How Should I Split My 200's

Click Here for a brief video of the swimmers calculating their paces



It means that the swimmer is taking the first step to designing and implementing his or her own race strategy. Some of you may know that I have a background in music.  I was taught early that it is important to learn the rules, before you can individualize them to your own unique style. In this article, we are going to look at ways swimmers can “learn the rules” so to speak, before they craft their own individual approach to swimming the 200s of each stroke. 

Yesterday, as of this writing, I was going to simply introduce this concept. Since the weather was terrible, we got to dig deeper into it. The basic concept is the following. After an examination was made of the finalists in the 200s of each stroke at a recent NCAA Championship, an average of all the finalists percentage of total time was made for each 50 (50/100/150/200). I have gone ahead and taken that data and created an online 200 pace calculator which can be found here;

https://bit.ly/200splits

By entering your time (or goal time) as a whole number (2:00 = 120 for example) in the RED field for each stroke, you can get what the splits prescribed using the logic above. There are some things to consider. NCAA swimmers are mainly adults. They are also rested. Not all of the prescriptions will be exact for every developing age group swimmer. What we want to do is provide an outline and a jumping off point for discussion, education and creating an individual unique approach to their 200s. 

While I like to have the calculator. It is also a good idea to have your swimmer try to do the math on their own once. I have found that it helps them take ownership of the process quicker. All of this is a part of a larger plan to help ensure that our FAA swimmers, families and staff are the best educated in the world. Control the controllables 🙂

See you at the pool - Rich