by
Olivier Poirier-Leroy
Wondering if the FINIS Tempo Trainer Pro will help you swim faster? Here’s a look at the benefits of this device and how to use it for more efficient and faster swimming.
The FINIS Tempo Trainer Pro is a game-changing tool that can help swimmers train more efficiently, master stroke rate, and, ultimately, swim faster.
The Tempo Trainer is a remarkably simple device on the outside: ultimately, it’s a metronome that emits an auditory beep at a prescribed interval.
Unlike a fancy-pants swim watch that tracks and logs everything during your swims or a smart swim goggle with a heads-up display showing your swim workout unfolds inside the goggle lens, the Tempo Trainer is somewhat… basic.
But the wide range of benefits of the FINIS Tempo Trainer Pro are surprisingly long. Whether you are a novice swimmer or you have Olympic aspirations, this minimalistic tool can elevate your swimming and make you a smarter and better prepared athlete on race day.
In this hands-on review of the FINIS Tempo Trainer Pro, we’ll look at the full range of ways it can help swimmers improve.
Let’s dive in.
The FINIS Tempo Trainer Pro is a small, waterproof metronome designed for swimmers to help regulate and optimize stroke rate and length.
Swimmers (or coaches) set the rate—how often the device beeps against the side of a swimmer’s head while swimming—and they try to match strokes with the beeps. This allows swimmers and coaches to improve stroke rate, rhythm, and pacing.
A study published in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living with experienced competitive age group swimmers showed that the use of the FINIS Tempo Trainer Pro improved stroke control and timing (Fassone et al., 2023).
Next, we will look at a full list of the benefits of using the Tempo Trainer and offer some tips on how to make the most of it.
The benefits of using the FINIS Tempo Trainer Pro include:
Next, we will examine each benefit of the FINIS Tempo Trainer Pro. By the end, you will have a crystal-clear idea of whether this device is right for you.
The primary benefit of the FINIS Tempo Trainer Pro is training stroke rate.
Set the device to a target stroke rate and you can fine-tune the pace of your stroke turnover and pacing.
By spending more time working stroke rate, swimmers can find that sweet spot of stroke frequency and length, allowing them to swim fast without expending unnecessary energy or swimming sloppily.
A faster stroke rate is a critical factor in achieving greater swimming velocity (Girold et al., 2006).
By using a Tempo Trainer to gradually increase your stroke rate while maintaining distance per stroke, you will become a faster swimmer. Instead of going to the pool and flopping your arms around, with the Tempo Trainer, you are dialed in on using a proper rate that increases overall swim speed.
Love that!
The FINIS Tempo Trainer Pro can significantly boost endurance during training by helping swimmers maintain a consistent stroke rate.
The 1-2, 1-2 beeping also serves as a distraction, helping reduce early fatigue and helping swimmers to keep pushing.
Studies with athletes have found that metronomes can be as effective as motivational music in reducing perceived fatigue, promoting more consistent pacing, and increasing endurance.
A study titled “The power of auditory-motor synchronization in sports: enhancing running performance by coupling cadence with the right beats” found time to exhaustion was significantly longer compared to without a metronome or music (Bood et al., 2013).
Similar improvements in time-to-exhaustion were found with elite triathletes running on treadmills (Terry et al., 2012) and 400m running time trials (Simpson & Karageorghis, 2006).
The consistent pacing helps to train the body to endure prolonged sets and workouts in the pool, building precious stamina that will power faster performances on race day.
By using a Tempo Trainer during those longer swim workouts, swimmers can improve pacing and increase endurance.
One of the things elite swimmers do well is maintain stroke length when under fatigue. Swimmers that get their hand on the wall first tend to be those who can keep their stroke together when their legs feel like cement and the piano has crashed on their shoulders.
The FINIS Tempo Trainer Pro can be an excellent training aid here, too, helping swimmers become more aware of when their stroke starts to tighten up under fatigue.
By using the device, you can also see for yourself how changes in stroke rate impact stroke length, which is crucial for maintaining efficiency in the water.
For example, at the end of a hard repetition in the middle of the main set, you may find that your stroke length craters.
The Tempo Trainer provides a coaching mechanism that reminds you to swim long and strong, even when fatigued, so that you can overcome the natural tendency to shorten up when tired in competition.
While the Tempo Trainer doesn’t track and log your swim training, it does provide a form of feedback that enables you to track and maintain stroke rate over the season.
For example, if during your bread-and-butter endurance sets at the beginning of the season you are taking 32 strokes per length, and this improves to 31 strokes, you can see that you are improving and becoming a more efficient swimmer.
The Tempo Trainer is especially useful for targeting those higher stroke rates. Let’s say at the beginning of the season you are able to perform 5×100 freestyle holding your target stroke rate.
But with time, practice, and mindful progression, after a few months you can bang out 15×100 freestyle maintaining goal stroke rate.
This type of performance tracking and evidence of improvement are the kind of things that will give you confidence to perform well on race day.
The FINIS Tempo Trainer can be used to target stroke rates, but it can also be used to target a kick tempo to improve underwater dolphin kicking.
One of the most important characteristics of a fast underwater dolphin kick is frequency (Thompson et al., 2022). A slower kick frequency is linked to slower overall kicking velocity (Shimojo et al., 2014).
A Tempo Trainer can help you build the stamina and endurance to increase kick frequency and use the underwater dolphin kick as a weapon in training and competition.
Set it to a desired pace (0.5s per kick, for example), and work to hold this tempo.
With enough kicking while using the Tempo Trainer, a higher-frequency dolphin kick will become second nature.
💡 Tip: Struggling to hold the kick tempo on a kickboard or when kicking on your side? Use the TT with vertical dolphin kicking to master target kick tempo. Once you can do it, add resistance like extending the arms out of the water or using light DragSox and build a powerful dolphin kick that has the endurance to help you dominate the walls in competition.
The FINIS Tempo Trainer Pro has a lot of uses in the water, from building a more consistent stroke to promoting higher kick frequencies to reducing perceived exertion.
But it can also be used as a simple pace clock for interval swim sets.
For swimmers who train in a pool without a pace clock or don’t use a swim watch, the Tempo Trainer can be the perfect option for a consistent “send-off” reminder.
Set the TT to your desired interval (e.g. 1:30 for 100s), push off, and it will beep at you every 1:30 until the set is completed.
I like this feature as it creates a more consistent set of results because swimmers are less likely to push off early.
The Tempo Trainer Pro can be used for intervals up to 9:59 in length and as short as one second, accommodating a huge variety of swimmers and set options.
The FINIS Tempo Trainer Pro is a powerful tool that can crank up your performance in the pool. It offers precise control on stroke rate, tempo, pacing, and even helps you stay on top of intervals.
Whether you are looking to balance out your stroke, increase distance per stroke, or build the endurance and fitness to close your races in competition, this simple device provides the feedback to crush your goals.
Who the FINIS Tempo Trainer Pro is Perfect For:
The FINIS Tempo Trainer Pro can help you start swimming smarter, faster, and with greater confidence.
Happy swimming!
Olivier Poirier-Leroy Olivier Poirier-Leroy is the founder of YourSwimLog.com. He is an author, former national level swimmer, two-time Olympic Trials qualifier, and swim coach.
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