THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE

Photo by Andrey Grushnikov @andrey_nashi

Time and swimming. So closely related. Do you struggle with pacing and does time seem to flash by while you’re in the wet stuff? In this blog I try to explain why that is, how to measure your time in the pool and learn how to match the time in your head to the time on the clock. It’s well worth taking the time for. Happy reading and swimming.

I have Anke Noorman to thank for this post. As a Philosopher, linguist and Artist, she prompted me to write it and outlined the things that should be in it. So, thank you Anke!  I hope it lives up to your high standards. Go check out her website here.

But first, how do we register time in that magical and sometimes crazy lump of mooshy sitting atop our shoulders we call our brains?  We register it as something called Psychological Time. I can see you getting really interested in what comes next. Let’s dive in. 

The nature of Psychological time

Psychological Time could be defined as our subjective experience of time. Chronological time filtered through subjective feelings mapped out in such temporal dimensions as duration, pace and the order of perceived internal and external events.

Thus, you can experience time as flying fast or standing still. Why?
Psychological time is a product of the mind more than a reflection of natural chronological order. (Trautmann 1995).

How does the product of the mind manifest itself? It manifests itself in the perceived flow rate of time. Psychological Time either moves more or less quickly. The mental tasks you perform and the resources you allocate to the timing mechanism determines your experience of the flow rate of time. If you are watching the kettle boil, a lot of your mental attention is going to timing and the flow rate seems slow. Scroll on social media or solve a puzzle in the time the kettle boils and the flow rate seems faster.

The more complex the mental task, the faster the flow rate of time is perceived.  And vice versa. Apply this to learning a new skill, like skateboarding, kettle drumming, a new Language, programming or swimming and you see why time seems to move so fast while you are in the activity itself.

Can we ever experience time in real time? Yes. By staying in the moment. Or what Eckert Tolle describes as the Power of Now. Being in the present is the most powerful tool we have to experience real time movement.
Can we stay in the now and learn new skills? It’s difficult. New skills or complex mental tasks take our focus away from the now and the timing mechanism of the brain.

Psychological Time is thus an expression of our consciousness or being conscious.  Psychological Time is an expression of enjoyment, boredom, learning, despair, fear. Can I be so bold as to say that Psychological Time is an expression of our emotions. In the end Psychological Time is an expression of where we lay our attention.

For more read Psychological Time.

Psychological Time in Swimming

In swimming terms, Anke has rightly said to me that, time feels elastic. It can be stretched or shortened, juicy or tough. And she’s right. It has this “product of our mind” feel to it.
Psychological Time affects how fast or slow we think we are swimming. This of course is crucial to our ability to pace our swimming in longer sets. How?
Most swimmers head off to fast. They are fresh and focused and this means they misjudge their pace or swimming time in their heads because they are focused on other things. Logical as we’ve seen. However, physiologically your body can’t sustain the initial pace because it doesn’t have the fitness. 
Learn to measure your speed accurately: psychological time closer to swimming time and you can sustain a constant speed over a longer period.  The tortoise and the hare come to mind here. Constant speed beats variable speed any day in swimming.

But how can you close the gap in this time warp? By measuring your Critical Swim Speed and applying it. Very scientific stuff this!

What the heck is Critical Swim Speed?

The Critical Swim Speed is your aerobic threshold. Like cruise control in a car, CSS is your aerobic cruise control limit. The speed at which you could swim all day. CSS assesses your current fitness level, and links a time to it, so that you don’t have to rely on Psychological Time going forward. Because as we’ve seen, Psychological Time can be pretty unreliable and tricky depending on our emotions.    
Eventually, and what the whole point of this exercise is, you will be able to translate the quantitative measure of speed (CSS) into a feeling of speed (psychological time).

Measuring Critical swim speed

You measure CSS by swimming 400m and 200m for time. The 400m and 200m should be best efforts. You should try and swim these distances as fast as possible. In Between the distances you take 10 minutes of passive rest. Passive rest means no swimming in between.

So how to calculate CSS.  400m time – 200m time/2 An example: 400m time 7min; 200m time 3m30s. difference = 3m30s/2 = 1m45s. per 100m.

CSS should be measured every six weeks. It is best done with a sports watch.

Note: don’t be nervous. The first time is going to be tricky. You may not know how fast to swim or how to hold your pace. You will get used to it I promise. Just give it your best effort.

