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?
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
I like this!! I've also noticed that when I work so hard I am slightly hypoxic, I can verify it with that lovely tingling feeling in the top of my thighs, What I also find interesting is the amount of improvement associated with increases in percentage of effort is kinda like a geometric progression in reverse (32-16-8-4-2-1). I was kinda hoping that maybe I could improve more quickly if I trained more correctly - which means that a person ought to be able to figure out what their 80-90% effort is currently (time wise) and that by forcing themselves to train at higher levels, that after a while, the time that once took 90% effort, would only require 80% effort. By gauging what that time is, we might be more accurately able to predict how much we have improved - even without the benefit of a meet - sometimes I need little bit of proof of improvement long before a meet comes around!
Thanks for all your input! :blush:
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
I like this!! I've also noticed that when I work so hard I am slightly hypoxic, I can verify it with that lovely tingling feeling in the top of my thighs, What I also find interesting is the amount of improvement associated with increases in percentage of effort is kinda like a geometric progression in reverse (32-16-8-4-2-1). I was kinda hoping that maybe I could improve more quickly if I trained more correctly - which means that a person ought to be able to figure out what their 80-90% effort is currently (time wise) and that by forcing themselves to train at higher levels, that after a while, the time that once took 90% effort, would only require 80% effort. By gauging what that time is, we might be more accurately able to predict how much we have improved - even without the benefit of a meet - sometimes I need little bit of proof of improvement long before a meet comes around!
Thanks for all your input! :blush:
