HOW TO WORK OUT YOUR SWIMMING VELOCITIES (SV) AND PERCENTAGES FOR TRAINING
When deciding on a percentage of effort to perform any distance in training, the percentage is usually calculated as a percentage of best time.
A more consistent way, may be by determining your max swimming velocity and always swimming at a percentage of that velocity. If you wish graph your progress up the distance scale, it will then clearly show areas of weakness.
How to calculate your swimming velocity (SV).
The best distance to establish the SV is 50m.
If you swim 50m in 30sec your SV is 50m divided by 30sec = 1.66
SV = 1.66 mps will be used in all percentage calculations for all distances; until you swim a faster time for 50m.
eg: If you wish to swim 100m at 77%SV :
0.77 x 1.66 = 1.27 metres per second then 100m divided by 1.27 = 78.7 sec is 77% 0f your SV.
Whatever distance you want to swim at 77%SV will be at 1.27 sec per metre.
For instance a 200m swim would be 200m divided by 1.27 = 2:37.4
If you swim any race and want to know at what % of your SV you swam:
eg.,If you swam 63 sec for 100m:
100 meters divided by 63 sec = 1.58 mps: 1.58 divided by 1.66 = 0.95 and
to get a percentage 0.95x100 = 95% of your SV.