![]() ![]() You have a fundamental technique problem. Already doing that? Add an extra swim workout every week.ģ. Solution: Swim a minimum of 3x per week for a month and see if you break through the plateau. You are not swimming consistently enough. Work off your new pace and see if you break through the plateau.Ģ. If you are consistently swimming at threshold pace and you are not seeing improvements in your speed, there may be one of three reasons why: *Take 10-15 seconds rest between each 100 You need to test or adjust your threshold pace every 4-6 weeks to ensure you are getting the full benefit. While swimming at your threshold pace gives you the biggest bang for your buck when developing your swim fitness, your body will adapt to your threshold pace. Like fine red wine, too much of a good thing isn’t always a good thing. You won’t make that mistake too many times before you learn what the right pace is! Swim too fast early on in a threshold set and you are guaranteed to suffer later. Threshold swimming will also give you a keen awareness of your pacing. The combination of these three makes it perfect for triathletes wanting to build their swim fitness. As the set progresses however, you will start to feel more and more uncomfortable.ĭoing intervals at threshold pace builds muscular endurance, sustainable speed and stamina. When you are swim at threshold pace you will be breathing heavily, but you should still feel comfortable early on in the workout. Swimming at threshold pace gives you the best return on investment for your time in the water. Threshold pace swimming tends to be the magic key that will move you way up the pack on race day. But despite good technique and consistent training you aren’t getting any faster. You feel more than comfortable swimming any race distance (750m to 3.8km). There isn’t much of a difference between your sprint and long distance pace.Ģ. Here are two signs you’re doing too much endurance pace swimming:ġ. *Rest 10-15 seconds between repeats (if that’s not enough rest you’re swimming faster than your endurance pace)Ī lot of technique focused triathletes spend too much time swimming at this pace. It’ll build your stamina and improve oxygen delivery to your muscles. If you are training for a full distance Ironman, you may do some of your key sets at this pace. We’ll also swim at this pace to help us recover between challenging speed or CSS sets. We use this pace during drill sets and technique focused workouts. It shouldn’t be particularly challenging – it’s a pace you could hold all day. You should be able to find a groove and keep a low heart rate. When you’re swimming at this pace you’ll feel comfortable. – Speed: CSS Pace (Critical Swim Speed Pace), + 5Īn endurance pace should feel similar to your jogging pace. Set your watch to ‘drill mode’ or turn it off during your recovery sets so you aren’t tempted to push the pace up. There isn’t a great deal of training stress at this pace so we can use the time to master our technique. From time to time we’ll include it early in the warm up too (this feels especially good after a long bike ride or run).Įven though the pace is slow, you should still focus on swimming with good technique. We generally use recovery swimming in the cool down of our workouts. You should feel your whole body relax in the water and your movement should be slow and methodical. ![]() When you’re swimming at a recovery pace you should have absolutely no problem breathing. Your recovery pace is the like a slow morning walk on the beach. With this knowledge you’ll be ready to create highly effective workouts that will get you excited about your next trip to the pool! 1. ![]() Let me introduce you to 4 different intensity levels I work through with my swimmers. Get the balance right and you will be hitting T1 positioned further up the pack and feeling much fresher. Swimming at different speeds will give you the endurance to hold a consistent pace… the speed to take a gap or find your own space off the start… and the control to know how fast you are swimming. But for one reason or another they struggle to carry the concepts over to their swimming.īy changing up the intensity in the water, you can create workouts that are stimulating, interesting AND that will help you get faster. ![]() They apply them to intervals on the bike bike or tempo run workouts. Most triathletes I talk with are very familiar with these concepts. Different intensities create different types of stress. We can manipulate the training stress you place on your body by changing the pace or intensity that you swim at. These physical changes come about when you place your body under training stress. The goal is to train to be be able to deal with the physical stress you will experience on race day. The purpose of training is to bring about physical changes in the body. Aside from the fact that swimming at one pace for an hour is mind-numbingly boring, changing up your speeds has a very clear training benefit. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |