Racer X Virtual Trainer

First of all I want to say Hi and thank you for everything you guys put on this website. I've been following it for years, and after a good year of training under my belt I consider myself 'relatively' well educated in the world of training for motocross.

Now about 3 weeks ago I cracked my right humers in a freak accident where someone crashed in front of me and I had nowhere to go. I have been virtually pain-free since one week post injury and my next doctor's appointment is in a few days so I am pretty hopeful that I will be able to start doing light exercise with my arm.

Now I am really motivated to get going again, so after I get the OK from the doc I would like to start swimming. I figure it will be kind of a "kill 2 birds with one stone" exercise, since I would be loosening up and strengthening my arm while also rebuilding the aerobic base I will have undoubtedly lost a little bit.

The thing is, I have never swam in the form of 'training', so I know next to nothing about it in terms of how much volume/intensity,...
When I did my aerobic base training this past winter I cycled a little over an hour at 83-89% of my lactate threshold, which is at 176BPM). I am training for 15 minute races.
So how long and at how many BPM would I have to swim in order to get the same result?

Also, how long should I focus on rebuilding the base before starting to do more zone 3-4 and interval type stuff? I will have gone probably 4 weeks without training after a period of 7 months of training 3-5 times per week. (I'm 24 years old)

Thanks!

Keep in mind if you are not a good swimmer your heart rates will be higher due to lack of efficiency. If you are a good swimmer keep in mind your heart rates will be lower swimming than compared to running upright. Secondly, you can either base your time frame of when you will need to be ready to compete again...You will want to count backwards and see how much time you have. An example would be if you are trying to get ready for a race within 2-4 weeks away, you will need to jump into higher intensity work ASAP...If you have time on your side 10-12 weeks, then you can take your time to develop you aerobic conditioning...If this doesn't have anything to do with you, I would do lower intensity work for about 4-6 weeks or until your resting HR is below 60 and/or find out if you can decrease your HR to 130 in less than a minute after max HR work.

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I would put at least 4 weeks of base training back into your body before doing higher zone work, especially anything over zone 3. A good plan IMO would be to do 4 weeks zone 2 and lower, 4 weeks zone 3 and lower then start zone 4. Swimming is generally done by pace, not heart rate. The intensity is moderated via a lap time called "T pace." T pace is your average pace per 50 in a 1000 m/yd time trial and all training is then done based on lap times that are generated off this T pace.

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Coach Seiji
www.coachseiji.com