Increasing your swimming-specific maximal aerobic capacity (VO2max) is an important way to improve your swimming performances (1). In addition, your actual swimming velocity at VO2max (your vVO2max), which is defined as the minimal swimming speed which causes you to attain VO2max, is believed to be an incredible good predictor of your swimming prowess (better than VO2max by it-self), since vVO2max combines both aerobic capability and efficiency of movement in one physiological term. In effect, vVO2max indicates both how much aerobic capacity you have and how much you can get from your aerobic capacity (how fast you can move for a given rate of oxygen consumption). vVO2MAX TRAINING FOR SWIMMERS

The v in vVO2max is of course a function of how economically you can utilize oxygen. If you have a huge VO2max but you need all of your aerobic capacity to paddle along at piddling speeds, your vVO2max will be low (despite the high VO2max) and your performances poor. In contrast, an impressive vVo2max means that you have a lofty aerobic reserve and that you are nonetheless stingy with how you use oxygen; as a result, you can attain very high swimming speeds during competitions, because those speeds lie within your oxygen-consuming domain.

Naturally, then, a key goal of swim training is to heighgten vVO2max to the greatest-possible extent. Pioneering efforts by the great French exercise scientist Veronique Billat have shown that training at vVO2max is the most powerful way to improve the key variable. Veronique has demostarted that the utilization of a weekly interval workout, in which the work intervals are conducted at vVO2max, can lead to substanial improvements in vVO2max (and overall performance) in just six to eight weeks. A potential problem for you as a swimmer, however, is determining your actual vVO2max in the water.

You need to know what it is in order to set up intervals, but how do you properly estimate it? As you might expect, vVO2max can be measured directly in the pool using graded work intervals and sophisticated oxygen-measuring equipment, but such tests are extremely expensive, and the laboratories which have the capcity to carry out such exams may be inaccessible to you. Runners have had an easy (and cheap) way to figure out vVO2max, thanks to Veronique, who was able to show that something called TlimvVO2max averaged six minutes during running.  vVO2MAX TRAINING FOR SWIMMERS

TlimvVO2max (the "time limit at vVO2max") is simply the maximal amount of time a runner can keep going at vVO2max before falling over in a heap by the side of the track. Now, since TlimvVO2max averaged six minutes, this meant that a very simple test could provide a decent estimate of vVO2max. All a runner had to do was go to the track on a day when he/she was feeling good (and when environmental conditions were benign) and run at an all-out intensity for exactly six minutes.

The distance covered during the six-minute spurt could then be measured, and vVO2max could be reckoned. If a runner covered exactly 1600 meters in six minutes, for example, his/her vVO2max would be simply 1600m/360 secs = 4.44 meters per second. Often, the calculated vVO2max is converted to a tempo for practical use during training; in this case, 4.44 meters per second is the same as tempo of 90 seconds per 400 meters. But what about nanatorians? What is TlimvVO2max for an experience swimmer? This is the time that swimmers absolutely need in order to test themselves for vVO2max and then set up their vVO2max-enhancing work-outs.

Fortunately, a couple of scientific studies have looked at this very question, one of which was carried out by the redoubtable Veronique herself. In research completed in 1995, Billat and her coworkers directly measured TlimvVo2max in swimmers, as well as in cyclists, runners, and even kayak paddlers (2). Nine national-class swimmers were involved; their average age was 18 years, and their preferred competitive distance was 400 meters. Each swimmer performed two bouts of exercise to exhaustion, on separate days one week apart. vVO2MAX TRAINING FOR SWIMMERS

The first exam was designed to measure both VO2max and vVO2max; the second involved swimming for as long as possible at vVO2max in order to determine TlimvVO2max. The swimmers completed these tests in a flume in which the water-flow velocity could be adjusted by increments of .01 meters per second. Actual measurement of oxygen consumption was completed with a K2tm telemetric system.

To learn more about vVO2MAX training for swimmers (the full article can be read by purchasing Vol.1 Issue 6) and many more swimming related topics. Or enter any subject you wish to learn more about.