There is plenty of literature, chat and training advice about going slow to go fast with running.

Does they same hold true for swimming though? A lot of training plans seem to be the complete opposite-lots of short sharp intervals. Why is this? Can you approach swimming in the same way-long comfortable low HR sets with a speed day or two during the week?

No.

Swimming is all about technique. Your technique when swimming 2:00+/100 is not the same as when swimming sub-1:30/100 (or whatever). Swimming slow just practices bad technique.

I do a lot of long slow swimming. But because I love it. Not because it makes me fast... I'll be the first to admit it doesn't. I swim up to 30K a week, sometimes up to 3 hours at a time, 90% continuous. Keeps me feeling and looking good, calorie burn, and I can eat anything and as much as I want. But it doesn't make me any faster in races, than I average in the pool, which is about a 1:40 - 1:45 pace. When I was swimming half as far, with speed sessions, I was racing at sub 1:30 paces. I know, nothing compared to the natural fish here, but a good example of the difference between long slow swimming, and lots of intervals type swimming.

Interesting, thanks. I wonder why this is and why its so different to running or even cycling?

Interesting, thanks. I wonder why this is and why its so different to running or even cycling?

Any of these little girls in swim programs.swim so hard in their practices that most ag triathletes would just give up.

We can't even swim over 3x a.week without complaining!

And I disagree that the competitive tied up.swimmer has so much better form while tied up. Especially against agers assisted with wetsuits which greatly improved body position.

They are just stronger. A lot stronger. Like 80+100k meters per week for a decade stronger. They could literally do.the worst possible propulsive.movement and still crush triathletes. That include swimming with head out of water, crazy fishtailing, you name it.

Note when I say strength here I mean swim specific strength. The type that requires kill yourself hard swimming to get. Not weightlifting strength which is very different. I likely can crush alistair brownlee in any upper body weightlifting motion but doesn't meat squat for swimming 1500.

You are ignoring the talent component. A one-armed competitive swimmer beats a triathlete because that person is more efficient in the water. It’s not a strength issue and probably not even a better conditioned/trained issue. It’s swimming ability pure and simple.

No.

Swimming is all about technique. Your technique when swimming 2:00+/100 is not the same as when swimming sub-1:30/100 (or whatever). Swimming slow just practices bad technique.

@miklcct - I believe you're not that experienced a swimmer yet - I don't think you've even been swimming 'for real' for even 2 years yet?

At that stage, it's way too early to say you can't make more gains. Sure, you're not going to be Michael Phelps ever, but I think you'll be surprised at how much more volume AND intensity you will be able to add on with incremental swim gains. If anything, it has sounded like you were overzealous and unrealistic at first - if I recall, your goals weren't just to 'swim a Oly in 30' or something like that (which is really good for a relatively new AG triathlete), but to swim some long Channel , and even train with some guy who had broken some sort of swim record. Just temper your goals, don't give up, you'll be surprised at how much better you'll get.

I do a lot of long slow swimming. But because I love it. Not because it makes me fast... I'll be the first to admit it doesn't. I swim up to 30K a week, sometimes up to 3 hours at a time, 90% continuous. Keeps me feeling and looking good, calorie burn, and I can eat anything and as much as I want. But it doesn't make me any faster in races, than I average in the pool, which is about a 1:40 - 1:45 pace. When I was swimming half as far, with speed sessions, I was racing at sub 1:30 paces. I know, nothing compared to the natural fish here, but a good example of the difference between long slow swimming, and lots of intervals type swimming.

This. 100%.

Maybe once you can swim sub-1:00 for 100yd (a testament to at least modestly-efficient technique), then yes, doing some long slow HR days with low stroke count per length could be valuable. Until then, work technique with a very skilled and detail-oriented coach.

Often, the winningest youth club coach in the area is the best coach you'll have access to, in person. You can't just recruit youth talent and train them poorly and win in swimming. You absolutely could (and many do) in track and field, especially sprints, relays, and jumps. You may have to chase the good youth swim coach down and twist their arm to coach a triathlete, and maybe pay a pretty penny but they'll probably make you fast with 1:1 coaching sessions.

