I'm not serious but have had some pretty good results (in the swim leg of the triathlon only unfortunately!).

In 2001 I was swimming at 2:00 per 100m
I swam with little intent or improvement for a few years.
From 2003-2006 I swam AT LEAST three times a week: 2 x 60 minutes and 1 x 90 minutes. I'd guess it came in at 10-12km/week.
Perhaps I swam a fourth set every second week. That 4th set was either 10x400 or 1x4000m (LCM).

From this, I managed a 20:10 in Olympic and 49:?? in IM.
The IM swim was most likely short but I came out of the water in 39th place (Including male and female Pros).

Now, I swim about 3-5km per week and can go about 22:?? in Olympic and can hold 1:35/100m in the pool without too much difficulty.
I wish I had more time on my hands. I'd like to get back to my 2006 form!

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My Blog

What is frustrating when trying to glean information like this regarding swimming is that many fast swimmers in triathlon come from a swim background and can be incredibly fast in what would be considered minimal training.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
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In January of 2012 I could not tread water at the deep end of a pool.

I began to swim 2-3k a week for six months, which improved me to a 28:00 ply (first tri ever). had no idea what to do in the water, just swam until i got bored 2-3 times a week.

this past year i read up, got advice, and started doing sets. this past summer i put in somewhere between 10-12k a week and i can now swim high 23s/low 24s. Not great, but I'm still learning. I'm a mid 23mph cyclist/37-38 10k guy so this winter I really plan on focusing on the swim and would like to get down to 21-22. I plan on averaging between 15-20k a week. i also have an ex all big ten swimmer semi coaching me which helps. i'm learning all the different strokes (can only do freestyle right now) and she's teaching how actually get faster in the pool.

DING DING DING We have a Winner!

I've seen athletes take 10 years out of the water hope in and go 10 min flat for 825 yards. (former olympian) I've seen another swim 3x about 1200 each then bang out 70x100 on 1:40 (former olympian) I've seen former AG and college swimmers take 2-8 years out of the water, swim < 50k and then go do an IM swim in <58 min.

I've seen adult onset swimmers put in 750k yards in a year and not crack 33 for a half swim. Then do it again the next year and still not crack 33 although they did crack 34. I've seen adult onset swimmers swim for 10 years and then the college swimmer gets in for 2 weeks and starts to destroy them in the pool.

To the OP:

When I was racing, and I swam AG swimming for a few years, I put in about 15k in 4 swims. That netted me mid 26's for a half. When I upped it to 18-20k after a month or 6 weeks I was in the high 25's. After about a quarter of a year of that, I was in the very high 24's and even lead out of the water at a few races overall.

It's truly a YMMV situation

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
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I'm not trying to derail the thread, and I'm not a good enough swimmer to qualify to answer your question. But, didn't you just post in another thread that you were planning on cycling 10-12 hours per week? If you bike 10-12, swim 10 and then add running you're looking at close to 30 hours per week. I'm not saying you can't do that, but that's A LOT of work and I know you've been posting about trying to KQ. My advice would be to not focus too much on one discipline and forget about the total training load. Swimming is the easiest to recover from, but swimming 10 hours a week will affect your cycling and running (and if I remember correctly you said you're in the southern hemisphere so you're coming into your season so you're not talking about an off-season swim focus). From a KQ perspective, think about what's going to give YOU the best chance to qualify. Is that 10 hours in the pool every week? How will 10 hours a week in the pool affect your cycling and running?

I'm not saying you shouldn't work on the swim. I'm just saying that you shouldn't forget about the total training load. Find the right balance that's going to minimize your weaknesses and also allow you to race to your strengths.

Anyway, I'm not trying to derail the thread and since I'm always trying to improve my swim I always like hearing what better swimmers are doing.

A:

I coach a masters swim team that is mostly triathletes and we focus on getting better at distance freestyle / open water swimming. I coach beginning AG triathletes to AG Kona qualifers to Pro Kona qualifiers.

Here are some questions for you:

- What is your current pace per 100m in the pool?
- Do you swim SCM(short course meters - 25) or LCM(long course meters - 50)?
- How do you currently train in the pool in terms of the variety of sets you do?
- Do you swim sets on an interval or a rest interval?
- Do you swim alone or on a team?
- When did you start swimming?

