[1]

How to systematically

improve the way you do your

intervals for faster, more efficient

swimming

Produced by

www.swimsmooth.com

Week 1

Your Mission (should you choose to accept it)

reduce your threshold times by approximately 5% in 10 weeks & get

results!

Week 2

Week 10

25.0s per 25m / 1:40 per 100m25:00 for 1500m

24.85s per 25m / 1:39.4 per 100m24:51 for 1500m

23.5s per 25m / 1:34 per 100m23:30 for 1500m

THE “POWER METER” FOR YOUR SWIMMING!Identify your threshold pace and work to systematically improve it by following the beep!

CONTROL YOUR PACING!Use the Tempo Trainer PRO to precisely pace your efforts and avoid “garbage yardage” by blowing up!

KEEP THINGS SUPER SIMPLE!One baseline pace to improve. One simple gadget. No watches. No pace clocks. Just you against the beep!

Follow the systematic 10 week program within using your new

FINIS Tempo Trainer PRO

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FINIS Tempo Trainer PRO

The new Finis Tempo Trainer PRO is programmable to 1/100th of a second accuracy, which opens up a world of potential for steadily and consistently chipping away at your times regardless of your ability level. It is quite simply the best $50 you can spend on your swimming!

REMOVE YOURSELF FROM YOUR SPEED PLATEAU WITH THIS SIMPLE STEP-BY-STEP 10 WEEK TRAINING GUIDEAbstract:

127 athletes from the Swim Smooth Perth Squad were tested on 13th January 2012 for their Critical Swim Speed (CSS) pace per 100m using the 400m and 200m Time Trial method first proposed in 1993 by Ginn*. A 10 week CSS Development Program was designed and put in place with the view that it might be possible to improve the swimmer's performance by reducing the CSS time per 25m by 0.5% per week using the Finis Tempo Trainer PRO to help control pacing accuracy for the incremental improvements proposed. The swimmers typically swam 2 to 3 times per week for 2.5km to 4km in a given session. One session per week was set aside to purely work on developing this aspect of their performance by adapting to progressively faster CSS times.

By 30th March 2012, 57 of the original 127 athletes had been re-tested and 25 new athletes had also been tested for their current CSS pace.

79% of the swimmers who were retested reduced their time.  There was an average reduction in CSS pace by 3%, the greatest improvement being a whopping 14%!

45 out of the 57 athletes re-tested improved their CSS pace with the training intervention, 42 out of the 57 improved their 400m times and 40 out of the 57 improved their 200m times. The greatest improvement was seen by Alen Pezzin dropping his CSS time by an amazing 13.62%!

ACTION: How much can you improve following this same plan? The swimmers in this study were all training hard prior to commencement, so if you are relatively untrained you could see even bigger jumps!

*Ginn, E. (1993), "The application of the critical power test to swimming and swim training programmes", National Sports Research Centre

Use the FINIS Tempo Trainer PRO

as your ultimate virtual training

partner!

www.swimsmooth.com

Produced by

How to systematically improve the way you do your intervals for faster, more efficient swimming

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Introduction:

CSS stands for 'Critical Swim Speed' and closely equates to your continuous 1500m pace in race-like conditions. It's an excellent measure of your current level of aerobic fitness and can be estimated by doing a 400m Time Trial and a 200m Time Trial and comparing the two. Put very simply, the 400m swim assesses the aerobic / endurance component of your current fitness and the 200m swim assesses the anaerobic / sprint component of your current fitness. This is a bit of a gross simplification of what the equation looks for, but essentially allows you to extrapolate out what pace you should then be able to maintain for longer distances based on the slope of this curve. It has been used in sports science since the early 1990s as a non-invasive way of testing and monitoring for improvements over time and is much easier to do psychologically than a 1500m Time Trial every 4-6 weeks, and let’s face it - what gets measured, gets improved!

You can read more about the validity of CSS testing at: http://www.topendsports.com/testing/tests/critical-swim-speed.htm and in more simple language at: http://www.swimsmooth.com/training.html

We've been using the new FINIS Tempo Trainer PRO in our Swim Smooth Perth Fresh 'n' Fruity CSS sessions for the last five months to accurately gauge pacing over a set distance. Before the FINIS unit we were using the Wetronome and have been using this in a similar fashion for the last 4 years in the squad. The beepers are set to beep once every time you should be at each 25m mark, e.g. if you wanted to swim 1:40 per 100m, it should be set to beep every 25 seconds (4 x 25 seconds = 100 seconds = 1:40). Simple - you either stay with the pace or you don't - a little like the red World Record line at the Olympics overlaid to visually show how close to a new record a swimmer is - when you set off too fast it's likely you'll end up blowing up and the red line will get ahead of you. This is easily done if you’re keen to improve or in a squad session fearing others will catch you up, but can have a very detrimental effect on your long-term improvement.

