With the season winding down I am looking to again work on my swimming this off-season. Looking for a DIY swim improvement plan I can do on my own.
Goal is to get sub 24 for Oly distance. Currently in the 26 to 29 range…
Anyone have success with anything you’ve done on your own that you are able to share?
Put bluntly: DIY sucks for swimming progress. Is there any way you can get into a masters swim program?
Not consistently… I’m a soccer dad also… I can really mostly only do things on my schedule.
What are you doing now? And what do you have time to do?
Swim 2x per week. Usually do 1day of 1500 to 3000 straight freestyle and 1 day of mix drills and speints - kick, pull, sighting, sprints, etc…
Uh oh. Here come all the angry fish saying, “if only 2x/week, you’ll never improve.” 
I’d tend to agree though, as someone who improved alot over the winter (3-4x/week), but regressed during the season (0-1x/week).
If only 2x/week, maybe get swim cords? And try swimsmooth or some other program that targets CSS/threshold improvement?
I will swim 3x per week during off-season.
OK, drop the 1500 to 3000 straight. Its low quality.
in every session you want to be swimming fast. If you do more than 400 straight for anything other than warmup, then you’re fired. I’ll send you a full refund.
Drop anything related to OW skills. you can practice those closer to the season, and you really shouldn’t need to do that much of them anyway. limit drills to warmup and active recovery.
Swim training is, at it’s core, pretty effin’ boring. Play around with set structures and rest intervals to keep it interesting, but the core work isn’t fancy.
I’d hire a coach. Well, in truth, I already DID hire a coach.
I buy lessons 6 at a time, and schedule as needed. We meet about every 3 weeks for an hour (or on my schedule). He watches/films me swimming, points out 1-3 things to work on, gives me 1-2 drills to focus on those things, and emails me a couple workout variations that incorporate those drills, along with swimming (including key video clips showing the “flaws” and “corrected” swimming pre/post lessons).
I’m an AOS basically over the last 10 months. I started on my own with TI and then did some of the Guppy challenge workouts before hiring my coach in May. At that time I couldn’t swim 500 yards, and a 50scy sprint was 45s. I’m now about where you are after 4 lessons: 27m Oly swim.
That said…the guppy challenge is pretty solid. Looking back on it now, it is very similar (at the macro-level) to the workouts (and progression) I’ve gotten from my coach. By that I mean that the drills are basically the same, and the “pure swim” sessions are the same. Of course, I get “prescribed” only the drills I “need” (well, “need most”). However, I don’t think I’d be a 27m Oly swimmer if I’d just followed the Guppy Challenge on my own----many of my major stroke flaws were things I thought I actually did pretty well. Uh, no.
Swim training is, at it’s core, pretty effin’ boring. Play around with set structures and rest intervals to keep it interesting, but the core work isn’t fancy.
Is that why? That makes more sense to me. I’m a really monotonous guy, and I have always wondered why there were so many “screwy” swim workouts that all seem to be (mostly) minor variations on swim hard/swim fast.
Just give me 1 or 2 workouts that focus on a specific thing (per thing), and I’m much happier. I like boring—I’m good at it.
My mind goes numb trying to keep up with goofy pyramids, and all those other oddball swim-workouts-of-the-day. Give me 20x50, and I’m happy.
not entirely, particularly when you are talking about pure wimming. different sets are designed to focus on different race distances and phases of the race.
but for triathlon, its all the same same…
Full disclosure: I’m still a pretty crappy swimmer. However, the most high yield thing I’ve done for swimming improvement is done a session at a place with full video analysis cameras. 30 minutes there led to bigger improvements than months of weekly coaching not that they told me something different but being able to really see it in real time from multiple angles (particularly under water) was super powerful. I wish I could do it more but I don’t have access locally.
OK, drop the 1500 to 3000 straight. Its low quality.
in every session you want to be swimming fast. If you do more than 400 straight for anything other than warmup, then you’re fired. I’ll send you a full refund.
Drop anything related to OW skills. you can practice those closer to the season, and you really shouldn’t need to do that much of them anyway. limit drills to warmup and active recovery.
Swim training is, at it’s core, pretty effin’ boring. Play around with set structures and rest intervals to keep it interesting, but the core work isn’t fancy.
I’ll second all of the above.
convince yourself that you love going to the pool and how great the workout’s gonna be, in other words…
enjoy the journey
These are all good suggestions, but I really want to hear what h20fun has to say.
I will outrun you.
I don’t train. I train 3 hours a day.
I don’t eat. I eat before/after every workout.
I suck at biking. Dan will you give me a fit for free? NVM, I’ll just fit myself.
Look up “USRPT” training. Basically, you’re going to be swimming a lot of 50s and 100s on short rest (even 25s). IMO, it’s also useful to do a 1,000m continuous pull (without a buoy, with or without paddles) once a week.
Try to work with a coach for one session a week for the first five weeks or so. If you have any postural or flexibility issues, address those in your spare moments throughout the day or every night before bed. Maybe invest in stretch cords and carry them around with you in the car and try to squeeze in a few ten-minute sessions throughout the week. The little stuff will add up.
I had my greatest improvement when I was swimming 3-4x per week and had a coach helping with some technique issues online.
Nothing fancy in terms of swimming, lots of 50’s and 100’s, fast without much rest. I would gauge my progress with an STP test once a month. If I got bored with big sets of 50’s and 100’s I would makeup some ladder sets… 25, 50, 75, 100, 200, 100, 75, 50, 25 or something like that. Rinse and repeat.
i wish i was a 27min oly swimmer after 4 lessons. after 500k yards in 3 years, in still assertion 28-30.
I’ve been doing tris for 30 years; for most of these years, going 24-26 min for the 1.5k.
For the past 3 years, though, I’ve been able to hit sub 22 and pulled off a 20:58 in the pool.
Some key things
You could also just join a master’s team
Good luck
I’m no expert. But, I can confirm that what Toefuzz and Twain are saying is very similar to what I’ve been given by my coach and has worked for me to get where I am. One workout that has helped me is 10x50 fast with fins @ :55, followed by 200y EZ (no fins).
In my mind swimming fast with fins magnifies the effects of drag, the added propulsion from the fins frees some of the effort from my arms and brain…which gives me the mental capacity to feel that drag. Specifically, I think I can feel the drag associated with extraneous movements, and misalignments (head position, bending at the waist, stops-sign-hand). My lower torso doesn’t “have time” to over-rotate, and there is more “twist” in my trunk to accommodate the shoulder rotation needed. Further, it has helped me to learn a faster turn-over, both a faster pull, and a more efficient recovery.
When I return to EZ swimming, some of those thoughts carry over, and I’m still hyper aware of all those elements.
I don’t know if any of the above is truly what’s going on…but, its what my mind thinks is going on…and my pace reflects improvement for some reason. I imagine some of that reason is the workout.
Btw, I also do lots of fast 50s and 100s. I do 2x1000 once a week. I swim 4x (2500-4k), and have logged 210k since January.