How to apply CSS

The application of the CSS requires a piece of equipment called the Tempo Trainer Pro. The TTP is for all intents and purposes a metronome for swimming. It beeps out a time that you insert into it. The time you insert we will get to shortly. The use of the TTP is to counter Psychological Time. It is there to keep you on the straight and narrow and within your aerobic capabilities and fitness. A very powerful tool indeed.

The time you insert into the TTP is CSS divided by four to give you a time per 25m. If we do that with the example above, we get 26.25s per 25m (60+45/4 = 105/4= 26.25). This you can insert into your TTP in setting 1. It allows for 10ths of a second, unlike sports watches, so the .25 can also be entered no problem.

Swim sets based on this outcome depends on your level of fitness, experience and goal. When swimming the sets, we do add time on to the CSS to help reset your Psychological Time swimming mechanism.

Here is an example using the CSS test above.  

10x 200m swum as:

4x 200m CSS +4s = 1m49s/100 = 27.25s/25. 27.25s is entered into the TTP
3x 200m CSS +3s = 1m48s/100 = 27.00s/25
2x 200m CSS +2s = 1m47s/100 = 26.75s
1x 200m CSS +1s = 1m46s/100 = 26.50s

You can always make it harder, by swimming longer, contact me to find out how.

What else can the TTP be used for?

Stroke rate. In setting 3 you can use the TTP to regulate your stroke rate. Stroke rate is how many times per minute you turn your arms. Every hand entry is a stroke. A low stroke rate is 50 Strokes Per Minute or below and a high stroke rate is 80 SPM and above. Between 50 and 80 is the normal range for most swimmers.
What is the optimal stroke rate? That is individual and differs per person. However, it is lower for taller swimmers and higher for shorter swimmers.
Can we measure it? Yes, with a ramp test.
What does the result of the ramp test represent? It represents your optimal stroke rate. But only for you.

Why is Stroke Rate Important?

Because is secures a constant speed in the water. Before I go any further, first some physics and the back story.

Speed = Stroke Length (SL) x Stroke Rate (SR) – Drag. If you forget drag for a moment you can simply say that speed is a function of SL x SR. This means that to maximise speed you should find the sweet spot between the length of your stroke and the speed of those strokes.

The back story is that stroke rate, how quickly the arms are turned, has long been seen only as a function of speeding up. If you swim faster you turn your arms faster. True, but it’s not the whole story. The other side of the coin is that your optimum stroke rate guarantees constant forward propulsion. So, increasing your stroke rate needn’t mean swimming faster.  
The other part of this back story, and that still dominates the swimming landscape, is that your stroke should be as long as possible. You should glide and stop at the front of the stroke.
In fact,  the-data-on-stroke-rate-and-efficiency shows that the longer a stroke becomes, the less efficient it is; increasing Heart rate, oxygen uptake and perceived exertion. So, the story needs a re-write with the inclusion of stroke rate as a function of arm length.

Why is arm length a determinant of stroke rate?

Longer arms turn slower and shorter arms turn faster per stroke cycle. It is a biomechanical fact. Shorter arms displace less distance per stroke than longer arms. Shorter armed people who are also generally shorter people swim less distance per stroke and so have to make more stokes than a taller person. I know, not fair right.
Well in indoor competitive swimming a longer and slower stroke might be helpful, but in open water a higher stroke rate is the way to more efficiently navigate currents, waves and fellow competitors.

Let me remind you that we each have an optimum stroke rate. It can be tested. You are not Michael Phelps who is tall and takes fewer strokes than you and me. Don’t get stuck on the numbers or some well-intentioned person telling you to bring your stroke rate down because it’s more efficient. Or that your SWOLF is too high. That is plain bullshit.

What is SWOLF?

SWOLF appears on all modern sports watches as a metric of efficiency. It is calculated by adding your 25m time to the amount on strokes you make with the watch arm in 25m. An example would be you swim 25m is 30s and take 11 strokes. Your Swolf is 41. What can you discern from this metric?  Nothing really. In their very informative article, is swolf or swim golf really a true measure of efficiency, SwimSmooth point out that it isn’t.

Furthermore, Swimsmooth highlights that counting strokes is going back to the dark ages and that SWOLF is not a valid or reliable indicator of efficiency. Well, why not? For the reasons mentioned above; each swimmer has their own optimal stroke rate and taking less strokes isn’t necessarily more efficient.

So, what’s left to discuss

Nothing. I hope you enjoyed the blog.

Happy swimming and stay conscious!