Sorry about the geeky title, but I think it is the best description. My question is: How much of an improvement per month will one get for some number of workout hours per week? That sounds confusing, maybe, so here is an example:
If you average three hours of workout per week, for each month practicing you will probably see one second off your 100m time. However, if you average eight hours, you might see five seconds of improvement per month on your 100m time. Imagine a graph with "Improvement per month" on the y-axis (the left side), and "Hours working out per week" on the x-axis (the bottom).
I know there is no way to get an exact number, but maybe the experienced coaches out there might have an estimate with a certain amount of "slop". I also know that you hit a point at which your improvement goes to nothing per month (if you are swimming 0:58/100m say), so, for the sake of argument, lets talk about us slowpokes :) (1:50/100m cruise). Also maybe there are better ways to measure it--improvement per week, day, year, whatever, for example, or times on a 1500m. Finally, it depends on intensity of workout and quality of coaching--what can I say, I still want to know.
I would love if Masters would collect data on average number of workouts/week, 100m times, years practicing, and age; then I could just derive the answer to my question. Seems like this could be part of the yearly dues mailing (hint to any Masters powers-that-be that might be reading this), and that there are enough public health types that swim and care about fitness to analyze the data. And I could find the coach that has a five second/month improvement with only one workout per week ;)
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Former Member
There is just no way that you could ever come up with a formula like what you want that would actually work. People improve their times when they get in better shape or improve their technique. How much better shape you get into depends on where you start at and how hard you work. And improvements in technique aren't necessarily related to the number of hours per week you swim. Lots of people swim X hours per week doing the same thing not making any real attempt to change their technique or without the feedback they need to make changes and they don't necessarily improve. About all that can be said is that the more time you spend in the water, preferably under supervision and guidence of a good coach, the more likely you are to find ways to improve your technique. But again, no way are you going to find a forumula that gives a steady improvement per hour per week.
There is just no way that you could ever come up with a formula like what you want that would actually work. People improve their times when they get in better shape or improve their technique. How much better shape you get into depends on where you start at and how hard you work. And improvements in technique aren't necessarily related to the number of hours per week you swim. Lots of people swim X hours per week doing the same thing not making any real attempt to change their technique or without the feedback they need to make changes and they don't necessarily improve. About all that can be said is that the more time you spend in the water, preferably under supervision and guidence of a good coach, the more likely you are to find ways to improve your technique. But again, no way are you going to find a forumula that gives a steady improvement per hour per week.