FYI: Rory at icanswimfast.com is excellent for remote coaching value. No personal affiliation, just crazy-impressed with his service and expertise.

So you are the jim fixx of swimming? I'll save you the google search. guy preached and wrote books that you can eat whatever you want as long as you jog off the calories. He died of a heart attack during a jog.

Yeah, sorry. Too much bike talk this week!

We'll do fin on right foot and paddle on left hand. Then switch. Then both.

@velocibuddha -

Honest question, how did your swimming hold up after a prolonged break in COVID? I'm sure it comes back fast for an ex-D1 swimmer, but curious as to how things held up over all that time for you given your deep background in technical swimming.

I am an aging triathlete who swam D1 in college.
I have spent 90% of my triathlon career doing slow, moderately long yardage.
I have recently started training with a master's swim team that has other ex- D1 swimmers.

Here are some relevant comments:
1) It is not going to be possible to develop good swimming technique by consistently swimming slow.
2) If, however, you were once a reasonably fast swimmer- it is possible to get into the shape required to swim tolerably slow - by just doing easy swimming. And that is good enough for triathlon- where fast swimming is not important.

Masters swimming:
1) Lot's of fast swimming of different varieties- sprinting, kicking hard, breaststroke, longer distances of butterfly (etc)-
This stuff is really tiring (even in small doses).
This stuff appears to do wonders for overall strength, swimming power and form.
2) Hard aerobic swim sets where you are racing other ex-D1 swimmers- are super duper exhausting and definitely mess with one's ability to run and cycle.

Bottom line - I feel that master's swimming has made me faster with a lower investment of time.
On the other hand, the investment of training stress has been considerable and needs to be balanced carefully with hard cycling and running.

I am an aging triathlete who swam D1 in college.
I have spent 90% of my triathlon career doing slow, moderately long yardage.

If you are swimming slower than 1:30/100 your technique is awful. In that case about 50% of all your time in the pool should be spent on drills. And hire a coach. And have a video taken of your technique to analyze.

Real swimmers can effortlessly glide through the water, I mean just no effort at all, faster than 1:30/100.

I think he means 1:30 per 100/yard... If it's 100/m, I'm in trouble.

I'm sure there are quite a few comp swimmers who can cruise all day at 1:20/meters and it literally feels pretty easy for them.

Kinda like a 6:50min/mile pace is literally Z1 recovery pace for elite marathon runners and top shorter distance runners.

Heh I tried to force train that run pace knowing that is their easy pace, and i ended up being a train wreck

When I was in college I once swam:
40 x 100 yds on 1:10
20 x 100 yds on 1:05
20 x 100 yds on 1:00

I was a mediocre distance guy, at a mediocre D1 college.

I would be happy today if I could swim:
5 × 100 on 1:30 averaging 1:05

Sorry does that mean cruising speed or all out 100 m?

So I'd assume it isn't a technique problem hindering you today, but a fitness problem? So I guess this is why I get confused-why cant swim fitness be built the same way as run and ride, are there physiological differences?

A 57 min swim at Mont Tremblant 2018 (the year I did the race) would have put the swimmer in 81 st place, out of 2675 competitors. (he came 3rd overall)
Or
57 th place in IM Florida (2019) and 17th overall.
or
66th in IM Canada the year I did the race, for a guy who came 13th overall

So really?

57 mins

This is easy?

A 57 min swim at Mont Tremblant 2018 (the year I did the race) would have put the swimmer in 81 st place, out of 2675 competitors. (he came 3rd overall)
Or
57 th place in IM Florida (2019) and 17th overall.
or
66th in IM Canada the year I did the race, for a guy who came 13th overall

So really?

57 mins

This is easy?

For a world-class elite pure swimmer, this very would could be easy.

For everyone else, including (most?) pro triathletes, heck no, not easy!

.
.
1:30 per 100meters is 4kph which is effortless gliding speed for decent pure open water swimmers and translates to a 57:00 min Ironman swim

miklcct wrote:

That's insane. This speed will be well in the top lane in my squad. You are telling that 3/4 of my club are rubbish swimmers.

