I’m finally spending an hour in the pool for each session going 5-6 days a week. I have no idea how to train though. 2 days ago I did 3,000 yds as 22x100 and 4 x 50 and 1 x 200 and 1x 250 and 2x 50 kick and1 x 50 back stroke cool down. Took 1:15 to do the 3,000yds.
I skipped yesterday and today I did in 1 hr: 2300yd as 20x100 and 2x50 and 1x100 kick and 1x 50 back and 1 x 50 breast. I did the 1st 7 x100 avg 1:40 and the next 13 avg 1:30.
My question is what is a swimming recovery day? I did both of these work out hard. Heart rate in the 13-140 range and panting when I stop.
When I finish my 100yds I feel like there is no way I could have gone 200yds.
Should once or twice a week, I do longer swims at slower pace like 4-6 x 500yd at 1:40 pace?
I feel like I’m all over the place when swimming. Seems like biking or running are easier to set up training schedules: ride or run hill one day, intervals the next long but less effort etc…
So how should I be training for swimming? ,
Thanks.
I would start by incorporating a short warm up, some drill 50’s or 75’s and varying up your long sets. You’re going to get bored pretty fast if all your doing is banging out 100 s on whatever interval you can handle.
Mix it up with different distances as mentioned.
Also consider doing ladders. I like descending ladders because it forces me to swim faster on each one. So I might do a 600, 500, 400, 350, 300, 250, 200, 150, 100, 75, 50, 25. Viola!.. 3000y. Add a wu (consisting of mostly drills) & cd and you have a really solid workout. The last 3 are pretty much flat out sprints and your arms are pretty wasted by then if you’ve been pacing it right and getting only 15-20 seconds rest.
Adjust the distances for shorter workouts.
So far not bored but, today being the only swimmer in the pool for an hour was a bit weird. No music from the Lifeguard either.
I’m just learning flip turns so that has been on my mind a lot so not bored yet. I’m sure it will hit soon though.
Any drill suggestions would help. I just use a kick board for 1x100. I’m trying to stay away from the pull buoy. A year ago I loved it because my legs were sinking so much. Now I don’t even think about it. If you think I need to start, I’m not opposed to it.
Thanks
Buy the waterproof book “workouts in a binder” and do what they say to do
jaretj
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CONDITIONING COMBINED WITH VIDEO:
I used to concentrate on technique much of the time, but since being coached by Rick I moved over to focusing on conditioning, whilst returning to technique from time to time. If you aren’t conditioned enough to feel ‘hard water’ how are you going to learn to use it. Rick got me my best 100 ever (at age 69), of 1:23, and my stroke is much more solid. However, I became lazy in the swim over the last few months, due to focus on running, so we will be hitting sets up to 5000 yds. over the winter. My favorite is broken 500s.
I strongly recommend the use of video from time to time (here is an example on my latest blog post, where you can see my issues).
It is funny how what one thinks one is doing isn’t exactly what one is doing doing, and the video points this out with no holds barred.
Happy Laps.
Cheers,
Kevin aka FitOldDog
Lots of free resources out there for workouts:
http://magnoliamasters.com/swim-efficiency/
http://www.haleychura.com/tyr-swim-set-of-the-week/
http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/swim-cgi/
http://mastersswimworkoutsbysaramclarty.blogspot.com/
http://ruthkazez.com/50swimworkouts.html
Structure is generally: warm-up, drills, main set (same distance of your race - maybe not for IM though), and cool down.
great I’ll check out the link in a minute. I was thinking of putting a training session in a ziplock bag to keep it dry.
1:23 wow. That ties my fastest I puked out last week and your 69yo! I’m a baby at 50yo compared to you.
I know I’ve posted how to set up swim workouts before on here but I’m actually too lazy this morning, or under caffeinated, to go find it.
You should train like a swimmer with a few modifications.
I set up everything as I did when I was a swim coach. warm up, a warm up set that is often a mix of kicking, stroke, drill, builds, band only, short sprints. for instance it could be 6x75 kick, drill build or k,d,stroke.
Then a main set that is the bulk of the day’s yardage. If you’re in for 3200 this could be anywhere from 15-2200 yards.
Triathletes are different then swimmers in a few ways:
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Triathletes are rarely entering from a dive and often running into or treading water to start. They need an ability to explode from the line to help clear the scrum or at least position themselves as close to the front as possible.
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Triathletes need to be able to maintain a high rate of speed for a period of time then settle into race pace not drastically slow into race pace, which is what most do.
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Swimmers are trained to negative split races. Most triathletes swim with a U shaped pattern. really fast initially, really slow in the middle then speed up over the last 100 or so. (i can think of at least 6 races over the last few seasons of racing where I went from 1st or 2nd in my wave to 3rd or 4th out of the water bc the people on my feet sniffed the finish line. Towed me to a :01 to :02 faster split and they expended a lot of extra energy. A win win for me)
Then you need to solve for which of the above you want to work on that day and the answer could be 2 of the above. There are several ways to skin a cat.
I solve for the above by:
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sprinting, a lot of 25’s and 25’s with fins. Some sets where they are stopped in the middle of the pool and start from a tread for their next interval.
