Training Your Heart
It is quite important that when you are swimming fast, you know that you are swimming hard enough. The water can be deceptive and can make you think that you are training quite hard due to the continuous resistance or specific drills that you are doing, but the only way of knowing whether you are hitting the correct targets is by measuring your heart rate.
The different programmes will specify whether or not you are training aerobic (with oxygen) or anaerobic (without oxygen) and the ‘threshold’ is the maximum speed which you can swim at for a period of time. Sprinting will require maximum effort and only your heart rate will tell you whether or not you have worked hard enough.
The easiest way on completion of a swim is to take your heart rate and count the beats for six seconds. That number is multiplied by ten to give you the number of beats in a minute. Depending on your maximum heart rate (220-age) you should be working between 85% and 90% to be at an anaerobic threshold.
Your recovery heart rate is just as important as your exercising heart rate as this will give you an indication of your fitness level. After swimming fast, take your heart rate and then rest for one minute before taking it again. The closer it comes to your resting heart rate the fitter you are.
