I do not come from a swimming background. I have been swimming in a 25 yard pool the past 4 years and I just started swimming in a 50 meter pool. My workouts feel 10 times harder. My times are not that much slower but it feels like I am struggling the entire workout. Anyone have similar experiences or am I just imagining things?
LC is harder because you don’t get to break, flip, and push-off/glide from the wall every 25 yards. in a 25 yard pool you swim about 40 yards per 50 - the rest is gliding. in LC you swim about 45 meters per 50. it adds up.
LC is harder. If you look at Swimming WRs they are slower for LC than for SC. I usually use about a 5% conversion to estimate how much harder. It should be a lot closer to what you need for a race though.
Yes, it is harder at first. But it’s good for you. If you’re doing a LCM workout written up in SCY, there’s a nifty little conversion app at:
http://www.swiminfo.com/results/conversions.asp
Then round up or down to the nearest 5 seconds.
for sure LC swimming is harder… as mentioned you can’t break it up by flip turning and gliding. I’ve found that when I train in LC, my 100 repeat times are about 5 sec slower, but conversly when I race in LC i’ve pb’d… so go figure, i think its because last year my flip turns were so much worse.
David