Hello,
I'd like to get some recommendations for an 8-10 weeks swim focused block I intend to do in the beginning of next season (around october-december depending on when I finish this season). First, I'd like to give some general context about myself and some long term goals.
I'm 24 and in my second season of triathlon I started swimming around November 2017. First season I was doing around 4 to 7 km of swimming a week (2-3 sessions of 2000-2500m), trying not too do too much with the pull buoy, fear of paddles destroying my shoulders, etc. Results were horrible as you might imagine around 16' with a wetsuit, around 17' without one for 750m swims. I decided enough was enough and I decided to focus on swimming, I believe I'm young and dedicated enough to become a good age-group triathlete swimmer (let's say the one who can get below 1h in Ironman with a wetsuit, just for reference since I have no intentions of doing anything longer than olympic distance for the next few years). At this point (around July 2018), what did I do?:
Results of the approach, which I'm very pleased with:
Now, onto the question. As I stated, I'm quite happy with the results so far, but I'm still far away from my end goal so I plan to keep hammering at it until I can get out of the water in less than 11:30 for a sprint tri. Therefore I plan to devote some time to swim around 6 times a week, between 15-20 km in the beginning of next season. However, I don't know how to go about this and I'd like you to help me out. Below some possibilities, but I'm still very open to any suggestions that I have not listed or mentioned:
Sorry for the long post, but I thought having some context about my abilities and training preferences would help you giving better suggestions
PS: I have no intention of getting to my end goal next year, simply I want to keep moving forward to it.
I'd like to get some recommendations for an 8-10 weeks swim focused block I intend to do in the beginning of next season (around october-december depending on when I finish this season). First, I'd like to give some general context about myself and some long term goals.
I'm 24 and in my second season of triathlon I started swimming around November 2017. First season I was doing around 4 to 7 km of swimming a week (2-3 sessions of 2000-2500m), trying not too do too much with the pull buoy, fear of paddles destroying my shoulders, etc. Results were horrible as you might imagine around 16' with a wetsuit, around 17' without one for 750m swims. I decided enough was enough and I decided to focus on swimming, I believe I'm young and dedicated enough to become a good age-group triathlete swimmer (let's say the one who can get below 1h in Ironman with a wetsuit, just for reference since I have no intentions of doing anything longer than olympic distance for the next few years). At this point (around July 2018), what did I do?:
- I knew I had to get the volume up, but it was a struggle, swimming was too taxing aerobically so I had no clue how on earth I could manage to get to swim 3000-4000m in a session ~4 times per week. Enter the pull buoy, following popular triathlon advice, I abandoned any previous reservations I had and I've basically doubled my swimming volume and done most of it with a double pull-buoy, at least during the main sets.
- Slowly at first, I began to introduce paddle work. I have done weeks of around 7000m of paddles with no shoulder discomfort at all. Probably, I still swam additional 3-4kms that week with just the double pb so shoulders seem to hold fine. I followed some of the recommendations I received last year ( https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...s_P6677927/#p6677927 ) and bought a pair of agility paddles (size M) and a pair of basic flat paddles that I use without the wrist strap (photo below, size S)
- Some USRPT (or my version of it, because I still used my beloved pull buoy for some of the sets). Examples:
- 30 x 50s (holding 50") leaving @1:10 swim no buoy
- 24 x 75s (holding 1:15) leaving @1:35 double pb and band
- 40 x 25s (holding 0:22 leaving @0:40 double pb and band
- Some other more technical stuff in the warm-up loosely following Tim Floyd's warm up approach
- 300 swim w/ fins; 300 kick w/ fins; 300 pull (double buoy, snorkel, ankle band)
- I signed up for a triathlon club but I don't like their practices so I don't usually go there. 1h30 to swim 2500, lots of strokes and kicking without fins that make me wanna kill myself because I suck at those
- This amounted to an average of 9691m and 3.5 swims (1h-1h30'/swim) per week
Results of the approach, which I'm very pleased with:
- 400m test swim (no buoy) : January 2018 9:08 --> March 2019 7:10
- 750m wetsuit swim: June 2018: 15:50 --> June and August 2019 13:10 and 13:40 respectively
- No non-wetsuit swim this year
Now, onto the question. As I stated, I'm quite happy with the results so far, but I'm still far away from my end goal so I plan to keep hammering at it until I can get out of the water in less than 11:30 for a sprint tri. Therefore I plan to devote some time to swim around 6 times a week, between 15-20 km in the beginning of next season. However, I don't know how to go about this and I'd like you to help me out. Below some possibilities, but I'm still very open to any suggestions that I have not listed or mentioned:
- Keep hammering the pulling
- Some fin work to warm up
- Virtually no drills
- Virtually no swimming without buoy
- Varied intensities
- Intervals from 50 to 400, focus on pace clock
- Basically, pick workouts around the 2500 to 4000m mark and swim it hard, no particular periodization
- Middle ground
- Some fin work to warm up
- Maybe a bit more kicking than in approach 1, but still with fins
- Virtually no drills
- Still heavy emphasis on pulling, but making sure that I swim at least 20% of the workout
- Varied intensities
- Intervals from 50 to 400, focus on pace clock
- Basically, pick workouts around the 2500 to 4000m mark and swim it hard, no particular periodization
- "Technique light":
- Some fin work to warm up
- Maybe a bit more kicking than in approach 1, but still with fins
- Some drills:
- Mostly following the emphasis points of the guppy challenge
- Trying to do the drills without fins as suggested
- This is going to be difficult I HATE drills, feel like I'm drowning
- Learning to kick without fins
- Not going crazy on this, but maybe 4 x 50 per workout
- Absolutely hate kicking without fins, classic triathlete going backwards
- Still focusing on pulling, but maybe more 50/50 ratio between swimming and pulling:
- Love pulling, don't like swimming so much
- Varied intensities
- Intervals from 50 to 400, focus on pace clock
- Basically, pick workouts around the 2500 to 4000m mark and swim it hard, no particular periodization
- Guppy challenge
- Mostly do it as it is, but:
- Swim the designed guppy meters
- Pull the difference up to tuna meters. Example:
- Guppy: 5x200; Tuna: 10 x 200
- Me: 5 x 200 swim; 5 x 200 pull
Sorry for the long post, but I thought having some context about my abilities and training preferences would help you giving better suggestions
PS: I have no intention of getting to my end goal next year, simply I want to keep moving forward to it.