Swimming ???? Endurance-v-Time

Well, I'm not the greatest swimmer and I don't train like most people. That being said, my first priority for doing a longer race is to build to being able to swim the distance required in one continuous set. After I've done that a few times and am comfortable with the distance I start working on speed. My method is different in that I do not swim interval sets, but rather I swim one long set at varying paces within the set. There are times when I don't count the laps either, I just say I'm going to swim for 45 minutes. Within that 45 minutes is the warmup, the faster swimming and the cooldown, but it's all one set and all I do is look at the clock to guage where I'm at. I've found doing it this way makes the actual race seem very easy and almost short in comparison. And don't get too worried about SPL. One of the fastest local swimmers here takes about 25 or more SPL and he cruises at 1:15/100 in IM races.

X2 on the SPL thing.    Don't get caught up in that, just swim.  I also know 1:10/100 swimmers with 20 counts per 25 yds.

I advocate swimmng sets.  When I have gotten faster, at whatever distance, it has always been from doing sets.  Just my opinion, but I think that 10 x 100 at a good clip with very little rest (i.e. 5 seconds) will do much more good that 1K straight.

OK...different tack here.

When's your Oly?  Pretty hard to respond appropriately without knowing that.  (Big difference if it's in 4 weeks vs. 4 months, for example.)

Having said that...

I had a pretty good look at your logs and I'm not sure what your approach is.  Depending on how soon your Oly is, I'd--frankly--be more concerned about the bike and, secondarily, about the run.  You seem to have a reasonably solid run pace through 4 miles, but you also have been sitting on 4 miles max for about two months...and then doing what are probably too many speed workouts.  If your Oly is any time soon, you should be building your long distance runs to more like the 10K range at some point...the speed work is going to be wasted if you can't finish the distance.  And you likewise should probably be upping the bike mileage.

Overall, your logs give the impression of someone who's perhaps too focused on building speed and not enough on building a base.  Just my two cents, of course, since I don't know your run or bike background.

(And if the last part wasn't a clear enough response to your original question:  Yes, personally, I think you should be building the volume of your swim sets more than I think you should be worried about speed.  If you've done the work on stroke mechanics via TI properly, then speed will--to some degree--come along hand-in-hand with volume...just like it will, to some degree, on the run and the bike.)

Good luck!

x3 - SPL by itself is basically meaningless.  I typically swim in a 27.5m pool and if I try (good push off, low turnover, lots of kicking) I can easily get down to the 12-13 range but I'm slow.  While just swimming I am anywhere in the 18-22 range.




x2 - besides the occasional test set (normally 1500m since I focus on Oly) my longest swim in a workout is typically in the 400m range.  Lots of 50's, 100's, 200's and 400's though.

Shane

tcovert;
Thanks(and everyone else); the speed workouts go towards my soccer officiating(need the sprints).  With a family/work/etc., my training is more sporadic than consistent.  Usually you'll see one discipline emphasized depending on circumstances.  Swimming is my weakest by far.  I'm not nearly as concerned with my run(during those 4milers, I'll throw in some fartleks and also there's a few hills); the biking: I can put in a 16-18mph with a couple/few weeks of consistency, BUT the 1500m is what gives me LARGE pause.  As to the 1st question, the OLY(s) I'm looking at are 5-7 weeks away.

Again, thanks to you AND the others for the advise/pointers.

p.s. tcovert;
Your assessment is correct, I DO NOT have a methodology; just a case of the "eat-up" with TRIing AND squeezing it in with an already 'somewhat' packed life.  I got a bunch of activities(TRI's at the top) that I want to pursue post-retirement and have have more than I care peers falling out/dropping dead from health-related issues.

i came from a pretty similar background, no swimming, no coaching, pretty much taught myself. started out with the how long can i swim method.

as soon as i dropped that and started doing intervals, ALL my times came down from 1000yards down to 50.

i now rarely swim over 300 at a time in sets, and most of them are int he 50-200 range, and my times across the board are stiill coming down.

doing faster sets with little rest allows you to swim at a much faster pace than one steady long one, the rest is short enough that yuo just get a chance to breath for a sec so your form does not fall apart, then you are off again.

things like 10x100 on 5-10 sec rest
3-6x200 on 10-20 sec rest
or ladders,
4x100,2x200 1x400 etc.

longer 50 sets i like, something like:
15-30x50 on 20-30 sec rest for speed. fun stuff.

Don't get caught up in your SPL, but if you want to find your current optimum #, do some "golf" sets.  play with different stroke counts, and keep track of your time for each one.  Add the number of strokes with your time, for your "golf score".  Just like real golf, the goal is to find the lowest number.

Intervals are the way to go.  I prefer 100 - 200 yds on a set time, so that I'm forced to swim hard the whole time to get rest rather than resting a set time.  For example, I might do 100's on 1:50 or 2:00.  If they're on 1:50, and I swim my 100 in 1:30, then I get 20 seconds rest before starting the next 100.  If I swim it in 1:40, then I only get 10 seconds rest.  IMO, this is better than deciding to rest 15 seconds between each one, because there might be a tendency to not push as hard knowing that I was getting the same rest no matter how hard or easy I swim.  The key is to use an interval time that forces you to push a bit to keep getting any rest at all.

I will also occasionally do longer or shorter intervals, but 100-200 is the most common distance I use.

Like this idea(as 1k-1.5k in a 25m pool is a mental whipping) BUT howz this work out as far completing the OLY/HIM distance(s)?

you are swimming the distances with a very short break, but at faster speeds.
and you just showed us you can swim 1k in a pool non stop (i have never done this).

think about it like this. if you can go run 16 400m intervals at a time, with 15 sec easy between each one, is there any question that you could run 4 miles?


on the swim intervals, the shorter rest ones will build endurance, the longer rest will build speed as you are able to push harder in those.

