Drills → Freestyle

font size A A A

Freestyle - Discovering Efficiency Step 3

Posted by Glenn Mills on Jul 21, 2009 08:22AM (13,484 views)

Heart rate is the key to Step 3 in our freestyle series on how to discovery efficiency.

Why Do It:
By adding heart-rate to the mix, you'll find out if you're truly "efficient"... rather than simply good at getting from one end to the other with minimal strokes.

How to Do It:
1.  First, figure out HOW to get your heart rate. You want to be consistent in how you do this, and there are a couple quick ways. Place two fingers (your index and middle finger) to your neck and feel for your carotid artery. Once you find your pulse, count your heartbeats for 6 seconds and multiply that number by 10. OR, you can count your heartbeats for 10 seconds and multiply by 6. Each method has it's pros and cons. If you count for 6 seconds, your heart rate doesn't have time to drop... but there's a greater chance that your count is inaccurate. If you count for 10 seconds, you get a more consistent count, but your heart rate might have dropped. And, the longer the time you count, the less time between swims you'll have to rest or get ready.
2.  Your goal with this is to find a stroke count (rate), in combination with the time for your swim (speed), in combination with the heart rate that allows you to continue swimming for as long as you need.
3.  For this set, we're doing 6 x 50 meters on :45, which allows enough time to grab the heart-rate for 6 seconds and still get a couple seconds rest. If you get too much rest, or swim for too short a distance, you'll not really be able to discover your "efficiency," but you'll need to stop frequently enough to be able to check how you're doing.
4.  Of course, your target heart rate depends on many things, including age, fitness level, distance of target swim, speed of target swim. However, finding a stroke that allows you to get as close as possible can be achieved through frequent testing with short sets like this.

How to Do It Really Well (the Fine Points):
Instead of 50s, go 100s, 200s, or farther. You can even vary your stroke and see how one stroke increases, or decreases, your heart rate. Also, make sure you're aware of your breathing patterns, and continue to vary your stroke count (rate) to determine which stroke count allows you to maintain a target heart rate for a longer period of time. Use technique to adjust your heart rate, not just increased fitness over time.

Early this week, I just got a new Finis Aqua Pulse. This device tells me my heart rate while I'm swimming. I actually don't have to stop at each 50, and can continue swimming for as long as I want, with the Aqua Pulse telling me my heart-rate at a predetermined interval. More to come on this cool tool in another installment.

