That is exactly what I did last Wednesday and today 
20x50@1:30 and 24x50@1:30 which is around 40 seconds rest at this miserable shape…
Speed wize both sessions were alike. RPE wise, today’s session was like a 5 compared to a high 7 on Wednesday.
Next step - CSS test to gauge my red mist sets and set a baseline after these two familiarization sessions.
But do not over do it. 
Over gliding is a plague that affects lots of us!
I was one of those and still fall into that trap in the worst place possible: open water!
Relax does not mean interrupting the pressure and grip in the water.
I guess is just another very hard thing to balance (like EVERYTHING in swimming).
Interesting…
Ive been doing up to 19x50 but at 75 intervals…so about 15 to 20 sec rest…
I thought the goal was to rest the least while keeping the speed…
Is fully resting more better?
I would say so when the main concern in not letting my poor swim shape generate too much fatigue because it would pollute my motor memory.
This is kinda resetting my stroke so I want to make sure those flaws that I carry will not be amplified by fatiguing too soon.
It might not make sense for you if you feel you passed that stage.
I do the same as @Nprazeres when i restart with 30 secs. rest. eventually my goal is to get to 15 secs. Back in the day we had to do over and over and over with 10 sec rest at every 40 sec. That was brutal. I can barely finish a single 50 at 40 sec right now…ah age.
First OWS of the year today. 15 degrees is a bit grim for me even with a wetsuit, but I’ll take the open water over the pool any day, especially because my local pool is a bit of a headache right now.
Stoked for the season of heading to the beach after work and having my friends hand me beers when I get out the water 
I would suggest joining your local masters club or getting a coach that will work with you at least once a week. I see so many triathlon swimmers that struggle. They think the secret is to keep doing more, but without feedback from a coach, they just keep making the same mistakes over and over. They never really improve and get stuck in the mindset that they just suck at swimming.
If you are truly in the bottom 1% as you say, you’ll make huge strides in a short amount of time with some coaching.
And for some solid coaching via a book, I really like Sheila Taormina’s book Swim Speed Secrets.
Guilty!
While prepping to my first IM I put in a lot of volume and I had a truly crappy swim.
Two years after I had a huge improvement on just 2 sessions a week around 2k length.
Difference: identifying two or three major technical flaws and intervene with purpose on those in every freaking lap.
In 2 months time my PRs started falling one after the other.
Flaws:
1 - breathing - poor exaltation process
2 - alignment - twisting spine while breathing (I could only do it for one side)
3 - slow tempo - around 65 for 400m up
Interventions (no drills):
1 and 2 - two months of doing ONLY bilateral - I would rather stop than taking two consecutive breaths to the same side and indeed, when I started the process, 100m was the longest I could go
3 - using a Finis Tempo Trainer to bring cadence GRADUALLY to 75
My 400m went from 6:19 down to 5:57.
Due to the better breathing, I was able to handle interval work much better. Faster, longer sets, less or no decay
I’m guessing swim tempo is stoke count… You say 60 is too slow, is that per 25, 50 or 100…
My stroke count is about 26 per 25… or 52 per minute.
Also… I really need to work on my bilateral breathing… I can’t do more than 25… My right side breathing is terrible…
Any suggestions there?
I am thinking about taking the same approach I’ve taken the last few weeks… Just take it easy and do 25s at a time doing bilateral until i get it…
Patience - swim develops over time as a skill, don’t try to work on too much. So maybe do a few hundred meters during warmup breathing on your weaker side each session and in a few months it’ll be not such an issue without really any effort.
Some clips on catch and pull I thought were good today:
That’s it. I was swimming at 64 strokes per minute.
Increasing the stroke frequency for someone like me (who trends to over glide) is a good idea because I will also reduces the dead spots of my stroke which might have a minor impact in a swimming pool but makes a lot of difference in OW.
However, there is a sort of an acceptable range for the relationship between stroke frequency and swim speed. If a slow swimmer tries to use a very fast stroke, she or he will start slipping with her/his hands instead of anchoring them.
Please take a look at this article that explains it quite well.
Optimal Stroke Rate
It is not written in stone. I know a few cases where these Swimsmooth boundaries are challenged with decent outcomes.
Suggestions? Embrace something that I call “a swim project”.
Can be anything swimming related from correcting an obvious flaw to beating a PR or making sure you swim at least every other day for the next couple of months. Some obvious ones are learning new skills like flip-turning or bilateral breathing.
I would say that you should focus in no more that 3 things.
In your particular case, if you can not breath at all to one side, chances are that your alignment might be off because you prioritize so much rolling to the left side. Another problem might be using the opposite arm to pressure water down in order to help lifting your front to breath which compromises both the position and propulsion. This means that a simple correction has a big chance of producing great gains.
Why do I know? Because that was what was happening to me. I also was crossing over my breathing side hand.
Another aspect is that if I was asked “what is the secret of bilateral breathing?” I would answer without any doubt - proper exhalation which means having the guts to start expelling good air immediately after your face re-enters the water. When old guys like me start gasping, the natural trend is to try to hold air. Nothing could be wronger… It is the other way around, you want to get rid of excessive CO2. You have to fight your instinct to solve this problem. Lap by lap you will get there.
So… In your case I see two growing opportunities here:
1 - learn bilateral breathing and you might be surprised by how it will enhance your position and propulsion in the water (in a sense that you can use single sided in races, tests or intervals that the gains are conserved - happened to me)
2 - re-access your stroke rate and see if it fits the acceptable boundaries when related to your speed keeping in mind that, for us that race in OW, being closer to the higher frequencies line is always better.
By the way record your self with a camera, if possible also underwater, before and after the project. You might be amazed!
Thanks… I’ve been trying to coordinate a recording. Hopefully my friend will be available Friday to do it…
As for my right side breathing. Not sure if related or if it’s just something i use as an excuse, but long time ago I injured my shoulder. About 12 years ago a doctor suggested surgery, but I decided I didn’t need it.
Now, before this year i would always have pain in the shoulder after the swim… And that’s not a great sign. Now I have no pain and if anything, it feels better than the last few years! So that’s means that I’m changing something for the better on the swim.
I will take a few weeks of hammering of bilateral repeats… Even if it’s 25 at a time, but i really need to start doing it… I know the few time I’ve been able to do 50s my times are better with the same effort… So there is something there…
Let me share something that made me scratch my head a lot.
I always have been a huge supporter of speed work.
So I always prescribe fun all-out sets of 25s leaving at 1:00 to my swim group.
Everyone of them swam those sets breathing to one single side and bilateral breathing is a skill that only one of us had at that time.
One day I told them, the next one we will breath to the opposite side and see how much we lose.
Well, I do not remember how many we were but I would say probably 6 to 8 guys and only one of us did not improve the time on that lap. We were all amazed…
Everyone was expecting to lose one second if not two.
Absolutely!!!
Another outcome of bilateral breathing - > Flip Turns
Due to poor air management, I was always unable to do flip turns.
However, I recently leaned to do a quick one without any dolphin kicks, breaking the surface immediately after. So, the timing of the turn becomes almost identical to the timing between two breaths in bilateral technique and the turn now becomes sustainable since it does not disrupt my air management anymore! It is just a matter of having the guts to expel air all the way… If it goes wrong a couple of times, do not worry, you will not drown and die… Try insisting and you will get better until you nail it…
Hi Guys,
I great tip for helping with Bi-lateral breathing us to use a pull buoy between your legs.
Swim one length only breathing to the left. The next only breathing to the right. The do 2 lengths without breathing every 3 pulls. Don’t race, focus on the technique
Things to consider…
The idea here is that the pull buoy lifts the legs, causes less drag and allows you to breath every 4 pulls. You will swim a whole length breathing only on both good and weaker sides before stitching it all together.
Give it a go. It’s helped me 
The fundamental aspect of swimming freestyle is getting to the point where your body is moving over/past your hand, your hand is not moving through the water.
This is not just a mental picture, it is literally true. If you pay close attention to a good swimmer swimming at speed, there will be essentially zero rearward motion of their hand from where it is placed in the water at the beginning of the stroke.
Swimming should be like climbing a rope. You grab it, pull your body past your hand, reposition, then repeat. At that point speed becomes just a function of force vs drag, like any other movement sport. The trick is your grip on the rope.
This is why a slower stroke tempo can be faster. Subconsciously you are concentrating on efficiency and you are stroking fewer times per minute but getting more out of each stroke
A friend who is a swimmer one compare it to the motion of using your arms to stand using a desk…
It sounds weird, but yes I know exactly what you talking about…
I would agree it can but does not mean it will for most of us.
I understand you are a former swimmer. Guys like myself are completely different animals without any kind of natural empathy with movement in the water.
I have the privilege to coach a former olympian swimmer (she was the national 200m FLY record holder for quite a long time- 
and now she has the masters national record). When she swims with us old mortals, the differences are astonishing in almost everything (not only speed) except sharing the same waters.
She recognizes that what works for her does not work for us most of the time.
Getting back to stroke rate and its optimization, I then again think these guys in the Swimsmooth system are nailing it (that was how I got to the 75spm in my case):
And do not despair my fellow TR users. 
This is the kind of ramp test that will put a smile on your face… unlike some others that we know too well…
That’s a good one too. Pressing yourself out of the pool is even a better visualization because you start with your elbows below your hands.
Try it and notice how hard you work to quickly get your hands below/behind your hands. That’s pretty similar to a good freestyle technique
Sad but true. I was 14 and had already been swimming for several years the first time someone actually explained to me what proper swim technique looks like and I was about 98% perfect without even knowing what I was doing. There is a HUGE talent component to swimming.