With the new Tempo Trainer PRO it has been possible to more accurately set the pace to be precise to 1/100th of a second, so as opposed to just full second increments being available (giving steps of 4" per 100m), we've been able to set paces to 0.04" per 100m accuracy! Amazing! This then prompted the idea - how much improvement in someone's threshold pace (a key determinant of their endurance ability over any distance >400m) is possible over a given time frame like 10 weeks?

Hypothetically, coaches have often discussed the potential to improve by approximately 5% in a whole season (i.e. 9 to 12 months) with a consistent approach to their athlete's training programs. However, not until now has such a device been available in swimming to control the accuracy and performance of a swimmer in a given training set. Given that to make a 5% improvement in a whole season actually requires just incredibly small steps in improvement to be made each session, I proposed that it may be possible to see an average of 0.5% improvement per week over 10 weeks following a very structured program designed specifically to bolster improvement in CSS pace for masters swimmers / triathletes of varying ability typically swimming 2-3 times per week for 2.5 to 3.5km per session. This improvement equates to a goal of approximately 5% reduction in CSS time per 25m over the 10 weeks. Given the variety of abilities within our group, this seemed like a reasonable, albeit optimistic, goal to aim for.

Method:

The plan was to use the beepers to set progressively faster CSS times per 25m by 0.5% each week for a key session every Wednesday or Friday morning. This typically equated to just 0.1s to 0.25s per 25m after the swimmers were all tested in mid-January 2012. Such a small margin was deemed to be barely perceivable by the swimmers and as such the goal of 0.5% improvement per week was set upon. Each week the main set was split up into

two parts - the 'pace control set' (a series of 5 to 10 x 100m intervals with a full

25m beep cycle recovery, i.e. ~18 to 30 seconds rest) and a second 'maintain speed over distance set' (a total of 1000m of longer intervals with shorter relative recoveries aiming to stay as close to the set pace as possible). Even up to Week 10, most swimmers found the first set doable (given the 4:1 work to rest ratio) and were encouraged to use this first set to really dial in the pace awareness at the new speed each week with the view of avoiding 'blowing-up' for the second part of the main set. The second part was always kept 'blind' to the swimmers so that they did not hold back in anticipation on the 100m intervals. Sticking to these times from week 5/6 onwards proved to be quite challenging, especially for the faster, more experienced swimmers.

127 athletes were initially tested for their CSS pace and allocated set training groups (lanes) according to their ability within the three Swim Smooth Perth squads at 5.30am, 6.30am and 9.30am. The fastest swimmer in each lane was to use the beeper to control the pace for the whole group and up to 5 seconds difference in CSS pace per 100m was seen within each lane between the fastest swimmers in the lane to the slower swimmers. In theory, every swimmer should have followed the same protocol at their own set CSS pace using their own beeper, but given the drag effect created by in-line lane etiquette (even when the swimmers were 5 to 10 seconds apart) and with up to 10 swimmers per 50m lane, this was seen to be impractical. This of course will be much easier for you to adhere to if following this program yourself.

NEVER BEFORE HAVE SWIMMERS HAD A TOOL THAT CAN SO EASILY ASSIST WITH LONG-TERM MEASURABLE DEVELOPMENT

The FINIS Tempo

Trainer acts like your own

coach

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Method (cont.)

Your resultant CSS pace might at first glance appear a little easy for those of you with experience of interval training but remember that CSS is about a hard 1500m pace. Certainly you could swim quicker than CSS in an intervals session with lots of recovery but CSS sets should be performed with short recoveries so that the training effects are focused on the energy systems used in distance swimming, not sprinting.

An ideal week during this 10 week test period might look like this:

Monday: 2-3km of some easy drill and technique work, including 5 x 200m at a pace of 4s per 100m slower than CSS pace, maintaining good form.

Wednesday: 2.5-4km of some longer intervals. The “Red Mist Set” of 10 x 300 or 400m with the 1st 4 @ CSS +6s per 100m, next 3 @ CSS +5s per 100m, next 2 @ CSS +4s per 100m and last one at CSS +3s per 100m (i.e. getting marginally faster per 400m interval throughout the set but all still at sub-threshold pace) is a good, but challenging session.

Friday: 2-3km following the details of the 10 Week Program in the left bar (adjacent)

You might swim more than this per week, but this would have been the average volume / intensity of those swimmers tested in our squad. The key (as always!) is consistency - better to do the above every week for 10 weeks than starting off as a “hero” but then missing multiple sessions further through the program.

Results:

The hypothetical goal of an average 4.5% reduction in CSS time per 25m for the squad (0.5% per week compounding over 10 weeks) was not achieved, but an average reduction of 2.59% was observed.  

