I swam competitively as a kid-- an average YMCA competitor from 5 to 15. On three days of swimming/week I had a 1 hour (exactly) swim in my first Ironman two years ago. The other day for fun, I timed a 100 m free off the blocks at 1:17. )This is on no training whatsoever since the early fall.
My question-- how fast can I get? What if I swam 2000 m (drills, sets whatever), 3 days/week? What if I swam 3000m 5 days/week…
I feel like it hasn’t mattered over the last five years how much or how little I swim: I stay about the same speed.
(by the way, I am lucky, my good friend was sixth in the world at the World Championships in 1991 in 200 free. We work together, we have filmed my stroke, etc… I have also been able to swim on for various periods of time with hs and master’s swim clubs (I move a lot so it has depended on where I live).
It all depends. You should find what works best for you. Get a good coach and have him build a year-round plan for you, with specific periodization for your races etc. Also it’s all about technique. My 400 time dropped from 6:50’s to 6:10’s in like a month in which my coach had me do only drills. Of course my technique sucked badly, but now you can say I became obsessive-compulsive about it, and now it looks really good. One thing that really helped me is trying to swim by feel a lot. It’s pretty easy to tell when you are feeling like you’re slipping thru the water. Try to glide with each stroke. I also found I love the feeling of really ‘grabbing’ the water. Feeling yourself really pushing it and moving forward.
Personally, I started 2003 with a team that in the base part of the season swam 3 times a week. It basically looked like this: 4k-5k-6k-7k-8k-9k-8k-7k-6k-5k-4k. Increase by 1k per practice for a month. I completed all of these practices, but I really felt burnt out and cut some corners to actually ‘finish’ the workouts. I don’t know if I was in overtraining, because my morning HR stayed the same and I had none of the other symptoms of OT.
Then in the summer I moved to a new team that swam 2 times a week, with a max of 4k per workout. I did that for like a month, then started adding another practice. 3 times a week, usually around 3-3.5k. I felt a huge jump in my fitnesss. I mean huge. My 400 time dropped by another 20 seconds, and in races I came out feeling a lot fresher. Of course our races are only 750m swim, so naturally you might need to add some mileage to your plan.
I went from swimming high 12’s to mid 10’s in like 6 months. It’s f*cking great.
I swam for 2 years in high school with no coach … hey, it’s TX if it is not football it is nothing. Many years later, in my last 1/2 IM I was 12 out of 90 on the swim and I didn’t put any special effort into it. For the last 2 years my swim has been in maintenance mode while I focused on cycling. For me, maintenance mode requires 3 swims per week, doesn’t really seem to matter much how long but I’ve got an hour so I use it. I usually get in 3k each swim so around 9-10k per week. My times keep dropping but not by much.
Training for the swim portion of a Triathlon is tough, b/c you can easily reach a point of diminishing returns with added workouts and distance. (Time which could be better spent training the other two disciplines or lifting weights) With that said, I think that 90% of Triathletes don’t take the swim seriously enough. Coming out of the water with the front of the pack is a huge advantage for many different reasons.
Obviously you want to swim with a group where there is an adequate emphasis on drills, and not just swimming sets. (b/c if you’re not swimming under 55 mins or so for IM, chances are your stroke is probably your biggest limiter and not fitness) I would recommend mixing up the volume, effort, and frequency, and swim a test swim frequently (2-3x’s per month) to guage if you’re improving, maintaining or declining. (something in the ballpark of 500-1000m straight)
I think a good goal w/ training for a triathlon swim is to get the most speed/efficiency with the least number of workouts.
My own recent experience has made me question what ‘triathletes’ are capable of a swimmers. I came from a cycling and running background, and have always struggled with the swim. I have gone under 25 minutes in an Oly and 30 in a half-IM, but I suspect that’s about 90% fitness, and I killed my self for those PR’s, not the best race strategy. So then I met a girl in my MBA program who also coaches a club team (kids) locally. We got to talking about swimming, and she agreed to give me some pointers. Well…long story short in one hour (by changing my stroke completely), she cut my stroke count from struggling for 20 to cruising for 15-16/25. That’s a 25% increase in efficiency, and I’m swimming faster with less effort. (Imagine if you could increase you cycling efficiency by 25%) So my conclusions were:
Don’t give up hope; I had basically just assumed I’d always struggle through the swim.
If you suck like I do, take some lessons, you will be amazed.
Although I agree with the point of diminishing returns, I think for the vast majority of us they are pretty far away. Improved technique and fitness will continue to yield significant improvements.
In my few years of swimming and coaching both age group and masters a few things stand out.
The kids technique and feel for the water is much, much better, they liked swimming fast but they understood the need to work on technique. they realized that 20x100 on :05 or:10 rest swam as 25k,50d,25s could help them swim as fast as 20x100 sprint. Most triathletes are yardage junkies and would rather not spend 2/3’s of practice swimming dill sets.
These kids put in 1.5 hrs 4 mornings a week and the older kids 2 hrs 4 mornings per week. In the afternoon they put in another 2.5-3.5 hours and 2.5 on sat. Sheer volume made swimming 4x1000 a piece of cake. They would question you “is that it?” if you only put that on the board.
they averaged more yards per half hour than triathletes do. Most triathletes swim 2-3 times per week for an hour maybe 1:15, 20 min of that is spent hanging on walls and chatting. Thats at best 2-2.5k for a 22 min oly swimmer. Your not going to get much faster doing that. try 5x week for a month trying to get in 2k per half hour and swim 1.5 hrs. I’ll bet you a disc wheel that you drop more time after that month than in any 3 month period of swimming 2-3 times a week for an hour.
