USE PERSONAL BEST TIMES TO DETERMINE A BASELINE
The quickest way to establish a Baseline is to use a current 100 competition race time for Freestyle. This does need to be the same as the pool that you are planning on doing your training in however.
Is this accurate, yes and no. It is very accurate in determining your training potential, but it does not take into account your physiology, such as are you a sprinter with fast twitch muscles or a distance specialist with slow twitch muscles. SwiftDuck offers a range of goal times and recommended cycles that one can use to adjust and stay within range. But, you are better off using your race time as well as a baseline determined through and in practice test set. The test sets will help you see clearer what your true training potential is or is not
USE THE CALCULATOR BELOW TO DETERMINE A BASELINE USING THE 400 / 200 CRITICAL SPEED TEST SET
You will perform an appropriate warm up in your pool.
After your body is ready to perform at speed have you or somebody else, time a race 400 without stopping. Your goal is to go as fast as possible, but not to drop off too much as you race. This would be considered sustained speed.
When you complete this, swim a recovery swim, perhaps some easy technique swim until you are ready to perform again…perhaps 15 minutes of easy.
You will then perform the same racing and recording of times but this time you will only swim a 200 of sustained speed. When finished, warm down properly.
You need to turn your minutes and seconds into seconds before entering them into the calculator. Once finished, you will have at least one piece of your Baseline speed.
It is recommended to perform this test a few times over the first few weeks or months if you are just getting started. As you get used to the set, your results will improve and your training accuracy will be more on target
USE TRIATHLON RESULTS TO DETERMINE A BASELINE
An easy way to at least get started and play around, is to use some common Triathlon results to help establish a baseline.
First, it must be noted that many Olympic distance races are not as accurate as you would like to think. The Olympic mens champions were swimming 17:00 all out in a pack with Gold on the line. I have seen many age group results below that at small regional races…probably unlikely. Also, weather and crowd conditions, in-water or running starts alter things quite a bit. Some people get nervous and blow out the swim and others coast behind the pack.
That all being said, it is a start if you are totally against doing an in pool test set at max effort. Ironman results, I would trust a bit more as you have prepared for months, and you find a steady sustained effort, and you can trust that the distance is fairly close to the advertised distance.
If you find some of your results and they are off of each other by huge margins…perhaps you just need to do an in water test?
If you missed the first 2 baseline methods, Scroll to the top of the page
3 x 300 Test Set
Another Test set that can help determine your baseline speed is a set of 3 x 300. This test would be performed similar to the 400 / 200 test set with appropriate warm up and warm down. The difference between the two though would be that you are only taking about a minute of rest after each 300. It is important to get accurate results and you do not want to all out sprint the first one and completely fade out the next two. You are again looking for sustained speed all the way to the end, where you just make it to the finish line before running out of gas.
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