At Swim Smooth we use Tempo Trainer Pros as a virtual training partner. If you want to swim at 2:00 / 100m in a 25m pool then you simply set the Tempo Trainer to beep every 30 seconds and time your swim so that you set off and turn at each end of the pool on the beep.

Experienced swimmers are used to using a pace clock to time their swims but using a beeper like this under your swim cap is even more powerful because it gives you feedback during your swim. Get ahead of the beeper on the first length and you know you’ve set off too fast so you can work on improving your pace judgement next time. Or later in a swim if you start to drop off by a second or two, the beeper pushes you to catch it back up.

That’s the normal way of using a swim beeper, which we recommend for CSS/threshold type training sessions. But there is another method and that’s ‘beating the beeper’ which we recommend for longer Red Mist sessions.

Red Mist Cycles

To calculate the beeper time we use something called Red Mist Cycles which is a scale of difficulty – the lower the number the faster the pace. Red Mist Cycle 2 (RM2) is very hard swimming but RM8 or RM10 is significantly easier.

As an example set, here’s our ‘Step Up The Pace‘ session Red Mist gets progressively harder:

In the above set there’s no additional rest – you get ahead of the beep, stop after each swim and then when it catches you up, you go again. If you are swimming quick enough you could swim the whole set at the same pace but the likelihood is that you will have to swim progressively faster to stay ahead of the beeper as you go through, particularly on the 400s and 800s. Making you swim faster as you become fatigued is a common theme of these sessions and is why they are so physically (and mentally) challenging.To calculate the number to program in the Tempo Trainer, take your CSS pace per 50m and add on the RM number. So if your CSS pace is 2:00/100m, that’s 60 seconds per 50m, add on 7 for RM7 making 67 seconds to put in the beeper (1:07 in mode 2). Remember, you need to get ahead of the beeper to ‘earn’ your rest between swims!

In practise this is very easy, as you go through the above set all you need to do pop the beeper out from under your swim cap and reduce the setting by 1 second at each change of RM cycle.

Summary

Red Mist sessions are a similar concept to a long fast paced run or 2 hour bike ride that gets progressively harder. These sessions are mentally challenging but particularly beneficial for your swim fitness because you might rarely swim continuously over longer distances which is a real gap in your preparation.

Typically swimmers average a pace 3 to 4 seconds slower per 100m than their CSS pace during these sessions – still fast swimming!

You can see plenty of other Red Mist sets in the SS Coaching System here (with all the maths done on setting the beeper for you too) : app.swimsmooth.com/sequence/HG/red-mist-endurance-sessions/

Article courtesy of SwimSmooth