Swimming isn’t running so my best advice would be to not think of the training as similar. A good way to schedule it would be, if you are doing less on the bike and run, 3 hard days, a day off, 2 hard days and a day off.

If you want to avoid injury, get a good strength and conditioning program and get in the weight room 2-3x a week.

If you have any other questions, let me know.

Hope this helps.

Tim

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How are you handling 5x per week, physically?

I wouldn't recommend alternating hard / easy days, but I would have different emphasis points on different days. 5x per week, I'd do something like this for the main sets.

1) longer threshold e.g 10-15 x 200 @ your olympic or 70.3 race pace 30s rest or thereabouts
2) speed - 25's and 50's, build to well over race pace. maybe something like 20x50 doing 3 easy, 1 fast. (looking to find "easy speed" on these)
3) endurance day - a little shorter intervals, but shorter rest. e.g 15x100's w 10s rest. (try them at 70.3 pace)
4) longer rest intervals, e.g. 20x100 at faster than race pace - get around 45s rest between efforts.
5) another speed day.

The nature of swimming is such that unless you are dealing with an injury (if you have sound mechanics then your risk of injury is pretty low on 5 hours per week, you don't need easy days. You'll get enough easy swimming during warmup, warmdown, and active recovery / technique sets. You'll do more of those sets on the speedwork days, less on the endurance-focused days.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Thanks. While I was playing on doing 5 on 2 off, I could swap my Saturday weight room workout with my Wednesday swim. So then it would be 2-on 1-off 3-on 1-off if that is a better setup. I’ve cut my running from 40 to 25-30 mpw and my biking from ~130 to ~100 mpw do that my overall training stress isn’t to high from the extra swimming.

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Matt

It’s been good so far. Actually, I’ve gotten to the point that I (gasp) enjoy going to the pool. I took my ramp up in yardage and days pretty conservatively (typically 10-20% increase and then having a recovery week after 4 weeks of increasing in a row). That being said I haven’t done more than 4 days in a row yet. It’s been 4on/1off/1on or 3on/1off/2on

Thanks for the workout ideas. It’s kind of similar to what I’ve been doing. I’ve basically rotated between
500 WU
300-600 ‘drills’ (pull using finis agility paddle, pull with no paddle, kick, sculling)
15x100 on the 1:40 (scy - coming in about 1:30)
200 WD

and

500 WU
300-600 ‘drills’ (pull using finis agility paddle, pull with no paddle, kick, sculling)
10x100 on the 2:00 (scy - coming in about 1:20)
200 WD

Sometimes I’ll do two hard 50’s before the main set to rev up the engine do to say. And sometimes a 50 all out after the main set to see what I have left in the tank. For the main sets I’ve been usually doing 100, 150, or 200’s. Either 1500-1600 on the top days (Endurace days) and 1000 on the bottom days (speed days). Wondering if I should be spending more time/distance on the main set and less somewhere else.

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Matt

I'd say it depends on the day. nothing wrong with mixing it up. 95% of your gains are gonna come just from being in the water that much and doing work. The structure is like 5-10%. So I like to vary things up a lot just to keep things interesting, I'll rarely repeat the exact same workout. Other folks are the opposite and like doing the same sets over and over so they can precisely measure whether they are getting faster or not.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

I'm doing almost exactly the same thing this fall/winter. I did the same thing last fall, and made some solid gains. Unfortunately, I had an abdominal injury which force me to take 4 months off, so I lost all those gains and only got a portion of them back during the season.

I also follow a BarryP style run plan (peaked at 40mpw this year). I made solid progress as I was coming back from the injury until my run/bike volume reached a certain point, after that the swim suffered even when holding frequency and volume. My own experience is that 6x BarryP >20mpw inhibits swimming progress. Especially when combined with 100 mpw cycling volume. I'm sure that's very individualistic. So, I'm not saying one size fits all....just something to consider.