In terms of what we do, for the AG triathletes I have 5 practices a week. Most of the good AGs that I coach average about 4x a week in the pool. The workouts are anywhere from 1 to 1.5 hours and 2500 yards to 5000 yards and average about 12k-15k yards a week depending on what we are doing. I tend to push a lot of intensity since we don't have much time in the water and stroke technique is usually still developing. For the AG Kona qualifiers and pros, they swim 6x a week and average about 20k-25k a week.

If you want to see the results of an athlete from the program, you can find it here. It is an analysis of swim results from an AG Kona qualifier and the progress he made. Like you, he plateaued from his first time in Kona and I started working with him about 2.5 months ago. If you want to see the workouts we do, I post them all here.

The issue with a shoulder injury is something to consider. Be careful on how quickly you ramp up and a shoulder injury with that volume, while not a lot of volume, is still a possibility depending on your stroke technique. Stretch cord / strength work will help with injury prevention.

I am happy to answer any questions.

Best regards,

Tim Floyd

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Supersquid,

Thanks a lot for the push. You are absolutely correct and that is why i posted. I wanted to get a feel for how much serious swimmers do. I do need to find the right balance and 10 hours per week might be too much. I probably have to get a basic structure in place and then do a bit of trial and error.

I'm "serious" but just a weak swimmer in general. I started swimming 2012 so I'm pretty new. Do about 6K-7K a week just cause I feel my time is better spent on the bike and the run. I get about 28-29 min Olympic and a 38 min HIM swims. I'm usually tops on the bike, upper-middle on the run, and slow on the swim in races.

My swim has gotten faster this year though.. I used to do 20x100yd intervals at around 1:43/100yd pace but this past few months it went down 1:35/100yd pace... I think I finally hit a stride in my swim and seeing good improvements.

I consider myself "serious." I am also an "adult onset" swimmer. I learned to swim about 6 years ago when I started triathlon. 58 min swim at IMFL (wetsuit) and 30 min at Vegas 70.3 WCs (non wetsuit).

I swim 3 sessions a week year round @ 3.5k avg per session. I'd love to swim more but ... something has to give lol. Basically, i swim a speed day, long set day, and a technique (mixed) day each week.

Tim,

Thanks a lot. I am going to read the links you posted. Pls see answers to your questions above.

Solid improvement by Matt Hansson. I am probably where he was in 2011. I have swum 1:06 and :07 if I remember correct in my last 2 IMs (March and May 2013) but with wetsuit in both.

From what I gather is that 10-12 km and 4 times per week (which is roughly what I used to do) is maintaining or at best providing marginal improvements. To become competitive overall and in the swim leg, 20-24 km per week is the norm. I will try to ramp up and see if I can get close to 20 km. Might be a bit too ambitious as I also want to become stronger on the bike but if I do not try, I will not know.

I'm kicking around the idea of swimming 2000 in the morning and another 2000 in the evening 3 days a week, then 4K on saturday and see what happens.

jaretj

I used to swim 6-9k a week. Last fall I started doubling my volume, and eventually got up to swimming hard 6x per week. So, I'd say I've averaged 16-20k a week for the last year.

The improvement has been striking. Like you, I was improving slowly on my old volume. Once doubled I swam 58:30 at IM CdA (previous best there: 1:03) and then 58:50 at Kona (previous best: 1:04). I think I've dropped 10sec/100 in training scy during this time. 10x100 on 1:30 at 1:20/100 used to kill me, did 40x100 on my birthday and it was easy.

I think that each person has a volume point where the gains start happening. For me once I got the feel for the water the gains started coming quickly.

Moral of the story, swim every day.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
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Ghez... 58 min IM swim and you're an adult onset swimmer?...

Eric,

Did you "just" swim more or did you do other stuff like specific technique work, changed your workout structure, started to use or not use paddles and buyo and band? I am just trying to figure out if it was "just" more volume or other stuff too.

Thanks.

actually, I started to use paddles and bouy more, almost exclusively. lots of band work too. and hard sets with a good swimmer.

but for me, my weaknesses were "feel" for the water and legs too low. So, band and paddles helped with that. I'd say that for anyone like us in the 1:05 range trying to get better that band and paddles and bouy should be the only tools you use.

Think what Sutton did with Chrissie Wellington.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

My 3 girls swim competitively, and I try to emulate many of their tecniques and ethic into my swimming. I also have a swim coach (Elli Overton, Aussy Olympian) work with me to fine tune every few months. As I said, I take it seriously, and try to make every stroke count .... esp with my low volume.