Consistency makes one a faster swimmer. Consistency with drill sets and consistency w/ frequency.
My coach is having us do 12x100 or 12x125 with short rest every single practice after a short (200-400) warmup. In the beginning I thought I was gonna go mad because it was A) Hard and B) Boring. But now I’m beginning to feel the time pass a lot quicker. Swimming 800’s has become a lot easier mentally too. I just divide it to 8x100 in my head, or 8x50 when swimming 400’s.
On another note, I want to get out of bed in the morning in order to swim more, but sleeping is just tooo goood.
I didn’t swim competively as a kid just splashed around. when I started tri’s this was a problem which was helped with coaching. In the last year and a half I have been in a masters class which meets 3x/wk. We do mainly drills 2 days and on saturday do timed distances of varying lengths. Late last winter I added 2 additional days per wk of workouts the coach gave us which were drills sets and combinations in varying lenghts and another variable was not all sets were all out some 80% up to 110% distances from 25 to 500 on varying rest 5sec to 1min or sometimes more. As a result of this I swam a 23 oly tri and 1:01 IM which for an old slug with no swimming background is not bad. My point is as has been mentioned coaching is a must if you want to improve and gutting out repeated heard sets only are not necessary to gain speed. Another thing you need to remember is as long as you can stay close in the swim you can do well. But the coaching is very important. Every one in our calss has not gotten faster but all have become more effecient and there feel much better coming out of the water and have more left for the bike and run.
when drills for swimming are mentioned on this forum,
what exactly are people referring to
and also, could anyone please provide some examples of drills
Drills have to be seen to be learned. I highly recommend a cheap, short and to-the-point swim video from Multisports.com. Roch Frey (a top coach) teaches basic triathlon freestyle. When I got into tri, I bought that video. I would watch it before heading to the pool.
After swimming ZERO laps in a pool for 26 years, I went out and swam 28:30 and 27:10 in my first two tri swims (91st out of 1800+ starters in the second one). That was on two days a week of <2,000 meters each. I completely credit the Multisports video.
Wetsuit swimming is about technique. If you get the technique down, swimming 30 in a half IM is a breeze. I guess I could work my butt off and get a minute faster, but it is not worth it. I need to run and ride more.
Sounds like your technique is probably just fine if you’re turning in those sorts of times on light or no practice. I’d go for sets that would have you varying your pace more, and having you mix aerobic and anaerobic over the course of a practice. Aim for one nice long relaxed set per practice, something where you’re working fairly hard but not killing yourself, and a couple hundred yards of sprint hammerfest at the end. (Tactical speed is an underrated good for triathletes, IMO)
I think he should do one of those mega-swim weeks. Go out an do 40k in one week, and see if that helps. Of course you have to build to it, but have it really take your body by ‘surprise’. Also remember to focus on your technique every single stroke.
I have thought about this a lot as well. I was an average Division II collegiate swimmer (I am 41 now). I could do about 51 seconds for 100 free and 55 for 100 fly (all yards). This may seem fast for a triathlete but is nothing special for college. I find that training once or twice a week for tri gets me all I need now. I usually finish top 10% in my age group in the swim leg and I think it is mainly deeply ingrained technique with just enough swim fitness. Heck wearing a wetsuit is really cheating anyway and I hardly bother kicking. Oly swim I can do 22-23 minutes now. Not really very fast but fast enough.
For me at least there is a diminishing return to more swim training. I could train 3-4 times a week and gain a minute or so or spend that time on running and get more return on investment. Seems like us old swimmers tend to be lousy runners but maybe that is just me.
freestyle, when was the last time you did 40k in a week?
40k weeks are not for everyone, in fact only top level triathletes should try them. But everyone can benefit from having a week where they swim 8-10 workouts, even if some of those are just short 1-2k swims.
I’m a youth (16) from Denmark, putting +35k. week in the pool! Still running under 10.30 on a 3 k. I ran 26.57 on a 7 k. wintercross!! So it’s not impossible to make it stick together, I’m also 32 hours in the school!!
I’m doing alot of technique and pace training… Going sub. 4.30 on 400 meter free, and 17.30 on 1,5k.!!
I started swimming about 3 years for triathlon - not counting the splashing around I did as a kid. Anyway, last year I was down to ~23:00/30:00 for Olympic/half IM. I decided this winter it was time really get my times down so I could become competitive locally (I hope).
So I’ve been working all winter, 12k to 20k a week, lots of technique and my splits were improving! I was exited, thrilled really.
Then a good friend of mine, who swam through high school and played water polo in college, gets back in the pool with me after taking 4 MONTHS off. I’ll be damned if he wasn’t SMOKING me in 1 week.
What he has ingrained technique. What I am is a former hockey player who is still wondering why the ice melted.
. . . “cut my stroke count from struggling for 20 to cruising for 15-16/25.”
I know it is almost impossible to adequately describe swimming “pointers” - but, what did your friend point out to drop your stroke count and increase your efficiency in a hours time?
Here is some video I’ve found useful. I usually compare it to my own underwater video (it’s pretty humbling).
The thing is, it’s a little hard to do. Usually when I think I’m changing something, I’m not doing anything at all. But when one of my swimmer buddies kindly gives me some help, I feel like I’m over exaggerating the movement.
