percentage of hard swimming?

2750 of this was EZ or moderate swimming. And only 950 was hard swimming. About 26%. For the high intensity/quality yards fans is this about right or is it a little light? I don't swim on a team that concentrates on quality over quantity so much, but with that caveat I think it's about right, if not a little " heavy." 1000 yards of race paced swimming per workout is a lot. Did you truly do it race pace? My feeling is a lot of people would swim "hard" swims fast, but definitely not race pace. Maybe 90% of race pace or something like that. I'll be curious to see what others say about this. Personally, I'd say substantially less than 10% of my total distance is done at 90% speed or faster.

there's degrees of hard today I went around 3,000 150 of it was very hard, 50 was strong and the rest was easy to moderate if you're going close to race pace you don't need to do very much though 4 X 100 kick on 1:05 would have totally whipped me I think most masters who work out with a team tend to swim about 3-4 K per work out. But what I want to know is what percentage of that is hard swimming? And by hard I mean race pace effort. For example, last nights work out was the following. 4 X 200 warm up. (EZ swimming) 10 X 100 - odd on 1:35 (EZ) Even on 1:20 (hard) 3 rounds of the following 200 on 3:00 Build (EZ/moderate) 3 X 100 on 1:40 (25 hard/25 EZ...) 4 X 100 kick on 1:05 Warm down 200 2750 of this was EZ or moderate swimming. And only 950 was hard swimming. About 26%. For the high intensity/quality yards fans is this about right or is it a little light? Kevin

there's degrees of hard I agree with this, and to me there's no way you could do that 10x100 set on 1:35/1:20 with the hard ones anywhere close to race pace. It's just not enough rest. At least I should say I couldn't. Anyway, my idea of a set where you're going close to race pace requires more like a 1:1 swim to rest ratio.

1:1 at least. Swimming 100's at race pace would require more than 1:1 for me...if they are to continue to resemble something like a race pace swim. At Least!! If I'm doing 50's or 100's at race pace for 50 or 100, I do the 50's on a 3:00 interval (and even then they are at about 1-2 sec slower than my best) and 100's on 6:00 (again these are swam 2-3 sec slower than my best). And I am usually only able to do 4-6 50's or 3-4 100's and hold the target times. The 1:1 ratio works good for 200 -500 race pace swims though.

I guess a better question is what is considered hard swimming or quality yards? Here's a good article on the USA Swimming site about the different energy zones in swim training: www.usaswimming.org/.../ViewMiscArticle.aspx

I guess it might be more accurate to say 90% plus. And yes it was very hard. I was dead at the end of the practice. But yeah I am curious to see what percentage of practice is 90% or better type swimming others are doing. Kevin

I don't do enough race pace in practice but I think it is quite valuaable for improving times provided you allow enough rest time in between workouts. Race pace is going to result in some atrophy of muscles and without the time to rebuild, hypertrophy, you will lose strength and possibly some speed. Swimming a large amount of race pace 5 to 6 days a week is too much IMHO.

Why were your 100's kick so much faster than your 100's swim?

Why were your 100's kick so much faster than your 100's swim? ooops that was a typo. Should be 4X50 on 1:05. no way in hell I could make 1:05. Even with fins. I'll edit the original post. Kevin

1:1 at least. Swimming 100's at race pace would require more than 1:1 for me...if they are to continue to resemble something like a race pace swim.