Newbie Questions

Try doing intervals of 100 yards. Swim one as fast as you can, then rest, and swim one quickly but not the fastest, and then rest. Do this until you've swam one mile worth of 100 yrds. You will be surprised at how quickly you will improve. Also KICK, KICK, KICK! Do some kicking. Most people who haven't swam all of their life don't understand the importance of a good kick. Do 25yds (or whatever the lenght of your pool is). Then rest half the amount of time it took you to do the lenght & do it again. If it took you 45 seconds to do one length, rest 23 seconds. I really believe that this drill you should kick as hard and fast as you can. Much advice given is not geared towards people who haven't been swimmers for most of their life and many of the advisors really don't understand how people who haven't swam allnof their life respond. I think that what I've just suggested is the best way for new swimmers to get used to true training. I hope you see some improvement. Also, I don't think that dry land training is going to be much use to you right now. If you could find someone to look at your stroke, it might help. but remember, if the person tells you what to do & you don't understand - ask questions. the vocabulary of swimming can be very confusing at times. Craig J.

John, if your goal is to swim faster, farther, longer better; then you need be able to commit to that goal. If as you mentioned you are currently rather overwhelmed and not able to commit more time to swimming, you may want to rethink your goal, keeping your current training regime, until you are ready to truly embrace your swimming goals. Personally, I find my greatest improvements when swimming with a coached team. The coach can see you stroke and recommend improvements; we can’t do that over the internet. Also a coach and my fellow swimmers will often push me harder than I would go on my own. However, if a coached workout is not an option and you are committed to improved swimming, then try the posted workouts. If they are too difficult now, then do want you can, pushing yourself to do more, to reach your goals.

John, It's very likely that your body has adapted to the workload and is simply set at going the same pace. By breaking up your 1 mile swim into sets of 500's, 400's, or 300's on a specific time (interval) you can stress yourself to work harder. Interval training doesn't have to be made up of short swims like 10 x 100's or 5 x 200's although they will certainly boost your stamina by providing a strong aerobic base. By raising the bar and focusing on long strokes (distance per stroke) your time for the mile should lower after a while. Even working on better streamlines while you turn can drop that time. (Many turns in a 1 mile swim). There are many coaches who read the forums and I'm sure you will get some good feedback. Also try looking under the workout section.:)

Another thing you can do is to add in dry land training(abs, stretch cords, etc.) before you swim. Adding a weight lifting program will help as well.

Rob, I didn't mean to imply that I'm overwhelmed with time restraints (although that certainly does happen quite often) merely that I'm overwhelmed with the workout lengths, types, and pace. Many of the workouts I've seen suggest swimming a 100 on 1'25", which I can't do. How do I know what time I should swim the various sets to acheive the desired effect the workout is trying to produce? As a highly exaggerated example, I could swim the 100 on a 5' interval, but I doubt that I'd be getting the same effect. Do you see what I'm saying? When I raced bikes there were very specific workouts designed around improving power, aerobic threshold, strength endurance, lactate threshold and the like, but as of yet I've not found anything that outlines this for me with swimming. Thanks for your response, John

I have found, as is suggested earlier in this thread, taking suggested workouts (either from this website, swiminfo.com, and others) and tayloring them to your capabilities and slowly increasing them. Many workouts will describe their purpose (i.e., endurance, strength, speed, etc.). Also, there are some great books and videos. USMS has a great video library you can rent the tapes to view at home. I think most swimmers, although length of a workout matters, it's a lot more about content and variety to condition the body. Years ago I focused on a # of meters goal for every workout but hit a wall as to progress. A coach and some other swimmers pointed me in the direction of types of workouts and then I saw progress again.

If the interval is too tight, simply taylor it to your abilities at the moment. Try the 100 yd repeats on 2 minutes instead of 1:25. The 200 yd repeats can be done on 4:00. Experimenting with what's do-able will let you know how to proceed. The idea is to maintain a pace that's stressful without missing the interval send-off. Yes, this will be pretty much the same as doing your typical mile workout but you may find that the pace can be pushed harder in small increments rather than one long tedious swim. If you're going a mile each session, try breaking it down into various sets. A 400 warm-up, the main set, and some kicking will easily get you into the 1700 yard total by the end of the workout. The variety alone will take the monotony out of simply going back and forth.

I'm really glad jpleech asked that question. I've been having trouble building up any kind of endurance at all, so i'll get frustrated and put swimming on the back burner for a while. I'll have to give these suggestions a try. Thanks for a great thread!