If you are going ALL OUT, i.e. "race pace", how will your 200 LCM time compare to your 225 SCY time?
200 m is about 218.72 yds, so 225 yds is about 6.28 yds longer than 200 m. How much time this converts to depends on how fast you are, of course, the faster you are, the less extra time the extra 6.28 yds will take.
BUT.
A 225 SCY has 8 turns whereas 200 LCM has only 3. For example, for my backstroke, I estimate that each turn cuts about 1s off my total time, so the extra 5 turns save about 5 seconds. If you have better turns, you'll save more time.
It looks like the two factors approximately cancel for me in backstroke. I haven't done the analysis for other strokes yet. I'd be interested to see results (and/or speculation) for other swimmers.
My experience: in freestyle they are pretty close.
The 225 is a little faster in butterfly. (Helps to have those walls to get that little bit of rest.)
The 225 is a good bit faster in backstroke. (Get more from the turns.)
BTW: the age-group team that shares a (short course) pool with the masters group does 225s for time all the time during long course season.
My experience: in freestyle they are pretty close.
The 225 is a little faster in butterfly. (Helps to have those walls to get that little bit of rest.)
The 225 is a good bit faster in backstroke. (Get more from the turns.)
BTW: the age-group team that shares a (short course) pool with the masters group does 225s for time all the time during long course season.
That seems consistent with my analysis.
Free: I haven't done a 200 LCM free yet, but my bet is that the difference is small as you say because the extra turns won't gain as much as in back.
Back: Since you are a good bit faster than me ;), the extra distance will not cost you as much, but you will still get the benefit of the extra 5 turns.
Fly: I haven't tried a 200 fly yet, even in practice. Is it really as bad as people say it is? I'll just have to find out some time when I don't care if I am sore for a week afterwards.
***: We'll have to wait for the breasstrokers to chime-in on this one.
Stroke count is important too. If you're swimming SCY and you want to simulate how many strokes you're going to take in LCM, I recommend swimming something around a 250 or 300, depending on how far you go underwater off each wall.
For the 200 LCM IM, I just swim either a 200 or 300 SCY, no messing with confusing in-between distances. For the 400 LCM IM, a 500 SCY IM is a bit longer but not a bad substitute. I don't seem to do those very often though.
I have never swam a 225 in a race, so it's hard to say. I also have a different race plan for a 200 yd vs. 200 meter swim.
Apples and oranges, but a fun question.
Had an interesting take on this last week. Our indoor pool was closed for work so we got to swim outside for the week in the 20 yard pool. Now why, in the 21st century, anyone built a 20 yard pool is something we all wonder about here, but anyway, here is what we noticed.
My little group routinely does a set of 8x250 in the follow pattern
100 on 1:00
followed by 3x50 on a minute recovery
8 times
or
200 on 2:00
followed by a 200 or so recovery.
twice and then do the 100 on 1:00 set above four times.
During each set, only person is going "hard" while the other one or two are recovering.
Anyway, doing this set last week in the 20 yard pool we noticed our 100s (with 4 turns now instead of 3) were about a second or so faster (both for freestyle and fly. I didn't do any backstroke as there are no flags outside).
The 200s we did were slower by at least 1 to 2 seconds (2:06 or so vs the 2:04 we could normally do). With the extra turns we could really feel the oxygen debt later in the swim by spending all of that extra time underwater off of the extra turns. (9 turns vs 7).
Had an interesting take on this last week. Our indoor pool was closed for work so we got to swim outside for the week in the 20 yard pool. Now why, in the 21st century, anyone built a 20 yard pool is something we all wonder about here, but anyway, here is what we noticed.
Anyway, doing this set last week in the 20 yard pool we noticed our 100s (with 4 turns now instead of 3) were about a second or so faster (both for freestyle and fly. I didn't do any backstroke as there are no flags outside).
The 200s we did were slower by at least 1 to 2 seconds (2:06 or so vs the 2:04 we could normally do). With the extra turns we could really feel the oxygen debt later in the swim by spending all of that extra time underwater off of the extra turns. (9 turns vs 7).
That's really interesting. Your observation of 1s/turn gain is consistent with my calculation based on comparing 50s in short course pools to 50 LCM.
I had not considered the oxygen depravation factor, but it reminds me of a similar experience. More than 10 years ago I swam at a fitness club where they had a 55-foot pool. 11 lengths in a 55-foot pool is 201.7 yds. I would often do the set 10x(201.7 free/3:00). When I first swam there, I really noticed the oxygen depravation from the extra 3 turns, but after some time I got used to it. My impression is that I could hold quicker times for the 10x201.7 set then than I can now for 10x200 SCY despite the fact that I had a lower level of overall fitness at that time and was not doing any racing. This suggests that the turns were aiding me in going faster, but then again I was 12 years younger, and that probably was helping me go faster too.
I wonder if your 200's in the 20-yd pool would be faster than in a standard SCY pool if you practiced there for 3 months, or a year.
Thanks for posting.
I wonder if your 200's in the 20-yd pool would be faster than in a standard SCY pool if you practiced there for 3 months, or a year.
Thanks for posting.
I would almost guarantee they would. We swim 20k or so a week, so i would think in 3 to 6 months that we should become accustomed to this type of training and adapt.
Stroke count is important too. If you're swimming SCY and you want to simulate how many strokes you're going to take in LCM, I recommend swimming something around a 250 or 300, depending on how far you go underwater off each wall.
Good point - I oft lament how much i dislike LC fly because of the stroke count difference.
