My tri club has access to an indoor 50 meter pool one day a week (we are renting two lanes for one hour). The other 2 days a week I swim, I am in a 25 yard pool. What types of workouts could I use to take advantage of the 50 meter pool? It has a pace clock only at one end, so I would be doing 100 meter sets of whatever, or long sets. I think we could have the pool thru maybe end of April if we wanted to (and can afford it as a club).
My swim numbers: I’m a 48 yr old female. Just finished my third yr of tri’s. My IMWisc swim time was 1:19, going calm and easy. My SCY 100 yd cruise time is around 1:40-1:45. I did the USMS 1-hour postal swim last Jan and swam ~3300 yards in one hour in a 25 yd pool. Over this winter, (and I am kinda burned out) I am swimming for fitness, doing drills, but will be doing an indoor tri in January for grins, and to keep me motivated to train some. I will likely repeat the one hour postal swim in Jan 08 as a benchmark.
Getting over a calcaneal bursa issue, so not much running lately. Not too interested in much biking at this moment… but I will perk up about that come Feb. (It just doesn’t call to me like swim and run does right now)
My 2008 ‘A’ races are Vineman 70.3, a marathon in April (my first stand-alone mary), and a cross-state bike ride in June (OK Freewheel), and MAYBE a non-M-dot 140.6 race in September.
So give me something to hang onto here. Can’t afford a coach right now. Had one for 1 yr. Know how to do the drills etc. Am at the cusp of needing swim interval sets etc. since I think my technique is pretty decent compared to other MOPers. Have a few books on swimming: TI, Swim Workouts in a Binder and some others, plus the usual tri books. Swimming is my relative strength and I enjoy it the most. Swimming over winter will be for pleasure and general fitness but I don’t just want to do garbage yardage either.
So what to do to take advantage of this 50 meter pool one day a week?
Thanks in advance, STers!
Fleck,
That’s kinda what I intuitively thought, but seems so unglamorous… Been doing 1000-1500m swims the two times I swam there, and also some 300m repeats to see my times. The long swims do help to clear my head of the day’s flotsam and jetsam, which is okay.
The typical way to make a swim “challenging” would be to swim longer sets or swim on tougher interval but there are other, more interesting ways to tweak a workout and in a 50 meter pool you can enjoy some of them more.
It might be cool to do a monthly “marker set” where you swim a warm up (example: 400 - 50 free x 50 stroke choice), then a drill set or build set - then hit the marker: 10x100s on your most challenging interval. If you nail this then you’ll likely have 10-12 seconds rest on the first 3-4 and then just make the last 2 by 3-5 seconds rest. Then swim with intention for a month and redo the exact same marker set and see that it’s either easier or you have 7-9 seconds rest in the last couple OR take 5 seconds off the time standard and make the 10x100s on the new, faster time. This can and should be done in a short course pool as well but LC makes it so much more lagit.
ALSO>>>
Swim a series of 3x100s on a moderate interval and challenge your efficiency with breath control: 1st 100 breathing every 7 strokes, 2nd 100 breathing every 5 strokes then the last 100 breathing every 3 (too easy? then start at 9 strokes and go down to 7 then 5 or invert the whole thing 1st 100 breath every 3, 2nd 100 breath every 5, 3rd 100 breath every 7).
Another challenge of efficiency is DPS - Distance Per Stroke. Swim any set you like (100, 200, 300) on a comfy interval but try and limit yourself to a certain number of strokes per length (40 per 50? 37 per 50? 35 per 50? - strive for it). Once you get down to the mid to low 30s it’s better to hold there and then try to swim faster while maintaining that stroke count.
These two above are about efficiency - which, while being a crucial element of speed will - at some point - max out and you’ll be super economical but not as fast as you might be with turnover. There is a time for efficiency and once that’s maximized you simply have to learn to remain coordinated, well timed, fluid while speeding up the whole system.
Thanks Ianpeace. I am following you on that. As I said I am on the cusp of the faster turnover yet with same form. Been doing some swim golf to experiment with that. So now that I have a feel for this pool, I want some structure. You gave me great ideas. (getting excited about this as I type, but dang, this pool will be closed for TG.)
thx again
C
Since you only have 1 hr per week, I think you should do a mix of short sets followed by longer sets. I’d structure them as 50-200 repeats right off the blocks for warm up but do a mix of swim and drills on a very short interval. A sample set might be 3-5 x 50swim 25drill 25 swim 25 drill 25 swim on :10. Then I’d do a similiar set at a faster then warmup speed, say 2-3 x 200 with a mix of swims, drills and builds. That would take you through ~ 15 min and cover 6-1000 depending upon speed of the swimmer. I’d then do a long set ( be it short repeats on tight intervals or long repeats with slightly more rest) something like 20-30 x 100 :10 or 3x(400s :20 + 4x150 :10) or repeats of 5-10min in length whatever that distance would be for you. i’d cap that with some kicking and sprints (25k 25 fast :10) then swim about 10-15m cool down (of course you can do more) and get out of the pool.
I envy you ST’ers 50m pools. There’s not even a 50m pool in this state… we have some nice places to swim but no lcm pools!
If I got to swim long course once a week I’d do sets of 800s, I think. Like 3 x 800, build the first one by 200, negative split the second, swim the third at the pace you did the second half of the second one. That’s a fun set. Or something like 4 x 200, 1 x 800 that’s another favorite. And I’d do some 200 IMs because it’s just a length of each stroke!!! Mmmm meters, you lucky swimmer you.
50m is perfect for progressing from drills to swimming, so do lots of drill-swim 50ms: ie drill for 25m, then more into swimming for the remaining 25m, without interrupting your stroke.
Eg start doing single arm with fist only (other arm by side), then progress to other arm in front, then other arm pulling too, then uncurl your fists and swim normally (but with better technique!). All inside 50m. No interruptions or pausing, everything should be smooth and measured. It may take a lot of practise to get right, but you can see then more easily how the drills help your stroke: turning at the walls in a 25m pool interrupts this a lot.
Another LC option, especially with a group of swimmers of similar ability, is a drafting set. Sample sets can include 50m repeats on a challenging time where each swimmer takes a turn at the front and the remaining swimmers sit right on the toes of the swimmer in front. After leading the charge, drop to the back and appreciate the effectiveness of the draft. For variation, do a longer set (e.g. 400, 800, etc.) where each person leads for 100. Another option is to stick with the 50s but do 25 hard/25 easy - the fun here is that the lead swimmer can decide when to go hard so the swimmer behind need to stay focused and respond to a surge in pace.
This is much more enjoyable and effective in a 50m and gives you an opportunity to work on open water race skills.
I swim lcm ~ 5 months out of year (April - Sept), usually first try to drop workout splits to comparable splits in scm pool done pre-April.
Also second Tigerchik suggestion of IM workouts. Ideally suited to LCM as you can challenge yourself to first add some 200 IM to an nx200 set, then challenge yourself to work up to 400IM sets. The impact on your freestyle endurance will be very noticable once you regularly do 400IM’s.
I like intervals of 300’s & 500’s in lcm, sometimes break 300’s into swim-pull-kick sets (thats 300 swim, 300 pull, 300 kick, repeat). Also, 100 kick sets, though seems many here don’t do kick sets, they can break up the monotony and be a great workout to boot, especially if you concentrate on body roll and streamlining while kicking. For me a strong kick helps create a strong catch and greatly facilitates planing while swimming fast. I’ll typically do 5x100 kick like: dolphin,flutter on back, breast, flutter face down, dolphin on back, with 15 sec rest.
