Swimming Blog Rotation?

Fartlek, developed in the 1930's, comes from the Swedish for 'Speed Play' and combines continuous and interval training.

Recently got back into water after 2 year layoff from college. I've been swimming about 4-5 times a week for the past 3 months and i have my first meet in two weeks.Im a sprinter of all strokes and swim some longer free and fly events. But I like to swim all types of workouts. I train alone and am always looking for new ideas. This was todays workout, I typically keep Mondays basic and just like to stretch out after the having the past 1-2 days off... Warmup 6 x 150 :15 sec rest 1- swim 4- drill 2- drill 5- pull 3- kick w/ board 6- swim 12 x 50 IM order @ 1:05 1-4 Drill 5-8 25 Drill/25 Swim 9-12 Swim Main Set 100 200 300 1:30 Base 200 100 Free Pull 100's- Breathe every 7 200's- Breathe every 5 300- Breathe every 3 Kick 6x 50 Kick on Back @ 1:05 Odd's- Flutter Even's- Dolphin Clean-Up Set 8x50 :10 sec rest 1 & 5 Sprint Fly 3 & 7 12.5 Free "Spin" moving arms as fast as possible, disregarding catching the water, this really helps with turnover rate, I tend to train with a longer stroke then i race with and this helps to maintain some arm speed. Evens- Ez 100 Warm Down 3,000 yds

I've only done this set once, but it's fun. It requires two people per team. To start the set have one teammate on one end of the pool, the other on the opposite end. The basic idea is to do partner 50s on 30 seconds. Here's how it works: 1. Swimmer A leaves on the top and sprints a 25 2. When swimmer A touches swimmer B starts the second 25. (Swimmer A stops at the wall) 3. Swimmer B touches and waits until the 30 (usually not much of a wait!) then pushes off and sprints back. 4. Swimmer A pushes off when B touches, does a 25, waits till the top, etc... It works pretty good because you're always sprinting, but on one end of the pool you get a fair amount rest because you wait until your partner does an entire 50 before you go again.

Here's a great way to get that speed workout in; it feels suspiciously like racing. After a good warm up, everyone will do 6 X 100 on 6:00 minutes. What makes it fun is that, for each hundred, the group will do a staggered start (slowest to fastest) and you will all finish together. When you arrive at the pool, everyone puts their best recent 100 free time up on the board. Once everyone has their times on the board, each individual needs to figure out how many seconds after the slowest swimmer leaves the wall, you will leave. The slowest swimmer will start on the top; then the next slowest swimmer will start, and so on. If everyone is honest about their times AND if you can figure the math right, it will be a photo finish. Believe me, there will be some serious effort to "win." Unfortunately, this workout won't work well if you are swimming circles. Our masters swim team usually does this one once a month. Lots of fun (and hard work!).

This was a great workout that is easy to get in under an hour.I plan on bumping the main set up to 4 rounds in a few weeks and eventually 5. Great way to get some speed IM work done. Also. I despise lactate or race-pace workouts, but i realize that they should be incorporated into my training plan, if anyone has any fun or interesting ideas I would love to hear them. Warmup 5x100 :10 rest 1-free 2- im drill 3- back 4-im drill 5- free :20 rest 5x75 Drill :10 rest fly/bk/*** :20 rest 5x50 Kick w/out Board :10 rest :20 rest 5x25 :10 rest 1-4 IM order 5 EZ Main Set 3x100 IM @2:00 3x75 Fly/BK/BRST @ 1:30 3x50 1- fly/bk 2- bk/brst 3- brst/free @ 1:00 3x25 1- fly 2-back 3- free @ :30 100 EZ 300 Pull breathe 5/3/5 by 100's 100 EZ 2500 yds

Had pretty much an all-day meeting today, so hopefully I remember the whole set. Had thought of going straight to work, but swam before anyway...certainly helped releive some stress, and I didn't have to worry about traffic. I work about 5 minutes from the pool, and if I swim it takes me 20 minutes to get from home to pool for the 6am workout. If I go directly to the office at 7am, it takes at least 45 minutes. Coaches: Matt and Bethany, Matt more on the distance end 600 choice warmup 4 rounds of the following: 75 @ 1:20; made up of 25 kick, 25 drill, 25 swim 100 IM @ 1:30 50 swim (did 2 ***) @ 1:10 5x300, descending 1 to 5; was supposed to be @ 4:15, we ended up @ 4:30 went about 4:00 on the first, dropped about 5 sec each, did the last in 3:30 There was another set, but I got out early. 200 easy warmdown total: 3200

Coaches: Matt and Simon; Matt towards my side of the pool There were lots of FAST swimmers there this morning; the coaches moved a bunch of people over, and I ended up swimming with people faster than me. We had 5 people per lane, went 5th in my lane. 600 warmup choice Main set: four rounds of 5x100 400 easy (last one was also my warmdown) the hundreds were done as: round 1: @1:30 (went pretty easy, about 15 sec rest) round 2: @1:25 (had about 12 sec rest) round 3: @1:20 round 4: @1:15 (had about 3 to 5 sec rest on each) total: about 4,100 yards

Hey Sam--I did see several people who aren't usually there, some I know from our noon/evening groups, but I think I heard one guy saying he was visiting. I knew it was strange when our nomal lane 1 guys were in lane 2. I had an easy time of the first 2-3 rounds, with 4 people ahead of me I felt like I was getting pulled along for those sets. For the last 2 sets, there was a break between our 2nd and 3rd swimmers, I probably could have gone ahead but didn't know how I'd hold up at the end. I swam at the Phoenix Swim Club back in 1999 for a few months, and Matt actually remembered me from then. I had just moved back up from Tucson, and would have stayed there except the pool was closing for 2 weeks one time. I thought I'd try some workouts with SDM, this was when Ron Johnson was still coaching. The first time there, Ron got in the pool and was working with me 1 on 1, and I was sold with his group. I made the switch to mornings in 2002, and usually get in 5 workouts a week.

Tim, I was there today and swimming in Lane 1. I don't know what you look like, I should have asked Matt who you were to meet you. I was in the 1:05 Lane and got my butt kicked. But you are not lying about how many fast people were there today. We had 8 people down to the 1:05 interval which was pretty impressive. Fortunately for me, I got to ride Paul Smith's wave for 3 of the 4 sets of 100's. SURF'S UP!

I was in the Texas Longhorns swim cap. Believe the Lane 2 guys should have been in Lane 1 and Paul and I should have been in Lane 2. Fast group, challenging and in no time I think I can be back in good swimming shape with that group. I am heading out of town for the rest of the week today but am going to try and make it Saturday morning for a swim. Hopefully I will see you there...