Swimming for the sake of swimming isn't going to do as much as becoming a better swimmer. I was never a swimmer until I got into triathlon, did the 10-14KM a week thing for a few years with little improvement. Did 12 weeks of focused 1:1 lessons with a swim coach and now swim roughly 4.5-6.5KM a week and went from 1:50/100M in 70.3 to low 1:30s/100M

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Rodney
TrainingPeaks | Altra Running | RAD Roller
http://www.goinglong.ca

^^
That. I swam in High School, took a 30 year break and slowly got back into the swim of things with 3xweek swim workouts. Basic stuff like 10x100s, 5x200s, ladders,,etc. my goal, after a break in period so as not to destroy my shoulders, was to equal an IM distance for every workout. That got me to a :52 at IMLP. This year, in January I upped it to 5 days a week for an average of 20-25k per week. I swam a :22:09 at Rev3 Quassy, and another :52 at IMLP. The :52 this year was by far much easier than last year's swim of the same time.

So, swim a lot.

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Dale Stephanos (Formerly PappaD)

Eric, you just ruined my day, this is so not what I want to hear ...


;)

Terrific job in Kona, see you here for IMAZ?

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Did not swim (save for swimming lessons) until I went to highschool. We swam 6 months per year, 8x per week, but maybe only 8-10 hours total. The other 6 months we didn't swim. I payed no attention to sets, or technique, or what we were doing. Just swam hard, tried to catch people ahead, etc. Did that for 4 years and improved a lot. I think my first 100yard race was 1:18 (all out, dive, speedsuit, etc). By the end of 4 years I was 50.16. From then I swam much less, and now I swim 3-4x per week, for 12 - 15km.

The lesson I'm trying to get across is this: It will probably take a lot of investment, and probably a few years (maybe 2 swimming constantly), but the gains will stay with you forever (for the most part). I could likely swim a 25min 2000m on two swims a week now. Join a group... heck join two as I find most masters groups only meet a few times per week. Go and hammer it in the pool and, while you should focus on technique to an extent, don't be overly critical all the time.

Edit - I should add, I swim less now racing as MPRO than I did racing as an AG athlete. More time on the bike and run. Make the investment and you won't have to do much to maintain it.

hopefully just my back!

;)

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

I don't consider myself a "serious swimmer" but I swam top 30 out of 450+ in my AG at my last two IM 70.3s. So my data point might be helpful.

For this last race, up until about six weeks out I swam 2X each week at about 3000 yards each. Then I upped it to 3X each week at 3000 yards each.

This was an intentional tradeoff, spending more time on the bike / run instead of investing more time getting faster on the swim.

PS- I was in organized swimming as a kid, probably through 7th grade.

Everyone's talking about the main sets they do, how fast they used to be and how you all want to add in double swims and 4-5k swims (which I DO think are a big benefit mentally) and no one has mentioned just swimming high quality workouts, week in, and week out. I'm not a swimmer, didn't come from a swim background and I've been in the 28's for a HIM swim, and low 22s for a 1500m, but I don't even swim 6-7k per week. But I do two things every time I swim: I swim drills to work on form and I swim hard with good form to not lose fitness. I just don't see what people get out of swimming 15-20k a week unless they are truly going for that 50' IM swim. The one time I put a ton of yardage in, I was down into the 58s for an IM swim - but I've figured out the trick and it's swimming a quality session a few times a week. And I like a nice easy long swim once per week - 1:30-1:40/100 yds.

All this to say, if you are swimming 10-14km per week and you aren't improving fast enough for your liking, then change it up. Add some harder sets, take longer rests, shorten the rests, etc - whatever it takes. Change it up, but the first thing I would do is work on the form, understand what the 'hinge' or 'anchor' part of your stroke is and you'll make some nice gains.
To answer your questions:
5-6k per week
3-4 swims (rarely 5).
2 x short recovery days - 1500 yds, 1 x Masters swim per week.

I would cut BACK on the swimming and add in some higher quality swimming. You may get slower at first when changing your stroke, but if you are in this for the long haul, you're going to have to change your stroke if you really want to improve.

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Mike Ricci
2017 USAT World Team Coach
USAT National Coach of the Year
Coaching Triathletes since 1992.

