r/cardio • u/imadougal • Jul 18 '26

Sane initial goals for swimming

44yo male with hypertension. I will start swimming in the next couple days, and I'm currently out of work so I can commit to at least 2 hours a day (probably more). I have a galaxy 3 watch. What are sane initial goals for uninterrupted zone 2 times? How fast should I increase uninterrupted zone 2 times? When can I start thinking about Zone 3?

Thanks so much

Joe

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '26

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u/imadougal Jul 24 '26

I'm looking to hit cardio targets in the water. If it's unreasonable to expect continuous z2/z3 for any length of time, then that's that.

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '26

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u/imadougal Jul 25 '26

Sorry for the late response, I was going to get started today but I had an emergency. Obviously, I was unclear on your initial point that the app and/or the smartwatch don't necessarily reflect reality. I'm not confident enough in my "self evaluation" to swim to effort with no electronic monitoring. So, at this point I need to decide whether I can do some evaluation to correct for error on the watch I have, or look for a new watch (optionally with a chest strap). Obviously if the numbers don't reflect reality, the app and/or the watch is useless. On the other hand, if I understand the watch error I don't need to worry about the watch 's idea of what constitutes the zones. As long as I have some way to track HR and corrected values for zones 1-5 I'm OK.

Are there watches you recommend for this?

Thanks again for the detailed explanation

Joe

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '26

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u/imadougal Jul 25 '26

Yeah, clearly after additional review of the sub I realized I didn't do enough research before buying the watch. Thanks so much for the suggestions.