New Garmin Swim - Missing Laps

Crap - I just spent a ton of time writing a considerate post analyzing your swim data to illustrate where technique was confusing your Garmin Swim. But the board locked up and I lost the whole damn thing!

:mad:

Long story short:

• I didn't mean to come across as pompous or "I'm a better swimmer than you" and am sorry that's how it obviously came across,
  
• You don't need "perfect form" to use the GS, but unlike their running and cycling devices, the GS is a "dumb" device in that it does everything based on accelerometers that tell the watch which way it's facing, how fast it's moving, and in what direction it's heading. Technique impacts every single one of those things.
  
• There are clear technique things you are doing that will easily confuse the GS. But you're wrong above when you say it's spot on after the first few lengths. As evidenced by your stroke counts and lap times, the GS seems to have mis-detected many more laps than just the few that you point out at the beginning of the sets. You don't see it at first because the GS appears to have actually counted the proper NUMBER of laps in most cases, but it failed to properly detect where one lap ended and the next began. Look at instances where you had improbably fast laps with few strokes (20sec, 7 strokes) followed by longer-than-average laps with high-stroke counts. There's even one series that goes 10-7-13-7-13-7-11. Highly unlikely you'd have nearly a 100% swing in stroke count from one lap to the next over five laps.
  
• The mis-reading of breaststroke - and potentially over-counting of strokes on freestyle - is likely due to a freestyle technique that involves some combination or all of the following 1.) Raising your wrist higher than your elbow out of the water then bringing it down forcefully before pushing it forward, 2.) Swinging your hand beyond your midline laterally (crossing over in front of your head) out front of your stroke, and 3.) using the typical "s-shaped pull" that many recreational swimmers use. The net result of these things is that instead of reading a simple "1-2" forward-backward motion, your GS reads something that looks like up/forward-down/backward-forward/in-forward/out-backward/in-backward/out. Could be one breastroke, two freestyle strokes, or god knows what.
  
• Adopting a better technique will not only ensure better GS accuracy, but it will make you a stronger, faster swimmer.
  

Take a look at swimsmooth.com. Their freestyle simulator is clear and intuitive. It's interactive on their website, but here's a YouTube video...

http://youtu.be/IyR7JYllk9U

And here is the technique with a real (Olympic) swimmer...

http://youtu.be/s3HhNlysFDs

I'm not "blessed" with good technique, I work at it. I've only been swimming for two years, and the biggest part of my success in this area has actually been using swim watches like the GS. My previous watch was even less forgiving than the GS, this revealed to me a fault in my technique rather than a fault in the watch. Once I started using that watch - and swimsmooth technique - my 100yd pace went from over 2:05/100yd (where you are) down to 1:40/100yd almost overnight. A year later and my typical daily swim is at a 1:28/100yd pace over 3,000yds.


You're right about beating me on foot. At the age of 48, I firmly believe one should only run if being chased. (And even then, only fast enough to avoid being caught.)

As to swimming, with the GS and swimsmooth.com I have no doubt that you'll be even with me in the pool very soon.

As far as cycling? Well, I suspect that I'm more than few years older than you. But I won't hold your youth and inexperience against you. (I'm a far stronger cyclist than I am a swimmer.)

Have fun, and do checkout swimsmooth.com. There’s enough phenomenal free information on their website that you won’t need to buy any of their training materials.

:cool: