OK, most of you know I’m new to this swimming thing. I’m about 8 real months in. I swim on about 1:50-1:55/100scy w/ open turns most of the time for typical easy aerobic swimming. I’ve upped my yards to 2000-4500 per swim, mostly 3000, and that’s 3-4x per week. My body position is good, my stroke is decent; I know what the flaws are, and am always working on them. Every length of the pool I think about lessening rotation, not lifting my head, finishing, etc.
My endurance is getting much better. 4000y leaves me tired, but certainly not worn out. My form is about the same at the end as at the beginning.
So… you fish and/or fishcoaches, when is one exerienced enough to work “hard” in the pool? You know, some threshold work, some 100y all out repeats, etc.
I’ve been wondering the same thing. To my (somewhat) surprise, the master’s coach at my pool nodded knowingly. Instead of putting me down (as I had expected), he offered this workout:
Do 25s, as 2 steady/easy, 1 hard and fast. 5 sec rest. Keep the turnover high on the easy ones (holding good form), and swim the hard one hard. Just keep doing them for as long as you’ve got for that day’s workout. If 2 steady/easy ones aren’t enough to recover, do 3.
He said that we “non-swimmers” need to learn to swim hard before we try to pick up the effort of our main sets.
If you are training for 1500m/2k or 3.8k open water swims, I think you want to play down the need for threshold swimming. Although it is fun, I don’t see it being a main focus for those longer swims. Every tri I enter there are guys who go out super hard for 1/200 ms, then explode and rocket back through the pack. Perhaps they get caught up in the moment, or perhaps they have done too many 20*50m on the 60s sets…who knows?
The half and IM swims are steady, aerobic swims. You want to come out of the water as fresh as possible, so IMO that’s where your training time ought to be focussed.
masters program and intervals…save your long swims for open water, take it at a good pace and concentrate on form form form…and use that wetsuit, learn the feel of it!!!
Hard swimming is a relative term. Interval swimming involves swimming at a percentage of maximum effort NOT maxing out. Intervals teach you pace and allow you to swim faster because you have partial recovery between bouts. They are also much more interesting than constant straight swims.
You can swim intervals with varying amounts of rest depending on what your goal is. If you are doing 15X100 with a 10-15 sec. rest interval you are working mostly endurance with a little speed. If you are doing 5 X 100 with a 5 minute rest interval you are working speed with very little endurance.
The pace clock becomes your friend because it tells you how fast you are going and whether you are holding a specified time. If you are doing technique work you can check your time to see if there are any changes occurring in your swim.
Every workout can include some interval work whether it is 10X50s or 4 X 500s or even 4 X 1,000s. The key is how much recovery are you looking for. What is the goal of the swim? What energy system are you working on?
I’m a terrible swimmer. If the blind is to lead the blind, here is my advice. The dilemma here is whether to work on form or intensity. With my marginal technique and unavailability of consistent coaching, I worry that my form will break down if I do too much “hard swimming.” I have made meager progress by doing lots of drill and form work in the off-season. About April I figure that my form is about as good as it is going to get for the season and transition into more interval work.
If you are training for 1500m/2k or 3.8k open water swims, I think you want to play down the need for threshold swimming. Although it is fun, I don’t see it being a main focus for those longer swims. Every tri I enter there are guys who go out super hard for 1/200 ms, then explode and rocket back through the pack. Perhaps they get caught up in the moment, or perhaps they have done too many 20*50m on the 60s sets…who knows?
The half and IM swims are steady, aerobic swims. You want to come out of the water as fresh as possible, so IMO that’s where your training time ought to be focussed.
Kiwi, while that does make sense in a way (i.e., specificity training), we don’t do that for the bike & run. Or at least most I know don’t; they spend some time riding very hard, and ruinning at a tempo pace. Any reason why that shouldn’t also be the case with swimming?
I’m a terrible swimmer. If the blind is to lead the blind, here is my advice. The dilemma here is whether to work on form or intensity.
IMO: Form, form,form. You will make huge strides with your endurance if you can get your form down. Intensity is almost pointless if you are an inefficient swimmer to begin with. With good form, you may be a bit slower but you won’t have wasted a bunch of energy. You also make a good observation - your technique will break down if you throw in intensity. If you feel that you are swimming as pretty as you can, then I’d move into intensity.
If you are aware of the deficiencies i nyoru stroke that you are trying to correct then you are probably ready.
