You may want to consider adding a 20 minute band session 2x week. I just watched Gerry Rodrigues (tower 26) how to become a better swimmer YouTube vids and this is one of his recommendations.

I have been doing the band sessions for 3 weeks now and feel myself getting stronger.

I would say nothing longer than a 300 repeat is needed for you. Most of the time that's my longest in a set and for context my 1500 in usually under 17:20, swam an 8:56 800m free and a 59:52 5k.

A main set of
3x

300 cruise pace rest about 20 to 30
8x50 at 1500 pace rest about 15 to 20

Pick fixed intervals that meet these specs.

Try 3-4 x

20x25 rest 10 to 15... flat out swimming take 90 seconds between rounds...

Only swimming LCM then make rounds 10x50 flat out rest 20 to 25... but very hard efforts.

You don't need to do a 5 k session for your current goals. Some strength work would help

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___________________________________________
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2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

'

Great idea! I will look into that. Maybe that is also good for reducing injury risk.

This seems like really hard sessions... not a high injury risk?

It will make you stronger, but there is risk of injury if you add time to your sessions too quickly.

You want to pull through the bands with a high elbow just as you would when swimming, but don't recover like you would in the pool. Just allow your arm to return to the starting position without rotating around your shoulder.

You have "endurance" since your 6ish minute 400m proves you are using slow twitch muscle fiber or you would basically stop dead after 25 meters once your fast twitch is spent!!! Adding a 5000m swim is fine, but you don't need longer intervals. 400m is plenty! Just do lots of them

your swimming 15k/week! Thats pretty good i have only swam over 15k a week once in my life and i am a sub 30min 1/2 swimmer. I was going to tell you to swim more but your swimming enough already. Although most of my "real" swimmers friends make fun of me for this: past yr i have started just doing tons of 1,000 repeats, for me i think that has helped my endurance more then anything. Throw in some 2,000-3,000 strait as well endurance goes up.....I also rarely do drills and i don't use paddles ever, still don't understand the point of fins either, now that i have completed discredited myself good luck. #longlivethe1000repeats

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

Intressting! I never use paddles either, since they hurt my shoulders.
How hard do you do these 1k repeats? and how many with how long rest?

In swimming, there are two general ways to get faster. You can either choose a volume approach or an intensity approach. They both work. The important distinction is that the intensity approach can be done with half the distance of a volume program.

Hope this helps.

Tim

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Is that the trick to not feeling weird and awkward when doing band work? I have tried but gave up because it never felt comfortable.

A few tricks that worked for me:

1. pulling with both arms at the same time. I feel more balanced and am able to maintain a high elbow this way.
2. I also use the over the door accessory from my TRX straps and thread my bands through that so I am pulling from up high vs mounting lower and having to maintain an even greater bend at my torso.

https://m.trxtraining.com/trx-door-anchor/

3. I also use my garmin in drill mode and count every 60 pulls as 100 yes. It makes me feel better to track the effort and gives me something to do in between sets to control the amount of break I give myself.

Thanks. I do think that part of the problem is that I tried to hook the bands onto something that was waist high, and something higher might help. I do need to do them more because it can be hard to get to the pool.

2 years ago i went with a volume approach: I got a little faster.
Last yr i did a "intensity approach" i did get my 100 time down a good bit. Biggest week was 15k most weeks 5-8k
This year: 1k repeats, i normal keep them med intensity rest is 1-3min. I feel like it has made my endurance overall much better and I can hold better pacing over a longer distance but my 100 time has not gotten any better maybe even little worse if anything (then again i don't do to many all out 100's to really know)
Racing in 3 weeks so will see if its really working but I feel like it has. It def makes swim shorter in length which due to time constraints is good for me.

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

Do this:
1x week: Longer main set. 3000-3500 meters continuously at 1500 pace on a pretty short rest interval. Try 10x200-10x100-10x50 all at 1500 pace with about 10-15 rest. Soon you might be able to get down to 800 pace on this set. It's really the shit.
1x week: Longer pull set. Try to get 3000 meters of pulling in, pref the day after your longer main set. Something like 6x500. Use paddles and perfect your pulling technique.
1x week: Speed and vo2max work. Try to get ~500 meters of 100 pace done. Start with 2x(10x25) with ~20-25 rest and work towards 20 or even 30 straight 25's. For vo2max I like sets of about 4-600 meters depending on how fast you are, broken into 50-100m intervals on a pretty tight sendoff. I love 100 fast into 4x75 holding the same pace throughout. Try to get about 20-30 minutes of work in, just like a vo2 sesh on the bike.
The other two workouts should just be a glorified warmup consisting of ladders, the drills you love, the drills you hate, easy pulling, some strokework, breathing patterns, underwaters, kicking, etc. They are done to keep volume up while allowing you to perform on the other sessions (primarily the 1500/800 session and the speedwork vo2max).

Good luck and enjoy the ride; swimming is the shit!

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Endurance coach | Physiotherapist (primary care) | Bikefitter | Swede

THIS

Not really. We swam ton of low - medium intensity stuff in HS and University (70-80 km was a normal week, 100 was a big one).

My shoulders are way better now. Look at how fast your 50-100-200 speed should be to swim the 400-800-1500+ goals you have. You won't get there going slow.


Did a main set like this last night.

4 rounds (1/3 IM 5/stroke, 2/4 Free)

20x25 (1/3 @ 30, 2/4 @ 25)

I was close to puking in the last 10 going 14-15s on 25. I have the 400 Free & 200 IM on my plate on March 25. I'll let you know how it goes. My best guess is 4:15-18.

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

Yep

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

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Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

Do the band exercise actually work or should you just swim more? I am on my break but will start back up in April for my 1/2 iron in July and will be swimming 3 days a week. No experience with the bands so I am asking.

The StretchCordz, or "bands", do work to increase swim-pull strength but they should be thought of as a supplement to rather than a replacement for swimming. Swimming more is the best way to get better at swimming (duh:).

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Totally agree.

Use swim band in your warm up or a supplement if traveling. Bands can be very helpful for teaching your arms to get into certain positions but arm strength or size are a small portion of whats important in swimming, especially for triathletes who lack a lot of skill in swimming. Most swimmers i first deal with should stop spending so much time doing their gym work and spend more time in the pool learning how to utilize water to create forward propulsion.

Also, people tend to forget that swimming is an aerobic activity just like biking and running...mainly because they dislike swimming so they can justify to themselves that these other things will help when they typically don't. Treating swimming separate to biking and running by using bands and weights more than actual pool time will only cause poor bike and run performances... and slow swim times.

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Inside The Big Ring: Podcast & Coaching

Exactly. Dry-land proponents will point out how all swimmers do dry-land workouts but they're forgetting that these workouts are a very small portion of most swimmers total workout time, e.g., Phelps and Ledecky will swim around 20 hr/wk vs maybe 2-3 hr/wk of dry-land. Further, if you are already pushing your muscles to the limit in the pool, then trying to push further with dry-land is just going to increase the prob of over-training and its downward spiral.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."