So when you did these how were they structured? 100-1 min rest-200- rest?- 400

Some good sets are doing
-10x 100 on interval (for you I would do them on 1:40 and at next test try 1:35)

If you are short course you can try
100 All Out
1 min rest
500 best effort


If your doing long course you can do 30 min test every 6 weeks to gauge fitness and change your intervals etc.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Personally I don't like "tests" and just swim as much as I can. What you've shown is very normal, many swimmers cannot hold their 100m pace for longer than 100/200 metres.

My PBs?
100m: 0:58
200m: 2:15
400m: 5:20

(I hate long distance!)

A 1500m test would give you an idea of your race pace, then you should try to mimic that or beat it in training where possible. Look up the swimming thread here, for some great workout sets.

Personally I don't like "tests" and just swim as much as I can

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if your interval training every set pretty much can be a "test" in knowing that you should be making intervals easier and thus drop interval time over the course of training. So very often you don't need "test sets". You should know based on your swim times how it's going.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

We need more information like your age. Your times look pretty good. If you go to the SwimSmooth site they likely have their method of determining you critical swim speed posted somewhere there. It is a method of determining where you intervals should be and your speed for races etc. I think it involves swimming a 200 and 400 m swim. Allows for structured training etc.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Yes that's exactly what I was trying to say :)

Do you race? There's your test. In peak swim condition, I was training for distance only. I swam competitively for a long time, only ever went a :24 in 50y free. Mind, I never swam it in a meet, so that time is from a push. Maybe went under :54 in the 100.

However, I could also swim a 5k under an hour (approx 1:05/100y or 1:12/100m) and a 10k just over two hours holding 1:07/100y or 1:14/100m. Those are open water times, mind. In the pool I could hold 1:02 for ever and ever and ever.

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"The person on top of the mountain didn't fall there." - unkown

also rule 5

I'd say that's a pretty normal distribution of times.

Another way to think of tests is that you have repeating sets that are similar to the event you want to do, and you do them regularly. It doesn't have to be x times 100, but if you hang around on swimming sites and the fish threads here, you'll find some that you like.

Another one is 3/300 with a minute rest between.

The test you did is probably to determine critical pace for various distances. It might be fine for that.

many swimmers cannot hold their 100m pace for longer than 100/200 metres. //

Just to clarify, "0" swimmers can hold their 100 time pace for a 200. Even Michael Phelps the greatest 100/200 swimmer we have ever seen cannot do this. There is your 100m time, and then your 200m one, the 200 will always be slower going off pace compare to that 100.

Age is 187 cm, weight 76-77kg. Age 34 if it matters.

No it's doesn't matter really! Just swim! Try find a masters team close by that you can do some structured workouts with. And try aim for 10km per week in the pool. That's 3x1hr sessions with a structured warm-up, main set and cool down. Don't just go and faff about doing 100s

I swim with a good group 2-4x/w.
Is 10k enough? I try to aim for 15-20 k
But as stated, avg for this year is 12k and last year 6k/w

Well then you're in great shape! Keep doing what you're doing.

And next swim practice go a bit harder.

Rule of thumb :

200 time = ( 100 time x2 ) + 10s

400 time = (200 time x2) + 20s

So your 200 was a little weaker than your 100 or your 400, on that day. Not that unusual. Im the opposite, my 200 is slightly stronger than my 100 and 400.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Good job. Take the swimsmooth CSS test to find out your threshold (sustainable) pace.

Sorry to hear you could not even crawl 50m, though.
Your run times must have been awful!

If only this worked for butterfly.

I actually like having a "test" on a semi regular basis (although I don't do them as often as I should) because we only have a handful of meets each year, and I rarely repeat the same workout. Even something as simple as 20x100 gets done differently almost every time. A test lets me know whether I'm going forward or backward.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Bad endurance? I'd say the opposite; somewhat lacking in sprint capacity. If you were ~equally adept at the two distances, a 5:56 400 would mean you should be able to swim a 1:14-1:15 100.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Yes age matters. If you were 50 and doing those times you would be a super stud. I think they are still good times. I am 51 last year I was in my best shape in 20 years because I was joined in the "fast lane" by two guys in their late 20s both x-varsity swimmers. They had been off swimming for about a year. For the first month it was okay. They just kept getting better though. The breaking point was a 4 X 400m set which the coach said to do on 7:30. I came in on the first one last at 6:45 and thought I can do this. The young studs thought it was not fast enough so they changed to on 6:30 min and I was done.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Just keep swimming, those are pretty good times for someone who's only been swimming for 2.5 years. Let race results be your test, don't overthink it. If you have swim meets in your neck of the woods, then yeah, try a 800m or 1500m race. That's a better test than on your own as that will add a little adrenaline to the mix. Don't worry about getting lapped by the "real" swimmers, I've been there many times. Keep banging out those 100's during workouts, your OW times will come down.

Every year the local masters group has a 1 hour postal swim (aka T60). It's a one hour swim to see how far you can go. Shoot for 4000m, that's a good goal.

I agree, especially if your objective is triathlon. A sub-6-minute 400 is a pretty good effort. That should translate to a sub-25 minute 1500, or ~35 minutes for 1.2 miles.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

My point is that with regular timed intervals you shouldn't need "test" sets to know if your progressing or regressing. If your waiting for the test set to confirm progress, imo your training likely isn't structured *enough*. Even if you are doing say different sets of 20x100s.

now the test set can be great to show you went X time 6 weeks ago and Y time now. That's more confirmation, but if your doing interval based sets, you'll know fairly regularly where your swimming within training.

(And you know this already).

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

If anyone can hold their 100m pace for more than 100 they aren't swimming their 100m hard enough.

Johan - Are your times scm or lcm??? It is a bit easier to hold a given pace in scm if you have semi-decent turns. Also, were these swims done all on same day, or diff days??? How rested were you??? If diff days, did you feel stronger on 1 or 2 days vs not so good 3rd day??? Know you said the 400 m seemed harder but that may have just been due to the longer distance plus perhaps you went out a touch too fast. In any case, you're definitely doing well for only 2.5 yrs of swimming.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Interesting. I plugged mine in to that formula and I'm right on track for my 100 and 400 but I'm a bit slow for my 200 by something like 10 seconds (I extrapolated what my 400 time should be based on my 100). IRL my 400 time is exactly double my 200 time.

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Dan Mayberry
Amateur a lot of things, professional a few things.