Speed and Pace | Mediterra Swim & Run

What You Can Learn About Speed From Butterfly

by Coach Mat | 2 Sep, 2018

Even if you do not practice the butterfly stroke, you may appreciate this approach to solving the not-getting-any-faster problem… Coach Jamee and I have been working with a mother and three kids (10, 12 and 16) on a swim team who came to us to work on freestyle...

How To Make Your Stroke Longer

by Coach Mat | 7 Jul, 2018

The universal speed equation is… Speed = Stroke Length x Stroke Rate If you want to go faster in the water you need to make stroke length (SL) longer without losing more than a calculated amount of stroke rate, or you need to make stroke rate (SR) higher without...

If You Want To Move Forward Quickly

by Coach Mat | 26 May, 2018

We most often think of water as a whole body or continuous substance. But really, from another viewpoint in physics, it is a soup of individual water molecules, or little electrical balls all jumbled, bumping and swirling together. And if you want to swim forward in...

Should We Use Tempo Or Stroke Rate?

by Coach Mat | 21 Apr, 2018

In swimming measurements, do you know the difference between seconds per stroke and strokes per minute? Or the difference between tempo and stroke rate? Or when to use one over the other? Don’t worry if you don’t know, or don’t care. But sometimes...

Why Is Superior Form Harder To Maintain?

by Coach Mat | 25 Feb, 2018

A member of our online training site, the Mediterra Swim Dojo, has been noticing that after a certain distance in a training set, his stroke quality deteriorates which results in his stroke count (strokes per length of the pool) going up uncontrollably. He asked a...

You Must Use Momentum – Part 1

by Coach Mat | 18 Nov, 2017

Here is something I explain to my swimmers when we’re building (or re-building) the freestyle stroke for the first time. This is meant to help students on each extreme: those who are too anxious to start moving faster, and those who are too reluctant to add more...