Hi Everyone,
I have been swimming for 10 months now and after my 4th month I decided to compete in the 200 yd. freestyle. I had a time of 2:44 which included no racing dive and only 4 flipturns. Five months later and 20lbs lighter I have no idea of what type of training to do and how much. I am presently swimming anywhere from 1500 meters to 4,500 meters per day, six times per week with all flip turns. I also do about 10 sets of 25yd kick sprints per day on my back with my arms behind my head scattered throughout my swim. I have another meet coming December 9, 2007 and like to have my lung capacity much better by then and 40 seconds faster. AI swim in the 50 to 54 age group. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thank You,
Steven
Former Member
Steven
Wow. I am not going to help you but I am going to say WOW :groovy:What a committment to swimming. It sounds like you have really improved.
I am 6 weeks into swimming after over 20 years . I am improving but I still hurt LOL LOL
Katie
I would throw a swimdown workout on occassion.
Do a good warm up swim. Then a 900, rest then 800, rest then 700, rest then 600, rest - 500, rest 400, 300, 200, 100. start at good pace, end faster. Don't forget to do a cool down swim.
Thanks for your great workout routine...what a killer! How often should this be done and how much rest in between sets? Also, I just started a new routine 3 days ago. I do a 900 meter warm-up, 6 x 100 meter freestyle on 1:45 and 10x25 kicking with hands behind head (no flippers) on 1:00 and then a 200 cool down. My next meet is December 9th and will be doing this same workout 5 to 6 days per week until then. Do you think I should change my workout routine regularly to prevent burnout? Any help would be greatly appreciate!
The 200 free is a difficult race for me. It is neither a sprint nor a distance race. It is too long to rely on anerobic power and short enough that you need to work on speed, at least occasionally. The start is not super important but turns are.
The 200 also requires some race execution - meaning your pacing is important.
I'm not sure you need to swim 6x per week. That 1500 M workout may not be doing much for you. You might race better with 5x but higher quality workouts instead.
One suggestion:
Monday - core aerobic work at threshold pace. Should include a main set of s1000-1500 yds/meters such as 12x100, 6x200, or 24x50. These should be difficult at the end of the set with an interval that gives you 10 secs rest on 100s, 20secs on 200s, and 5-10secs on 50s. Follow that set with a kick set of 400-500 yds with similar perceived effort. Include a few sprints (25 easy, 25 swim) before a warmdown. This is a "hard" day.
Tuesday - recover from Monday, stroke work, longer swims for smoothness and breathing such as 4x400 swim and 3x200 kick. Pull and/or paddles are OK. This is an easy or moderate day. Include a few sprints again and warmdown.
Wednesday - main sets are shorter, but harder than Monday. Example: Instead of 12x100 with 10 secs rest, swim 6x100 or 8x100 very hard with 15 secs rest. This kind of set will force more lactic buildup and your arms will be heavy. If they aren't - you probably aren't going fast enough. This is a "very hard" day.
Thursday - much like Tuesday. A recovery day. Good day to focus on technique or non-freestyle strokes. Possibly 2x the sprints you did on Tuesday.
Friday - finish the week with some high intensity aerobic work. Main set could include some best effort swims followed by active rest. An example set: 1x200 very fast, 15 secs, 1 x 100 very fast, 10 secs, 1 x 100 best effort, followed by active rest (~ 300), repeat, and repeat again with non-freestyle or kick.
