Critical Swim Speed (CSS) is an important metric to understand in the world of swimming. It measures the fastest speed a swimmer can sustain for a given distance without getting tired. Coaches mainly use CSS to set training zones and predict race times. This blog post will discuss CSS, how to measure it, why it's essential in training, and what's possible with tech automation.
What is Critical Swim Speed (CSS)?
Critical Swim Speed, as mentioned above, is the fastest speed a swimmer can maintain without getting fatigued. It is impacted by the swimmer's level of fitness, stroke efficiency, and drag.
In detail, CSS is higher than the speed at Lactate Threshold and Maximal Lactate Steady State (MLSS) but lower than the velocity at VO2max. Swimming at 2–4% below CSS enables swimmers to maintain a steady-lactate concentration in their bodies. While lactate is a normal by-product of aerobic metabolism, too much lactate can lead to muscle fatigue. This is because the body can only clear lactate from the bloodstream at a specific rate. If the lactate is produced faster than it can be removed, it will build up in the bloodstream and cause fatigue.
Why is Critical Swim Speed Training Essential?
Critical Swim Speed training, like Heart Rate, provides coaches with practical, inexpensive and non-invasive ways to estimate exercise intensity and determine the pace.
Including Critical Swim Speed training in your workouts can improve your swimmers’ speed and pace judgement and teach them how to move through the water with less effort and at greater speeds.
What Are the Benefits of Training at or Near CSS?
Training at or near your CSS has a few key benefits.
- First, it helps improve the athletes' anaerobic threshold, which is the point at which their bodies start producing lactic acid.
- Second, it helps train their muscles to utilize oxygen better, improving endurance.
- Finally, it can help them focus on their training and how different each gear they're shifting into feels to always work at the right intensity.
Moreover, CSS is a pace that pushes swimmers to swim hard enough to develop their aerobic capacity but not too hard that they'll require days to recover. The best part of training using CSS is that you have a unique interval tailored to each of your swimmer's abilities.
How is Critical Swim Speed (CSS) Calculated?
There are a few different ways to measure Critical Swim Speed. Unlike lactate testing, it doesn't require specialized equipment or drawing blood. The most used measurement to determine Critical Swim Speed Pace is to swim a 200m and a 400m time trial and look at the difference between the times.
CSS Pace [in secs/100m] = (T400 - T200)/2
T400 is the time the swimmer takes to complete the 400m time trial in seconds, and T200 is the time taken to complete the 200m time trial in seconds.
One thing to note is that although test sets have been the go-to method to help coaches and athletes define different training intensities, they also heavily rely on the athletes' ability or willingness to apply their maximum effort that day. They require manual work, time and effort to distribute intensity into different zones. This is what wearable technology like TritonWear help solve with AI-driven CSS and automated training zones.
AI-Driven Critical Swim Speed
TritonWear estimates a swimmer's Critical Swim Speed (CSS) based on their past practices and further offers additional features for monitoring athlete effort and training intensity.
These features include:
- The 'Time in Training Zone' ( image above) shows the duration and percentage of time spent in each zone for this workout and how that zone breakdown changed in the last 7, 30 and 90 days.
- The 'Aerobic vs Anaerobic split'(image above), displays the percentage of time spent in aerobic and anaerobic training zones during a swim session and in the last 7,30 and 90 days.
- And the 'See My Zones' (image below), which provides a quick overview of a swimmer's target pace (per 100m) for each stroke and zone.
With its advanced AI system and CSS estimation, TritonWear allows for tracking changes in CSS over time (7-30-90 days) while maintaining an accurate estimate of a swimmer's relative speed. This eliminates the need for specialized equipment, invasive blood testing, or interpretation by trained specialists that often come with lactate testing.
What makes TritonWear truly unique is its ability to combine both speed and Heart Rate parameters, particularly when integrated with Polar Verity Sense. This combination allows for more precise training zone analysis, enhancing the accuracy of training evaluation in both live and post-training feedback.
Overall, TritonWear simplifies the process of tracking physiological changes, automating training zones, and providing valuable insights for swimmers of all levels.
The Genesis of TritonWear Training Zones
Our training zones are a direct result of extensive research into the top training zone methodologies from around the world, like France, British Swimming, USA Swimming, Australia Swimming, Urbanchek, and more.
How did we do it?
We started by plotting them all against the lactate threshold because it was the only parameter all these systems could agree upon. Then, we explored the science behind each system's construction with breakdowns to respect cross-discipline differences.
Top training zone methodologies from around the world
What we found was that each methodology was vastly different regarding zoning. These differences may quickly affect a swimmer's ability to adapt to changing training environments and new coaches (i.e. going to college). Especially considering how likely each coach is to follow a different zoning system.
Finally, we used our findings' best elements to create a new, universal zoning system. You'll find this in the TritonWear app.
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Although lactate testing is still the gold standard for creating speed zones, it is also quite invasive, expensive and cannot be conducted during every training session. TritonWear simplifies the process by updating Critical Swim Speed (CSS) estimates after each tracked pool session, making zoning much easier.
If you see yourself as a coach with a growth mindset or someone ready to take coaching to the next level, grab this playbook; it's step-by-step guidance to help you integrate data into your training.
