To the Exercise Physiologists out there - a question regarding rest intervals?

mwrs wrote: In running, a typical work to rest ratio for intervals is 1:1.

Typical response, and not unexpected. Thanks for answering the question.

Yes, 1:1 or even more is used often in running workouts. Yes, sometimes less. Thanks for your help.

Impact is the largest difference. Also, a completely different set of muscles. Overall I think a smaller muscle mass is used. You use some leg action in swimming but near the extent as running.

As far as rest goes, 1:1 is hardly typical. Rest ratio depends on how fast you're running and what the goal of the workout is. Run miles repeats, but slow them down, do 8-10 of them with 1:00 rest....or about a 5:1 ratio. You could run 400s or 800s at race pace but extend the rest so you 1. aren't working on the aerobic aspect 2. early season workout to ease into running at race pace.

Alan

mwrs wrote: There is no way this small amount of rest would suffice for a runner....

OK then, let's start with this declaration. What makes you think this is true? Sure it's not common to see running repeats of ~ 75s with only 5-10s of rest, but it's not especially uncommon to see, for example, 7-10 minute repeats (2000s or 3000s) with 60-120s rest (at the correct pace to allow such short rest). And I've done "hard" 100s with 5-6s rest (turn around and go again), as another, different example.

If all (most) of your interval sessions have incorporated such long rest (1:1 or more) then you might benefit from some longer, slower repeats with shorter rest. Like the swimmers do.

We can argue over semantics, or answer the question and thank you art for your response.

I am well schooled on running, and yes I also run "cruise intervals" where the work is longer and rest much shorter.

I am not interested in a discussion on running intervals.

What I am interested in is a discussion of why the recovery in swimming is so much shorter than in running? If you want to start a different discussion then start a new thread.

mwrs wrote: If you want to start a different discussion then start a new thread.

Hmmmmm, who's being a dickhead now?

Unfortunately for you, you don't get to decide who posts what in response to your thread.

If you want to know about recovery intervals in swimming, let me suggest you redirect your inquiry over to LetsSwim.com. Meanwhile, let's all make fun of you, in the spirit of LetsRun tradition going back to its earliest days.

(I'm just having a little Thursday morning fun at your expense - hopefully someone who knows about swimming can interject)

You don't want to seem to hear this, but there is a wide range of possible work:recovery ratios. Who told you that swimmers "typically" use less rest? Is it the same guy who told you that runners typically use 1:1 rest?

There are a few things to take into consideration:

-It requires less energy to move a body in water then a body over ground due to gravity.

-Rythmicity of breathing: swimmers do not have O2 readily available. They have to settle into a rythmic breathing (ex. every 2nd stroke) and this ultimately effects how hard they can work and how high they can get their heart rate.

Swimmers have to swim high volumes in order to get the same effects that a runner may get a moderate volume. for example, a competitive swimmer might train 10k a day while a competitive runner maybe train 10k - 20k a day. With that being said, the 10X100 is can not be a typical workout, it may be a typical "type" of workout but not something that is done every day.

As far as a typical rest ratio for running: 1:1 only works at certain intensitites at certain distances and your fitness level or ability to run certain paces makes that too general. a 15:00 5k guy wouldn't run 5 X 5 mile repeats with 5 rest. its slower than race pace + a full recovery. however, a 16:30 guy might try to run goal 5k pace with those repeats but would need more rest to do it.

So the actual answer to your question is that swimmers need to swim far more volume then their race distance with much less rest due to the limitations of training in water.

slick willy wrote:

There are a few things to take into consideration:

-It requires less energy to move a body in water then a body over ground due to gravity.

Where did you find this information?

Don't swimmers have to deal with gravity AND the resistance of water?

I would really like to see some evidence to support your statement.

Momentum comes into play as well, same as with cycling. Once you get started it's much easier to maintain. Running is a set of starts and stops. There is always braking action in running, not so with swimming or cycling.

So why do swimmers use less rest? Because it's not running. Why do cyclists go 3, 4, 5, 6 hours at a time and runner really can't? Because it's a completely different set of muscles working. That's really all we need to know.

Alan

Gravity is not much of a hinderance for swimmers since they can usually float well enough to counteract much of gravity's desire to pull them to the bottom of the pool.

Swimmers do, however, face a much greater resistance obstacle than runners (water vs air), so a human swimming as fast as it can is expending about the same amount of energy as a runner over short distances. The real difference is what a previous poster said regarding O2 availability while swimming. It's simply not possible to breathe as hard while swimming as while running, so the max heart rate is typically not as high. maybe short rest is a way to overcome that somewhat?

floating stool wrote:

Gravity is not much of a hinderance for swimmers since they can usually float well enough to counteract much of gravity's desire to pull them to the bottom of the pool.

