Monitoring Your Swimming Heart Rate

In this article, we’ll look at the importance of monitoring your swimming heart rate, and provide insight, tips and advice on how to do it.

Monitoring a swimmer’s heart rate can help to ensure they are training at the optimum intensity.

This can be especially useful when they are either training alone or with less experienced swimmers.

How is a Heart Rate Measured?

Your heart rate is measured by the number of times it beats per minute.

Being a muscle, your heart becomes stronger with regular exercise.
A strong heart is able to pump more blood to your body per beat than a weaker heart, thus requiring fewer beats per minute.
Whilst swimming your muscles demand oxygen, the harder you swim the more oxygen your muscles require, making your heart beat at a faster rate.

Heart Rate Age and Fitness Variations

Heart rates vary between individuals, mainly depending on their age and level of fitness.

For Example, the potential maximum heart rate for a 20-year-old is 200, while for a 55-year-old it is 165, and for aerobic endurance training, the target heart rate (70% of maximum) for a 20-year-old is 140, while for a 55-year-old it is 116.
The average resting heart rate for a healthy adult can be in the low 60s, while an unhealthy adult can have an average resting heart rate as high as 100.
A trained swimmer can have a resting heart rate in the 40s.

Factors That Could Affect Your Heart Rate

Please note that taking medication or consuming some caffeine-based beverages, energy drinks, alcohol, and nicotine may also affect a swimmer’s heart rate.

How to Monitor Your Heart Rate While Swimming?

Before training, swimmers should record their heart rate information when they are at rest.

They also need to work out their potential maximum heart rate, see below.
Armed with this information swimmers can then calculate the required training and recovery heart rates whilst training.

Resting Heart Rate

A swimmer’s resting heart rate is the rate that their heart beats per minute during periods of relaxation.

This is best measured after you get out of bed in the morning.
Top swimmers check their resting heart rate throughout a recovery/rest day to ensure they are recovering at the optimum.

Maximum Heart Rate

A swimmer’s maximum heart rate is the maximum number of beats their heart could reach during training.

It’s very difficult to accurately measure a maximum heart rate, so swimmers use the following formula, which is accurate enough for training purposes.

Subtract their age from the number 220.
With this formula, if the swimmer is 18, their maximum heart rate would be 202.
Swimmers should not attempt to achieve their maximum heart rate as this can be extremely dangerous.

Training Heart Rate

A swimmer’s training heart rate is the heart rate they should aim to achieve whilst training.

Swimming coaches will usually set the target training heart rate at the beginning of each set, which can vary depending on the length and intensity of the training set.

For example: During a warm-up, the target training heart rate could be set at 50 per cent of the maximum.

An aerobic endurance set, the target training heart rate could be set at 70 per cent of the maximum.
For Vo2 sprint set the target training heart rate could be set at 90 per cent of the maximum.

Heart Rate training zones

Heart rate training zones are used to target different types of training while monitoring your heart rate during swimming. For Example:

Recovery, warm-up & cool down Zone 1 = 50% to 60% of maximum heart rate

Training at a level where the swimmer can continue training with the available oxygen. Only low levels of lactic acid will be produced with which the body can cope or dispose of.

Anaerobic Threshold Zone 2 = 60% to 70% of maximum heart rate

Training at an intensity where there is a gradual accumulation of lactic acid in the swimmer’s body.

Aerobic Endurance Zone 3= 70% to 80% of maximum heart rate

A training intensity to increase the swimmer’s endurance and cardiovascular fitness.

Anaerobic Lactate Zone 4 = 80% to 90% of maximum heart rate

Training to adapt the swimmer’s body to tolerate lactic acid and to delay its production.

Vo2 Max and Sprinting Zone 5 = 90%+ of maximum heart rate

Maximum speed training, which can only be performed over very short distances with long rests to stop lactic acid build-up.

Please note these heart rate training zones may have regional variations.

Recovery Heart Rate

It’s important that swimmers recover sufficiently after a training set.

Their recovery heart rate is the rate that they should bring their heart rate down to after a training set.
This should be approximately 20 beats within their pre-workout resting heart rate.

How to Locate Your Pulse?

Swimmers can use either the pulse in their neck or wrist to measure their pulse rate.

To locate the pulse in their neck, they should place two fingers of their right hand on their neck, next to their Adam’s apple and slowly move their fingers up towards their jaw until they feel their pulse.
To locate the pulse in their wrist, they should place two fingers between the bone and the tendon over their radial artery, which is located on the thumb side of their wrist.

How To Manually Monitor Your Heart Rate While Training

To manually monitor a swimmer’s heart rate while training, they should place their fingers on their preferred pulse and count every time they feel their pulse beat for 10 seconds and multiply by six to get their heart rate.

To get a more accurate heart rate when training, they need to check their heart rate immediately after completing a set before their heart rate begins to slow as it recovers.

How Heart Rate Monitors Work

Most heart rate monitors work best if the swimmer trains at a smooth and steady pace.

There are two main types of electrical heart rate monitors, wrist-strapped and the chest-strapped.
The wrist-strapped monitors are more comfortable to wear than chest-strapped monitors, but there is a great debate in the swimming world as to whether they are accurate enough, due to them being repeatedly impacted on the surface of the water whilst swimming.
The chest-strapped monitors are often preferred by experienced swimmers for providing the most accurate results, which records your heart rate via a monitor which is placed over the heart and held in place by an adjustable chest strap. The monitor transmits the heart rate information to a wristwatch with a digital display.
There are a wide variety of both types of heart rate monitors on the market, to suit most budgets. While basic monitors simply display your heart rate, advanced models have many features including alarms, alerts, workouts, countdown timers and calorie counters.

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Many of our swimmers use the Garmin HRM-Swim Heart Rate Monitor to measure their heart rate while training.

Lightweight and comfortable
Stores up to 20 hours of heart rate data
Transfers data to your Garmin compatible device
Up to 18 months battery life

Our Triathletes prefer to use the Garmin HRM-Tri Heart Rate Monitor to measure their heart rate while training.

Lightweight and comfortable
Designed for running, cycling and swimming
Stores up to 20 hours of heart rate data
Transfers data to your Garmin compatible device
Up to 18 months battery life

Before starting any exercise program, please consult your doctor.

Takeaway

In this article, we’ll look at the importance of monitoring your heart rate while swimming, and provide insight, tips and advice on how to do it.

Monitoring a swimmer’s heart rate while swimming can help to ensure they are training at the optimum intensity.
This can be especially useful when they are either training alone or with less experienced swimmers.