Logging Swimming

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djbrink21
djbrink21 Posts: 97 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I've recently started swimming in preparation for doing a triathlon in the future. Biking and running are easy to log, put in heart rate monitor and log calories burned into MFP. But swimming I just have time and distance due to the lack of an HRM. MFP has two freestyle entries, fast/vigorous and light/moderate, but these have no speed or time amounts. Does anyone have advice as to what each relate to in real life? Once again running and biking have speeds so even without an HRM I'd have a good idea of which to choose when logging, but swimming just has these two vague levels. Help!

To give some perspective today I swam 2050 yards (1.16 miles) in 60 minutes of which 51 minutes was active time. I was surely tired afterwards, but nowhere as much as after biking or running an equivalent distance, so I used the light/moderate level.

Thoughts and advice VERY welcome. Thanks!

Replies

  • meltoine
    meltoine Posts: 46 Member
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    What HRM do you use? I wear my Polar FT4 in the water. Double check your manual.
  • tanyajosee
    tanyajosee Posts: 1
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    Does your FT4 work well in the water? I just got one and haven't tried it yet, in or out of water.
  • ka97
    ka97 Posts: 1,984 Member
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    I generally use light/moderate for regular lap or open water swims, and only use fast/vigorous if I'm doing speedwork. I don't know if that is actually correct, but it makes sense to me.

    I did google a swimming calculator once (sorry don't remember the site) and for a 1 mile swim I got a number that was comparable to the light/moderate entry in the mfp database.
  • IHateThinkingOfAUsername
    IHateThinkingOfAUsername Posts: 568 Member
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    http://www.swimmingcalculator.com/swim_calories_calculator.php
    I currently use that to estimate my burn, but soon I will be getting a Polar FT1 which is waterproof. (I did consider the Swimovate PoolMate HR but as I swim in a 14m pool I'm not sure it'd be able to count my laps).

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