Speed charts are a great tool to motivate athletes when they are doing race pace training.
Listed below are speed charts sourced primarily from Swimming Australia and the QAS for you to utilise.
Recommendation on the use of Speed Charts for training targets:
These speed charts have been set out for High Performance athletes who are training with a clear focus on an event or events week in and week out.
Coaches of Junior Swimmers and Age Group Swimmers who would like to utilise speed targets in training should consider the speed chart as a guide for the athletes to target a focused approach to any race pace efforts they are asked to do.
As the junior and age group athletes are still on a development pathway it is recommended that the coach introduce targeted speeds as another type of motivation for the athlete on an individual bases rather than the group being asked to swim a certain speed.
If the coach is having the squad do a set of 25’s fast (10×25 dive walk backs) you can refer to the athletes goal time and have suggested speed targets to achieve:
- Johnny – goal of 1:00.90 – target 25 dive speed = 13.5
- Mary – goal 1:05.60 – target dive speed = 15.4
Please note that the speed charts are only a guide to develop individual training speeds, we recommend only referring to them for Junior and Age Group athletes for motivation and focus while performing correct skills and technique first at all times.
50m Long Course Freestyle Speed Charts
Male 50 LCM Freestyle – 20 to 26 sec
Male 50 LCM Freestyle – 26 to 30 sec
Female 50 LCM Freestyle – 23 to 28 sec
Female 50 LCM Freestyle – 28 to 32 sec
100m Long Course Speed Charts
100 LCM Freestyle – 45 to 60 sec
100 LCM Freestyle – 60 to 70 sec
100 LCM Backstroke – 51 to 66 sec
100 LCM Backstroke – 66 to 76 sec
100 LCM Breaststroke – 57 to 72 sec
100 LCM Breaststroke – 72 to 82 sec
100 LCM Butterfly – 49 to 64 sec
100 LCM Butterfly – 65 to 75 sec
200m Long Course Speed Charts