Swim workouts 30 mins

Triathlon Forum
1

I am looking for some good 30 min swim workouts for lunch break
form
endurance
speed
all three
.

2

6 X 300 yard intervals with 1 min rest between.

3

I’m with ya on this.

This time of year (no races coming up soon), I stick to getting some lessons from a reputable coach. I stress to her that I only have enough time to spend, roughly, 3x 45min per week in the pool.

I work on the drills that she sets me up with. Drill down, free back, so that I don’t spend all my time learning how to drill and forget what its like to ‘swim’. And after about 30 minutes of this, I move on to some shorter intervals with some harder swimming.

It’s efficient. Not gonna impress anyone.

Keep in mind, I’m very MOP in the water. I feel that the ROI is very low. I think I would have to spend a ton of time in the water to make very small gains in my swim times. My life doesn’t have a ton of time to give to it. It’s not worth it to me. I’d rather accept being a solid n steady swimmer and spend most of my time working on my bike and run.

As I ramble, my point is that swimming 30-45 min a workout, 3-5x week won’t make you super fast in the water, but it will keep you moving forward. Progress is progress in my book.

4

I’ve been having some decent results with hopping in the pool, doing a 50 (or 100), hitting lap on my watch, doing another, and repeating for 30 minutes straight.

Been doing this 6 days a week for the last month or so and have already dropped a bit off my 100s.

5

warm up: 200 crol + 150 back + 100 crol
tech. 8 * 50 crol rest 10" focus on good recover
4* 25 crol rest 10", start slow at your 60% finish at your 80%
50 medium aerobic + 4 * 12,5 at 100% rest 20"
4 * 25 crol rest 10", regresive, start at 80% finish at 60%
50 medium aerobic + 4 * 12,5 at 100% rest 20"
50 medium aerobic + 2 * 30 (one pool and a half) at 100% rest 20"
3 * 200 rest 15"
100 low aerobic and stretching

sorry, distances (100, 50, 12,5 30) are in meters not yards

6

I’m doing this very thing. I’m not a great swimmer, but I’ve done it enough as of late to be pretty sure that I need to mix it up to keep the gains coming.

I did 300s straight for a month, and actually got slower. Then I did 100s for 2 weeks, got surprisingly faster (was able to hold a higher effort - HR was also higher), but then I found I was actually slower for continuous 1000+ swims. Then I did some masters swims and noticed that my sprinting was terrible since I never worked on it - I could keep my max pace on more consecutive sprints than everyone there, but the fast guys were blowing me away, and I couldn’t get my HR high enough on those sprints since my arms couldn’t keep up.

Now if I swim 4x/weekdays 30mins each time (pretty realistic for a 1hr lunch break), I’ll do 3-4x500 on one day, all 100s leaving on the clock another day, mostly sprints another day with long rest, and then mixed sets with technique the other day. Seems to be working.

I however, still find a long swim of 60-90 minutes with focus on yardage every 1-2 weeks really key to keep up the gains. If I miss that long swim, I really notice, despite how hard I go on the 30 min session days.

7

quick question what is crol…
looks like fun!!

8

What drills does she have you focus on?
Just curious… I get so bored of the usual
finger tip drag
3 strokes glide
side kick rotate
closed fist
open hand

9

quick question what is crol…
looks like fun!!

excuse me, its the spanish word for freestyle

10

I use this website’s list sometimes to supplement my lack of creativity: http://ruthkazez.com/LunchSwims.html

But usually I just try to get 1200m hard in the form of 100-400 repeats with short rest.

Are you the Erika Meister I knew at WNHS?

11

what is WNHS?

12

thanks everyone.
i just feel so bored with my ‘routine’ whenever i write workouts for myself its like… 300’s blah but if someone else says to do them its exciting…

anyone have any new drills that they have found to be super helpful for improving power in your stroke

13

Good workout for 30 mins which kinda simulates race day is to do:

300 warmup
400 all out 30 secs rest
2 x 200 all out 30 secs rest
1-2 min rest after 200s
3-4 x 100 hard as can handle 10 secs rest
1-200 cooldown
.

14

I do a 30 minute non-stop set on Friday’s:
10 minutes crawl: concentrate on form
10 minutes of: 33 kick/66 crawl (alt. 25 kick/75 crawl)
10 minutes fartlek (sprint a lap every now and then)

It’s only 30 minutes - focusing on form every minute is the key.

15

  1. 30 X 50 on the minute. 10 X (3, 5, 7, 9 breathe) per 50 once warmed up. keep the first 6-8 easy and then keep building. I call this workout “I have a newborn at home so I cut the all the bull shit!”

  2. yesterday I did 6 X 500 on the 7:00, in & out in 50 minutes. swim 500, pull 500

  3. 10 x 300 :20 rests. kick 300, swim 300, pull 300 w/paddles + buoy.

  4. 500 warm up. 10 x 50 kick. 1500 TT. 500 warm down.

  5. 100 ez, 200 im kick, 300 pull, 400 im, 500 free, 500 stroke, 400 free, 300 kick, 200 swim, 100 ez im kick, all :30 rests

16

I am getting some great stuff here and I bet others are enjoying it too!! thanks for the great workouts… :slight_smile:

17

30 minutes is tough. I can’t even really get into my workout in less than 30 minutes.

Let me see…for MOP:

500 free warm-up - (lets say 10 minutes).
100 kick (2:30 minutes)
200 pull (4 minutes)
5x100 - on 5 seconds rest ascending in intensity. 75-80-85-90-100% intensity (8 minutes)
100 pull warm down (3 minutes)

27.5 minutes/1400 yards though.

I doubt though that this is going to help much in terms of improving your swim times. It’s just not enough time or yards. Sure, if you swim 3 times a week at night and this is your one lunch workout…okay, but I would then counter maybe your lunch time is better used with a high-intensity run instead.

Edit: 5 second rest for those 100s is probably too tough/unrealistic. 15-20 seconds instead.

18

I’m primarily doing 30 min swim workouts now, so here’s a sampling of some “main” sets (about 1100 or 1200 each). I always start with a 400 warm up and 100 kick, and end with 100 warm down. I actually do more stroke work than what is listed below, but I modified it a bit. I don’t do any pull. Edit: I should’ve mentioned that these are primarily on send-offs with 5-10 seconds rest. Every so often I will do sprints with extended rest (ie. 6x100 w/ 40 seconds rest).

2x(3x150 free, 4x25 i.m. order, 1x100 kick)

12x100 free w/ every 3rd 25 i.m. order

8x50 free (descend 1-4), 4x100 free (descend 1-4), 2x200 free (descend 1-2), 1x400 for time, if I have time

4x75 free w/ every 2nd 25 drill, something after this, maybe 2x200 free, 4x100 free

12x100 free (can’t go wrong with this)

6x200 free

pyramid and descend sets are your friend

19

That’s a good one fulla,

I read this post looking for a final 1700 yd tune up session before my Xterra this weekend and I think this one fits the bill.

Thanks!

20

Yeah…I find that people do minimal warmups for races so if you can get used to going fast after a pretty basic warmup (ie 300m), you’re going to get used to that sudden onset of lactate after the first 100m of the first 400m or so. The work out should be performed at well above threshold pace though. You should be really suffering come the 200s. If you wanted to do it even more like a race, you could decide to sprint the first 100m of the 400, before easing back into a pretty strong, steady pace.