No problem there, I'm working an aid station in the run. Any special requests? :)

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
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Thanks so much for posting your workouts. These are great!

Check out rappstars answer on the thread about him dropping out at kona. He answers this question directly.

Yes, I read that one. Seems like swimming some significant volume (+20k) is the way to go if one really wants to improve.

Perhaps I should have added to my post that I don't screw around with junk yardage any more. My 2-2.5K days are all work.

If I'm not tired from busting out that 2-2.5K then I didn't swim fast enough. Funny thing is that I don't do 3K to 3.5K days any more but I've gotten faster every year since.

jaretj

There's nothing wrong with swimming big days, but getting in the quality work someone who is MOP is way more important. For many people swimming 25+ minutes for 1500m, all they are doing with big yardage is enforcing bad habits. Sounds like you have it down - with the cut back in volume, you can swim faster with better form. Hopefully you still sneak in a 2k main set once per week. Those are important.

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Mike Ricci
2017 USAT World Team Coach
USAT National Coach of the Year
Coaching Triathletes since 1992.

I'm in the water 4 days right now and my saturdays are about 4K. I let the volume slip a bit in the summer though.

I've been hanging on a 23' 1500m for a while now and I think this winter I'm going to improve on that. Realistically I'd be really happy with a mid 21'

I've never really posted on any swim threads, but thought I would toss in my $.02.

Complete Adult Onset Swimmer. Swam 36:XX at Racine and 26:XX at Leon's in 2012 (and both were just pulling, no kicking).

On a whim, I joined the Guppie Challenge this summer and opted for the Finding Freestyle program. Did a Sprint in late July and swam 1:40 / 100m and felt like I coulda held that pace all day. Not fast by any Fish standards, but a significant improvement from my 2:00 / 100m days.

I have been swimming a LOT more lately due to ongoing foot injuries (PF, stress fracture in heel). Two weeks ago I logged my first ever 10K week and I am already @ 9500m for this week. MY max when I was building up to Racine in 2012 was 6-8K / week.

For me, the combination of the FF program and more meters is paying off. My feel for the water has improved significatnly, my enduracne is up and I am faster. The key for me has been getting a sense of a kick. I used to flutter kick and have now gotten comfortable with a 2 Beat kick for aerobic sets and use a 6 Beat kick for faster sets.

Don't get me wrong.....I'm still slow. I still suck. But I have a much better sense of what I am doing now and can see the improvements. I am going to continue my swim focus for the rest of 2013, hopefully increasing my meters as I go. Hopefully this allows my foot to fully heal. Then I'lll bring the bike back into it and maybe add a little aqua running. Full prep / training for IMMOO will then begin in March.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

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Gee, I don't know, but Sami Inkinen and Ben Greenfield both posted 1:02 swims in Kona (Ben said that was his slowest time there). They both claim to swim about 90 minutes/week.

During a swim focus 5-7 times a week. During the season I'll probably just get in 3-4 swims a week. Mostly short.

I'm really focusing on making the yard count. If I only get 30-40 minutes, it's going to be fast, hard and high quality intervals.

I am going to start getting in at least 1 solid 70-90 minute workout once a week. Then I can get in some epic and mind numbing workouts once a month like 10x400, 20x200, 40x100 repeats, plus some good kick sets. I'm takign ot heart some comments Jordan Rapp made about kicking a lot more. When I was faster in high school and as recent as 6 years ago, I kciked a lot more. And hard kick sets too.

If I can soldier through those mentally hard sets, that 2.4 miler won't be so bad. Or I'll be burnt out by March.

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Okay. I've been swimming for 2 years - no swim background at all prior.
Broke 30 a handful of times on HIM swim in year 1.
This year - 26 and change on a probably short HIM swim, a couple of 21:xx OD swims (wetsuit but poor sighting), and just over 30 on a non-wetsuit, poorly sighted Vegas swim.
On a standard 10x100y on :10 rest I'll push on ~1:25.

Most of the year I did 7 workouts every 2 weeks. Rarely does my Garmin record more than 60' of total swim time. Each workout is generally 3500-4k yards, as I've moved on to IM training, they've skewed more to 3800-5k yards. MS is usually 2500-3200y of swimming. Tack on about 1.5k of warmup/cool down and there you go.

Hope that helps.

