Swimming Faster: Fix the Drag Before You Add Power

By Alvin · SSI Swim Teacher Instructor, AustSwim Assessor, Autism Swim Teacher · More than 10 years coaching · Last updated: 21 October 2026

Swimming speed is stroke length multiplied by stroke rate. Nothing else. If you want to go faster you must either travel further per stroke, turn your arms over more quickly, or reduce the drag that is stealing from both. Most swimmers try to fix speed by pulling harder, which raises drag and shortens the stroke, and they end up swimming slower while working more. Measure your stroke count over 25 metres and your tempo in strokes per minute, and you will know exactly which lever to pull.

This is written for swimmers who already swim continuous lengths and want to be quicker — masters swimmers, triathletes, adults returning to squad training. If you are still working on breathing and body position, that comes first. Speed is a problem you earn the right to have.

Measure Before You Change Anything

Swim four lengths of 25 metres at your normal training pace. For each length, count your strokes (every hand entry) and take your time. Write down both.

Now you have two numbers.

Stroke count tells you how far you travel per stroke. Fewer strokes at the same speed means a longer, cleaner stroke.

Time divided by stroke count tells you roughly how long each stroke takes. Multiply that out and you have tempo — strokes per minute.

Add stroke count and time together and coaches call it a SWOLF score. It is crude, but it moves when your efficiency moves, and it is the single most useful number a self-coached adult can track.

Fix Drag Before You Add Power

Drag rises sharply with speed. Push harder into a bad body position and the water takes most of what you gave it. In practice, three things create nearly all the avoidable drag in an adult freestyle:

1. Low hips. Usually caused by lifting the head to breathe or looking forward rather than down. Press the chest gently, look at the bottom of the pool, and let the hips come up.
2. Crossover. The hand entering across the centre line makes the body snake. Enter in line with the shoulder.
3. A wide, scissoring kick. Kicking from the knee opens the legs like a parachute. Kick from the hip, small and fast, ankles loose.

Spend four weeks on these before you buy a tempo trainer. Nothing in this article will make you as fast as fixing your hips.

Which Lever to Pull

The Walls Are Free Speed

In a 25 metre pool a distance swimmer touches a wall every twenty seconds or so. A tidy turn with a streamlined push-off and a few dolphin kicks under the surface is faster than swimming. A sloppy turn — breathing into the wall, standing up, pushing off on the surface — hands time away on every single length.

If you take one thing from this article to your next session, make it this: push off every wall on your side, arms locked overhead, head hidden between the biceps, and hold that line until you feel yourself slow to swimming speed. Then start kicking. Then start pulling.

A warning attaches. Do not turn underwater kicking into a breath-holding contest. Prolonged underwater work, especially repeated on short rest or after hyperventilating, carries a real risk of shallow-water blackout — a sudden loss of consciousness with no warning and no visible struggle. It kills experienced swimmers. Never do underwater distance work without a lifeguard or coach watching you specifically, never push through the urge to breathe, and never make a game of it with friends.

Training That Actually Builds Speed

• Race-pace repeats. Short distances at exactly the speed you want to hold, with enough rest to hold it. 12 x 25m at goal pace on generous rest teaches your body what the pace feels like.
• Descending sets. 4 x 100m getting faster each one, ending near maximum. Teaches pacing and finishing.
• Stroke-count golf. Add your count and your time. Try to lower the total. This forces efficiency rather than thrash.
• Tempo work. Hold a fixed stroke count and gradually raise the rate. This is where a tempo trainer earns its money.
• Kick sets. Not endless kickboard laps. Short, hard, vertical kicking or 25s on the front with a snorkel.

