The Swim Gadget You Must Have!

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Have you ever used this little gadget? The Finis Tempo Trainer. It’s a super little bit of swim kit and something I’m using quite regularly at the moment.

I’ve mentioned it in a few posts recently.

If you don’t have one – or have one but have never used it because you’re not quite sure how to – let me explain how I would use it and how I think you can get the best out of it.

For me, it has several great uses.

Stroke Rate

Firstly, it helps identify, regulate and increase a swimmers stroke rate.

Setting Your Stroke Rate

Firstly, you need to know your stroke rate. You need to adjust the gadget to beep when each hand enters the water. This will be a little trial and error initially.

If you’re doing it for the first time, set it to 60 strokes per minute and do some steady swimming for 25m or 50m. Either adjust up slightly (62 or 64) or down slightly (58 or 56), depending on how quick or slow your turnover is. Keep swimming, then adjusting until you are in sync. Eventually, the tempo trainer will match your stroke – so as your hand enters the water, it coincides with the beep – every time.

Once you’ve done this, you’ve identified your current stroke rate.

Using The Stroke Rate Function

There are various ways to use this function.

Deliberately Slowing The Stroke Down

Sometimes, we want to go slow. Warm ups, technique-focused sections, recovery sets. The tempo trainer is ideal for all of these. Set it to beep at a slower than normal stroke rate. If your normal stroke rate is 60, maybe set it to 50 or 54. This way, you feel like you have loads of time between strokes and you can really focus on what you’re trying to achieve.

Doing this means you don’t rush the warm ups. It means you recover properly on the recovery sets. It also means that you are able to focus on technical elements of the stroke without feeling rushed.

Personally, I’ve found this setting really useful to help me slow down and focus on technique and swim rhythm.

Increasing Stroke Rate

This is probably the most used, most common feature of the tempo trainer.

Again, we’ve spoken before about the impact increasing stroke rate slightly can have on speed (see previous blogs).

How do we do that though? How do we increase our stroke rate?

We’ve identified our stroke rate (above). We know it is a stroke rate we are comfortable with and can swim smoothly at that rate. Once we have identified this and we have our number, we then want to increase stroke rate gradually.

Let’s assume you have a stroke rate of 50 strokes per minute. Use the tempo trainer and increase to 52 for a week or two. Not much of a shift, quite simple to get used to. You won’t need to shorten your stroke to achieve it. Being comfortable with this new, slightly increased rate will come quite quickly, and will soon become your ‘normal’ rate. When that happens, increase to 54 for a couple of weeks, and the same will happen. And so on.

Open Water Stroke Rate

The tempo trainer is also a really useful gadget in open water when it is difficult to judge pace. Transferring your ‘pool stroke rate’ to the open water will mean your pool and open water speed and pace is similar. 

To do this, you will need to know your pool stroke rate of course.

In the pool, do some sessions at your proposed open water ‘race pace’. The pace you hope to race your next triathlon or open water race. Make the reps or intervals in these sessions quite long (200m to 400m). Ask your coach to look at your stroke rate – or do some trial and error during the session (as above) – so you know what stroke rate you are able to hold for a particular pace.

Once you know what your ‘race pace’ stroke rate is in the pool, you can transfer the rate to the open water. When you arrive at your open water venue and have done your warm up, dig out your tempo trainer, set it to the ‘race pace’ stroke rate and then do some open water laps at this rate. See how that feels. What does the time / pace of the lap tell you? All being well, you should be swimming at your race pace / race effort.

Stroke Timing

Next, closely linked to stroke rate, is stroke timing. You would use the same function on the tempo trainer as you would for stroke rate – it is not a separate button or measurement.

Why mess with stroke timing? Many of us start our pull too soon. We don’t allow our hands to extend forward fully, instead we ‘rush’ into the catch and pull phase. Some swimmers (many swimmers?) drop their leading arm when breathing and start their pull early with this arm, losing balance in the water and then missing out on propulsion.

The tempo trainer can help with both of these things, teaching us patience and helping us with our stroke rhythm and stroke timing.

When I’ve used it with swimmers, this is the approach I’ve taken.

If we set the beep slightly slower than our normal stroke rate, we want to enter the water and extend forwards with our hands as normal, but then only start the catch when the tempo trainer beeps.

Doing this usually gives us a moment at the front of each stroke where we feel like we’re gliding, where it doesn’t feel rushed and where we feel like we’re in complete control.

It’s a great feeling!

Once we are happy with this stroke rhythm and we resist the urge to pull as soon as our hands hit the water, we can adjust the beep to our normal stroke rate (as above).

Pacing

Thirdly, after stroke rate and stroke timing, the tempo trainer helps with pacing.

If you are poor at pacing – start too fast and fade – or aren’t quite sure what pace you are swimming unless you look at your watch or the clock, this might be a useful setting for you.

The setting on the tempo trainer is in seconds.

For example, if I want to swim a particular set at 1.24/100m pace, I set the tempo trainer to beep every 21 seconds (4 x 21 seconds = 84 seconds for 100m … or 1.24). I have to hit the end of the 25m length by the time it beeps. If I am ahead of the beep, I need to slow down or if I’m behind the beep, then I know I need to speed up a little. It helps me keep a consistent pace – and then helps me understand what that pace feels like.

Once you know what that pace feels like, your need for the tempo trainer reduces because you are better tuned in.

It also has a more precise mode, where it can be set to tenths or hundredths of seconds. So, in the example above, if I wanted to swim at 1.22/100m, I would set the beep to 20.50 seconds.

Holding Consistent Paces

It’s really useful for when we want to hit the same time over a set. If you have a tendency to start too fast in a swim session – or on a longer swim interval – the tempo trainer can help you stay disciplined, start at an appropriate pace … and then challenge you to stay strong towards the end.

In our Swim Squad sessions, we often do sets where we want to maintain our best sustainable pace. We know we want to swim at, say, 1.45/100m for all 10 x 100m. However, enthusiasm or pacing uncertainty often means we start the first one at sub-1.40 pace and then gradually get slower through the set (because we started too fast). Having the tempo trainer in place ensures we start at the right pace, meaning we are more likely to maintain that throughout the set.

It is also great for a longer distance swim. A 400m perhaps. How many of us swim strong for the first 200m and then drop off a little towards the end? Discipline early on can result in much quicker overall swims.

Staying Controlled

The tempo trainer can be used when we want to hit higher paces, but equally important, it helps hold us back a bit when we have a session where we want to keep the intensity down and maintain a pace for a long period of time – such as a longer endurance session.

Discipline

It can also keep us disciplined. How many times have I gone to the pool with a set in mind, start the set, feel good, push the pace more than I should … and then not achieve the intended goal for the session. Hint: lots!

If you haven’t guessed it yet, I’m a big fan of these things. Matching stroke rate to pacing to a feeling is a really key skill.

There are other ways to use the tempo trainer too. These are just some of the areas I would focus on.

If you don’t have one, I’d recommend getting one for your swim kit bag!