I am looking for suggestions or good resources for 30 minutes swim workouts.
I will be working 4 hours away from home Mon-Thurs for the next 18 months. Thankfully the small town I will be in has a pool. Unfortunately the only lap swim time that will work with my work schedule is 5:30am to 6am. I hope to run or do strength workouts in the evenings on those days. I could probably fit in a longer swim on Fri-Sun but those days will be focused on bike rides and family time.
Starting in June I will be able to get a few open water swims in.
I’d do some testing and find out where I was lacking relative to the racing I was going to do then do something where I focused on that for 3-4-5-6 weeks then something else for 2-3 weeks. Maybe go through 1-2 cycles of that retest, redesign and go again
Generally speaking, with swimming, when you shorten the amount of time the intensity needs to go up. The only problem with it is that you won’t be able to maintain it for more than a few months. The best recommendation I could give you would be 2x a week, short and fast. 1x a week easier, aerobic type swim.
The fast workouts would 500 warm up and then right into 40x25, 20x50, 16x75 or 12x100 trying to hold best possible pace with about 20 seconds rest. If you can find a really good strength and conditioning program for swimming, you’ll be fine. Unless those open water swims are races don’t sacrifice time in the pool. You’ll only be making yourself slower.
Thanks this helps a lot. The open water swim would be in addition to the pool swim, but it sounds like that time might be better spent doing strength work.
I appreciate everyone’s thoughts. It sounds like I need to take the strength side of this seriously especially with the minimal pool time. I will be doing some research there now. Along with learning how to upload video, I am sure I could use some advice as even in my best conditioning I topped out at 1:30/100 scy and could not make any progress from there.
Generally speaking, with swimming, when you shorten the amount of time the intensity needs to go up. The only problem with it is that you won’t be able to maintain it for more than a few months. The best recommendation I could give you would be 2x a week, short and fast. 1x a week easier, aerobic type swim.
The fast workouts would 500 warm up and then right into 40x25, 20x50, 16x75 or 12x100 trying to hold best possible pace with about 20 seconds rest. If you can find a really good strength and conditioning program for swimming, you’ll be fine. Unless those open water swims are races don’t sacrifice time in the pool. You’ll only be making yourself slower.
I hope this helps,
Tim
I’m in a similar boat to OP, trying to get towards the back-of-the-front-of-pack on pretty limited time… I’ve done a fair amount of research but my results have been all over the place. Any favorite plans or books you’d recommend on swim dryland strength plans that we could read up on?
I was not fit to do long hard sets in the pool after. It took a while to develop that fitness again. Not a surprise; however
My strokes/lap went way down. A result, I’d bet, of working muscles and combinations of muscles that don’t get recruited in the water because of my very imperfect stroke. I was actually shocked by this strength/efficiency benefit.
I bet slowtwicth has zillions of advice about dry land workouts, developed and shared during Covid lockdowns. I hope I am not violating any forum rules by linking – please remove if I am. I can’t remember if I paid or not. If I did, I am sure it was not much. I am pretty thrifty.
Generally speaking, with swimming, when you shorten the amount of time the intensity needs to go up. The only problem with it is that you won’t be able to maintain it for more than a few months. The best recommendation I could give you would be 2x a week, short and fast. 1x a week easier, aerobic type swim.
The fast workouts would 500 warm up and then right into 40x25, 20x50, 16x75 or 12x100 trying to hold best possible pace with about 20 seconds rest. If you can find a really good strength and conditioning program for swimming, you’ll be fine. Unless those open water swims are races don’t sacrifice time in the pool. You’ll only be making yourself slower.
I hope this helps,
Tim
I already knew I was slow
But posts like this make it even more evident
Couldn’t get through that workout in the OPs required 30 mins
It’s not about the distance. It’s about the speed/intensity, your level of focus on the technique during that speed and your ability to stay focused as the distractions increase.
That’s great advice and a really refreshing way of looking at it. By distractions I am just guessing you mean things like wanting to go slower, wanting to revert to easier stroke and not hold core and kick together, questioning why you are doing it etc, wanting to give up ?
Tried to think of staying focussed today as I was struggling to finish a set
3 rounds of scm
5x100 on 130
20x25 on 30
Not best effort but just trying to keep a solid pace and good technique
Yep. The three things most likely to hijack your attention are a threat, a bad mood or stress. Getting better at keeping your attention focused on your technique as the level of stress increases is where the big performance gains are found and developing that ability to hold focus is a skill.