Swimmers and coaches often set workout targets like 90% effort or 95% effort for practice swims. I've always found these directives to be less than useful. What is "90% effort"? I've taken to setting time targets of race time plus a certain percentage. For example one could specify the set:
5x(100 free @ race + 15%)/2:00.
That is, five 100 free swims on the 2:00 (120 sec.) interval with a target time of race time + 15%. (This would be a painful lactate production set in my estimation.)
Based on my own experience, I constructed this chart giving qualitative descriptions of the effort level associated with a practice swim from a push to achieve race time plus a percentage:
7283
A few notes:
This would correspond to the effort level of the first swim in a group. Obviously even race +25% will constitute a very hard effort after you have done a lot of them.
Generally, it appears to be easier to swim at race pace + x% for longer swims.
It is easier to swim near race pace for backstroke than freestyle. I suspect that this is simply due to the fact that a freestyle dive start gives more of an advantage over a push than a backstroke race start.
I pose the following two questions to the forum community:
1) How do these effort levels compare with your experience? I'd love to see similar charts for other swimmers.
2) How much time do you spend in practice at each effort level? This will certainly depend on the time of the season. Early in the season I expect one might do a lot of "blue" swims up to some yellow, whereas later in the season one needs to spend a lot more time in yellow with frequent excursions into in the "red zone".
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Former Member
I like the way you have presented this. I have also been confused about what exactly constitutes a 90% effort or a 95% effort. Your way of explaining it makes much more sense. A target of a race time plus a certain percentage is something I can work out exactly.
I don't swim backstroke but my free times are pretty close to yours with a few exceptions. I can hit 10% of both my 50 and 100 times with a very hard effort (represented by orange on your graph), but like you I wouldn't attempt any repeats at this pace. At best, I might rest up a good while and then try equal or better that time, but nothing like a set at regular intervals. On the rare occasion and when I have been really training hard for a good few months, I might even get within 5% of my times.
Likewise, I can hit 10% of my 200 time with a very hard effort. Never been able to go much faster than 10%, though. My turns suck and I have to do 7 of them over the course of an scm 200 as opposed to 3 for a lcm 100. (I train scm and race lcm). I think I must be one of the few unfortunates to be slower at short course than I am at long course. If I hit within 5% of my race time for a 200 in practice, I know I am in for a time drop the next time I race.
I like the way you have presented this. I have also been confused about what exactly constitutes a 90% effort or a 95% effort. Your way of explaining it makes much more sense. A target of a race time plus a certain percentage is something I can work out exactly.
I don't swim backstroke but my free times are pretty close to yours with a few exceptions. I can hit 10% of both my 50 and 100 times with a very hard effort (represented by orange on your graph), but like you I wouldn't attempt any repeats at this pace. At best, I might rest up a good while and then try equal or better that time, but nothing like a set at regular intervals. On the rare occasion and when I have been really training hard for a good few months, I might even get within 5% of my times.
Likewise, I can hit 10% of my 200 time with a very hard effort. Never been able to go much faster than 10%, though. My turns suck and I have to do 7 of them over the course of an scm 200 as opposed to 3 for a lcm 100. (I train scm and race lcm). I think I must be one of the few unfortunates to be slower at short course than I am at long course. If I hit within 5% of my race time for a 200 in practice, I know I am in for a time drop the next time I race.
