How to use descending efforts to improve your swim pacing  

Pacing in the swim can be challenging, especially in open water. Go out too fast and you can find yourself in real trouble. And that’s before the bike and run have even started!

On the other hand, if you go out too slow, you may find yourself stuck in a slower pack or just failing to perform up to your potential.

Fortunately, this is a skill that can be worked on in training. You can improve your pacing using descending efforts.

Descending efforts are where you swim faster each repetition. This is really effective for helping you learn to control your speed and your pacing. The biggest value is that it’s objective.

You either go faster or you don’t. That really helps you learn how to calibrate what you’re feeling with how you’re performing.

You may find that you need to push harder to change speeds, or you might need to be less aggressive. For those that tend to be too aggressive, descending efforts are excellent for requiring control.

You have to learn to be patient, and you have to ensure that you can finish faster than you started.

Again, because the performance feedback is objective, it lets you know exactly what you need to do on the next repetition to be successful.

Training options

There two main types of descending efforts – short and long. The advantage of short descents is that you get a lot more feedback in a lot less time.

You also have to be a lot more precise because you’ll have to increase the speed for more repetitions over a smaller range of speed.

The advantages of the short descent is also the disadvantage. While you get a lot more feedback, it differs from races where you won’t be getting any feedback during races, where you’ll have to learn how to pace yourself by your internal feelings.

In the set below, you’ll get faster in groups of 3. The 2nd repetition will be faster than the 1st, and the 3rd faster than the 2nd. You’ll then repeat this process.

12 x 50m freestyle; descend 1-3/4-6/7-9/10-12

Long descents have the opposite advantages and disadvantages of short descents. You don’t get as much feedback, which can make it harder to know if you’re changing speeds appropriately.

However, this forces you to learn to rely on your internal feedback, which is what you’ll need while racing. This is the big advantage of the longer descents. In the set below, each repetition gets faster.

5 x 200m freestyle; descend 1-5

The best solution is to implement both types of descending efforts, using short and long to get the best of both worlds. There are an infinite number of variations you can use. Experiment, find what suits you, and learn to control your speed!

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