General Discussion Introduce Yourself!!! » Swim Times and Workouts Rss Feed  
Moderators: IndoIronYanti, k9car363, alicefoeller Reply
2015-03-29 4:53 PM


5

, Texas
Subject: Swim Times and Workouts
Hi everyone!
I recently joined because I have a lot of questions and keep hearing different things from different people so right now I am really confused! I would like to do a triathlon and ironman down the road, but my swimming is pretty bad. Right now I can only swim 700m without stopping, however I want to get farther while also increasing my times. Right now I am sitting around an 8:35 500. I'm not sure about my 1000m because I have not swam that yet. I started swimming around 3 months ago so I am still struggling with things such as form and what not. My question to y'all is what type of workouts do you do to get your times down for the 500 and 1000m, and do they have them on these blogs? I've searched but there are so many threads it's hard to sift through them all! Haha. Also I would like to swim a mile in the next 2 months or so (a goal of mine), but am unsure how to go about mixing in workouts for this while also trying to get faster. Does getting faster just come naturally with more swimming as your stroke smooths out? Also when you first start is it normal to have good and bad weeks? Some weeks I feel great and then others I feel terrible in the water and am not sure if that's me losing focus or just something that happens as a novice swimmer? Only wondering because it is very discouraging to see time and endurance drop after increasing the week before. Thank you guys so much for the help!


2015-03-29 11:38 PM
in reply to: WorkingHard1990

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Melon Presser
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Subject: RE: Swim Times and Workouts

Hi, welcome to BT and triathlon! If there's an open mentor group here on the forums, those are great places to get advice and support and sift through BT's (yes, vast ) resources.

The #1 thing that will help improve your swimming at this point is to get some focused, in-person feedback on your specific swim style/technique and how to build a more efficient, powerful stroke from where you're at. Some Masters swim group coaches can do this (or give you a few private sessions), some tri coaches with a specific swim background can do this--unless you're in way-beyond-podunk Texas, this should be available and you can get recommendations from other triathletes.

If you're really stuck, you could try posting swim video of yourself in the Tri Talk forum and ask for feedback. (for what shots to get/how -- even a smartphone in a Ziploc baggie will work -- ask that too)

The plans for paid membership here generally do have structured swim workouts.

In my opinion and experience, the best resource for people who can already do front crawl (freestyle) is to get Sheila Taormina's Swim Speed Secrets (the book) and Swim Speed Workouts (if you can only get 1, get the workouts--there is tons of helpful info on her website and videos) and do the workouts. They are longish, but you pick and choose and adjust the workouts and times according to what you can do. Like most effective swim workouts, they are broken up into sets and repeats--swimming continuously for as long and/or fast as you can is not effective and you will plateau quickly.

Speaking of plateaus, perfectly normal to have off weeks or several weeks plateau then a breakthrough.

Good luck!

2015-03-30 10:31 AM
in reply to: IndoIronYanti


5

, Texas
Subject: RE: Swim Times and Workouts
Thank you IndoIronYanti! I am really excited to get started! This seems to be a great forum with so much information/knowledgeable and awesome people!
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