And how's a pure open water swimmer different from a triathlete? If someone who mainly focuses on open water marathon swimming, but also keeps running training at decent level using triathlons as a mean of cross-training between swimming and running, is he a pure open water swimmer or a triathlete?

What I love about this page is the number of people who are anonymous bullshitters.

.
.
Look at the results of these pure swimmers and tell me who in your squad could keep up for 100meters let alone 10K.
(Bear in mind that a 10K swim done in 2:00:00 is 5kph or 1:12 per 100 meters.)
The winner of this race did 1:49:25 (1:05 per 100 meter pace)while 25 others went under 2hrs which is 1:12/100m or a 41:30 Ironman pace.


https://cdn.swimswam.com/...10k-overall-male.pdf

Here's my take on it. A lot of folks disagree with my take on the swimming part, but the run/cycling part is straightforward.

Swimming fast requires both technique and power, and triathletes who haven't swum a ton usually vastly underestimate the importance of the power in going fast. It is true that as a raw beginner if you have major stroke errors, you SHOULD practice slowly to fix them before speeding it up and going hard.

But once you're pretty flat in the water, power >> technique for AG triathlete swimming. And triathletes continue to underestimate the training required to swim well/fast (Measly 2-3 swims a week is pretty typical for even 'advanced' book training tri plans.)

If you think technique is so dominant, a competitive swimmer with their arm tied behind their back should come in near-last in a triathlon swim. You all know that in reality, they will likely beat 80-90% of the AGers despite that arm tied back there. Yeah, technique, right.

As for cycling - not much technique needed on the power generation part, you're pedaling in circles. If tri bike courses were more technical or drafting was allowed, you'd see a technical cycling rise greatly in importance. As it stands, it doesn't.

As for running, humans are evolutionarily developed to optimize run form for body type and fitness. Yes, it is a singularly special ability we have, and this has been intensely studied by scientists who confirm this in many ways and trace is evolutionarily. As opposed to skiing, swimming, and other sports, we don't have to learn technique really at all - you just have to do it and you'll naturally optimize your technique to YOUR ability/body type. A lot of swim coaches make the big mistake of thinking run training should mimic swim training, so heavy emphasis on identifying technical running flaws and then focusing on drills to fix them, where in reality, these technical errors will self-correct very quickly as you get faster. And in fact, if you force technical correction on someone who's physiology doesn't prefer it (like Ryan Hall 2:05 marathoner's low arm swing) they will almost certainly run slower/worse.

If you think technique is so dominant, a competitive swimmer with their arm tied behind their back should come in near-last in a triathlon swim. You all know that in reality, they will likely beat 80-90% of the AGers despite that arm tied back there. Yeah, technique, right. //

I think your argument here is ass backwards, and actually describes why swimming is so technique loaded. The reason a top swimmer will beat 90% of folks with a one arm swim is because of technique, not from any real strength component. It is the technique of moving your body through the water, and losing one arm for top swimmer is just a slight drawback. With one arm a swimmer can still hold that great body position, using a little more legs and glide to keep that momentum going.


There are a lot of really weakish long distance swimmers that overcome that with technique. Sun Yang comes to mind, imagine he would have trouble doing 10 pull-ups and bonk after a minute of push ups. But put him in a pool and he can swim circles around most for hours on end.. Same with a lot of the ladies, you won't find a lot of traditional strength in their bodies, but speeding through the water all day long regardless..

It's still very hard for me to reconcile the importance of heavy lifting for triathlon swimming which are all non-sprint swim distances.

I mean, Lucy Charles, was a legit pure swimmer and her arms and back are far from the buffness you'd see in Crossfit. Same with Alistair Brownlee, who consistently led the swim in his prime - his arms are really small. You could go on an on - Jan frodeno, etc.