Putting It Together in One Session

Most adults train for an hour, which is enough to do one thing well if you plan the session before you arrive. Improvising on the pool deck means defaulting to comfortable laps. Here is a practical 60-minute structure that combines efficiency work, wall practice and aerobic base without overloading any one component:

1. Warm-up (10 min). Four easy 100m repeats on generous rest. Body position only — hips level, head down, no corrections to the pull yet. Count your strokes on the last two lengths and write it down.
2. Drill set (15 min). Choose one drill from your table result: catch-up if your count is high and timing looks rushed; fingertip drag if your recovery is too wide; one-arm pull if your crossover is the problem. Six sets of 25m on thirty seconds rest. Think only about the one thing you are drilling — do not add more.
3. Threshold main set (25 min). 6 x 100m at moderate-hard pace, one minute rest between each. Count your strokes every length. If the count rises by more than two over the set, you are going out too hard. Record the count and time for the last two repeats.
4. Turn practice (5 min). Swim 100m at race pace but stop at each wall for ten seconds before pushing off. Use those ten seconds to set the streamlined position: arms overhead, head down, ankles together. Then a powerful push and hold the line until you slow to swimming speed.
5. Cool-down (5 min). Two easy 100m. Count your strokes on the last one and compare it to your warm-up number. A lower count at the end of a tiring session means the drill work is taking hold.

Keep a simple training log: date, main set, stroke count at the start and end. Three months of consistent data will tell you more about what is working than any amount of reading.

Dry Land, Honestly Assessed

Strength work helps, mostly by protecting shoulders and improving the catch. It does not substitute for water time. Core stability, lat and upper-back strength, and ankle mobility are the three that transfer. Ankle flexibility in particular separates swimmers whose kick propels them from swimmers whose kick brakes them.

If your shoulder hurts, stop. Swimmer’s shoulder is an overuse injury and it does not respond to pushing through. See a physiotherapist, reduce your paddle and pull-buoy volume, and check your catch — a dropped elbow loads the joint badly. Knee pain in breaststroke is the same story: get it looked at, do not train around it.

Common Mistakes

• Pulling harder as the first response to being slow. It raises drag and shortens the stroke.
• Living in the paddles. Paddles amplify whatever your catch already does, including the bad parts, and they load the shoulder.
• Gliding. Excessive glide is dead time in which you decelerate. A long stroke is not a paused stroke.
• Only swimming easy. Continuous aerobic laps at one pace produce a swimmer who can swim forever at one pace.
• Only swimming hard. No aerobic base, no recovery, and eventually no shoulder.
• Breathing every four strokes to “be efficient”. Under-breathing raises tension and costs more than the breath does.
• Ignoring the walls. Free speed, left in the pool.

Practical Points for Swimmers in Singapore

Most public lanes are busy, and speed work in a crowded lane is unsafe as well as useless. Train early. If you are in a squad, sit at the front of the lane you belong in, not the one that flatters you.

Many adults find that a handful of sessions with a coach who can see them from the deck saves years of guessing. A single lesson with video feedback tends to reveal one habit that has been costing time since childhood. Both individual coaching and structured swimming classes are widely available. Adults who train alongside a masters group can read more about what squad training involves. Coaches themselves may be interested in instructor certification pathways.

For competition calendars and national programmes, Sport Singapore is the reliable starting point.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much faster can an adult realistically get?

A technically poor adult swimmer who fixes body position often finds several seconds per 50 metres within a couple of months. A trained swimmer chasing a personal best works far harder for far less. The first improvements are always the cheapest.

Should I lower my stroke count?

Only if your time holds or improves. A lower count achieved by gliding is slower swimming with better-looking numbers. Track count and time together, always.

Do fins make me faster?

They make you faster while wearing them, and they help ankle flexibility and body position. Used constantly they mask a weak kick. Short fins, used sparingly, in kick and drill sets.

How often should I train to improve?

Three sessions a week is the point at which technical change tends to stick. Twice a week maintains. Once a week is enjoyable and will not make you quicker.

What is a good stroke count for 25 metres?

There is no universal figure — it depends heavily on your height and arm span. Your own count, tracked over months at a fixed pace, is the only comparison that means anything.

Is it worth buying a tempo trainer?

Once your body position is sound, yes. Before then it will help you spin your arms very quickly while going nowhere, which is a costly and demoralising way to learn about drag.