Does anyone know how to gauge the percentage of effort expended in relationship to your HR? We had a set yesterday morning that got me thinking, and I am really having trouble wrapping my brain around this one. If your fastest time in the 100 free is 1:00, then what should 60%, 70%, 80%, 90% effort be (time wise?)? And also, since I know that your maximal HR should be (theoretically) 220 minus your age, at what HR are you going certain percentages of effort? I was swimming 5 x 100's on the 1:30 & going what I thought was about 60% effort and holding 1:16-1:18 - which was slower than I intended but the girl in front of me was going even slower, so I had to pull back - HR was about 110. Second set was to be of course, faster/harder (coach said 1st 5 HR 140ish, 2nd 5 HR 160ish - for the 15 yr olds) I held about 1:14's & my HR got near to 140, I think - but my effort felt closer to 80%. Gauging your effort is HARD! - thus I think if there was a nice little mathematical formula it would help! The only problem is, I KNOW that often an increase in effort often only results in a second or two drop/100. So, any genius's out there who can help me out?
And ALSO - if your current fastest time is say 1:05 in the 100, but you do repeats holding a 1:10 - what percentage of effort do you think you are expending on the repeats? Obviously less on the first one than you will on #10, but, just wondering.
The 220-age formula for heart rate is not terribly accurate, at least in my case. I do a lot of inline skating wearing a heart rate monitor and in the past three years, the highest reliable maximum heart rate I've observed has been about 155 bpm. I am 51, so that is a bit lower than the 220-age formula gives, but I am fairly confident that 155 is at least close to my maximum HR. My resting HR (just waking up in the morning, still in bed) was 47 the last I checked. So the formula I would use to compute the percentage of maximum HR is
(HR-47)/(155-47) x (100%).
Is that my percentage of maximum effort? Not sure about that.
So you need to figure out your maximum HR (MaxHR), your resting HR (RHR). and replace 155 with MaxHR and 47 with RHR in the formula above. I suppose you could use 220-age for MaxHR until you get a good handle on your actual MaxHR.
wow! I have a hard enough time keeping track of what lap I am on when just swimming 6 lengths in my little pool pond. And did I start when the big hand was on the 15 or 30. Sometimes i just can't remember. Maybe that is why I can't break the 1 min 100.
I wish I had an answer for you and am interested to see what people have to say.
I have a pretty low heart rate. In the morning I'm high 30s-low 40s, and it takes dry land plyo work, running for time, or sprinting in the pool to hit 160.
I feel like pool heart rates are lower than dry land heart rates, with equal effort. Maybe the cooling factor plus the breathing factor?
I've also observed that after a 100 from rest my heart rate seems to keep accelerating for a few seconds after I stop swimming before it recovers.
cant find the link right now but there was a recent study that suggested that HR monitors are useless and how you feel is a much better judge of your exertion than your heart rate per minute.
˙ɟןǝsʎɯ pǝuıɐɹʇǝɹ ʎןʍoןs puɐ ɹɐǝʎ ɐ ʇnoqɐ ɹoɟ ɯɹɥ uɐ pǝsn ı os ˙081-071 ǝq pןnoʍ ǝsןnd ʎɯ ʇnq 'ǝɔɐd ʎsɐǝ buıuunɹ sɐʍ ı ʞuıɥʇ pןnoʍ ı ˙ɟɟo ʎɐɐɐɐʍ sɐʍ ı 'buıuunɹ uǝɥʍ ʇnq 'uo ʇods ɥɔnɯ ʎʇʇǝɹd sɐʍ buıןɔʎɔ puɐ buıɯɯıʍs buıɹnp uoıʇɹǝxǝ pǝʌıǝɔɹǝd ʎɯ ʇɐɥʇ pǝɹǝʌoɔsıp ı 'sʎɐp ıɹʇ ʎɯ uı ʞɔɐq ˙spuǝdǝp
The formulas can be very inaccurate. The 220-age has me at max 165, I can average higher than that for a couple of hours. I hit 187 HR under right conditions.
All-out effort will not necessarily hit your max heart rate
I would interpret your desire and ability to talk between repeats as a good indicator of % effort. My personal guidelines:
90% - nod or single words, not necessarily coherent
80% - a few words with pauses
70% - phrases/sentence
60% - yack