Now for sprint-type swim (and bike/run) events - yeah, muscle power matters a LOT. We all know how huge the swim sprinters are, but it's no different in run/bike. Chris Hoy's got quadzilla legs. And in a youtube video, the buff british pro boxer absolutely crushed both Brownlees and Mo Farah in a short track run sprint. It wasn't even close, which actually surprised me, since I didn't know pro boxers trained sprinting. (Apparently they do!)

Telling an AG triathlete to prioritize heavy weightlifting as do swimmers doesn't seem as useful to me. Particularly as it's entirely possible that the added weight and training fatigue from that weightlifting may be offset by penalties on bike/run. That said, I still weight train myself a fair amount - but not to get faster in the swim.

Actually, triathletes often DO gain too much muscle if they are wishing to optimize their tri performance. Not as much as issue for AGers, but Rinnie even says this outright in one of her videos when a trainer is working with her. The pro/elites specifically avoid weight training that will bulk them up. Not true at all for competitive swimmers though, and it's pretty obvious in terms of their builds.

Some will gain/lose more than others. But if you are going from little-low weight training, you can easily put on 5,10, even 15 lbs depending on your starting point and size. Especially if you've dieted down your weight and probably consumed some of your muscle in the process already. (When I was on marathon-specific training, with no weight training, my upper body and leg bulk atrophied to the point I was -20 lbs compared to today, and I have a six-pack today so not carrying a ton of fat.)

Even avoiding the weight gain issue, again, the point is that you're fooling yourself as a triathlete if you think significant weight training is going to significantly improve your OWS speed at triathlon race distances, especially if you're comparing it to just spending more time in the pool or OWS. Not even close! It might improve your swim sprint speed, but 1500yds/meters+? Doubtful.

I agree with you as I said previously about weightlifting for AGers just for general well being. This applies to all folks, not just triathletes. At my mid40s, it was getting alarming to me that I might strain my back doing something as routine as replacing the jug on the office water cooler, so I've been good about weight training. But the goal here is to avoid weird muscle strains in acts of daily living - NOT to improve my swim pull strength.

Fair enough, but OP wants to SWIM faster.

My sincere and humble apologies.
Obviously the OP can and will learn at your feet.
You added so much to his knowledge and confidence about pure swimmers.
Now that they know what a pure swimmer should be like they can model themselves on that or take up tennis..
Once again please accept my abject (grovel grovel) and sincere admission of guilt in questioning your wisdom in projecting minimum standards of excellence.

Wow. This thread has a ton of posters making some very strong claims about physics and swimming despite clearly not being physicists nor swimmers.

dunno wrote:

There is plenty of literature, chat and training advice about going slow to go fast with running.

Does they same hold true for swimming though? A lot of training plans seem to be the complete opposite-lots of short sharp intervals. Why is this? Can you approach swimming in the same way-long comfortable low HR sets with a speed day or two during the week?

I think you make an excellent point. Seems to me most triathlon coaches trade more on their own success in the sport than on the success of their athletes.

That said, I think there are many former swimmers immersed in the sport for long enough to have picked up some nuggets of knowledge. Including that technique is important and that you have to train fast to race fast.

But since you bring it up perhaps you’d like to share your own qualifications for giving advice in this thread.

I think having flexibility is a lot more important than bulking up for swimming. Thats for the average swimmer. I understand college swimmers its a bit different and they are really sprint oriented. So you see some crazy dryland stuff from them.

x3

If you are swimming slower than 1:30/100 your technique is awful. In that case about 50% of all your time in the pool should be spent on drills. And hire a coach. And have a video taken of your technique to analyze.

Real swimmers can effortlessly glide through the water, I mean just no effort at all, faster than 1:30/100.

1:30/100m is floating pace.

It takes a high level of mental effort for me to slow down to 1:30/100.

It takes a high level of mental effort for me to slow down to 1:30/100.

1:30/100m is floating pace.

If I swam that slow my kid would be kicking my ass... trying to stave that off. I figure I have 18 months.

f**k you that's ridiculous. 1:30 / 100 m is something that's unachievable for me unless it's an all out sprint.

