looking for a 3 swim a week / program
Cheers
Andrew
.
Well the point of a BarryP run program is consistency of running 5-6 days (or 7). What are your goals? Where are you now? How much do plan on swimming per session?
How do you train now?
I don’t currently swim. I will swim 3 times per week for 1 hour. Occasionally a fourth swim per week.
The last time I swam, I was swimming 3000-3500 plus per hour. I was swimming six days a week at that time with a Masters group.
I’ve previously had a break like this (5+ years) and it took 3-4 months to get back to 23-24 mins for 1500 in a LCM pool.
Goal is to get back to swimming 10k / week and to be able to finish 4k comfortably.
You’ve inadvertently stumbled on the biggest reason triathletes in general don’t swim well.
A coach like Barry or someone else can logon and say that “the secret to getting faster running is to run 5 or 6 days per week.” And people will do it, run 5 or 6 per week for 90 days or what have you and get faster, sometimes massively so.
By the same token someone comes on wants to know how to improve FTP and the solution is to ride 6 days per week, 4 at sweet spot and threshold, 2 easier. Or something like it. You do that for 12 weeks and once again, like magic you are faster on the bike.
However, if someone proposes to a roomful of triathletes that they swim 5 days per week for 12 weeks, no one is interested. In fact, funnily enough; I have direct experience with this. I have two mailing lists for masters swimmers and triathletes that I administer. I put together a 12 week 5 times per week swim program offered it for what I thought was a pretty reasonable price. I figured the triathletes would be all about it, a swim workout schedule to make a big leap over the winter. After all, there are a lot of people stuck at 30 minutes, 27 minutes, 25 minutes for the olympic distance swim who say they want to get better.
Not a single triathlete was remotely interested 
I did get a few masters swimmers interested though.
So you see, a 3 runs per week Barry P run program isn’t a Barry P run program, a 3 times per week run program is actually a 'Run Less, Run Faster" program.
Even recently when a coach was saying how happy he was with his swimmer’s progress on a low volume schedule, the schedule was 6 days per week of swimming - even if the volume of the sessions was 45 minutes to an hour, it was 6 days per week. In the pro world that isn’t a lot, but for the age group triathletes I know, that would be exactly what they need and represent a big schedule.
When I saw Barry’s postings originally about running 6 days per week to get better, I had these same thoughts actually. Thinking that if you tell the slowtwitch community that if they swim 6 days per week they’ll get better at swimming - you won’t get much interest. That you wouldn’t see any 90 swims in 90 days threads pop up. Though slowman DID do something similar to that last year.
I’m saying this in response to you, but please don’t take it personally. It’s just that your comment kinda crystallized a few things all at once into a few sentences. You are by no means the only one or the first one, or the last one for that matter to want to make big jumps in your swim on three workouts per week.
And in fact, if you only swim once or twice per week now, then yes at three days per week you will get better and I encourage you do that. I suggest you grab yourself a copy of swim workouts in a binder or triathlon swim workouts in a binder and just get after it. If it’s an increase, then three days per week will do you good.
Good Luck, I hope you are smoking everyone in the water come tri season.
BarryP style would be 9 swims a week
looking for a 3 swim a week / program
Cheers
Andrew
.
looking for a 3 swim a week / program
Cheers
Andrew
As mentioned, that isn’t a BarryP program. A BarryP swim program would look more along the lines of 7-8 workouts over 6 days per week.
However, if what you want is a 3 day program, because that’s what you have time for, either go back to masters or look up a Slowman’s tarpon workouts. If you have time for more, then do more.
I completely understand that. in fact, mainly because I like swimming, I’d as a preference choose to spend my time doing that rather than running, however, I am guessing, but I think I’ll probably get to 21-23 mins for 1500 and I’ve no real interest in getting much faster.
I’ve swam 17-18 mins back in the day, so I’m reasonably confident in my swimming ability but I’ve no interest at all in putting in the time that would get me back to trying to swim as well as I once did - primarily because I’m extremely challenged in the time department - I’ve a 1 year old, so the timing is what it is.
