Swim frequency question

I agree with 4X30.......and if that's all you have then I would swim a 100 all-out and see what your time is.  Then pick a rest period that allow you to hit 85-90% of that 100 time every time you swim it.  I don't care if it's a 20 second rest or a  minute rest.  Hit the wall in that time every interval.  When you get to the point where you can hit your interval every time, drop your rest 5 seconds and stay after it.  Drop your rest, not your 100 time.

Example - you can swim a 100  all-out in 1:50, but you need 30 seconds to hit 2 minutes every time you swim it.  Your interval is 2:30.  Every time the clock hits 2:30 your off.  When you get there for a couple workouts, drop 5 seconds OF REST for your next workout.......now your interval is 2:25.  You may find, soon enough, that your rest time is the same as you drop......that's fine.....keep dropping the rest period.

There really is no point in complicating a 30 minute workout.  I would do a 5 minute warmup alternating 50 swim and 50 kick..... then do your intervals, then do a 3-5 minute cooldown of 75% kicking.

Swimming is a technical activity and a perishable skill, and frequency helps to reinforce muscle memory.  So, I'd vote for the 4 x 30 minute option.  

I'd also suggest that you mix up your workouts as much as you can with drills, kicking, some aerobic sets and some hard,fast efforts.  With only a short time in the pool, try to do everything on a specific push-off  or rest interval to make sure that you're making the most of the time you have available.

Good luck,

Mark 

I wondered about the body type comment also,  For obvious reasons, tall & slim is a body type shared by most elite swimmers (Phelps, Adrian, Lochte, Franklin, Ledecky, etc.).   But at the same time my masters coach is a four-time Olympian and she's only 5'-2".    The bottom line is optimizing your technical proficiency regardless of your body type.  

Mark 

That's for hitting the wall, not for interval.  I don't know if it's a rule of thumb.....but it's what my kid's coach has me doing.  I know it's what they do consistently, but they are more around 85% because they are swimming for 2.5 hours.  I watched them last week do 50 100's on 1:10 SCY.....they were hitting the wall in :55 - :58....it hurt me just watching.

Our coach has us do most of our aerobic sets around 80% of max.  For descending sets we'll start out at 75% and then work toward 90-95% by the last interval.

Our last set of the day is usually some all-out 25's, 50's or 100's that we turn into a fun intra-squad competition (trash talking is encouraged).  

Mark

You're going quite a bit longer than 30 minutes, right?  I'm trying to give the OP as much bang for his 30 minutes as he can get......it's not much to work with.

If your consistent 100 all-out is 1:40....then you should  hit the wall in 1:55 on intervals.  How much rest you need to get more reps in is up to you.  BUT......I would increase the rest before I increased my swim time.  The more reps the better.  What you want to work on is decreasing the rest time, and thus, decreasing your interval time.  The interval time is swim +rest. 

In your case, for now, you need to increase the rest.  If your actual swim time is increasing then your stroke is falling apart and you're not gaining anything except ingraining bad form.  Find the least amount of rest needed to get you to the wall in ~85% of your best time for the number of reps you are wanting to do.

I was responding to his question about the pace for swimming the 100's, not the length of the workout.  Agree that 30 minutes is not much to work with. That's why I suggested earlier that everything be done on a specific send-off or rest interval to minimize the amount of idle time during the workout.  

To answer your question, our morning masters workouts are from 6:00AM to 7:45AM, which is longer than 30 minitues  .  Our warm-up sets are normally between 600-1000 yards, which can easily take 30 minutes.   

Mark   

Yep, pretty standard for a decent swim workout.