How Do You Know When You Are Fit?

By Stott, Michael J

Measuring one’s fitness level may simply come down to individual goals, depending on whether the athlete is a lap swimmer or competitive swimmer.

“Sex and the City” aside, the question for many active lifestylers has morphed from, “Does he/she love me?” to “Am I fit?” It is a proposition of increasing relevance as Masters swimmers measure their own competitive conditioning and that of their opponents.

Scott Rabalais

“The signs of fitness in swimming are fairly obvious,” says Scott Rabalais, head coach of the Savannah Masters (Ga.). “On deck, we can detect fitness by simply looking at the body type, posture, musculature, ease of movement, flexibility and general appearance.” A swimmers speed is frequently reflective of his ondeck appearance, suggests Rabalais.

“There is fitness specific to swimming,” he says. “Once in the water, it is a matter of the aerobic and anaerobic workloads. Aerobically, we are looking for a swimmer to sustain a moderate level of effort over an extended period. Next, we look at aerobic power by determining how fast a swimmer can go.” Traditionally, the distance would be in excess of 500 yards.

Anaerobically, fitness (i.e., in terms of raw speed and power) can be indicated by how fast a swimmer can complete 25 yards or less. Here, the issue of lactate tolerance-which is the ability of a swimmer to perform at a level where he or she is unable to supply adequate oxygen to the body (or rid the body of CO2)-raises its ugly head.

HEART RATE

Joel Stager is director of the Counsilman Center for the Science of Swimming at Indiana University. Like many, he believes that resting heart rate can be an index of fitness-an index subject to athlete age, size and genetic makeup.

Heart rate recovery can also be used as an index, he says, where most coaches like to see heart rate decrease to below 120 beats per minute in less than a minute after intense bouts of exercise no matter the duration.

“Frequent physical exercise should result in a quick recovery if the individual is attaining some measure of cardiovascular fitness. Recovery time from an effort might be the best use of HR,” he says.

He cautions that the “crude rule of thumb” (i.e., maximal heart rates of approximately 220 minus one’s age) doesn’t necessarily apply to an active population, such as Masters swimmers. He does support maximal heart rate as an index of physical effort and believes a significant portion of a swim workout should be in the range of 70 percent of max HR.

FARTLEK TRAINING

Stager will get no argument from John Flanagan, a coach at Curl- Burke Swim Club, who has run a morning Masters program in McLean, Va., since 1974. Flanagan sees daily fitness in his 10- to 86-year- olds, much of which is attained through fartlek training, the “speed play” concept popularized by Swedish distance runner Paavo Nurmi.

“I love fartlek training,” which allows athletes to traverse energy systems while building lactate tolerance. “You can do it every day” he says. As an indicator of fitness, “pulse rate is huge,” says Flanagan.

On the tough intervals, he looks for 160 heart beats (or 85 percent maximal heart rate for 20-somethings), 120 beats or 65 percent of the 160 HR threshold for most training, and under 100 HR on recovery sets of 25s or more. “For Masters, we do a boatload of 65 percent stuff,” he says.

BODY FAT

Body fat rules of thumb are dangerous when applied to swimmers, says Stager, who does not use body fat as a measure of fitness.

“Someone can be fit and still have higher than optimal fat mass,” he says. “College-aged men are around 15 to 16 percent, but that number depends upon many things, including how it is measured. Women are about 10 percentage points higher, (i.e., 25-26 percent).”

The Masters population is rife with Masters swimmers who are much leaner. “I would recommend using muscle mass as a better measure, particularly in an aging population. Maintenance of muscle mass is the key to health and well-being,” Stager says.

KNOW THYSELF

Another key to well-being is knowing thyself. Dave Holland, the head women’s coach at Randolph! Macon College in Ashland, Va., uses three criteria to gauge his fitness: resting heart rate, performance on a 25 x 100 freestyle test set and meet/open water performance.

“If my heart rate in the morning just after waking up is below 50, then I’m training well,” says the 38-year-old Holland, who has won four Masters national titles since 1999. “Occasionally, it will get down to the 38-40 range. That gives me confidence that I’m training consistently but not overtraining. I try and do a test set of 25 x 100 free (SCM) on 1:25 about once per week when I’m training for open water, and 1 track my average pace per 100.

Dave Holland, head women’s coach at Randolph Macon College in Ashland, Va., and a Jour-time Masters national champion, uses three criteria to gauge his fitness: resting heart rate, performance on a 25 x 100 freestyle test set and meet/open water performance.

“It’s also important that I can hold the same pace when I do this set. If 1 feel good and can do 50 x 100 at that same pace, 1 know I’m ready. Finally, there is the race. The clock doesn’t lie, so for me it’s the ultimate judge of fitness. I feel like my fitness is relatively proportional to the level of sacrifice it took for me to get there, and 1 try to leave age out of the equation. Fitness is as Illness does.”

BOTTOM LINE

Fitness levels may simply come down to individual goals. “For lap swimmers, becoming more fit may simply mean swimming farther than ever before,” says Rabalais. “For competitive swimmers, it may mean best times, which will require extensive training in both the aerobic and anaerobic realms.”

Regardless of the goal, the end result will be an enhanced lifestyle. And what could be more fitting than that?

“We can detectftness by simply looking at the body type, posture, musculature, ease of movement, flexibility and general appearance,” says Scott Rabalais, head coach of the Savannah Masters. “Once in the water, it is a matter of the aerobic and anaerobic workloads.”

Check out Swimming World Interactive at www.SwimmingWorldMagazine.com for test sets from coaches John Flanagan and Dave Holland.

Michael J. Stott is a contributing editor to Swimming World Magazine.

Copyright Sports Publications, Inc. Mar 2006