400 free set recovery question

To me it looks like your swimmer swam exactly what she trained for.

According to my spreadsheet 4:43 LCM is a 4:34 SCM so your swimmer holds 33.4 over 50m and 50.7 over 75 (turns calculated w/ 1.2s and start with 1.7s).

I would recommend to adjust to 4:27SCM (4:36LCM) and let her hold 32.5 over 50s and 49.4 over 75 (send off 55s for 50 and 1:15 for 75)

I think you need to give her longer swims and less rest to be successful in LCM 400. Doing 50’s you can rely on wall speed to much and with the interval being 1:00 I think she is not learning how to maintain her speed.
I’m not saying 50’s aren’t good for the 400, but have the main staple be repeats of 75’s and even some 100’s

I would have to agree with dmuecke in that she trained for a 4:43 400m. I would also agree with gsbelbin that sets before or after the 30 x 50, have an “energy cost” or” accumulation of fatigue” over the course of the week/season regardless of what the “bulletins” say. This whole “20 second” rule” is just a “SWAG” I have not seen anywhere on this forum or others post any race performance data to prove that it is somehow the “gospel”

I think that Wordofmouth is correct in that longer swims maybe the answer. It’s called “speed endurance”. Using 50s to try and predict anything greater than 200 is risky at best. We use “n x 100s with :15/:20” rest for 400+ swimmers and use the average of 2, 3, & 4 100s of 400 to determine 100 paces for” n x 100 with :15/:20”. Our correlation of 100s practice speed to race performance is .987 – .95673 with an (n of 1800 splits). Data with regards to 50s and 75s to the 400+ I have none as I believe that it’s too short a distance for race performance reliability.

Just thoughts

Oldschool

The formula below helps me to plan interval training and predict race times. Keep in mind the formula below might not accurate for all distances.

In order to plan USRPT interval training you have to take start and turns into account. Let’s say you train for 100m free and plan 25m intervals.
Your swimmer can hold 20s for 20x25m. To make a race prediction based on interval times you would do 4*20s = 80s.
In a 100m short course race are 3 turns hence a better calculation would be 4*20s + 3*1.2s = 83.6s.
The start gives an extra boost which should be considered as well so the final calculation looks like 4*20s + 3*1.2s – 1.7s = 81.9s.
Second example if your swimmer trains 50m intervals and can hold 40s then 2 turns are already included in the interval and
you have to add 1 turn only to your 100m race prediction: 2*40s + 1.2s – 1.7s = 81.9s
1.2s for turn and 1.7s for freestyle start might be different for your swimmer. For backstroke I calculate 1.0s for start but again it’s an individual value.

In your case 400m/50m interval = 8*33.5s + 7*1.2s – 1.7s = 274.7s (4:34.7)

If you train in a 25m pool but plan for 50m pool I found in the internet the conversion rate 1.035.
So if you want to know how fast would your swimmer swim 100F in a 50m pool then calculate 81.9 * 1.035 = 84.7

In your case 274.7 * 1.035 = 284.3s (4:44,3)

I’m finding 50’s on 20 seconds rest might bet too short a distance, or perhaps too much rest, for 400/500 training. I can do nearly thirty SCY 50’s at :34 on a :54 interval before a single fail, and made a full set of 40 the last time I attempted it. I can’t, however, come close to holding that pace in a straight 500. I’m splitting 38’s by the 250y mark, and end up swimming around a 6:10.

I’ve recently switched to doing 75’s at :52 on a 1:12 interval (essentially the same pace), and find that much more challenging. Like “first fail at 9, fail out at 15” challenging. On the 50’s, the first 25 after 20 seconds rest felt easy, and I only had to fight degradation of my stroke mechanics for the last 15 yards or so. That 2nd turn and third 25, with no extra rest at the end to recover, makes most of a 75 feel like I’d feel mid-race in a 500.