I’m in a master’s swim program, and we pound out the laps pretty hard several days a week. Which has me wondering if there would be a benefit to doing long, slow, steady sets one day of the week. Maybe 500m or 1000m repeats. After all if it works for the run or the bike, why not the swim? I’m not planning anything drastic - just wondered if anyone else has tried this approach, and was it beneficial?
I think it is especially if you practice your race distance once in a while. If nothing else for the mental aspects.
Long and fast would make more sense
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Only if you are swimming a lot. If you only swim 3 days a week I say no. 4 days a week - possibly. 5+ days is a definite yes.
I wanted to ask this question myself. Glad you did! Specifically,
Early season run and bike = we are told to do a lot of Long Slow Distance. And not too much tempo work or speed work till later in the season. It is said that we will burn out if we do too much speed work, the effects will only stay around for a few weeks, etc.
Sooooo…Why do we never see the LSD regimen recommended for early season swim training?
(I am the wrong person to be soapboxing on this since I clearly need to do a lot of work to get my swim speed up…)
If you look at the training responses at different intensities, we would train running and biking much more like swimming if thy were non impact sports.
A long swim is not a bad idea once in a bit.
Only if you mentally need to cover the distance a couple of times to build your confidence.
Swimming’s different in the sense that good form for going fast can be very different than good form for going slow. Sl you start out at shorter distances where you can hold it all together going fast and stretch it out from there.
I wanted to ask this question myself. Glad you did! Specifically,
Early season run and bike = we are told to do a lot of Long Slow Distance. And not too much tempo work or speed work till later in the season. It is said that we will burn out if we do too much speed work, the effects will only stay around for a few weeks, etc.
I think you should stop being told anything by whoever told you to do LSD.
I think there is huge benefit in doing both 500 or 1000m repeats or alternatively a 2000 to 3000 straight easy swim - preferably long course or in a lake. When i’m in a 3 week build i tend to do the repeats for week one and two and a straight 2000 to 3000 in week 3 - often as a recovery swim in the lake…on 2.5 sessions a week i’m usually round 55mins for IM
In the summer I try to do a 40 minute straight swim once a week or so. This is not slow though. Like someone else said, go long, but not slow. FWIW I swim a sub 50 IM swimmer. There is a mental aspect to long swims.
paw
Long slow swims do not make sense for a triathlete. Here’s why:
Good swimming technique depends to a very large degree on developing specific strength and endurance in some very specific muscle groups. The only way to develop that strength and endurance is to a) swim fairly fast, even faster than the pace you are seeking to hold for a long open water swim and b) to get yourself tired enough that you have to really work to hold your technique together. Absent these two conditions (i.e. swimmming slow) you are very limited in what you can accomplish. While any swimmer would benefit from sets of 500s or 1000s if they are done hard, if you are going to have to go into super cruise mood to make the sets, you are much much better off doing 50s and 100s at speed. This will help you develop strength.
Also, the “long” swims you are talking about are not by any means long enough to have the same type training effect you get from a 3 hour bike ride or a 1 hour run. Swims of 500 or 1000 yard are only going to last for 15 minutes or so. Your idea might work if you threw in a 2 hour straight swims occassionally instead of an interval workout but at best, what you suggest will have the same training effect as doing a long slow 5 mile bike ride, that is to say, no effect at all.
Finally, a triathlete’s time in the pool is severely limited. 3 to 4 hours a week is on the high end of typical but by swimming standards that is a drop in the bucket. 3 to 4 hours a week is what a typical 8 year old swimmer would do. Doing long slow swims is a big waste of some very very scarce training time.
I’ve done 2 IM’s and the ONLY swim training I did was 3 sessions of 3 miles …long and easy, just to be sure I could do the distance. I did NO other swimming to prepare for the race. Actually…I don’t swim train at all. I only swim when I race. BTW…my IM swim times were 76:00 each time. Not bad for a non-swimmer.