45 out of the 57 athletes re-tested improved their CSS pace with the training intervention, 42 out of the 57 improved their 400m times and 40 out of the 57 improved their 200m times. The greatest improvement was seen by Alen Pezzin dropping his CSS time by an amazing 13.62%!

How much do you stand to improve using this simple program? At the very least it will introduce you to:

1. what CSS pace is all about2. how to pace yourself correctly3. inspire new session ideas based around

these concepts4. show you the value of consistent,

measured training

Full results from the Swim Smooth Perth Squad can be seen at: http://www.swimsmooth.com/pauls_images/CSS_Retest.pdf

NB. swimmers highlighted in purple did not complete the initial test, but were tested along with the rest of the group on 30/3/12 for the ongoing benefit.

10 WEEK PROGRAMStep 1:

Complete a 400m and 200m time trial in the pool you normally train in and then calculate your CSS starting pace using the calculator at www.swimsmooth.com/training or using the free Swimulator+ App by Steve Casson, Swim Smooth Certified Coach.

Step 2:

Calculate your 10 week CSS Progression using the spreadsheet at http://www.swimsmooth.com/pauls_images/CSS_Development.xlsx or simply reducing your 25m CSS target by 0.15s per week.

Step 3: Choose one day each week from your 2-3 regular weekly sessions where you will train using your Tempo Trainer PRO. After a warm-up of 600m to 1000m including some drills and some short efforts to get the heart rate up, start the 6 to 10 x 100m “Control Set”, i.e. holding each week’s new CSS pace and taking 1 beep recovery between each interval. The challenge here is pacing these accurately as the pace will initially feel slightly too easy.

Step 4:

In the second part of the main set, follow the sets below per week. These prove to be very challenging!

WEEK

1. 200m, 300m, 500m (all +2 beep recovery)

2. 10 x 100m +10s recovery (i.e. 50% of one beep use the re-sync button to re-start the Tempo Trainer after 10s rest)

3. 2 x 500m + up to 3 beeps recovery (if you make the time!)

4. 4 x 100m beating the beeper by 3s, 3 x100m 4s faster, 2 x 100m 5s faster, 1 as hard as possible (all +2 beeps recovery)

5. 1 x 1000m6. Repeat Week 1 but just 1 beep recovery7. 400m, 100m, 400m, 100m (all + 1 beep)8. 5 x 200m first two with 2 beeps recovery,

last three with 1 beep recovery9. 400m, 300m, 200m, 100m (all + 2 beeps

or whatever is remaining of 2 beeps if you fall behind)

10. Repeat of last week but reverse order and only 1 beep recovery

Use Swimulator+

to easily calculate your

CSS pace

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Discussion:

CSS closely equates to your continuous 1500m pace in race-like conditions and the calculation (as seen at: http://www.swimsmooth.com/training) attempts to extrapolate that from the 400m and 200m Time Trial speeds. If a swimmer has a fast 200m time but seems to be much slower relative to other swimmers in his / her lane over 400m an 'Aerobic to Anaerobic Ratio'* of over 4.0% is typically observed. This says he / she is more anaerobic in their physiology and is either naturally suited or has trained (or both) for short distance swims. Other swimmers have a much lower drop-off between their 200m and 400m times and therefore are much more likely to be good distance swimmers. As shown in the chart below, the calculation is predicting this trend will continue and that the pure distance swimmer will start to get progressively faster than the middle distance swimmer over distances of more than 400m.

*this is a super simplified way of describing the drop-off in times between the 200m and 400m swims.

...really this has to be the case or the fastest 100m sprinter in the world would also be the best at 400m and 1500m – when in fact these three distances need different athletes with different physiologies. The sprinter needs pure power and a strong anaerobic system. The middle-distance swimmer needs a compromise between anaerobic and aerobic and the distance swimmer needs a great aerobic system.

The key thing here is that if the middle distance swimmer wants to maximize his distance swimming he / she needs to do more CSS work and not focus on training his anaerobic system with lots of short, sharp sprints. 

Probably the best example of this within our squad is that of Bill Moody. In 2009 Bill trained up for the Australian National Masters Championships in the 50m freestyle sprint event. He's a natural born sprinter with a very good turn of speed. 10 weeks ago his CSS pace was 1:44 per 100m with an 'Aerobic to Anaerobic Ratio' of 6.39%. Bill had a tendency of setting off too quick in interval sessions and during training for the Rottnest Channel Swim Event (20km) performed a 10km training swim which started off at a pace of ~16:00 per km but by the end had dropped to over 24:00 per km. Had this happened during the actual event, Bill ran the risk of not even finishing. The CSS intervention training and a lot of work spent at approximately 8 seconds per 100m slower than CSS pace resulted in Bill dropping his ratio to 3.68% and improving his CSS pace to 1:38 per 100m. This took a lot of trust on Bill's part as it’s quite hard at first to understand how going slower and pacing well can make you faster in the long-term. Bill didn't get any faster over 200m, but for distance freestyle he didn't need to - his performances above 400m though really

improved. A sensational result that ensured that he completed the Rottnest Channel Swim in a very respectable 7h05m - Bill actually got faster by going slower and getting REALLY good at pacing!

