Swim Faster And Stronger In 2009 - Session Structure
Ever wondered what your swim workout structure should really look like? The basic template below should help plan those sessions a little better by breaking down the workout into four distinct categories.
Warm-up
Generally 300-500m with focus on breathing efficiency. Swim any stroke if you wish.
Drills
300-1000m focusing on technique. Check out some of the drills already posted here.
Main Set
Varies greatly depending on goals and ability level, focus on your effort.
Cool Down
Generally 300-500m with focus on breathing and technique.
Do three types of main sets per week. A short interval or speed day (25’s, 50’s and/or 100’s), longer intervals (100’s, 200’s and 300’s) and even longer intervals (500 to 1000). If you feel your technique slipping during a main set, don’t be afraid to throw in a ‘drill’ in the middle of the set to tune your technique. Main sets can be adjusted up and down in distance, with repeat times changed and distances altered and even mixed up. Be creative with your swim workout, use the categories as a frame to create your own personalized training program.
Remember to always do focused and specific technique work. It is more important than training hard!
Defining your effort when swimming can be done in many ways, however the most convenient and effective method of gauging your effort is buy your rate of perceived effort (RPE). ‘Race pace’ is usually
thought to be about 85 to 90% RPE and refers to a race pace for a distance swim of 500-3000m. An all out sprint of a short distance (100m or less) would be 100%.
The categories of your RPE could look like;
Easy: Anything under 65% RPE, used for warming up and recovering.
Easy aerobic: 65-75% RPE
Fast Aerobic: 75-85% RPE
Threshold: 85-90% RPE
Anaerobic: 90-100 RPE
For reference, drills should be in the ‘easy’ to ‘easy aerobic’ zones.
A sample main set (working on aerobic endurance) could look something like;
6 x 200’s. Negative splitting is a great way to do a set of 200’s. The negative splits could be any combination of efforts, i.e. first 100 at ‘easy aerobic’ pace and the second 100 at ‘fast aerobic’.
Unlike in running and cycling, the risks of swimming too hard are less crucial, for several reasons;
The cooling effect of the water allows for harder efforts as well as a lower heart rate since the heart does not need to pump blood for cooling the body.
The horizontal position of the body allows the heart to work a little easier because it is not pumping against gravity.
Damages to muscles is minimal, especially as compared with running, in which the pounding takes a toll on muscles, joints and tendons.
Elite-level or pure swimmers (where swimming is the main sport they do) swimmers typically swim two sessions a day and one is generally very hard. Imagine running twice a day with one workout a day on the track, your body would be a complete wreck after a few days! The bottom line is, go ahead and train hard in the pool, your body is more than capable of handling it.
Happy training!!
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