Benefits of Long Swimming Sessions/Sets?

Triathlon Forum
1

I took a few months off from the pool after my last race in 2022. I got back into the water this month, and for the past few weeks, I have just been swimming 2,000 yards continuously to get back into the feel of the water. Before, I was doing structured workouts with 50yd and 100yd intervals and sometimes some 500yd cruising sets.

I am puzzled, because I am not back in shape yet, but my 2,000 yard pace is a few seconds/100yd faster than my 500 yard sets were last year. What is different is that when I am just swimming, I tend to think about body rotation and other general form things more than I did in the short intervals, when my focus was more on the effort intensity.

So, this is an unexpected surprise. And it makes me wonder if there is benefit to just doing occasional long continuous workouts instead of more intense structured workouts every time. (For reference, I am FO-MOP swimmer that will do around 35 minutes in a non-wetsuit lake swim. So, I am OK, but far from a truly capable swimmer.)

2

I took a few months off from the pool after my last race in 2022. I got back into the water this month, and for the past few weeks, I have just been swimming 2,000 yards continuously to get back into the feel of the water. Before, I was doing structured workouts with 50yd and 100yd intervals and sometimes some 500yd cruising sets.

I am puzzled, because I am not back in shape yet, but my 2,000 yard pace is a few seconds/100yd faster than my 500 yard sets were last year. What is different is that when I am just swimming, I tend to think about body rotation and other general form things more than I did in the short intervals, when my focus was more on the effort intensity.

So, this is an unexpected surprise. And it makes me wonder if there is benefit to just doing occasional long continuous workouts instead of more intense structured workouts every time. (For reference, I am FO-MOP swimmer that will do around 35 minutes in a non-wetsuit lake swim. So, I am OK, but far from a truly capable swimmer.)

I was under the impression most swim coaches shake their heads at triathletes swimming long distances continuously in training. The theory they have is that if your form is bad, or breaks down over distances, all this does is reinforce bad habits.

Personally I tend to agree and feel the only benefit of long sets is mental training which after having a few long course races under my belt don’t feel the need to practice anymore.

I still swim 4k or so a session but I do it broken up now.

3

I was under the impression most swim coaches shake their heads at triathletes swimming long distances continuously in training. The theory they have is that if your form is bad, or breaks down over distances, all this does is reinforce bad habits.

So that’s what I thought as well (coaches go as far as prescribing 80x25 or 40x50 with 3-second recoveries), but apparently the Swimsmooth program contains one continuous swim a week. (I don’t do it).

4

I took a few months off from the pool after my last race in 2022. I got back into the water this month, and for the past few weeks, I have just been swimming 2,000 yards continuously to get back into the feel of the water. Before, I was doing structured workouts with 50yd and 100yd intervals and sometimes some 500yd cruising sets.

I am puzzled, because I am not back in shape yet, but my 2,000 yard pace is a few seconds/100yd faster than my 500 yard sets were last year. What is different is that when I am just swimming, I tend to think about body rotation and other general form things more than I did in the short intervals, when my focus was more on the effort intensity.

So, this is an unexpected surprise. And it makes me wonder if there is benefit to just doing occasional long continuous workouts instead of more intense structured workouts every time. (For reference, I am FO-MOP swimmer that will do around 35 minutes in a non-wetsuit lake swim. So, I am OK, but far from a truly capable swimmer.)

If you’re making progress, there’s a benefit to what you’re doing and it has value. Continue doing it until you feel like you’re no longer making progress, then adjust.

To me, the caveat is that you think about what you’re doing MORE when you swim longer, whereas many will think about what they’re doing LESS.

Much of training in the water is about maintaining engagement in HOW you’re swimming. Many athletes just shut their brain off during longer stuff, which makes it less effective.

There’s definitely physiological value in longer swimming, providing engagement can be maintained. However many can’t/won’t do it, which makes it potentially less effective.

Secondly, some individuals don’t have the ability to maintain their skills for extended periods of time, especially when trying to learn new skills. If going for longer distances leads them to swim poorly, that’s not going to be productive. They should keep it shorter to PRACTICE swimming well. As they’re better able to maintain their skills, they can extend it out if they want.

It works, provided skills can be maintained due to engagement and/or fitness.

Hope that helps.

Andrew

5

I took a few months off from the pool after my last race in 2022. I got back into the water this month, and for the past few weeks, I have just been swimming 2,000 yards continuously to get back into the feel of the water. Before, I was doing structured workouts with 50yd and 100yd intervals and sometimes some 500yd cruising sets.

I am puzzled, because I am not back in shape yet, but my 2,000 yard pace is a few seconds/100yd faster than my 500 yard sets were last year. What is different is that when I am just swimming, I tend to think about body rotation and other general form things more than I did in the short intervals, when my focus was more on the effort intensity.