Have a look at the people in your own neighbourhood Michael .The winner of the 3k swim you did this month swam 34:41 which is 1:09 per 100meter pace or 5.2kph without a wetsuit.Go speak to some of the top swimmers in your Open Water community and ask them how they may be able to help.
DWBTT 3.0k FINAL RESULT (filesusr.com)

Those who are naturally born swimmers - they are always in the top half of the pack
---
Unlikely. Those who you think are natural born swimmers are simply the guys/ gals that actually committed to the sport and have been that way for many years.

Ask a struggling triathlete who's not a good runner to run 6-8 times a week, no problem. Ditto for the bike. But swimming...?

In short, yes, you can (& should) absolutely approach swimming the same way.

This post about my time with one of the greatest swimmers of all time offers some more details...

https://alancouzens.com/blog/touretski.html

Alan,

As you know but other most certainly do not, a half decent way to approximate a swimmers base aerobic pace is to do an all out 30 minute swim. The swimmers average pace for the swim is their base pace for a AEROBIC set of 100's. Urbancek took this to a (tortured) extreme using his rainbow charts and interval sendoffs.

So a swimmer doing 3000 yards in 30 minutes would have a T Pace of 1:00 / 100. And their bread and butter set would be hundreds on 1:10 interval with a goal of 1:00 per 100.

There isn't much merit in comparing this to running. Kipchoge does 40 minute aerobic runs of 10km nearly every day at his marathon pace plus 33 +/- 5%. There is NO value of a swimmer taking that kind of approach.

Or consider it from a running point of view: Kipchoge is probably able to hold around 2:48 / km for 30 minutes. If he were to approach his workout like a swimmer he would do 30 x 65 second quarters with :10 rest AS HIS RECOVERY set.

Prior to sprint specialization - which has really put all of this on its head - every elite squad was doing 80-90% of their work in an aerobic zone. That is VERY true and is good advice to anyone who wants to get better. But lets be very clear: in practice this is so unlike "running" it is only worth bringing up in order to say as a way. "yes, but nothing like running!"

ajthomas wrote:

AJ,

I fundamentally disagree with pretty much everything that you said.

While that may be somewhat common in some American programs, I can assure you it is not what "every elite squad was doing". The vast majority of Popov's work was under 2mmol/L - nowhere near threshold. Ditto for Thorpe, who I also spent time with.

In fact, as I recall, even Urbanchek's program had a whole lot of "white and pink" swimming (1-3mmol/L, 120-150bpm) in it.

The reality is that a swimmer only has so many meters at their best 3000m pace in them! It's a little crazy to think that they're going to nail 100K weeks with the bulk at their best 3K pace week after week & stay healthy and improve.

Those who are naturally born swimmers - they are always in the top half of the pack
---
Unlikely. Those who you think are natural born swimmers are simply the guys/ gals that actually committed to the sport and have been that way for many years. Most of the blokes on this forum who complain that they can't do those times are limited by their lack of desire to get to the pool for 12-18 hours a week for 6+ years in a row. There's absolutely nothing natural about that. Ask a struggling triathlete who's not a good runner to run 6-8 times a week, no problem. Ditto for the bike. But swimming...?

Yes. Tons of white work. ASK ME HOW I KNOW.

White pace 100's are at T30 pace. 200's are T30 +2 second/100. And yes, we tested lactic acid and HR. For a well trained swimmer a set of 100's at T30 pace is easy.

Phelps avg 55.6 for a 5000, I would estimate he would degrade to :57/ if he were to do 10,000. Are you suggesting that he did his 100 recovery sets at 1:17 / 100 yards (IE 35% slower than his "marathon" pace). His easy KICK sets were significantly faster than that. He never swam that slowly. That is easy swimming...for ME!

Let's just look at the data from your blog: You said you saw POPOV swimming at 1:04 / 100 with lactate number under 2. 1:04 is at the top end of what I would estimate his T30 pace to be. Are you suggesting that an elite runner can run repeat 400s at the their 10K pace without elevating lactate acid? I'll take that bet.

As concise as possible - yes, you should do lots of easy swimming. No, easy swimming doesn't look anything like easy running.

