How to Increase Endurance in the Pool

The simplest answer is critical pace training.

Although the name may sound daunting, critical pace is merely "the pace at which you'd swim a 1 mile time trial (roughly 1500 meters).” Or in other words, your aerobic swimming threshold.

"If you feel great for a few laps when you swim but then you are hit by that horrible feeling of your stroke 'falling apart' that's your swim fitness failing you - not your stroke!”

Compared to traditional master's swim sets, CS training involves swimming many repetitions of a slightly slower pace but with much shorter rest times in-between each swim. This will effectively develop your "diesel engine." This type of swimming presents a different sort of challenge than an-aerobic (sprint) set. Critical speed training keeps things focused on developing your aerobic system, which is what is needed to become a better long-distance swimmer.

From a physiological point of view, it is the pace at which you can swim at where your lactate production is equal to your body's ability to dispose of it.

The current "easy” method to calculate your critical speed, as popularized by SwimSmooth, is as follows:
Do a time trial for both 400m and 200m with ample recovery in-between.
Then subtract the 200m time from the 400m time. Divide that resulting time by 2 to get your critical pace per 100 meters
Example: 6:00 min 400m, 2:50 for 200m, 6:00-2:50=3:10, 3:10/2 = 1:35 per 100

The main benefits of including CS sets into your swim training are improvements to your sustainable speed and an enhanced judgment of your pace and effort levels in the pool. Knowing your aerobic threshold is a critical component of a precise approach to distance training that will generate the most quality results and fastest recovery.

By Clement Dulac, Lead Swim Coach: cdulac@houstonian.com

Sources Used
https://tritrainingharder.com/blog/2013/10/swim-testing-critical-swim-speed.html
https://www.swimsmooth.com/improve/intermediate/css-training
https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/how-to-use-critical-swim-speed-training/
CSS has been shown to be well correlated with the swimming velocity corresponding to the onset of blood lactate accumulation (OBLA) and the maximal lactate steady state (Wakayoshi et al., 1992a & 1993).

How to Increase Endurance in the Pool

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