This is a question for the fishes here.
Disclosure: I am AOS swimmer, started with triathlons in my late 20s. I completely sucked at swimming, so it used to be my least favorite part of triathlons and of course as a result didn't swim train consistently (yes I know ...). Some years later I swam for a few months with a master's swim team which I liked a lot (shout-out to RedTide Masters). That's where I saw what real swim training was like. Unfortunately they no longer swim in the only pool that was convenient for me to attend.
Now in my early 30s with 2 young kids and no real pressure or enough time to train for triathlons I finally discovered the real joy of swimming and jumping into the swimming pool during lunch break. I would really love to commit to becoming a good swimmer.
My question is how do you build your swim workouts? Compared to bike or run workouts, the swim workouts I see posted in the swim threads by the fishes or the ones I used to follow with my former swim team seem so much more complex, elaborate and full of variations and little details. Short intervals, long intervals, variation in swimming styles, number of repeats, number of sets, pull buoys, paddles, etc. no single workout ever looks the same. Any advice on how I can approach this is appreciated.
So far I've been swimming consistently for the past 3 months. I've been mostly focusing on upping my mileage and trying to maintain good technique without obsessing about times too much yet. I swim in 25m pool, I currently swim ~2200m per workout in ~45min, 3-4/week hoping to start doing 5/week consistently soon and up the mileage per workout further. I've definitely felt improvement, starting from 2:10 3 months ago to 1:40-1:45 on my 100m repeats. I feel my body has become more fit and I want to keep progressing. I started incorporating some paddles and pull buys as of a week ago.
So far my workouts have been pretty basic: 300-400 warmup, usually 1 but sometimes 2 main sets, and some cool down (all freestyle, with some 50 kick thrown here and there (I am a terrible kicker))
Main sets have been pretty basic as well, like
100/200/300/400/500 ladder
1500 at threshold on occasion
multiple 200s swim
3x 200pull+paddes/200pull/200swim
10x100 with 10-15sec rest
6x25 as second main set
combination of 200s 300s 400s or 500s swim/pull/or pull+paddles
I've been reading through some of the swim threads, and what I can deduce is that I should probably incorporate sets for both technique (short interval lengths, e.g. 25/50 with a lot of rest) and endurance and fitness (100/200 and higher)
How do you determine:
# sets,
# repeats,
how much rest between repeats or sets
what mixture of interval lengths
Other questions:
Is there benefit in me learning to flip turn? (I swim open turns only so far)
Should I incorporate other styles? (can do breast, have a terrible backstroke and no clue how to do butterfly)
Disclosure: I am AOS swimmer, started with triathlons in my late 20s. I completely sucked at swimming, so it used to be my least favorite part of triathlons and of course as a result didn't swim train consistently (yes I know ...). Some years later I swam for a few months with a master's swim team which I liked a lot (shout-out to RedTide Masters). That's where I saw what real swim training was like. Unfortunately they no longer swim in the only pool that was convenient for me to attend.
Now in my early 30s with 2 young kids and no real pressure or enough time to train for triathlons I finally discovered the real joy of swimming and jumping into the swimming pool during lunch break. I would really love to commit to becoming a good swimmer.
My question is how do you build your swim workouts? Compared to bike or run workouts, the swim workouts I see posted in the swim threads by the fishes or the ones I used to follow with my former swim team seem so much more complex, elaborate and full of variations and little details. Short intervals, long intervals, variation in swimming styles, number of repeats, number of sets, pull buoys, paddles, etc. no single workout ever looks the same. Any advice on how I can approach this is appreciated.
So far I've been swimming consistently for the past 3 months. I've been mostly focusing on upping my mileage and trying to maintain good technique without obsessing about times too much yet. I swim in 25m pool, I currently swim ~2200m per workout in ~45min, 3-4/week hoping to start doing 5/week consistently soon and up the mileage per workout further. I've definitely felt improvement, starting from 2:10 3 months ago to 1:40-1:45 on my 100m repeats. I feel my body has become more fit and I want to keep progressing. I started incorporating some paddles and pull buys as of a week ago.
So far my workouts have been pretty basic: 300-400 warmup, usually 1 but sometimes 2 main sets, and some cool down (all freestyle, with some 50 kick thrown here and there (I am a terrible kicker))
Main sets have been pretty basic as well, like
100/200/300/400/500 ladder
1500 at threshold on occasion
multiple 200s swim
3x 200pull+paddes/200pull/200swim
10x100 with 10-15sec rest
6x25 as second main set
combination of 200s 300s 400s or 500s swim/pull/or pull+paddles
I've been reading through some of the swim threads, and what I can deduce is that I should probably incorporate sets for both technique (short interval lengths, e.g. 25/50 with a lot of rest) and endurance and fitness (100/200 and higher)
How do you determine:
# sets,
# repeats,
how much rest between repeats or sets
what mixture of interval lengths
Other questions:
Is there benefit in me learning to flip turn? (I swim open turns only so far)
Should I incorporate other styles? (can do breast, have a terrible backstroke and no clue how to do butterfly)