Not that I agree with the training done in the Popov/Thorpe/Urbancek era, but the vast majority of training done in that time in the US was hard.

And yet the US was the overwhelmingly dominant country at the Olympics and holder of world records with a good part of the fastest International swimmers training at US universities.

I spent a little time on it to look at last years Kona results. What they confirmed to me was that ................ [/font]

1) 57 mins the apparently minimum speed for some and a dawdle for others was only bettered by 76 people, Pro male or female or AG, out of 2126 finishers.
2) No one in any age group (mens, or womens) who won the swim, won the race, or placed (except one AG woman)
3) Finishing the swim comfortably is more important than winning the swim. My conclusion.

I would invite anyone to spend a little time going thru any IM race (or half for that matter) and confirm that 1:30 pace is not some pedestrian achievement.
Now for clarity, I must admit I am a shit swimmer and haven't swum below 1:30 for any reasonable distance in 25 years so perhaps I'm just jealous of these studs.
But nothing they had to say helped the OP in slightest.

AJ,

I fundamentally disagree with pretty much everything that you said.

While that may be somewhat common in some American programs, I can assure you it is not what "every elite squad was doing". The vast majority of Popov's work was under 2mmol/L - nowhere near threshold. Ditto for Thorpe, who I also spent time with.

In fact, as I recall, even Urbanchek's program had a whole lot of "white and pink" swimming (1-3mmol/L, 120-150bpm) in it.

IOW, in output terms, very similar to what Kipchoge and pretty much any World Class athlete is doing, i.e. a whole lot of work below VT1.

The reality is that a swimmer only has so many meters at their best 3000m pace in them! It's a little crazy to think that they're going to nail 100K weeks with the bulk at their best 3K pace week after week & stay healthy and improve. That sort of output is just not sustainable - as I also saw first hand in several less successful programs that I was unfortunate enough to be a part of.

Very true.

A few of those others weren't exactly low volume either. Along with Janet (whose well known for her huge volume of training), Tom Dolan comes to mind as a swimmer who trained at similar volume levels to the Aussies (with similar results).

I've seen him go 100k at a distance camp but typical mid-season volume was more in the 70K range.

Whether you call this "not THAT much volume" I guess is a matter of perspective

I would second this. I am on year 5 of 365+ hrs per year of swimming (barely 1 hrs per day). I still have ~6 years to go to get to 6 years of 18 hrs per week to get to that focused time in the pool, but after my "swim penance" in my 50's, I regret I did not do this in my teens, but I see why there are no natural swimmers. Now when people see me swim all 4 strokes they asked me if I swam in my teens and college (the layman may see a "natural born swimmer from the deck"....the clock say its still slow compared to those of you who learned in youth).

Dev

Hey guy, I said a set of 100s at T30 pace is easy. You are stupidly arguing with me when the very sets and paces I describe are exactly what you report Popov did in your blog.

Here are the facts: popov could hold around 1:04 / for a 30 minute T swim. Popov would do 60-70% of his work at an effort level where his 100 repeats were at 1:04. His 200s for at 2:12 or 1:06 per 100. His longer stuff - typically 800s or so - were at 1:10 pace. I know all this because I have access to his training data. But you aren’t disputing and in fact some of this data is in your own blog.

What you wrote to the OP was hat they should train swimming like running. Swim “slower.” Any runner trying to understand this is going to misinterpret. A long hard run is at 20-30% slower than marathon pace. Maintenance runs are even slower. No good swimmer is training at paces 20-30% slower than their 2:00 hour race pace. This isn’t even a point of contention. We already know and agree: Popov could and would cruise all day at 1:10 (so 8% slower than his 30 minute pace) and could cruise 100s with 15 seconds rest at his T pace.

A runner trying to replicate popovs swim routine wouldn't last a week and a swimmer using a runners approach will never improve.

Are you just arguing for the sake of arguing?

There is plenty of literature, chat and training advice about going slow to go fast with running.

Does they same hold true for swimming though? A lot of training plans seem to be the complete opposite-lots of short sharp intervals. Why is this? Can you approach swimming in the same way-long comfortable low HR sets with a speed day or two during the week?