My own plan is 5x swims, 4x runs (<20mph), 1x bike (<50mpw). I'm toying with the following schedule:

M: AM-swim: 25x100 (:20), PM-run
T: PM-swim 25x50 (:20)
W: AM swim: 2-3 x {3x200 (:20) 12x25 (:10) fast/easy}, PM-run
R: AM-off, PM-swim 25x50 (:20)
F: AM-off, PM-run
S(AM): 6x400 (:20), PM-run
U: Long-bike

I'm alternating the swims between morning and evening because I suck at getting up at 5am 4 days a week. So, if I'm going to keep this up for the next 20 weeks, its got to be sustainable. But, I want to minimize the gaps between times in the water.

I would be one of those types. The 50s and 100s are USRPT sets for that reason. But, the other days are not.

I'm not a coach, but I am currently on a 5-day swim schedule that's customized for me by a coaching team with a lot of swim coaching experience. Typically a week includes 3 days tagged as some form of aerobic workout -- set rest, long interval, hi-aerobic low rest, etc. One day is typically tagged as speed/intensity, and one is tagged as active recovery, which includes some mix of long/strong and hi-intensity. Within that basic frame, lots of stuff is "build" intervals or "descend" intervals, and there's almost always at least two days that have some "near-puke-pace" work. Every day has some mix of distance, and the longer distances typically are build the back half. I find it way more motivating to have a high variety of sets in a workout and different workouts every day, rather than just repeating 12x100 as a main set, and I like that it often has the harder work at the end of an interval (build) or set (descend) so that I have to push hard when I'm tired.

I do M-W-F-S all in the early AM. I beat the crowds going early and it gives me the balance of the day for other things!

PT,

I was in the same boat as you in terms of previous frequency and volume and ramped up to 5ish days/week in the 13-16k range. Between reading the great input that regular Slowtwitch Fishies post and talking with FOP swimmers, the things that made the biggest difference for me to get faster and more efficient were:

• longer warm-up. I would only do ~200 yds as a w/u because I wanted to quickly move to the main set and bang that out. Increasing my w/u yardage has made a big difference as I've noticed that it takes me 300-400 yards for my breathing to relax.
• No LSD main sets (or rarely doing a LSD main set). I used to swim 2k-3k straight, holding pace/holding stroke count, but my speed just got flat b/c of all the long, continuous efforts. I think the occasional LSD swim is OK if it helps your confidence in being able to swim 2k, 3k, 4k, 5k, etc. straight. But shorter distance intervals, 100's, 200's, 400's are what made the biggest difference for driving improvement. For the 200's and 400's, I try and hold the same interval for 2k or more. For 100's, I like doing descending sets (ie 15x100 with 3 @ 1:45, 3@ 1:40, 3@ 1:35, etc.).

I've never been able to have a set schedule (locking in on the same 5 days each week) b/c of work, so going with a regiment of 3 days on, 1 day off, 2 days on, 1 day off hasn't been an option. I just go w/ whatever the schedule can accommodate. As a result, there are days where I feel clunky and weak in the water and other days where I feel long, smooth and strong. But as frequency and volume has gone up, the clunky weak days rear their ugly head less often.


There are other things that I could be doing to drive further improvement that I am not - no drills, no kick sets, no alternative strokes (other than when w/u and cooling down), so I believe there is even more upside.


Good luck! Enjoy the journey!

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Tad

It took awhile, but I finally discovered that its not the destination that's important, but rather the journey.

Are we assuming your technique is rock solid?

Some of those yards could be eliminated with swim analysis and corrective drills. Kind of plays into the avoiding injury and garbage yards. If you pile on more volume on suspect form, you'll make minimal gains and open yourself up to injury.

Ignoring the form issue, I'd structure it to have 3 around an hour, 1 session 30 to 45 minutes and one big session 90 to 120 minutes. Ya, it doesn't fit into your 60 min window, but to make unapologetic performance gains, go big. Also depends on where in the season you are what the mix is.

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Ryan
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