The Guru has arrived

Big day in the Swim Smooth world today. Today they launched the Swim Smooth Guru.

The Guru

The Guru is an evolution of the Swim Smooth app that has been out for a year or so now. In creating the Guru, Paul Newsome and the team have tried to implement a lot of the feedback they have been given on the app, plus introduce a number of new features.

I have spent the morning playing around with the Pro version of the app and I have to say it is quite impressive.

The interface has been cleaned up a lot, particularly on the phone, which I found to be a bit hard to navigate in the past. Now it is very easy to navigate, although it still does look better on a PC in my opinion.

A lot of the existing features have been tweaked to make them more user friendly, or easier to access. Today I started up a Half Ironman training plan, which was something I could have done before but never got around too. The new format sort of led me in that direction. All the other standard features are still there too, the massive library of sessions, the videos of how to do all the major drills, the fault fixers, videos of elite swimmers etc. The list is a long one.

A couple of the new feature are pretty significant too. There is a new tool called the 'CSS tweaker'. For those unfamiliar CSS stands for Critical Swim Speed. It is theoretically the pace/100m at which you could swim 1500m if you were completely fresh. It is also the metric that is used to build nearly all Swim Smooth sessions. The way we have always figured it out in training is by doing a 400m effort and a 200m effort and then running the results through the Swim Smooth CSS calculator. It is a great way of personalising your training and making sure you are working at the right intensity for you. Anyway, one problem with CSS is that it is very sensitive you how you were feeling on the day of testing. Plus, the only way to really re calibrate it is to redo the test. The CSS tweaker attempts to solve that problem. Basically it is a tool that will automatically change your CSS based on feedback you give on sessions you have done. Feel good, it gets a little bit quicker, feel bad, a little slower. This way it helps you progress without requiring regular testing.

The second cool new feature also relates to tracking of progress. The Swim Smooth app has always kept a record of your sessions, but now it has built it into a fitness tracker type training log. Think of it a bit like TrainingPeaks for swimming. It has even calculated a sTSS (swimming training stress score) for the sessions. TrainingPeaks calculates sTSS too, but I have always felt that it was a bit simplistic, now you can get a sTSS calculated specifically for the session you have just done. You can then enter this into TrainingPeaks if you so desire. Much like TrainingPeaks, the Swim Smooth app then uses this record of sessions to help track your fitness. You can manually enter your own sessions in too, just in case you aren't doing a session from the library.

I have always felt that at $220 a year (for the full blown Pro version) the Swim Smooth app was one of the best value training tools available, particularly if you don't have regular access to a swim squad. With the upgrades that have been done to the system it has taken what was a great tool and made it even better.

With the unfortunate demise of the Swim Smooth Saturday session I will be looking at doing half my weekly swims solo (once I am swimming again). It is unfortunate to not have the squad to swim with, but at the same time, doing sessions alone bring a host of benefits, not the least of which is that when you are alone you have to lead the lane. However, when I swim alone I struggle with the motivation to get going and keep going. That is one of the reasons I have loved the app in the past, it gives me the session to do, no more thought required, just get on with it. Now that I am swimming alone more often this is even more relevant. Once I am back in the pool I can't wait to get started with it.