Get a coach and start doing flip turns.

"I really don't want to spend hours working on my technique..."
You've already committed yourself to your status quo. Swimming is a sport where technique is king. Just because you have a monster VO2 doesn't mean much in the water if all your doing is thrashing about trying to make forward progress. Triathletes may be ripped, look fit and then get their asses kicked by overweight ex-swimmers. Technique reigns.

Take lessons...coach comes later. Do flip turns. You'll automatically be faster in the pool.

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The Doctor (#12)

If you're only swimming 1:33s, your technique can improve.

Swimming isn't really a strength sport.

Do you do that 25 x 100 every swim? You can probably benefit most from (a) technique improvement and (b) varying the type of sets you do. That is to say that adding more sessions of the same thing is not going to get you a lot faster.

Is there masters team you can train with?

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disclaimer: PhD not MD

Get some stretch cords and start (if not already) doing pull ups. If it is strength you are lacking that should get you going in the right direction. Strong out of the water, strong in the water.

In the water there are lots of things you can be doing to build swim specific strength:
-Pull harder
-wear a drag suit
-Add work with paddles, paddle + buoy, paddles + band
-get a parachute
-Tarzan drill (swim with your chin on the surface, head out of the water)

And to the "I really don't want to spend hours just working on technique." point - don't. You are already spending hours in the pool, every stroke is a chance to work on technique. You can, and should, be working on technique and strength/speed/endurance at the same time.

What does a typical workout for you look like?

Flip turns, never ever have done them. Who cares what your speed is in the pool, what type of race results on the swim have you had?

I have many kick my butt in pool, but open water, many get slower and others get faster.

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

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Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

More important than volume is how you structure that volume. For a triathlete, 10k is enough that you should be able to see some improvement, especially since cycling and running will help with general aerobic fitness.

What are you doing in your 9-12k per week?

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I'm a 31-32 min HIM swimmer and 1:06-1:07 IM swimmer.

I usually have a warm up of 400-500y, then main set. 100s, 50s, or pyramid. I try to swim at threshold for 100s and faster for 50s.

What do you mean by "threshold"? How many reps, how much rest? Do you do anything that is higher intensity than "threshold"? Work in other strokes? Kick sets? Do you do drills? Where in the workout do you do them, and to what end? Do you know what aspects of your technique are the weak areas? What are you working on yo correct that?

All that, and more, is important to know.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Do some sprints on a long recovery, even a full recovery is good.

My bread and butter is 100s on 5s rest, I generally chuck in some decently paced 50s at the end of every workout and do one sprint focused workout a week which is 50 to 25m intervals.

Threshold is 1000y TT in secs/100y. I do 20-25 x 100y on 10-15 secs rest. Or 30-40 x 50y on 10-15 sec rest. I don't do drills and not much kicking. I had a swim coach look at me and said my stroke wasn't bad but I need to engage the core more and get more hip rotation.

If that's all you are doing, there's not enough intensity.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Lack of hip rotation causes you to plow through the water rather than swimming on you sides.

When you say you don't much kicking. You mean kicking drills? Or kicking in general? A 6 beat kick will make you faster and helps with rotation

read these threads:

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...w_Swimmers_P5897405/

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...n_Swimming_P3698825/


Everything you need to know how to solve you're problem.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Ah, the triathlete enabler...flip turns also teach swimmers to streamline, body position and awareness, etc., etc., etc.
If you want to get better in a discipline why not embrace everything about that discipline?

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#swimmingmatters
Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
The Doctor (#12)

Come now, you don't do flip turns in OWS, right? So why practice them? On the other hand, practicing those open turns in the pool is great preparation for the open turns you, er, wait. Never mind.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Get in the weight room with a very swim specific strength and conditioning program.

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trimac2 wrote:

I've been very stagnant in my swimming. I'm about 1:32-1:33 per 100 yards x 25 with 15 secs rest. I don't do flip turns. I'm probably more like 1:23-1:24 with a wetsuit. I've been stuck here for some time. I swim about 9-12k per week (more on the lower side). My technique is not that bad considering I only picked up swimming 5 years ago. I really don't want to spend hours just working on technique. I tried this and it didn't make much of difference. I'm wondering if I just lack swim strength with my pull and more volume would get me under 1:30 per 100y? I feel like when I pull I'm weak even though it feels like I got a good paddle and push that water back. Should I try upping my volume to 16-18k or even more?

1. "My technique is not bad...", part 1: is your visualization accurate? Unless you've seen video of yourself swimming, your self-assessment may be wrong. Drop an action cam into your pool. Get footage of yourself swimming directly towards/away from the camera. Then move the camera to shoot straight up at you and shoot some more. Look at the footage. Even better, look at it with a swim coach. I did this and was thunderstruck at how different my technique was in reality compared to what I thought I'd been doing. Seeing that opened a whole world of opportunities for improvement, reinvigorating my swimming. The experience also made me realize that the #1 limiter for many amateur swimmers may well be having an accurate visualization of what they are doing.
2. "My technique is not bad...", part 2: are you in balance? Even small technique flaws can make a big difference. The biggest component of drag force for a swimmer is directly proportional to the cross-sectional area s/he projects in the direction he is swimming; projected area. That's why some suggest that you visualize swimming through the narrowest possible tunnel. Your projected area can easily double or triple when you knock yourself off balance, which results in momentarily doubling or tripling your drag. That is catastrophic. Thus technique -technique allowing you to remain in perfect balance- is super important.
3. Catch. In my opinion, the "riskiest" part of the crawl -the part carrying the most risk of knocking yourself off balance- is the very beginning of the catch, with your arm fully outstretched superman style. The least risky part is after the catch is complete and you are pulling (with hand/forearm acting as a paddle) straight back. At the beginning of the catch, it's near impossible to do the next thing well. After the end of the catch, it's near impossible to do the next thing poorly. Managing that transition from Superman-arm-outstretched-probably-going-to-knock-yourself-off-balance to locked-in-and-pulling-cant-possibly-get-the-rest-wrong is the most important technique to master.
4. Suffer? You don't mention if you swim with a group. If not, you might consider joining a masters group and do some (fun) suffering. I've never pushed myself so hard as I did swimming with others. Many would agree.