I may trade a run for a swim, but at present I’m 25 lbs heavier than I was 6 years ago in spite of being 25 lbs lighter than I was in June (I was 52 lbs heavier on June 27th this year than 7 years ago) so the finite amount of time has to be measured out across three sports, understanding the limitations of that.
If I were not limited, and did not want to lose another 25 lbs, or was already there and could already bust out a 1.30 half, I’d run 3-4 times / week and swim 6, but it is what it is, I recognise the limitations of what I want to do, but given I’m not interested in “racing” nor Oly’s the loss of time on the swim is not a big deal but I do appreciate the idea about the binders.
X2 on the Tarpon workouts.
I’m actually going to start putting some serious hours in the pool because my swim is not where I want it to be. I’m going to redo all the Tarpon workouts but add an additional 1k yards per workout.
appreciate the point - poorly worded question, but having found the tarpon work-outs, excellent!
thanks
andrew
BarryP style would be 9 swims a week
looking for a 3 swim a week / program
Cheers
Andrew
Yup… and maybe 5-7k yards per workout… and NONE of it slow and easy.
Basically swim interval sets until your arms fall off… repeat every 12-24 hours. You’ll either get faster, or hate swimming.
BarryP style would be 9 swims a week
looking for a 3 swim a week / program
Cheers
Andrew
Yup… and maybe 5-7k yards per workout… and NONE of it slow and easy.
Basically swim interval sets until your arms fall off… repeat every 12-24 hours. You’ll either get faster, or hate swimming.
so, are you trying to say that hard work pays off???
Shocking! (tongue in cheek)
Let’s keep it our little secret, please. In my neck of the woods (Sacramento) outdoor pool in the “winter”, scares everybody off. I get any lane I want - Love it.
re: Your comment you’ll get faster or hate it (which is probably true). I look(ed) at it a different way. I’ll get faster (for sure), and I do LIKE that; especially come race day.
So it sounds like you didn’t want or need a BarryP style swim program. Also seems like your set, so it looks like my super long reply was misdirected
BarryP style would be 9 swims a week
looking for a 3 swim a week / program
Cheers
Andrew
How does 6 runs/week translate to 9 swims/week?
Doubles. Most folks recover quicker between swims than between runs.
So you see, a 3 runs per week Barry P run program isn’t a Barry P run program, a 3 times per week run program is actually a 'Run Less, Run Faster" program.
exactly…
I started as a competitive swimmer in 1969, swam daily in the season (no heated pools available). As a runner I swam when injured. As a triathlete I swam fast enough and biked slow enough that I spent more time on the bike and not enough on swimming. Last year after 6 weeks swimming 5 times a week, my 200 scy repeats (main set 5x200 on 3:15) dropped from low 2:50s to low 2:40s… no new drills, no new speedwork, no longer swims, just increased frequency… which is the heart of the BarryP program…
Since nobody has jumped on this yet I will have a stab at it- warning, not actually 3 days/week-
3 days per week- swim easy for 15 minutes
2 days per week- swim easy for 30 minutes
1 day per week- swim easy for 45 minutes
Others have noted, it’s just swimming often to build some volume through consistency. If anybody asks, the above is called the TimmyR swim plan.
You nailed it, and it’s something I fight a lot. I coached a guy who was top 3 AG bike split, top 5-10 AG run split, but would come out of the water 15min behind the lead swimmer in a 70.3. I told him to swim more, but he thinks it’s better suited that he just bikes and runs more so he can catch up to the guy who come out of the water 15min ahead of him… IT MAKES NO SENSE.
Thank you for your post and explaining it well.
he thinks it’s better suited that he just bikes and runs more so he can catch up to the guy who come out of the water 15min ahead of him
I do think everyone needs to make their own cost benefit analysis. And I can even throw in misery level as a factor in the cost benefit, but you can’t on one hand swim 3 times a week for 45 minutes and on the other wonder why your swim isn’t improving or look for some magic formula that will make you faster. You have to go into it with your eyes open and accept the trade you are making.
It was a poorly worded question, it would have been better to say I wanted 10 weeks of structured workouts (leaving out how many swims per week), someone would have answered Tarpon - which I missed during my long absence, and we’d all have saved ourselves half a dozen posts…
Cheers
Andrew