The trend with my club’s workouts are short sets in the fall 3x(10x50) etc. that build up to longer main sets; last week we did 5x400’s. Like some previous posters said, its all technique technique, and by keeping the sets short, its easier to focus. As you build you can keep the intensity and lengthen the distance…
On the other hand, without the motivation of a club atmosphere, any extra swims I can do end up being your “long swims”, usually the duration of the time I have. 500m is pretty short compared to a race 1500m. I did a 7km swim last summer in open water with my gf, I know that helped my confidence, if not anything else. (I’m not a swimmer. I was afraid of the deep end 5 years ago.)
What is very interesting is that just about every post is correct - even the ones that sound like they dissagree with each other.
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If you are a beginner (or even not a beginner) with a poor stroke - LSD would do little to no good.
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If you only have a little bit of training time and only spend 3 hours a week swimming - LSD would do little to no good.
Where would it do some good ???
Good if,
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You are a good swimmer, with a good stroke - It is a very good idea to work on your stroke AFTER you are tired - while coaching distance swimmers (I was coaching for open water swim races) - We would swim a long hard practice and then do drills and work on stroke - this would enable the swimmer to maintain form while tired and not get sloppy. So doing LSD is a great workout for a triathlete doing a longer swim.
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You have the training time - I have mentioned this before - Swimming is a great place to work heart and lungs without beating up your body. i.e. - You are unable to build aerobic capacity elsewhere - could be weather (can’t bike or bored to death on the trainer), injured and can’t run, injured and can’t bike, injury or someother reason (like it gets dark) limits the amount of time you can run and/or bike - then swimming is a great place to work the heart and lungs. And sometimes - you just have not built up your run and bike miles enough (your legs are hammered) - but you have the time - you can work that swim and build a great cadrio base.
4.5 You have the time - a LSD swim is a great active recovery workout - while not a true “Long, Slow, Distance” workout - going to the pool and doing a set of 3 x 1000 nice and easy, while focusing on stroke, can have great benefit a. Maintaining a good stroke while tired. b. Breath control c. You will have whole body blood flow. – for me, I get a really stiff neck and back while cycling - a easy swim actually loosens up my neck and back.
- You are injured – Pretty much what I said above - your running and or biking is limited – you can build great heart and lungs while swimming - Leg muscles adapt nearly twice as fast as heart and lungs - once your injury is healed, your legs will catch up to your heart and lungs - but without a good cadrio base fitness, it will take twice as long to get back up to speed.
If you are NOT a good swimmer – a good recovery workout would be to go to the pool and do drills for 45 min. to an hour – skip the LSD swim - it would do no good to lock a poor stroke into muscle memory.
If you are NOT a good swimmer and injured - still spend a lot of time in the pool - but do shorter sets with a good stroke until you can maintain that good stroke over distance.
I toy with this question as well. It stands to reason that easy swims are not very useful to those of us swimming this low of volume (i.e., ~8-15,000 yds/wk).
Note that there’s a difference between “slow” and “easy.” I never try to swim slowly, but rather think about swimming easily, and ignore the clock when I do so. The interesting thing is that I usually drift up to a faster pace and harder work. Swimming easy is actually difficult for me to do (boredom? doesn’t “feel” good?).
I’ve read much of Maglischo’s (sp?) book, and think we should be swimming a lot more threshold pace. These can be long swims, too, i.e., 1000y repeats, etc. No need to bother much with basic/low-level aerobic endurance unless we are throwing down at least 2 hour swims daily (or 2x per day).
Now, I’m no swimmer, so take it FWIW.
i think you should question doing long slow anything. well, except for maybe one thing not tri related.
If you are NOT a good swimmer – a good recovery workout would be to go to the pool and do drills for 45 min. to an hour – skip the LSD swim - it would do no good to lock a poor stroke into muscle memory.
A “not good swimmer” probably has no body awareness in the water and can just as easily impart poor stroke mechanics into muscle memory by doing an hour’s worth of unsupervised drills (i.e. no coach on deck) as they would in a long slow continuous swim.