Measuring your swim progress

Swimming for triathlon encompasses 3 key elements  – technique, fitness & open water.

Many of us fall into the trap of covering distance, often drafting behind those ahead of us in the lane, counting out lengths without taking into account our pace, just swimming. Or maybe you have been working on your technique and do a weekly session with drills to improve your catch or stroke length or rate. 

So how do we know if we are improving?  Well you don’t, unless you measure it.

The Critical Swim Speed (CSS) is your swimming equivalent to the FTP we use in biking  – it’s the threshold pace we can expect to hold over a 1500M swim. (See the link below to see how to carry out this test) Not only is this a metric useful for tracking your training over time, it helps to train us in the different energy systems.

Our UL morning swim sessions, try to target these systems: 

Mondays we swim an Aerobic set – longer interval distances, with a nice recovery.

Wednesdays we work on our endurance – Aerobic threshold intervals.

Fridays it’s a sprint set – short sharp repetitions with long recoveries.

How to Use Critical Swim Speed Training | TrainingPeaks

Don’t go to the pool without a plan – checkout some swim sets in the above link or on your website Swim Sets By Coach Deirdre Kearney ‹ Limerick Triathlon Club