The workout finder at www.swiminfo.com is pretty good as are the workouts from www.swim2000.com. You are at that point where you will playing with the intense form focused yards, the basic yards and the more intense intervals.
You need differing proportions of those as you progress and I suppose right now you ar eprobably good to be using a mix of all three in a given week.
If you are training for 1500m/2k or 3.8k open water swims, I think you want to play down the need for threshold swimming. Although it is fun, I don’t see it being a main focus for those longer swims. Every tri I enter there are guys who go out super hard for 1/200 ms, then explode and rocket back through the pack. Perhaps they get caught up in the moment, or perhaps they have done too many 20*50m on the 60s sets…who knows?
The half and IM swims are steady, aerobic swims. You want to come out of the water as fresh as possible, so IMO that’s where your training time ought to be focussed.
Kiwi, while that does make sense in a way (i.e., specificity training), we don’t do that for the bike & run. Or at least most I know don’t; they spend some time riding very hard, and ruinning at a tempo pace. Any reason why that shouldn’t also be the case with swimming?
At your speed (1:55 100s) you have so much to gain from technique, fitness is not really the issue. So long as you have the endurance to swim for 3/4 ks you are better off doing longer sets (200/400/800/1000) and concentrating on your technique.
As Doug mentions, you want to mix it up for variety’s sake, but those super hard 50s and 100s, while good for the ego, give you little or no tri benefit. Will you really be redlining it in the first 15mins of IM day? If not, then doing hard swims makes as much sense as rattling off 75sec 400s on the track and then running an IM marathon in 4hrs! My point is that I think there is a disconnect between a lot of pure swim training, and the needs of the MOP/BOP AGr new to swimming.
For non fish like you (and me!) being able to swim aerobically and hold our form is going to give us those 1:40/1:45 100s swim splits, and better technique ensures you don’t come out of the water smoked in those half or IM swims.
Now, if you are swimming off a 1:25 base, well, that is a different story. But you are probably 2/3 yrs off that point.
Kiwi, thanks for re-typing your post. I see your point. My concern is that I’m not so sure my technique is really holding me back all that much. I mean, I can swim a nearly perfect 25y where everything comes together, and yet it’s really just a couple seconds faster than normal. It’s not like I suddenly hit 1:25 pace. Thus, I’m thinking that the next step really comes down to a hard pull for longer. But then I’ll see someone fast, and how they grip the water as if it has handles, and I’ll think “Uh, how do they do that? Not by pulling harder!” Hmmmph.
I have (had?) very much the same problem. What happens is that towards the end of your sets you get tired, and your technique erodes, so you slow down, so you have to work harder. So the key is trying to hold the form for longer. Swimming slower will lead to swimming faster, for less effort. And, as you say, really holding the water is very hard to do, and only endless repition of good form cements it into place.
But it sounds like you are on track. Personally I think that the details of the swim matter much less than getting to the pool and getting wet 4/5 times per week. I just remember in my early days flogging myself to keep up at masters, doing the whole hour with my HR above 160, and being smoked the rest of the day!
Nowadays, if anything I ‘underswim’, ie I try not to work that hard. Rather my emphasis is on correct technique over longer sets.
As a disclaimer to all this, though, I am no swim coach. I am probably not fit to polish Doug Stern’s goggles, truth be known. I’m just giving you my observations as a once terrible swimmer who is now, perhaps, average.
I hear you. About the “we don’t train this way in running/biking”, but swimming is very different. Like you say about the guy in the lane next to you ‘holding’ the water - he makes it look easy right? Tha’s because it is easy - easy effort that is. Swimming fast is all about proper form/technique.
Swimming hard is about drowning slowly. Generally speaking all of your stroke flaws get amplified as you start to go ‘hard’. Thus you are going slower relative to the amount of effort you are exerting. all while trianing in your stroke flaws.
Keep your focus on gliding through the water with minimal effort, like a fish or a shark. When you start reaching the other side of the pool wondering how you got there so quickly because you have only made about 12 strokes, you will be able to go much faster without having to ever go ‘hard’.
Think of swimming hard as being methodical about the position of every inch of your body at moment of your stroke. Soon you will not have to think about this much anymore and you will just glide. remember that every breath you take in the pool takes energy and slows you down. If you want to push yourself try not brething every stroke (or even every other). I try to brethe about ever 5-7 strokes (alternating sides).
Remember that form is speed and energy conservation. As much as we fish hate it, Nobody ever won an IM in the water. -But you can definately lose one.