SNIP
Average triathlete does not train with sufficient pool frequency and duration to solely hinge development on easy FR swimming. Variety is key and focus does shift from general to specific, early season to late season.
Yep a bunch of general stuff but cannot use forum for detailed script in seasonal swim training for triathletes.

My household has given two colligate swimmers and one senior level coach. The two swimmers are my children, one swimming for and the other committed for 2021 to a top 5 D2 swimming programs. They both come with vastly different specialty, one middle distance/ distance FR the other BR/IM specialist.
Our club generationally puts out 10-12 collegiate swimmers annually, kids committing from top 20 D1 all the way to D3 programs.
The short answer is no. The complete answer is far more delicate. The swimming development hinges on targeted, incremental and periodized use of swimming technique, racing skill and targeted use of various sets. To develop and progress forward is a constant layering of technique development, followed up by fitness/ strength layering, often times concurrently in the same cycle of focus. The more novice the swimmer is, the more focus goes on fundamentals of stroke construction while allowing simple endurance/fitness gains from skill focused sets. All intensities are used from simple endurance effort to below and above race pace, though cycled throughout the season. The lines get blurry with stroke training where BK trains much like FR and is aerobic in nature. Same cannot be said for FL/BR, that are very anaerobic in nature no matter the technique. So, yes easy FL/BR do not exist and are oxymoron.
BR prefers component training and frequent efforts at race pace, similar to FL. Component training refers to back or front of stroke, timing and stroke rate. So BR and FL train with typically shorter distance intervals, short to moderate rest at or near the race pace due to stroke mechanics. Historically, in the past, some coaches have asked of swimmers repeats of 800+ FL or BR, however that methodology today is less prevalent.
FR and BK can be trained with fair amounts of easier to moderate efforts, medium to long intervals any time in season. They will produce aerobic development effects if trained at low intensities in sufficient amounts. Average triathlete does not train with sufficient pool frequency and duration to solely hinge development on easy FR swimming. Variety is key and focus does shift from general to specific, early season to late season.
Yep a bunch of general stuff but cannot use forum for detailed script in seasonal swim training for triathletes.

My household has given two colligate swimmers and one senior level coach. The two swimmers are my children, one swimming for and the other committed for 2021 to a top 5 D2 swimming programs. They both come with vastly different specialty, one middle distance/ distance FR the other BR/IM specialist.
Our club generationally puts out 10-12 collegiate swimmers annually, kids committing from top 20 D1 all the way to D3 programs.
The short answer is no. The complete answer is far more delicate. The swimming development hinges on targeted, incremental and periodized use of swimming technique, racing skill and targeted use of various sets. To develop and progress forward is a constant layering of technique development, followed up by fitness/ strength layering, often times concurrently in the same cycle of focus. The more novice the swimmer is, the more focus goes on fundamentals of stroke construction while allowing simple endurance/fitness gains from skill focused sets. All intensities are used from simple endurance effort to below and above race pace, though cycled throughout the season. The lines get blurry with stroke training where BK trains much like FR and is aerobic in nature. Same cannot be said for FL/BR, that are very anaerobic in nature no matter the technique. So, yes easy FL/BR do not exist and are oxymoron.
BR prefers component training and frequent efforts at race pace, similar to FL. Component training refers to back or front of stroke, timing and stroke rate. So BR and FL train with typically shorter distance intervals, short to moderate rest at or near the race pace due to stroke mechanics. Historically, in the past, some coaches have asked of swimmers repeats of 800+ FL or BR, however that methodology today is less prevalent.
FR and BK can be trained with fair amounts of easier to moderate efforts, medium to long intervals any time in season. They will produce aerobic development effects if trained at low intensities in sufficient amounts. Average triathlete does not train with sufficient pool frequency and duration to solely hinge development on easy FR swimming. Variety is key and focus does shift from general to specific, early season to late season.
Yep a bunch of general stuff but cannot use forum for detailed script in seasonal swim training for triathletes.