This is in-line with how I usually try to schedule my season. 100’s as main focus up until specialty, then work up to doing 500’s as my main sets. I do some continuous swims due to schedule, as I swim on my lunch break and need to get back to work in 1 hour if possible.
I try to mix up the sets though, sometimes full gas on a 2’ interval, but then also medium hard on a 1:45 or 1:40(scy). Even on a 1:45 that is about 15 s rest. I have noticed the full gas session after doing a nice and steady one just feels more productive. Being recovered keeps your form from breaking down… form and fitness do go hand in hand. You need to have decent form to go fast independent of fitness, as well as have the fitness to go fast without form breaking down.
I’ve been hearing this for years and frankly ignoring it for the same reasons, but this season I’m on 3/wk. I’ve seen my 100m time drop quite positively, but we’ll see if it makes a difference on race day.
My hope is “3/wk = maintenance” is for people a lot faster than me.
One thing I keep wanting to do is listen to the recent Tower26 podcast of different intensities. (Nov 29, 2018). I struggle with that part.
I too thought 3x a week is “Maintenance”? WTHeck? there is no way I can do 4-5x a week and keep a happy family. One goal I had last year was to learn to enjoy the swim. Not there yet. I don’t dread it anymore. But I can’t zone out of life in the water like I can cycling (especially with harder stuff) or running. Too dang much to think about in the water.
10x100m holding 1:30/100m off 1:50 (note the 20sec rest interval!!)
it actually ended up being 10x100 plus 2 50’s as about halfway through I was interrupted by somebody else getting in the lane so had to stop after 50m and obviously had to even that up at the end of the 100’s
20x50m holding 44-45s off 1 min
20x25m at 20-21s with a 15s rest interval
I did 2x50m kick and 2x100 pull and paddles easy between each set and a 500m easy assorted kick, 50’s and 100’s pull CD
4500m total with an overall pace of 1:29/100m, something I’d get nowhere near on a set of 400’s for example. Hopefully it did me some good, I was certainly still feeling strong at the end and was still swimming well
Being “in the moment” is something a lot of podcasts are preaching, and I think there is something to it esp skills like swim. This is where moving to 100m sets and shorter has helped out.
I’m looking at the clock, pushing off, getting the first stroke in early, make sure there no over gliding and the pull is ahead of the next catch, feel the water, hit the turn…etc 100m is over before I can start to zone out and I’m checking the clock for my pace and my 5-10s break…and we’re off again!
I find it much more entertaining
Primarily I do my swim before or after commute, it’s less noticeable than leaving the family in the evening.
I think this equates to other sports as well. Lots of people on TR see improvement on the low volume 3 rides a week plans but eventually that will plateau. For some that might take a long time and for some shorter but eventually you do need to increase volume to find more.
With swimming being a much more technique based sport I think this would be amplified especially for those of is who are adult onset swimmers. You may well see improvement to a point but there does come a point where you need to be in the water more regularly.
Where these two may differ is that options for riding can include extending ride length to fairly long rides whereas that’s less applicable to swimming as there’s only so long you can spend productively in the water. I think that makes some logical sense?
I may be alone in this, but I love long kick sets, 400+ with or without fins in a workout that might be 3000-3500 LCm, for three reasons: I think they help with body alignment and core strength, and they help clear the junk from my legs from runs and bike rides. I do one or two long kick sets a week when I’m training for triathlons, and fully acknowledge that I don’t kick much when swimming my full stroke. So for me, it’s not about building strength for that part of my stroke, it’s about core work, keeping my body high, and clearing my legs. YMMV.
You think those big breaks are really helping? I’m trying not to get into the science of it and just do it, but I’m naturally curious. I think I heard the short 5-10s breaks were to stop the heart rate dropping then raising when I first read into it.
I might be able to keep up in the 25s and 50s with the longer rests but those 100s are out of my reach.
short breaks mean you’ve got to keep going at more or less threshold pace. Bigger breaks mean you can go faster than threshold, and bigger breaks mean you are really getting in to VO2 max range. IF for most of my swims are > 1, but are relatively short.
Yes, with skilled activity once your form goes you’re just not training anything useful and you’re repeating poor form. With cycling at least it’s the same movement and muscle set, even then it’s a diminishing return.