I focus on Oly distance racing and my 1500m bests are 22:26 and 23:36 (pool/OW).  Although my workouts vary greatly as it is whatever the coach writes on the board for most of my swims, here are a couple of staple mainsets.

15x100 on 1:45 (hitting the wall around 1:30-1:35)

40x50 as 16 every 4th fast/12 every 3rd fast/8 every 2nd fast/4 all fast on :50

30x50 on 1:01 arriving when the clock is on top (so you leave on the red sixty for the first then you always have to be back on the red sixty but you leave one second later each time) - this set starts easy but when it starts to get hard it quickly becomes brutal

It is rare that I will swim a continuous 1500m except as an occasional test set and my longest sets are normally 400m.  I may swim a bit longer during wu/cd but those are always choice sets so it won't be straight front crawl.

Shane

sets sets sets sets sets......get the picture?

my only improvement has come when my friend who was a collegic swimmer looked at my workout and said "what the heck are you doing"

sets with short rest.  i have gone from a 2 min / 100 to a 1:30 / 100 and now working on pushing down to 1:25.  if your workout in the pool is 2500 yrds, you will be able to hold a pace for oly 1500m.  your pace might be slightly slower, but then closer to a race i will do maybe 300 yrd or 400 yrd sets. 

just a bit more info,

i went from hardly covering 50yrds in 1:30 to ave 1:10-1:15 in sprint races, and 1:20ish in HIM distances when, and only when, my training shifted to completely interval focused.

in the last two years i have swam steady over 600yards (in pool or open water) outside of races prob 6 times.

Thanks for all the great advice folks; I'll be putting it to immediate use.  I'm a big fan of interval set in running; my concern regarding swimming was being able to complete the whole distance.

there's been lots of talk about how to do intervals, but I see that most of your splits are still 2:00+ range. A rule of thumb I've always heard that seems to hold pretty true is that if you can't swim under 2:00/100 easily, then your stroke is the major limiter and you need to work on refining that before you start to hit the intervals really hard.



I know you were doing TI, but were you just following the drills, or did you actually understand them and know how to read the feedback? It is quite possible to fake your way through drills and completely miss the point of them.



I would take some time to seriously break down your stroke and do some diagnostic work. First off, read through the articles I have linked in my signature line. They do a good job talking about proper body position, catch, ect. I know you heard it all through TI, but those are really well written and helped me out a lot. Then start focusing on each aspect of your stroke. These are a few of the drills I rely on:



Front streamline kick: kick face down across the pool with your arms in front in a streamline. Breathe by rotating to the side like in free style. Pay attention to your hands. If your body line is correct, they shouldn't have to drop out of the streamline position. Try doing it with your hands at your sides...you will find out in a hurry if you are propping with your arms or lifting your head. While doing this, you should feel yourself lifting your lower back to the surface of the water with your abs and clenching your glutes to initiate the kick.



Anchor Drill: Float on your stomach with your arms stretched out in front. From the stretched out position, initiate your catch and get your forearms vertical as early as possible. Continue your pull to just before your hips then recover with your arms under water (breast stroke style) and repeat. This lets you concentrate on your catch and how you initiate it without worrying about timing or body roll or anything else.



One arm drill: I see you do this one, but I don't like doing multiple laps of a single arm. Just do 6 strokes right, 6 strokes left, then finish the 25 with both arms. I find that it doesn't teach much besides how to swim with one arm, but after doing the first 12 strokes, I find that when I switch straight into both arms, my timing is much smoother. When doing this drill too, try holding your unused hand to your side and breathe to the side you are swimming with every stroke. If you are propping your head up with your off arm, this will be near impossible.



I think as you start to analyze your swimming more, you will start to see the improvements you are looking for. Then it's a matter of setting up good interval workouts and not gimping out on the interval. You can get some good, free workouts on swimplan.com.

Appreciate the GREAT advice,  Matt

Lots of great suggestions in this thread.  I'm a month away from an OLY myself and I have just been swimming continuous distances of 1650+ yds.  I increased speed a little as I figured the stroke out but I have not really done any "sets."  I know that I can do a 1:30 best 100yd but when I swim a mile I seem to automatically pace myself at around 2:20 to 2:40. 

If I spend 3-4 times a week doing sets do you think it is enough to give me any speed or is 4 weeks a bit too short to make a difference? 

yes you will see some improvements in that time.

not a wildly huge amount but thats still a lot of swimming time in there.

Ok, thanks. 

Well, this may not be the right way to do sets but wow, it was a cool workout and felt great.

I swam a mile in the pool yesterday and (don't make fun of me, I'm a new swimmer) I was doing 1:20 / min 50yd laps. (2:40 100yds).  Tonight, I swam 18, 50yd laps trying to focus on increasing stroke rate but not getting wild or too sloppy.  My fastest 50yd time was 53 seconds but the majority of the time I was right around 1:02.  Oddly enough, it seemed to get easier as time went on.  I wanted to stay an do another 10 laps but I had to get going. 

I think I'm going to do sets of 50, 100, or 200, 3 times a week and do one full mile swim on Sundays to see if it knocks my time down.  I have to say that it has given me a little confidence that my stroke rate may have been a little slow.  I am certain that I could use a coach but with only 4 weeks out from my OLY, I'm 1. Happy to know I can swim a mile easily and 2. I have a chance of shaving my time down a little. 

Thanks for the tips.