Critical Swim Speed Training at Farnworth senior session

the results from 12th January Saturday senior swim session are attached 

 2019 Critical Swim Speeds for 100m.pdf

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We did 200m and then 400m later in the session. These times have been used to work out your critical swim speed per 100m. This corresponds to lactate threshold pace i.e. swim faster than this and you start to go into your anaerobic zone building up lactic acid and being unable to sustain the pace. 

For those who missed it we will be repeating the tests on 16th Feb or or you can time yourself and send me your times. The Critical Swim Speeds will be used to allocate swimmers to lanes and to determine your interval times for main sets. 

For triathlon where we swim long distances it is your aerobic capacity (and technique) that will determine how fast you can complete a 400m, 750m or 1500m swim. The most efficient way to improve your aerobic capacity is to work at lactate threshold pace or just below i.e. sustained speed with short recoveries. The CSS pace may seem comfortable at the start of a 1200 or 1500 main set but it is a challenge to keep the pace up as the set goes on with only short recoveries.

Go to the Swim Smooth website if you want to know more about this http://www.swimsmooth.com/training.html#ixzz53IYGojZL. Here you will also find advice on designing your own sessions based on your 100m CSS. Basically you do 100m repeats on 100m CSS +10secs or 200m repeats on 2 x 100m CSS + 20secs or 300 repeats on 3 x 100m CSS +30secs or 400m repeats on 4 x 100m CSS +40secs. It is important not to take longer rests than this otherwise your heart rate drops and you lose the training effect.

We will repeat the tests on  16th Feb so you can see the improvement in your CSS pace from training in this way. Mind you - you will have to train and swim at least once a week, and preferably more often 

Stuart