Endurance Swim Set – How Much Rest?!

Endurance Swim Set – How Much Rest?!

A lot of the thinking around endurance swimming is long, continuous swimming. You’ve heard my thoughts before on this type of session. I would much prefer to break the session up.

If you do break the session up, how much rest should you be taking? Possibly more than you think!

Endurance 50s

Within one of my swim sessions, I swam a 2,000m endurance set recently. It was made up of 50m intervals. For this set – an endurance-focused set – how much rest would you expect me to take between each interval?

5 seconds?

10 seconds?

15 seconds?

20 seconds?

You would think that an endurance set would mean less rest, almost continuous swimming, wouldn’t you?

So, 5 seconds or 10 seconds rest between each 50m interval? Try this set and see how you get on?

20 x 50m with 10 seconds rest between each 50m.

When you do this, notice how fatigue sets in, and how quickly your heart rate climbs. Before you know it, this endurance swim has turned into a zone 3 or a zone 4 effort. Now, if you’re doing 40 or 50 x 50m, imagine your fatigue towards the end. Imagine how difficult it will be to keep a solid swim technique.

If you wear a heart rate monitor and look at the graph afterwards – you will notice that your heart rate ramps up through the set. You will start in zone 2, but by the end of the set your heart rate will be a lot higher than when you started.

Now, the simple thing would be to slow down and swim easier, so your heart rate stays low. Surely that’s the answer. Again, try this. Try and swim really easy, but keep that rest at a strict 10 seconds. You will probably notice your heart rate and RPE increase significantly as the set wears on. And your stroke may become difficult to hold, even with the ‘easy’ pace.

How Much Rest To Take?

For me, when I’m doing this type of set, I will have at least 15 seconds – often 20 seconds – rest between 50s. This allows the heart rate to come down and means I am starting each 50m in a relaxed state. Heart rate will increase, but then come down during the rest interval, so the heart rate graph at the end of the session will be a much shallower increase than the earlier examples.

Taking this much rest means I can do a lot of 50s, at a consistent pace, without my stroke falling apart, and keep my heart rate relatively low. I will finish the session meeting the endurance / zone two goal.

Reduce Rest But Keep Session Intent

As the season wears on, and your fitness improves, you may be able to reduce the rest intervals a little. However, if you do reduce the rest intervals, I often find that instead of an endurance set, the session turns into a threshold focus, with heart rate entering high Zone 3 / Zone 4.

A great set, but not the one we wanted to do!

A Compromise!

The question above was a bit of a trick question, because I did a set using 10, 15, 20 & 25 second rest intervals! This was a different type of set than I usually do, but one which I really enjoyed and one I am suggesting you do this week.

I was holding the same time on all of the 50s (40 seconds). Because of the rest intervals, and the easy 25s in between, the set was very relaxed and I was able to repeat it, making it a 2,000m main set. And breaking it up like this meant it wasn’t a monotonous set of 40 x 50m that dragged, the set design made the time fly by!

The Set

4 x 50m off 50s (10s rest)

2 x 25m easy

4 x 50m off 55s (15s rest)

2 x 25m easy

4 x 50m off 60s (20s rest)

2 x 25m easy

4 x 50m off 65s (25s rest)

2 x 25m easy

For this 2,000m main set, I averaged 1.20/100m, with a heart rate lower than 150bpm for all but two minutes of the set. That’s a nice endurance set!

What Do You Reckon?

What do you think? Would you do this set? Would you be happy taking this much rest between each 50m interval? Give it a try and see how you get on?

Endurance Swim Set – How Much Rest?!

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