Swimming pace?

mulecanter

Can anyone tell me what is considered "fast free-style" vs "moderate free-style"? The calorie burn rates in MFP give those two options, I'm not sure how to gauge myself. Is there a minutes per quarter mile number or something similar to use as a guide? Also, how can it be that breaststroke burns at the same rate as fast free style?--seems counter intuitive to me as free style kills me and I can breaststroke all day long.

call3na

I not been basing it on pace - more on how much effort I'm putting in. If I'm doing sprints then I'll put it in at fast, but if I'm doing distance then I just put in as moderate.

I'm not sure if this is what is intended though...

Also it doesn't really take into account breaks, if I'm doing sprints then I'd do say 2 lengths as fast as I can (generally 45 secs for the 2) with a 30 second rest before the next set. But if I'm doing distances then I tend to average 30 sec lengths but keep on going for as long as I feel like (today 30 lengths was my furthest). So the break times are fewer as I might take a minute break before setting off for another set of 10 or whatever.

subakwa

Don't use the MFP figures. Go to caloriesburnedhq.com and use the distance:time:body weight calculator to cover the variables.

Adi4Fitness

I tend to go by effort exerted minus the break/rest times.

steadygirl06

I generally do light/moderate effort to account for the overestimation and deduct rest times. Sounds like you need to push yourself harder with breaststroke

mulecanter

Thanks all

Djproulx

mulecanter wrote: »

. Also, how can it be that breaststroke burns at the same rate as fast free style?--seems counter intuitive to me as free style kills me and I can breaststroke all day long.

I'm merely an average swimmer, but I've learned that freestyle is all about technique. The truly fast swimmers in my tri club are very efficient and get great streamlining and glide, so their effort is sustainable "all day long" , just like your breast stroke.

As soon as my form breaks down in freestyle, my drag is increased and I tire very quickly. So assuming good form in each stroke, I could understand the burn rate being similar for both.

tillerstouch

To answer the question about being able to do breaststroke for longer it's probably because you don't put as much effort into breast stroke.

Breast stroke can be very easy to swim but to swim fast doing breast stroke is very technique driven and very difficult. I'd guess when you swim freestyle you put in more effort then you do when you do breast stroke.

Also I'm guessing they don't really mean pace but mean intensity. Because fast is so objective. In high school I would swim distance and could do a 500 in under 5:30 to a lot of people that's probably fast but to a distance swimmer that's pretty average if not slow.

SwimmyD

From what I've gathered from the posts in the swimmers group by people who've done the math and compared calculators from different sites, anything under 50 metres a minute is "slow to medium" and anything faster is "fast"(freestyle).

Personally I don't differentiate between the different strokes because I'm changing up my strokes, drills and sets constantly. I log everything as slow/medium, and only use fast when I'm actually clocking in under 1:45 min per 100 m. Otherwise the calorie burns are insane, and I might be tempted to over eat. Like every other exercise in the data base, the numbers are inflated, and for CICO you've got to watch it.

As for breast stroke, yes a lot of folks have a slow wide stroke, or a head up stroke, and can go on for hours. There is no way they are burning at the "fast freestyle" level. When I'm going close to race pace breast stroke, it's every bit as difficult as fast freestyle. Breast stroke done properly is very technical, so I assume that the caculators were based on measurements on very efficient swimmers - which is also how they got the speeds/distances for freestyle burns of slow/med/fast as outlined above.

mulecanter

SwimmyD wrote: »

From what I've gathered from the posts in the swimmers group by people who've done the math and compared calculators from different sites, anything under 50 metres a minute is "slow to medium" and anything faster is "fast"(freestyle).

Personally I don't differentiate between the different strokes because I'm changing up my strokes, drills and sets constantly. I log everything as slow/medium, and only use fast when I'm actually clocking in under 1:45 min per 100 m. Otherwise the calorie burns are insane, and I might be tempted to over eat. Like every other exercise in the data base, the numbers are inflated, and for CICO you've got to watch it.

As for breast stroke, yes a lot of folks have a slow wide stroke, or a head up stroke, and can go on for hours. There is no way they are burning at the "fast freestyle" level. When I'm going close to race pace breast stroke, it's every bit as difficult as fast freestyle. Breast stroke done properly is very technical, so I assume that the caculators were based on measurements on very efficient swimmers - which is also how they got the speeds/distances for freestyle burns of slow/med/fast as outlined above.

I think you are right about using slow/medium as default. I'm guessing I'm average in terms of efficiency which probably isn't saying much. Like running, I think I tend to fall into a comfortable pace and just stay in the rut forever. Having a time for distance benchmark is all I'm really looking so I guess I need to get in the pool and time myself a few times.