How to Improve Your Pacing Skills

Looking to up your pacing skills in the pool? Here are some actionable pacing tips and tools to help you master pace and your performance on race day.

Improving swim performance and getting faster tends to revolve around the big, flashy stuff…

Explosive starts, insanely smooth underwaters, monster kicks generating a white-water waterfall behind you, golden finishes and breaking personal best times over your knee.

But you know what isn’t as shiny and flashy as a new set of swim goggles?

Pacing.

It’s one of the more underrated skills in the pool.

And maybe unsurprisingly, a 2019 meta-analysis (Menting et al., 2019) showed that elite swimmers consistently pace their races more, well, consistently compared to developing and non-elite swimmers.

They get out fast, hit a mid-race rhythm, and close like a champ.

And unlike less experienced swimmers, there is less variability across races, and they manage energy to avoid mid-race crashes.

Here is a look at some pro pacing strategies and tools swimmers can use in training to get better managing and executing pace on race day.

Target different pace speeds (at different fatigue levels).

The best way to learn what feels like too fast or too measured is by experiencing the full spectrum of paces.

Sets and workouts for learning proper pacing in the water encourage swimmers to hit target times under a variety of conditions so that the feeling of a certain pace becomes second nature.

For example, my favorite “learn to pace” set is pairing a target pace (1:10 per 100m, for example), with increasing volume, testing our ability to maintain that pace under more challenging circumstances.

Here is what an example set would look like:

• 1×100 freestyle swim at target pace (1:10)
• 1×200 freestyle swim at target pace (2:20)
• 2×100 freestyle swim at target pace (1:10)
• 2×200 freestyle swim at target pace (2:20)
• 3×100 freestyle swim at target pace (1:10)
• 3×200 freestyle swim at target pace (2:20)

This type of set can be configured in an almost endless number of ways, but play around at the edges of where you are just starting to fall off to get a sense of what failing pace (within grasp of making it) feels like.

Practice is for experimenting with different pacing strategies, so get after it in training so that you can instantly read how your body is feeling in competition.

Use a set of performance cues for racing.

When planning your next race, assign each part of the race different cues to keep you focused on performance and pace.

For example, for a 200m freestyle, you’d do something like this:

• First 50: Easy speed!
• Second 50: Begin to engage the legs!
• Third 50: Accelerate!
• Fourth 50: Finish with everything you got!

Crafting performance cues and a cognitive race plan isn’t just a race day tool—it’s a mental skill you can use in training, too. Check out Conquer the Pool: The Swimmer’s Ultimate Guide to a High Performance Mindset—a mental training workbook packed with exercises, strategies, and tools to help you stay focused, stick to your pacing plan, and swim with confidence when it matters most.

Performance cues, also sometimes known as cognitive race plans, help you match effort with each phase of the race so that you can execute the race you want instead of just flaming out or holding back until it’s too late and the competition has swum on by.

Review your past races and splits.

Looking at past performances can be very helpful in terms of giving actionable intel on what pacing strategies work best for you.

There are several different pacing personalities—the swimmer who goes out at Mach 5 and desperately holds on, the swimmer who deliberately holds back on the first half of the 50 to avoid spinning their wheels—and understanding which pacing strategy works best for you starts with your own performance history.

Look back at your best swims. Compare them with your under-performance swims. Get a sense of how you swim the race best, and you can start attacking relevant paces and your own strategy in training and competition.

Be specific about race pace targets

Swimmers often race according to feel, in the sense that if they feel energetic and fired up, they will attack the race from the front. If lethargic, they will slowly ease into the race, hoping to find energy later on.

Elite swimmers, on the other hand, have race pace targets firmly in mind. They know how fast they are going to go at each stage of the race, because they’ve done those paces thousands of times in training.

They can tell to a fraction of a second if they are on or off pace without having to look at the clock because they were intentional about mastering the speed, energy management, and specific technical demands at each intensity.

To figure out race pace for your goal events, check out our custom Race Pace Calculator that uses the pacing strategies of the best swimmers on the planet to help you build a pacing strategy specific to your goal times.

The calculator removes the guesswork so that you have exact pacing times and targets to chase at practice, helping you learn how to properly pace.

The Bottom Line

Swimming fast is just as much about managing energy and learning your different gears and paces as it is testing the top-end limits of velocity.

Pacing might not be the flashiest skill, but it’s one of the most powerful. Nail your pace, and you’ll swim smarter, finish stronger, and race with more control.

Start small, stay consistent, and trust the process—your future fast swims will thank you.

Happy pacing, and happy swimming!