Common query about CSS results

Dear Paul,

 

Very interesting results. I am very interested to see however that some swimmers with both faster 400 and 200 times have calculated CSS times slower than those who they beat over both distances. Have you put in a further personal knowledge factor or made an adjustment for lack or excess training.?

Please note this is not a complaint. I am perfectly happy with my results and CSS but I note it occurs in several cases.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Dr Guy van Hazel

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Thanks for your email and feedback about the test results Guy. All the results you see have not been adjusted, but subjected to the same formula which can be seen here: http://www.swimsmooth.com/training.html

 

That's a question we've had a few times about CSS and something we're going to clarify on the website soon. The reason is that the calculation compares the 200m and 400m paces not only in terms of your speed but the drop-off between the two – it sees the bigger drop off between the two speeds and predicts this drop off will continue at longer distances (CSS is more like your 1500m pace).

 

Here's a graphical example of two swimmers, the middle distance swimmer is faster over both 200m and 400m but has a much greater drop-off between the two and the prediction says this will continue giving a slower CSS pace overall:

 

Does that make sense? It does take a little thinking I must admit!

Cheers

Paul