I have limited access to a lap pool, but have a 40 foot pool in my back yard. I come from a swimming background, so I can get by in the swim without a ton of training.
Does anybody here swim in small pools with a stationary swimming belt like this?
I just bought one and am trying to figure out the best way to get a good workout.
The cord isn’t very long. So far I’ve been picking a spot on the opposite wall (the width of the pool) and swimming until I touch, then letting it pull me back until the cord goes slack and then start again. I’ve been doing sets of 20 of this, which takes about 4 minutes and by the end I’m working pretty hard to get to the wall. I think it might be helpful to have a longer cord (I’ll probably buy some bulk surgical tubing) so I can swim the length of the pool and do longer repeats.
In high school we used to strap on a belt attached to a longer length of surgical tubing and swim against it and try to do the whole 25yds. It was a great sprint workout, but I think that’s a bit too high-intensity for tri training.
What kinds of workouts do you do with a swimming belt and stretch cords?
I just use mine when I travel (I hook it up to the ladder in hotel pools). It’s a nice supplementary tool, but it’s not the kind of thing I use a lot. I don’t use it for hard sets like you described, i just use it for 5 minutes steady and 30 seconds off or something like that.
I think using the belt helps my catch (I seem to get my fingertips pointed down nice and early when using the belt) but I have no data to prove it.
I think the point is more that you’re supposed to swim in place with it, rather than reach the other wall.
This. I’ve actually done a significant proportion of swim training with swim cords in a small pool (3 or more hours a week). I structure the time exactly as I would traditional pool workouts, subbing time in for distance. I do pull and kick sets. I work in some of the other strokes. I do main sets that might look like 12x2:00 @:10 rest with a ladder or pyramid or some other structure of effort level.
Yeah, I know that it’s intended to be used to swim in place. That just gets really boring. But maybe I’ll get a waterproof MP3 player and see if that can keep me entertained.
I’ve used it quite a bit. I know that back in the day, Tim and Tony DeBoom used to do a lot of workouts on them. Great way to work on kick timing as well.
I structured sets by stroke count. Rounded up to 15 strokes a 25, and made sets that way. 10x100m became 10x60 strokes. For longer sets, I would do it by breath count, breathing every 3. Then alternate timed sets in and it tends to go by faster.
Example workout.
5min easy, 3 min higher stroke rate, 3min easy.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that I have to work the kick harder to maintain a decent body position.
I’ll have to see if I can do the stroke count thing without losing count/concentration. It’ll be strange for me to not have a clock to gauge my speed by. I’ve trained in a pool with a clock since I was 7.
I think one of the best sets for developing turnover speed and power is to use just the right amount of tubing to barely get to the far wall like you mention you did in high school. Then, turn around and sprint back, trying to hold the speed that the tubing generates for the whole 25. But like you said, it will require a DIY approach rather than the ‘stationary’ belt. I also used to do something similar with a bucket and pulley system that we had in college, but that is way more setup. I liked the tubing better and it can be attached to any starting block, ladder, etc.
I don’t think it’s too intense for tri training. Swim speed training like this is underrated.