If I could do it logistically, 5x 30mins Swim per week would be better at the beginning of a training season than 2x 1h15.
On your earlier point I certainly agree that habit forming starts around three times per week. But for a triathlete, I don’t think it’s quite the same because that’s saying you’re not in the habit until your 9 sessions a week (3x3).
I don’t think I mentioned before, but I will just start cramping if I run or bike significantly the same day as a swim. Another reason I “save” my kicking for sprint sets, and favour the PB.
I’m not sure I’d class 15-20 seconds as a long break. Certainly longer than touch and go but I can assure you my HR didn’t come down too much
Rest intervals for bike/run VO2 max stuff is often based around a 1:1 rest interval and I imagine this may be applicable to swimming too. I don’t know enough about high level swim training to offer any real informed opinion but I would think there would be similarities in terms of aiming for pretty much full recovery for short intervals nearing max pace?
Are you swimming after the run/bike or before? I used to have serious cramping issues when I swam as the second workout of the day. Resolved this season when I swam in the morning and saved the run (usually) for the evening. I found I was able to train best for all three disciplines with the below week, agnostic of actual days:
Swim - Run
Bike
Swim - Run
Bike
Swim - Run
Long Bike - Run (Brick)
Off
Simply following that led to fewer missed workouts, less cramping, zero injuries, for this season, and my swims really improved throughout the season because I was always going into those sessions fresh first thing in the morning. An added benefit was the fact that we never run fresh, so I always had some residual fatigue for my afternoon run. Caveat: I come from a running background…
Tower26 on Drills starts just after he’s said “don’t do them” at the very end of the previous clip
At 4:00 he talks about volume/frequency too, in fact the whole clip, and the whole playlist is good although it’s aimed below the level of some of the swimmers on this thread.
I’m late to the party but here are my 5 cents FWIW.
I have subscribed to the swim philosophy of Matt Dixon (after reading Well built triathlete), which is in essence the same as Tower26. Build technique/form by swimming with the right toys (pull buoy, ankle band, snorkel, tempo trainer in various combinations). Kick out the drills except for very specific reasons.
I wanted to stay with this philosophy so I only take the main set of the TR workout that is prescribed and build my own stuff around it for same distance. E.g. for a main threshold set of 900m 150m repeats I do warm-up, form (e.g. alignment with pull/ankle strap/snorkel) or cadence (tempo trainer) work, then do the threshold set and warm down with form work again.
Concerning USRT, I listened to the episode. Some good some bad points IMHO. The idea resonates with me, relating to TR workouts like Baird or Bluebell. You keep HR relatively low and accumulate a lot of time at high effort. In fact if you look at plans provided by Fast Track Triathlete book, for the whole pre-season one key workout each week is short intervals, accumulating a high number of 50s or 25s.
More recently I started listening to the T26 podcast, which I think is pretty solid and would recommend if you don’t know it yet
On a side note, the more I swim the more I like it…
It’s a good book that one. I bought an ankle band after reading it - love the feedback you get… if you’ve got any dead-spots in your stroke you’re dead!
I was definitely guilty in the past of doing too much drill work… I’m reducing it to mainly only doing a couple of drills - just the ones that help with the catch/pull technique changes I’m trying to make.
I’d love to add another swim a week, but the only way I could realistically do it would be to do it in place of a TR workout… that’s not going to happen as I think the most time gains I can make will be on the bike.
The recent episode with Cameron Wurf was really good - jeez, the stuff he’s achieved is pretty impressive! Awesome he gets to do some of his bike training with Froomey & G. Wise words about what he said he learned from them regarding intensity control… “when they’re on they’re really on, when they’re off they’re off”.
Ditto. During the fall I made the commitment (to myself) to try and swim 4/week when I could. Now I actually miss that 4th swim if I don’t get it in!
From what I’ve read in this thread and others, you’re marginally faster than I am. I found that (for me), going from 3 to 4/week really made a difference. I think it’s different for different people though because my husband can swim 1/week or not at all and slide back in no problem. I’m inexperienced enough that I need to keep the feeling of being in the water pretty fresh. I had a few weeks off/minimal swimming in December and the first couple of weeks back in January were a slog!
