Mental..........................most fish will tell you that there is no point in swimming continuously for 4225yrds.

for me the value is building confidence

That's like saying there is no need to do long rides.....

That's right. The value is you'll know you can do it.

Do one long swim. Then go back to doing sets, intervals, drills etc... I do long swims only once in a while. Most days it is 1000-700-400-200 swim (or similar), or intervals on suchandsuch sendoff, or drills. Avoid crappy swim technique when training. That basically means avoid swimming when fatigued.

Zero. no such thing as a "long swim"

The only thing of value might be a t30. Swim 30 minutes straight for distance. They do those things as swim a thons sometimes.

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I would never do a long, straight swim in a pool in training. Maybe OW.

I'm training for junior elite draft-legal sprint races right now and I do swims substantially longer than 4100scy. I swim 5x/week and every swim is at least 4000scy. Longer swims come in at 6000+ yards.

The longest straight swim I do in training is 1650scy. Usually in the context of a 2x1650scy main set, or a 1650 TT to measure improvement. Plus warmups, pre-set, and cooldown, that's a 5000 yard day.

I could see doing 2x2000 on XX:XX, that's about it.

Long, straight swims are pretty much a triathlete thing (with the exception of actual races, like 3k/5k/10k postal and hour postal). Swimmers do sets for a reason - they work, and very well at that.

I certainly wouldn't do a regular long straight swim. Maybe get in open water once and give it a shot, get comfortable with it.

Otherwise, I'd build up to swimming 4100scy in training 3x/week, and that's a total between warmup/pre-set/main set/cooldown. That will give you confidence, and likely some better swim fitness/speed as well.

FWIW, I don't do really long swim workouts (5500+) every week. I do them every few weeks (unless in a swim block).

I also second what the poster above me said about a 30 minute swim for max distance. That'd likely be a good indicator.

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"Don't you have to go be stupid somewhere else?"..."Not until 4!"

Confidence and form. I enjoy a weekly "iron swim". It is the highlight of my swimming week. I enjoy the feeling of fatigue late in the swim while trying to keep perfect form. I KNOW that the distance of an ironman is easily swimmable after doing 50 or so straight swims of that distance each year.

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Austin Hardy -

If you enjoy it, thats good enough. But to feel fatigued? Or to do 50 a year makes it easy? Do 5x200 on 20 sec rest five times with an easy 200 between. You will get fatigued and a full will be easy

I cannot tell you what brings you confidence and of what importance that plays but I strongly dispute your assertion about form. THe reason NOT to do a long swim is because your form will probably break down. You will not get better, you might even get worse, if your stroke rate and stroke count deteriorate. So if you are going to do a long swim make certain you negative split it. Be aware of your strokes per lap. If they have increased by more than 2 from you opening 400 yards you should stop.

In my prep for a 10,000 marathon swim I did 1 3,000m straight swim. I did it for fun and because of some time constraints. It was not important to my overall plan for preparing for the race.

Wow I read that and wonder if you did intervals on half of those if you'd be 2,3,4 or 5 min faster in the IM swim.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
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It's threads like this that keep me convinced that many (maybe most) triathletes don't have a grasp on how to train effectively for the swim leg of long course triathlon.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

In the pool, I'd say there is zero reason to do a continuous long swim. I consider a long swim being at the pool for longer than average. In my last IM build I had two days where I swam 5k yards, but that was made up of lots of intervals, be they 100's, 200's of 400's. Most swims were in the range of 3,500-4,500 yards. It would be plain silly to just swim the IM distance in the pool. Save those long swims for OWS, which is very beneficial in its own right. To many triathletes do to few open water swims in prep for their races.

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Two completely different things.

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My bad I wasn't thinking just long and steady, I was thinking yardage. As in goin and doing 1000 yards of intervals versus 3000

Now a set of say 4 x 1,000's on x rest or a given interval can be useful. No need to do it that much, but when you would do it, do something like descend or build.

Did a set of 10 x 1000's (yds) in college when I used to be a swimmer on like 10:30's. That was a bitch. I guess you could call that steady state?


Side note: I used to go to Tom Jager's (50m WR Holder for a while) camp down near his house in NM over the summer. It was direct coaching from him and only about 15 - 20 campers or so. He said that the one set that made him fast was 3 x 1000's LCM kick. No board. That was f*king the most boring thing I have ever done in my life.

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Do that set outdoors and you get to look at the clouds. For a long long time.... It's, like meditation or something...

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

We are all an N=1...

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#swimmingmatters
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The Doctor (#12)

There isn't any value. In fact, it will make you slower and less efficient in the water.

That being said there is value in doing an OWS in race conditions, but only under race conditions.

If you are just starting out, focus on short, fast repeats of under 100 while trying to constantly improve technique and get faster by the pace clock.

Good luck,

Tim Floyd

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This is a very, very interesting anecdote, one of those things you only ever hear from other real swimmers, and that you would be highly unlikely to read in your average interview of a guy at that level, i.e. this is the real inside scoop. Actually, it is fairly amazing that a 50/100 guy like Jager felt that it was a set like 3 x 1000 LCM kick made him really fast; pretty counterintuitive for a pure sprinter. Did he say if he did them all freestyle, or perhaps some on his back??? On your back, you would at least be able to look at the clouds as Jason said, not so much with your head down in the water kicking free on your stomach w/o the board. Agree that would be a very boring set; i've done 10 x 400 scm IM kick w/ no board, but at least in that set i got to change kicks every 100 m:)

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

I think a lot of people approach these questions wrong. They think that if you're not doing the long continuous swim, then you'll be doing short, fast intervals with a pace clock. I think the reality is that there are probably a lot of triathletes out there like me who hate/suck at swimming so much that they would rather NOT swim than do intervals, and 3x/wk intervals is just too much psychologically, whereas a long continuous swim is more palatable. So swimming intervals 1-2x/wk vs. intervals 1-2x/wk + long swim will give you way more yardage in a week.

How you train to swim is totally different than how you train to bike, how you train to bike is totally different than how you train to run, how you train to run is totally different than how you train to swim

A long swim work out is an hour, long bike is 4 or 5, two very different things

Hand on heart, I probably fit in this catagory.
Serious question, how would/do you go about it?

Not much value. I think the big issue is triathletes don't swim enough. Many have an attitude that it's the shortest part of the race so why spend a lot of time working on it, but aren't realizing that the more fit you are for the swim the less matching you'll burn before starting the bike and run. Swimming more might not necessary make you significantly faster, but it will make you fitter for the swim, which will leave you much fresher for the bike and run. I know many ironman triathletes that swim 2 maybe 3 times a week and only swim around 2000, maybe 3000 yards, each workout. Once I started to swim 4 times a week (sometimes 5) and 4000-5000 yards per workout the ironman swims became much easier. Doing 4000-5000 masters swim workouts regularly makes the ironman swim pretty easy and helps so I don't tire or have my form deteriorate at the end of the 2.4 mile swim. The only long continuous swims I do are some OWS on the weekend or 5K OWS races in the summer. Just my thoughts ...

Agreed....

There's a guy at our Y that lays on his stomach and does double arm "S" shape hand drill to propel himself. I'm not sure what he's accomplishing. I don't think he knows either.