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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Most sources seem to say that working out 3x/wk will keep your fitness level steady, 4x/wk will cause slow improvement, and 5x/wk or more will speed up improvement. Of course, an absolute beginner will need less and an elite athlete will need more. I suspect technique improvements are similar - if you don't focus on technique, your technique will not improve (but your fitness will), and you will improve faster with more focus. There are far too many variable to be able to quantify anything. I do remember reading somewhere that athletes should expect to improve about 3% a year and aim for 5-10%, but I can't remember what group it was written for (I'm guessing it was for teen year-round swimmers) and it's probably not applicable to your situation.
Most sources seem to say that working out 3x/wk will keep your fitness level steady, 4x/wk will cause slow improvement, and 5x/wk or more will speed up improvement. Of course, an absolute beginner will need less and an elite athlete will need more. I suspect technique improvements are similar - if you don't focus on technique, your technique will not improve (but your fitness will), and you will improve faster with more focus. There are far too many variable to be able to quantify anything. I do remember reading somewhere that athletes should expect to improve about 3% a year and aim for 5-10%, but I can't remember what group it was written for (I'm guessing it was for teen year-round swimmers) and it's probably not applicable to your situation.
