Looking to take my swim workouts to the next level

Former Member
Former Member
I am a 34 yr old male who has been looking to start swimming laps again for fitness over the last few months. My schedule has been hectic, so I'm not able to make it to the pool often, but when I do I'm able to swim a mile with little rest. Since that feels easy for me, I'm ready to ramp things up and make the time to swim a few times a week. My goal is to build up my fitness and stamina so that I can take surf lessons and start surfing, and in general I want to challenge myself and get an adrenaline rush during my swim workouts. I made a couple workouts with breath control and sprint sets that I can do, but I have no idea how much yardage I should be doing now or how much I should build up to. I've read plenty of articles about fitness swimming and looked at plenty of workouts on the internet, but I can't get a good read on how many yards I should swim. 1. How many yards per workout should I aim for right now and also in the next few weeks? Is 1750 enough, or should I be swimming say 2000, 2250 or even 2500 yards per workout right now? 2. In the long run, how many yards per workout should I target? Most of the workouts I've seen for fitness swimmers are at least 3000 yards.
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  • I can't tell you for certain what will work for you, but I'll tell you what I did and the results I got. I'm 44, and hadn't been able to keep a routine fitness regimen for 20 years. A bit under a year ago, after gong on a pretty intense crash diet to lose some weight and try to recalibrate my stomach, I started swimming. I wanted to lose 15 pounds, and I did in a little over a month, then I started swimming. At first, I would swim 500 yard sets. And maybe I got in one the first time I swam. Within a week, I had doubled my yardage. And after a few months, I was doing anywhere from 6-8 of those sets (500Fr, rest a few minutes, 250Br/250Ba, rest a few minutes, repeat). I kept losing weight, another 10 pounds or so. My resting heart rate fell from low/mid 70's to mid 60's. And I was pretty much stuck there (note I have very low blood pressure, which results in a higher resting heart rate). Then I went over to the workouts board (after paying the small fee), and started following @Swimdogs' basic training workouts. They average about 3000 yards, and are more similar to a high intensity training system than to going out and running a few miles. Once I started doiing that, my conditioning became drastically better. My muscle definition improved greatly, and the better measurement, at least to me, is that my resting heart rate fell. It is now right around 50, maybe a tad below. So that is what worked FOR ME. It may for you, it may not. I will say two things. One is that I have a very hard time pacing myself for longer distances. I can hold a 43second/50 pace for a mile (23:40). But finding that pace for a 200 or a 500 is pretty difficult for me. Mark's workouts don't give too many sets of anything over a 50, so I imagine that is a contributing factor. The other thing is that we have a new coach authoring those workouts, now. I'm used to Mark's workouts, and I still follow them, though I am planning on trying some of the new ones. They are very, very different. New ones do more of those longer reps. But the new ones rely on swimmers with a bit more feel for their pace for those swims, and I just don't have that. Mark gave intervals, which I have found easier to either use, or modify to hit my capability, whereas the new ones do not, but instead give rest intervals. I don't know if that helps. The reason I answered like that is because it is very difficult to say one needs this many yards or this system is right. I think a lot of Masters swimmers, especially those of us who are focusing on fitness, rather than competition, swim what we can fit into our timeframe. For me, that would be probably 4000-4500 yards if I just swam, or an authored workout that is around 3000 yards. But those fewer yards at higher intensity with more rest have done much more for me than the longer, less intense workouts.
Reply
  • I can't tell you for certain what will work for you, but I'll tell you what I did and the results I got. I'm 44, and hadn't been able to keep a routine fitness regimen for 20 years. A bit under a year ago, after gong on a pretty intense crash diet to lose some weight and try to recalibrate my stomach, I started swimming. I wanted to lose 15 pounds, and I did in a little over a month, then I started swimming. At first, I would swim 500 yard sets. And maybe I got in one the first time I swam. Within a week, I had doubled my yardage. And after a few months, I was doing anywhere from 6-8 of those sets (500Fr, rest a few minutes, 250Br/250Ba, rest a few minutes, repeat). I kept losing weight, another 10 pounds or so. My resting heart rate fell from low/mid 70's to mid 60's. And I was pretty much stuck there (note I have very low blood pressure, which results in a higher resting heart rate). Then I went over to the workouts board (after paying the small fee), and started following @Swimdogs' basic training workouts. They average about 3000 yards, and are more similar to a high intensity training system than to going out and running a few miles. Once I started doiing that, my conditioning became drastically better. My muscle definition improved greatly, and the better measurement, at least to me, is that my resting heart rate fell. It is now right around 50, maybe a tad below. So that is what worked FOR ME. It may for you, it may not. I will say two things. One is that I have a very hard time pacing myself for longer distances. I can hold a 43second/50 pace for a mile (23:40). But finding that pace for a 200 or a 500 is pretty difficult for me. Mark's workouts don't give too many sets of anything over a 50, so I imagine that is a contributing factor. The other thing is that we have a new coach authoring those workouts, now. I'm used to Mark's workouts, and I still follow them, though I am planning on trying some of the new ones. They are very, very different. New ones do more of those longer reps. But the new ones rely on swimmers with a bit more feel for their pace for those swims, and I just don't have that. Mark gave intervals, which I have found easier to either use, or modify to hit my capability, whereas the new ones do not, but instead give rest intervals. I don't know if that helps. The reason I answered like that is because it is very difficult to say one needs this many yards or this system is right. I think a lot of Masters swimmers, especially those of us who are focusing on fitness, rather than competition, swim what we can fit into our timeframe. For me, that would be probably 4000-4500 yards if I just swam, or an authored workout that is around 3000 yards. But those fewer yards at higher intensity with more rest have done much more for me than the longer, less intense workouts.
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