percentage of hard swimming?

Wouldn't it be great if we did not have to think of all the words lactate, Vo2max etc. ect. and train how we felt. Guess what I only train how I feel. I want to swim hard today. I want to swim steady today. Today I want to do technique = opps I do technique all the time. I want to swim long or I want to swim short. Do I really need to be told what to do. When I train I know when it is time for me to quicken the pace and when to back off. Simple for me I only do 50s and 100s. You took the words right out of my mouth. My sentiments exactly. And I guess that you, like I do, enjoy every minute of swimming.

And, wait a minute, you can't make 50 kicks on 1:05?! I think your 100 free would improve if your kicking improved! I had typed 4x100 on 1:05 kick when I listed the work out. That was the typo I was referring to. My best kicking time for 100 yards with a kick board is only 1:28. Something I know I need to improve. I guess the drawback with working out on a team is that we rarely do a true sprint set, or atleast one that is greater that a 1:1 rest to work ratio. I think 25's on :30 is about as close as it gets. Any more rest and the other swimmers complain and want to shorten the interval. At least now after looking at the link Knelson provided I understand why it is important. Thanks for all the responses, this was helpful. Kevin

My team does a variety of hard swimming....just today our main set had 2 different parts... 5x200, where #1 and 4 had the 1st 100 fast, 2 and 5 the middle 100 fast, 3 and 6 the last 100 fast later in the set, 4x (100 fast, 50 easy) We fall into the same boat as the others, if there's too much rest, most of the fast lanes get restless and adjust the interval. I think we've done 100s on 3 minutes or more a few times, and some people complained. Many times, the coach will have something like a group of timed swims on 6 minutes, you select whatever distance you want (usually a whole lane will do the same thing). Some lanes will do 100s, some 200s, and some do 400s, all with easy swimming in between as time allows. This way you can make it race pace if you want, or crank out some distance if you'd rather. If I had to give a % of 'hard swimming' I think it would be around 15-20%.

Crud. This was an eye-opener thread for me. Did over 5000 meters today w/ the masters group. I'd say 0% was at race pace (95 to 100% effort if that's how we're defining it). Arg. I really need to work on that. I was feeling really sluggish from my increased weight routine (went from 80 minutes a week to now lifting 180 minutes a week). Still, not an excuse. I will shoot for 5% tomorrow.

My coach usually puts percent of Max heart rate of a time on the workout. Not only do I do the exact workout, I hit all my time hacks (unless I just can't go fast enough, then there is no rest interval. I even count my beats per minute to be sure I where I'm supposed to be. I know I just creeped out Fort and Geochuck. When i was on a team the "Group think" would change the workout or socializing would increase the rest periods. But by myself, I stick to what written. I hate just standing at the end of the pool waiting on the clock. I too use excel to track all my workouts. Does any one think I'm a little too Type A about this?:bitching:

Slowswim it is a fact what I suggest for others, Vo2 max 2 x a week, Aenerbic 2 X a week, Aerobic 2 X a week. I do not do it myself. I go to the pool and never swim with a team - I swim the workout by the lane availability. It may start out as a certain type of workout but it can change by who gets in my lane. I was working out doing a few sprints and suddenly people started swimming across the pool instead of laps. End of my sprints.

Geochuck: Thanx, that seems like a nice simple formula for the off season.:groovy:

I think it is really important to have at least two practices a week where you go race pace in all your competitive events. I usually only do one repeat of each event at race pace (usually the last in a set). The others might be at 90% or less. Or I might descend in a set. For instance in a 10 x 50m crawl I might go 31,30,29,29,28,28,27,27,27 and 26. If I am doing a set like that I usually don't time the rest intervals and give myself enough rest to allow myself to descend on the next one. That probably means an average of 90 secs - 2 mins rest between each. I do the same for 100's trying to get as close to or under 60 secs on the final one. In fact I hardly go one practice a week without timing myself in some event or another. Whether it be a 50, 100 or 200. I have never timed myself over a 25 (except for kicking or SDK'ing). It is just too short and I have never raced that distance anyway. I do this mainly because I train by myself and if I don't compete against the clock I have no idea how fast I am going. I even time my warm up! I try to do my 500m warm up in under 7m30s. I feel a brisker warm up leads itself to a quicker practice. Also, if you are constantly cruising along at 3/4 pace in practice you will, no doubt, cruise along at 87% pace in a race. But if you go 100% in practice perhaps you could go 110% in a race! Syd

My limit of hard swimming seems to be 1.5k. It's not a percentage of my workout, it seems to be an absolute distance per day as my muscle tissue gets injured. If I try to swim more, my stroke suffers.