stroke length interact and translate into speed at different distances and tempos. If you don’t know anything about tempo trainers, let me just give you a quick overview. The tempo trainer (pictured below) is simply a device that beeps at different tempos. The ones that most swimmers use are made by Finis and are adjustable to different tempos measured in seconds/stroke (or more exactly seconds/beep). You can buy tempo trainers right here on the Total Immersion webiste in the store section or here on my site.

OK, enough introduction on theory of why you should use a tempo trainer and what a tempo trainer is. If you want to get more in depth on that, take a look at Terry’s series on swimming faster here and take a look at Dave Cameron’s website as well.

My tempo trainer training over the past few months:

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