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#1 helps with this some, but triathletes also need to be able to go fast for xxx and not die. Unfortunately most take off like a prison escape then totally die about 100 into the swim. To solve for this do some fast 50-150’s on short rests. Another way to do this is do 75 really fast + 125 race pace (could be any distance really, 200,400 doesn’t matter) What matters is going fast initially then settling into a pace and not going so fast that you are dying in the repeat or as the set goes on.
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I give my triathletes lots of negative split and descending sets. If I were guessing I’d actually say a higher % then when I was a swim coach. But my swimmers were also swimming 45-70k per week in high school 44 weeks per year.
One of the other thing I think swimmers do a good job at and triathletes not so much is repeatability. You might have a swimmer do 20x150 on 2:00 They might hold 1:51-:53 for the entire set. When I used to swim in the same pool as a bunch of triathletes their rests were greater, their repeat numbers were smaller and they swam their sets in an ascending manner. If they were doing the same set they might start at 1:51 but by the end they are swimming 1:58.
To summarize it’s warm up, drill set, main set, short set working on a specific need, cool down (which I often lace with stroke work or kicking).
Hope that helps, ymmv
great info Brian. Man I wish I was retired. 6-10K a day is many hrs a day in the pool. Just the 6,000 would take 2-2.5hrs.
I hear you when you say the triathlete is doing ascending times. My 18 and 19th 100yd were going 1:33 and 1:35. I was beat. Funny thing though, I then did a 2x50 at 40 sec and 39.75sec with 20 sec rest inbetween and rested 30 sec then did a final 100yd @ 1:29 100yd. I don’t know if you get fatigued doing the same thing over and over, but I was faster.
Is there a masters group in your area? This got me over the hurdle big time.
Our jr kids went M-f evenings 2hrs. 2 mornings per week for 90 min iirc. Saturday’s were 3 hours.
Sr kids went 3 mornings per week for 90 min. In the afternoons m,t 2.5 hours, W 3 hours, th 2.5 friday 2. saturdays 3 hours.
You have to remember that these kids swim a lot faster than your avg triathlete. Maybe 4k in the morning, they were more relaxed compared to evenings. Evenings we shot for around 1000 scm per 15-20 min after warm up until time for cool down. That’s 2.5 hours of quality swimming in a 3 hour evening. That’s on par with the avg triathlete’s entire quality swim week.
Saturday’s were longer, usually not as intense, but still shooting for 7k+.
I remember one morning where I forgot to come in the night before and took a cab to swim practice about 5am, which started at 8am. Wrote the workout on the board, main set was 15x600 Do Not Disturb Me. Quietest practice ever!
As someone who’s seen both real AG swimming and silly-short tri training, do you have an opinion on the importance of those morning practices? I think a lot of AG programs are built on the principle of long-term aerobic and skills development, not unlike running (e.g. make a K-Bar) but I often wonder how far one could go on one good practice per day?
Your spot on with the amount of time I was in the pool this past tri season about 3-4hrs total for each week. I’m at that already and still have 2 more work outs this week. So I’m hoping the increase to 6 hrs a week will help.
No Masters club here. I did catch wind of our local city swim club for the under 18yo maybe a help to me. The person who told me this has kids in the club and she said when they go to meets they’ve seen 19-99yo swimming! So I’m going to hopefully find out more about this tonight. I guess the teams’ coach swam a few meets with them last year.
My 18 and 19th 100yd were going 1:33 and 1:35. I was beat. Funny thing though, I then did a 2x50 at 40 sec and 39.75sec with 20 sec rest inbetween and rested 30 sec then did a final 100yd @ 1:29 100yd. I don’t know if you get fatigued doing the same thing over and over, but I was faster.
I think youy were told this three weeks ago, but here goes again:
if you are swimming them in 1:33-1:35 your send off should be 1:50. That won’t feel like enough rest at first. Slow down a little and go 1:37 for the first 17 then desecned the last 3. Based on “2300 in 1 hour” it seems like you are still swimming them on 2:15. That is not good for you and you will not - REPEAT WILL NOT - improve much if you do them that way.
In addition to that, was speaking with a former D1 distance coach/guy this past weekend. 10k in 2 hours was not uncommon.
I would mix it up and do some days short and easy, some days long steady efforts, and some days shorter faster things. I’d do a warm-up and drills. It’s not like the basic principles of training are suddenly different in the pool?
Get yourself a copy of
“Championship Swim Training”
it goes into how to setup workouts, what energy systems to train why and when.
It is the single book I look at most often.
I think what a lot of people overlook is they are already doing one good practice per day. They have to go to school/homework etc. Some of those kids were already in the water from 4-7pm on a school night. Some were in from 6-8. There is only so much time.
Those morning practices can be used for lots of things, the little things or they free up parts of evening practice for the little things that really make a difference in swimming. Turns, starts, technique, kick sets, stroke sets, stuff triathletes really don’t need to worry about (triathletes do need kick sets though & they should swim some stroke work several times per week imo)
I also think if you only did 1 practice per day, a lot of kids would struggle their freshman year with the stress of swimming, academics, party life etc. It’s a lot to juggle. By having that background they can adapt easier.
Now if you want to argue about dryland training, if I ran a program, it’s one of the first things I’d get rid of. But we already had that argument here: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=2753038;
Some great advice on here (especially from Desert Dude) the ability to change pace in the swim (along with specific open water skills) is critical.
If possible try and swim with a squad, even just a session a week, great for motivation/getting in a hard workout plus you’ll have someone looking at your tecnique, technique is KEY!!!