In swimming, it can sometimes be difficult to read (or decipher 😜) a workout. Juggling with abbreviations, times, and series details can be challenging.
On OpenSwim, we try our best to make our workouts easy to understand, while maintaining a high level of detail. Despite this, we sometimes receive questions asking for clarification on specific points.
To help swimmers using the app, we have created a guide presenting the data of a swim set.
Times in swimming
Here, we would like to discuss the issue of times in swimming with more details. When you open an OpenSwim session, you have probably already seen times indicated for each set. There are three different types of times, which correspond to:
Swimming time
Rest time between each rep
Rest time after the set
How it is displayed on OpenSwim
In this example, the coach recommends to swim 50 m in 1 minute 15 seconds, followed by a 25-second rest. Repeat this six times. At the end of the 6 x 50, the swimmer will take a 25-second rest and then have an additional minute to recover before moving on to the next set.
Swim and rest time on the app
These times are set by the coach and are adapted to the session level.
Please note that the swim time is an estimate. Depending on your level, you may swim a few seconds faster or slower. However, if the difference is significant, this workout and level of difficulty may not be right for you. In this case, you can adjust your level in your swimmer profile.
Depending on the workout, its goal, and its sets, the times vary. For each set, our trainers have three options:
How to make the difference in the app
The "classic" time interval
Displays a swim time + a rest time (optional) + a recovery time (optional) under the series.
Combined time
One time only is displayed, including swim time and rest time.
To see the difference between the two option, a sentence is displayed on the description when the times are combined.
No time
Distance is displayed. No time, the swimmer is free.
For this combined series, the swimmer has 1 minute 15 seconds to swim 50 m and rest. Every 75 seconds, a new repetition begins. If he swims the 50 m in 1 minute, he gets 15 seconds of rest.
At the end of the 4 reps, the swimmer will take an additional 1 minute of recovery time before moving on to the next set.