I want to train for the 100 IM. My current time is about 1:25, and I want to get it as close as possible to 1:10 in the next 3-4 months. I also want to improve my times in the 50's of each stroke, which should improve naturally as my IM improves. I am in college and swimming with my college club swim team, which swims 3x a week (1 hr practices) and is uncoached. I also usually swim 1-2x a week by myself for about 1 hr. What should I work on? What sort of sets will be most beneficial? How can I change distance sets to make them more beneficial for me?
Former Member
Thank you both. So basically, I need to make sure I work on all the strokes and swim IM's in practice. Do you have any favorite sets for IM work? Just a thought - when my group does long freestyle sets (which I hate), would it be better to change them to IM sets?
I love the IM. 100 IM is my all-time favorite event because just when you are sick of the stroke you are swimming, you get to switch. I'm too out of shape for the 400 IM, but it is one of my goals I have set for myself.
etrain, that was always my strategy, train hard on *** and push it. Backstroke is my weak stroke, but I could always make it up w/ the ***.
For the 100 IM, my training theory is to make sure I swim all 4 strokes at least once in the workout. Some workouts are more slanted toward 1 stroke, but I try to drill on each stroke daily.
Bottom line is what etrain says, to train for the IM, you should swim the IM.
Finally, check out the past workouts posted in the workout section. At times the coaches who post the workouts have dedicated the week to 1 specific stroke and/or IM. The workouts will say if it is such a workout. There are also sprint workouts which I believe you also need for the 100 IM.
Good question and unfortunately I don't know the answer. You may want to email your question directly to one of the coaches who post their workouts on this website.
My *** is now truly terrible. At one tiem, I used to do repeats of 25yd of each stroke. Then try to link them together when I wasn't yet too tired to do okay. Alo, try doing 50yd as 25fly/25back, 25back/25 ***, 25breast/25free.
Also do fast swimming. The 100IM is an all out sprint really. So make sure you take time to work on sprints - 25s and 50s of each stroke. And other 50s to do would be fly/fly, fly/back, back/back, back/***, ***/***, ***/free, free/free ... and do some 50s on 1:30 all out or 100s on 2:30 (or 3:00) ALL OUT .... good luck. Keep us posted!
Thanks for the posts, eveyone! I timed some sprints today in practice, so now I have current time estimates to work from. Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking about order of swims, so I did the 100 IM after the 50's of every stroke. My IM time was around 1:33 (I timed it, so it's not exact), but it would have been faster if I was able to really sprint hard. Because I had already sprinted the 50's, my mind was ready to sprint, but my body refused. This is unshaved and my first practice after a week with less practice than usual. I'll try timing it again next weekend and hopefully get someone to actually time me.
Originally posted by globuggie
I want to train for the 100 IM. My current time is about 1:25, and I want to get it as close as possible to 1:10 in the next 3-4 months. I also want to improve my times in the 50's of each stroke, which should improve naturally as my IM improves. I am in college and swimming with my college club swim team, which swims 3x a week (1 hr practices) and is uncoached. I also usually swim 1-2x a week by myself for about 1 hr. What should I work on? What sort of sets will be most beneficial? How can I change distance sets to make them more beneficial for me? 100IM lots of sprints all strokes, good start good turns it will be like falling off a log, push the easy button.