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@adamwfurlong

As an adult-onset swimmer (25), I have noticed the biggest gains when swimming 30k + / week for 2-3 months at a time (earlier this year). That's 7-8 workouts a week, all hard.

That volume is contrasted by a more "normal" 16-20k/week when biking and running more (15ish hours/week).

And therein lies another issue with looking at an individuals results and relative training volume. Some people have biomechanics which simply make them more efficient swimmers. They have superior range of motion, flexibility, body type, that swimming comes very easily very quickly.

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Gone through my TrainingPeaks logs, since April 15th (when my off-season started, from AUS) I've spent 241.03hrs in the pool for 719.12ks (27ks a week on average). In the water 6 days per week (minimum).

Technically I am still an Age Grouper but transitioning into an ITU pro (hopefully) next month.

In regards to times, three years ago I couldnt swim sub 6 for 400m, now I am sub 5 in a 50m pool, generally do hard sets (3k continous) on the 1.20 base in a 25m pool

Edit to add, if you a serious about your goals, a big swim block is critical, once youve got good swim technique it wont leave, you can then back off the volume and concnetrate on the other two disciplines

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__________________________________________________
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To answer your questions:

-- what is your weekly volume in terms of TIME spend in the pool?
-- how many days per week do you swim?
-- do you have short days, recovery days and long days or do you always spend more or less the same time in the pool?

-I am an adult onset swimmer and started at age 38 when I began training for IM Louisville in January 2010
-I swim twice a week, usually a 4000 and a 5000 SCY and not with anyone fast. I don't really feel like it's a hard workout when I'm done and I don't think I try hard enough. I think I could improve a lot by swimming with other fast people but my schedule doesn't allow me to join masters
-Total weekly time is about 2.5 hours
-I've gone 1:00 and 58:30 in wetsuit legal lake IMs and 1:00 and 1:03 in non wetsuit river IMs (Louisville)
-I don't do any drills and I pull less than 25% of the workout. I am also slower with a pull buoy
-I do up to 40x100 on a 1:30 sendoff (SCY), coming in 1:18-1:23 and do 200s on 3:00 coming in anywhere from 2:35 to 2:50
-My fastest ever 200 SCY is 2:26 and I did a 3800 non stop LCM in 1:01this summer
-Fastest 1000 SCY is 13:40, pulling I can do about 13:52

I bought paddles and fins a month ago and am starting to use them. The paddles feel weird and I'm not much faster with them or the fins although I can feel the extra work they force me to do. My bike and run need more improvement than my swim so that's why I don't swim more often.

That's what I'm saying! I'm pretty new to the swim game but I'm a descent cyclist and definitley always one of the best runners. But my swim sucks. Honestly I have only being really focusing on swimming for about a year and a half and didn't really learn how to "properly swim" i.e. not drown until two years ago. But when should I expect to see some serious improvements. I mean 1:35 for me would just be crushing it! It has to be form right? Because I know cardiovascularly I can hang with 1:35 guys on the bike and the run.

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___________________________________

Because the race never stops.

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What sort of times are you hoping to achieve? And what events (IM? 70.3? Olympic?)..?

If you have reasonable technique, once you have done a big block of 3-4 months, I don't think you'd need to do any more than the 10-14k per week you are doing now.

I am not sure how the REALLY good swimmers view it, but feel for the water is probably the thing that will help you a lot. And, particularly if you have a sore shoulder, I would be doing more sessions per week of shorter distances. I speak from experience with the shoulder stuff (!!!).

I should have read through the thread before I replied - you basically said what I was thinking.

We are all an N=1.
When my big weeks hit, I'm going 5 pool sessions a week and one open water race per week. Total volume is between 25,000-27,000 yards a week. 10% of that is drill & 10% is kicking. That got me to a mid-26 in a 1/2 Ironman swim. Otherwise, I enjoy the water & use it to compensate for not being able to run as much any more. Off-season I'm swimming 4 times a week and averaging around 15K.

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#swimmingmatters
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2500- 3000 per week. A little more as race day nears. I already served my time (108k per week at the height). Now I'm out on parole on good behavior.

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Badig| Strava

I don't have a coach, and your post brings up a question that I have about my own training, v limited in time by 3 kids and a 60hr/week job.

Given limited hrs/week for an MOP racer, is it necessary to focus on one sport at a time for a block of 1-3 weeks, with only maintenance workouts done in the two others, to realize significant gains? I realize "significant" is the subjective word here, but I would still like opinions.

