so i hate swimming. getting back into it after a few months off. i always hope i’ll magically be faster when i get back in, but it never works. anybody got some fun sets?
my current fun ones are…
10x50’s w/ 10s rest (i did em on the minute today)
50-100-150-200-150-100-50
remember that i’m a swimming pansy.
thanks fellas.
Try some of the exercises in the total immersion tri book. Vary stroke counts, speeds, up and down. swim ‘golf’ Mis in some stroking drills.
i’ll prefece this by saying that i was only this year able to do the bottom 3, so reduce the sets as needed, or just add more rest time
my favorites…(as main sets)
-10*100 sprint on 1.45… and every 3rd take an extra min(definatly need to do with someone else though, we were pretty much puking by the end of that)
-100,200,300,400,500,500,400,300,200,100 (on… 1.30, 2.50, 3.45, 5.40,7,and back down)
-1000,900,800,700,600,500,400,300,200,100… (on 1.30/100’s… so on 15, 13.3, etc…)
those are my fun sets… if i remember any more… i’ll post them…
cheers!
This is one that I really like:
5X100 @ 1:35,4X100 @ 1:30,3X100 @ 1:25,2x100 @ 1:20,2x100 @ 1:15, 2x100 @ 1:20, back up to 5x100 @ 1:35
Adjust start time to suit your ability, but you get the general idea.
Ed
Hallo…
30 x 100 @ 1.20…!! thinking about the bad weather outside!!
Schmidt-DK
Race it hard.
Similar to your pyramid you can try a complex ladder
1x400
2x300
3x200
4x100.
Test set we did in university. Adjust the pace as necessary.
??? x 100 yards, descending off times by 1 second per repeat. Makes you think and swim hard at the same time.
For us, we started at 1:30, keep going till you can’t do any more (adjust as needed so its about a 2000 yard / metre set) I managed to get under the minute once. Hint: swim as slow as you can and still make the off time.
I’ll try to think of some more.
I like these two sets:
For super long workout: (9100 total)
1225,1150,1075,9100,8125,7150,6175,5200,4225,3250,2275,1300
if you start with 825 and build to 1200 it is only 3,000. You should do the set so that you only have 5 sec rest per 50 and try and hold the same speed thoughout (i.e. if you can do 30*100 on 1:25 with 5-10sec rest then you should use 1:25 per hundred as your base pace and adjust it to fit the different distances (always round up to nearest 5 seconds).
The other set
18*100
If your best time for 100 is 1:00 then start at 2:00 and do 2 on 2:00 2: on 1:50 2 on 1:40 2 on 1:30 2 on 1:20 2 on 1:30 2 on 1:40 2 on 1:50 2 on 2:00. The key is to hold the same speed for every 100 (in this case you would want to hold close to 1:10).
My favorite swim workout is variable pace 200’s (or 150’s). You swim each 50 m either easy, medium or hard and you change the mix up for each 200. So, for example:
50 easy/50 med/50 hard/50 easy
med/hard/easy/med
hard/easy/med/easy
…etc…
I usually have it worked out ahead of time on a piece of paper and just put it beside the pool (in a ziploc bag) so I know what the next set will be. This helped me learn how to recover while still swimming. It’s especially challenging (for me, at least) when the med pace comes after the hard pace.
Dawn
i like that. dad had me tell him what a hard 50 was last summer, and the was all, ok, now do 10 50’s, starting at that and getting faster each time…1
to get seriously better, or at least not wicked slow, what length workouts should i shoot for? i have trouble getting over 2k in. but, this is also my first week back in the pool for quite some time…
i’m doing some of the ti stuff, seems to be helping quite a bit - other recommendations?
thanks.
Oh, by the way, I would not recommend doing that set more than once every 2 weeks. We used to do it every 3 weeks or every month (i forget which) It is brutally hard, if you do it right you’ll end up sprinting a straight 300 at the end. You’ll end up missing your off time by about a mile on the last one, when everything locks up.
I am probably the wrong guy to ask about workout length, since I was a pure swimmer. I used to do about 45,000 yards per week. I would guess that you’ll see significant improvement if you work your way up to 4500 metres or so, 3 times a week. A lot of that, especially initially, should be drills and stroke work, to really ingrain good technique. Over 50% of your yardage should be drills.
You’ll find that eventually, you won’t need to swim nearly as much and still do well, since swimming for triathletes is about 75% technique and 25% fitness (rough guess). The first week back is always a bitch anyway, everything feels a little foreign.
Adjust intervals as needed:
1x100 on 1:30, 1x100 on 1:25, 1x100 on 1:20, 1x100 on 1:15
2x100 on 1:30, 2x100 on 1:25, 2x100 on 1:20, 2x100 on 1:15
3x100 on 1:30, 3x100 on 1:25, 3x100 on 1:20, 3x100 on 1:15
If you’ve swimming with a group, funnest thing of all is to take a half hour time block and set it aside for water polo
.