This is arguably one of my proudest coaching achievements to

date given how weird these ideas must have sounded to Bill at the time.

Whilst this protocol primarily looked at trying to improve the swimmer's CSS pace, it was also beneficial to see improvements in the outright performances over 400m and 200m. Given that some 'strange' results can occur (as detailed below), it was good to see that nearly 74% of the squad got faster in both 400m and 200m times.

• A swimmer's CSS pace can improve despite their 200m speed in particular decreasing due to the slope of the

extrapolated line essentially become more gradual. This can show one of two things: 1) more focus has been on CSS and endurance type work (as per the 10 Week Program); 2) the swimmer was too tired from the 400m exertion and correspondingly did not perform well over the 200m. This becomes particularly evident if the 200m time is more than half of the 400m time and can lead to erroneous results as in theory it's impossible for a swimmer's speed to not be at least as fast over 200m as it is over 400m as at some point within the 400m test the swimmer must have swum 200m as fast as (or faster than) half the 400m time.

• It is possible for a swimmer to get slightly faster over 400m but a lot faster over 200m and for his / her CSS pace to appear to decrease or be exactly the same as it was at the start of the 'experiment'. It can be explained by either the swimmer not performing as well on the 400m swim (possibly due to pacing) or typically from having some time off, i.e. endurance drops off but freshness increases and over short distances the swimmer is able to knock out a pretty quick time. It can also occur if the swimmer's training has been skewed much more towards shorter, faster intervals well above CSS pace, i.e. sprinting.

Of course, ideally we'd have liked to see everyone improve (that was the aim after all!) but a 79% improvement rate in CSS across the entire group is a pretty good result all round. Some possible suggestions for those who didn't improve or only improved a touch are:

1. How consistently were they swimming 2-3 times per week and attending the Fresh 'n' Fruity Test Set each week?

2. Could they have just had an 'off day' (we all have them!) - if they felt like they’d been progressively well recently, I asked them to re-test the following week.

3. Had they been on holiday during this last 10 week period, or been sick / injured? Could that explain it?

4. Are they already swimming pretty quick (i.e. lane 4 or 4.5) - could they already be nearing their ceiling of improvement? Was 0.5% per week simply too much to ask?

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Summary:

I do hope you've all found this 10 Week CSS Development Program to be at the very least intriguing! If you're still reading now, firstly, well done (!) and secondly I hope it's helped improve your knowledge and interest of how to improve your efficiency for distance swimming purely from a training / physiology perspective, i.e. irrespective of any specific stroke technique development work you did during this period. Let us know how you get on at feedback@swimsmooth.com

Feedback from one of our squad swimmers: Jeff

Hey Paul, A little bit hard for me to share how excited I was this morning with my 800m time… So I’ll do it over email. 7 weeks of doing the 530am Tuesday / Wednesday / Friday sessions took me from 13:15 to 12:14 (or something like that anyway). I have been stuck at 1:40 per 100m pace for years so this feels like a massive break through!

 I understood the concept of “CSS” but now I’ve seen it actually work. The discipline of 3 sessions a week, respecting each session (no cheating), and operating at / around threshold has helped me a lot.

Chris McCormack talks about threshold sessions where if you are working above threshold you can only do a little bit of work at that level (like trying to pull your threshold up) whereas working just below your threshold you can do a lot more work at that level (like pushing your threshold up). Obviously we do a bit of both of those over the course of the week. But after you moved me “down” to lane 2 felt like I was able to sit just below threshold – and therefore do more work. It was comfortably uncomfortable. So a big thank you from me! It’s really worked! Jeff P.S. 15 weeks until Busso now. Will be interesting to see if there is a little bit more improvement in there somewhere!

IM Champ Kate Bevilaqua swears by CSS training using her FINIS Tempo Trainer PRO Since starting to be coached by Paul Newsome in 2010 I have dropped my 3.8km swim time from 63 minutes to 49 minutes using the principles of improvement in this program - my favorite is the 10 x 400m Red Mist Set - give it a go, its worked wonders for me!

Coaches: managing a big squad becomes very easy when every lane has a set goal pace!Running a squad of well over 180 athletes is not easy normally. Testing for CSS pace every 6-8 weeks is a good way of ascertaining everyone’s benchmarks. Using the Tempo Trainer PRO to then control the pace of the lead swimmer is a great way to ensue accurate pacing and frees up your time as a coach to assess technique and offer motivational advice rather than being stumped with five different stopwatches around your neck!

(times expressed per 25m)