So, this is an unexpected surprise. And it makes me wonder if there is benefit to just doing occasional long continuous workouts instead of more intense structured workouts every time. (For reference, I am FO-MOP swimmer that will do around 35 minutes in a non-wetsuit lake swim. So, I am OK, but far from a truly capable swimmer.)

same for swimming as for running… go as long as you can WHILE you are able to mantain form. It is an error to swim (or run) in bad form.

so… if there are options to increase your aerobic capacity AND mantain good form AND mantain “some speed”… why you should do long swims? —> only for mental purpouses, for tests and because your goal is a long swim.

and the last if you are not used to long swims… it is a good stimulous. It is good to change the focus of the training during the year (not doing always the same)

6

Thank you all for the insights. I think that I am liking this and I will probably mix in simple long swims occasionally going forward. It has been many years since I have done workouts like this, and I kind of like them.

7

It’s interesting, I would think that long swims a few times a month would be beneficial if the race you’re targeting has a long swim. If your form breaks down during long swims wouldn’t the best way to combat that be to practice keeping form during long swims?

8

Not a great swimmer here but made a lot of progress and I’m not lying one bit when I’m saying that long over distance continuous swims are the highest yield workout for me. I still do intervals regularly so I think the overdistance locks in the stronger form over distnance.

9

I think you are onto something, but it won’t register with life-long swimmers. Swimming is a sport that will forever be dominated and remembered for the sprint distances, therefore coaching revolves around that.

Just imagine if you told every swim coach in the world that there will no longer be short swimming events held, that their swimmers will only be competing in 1.5k or longer events. Do you think swim training would change and incorporate long endurance sets more frequently? I do.

What I found, coming from a non swim background, is that long sets let me focus on my form. I can feel when my form starts to break down and have learned how to pace myself and improve form mid set, much like one needs to do during a long open water swim. There is a point of diminishing returns on this, one can become so fatigued that form just goes to complete shit and you need to rest, so being ultra self aware during these long sets is crucial.

So I believe, just based on my experience, that these long swim sets of 1 or 2k really helped me out, especially early on when I was just learning to feel the water. It forced me to really focus and think about what I was doing form wise.

That being said I find I improve quite a bit when doing 200 and 400 yard sets that really test my ability to hold a faster pace than what I can on long sets, but I still think the long endurance sets have probably been more helpful overall for me than the short intervals.

10

To LC triathletes who swim at min 3 times (most that I work with do 4 swims a week), I do 1 base work swim, 1 “hard” swim and 1 distance day. It’s mostly broken race distances:

IE
5 x 400; 4 x 600, 3 x 1k, etc 2 x 1.5k. It’s not usually 1 “continous” swim, but I find it’s much needed. I also use it as a “recovery” day; I’ll do it as o) CH eq e) swim etc. I like the longer sets, but with a few breaks.

11

They talked about this a bit on this week’s episode of the Scientific Triathlon podcast. The coach on advocated for 3-4 swims/week but longer swims (basically said 2k is a waste of time, not that I necessarily agree) with an emphasis on form. Seems like longer swim sets was the recommendation for 70.3 & up. But a lot of form work rather than just knocking out a lot of distance if that needs work. I think it’s fair that a lot of triathletes (myself included) who come from other sports go to the pool a ton, log good distance, but don’t always find improvement if you’re just swimming a lot with bad form. They want to steer triathletes away from hammering out distance swims with poor form. They also want us swimming long sets & would rather less frequency to more volume.

12

This is an interesting topic. My first few years of swimming (Slow AF), I would ignore all drills, paces etc., and simply swim 1000–3000 meters broken up into random sets of usually 300-400 m sets.

I would also do 1x per week, swim 2k continuous.

The only logic behind this was for my mental comfort that I COULD swim the distance in a 70.3. When I went to IM, I increased my workouts slightly and swam 4k continuous 2-3 time leading up to the event.

This year I joined a Masters group. Still slow AF, however super confident in my “Can I do the distance” mindset, and now want to improve. Our workouts are about 4k per 90 minutes, I manage to get about 3400-3600 done in the time allowed. I feel the improvement in just 4 weeks.

All this being said, had I done Masters prior to me achieving mental confidence that I can knock out 4-5k continuous at any time, the Master’s would not have benefited me. I would have been far more preoccupied with the distance than the drills and the benefit of putting in good work. My coach told me, “You are a decent swimmer, you will simply never improve doing what you’re doing”.

I think that for many people, if they like and believe in the training they are doing, it is far more beneficial mentally than having “technique” training that leaves them up at night with doubt.

13

What do you mean by “base swim”? That sounds similar to an endurance swim set.

When you say mostly broken race distances. Do you prescribe sets such as 16x100 for olympic distance and 7x300 for 70.3? So the main set is the distance of the race swim?