Swimmers do, however, face a much greater resistance obstacle than runners (water vs air), so a human swimming as fast as it can is expending about the same amount of energy as a runner over short distances. The real difference is what a previous poster said regarding O2 availability while swimming. It's simply not possible to breathe as hard while swimming as while running, so the max heart rate is typically not as high. maybe short rest is a way to overcome that somewhat?

I would think that because of the lean body mass of competitive swimmers that they would not float very well. Talk about a hinderance, if a swimmer stops and gravity takes over they drown. A runner just stands.

As for the O2 issue, you must be forgetting about the backstroke where the swimmer can breath whenever they desire. Hmmmm???? Now what?

This discussion reminds me of the airplane treadmill thread. A lot of speculation, not so much knowledge.

The answer is boredom.

In running you may have a few workouts per week where you do intervals but then you have many steady 30min+ runs as well.

You don't see too many swimmers going for a 45min straight swim because you would bore yourself to tears. So to get a similiar training stimulus to a steady run swimmers do intervals with very short rest just to break up the monotony.

mwrs wrote:

There is no way this small amount of rest would suffice for a runner, so why is it enough for swimmers? Other than impact, what's so different in terms of the work that muscles are doing?

Just curious.

mwrs wrote:

I am well schooled on running, and yes I also run "cruise intervals" where the work is longer and rest much shorter.

I am not interested in a discussion on running intervals.

What I am interested in is a discussion of why the recovery in swimming is so much shorter than in running? If you want to start a different discussion then start a new thread

Just curious.

As you are schooled on running go out of this forum and then go to a swimming site forum and ask it to the swimmers.

I believe that this all has to do with the amount of time it takes your HR to come down enough to be able to do another interval. When you swim, you don't have to support your own body weight, you are not standing upright so your heart doesn't have to work as hard to get blood to your head, and you are in water that is cooler than your own body temperature. All 3 of these things mean that your HR doesn't go up nearly as high as it does with you run and it just doesn't take that long to come down to a point where you can do another interval at the same speed.

.

Most of it is because in the dense medium of the water, swimmers cannot turn a stroke over fast enough to recruit as many glycolytic motor units. Even in the "sprint" events, the reliance is much more on oxidative muscle fibers which are more fatigue-resistant and therefore do not need as much recovery time. The swimmer is ready to go again after a short rest interval even when swimming at near maximum speed.

Impact forces in running also contribute to metabolic stress that isn't present in swimming, but this again ties in with the fiber recruitment issue. In order to generate more power in running, more impact force is usually required, at the same time invoking more of the larger motor neurons which supply the "quick twitch" muscle fibers.

I have seen the same thing as the original poster - very short rests by swim teams doing interval workouts. I don't have the answer to his/her question, but I did a quick google search on such and found a swimming messageboard similar to letsrun.com that had similar responses by laymen making their own guesses. I couldn't find any specific research; though, I only looked for 5-10 minutes.

On the messageboard, I did the following workout:

A good warmup-700 yards

Pattern: first and second length free, third length choice stroke, fourth length kick w/o a board.

1 x 25, rest :10-free

2 x 25, rest :10-free, stroke

3 x 25, rest :10-kick, free, free

4 x 25, rest :10-stroke, kick, free, free

5 x 25, rest :10-stroke, kick, free, free, stroke

6 x 25, rest :10-kick, free, free, stroke, kick, free

7 x 25, rest :10-free, stroke, kick, free, free, stroke, kick

It occurred to me that the typical rest interval in swimming is much less than in running because the typical work interval is much shorter in swimming workouts than in running workouts.

I have spent some time testing swimmers and runners and do agree that swimmers tend to take shorter recoveries than do runners, even when swimming relatively fast. (1) swimmers get to rest their main arm muscles for a short time on every turn (during the turn mechanics and during the push off and glide off the wall), which you don't get to do when running (helicopters do not pick you up every 200 or so so you can rest running muscles). (2) the regression curve that relates swim velocity to energy cost is much steeper than for runners -- sort of like to swim 1% faster you have to put 2% more energy into it, but to run 1% faster you put about 1% more energy into it. Looking at it the other way around, swimmers can slow down 1% and save 2% energy, so they can swim closer to best speed for extended periods than can runners. (Look at 400m swim times compared to their 100 times -- maybe only 7 or 8 seconds slower per 100 in a 400 than an all out 100). But a 4:00 miler can't stay within 7 sec of all out 400 for 4 laps (probably more like 12 seconds difference). I watched a 1500 swimmer one time do 15X100 with a 1:10 send off and average about 1:05 per 100. His PB 1500 in a race was about 15:15 (1:01 per 100). No way a runner could go 15X400 in 65 and take only 5 sec rests