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_____________________________________
What are you people, on dope?

—Mr. Hand

I'll quick throw in my two cents. During my triathlon season, I typically swim 5 to 6 times a week and each workout usually takes less than an hour and half. During the winter, I swim about 15 hours a week and get in about 48,000 to 50,000 in. A sample workout is below, keep in mind this is for Olympic or Half-Iron Distance races.

300 Warm-up
300 Drill (Typically split into 3x100 or 6x50)
10x25 @ :30 (Work on quicker turnover while focusing on stroke technique)

(No more than 2 minutes rest)

5x500 @ Slightly faster than goal OD pace (this means take your goal per 100 average, subtract a second to a second and half from that, and multiply by 5 to get your target time range for each 500.) 30 sec rest in between each 500

Immediately go into a 300 cool down (I usually alternate 50 kick, 50 swim)

(No more than 2 minutes rest)

100 @ 80% max effort, 30 sec rest
50 @85% max effort, 30 sec rest
2x25 @95% max effort, 30 sec rest

repeat the set above 3 to 4 times, go straight into each set

400 cool down (I usually work in paddles and a pull-buoy into this)

Ideally, minimal rest should be taken between the different sets. This workout is only 4850 yards or meters, but training at a higher intensity with minimal will help you increase speed and muscular endurance.

Probably Inkinen does have some swimming talent but also he rode 4:33 on the bike, then ran 3:18, so he very obviously has a huge engine. Viewed from this perspective, his 1:02:52 on the swim on 90 min/wk of swim training is not all that impressive since given his huge engine he could probably swim 50:xx or faster if he really trained for the swim. He has said he only trains about 12 hrs/wk total and yet goes 8:59 at Kona so prob if he turned pro he could prob go 8:30-ish.

Your "average" person with no competitive swimming background is not going to swim just under 1:03 on 1.5 hrs/wk of swimming, unless they've already done a lot of swimming as an adult and are now just maintaining their swim fitness.

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

Bobbing up and down makes you feel like you are swimming fast.
Thrashing around makes you feel like you are swimming fast.
Wiggling back and forth makes you feel like you are swimming fast.

Feeling fast and swimming fast are not the same thing.

It take time to develop a good swim stroke.
It also takes meaningful feed back. Race other people that are your speed and faster. Listen to a coach. Take videos of yourself.
One can talk about sets and drills and intervals etc.
It would take olympic strength and fitness, however, to make most most triathletes swim fast with the strokes that they have.

I keep things simple:

Workout 1: 10-15x100 leaving on the 1:35-1:40 depending on how spunky I feel. 30 minutes.
Workout 2: Drills - usually single arm, catch-up, side swimming, sculling, etc. I choose 4-5 drills and do several rounds of 50-100m of each. 30 minutes.
Workout 3: Steady swim - usually open water or in pool with snorkel. Time trial pace with Wetronome in cap to keep stroke steady or, depending again on how I feel, easy recovery pace.

That's it. And during winter/off-season I'll swim once per week with any fun looking 2-3K workout I pick out of a magazine, book or website.

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Ben Greenfield

Nutrition & Human Performance Advice
http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com

Quote:

Edit to add, if you a serious about your goals, a big swim block is critical, once youve got good swim technique it wont leave, you can then back off the volume and concnetrate on the other two disciplines

Skimming through this thread, one thing stands out.

All "good" swimmers - call good a sub hour IM swim, or even sub 56, can be split into 2 groups:

1. High school/ college swimmers who put in the A LOT of time at some early point in their lives to develop the mechanics/muscle memory and technique necessary to do minimal volume, but what they do is typically very high quality. So they can swim ~2hours per week, but still hit >7k in those 2 hours

2.Adult onset swimmers who have put in a BIG training block to develop the necessary level of fitness at some point. The training after this fitness block can be more or less than others, but I think the difference-maker is that they made a commitment to get fast.

The point is - swimming a decent or even above average for a consistent period of time will likely only get you to be consistently average, or consistently above average, but not "serious." If you want to get to a high level of swim fitness, take 3-6 months of real swimming (think High school age group level). Get to the sub 5min for 400 meter mark, and then back off to achieve a better balance with the other two disciplines.

As always - you will have outliers, adult onset swimmers who swim a lot and still suck. Adult onset swimmers who swim a little and are really fast.