14

A “base” swim for me is always technique/stroke work days I break it down as 50 / 75 / 100’s of technique work followed by “putting it together” efforts

IE
8 x 50 2 DK off each wall, etc
4 x 75 BC, 1 less breath per 25
4 x 100 as 25 zipper drill / 25 swim
4 x 100 rotating 25 strong
4 x 50 desc 1-4 @ 1:00 etc

(not in that specific order, I put a 3500yd set in the Jan Swim set from a few days ago)

The “distance” sets for me basically are longer intervals than basically 300’s and above. I dont really add “technique” work in those sets specifically, obviously you want to swim with good form, but it’s not an specific “priority” like a “you do this technique drill 4 times”. So like my distance sets usually start at 5 x 300’s for olympics or 6 x 400 for 70,3 etc. And then then the following week those 400’s are now 500’s then a month later it’s 3 x 1k etc. I normally always give some athlete freedom (I call it athlete empowerment) with CH/ EQ within these. Of note, I never really care what the paces are on these days, unless I know there is a specific distance we are doing. But if we are doing 6 x 400’s I really don’t look at the splits. The priority for me is just getting “longer” sets in (I’m also low key on worrying about splits all the time on distance days, there are days where we need to hit times and there are days where you just “go fucking swim”).

There are days where there are “tempo distance” work but I normally keep that below 400’s (but lots of repeats). Right now most of my athletes are in the “fast 50’s” phase of swim training where we are dialing up the top top end speed and then once “race season” rolls around we start to dial in race tempo over and over (race 300’s is my go to set for that).

15

By all means, if you are concerned about not being able to make the distance in a race, swim a continuous swim in the pool or open water to boost your confidence. But you would do better to find some open water races and go out and race.

However, in my experience, if you want to ingrain unfocused, sloppy and inefficient technique swim a long continuous swim frequently. For most triathletes, the longest repeat you should be doing is around a 200 yard/meter. I’ve found that the majority of triathletes can’t stay focused enough past 200 y/m repeats to maintain their stroke. Keep in mind that getting better in swimming is primarily driven by the brain and 100% neural in nature. The by-product of that training is you increase your aerobic/anaerobic capacity, you get stronger to support the movement, etc. Don’t put all your focus on the by-product.

I hope this helps,

Tim

16

Put me in the category of someone who does not benefit from a long, continuous swim. I don’t know how much my form breaks down, but I know I have trouble concentrating and my mind wanders. I’d much prefer to do a large number of 100s on very short rest as my endurance set. If I take 5 seconds rest, that’s about how long it takes to grab the wall, turn, and take two full breaths. It’s just enough to keep my head in the game. Since I started doing that as my ‘long swim’ I have never had any trouble transitioning to open water. That being said, I did do a 4200-yard continuous swim before my first Ironman. But that was psychological-- I just really needed to know I could do it.

17

An important idea about training is that workouts should either:
1 ) make you faster or
2) make you capable of doing workouts that will make you faster

Long continuous swims probably will not make you faster.

They might be helpful in making it possible for you to do the workouts that will make you faster.

I do long continuous swims.

But I suspect most people will benefit more from workouts that provide more opportunity to monitor form.

18

I have been doing this for about a 1.5yrs now. I don’t swim enough that drills will change my form. I’m not investing the time to necessarily get faster.

What I am doing is getting stronger. I will swim anywhere from 2-3.5k in a session at least 1x a week. I will do 500-1k intervals. I will vary speed every 250.

Works for me.

19

I’m kinda amazed at the supposition that these long continuous swims are ‘too easy’.

Sure, they are at an overall slower pace than a short 100-300 set, but holding sub-race pace for 3000 (or even 2 x 1500) without dropoff is very difficult, or seems it should be. When I do these long sets, it’s certainly not at some totally relaxed pace that I can smile the whole way through - in fact, I’m super focused in the last 1000 because the fatigue is really setting in and I’m mentally analyzing my form for flaws with the fatigue load. I’m always horrified with how hard it feels to swim the last 500 of the long swim at what its typically my ‘z2+’ pace if doing broken sets, but feels like pushing z4 by the end of a 3000.

(I do record splits every 500 or 1000 though - I’m not just waiting until the end for feedback, so that may be part of it.)

I honestly find them just as hard, if not harder than a 20 x 100 set, even if my HR spikes higher on the hard 100s.

20

A variation is something like 15-20x150 as 100 hard on an interval that gives just a few seconds rest and then 50 recovery where you only get about 10 seconds rest and you’re swimming to get your breath back. Doesn’t give much rest through the set and like a big block of continuous work.

I’ve never done a 3k effort in training but I’ve done a 2k best effort. The last few hundred are hard!