910xt swim mode - lap vs start/stop? (Page 2)

Yeah, I agree 100% with Marc here.  I respect your opinion, Dave, and am a proponent of much of your approach to swim training, but the pace clock and wrist computer aren't mutually exclusive.

I wear my 910 in the pool, but it's only there to collect data and keep track of my sets.  I'm swimming the intervals off the pace clock on the wall, only hitting the lap button on the 910 without even looking at the display, and occasionally checking it to see how many sets I've completed.  It's what I want my athletes doing, so I can look at how well they held their pace and whether things started breaking down (more spl later in the sets?).  I don't want them obsessing over the damn thing, but I don't like coaching blindly either, because they didn't collect the data.

If someone could make a small wrist worn device that I didn't notice that would record data for me like a Garmin does, I'd love to wear one.  I'm thinking something like a Fitbit or smaller.  It wouldn't have much of a display on it to show me splits or anything, it's purely there for recording data that I could look at later.  Then I can use the pace clock as Dave is describing and have analysis for later if desired without the annoyance of a big watch on my wrist.

Someone should invent that.

I see both sides of the argument.  I'm an old school swimmer so the pace clock is what I know.  At the same time, I've seen some of the swim data from Marc's swimming and thought that was pretty cool to have.  

One thing I struggle with a bit in my head is that when I finish an interval, sometimes I touch the wall with my left hand, sometimes the right but I'm always looking up immediately at the clock as I do so and my opposing arm is down by my side so I'm not sure how I get an accurate split on a watch?  Do you then bring the other arm up and hit lap or are you touching with both arms extended?  Honest question - I'm not dissing it, just wondering.

Just a couple of questions from the bolded parts above:

• What does having a great wall touch have anything to do with success in triathlon swimming?
• Why can't you just glance at your watch and check your splits mid-swim?  It's easier (and more accurate) than the analog pace clock.
• Why would you need to know that you're doing 1:33.50 vs. 1:32.75 in a 15 x 100 set?  I'd even argue that by the time you do the wall touch and pull your head up out of the pool to look at the pace clock (even a digital one) and do the mental math, your accuracy is less than :01.
• Would you say wrist button pushing diminishes other workouts, too, like running intervals?  Just curious on that one.
• No idea on changing the stroke, but since I always wear my watch it would at least be consistent. 

Got it.  You like things old school.  Good for you.  You make all sorts of "unscientific" claims, and hope people will take your advice.  Good luck with that.  I'm sure you are a better swimmer than I'll ever be, but that doesn't mean your way is the only way.  

The 910 is a great tool for swimming.  It can identify your stroke, captures your lap times and rest times.  Is simple to use and is easily as accurate as looking up at and focusing on a clock so you can read it.  It doesn't change your stroke.  After about 1 or 2 workouts you won't even think about it except to hit the lap button. It is easy to use....  Is it good for everyone.  No probably not.  Would it work good for someone on swim team?  Nope.  Good for someone racing in a swim meet?  Probably not.  But for a triathlete, training and racing, it is a great tool.  And you probably want to train like you race and wear it when you train.

This all makes sense.  I swam in a LC pool last year that only had a clock at one end and I couldn't see it from the far end so I had to do 100s or more rather than some 50s.

I'm not really anti watch, I just haven't been convinced that spending the $ on one will benefit me.

I kind of think of it as the same reason we use latex tubes vs butyl and try to figure out if aero helmet A is faster than B - small subtle differences add up.

If you are consistent with your push off and the clock is easy to see at the finish, you can absolutely get accuracy of less than :01.  If I'm doing 50s, I'll be looking at the clock and thinking :33 high or :34 low.  That's a 0.5s difference and can be the difference of whether or not I kept my focus at the end with my catch.  Outside factors like Mr butterfly in the lane next to you obviously can affect this but you just learn to take that sort of thing into account.

This is how I use it, too.  All of our send-offs are based on the pace clock and I use that for feedback at the end of an interval; I don't mess with the watch otherwise (unless I switch it to drill mode or something).

If you don't have to fuss with the watch during the workout, then great! I think the larger point in there is to be careful of things that may distract from actually swimming in some way or other. Might give some info, but could be trading one thing for another without realizing how much.