If like me you’ve all been absolutely glued to the Paralympics this past week you will have no doubt struggled to hold back the tears when Ellie Simmonds won the women’s 400m S6 race. Without doubt one of the most amazing races I have ever seen, won by a phenomenal athlete.
Since her win I’ve been asked numerous times – “How on earth does she swim so fast?”
This is a question that deserves special attention.
The reason people ask this question is because Ellie’s body type/shape really doesn’t confirm to what the stereotypical fast swimmer should look like. She doesn’t stand at well over 6ft, she doesn’t have a huge albatross like arm span and she doesn’t have long powerful legs. In fact the swimmer she beat into second was closer to what most people think a swimmer should look like.
So how does she do it?
Firstly I think its important to talk a bit about Ellie’s disability, Ellie is classified as having Achondroplasia dwarfism so she is short and has shorter limbs. Achondroplasia is a bone growth disorder that affects 1 in every 15,000 to 40,000 births. The average height of people with this condition is about 4ft for both male and female, they are disproportionate in short stature, this means the legs and arms are short compared to the trunk (body) this shortness is more noticeable in the upper arms and legs. Ellie is 4ft 1inch.
Her time of 5mins 19 secs for the 400m was sensational as most of you hardened swimmers/triathletes will know. Some of my strongest able-bodied swimmers would struggle to do this time, this includes age group triathletes who race for Great Britain or have raced at World Championship level. This makes her speed even more fascinating to understand.
Essentially her swim speed comes down to 6 key areas:
– Exceptionally high stroke rate combined with great rhythm & timing (she was at 110 strokes per minute for most of the race and then got up to 120spm for last 50m!)
– Incredible cardiovascular fitness
– Tremendous “feel” for the water initiated by nice early catch and bent arm pull through (see image above)
– High horizontal body position
– Very symmetrical streamlined stroke
– Excellent body rotation
Being the swim geek that I am I watched the final using my stop watch so I could monitor her stroke rate as I knew this was one of the key elements of her speed. A long “gliding” stroke would never work for Ellie, her arms are just way too short. So like all the best shorter swimmers she has developed a higher stroke rate that compensates for her lack of stroke length. This is more common in women as their arms tend to be short.
A lot of swimmers have been encouraged to develop long gliding style of strokes when it doesnt actually suit their body type. This can lead to huge frustration on the swimmers part resulting in a plateau in their swim times. Even when you look at some of the tallest swimmers in the world like Sun Yang and Michael Phelps their strokes can be quite deceptive because they they almost look like they are gliding in the water, but they just look like they are because their stroke is so long due to their body type. They actually come into the catch quite quickly (some sooner than others), they then grab hold of the water against their palm and forearm propelling themselves forwards with great power. “Glide” implies holding which in turn results in a deceleration of the stroke because there is no hold on the water, so extension is a much better word to use.
Just to give you an example of how fast Ellie’s stroke rate is lets look at the two able-bodied 400m Olympic champions from London 2012, I’ve also included their height.
– Sun Yang – 70 spm / 6ft 6inches
– Camille Muffat – 80 spm / 6ft
– Our very own Becky Adlington – 85-90 spm / 5ft 10inches
Here you can see a direct correlation between height and stroke rate. The taller the swimmer the lower the stroke rate and vice versa.
Now lets take this a step further and look at one of my favorite swimmers of all time Janet Evans, who at the tender age of 16 won the 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle gold medals at the 1988 Seoul Olympic games. She also broke the world record in the 400m.
Janet Evans – 110 spm/ 5ft 6 inches
If you’ve never seen her swim I highly recommend you taking a look at the link below:
Again you see the direct relationship between stroke rate and height.
It should be stressed that not everyone can or should attempt to swim at these stroke rates, they are exceptionally fast ! Remember these are professional athletes that train for up to 20-30 hours per week. They can hold great technique whilst swimming at these speeds whereas most other swimmers strokes would just fall apart leading to slower swim times. The key is to find the right balance where you can maintain good technique but also optimize your swim speed & rhythm for the distance you are racing over.
On the flip-side there are swimmers out there that we at Swimsmooth call “Overgliders” who have gone the complete opposite way and tried to reinforce a very long gliding style of stroke. This is a real hangover from being taught to”reduce the number of strokes they take per length”. These swimmers usually hit a brick wall in terms of their swim times, I have seen swimmers with strokes rates as low as 30spm – you can imagine how this looks in the water. They barely look like they are moving and have no momentum or rhythm whatsoever. For more info on this see the “overglider” swim type on www.swimtypes.com.
Usually a swimmer has roughly 2 sweet spots for stroke rate, one at an aerobic effort for long sets and one at a faster threshold pace for race pace work. An example of this would be Becky Adlington who usually swims her long slow sets at roughly 60-70 spm, but for racing and faster interval work it can go over 90 spm.
Most swimmers or triathletes with a nice flowing rhythmic stroke tend to have a stroke rate anywhere from 60 spm up to 110spm. Each person is different so there’s no one size fits all, it also varies depending on how fast or slow a swimmer is swimming. When warming up it could be lower than these figures.
If you want to determine your sweet spot stroke rates then take a look at the swim RAMP test devised by our Swimsmooth head Coach Paul Newsome below:
So hopefully you can now see how the amazing Ellie Simmonds swims so fast, a combination of amazing arm speed combined with great technique are what helped her achieve this. But there’s one more thing left to mention that we can’t forget, she absolutely has the heart and mind of a champion. The pressure on her was huge but like all great champions she more than rose to the occasion.
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