cycle rate, efficiency, freestyle, stroke count, heart rate

Responses

camy	Responded Jul 21, 2009 08:02PM Glenn, have you got in mind the formula for calculating maximum heart rate, depending on gender, age and fitness level ? At what ratio of MHR should we swim : 100% for sprint, 70% (?) for long swim, under x % for easy swim ?
Trev	Responded Jul 22, 2009 01:33AM What's that toy? Did you say it monitors your HR?
Glenn Mills	Responded Jul 22, 2009 10:58AM Yep. It's the new Finis Aqua Pulse. Just got it two days before filming this. http://www.finisinc.com/Technology/aquapul... More to come.
Big K	Responded Jul 23, 2009 02:19PM Nice suit! Our coach always tells us the three ways of measuring ourselves are our times, our stroke count and our pulse.
Glenn Mills	Responded Jul 23, 2009 03:48PM This is what you're going to get if they ban techsuits... old men in "speedo's". :)
Big K	Responded Jul 23, 2009 03:56PM I like that alot better than the techsuits! Besides, doesn't everybody train with speedos and/or dragsuits anyway?
Barbara Hummel	Responded Jul 23, 2009 08:09PM A quick definition of terms. Max heart rate is the highest rate your heart can achieve during exercise (usually intense exercise). There are a several formulas for figuring out your max rate, the most common being to subtract your age from 220. Some formulas use 226 for women, and add a further adjustment for your current level of fitness. At this link, you can do a quick calculation: http://exercise.about.com/cs/fitnesstools/... Swimmers should keep in mind that your heart rate in water is usually 13 to 17 beats lower than your heart rate on land, for the same level of effort. This is because of water pressure against your body, and because the water exerts a cooling effect and a buoyancy effect. So if you're a runner who uses a heart-rate monitor and you've carefully calculated all your target heart-rate zones for running, be prepared to adjust your mindset in the pool. The same level of effort will yield a lower heart rate. Once you have your max heart rate, you can calculate your target heart rate (or target heart-rate zone), which is considered to be 50 to 85% of your max heart rate. Most of your training will be done somewhere in the target heart-rate zone. Whether you train at 50, 60, 70, or 85% of max depends on what kind of training you're doing on a particular day or in a particular set. If you're warming up, you're at 50-60%. If you're working on aerobic endurance, you're at 60 to 80%. If you're pushing your anaerobic threshold, you're working at 85%. If you're tapering and training to race short distances, you're working at 85 to 95%. Sometimes, you'll be doing a set that works ALL the zones. So everything depends on what kind of training you're doing on a particular day. The best thing is to calculate your max rate and then go to the pool and experiment. Do a set of moderate-pace 50s or 100s and take your pulse after each swim. Try to keep your heart rate the same for 4 or 5 swims. Then do 4 or 5 more swims and keep your heart rate the same for all of them, but a little higher than before. If you experiment on a daily basis, you'll be more in touch with your body. Swimmers of all ages can benefit from this, and it's actually a lot of fun.
Glenn Mills	Responded Jul 23, 2009 09:00PM @big k... No, not everyone trains in briefs or drags. Some swimmers train in legs or full body suits. They train in something similar to what they'll race in.
camy	Responded Jul 24, 2009 10:38AM Thank you Barbara for your explanation. With the "13 to 17 beats lower", in fact we train harder than we think when we nearly reach the max heart rate!
Jonty Skinner	Responded Jul 24, 2009 02:34PM I must apologize for being so absent the last two weeks... one too many brain training camps to run.. sucked up all my time. My thoughts are very specific. Performance is based off efficiency at race velocity. In order to swim faster, you have to either increase your distance per cycle and maintain cycle rate, or increase your cycle rate while maintaining DPC. If you look at the the DPC option you either reduce drag (shape management) or increase efficiency... by either improving mechanics or increasing strength. So in Glenn's examples he's taken a position that just doing efficiency work with no basis other than "hey check it out... I can take 7 strokes a lap" is very valuable. His connection to pulse rates very good. If you take that a step further, you should connect efficiency to every rung of the energy category ladder as you go up the swimming intensity scale. The key in all of this is understanding that everything has to be calculated based off race velocity and race technique since that end of the spectrum should drive the equation. If you get too enamoured with great efficiency at the low aerobic end, you might never corrolate it to what you want done at the high end. So attaching some form of intensity measurment to the exercise (pulse rate) will allow users to manage the energy categories in a way that helps them attach a relationship between low end efficiency and race efficiency. A few more thoughts.. We are all marrionettes... it's a fact of life that we should entertain and come to grips with. No I'm not talking about the current administration and their desire to increase our dependance on them... I'm talking about the fact that we are puppets working at the behest of the brain. Ironically it keeps us alive and doing stuff so IT can stay alive. What we don't know about that organ is not only amazing and kinda scary in some ways when you look at our evolution. Anyway, that was a long way to say that we have to understand top end stuff in order to design bottom end efficiency, and since the brain will be the final author as to elite performance, we have to help teach it what we want. Spent too much time at the low end, and it will detrain at the high end... so you might be the most efficient person on the planet, but will struggle to perform against hackers. So more focus on the top end versus the bottom end, and most importantly make sure that you link what you're doing at the low end to what you want the brain to manage at the high end. So link your efficiency training to every rung of the energy category ladder. Based on what's going on in Rome... life is going to be very interesting in 2010... which is appropriate based off this conversation. Training will finally come back to the front... efficiency at high velocity will return to being a factor, and no longer will total hackers be able to don a suit that changes their universe and win on race day. I'm sorry if I've angered some with that comment, but this drive back to 1996 makes my heart warm and I am rejuvinated regarding finding ways to swim faster. We're sure going to need all the help we can get if they turn back the clock and we are left with almost untouchable world records to deal with. What an awesome challenge that would be. It will be like surpassing the DDR records all over again.
Big K	Responded Jul 24, 2009 03:01PM @Glenn Mills: Really? I've never seen any age group swimmer training in a racing suit, they wear out pretty fast.
Swimming Freak	Responded Jul 29, 2009 01:48PM i practice whenever i can in a drag suit. What do you practice in Glenn?
javier	Responded Aug 20, 2009 10:08PM I am already old, and reasonably good only at breast stroke. I have some doubts about the application of keeping the hearth rate constant and controlling its changes with number of SPL. Normally once you have warn up (it takes longer older you are) during the training session your heart rate progressively goes up, unless you are in a low aerobic regimen (let say in my case 130). At my age my measured Top Heart Rate, in a medical stress effort test, it is 167, for my 67 years is not bad ( theoretical one is 153). If I apply the drill in 4x50, if I am above 140 my Heart Rate it will go up in each 50 independently of the SPL I could do. So initially I only see this applicable in low HR, for my Breast Stroke it will be in 50 meters above 55sec ( my minimun time is 43sec), but I see difficult to apply in high regime above 145. Please give your feedback. Javier

Please login or signup to leave a comment.

Freestyle - Discovering Efficiency Step 3

Responses

The Pool

Videos-Evals

Drills

Products

Practices

More

Underwater Tag Cloud

Who is GoSwim?

Want More GoSwim?