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Thoughts on being an Urban Triathlete

I think you'll get more replies if you start a new thread. I don't have kids, don't work 60 hours a week and have a girlfriend that completely supports my training and racing so I'm not time limited and have never tried blocks of training like that so I can't help you out. My gut feeling is that it's not the best plan because I think you would lose to much on the sports you're not focusing on. If you do 3 week blocks, you'll have 6 weeks of "maintenance" for each sport and if you're time limited that maintenance will probably be more likely a loss than maintenance. But I could be wrong and maybe others have done something similar with success.

To add to this thread, even though I don't consider myself a "serious" swimmer, I have gone from someone who couldn't swim 25 yards in 2007 to a 23' olympic swimmer (1:04 IM PR although I think I could do an hour right now). It's been a few years of hard work and very frustrating at times. Swimming doesn't come easy to me. I made my biggest gains in the beginning just simply working on form. That got me to the level of a 1:10 IM swimmer. From there, it has taken more hard work in the pool. Form is still important, but at that point I felt like fitness became more important than it previously was because I needed better fitness to hold my form for longer. I made another jump in ability when I spent a winter doing big volume and really focusing on swimming. This year, I've made more gains on less volume, but I've been doing a little more intensity. One thing that helps me out a lot is to have a benchmark workout I do consistently. It gives me motivation and helps me measure my progress. For me, that's a main set of 4x500 with one minute of rest. I add up the total time I spent swimming (so minus the rest breaks) and try to beat that time the next time I do that workout. Seeing progress is motivating, and knowing that workout is coming up motivates me to work hard in my other workouts. I do that workout about once a week, but I can get burned out on it so I'll take a break from it from time to time. This year I went from 28:32 the first time I did that workout to 25:51. Since swimming doesn't come easy to me, I get frustrated with it easily so having a weekly benchmark workout helps a lot, especially if I'm on a roll and setting PRs.

Right now I swim about 8,000-12,000 yards a week. I typically don't swim less than 3000 yards because I don't feel like it's worth driving to the pool unless I'm going to get in at least 3000 yards, which is only about 45 minutes unless I do a workout that has a lot of rest.

The one thing this thread has informed me of is it's a miracle that I'm swimming a blazing 35' HIM on 4-6k/ wk with zero background. Looks like there will be some serious extended time in the pool this winter... And holy $h!t you fish are fast...

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mark

I know it's belated...

But good contribution to the thread with the 4x500 (one minute rest) idea. Sounds like something I might add to build endurance with speed.

Thanks.

I do differ in one thought though. I live close enough to my pool (5ish minutes) so I do sometimes do a short w/o of say 800 to 1,500 just to get in the water and recover from a hard run and/or long ride. Doing this allows me to do "feel" type stuff that keeps me in the water and enhancing my comfort with the water. I know a "real" swimmer wouldn't waste their time, but, I come out of the water with my legs actually feeling less beat up then when I started.

To be fair; it could all be a fantasy. But, for me feeling comfortable in the water is about doing long workouts, fast and hard workouts, and/getting in the pool lotsa days too (again, relative to being a triathlete - and, not a "real" swimmer).

Seems to work for little old me!!! :-)

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I saw this on a white board in a window box at my daughters middle school...
List of what life owes you:
1. __________
2. __________
3. __________

I think the swimming focus training block-without a ton of other exercise is a good idea. Remember a competitive swimmers might do 6 hard interval workouts in a week (and other workouts as well).
I tried doing 4 hard workouts, in addition to running and biking and quickly found myself over trained. Even with the overtrainin
g, my sprint swimming speed got a lot faster. Once I got better, the swim speed stayed with me for the rest of the year. Not that that helped much.

To build on this: I have noticed that during the relative off-season, where my total training load is lower, I can nail some really great swim workouts many times per week. During peak training though my swimming suffers first (even with a swim background). Through my heaviest training I may only get one workout that I would consider good in the pool per week. Some weeks I may not even get one, and only muster 6km of easy swimming (over a week!). Hearing how Pete Jacobs approaches his swimming made me worry a bit less about this. Once rested a bit for a race though the swim is there from the accumulated lifetime training.

