Hypothetical swim workout question

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2006-05-22 8:58 AM

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Crystal Lake, IL
Subject: Hypothetical swim workout question

Let's suppose that the following conditions exist:

1.  You are not claiming to be perfect but you feel like you are comfortable with your form/stroke while swimming.

2.  You can swim this season's A race distance comfortably.

3.  You want to get as fast as possible for your A race (OLY in August).

4.  You can allot approximately 2 hours per week to swimming.

What type of workouts would you do to increase your speed for the swim distance?  I'm talking about an Oly here.  Intervals/speed work is going to help me the most at this point, but my question is more about how many times per week.  Would you swim twice and do hour long workouts each time or would you swim 3-4 times per week if it meant you could only do 30-40 minute swims?  Figure the structure of the workouts would be similar.

So what would you do?

 

2006-05-22 9:18 AM
in reply to: #430033

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Champion
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Subject: RE: Hypothetical swim workout question
If you are training for the 1500 m swim I'd swim 3x40 workouts (or maybe a 30/40/50 schedule).

Swimming twice a week would be OK to maintain form. Trying to go 60 minutes twice a week is just asking for fatigue and poor stroke mechanics for at least the last 1/3 of the workout. (I kind of speak from experience here).

It'd be hard to do intervals for 60 minutes, but you could be pretty aggressive for 30-40 minutes.

2006-05-22 9:20 AM
in reply to: #430033

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Master
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brummie land
Subject: RE: Hypothetical swim workout question

how fast are you doing the distance atm? tbh i'd do one 90 min work out and one 30 min work out.

reasons for this - my club session on a sunday is 90 mins and its a good length of time to do a loooong workout, get a good distance in and work on various aspects. we seem to go through cycles of speed work, distance work and tempo. plus it gives us time for good warm ups and cool downs and both drills and kick sets.

on your 30 min workout i'd just get in, do a short warm up and swim the 1.5k as fast as possible. best way to check how your getting on with your time.

 

i've tried logging my sunday night sessions pretty accurately in my log (minus the times we do the sets on) so if you want more info feel free to look.

 

 

2006-05-22 10:19 AM
in reply to: #430033

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Crystal Lake, IL
Subject: RE: Hypothetical swim workout question

Two responses, almost opposing points of view.  Anyone else want to chime in?

 

2006-05-22 10:27 AM
in reply to: #430033

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Coach
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Stairway to Seven
Subject: RE: Hypothetical swim workout question
1) Even though you have a limited time to work out and swim, I find that gettign to the pool, parking & changing consumes a huge amount of time. 4 30 minute workouts may end up consuming much more time than 2 hour long workouts!

2) I think that a minimum of 40 minutes would be necessary to get in a good workout that will be beneficial.

3) I DO think (I KNOW) you can get faster on your swims with 2 1 hour sessions a week.

4) Even when you think your form is great (I did) there are still lots of little improvements that can be made when lookign for speed. I had lots of little cheats in my pull, and even when I thought they had been corrected I found more...that is, the smaller cheats were masked by fatigue, or by bigger form problmes, even though my form (I thought) was really good.

5) Sets at a minimum of 100yards with descending or negative split sets with short rest intervals 10-15 seconds) are a must, but you absolutely must keep good form while doing the interval sets, otherwise you're just creating muslce memory for a stroke you don't want.

6) I don't think it's necessary to do a 1500m time trial each week...save that for race day, or at most, once amonth.

7) Grab a copy of Workouts in a Binder, it's got tons of what you're looking for. The price tag (~$25) is well worth it.


Just my 7 cents.
2006-05-22 10:51 AM
in reply to: #430177

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Master
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brummie land
Subject: RE: Hypothetical swim workout question

adventure bear you're probabaly right with the time trial thing - i usually manage one abotu once a month but train 90 mins and 60 mins each week. and sometimes add in a time trial or replace a workout with one. maybe on the shorter set do speed workouts liek 25 sprints? or would that not be useful?

 

 

2006-05-22 11:13 AM
in reply to: #430033

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Champion
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Sarasota, FL
Subject: RE: Hypothetical swim workout question

I agree with a lot of what AdventureBear said.

I try to swim twice a week, but just getting there and back takes up at least an hour or so no matter how far I actually swim.  Occasionally I'll try to squeeze a third swim in, but it's tough with my work schedule along with my and bike and run workouts.

My coach has me doing one workout of long intervals ( 400's or pyramids) and one "speed" workout, swimming mostly 100's and 50's with minimum rest.   I do a 1,000 yd TT maybe once every three to four weeks to measure progress.

I see a lot of analogies between swimming and my golf swing.  They're both very technical and I do best when I try to concentrate on only one thing at a time (ironically, head position seems to be one of the critical aspects of both!).

Mark

2006-05-22 12:25 PM
in reply to: #430033

Expert
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Subject: RE: Hypothetical swim workout question
Funny, this question looks like I wrote it. I am in the EXACT same place (oly coming up, "A" race, comfortable with the distance, only 2 hours a week to swim, etc...) and have the EXACT same question. In fact, I am mostly just posting so that I get the answers. Thanks all...
2006-05-22 1:58 PM
in reply to: #430210

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Coach
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Stairway to Seven
Subject: RE: Hypothetical swim workout question
sappho96 - 2006-05-22 11:51 AM

adventure bear you're probabaly right with the time trial thing - i usually manage one abotu once a month but train 90 mins and 60 mins each week. and sometimes add in a time trial or replace a workout with one. maybe on the shorter set do speed workouts liek 25 sprints? or would that not be useful?



Yes, I'd say on the shorter workout, do speed sets. 25s probably have their place in developing speed, but I think it'd probably be best to make your "sprints" of slightly longer distance to help train for endurance. I'm no expert, but have done a bunch of the workouts in a binder. The workouts with 25 sprints are fun, but they make up only asmall part of the workout and are usually right at the end. My favorites with 25's are 16x25 with descending sets of 2-2-2-2 repeated once, 10-15 seconds rest, and just an all out sprint 10x25 with 10 seconds rest It's afun way to finish a workout.
2006-05-22 3:36 PM
in reply to: #430033

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Crystal Lake, IL
Subject: RE: Hypothetical swim workout question

So is the one longer/one shorter twice a week the way to go? 

Note - Take out the logistics of getting to a pool from the equation.  I have two places to swim, near home and near work, both easy to get in and out of and rarely crowded when I'm there.  I can just as easily do three 40 minute swims as one long/one short. 

And thanks all for the advice.

 

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