So, I would agree that if you really want to make gains in the swim you may have better quality workouts more often if you really drop the bike/run. Plan it properly though... if you are going to drop them understand they may get weaker for a while, so look back at the your training and see how long it takes you to get fit in those disciplines. Work back, and perhaps you focus heavy on swimming until that point. Ex: if it took you 4 months from the start of pre-season training to really get fit on the bike and run, then focus on swimming a lot until 4 months out from your big race, then flip back to a more balanced approach.

If you come from a non-swimming back-ground, as is typical with all endurance sports, there is a tendency to grossly under estimate how much volume and for ho long really big improvements take.

Many new triathletes get into the sport. Get a coach, or track down some form of training program. It's all nicely balanced for time, with 2 - 3 workouts per week in each sport. All good. They get going. Make some modest gains in the early going, but then things to flatten out, and improvements stop. The problem, at it's simplest, is not enough stimulus in each of the individual sports to get really big gains and improvements going, and to really take you places.

At this juncture, you have to, for blocks of time, NOT think like a triathlete. Think like a runner, a cyclist or a swimmer. Choose one, in this case swimming and for a number of months or as long as you can, completely immerse yourself in that sport, doing it, 5 - 7 days/week. THIS is when the real gains start to come. Strangely, few triathlon coaches or programs will suggest this!!

I apologize for bringing up the "good old days", but it's illustrative of how this works. In the early days of triathlon in the mid to late 80's, we swam with the swimmers, we cycled with the cyclists, and we ran with the runners. We knew no better. It was a bit crazy. We were probably over-trained, but in the new sports for me ( I came from running), swimming and cycling, I made rapid gains, wherein, after a couple of years of swimming and cycling, coming from zero back-ground in those sports, I was holding my own with the best local, single sport athletes.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Makes sense

How much volume and type of swim training do you think is needed to make significant gains?

Welcome to ST, the land of mediocre back door brags....

Obviously I realize that swimming is my weakest point which is why I was suggesting possibly focusing on it to the OP. and I wanted to answer the questions he asked. If I wanted to brag I would tell you about my glory days running back at my old college. but thanks for also making this land of the giant douchebags. :)

Agreed.... I'm listening to you :-) Which is exactly why the wife and I are a couple of weeks into a 6-8 week swim focus where we're swimming every day. 4 times a week with masters (rest on our own) letting go of the other sports for a while. Hope to be able to build to 10 swims/wk by the end of the block. Will extend the focus if required through the end of the year... stay tuned for results.

MOP swimmer here.

I was Adult Onset at 38, couldn't swim to the end of the pool. Literally couldnt get there. Now, a 1:30 pace is very reasonable for anything less than 1000m.

My advice would be to get a good coach, and join a good master's team. You'll be up against faster swimmers who'll point out your errors and work with you on form. A quality 3000m workout is better than a 5000m grind in poor form. The coach will work by showing things you won't have seen and by pushing you hard in workouts. The Masters Teams will help by giving examples of good swimmers, and someone to compete against.

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Punching cockroaches from day 1.

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http://www.tri-junkie.com/

http://magnoliamasters.com/...ure-and-Training.pdf

Read this.. Very good summary for swimmers without a strong swim background

I was doing 3x5000 as race season approached, unless I found it caused me to be too tired to do the rest of my training. Went up to 7000, and that was too much.

I did my first triathlon after my freshman year of college. It was the first time I really swam. Two years later I was hooked and training for triathlon. I got a program and was swimming 4X/week, doing short, long, drills-all of it. I swam a 36+ in my first 1/2 IM, got it down to 33+ a few years later. The next three years I swam 1:04, 1:02 and 1:01 at IMLP and IMC. The following year I joined a masters group that was freestyle (and triathlon) focused. I swam 2x per week, on average. But I was coached. I busted out a 56:57 at IMCdA on 1/2 the training. It was quality stuff, it was short stuff, 3000 yds max (too many people in a SCY pool!).

I was a division 1 collegiate swimmer. Not a back door, front door or even side door brag, just my history.
Did not swim for 15 years, swore I would never do it again, then had to for triathlon.

I do not swim 6 mos of the year. Then I re-introduce my body to it in February, and ease back into in. 2x per week 1200-2500yds per session and max 3500-5000yds/week. 30-45mins per session and 90mins max per week.
No fluff. Warm up, do my thing. Cool down. Get out.

It takes me little time to get swimming back and to get times to race pace. But I have a swimming background.

Feel free to add yourself to the list of people who "hate" me for this. :)