THE ANATOMY OF A SWIM WORKOUT

WRITTEN BY CHERILYN SUITER

Published on January 20, 2022

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Sometimes I have a lot of time to think about things when I am swimming. Last night, I was thinking about how many triathletes aren’t swimmers and don’t have the experience of masters swimming. I was also thinking about how many new triathletes probably don’t have a clue on how to structure a swim workout instead of just swimming endless laps.

 

In this article, I hope to show a few of you what it’s like to put together a simple swim workout and make things way less boring and way more interesting. I also want to talk briefly about why I think it’s important to learn how to flip turn.

 

First of all, swimming is not easy for a lot of folks. There’s a lot to concentrate on and all at the same time. The stroke, the kick, arm placement, breathing, body placement, etc. and how do you do ALL of those at the same time? The answer is you don’t. At least when you are first starting out. You want to isolate parts of swimming into manageable drills and then incorporate those drills into your swim workouts.

 

I spent many years in a masters swim environment learning all 4 strokes and competing in all of them in my previous life. There is a lot of information out there on how to put together a workout and I am not claiming to be the expert, because at the end of the day, I was a triathlete who did masters swimming on the side. The opinions expressed here are mine and if you don’t like them, that’s perfectly ok – there’s an entire Internet out there just waiting for you and tons of qualified individuals, coaches, professionals, etc. to guide you.

 

I like to break my swim sessions up into 5 parts: Warm up, drills, main set, additional set, and cool down. Not every swim workout is structured this way, but for the most part, this is how I do it.

 

THE WARM UP

The warm up should complement the amount of yards that you would like to accomplish in this individual session. For example, my default is 200 yards for about a 1200-1800 yard session. I consider the drills portion part of my warm up as well so all-in-all, I like to see about 200-400 yards of warm up (including drills) total for this distance. Shorter distances of about 400-1200 yards will be shorter and longer distances of 1800+ will be longer.

 

THE DRILL SET

The drill portion of the warm up should incorporate any drill that is appropriate for your skill level and what you are working on at the time. My recommended freestyle drills for beginners include the catch up drill and the single arm freestyle drill. The links to these drills can be found at the bottom of this article. If you need more, Speedo has some great videos on YouTube and of course, there’s a ton more videos out there to choose from. You can incorporate drills into your warm up, or you can make them a part of your main set if you choose.

 

THE MAIN SET

In this portion of your session, you will want to make it about endurance, speed, building a base, or just about anything. Since my article is mostly geared toward the beginner triathlete, I will give you two ideas for pool sessions that help with building a base. The first is to do a swim ladder. These are easy and fun and will help with the boredom. The second is the kick-pull-swim workout. This one is also fun and will break up the monotony of doing straight swim laps. You will need a pull-buoy for this one. I have included a video at the bottom of this article on how to use a pull buoy. Also at the bottom of this article, I have written three pool sessions of varying distances for each of the two types of workouts mentioned above.

 

ADDITIONAL SHORT SET

This is completely optional depending upon how much distance you do in your main set. Sometimes I like to make this a kick set or a straight speed set with short distances and little rest. Examples of a kick set might be 4 x 50 kick with 10 seconds rest in between; or maybe it’s a 2 x 100 kick; a kick set to improve your speed might look like a 10 x 25 kick all out with 5-10 seconds rest between each one.

 

A speed set for a triathlete could look like 4 x 50 sprint with 5-10 seconds rest between each one; or it could be 2 x 100 with the second 100 faster than the first.

 

COOL DOWN

This is pretty basic, you just swim slow to get your heart rate back down. I like to do a 200 cool down up to 400 if the session has a lot of speed and is longer. Use the cool down to stretch out your arms.

 

THE FLIP TURN

In my humble opinion, the flip turn is very useful. Yes, I know there are no flip turns in triathlon but here is why I feel that they are useful. If you learn a successful flip turn, there is no stopping at the wall, turning around, and starting again messing with your rhythm. If you can’t swim in open water, at least you can learn a flip turn for fluidity and continuity of your swim session. The flip turn allows you to be able to concentrate on whatever set you are doing without starting and stopping, and starting and stopping all the time. Also, my other opinion about triathlon is that you should swim with swimmers, bike with cyclists and run with runners. That being said, if you decide to join a masters swim team, you are going to want to learn the flip turn or you’ll be run over AND who knows, you may decide to participate in a few masters swim meets!

 

So if you are lazy like me and want someone else to help you with your swim workouts, please visit my friends at www.triswimcoach.com. They have a triathlete swim training plan that is inexpensive and would definitely be worth checking out.

 

If you liked this article, please share it. You can find me on FB at New to Triathlon & Duathlon where I sometimes post swim workouts. I have a couple of LinkedIn articles and my FB blog is www.facebook.com/mytriathlonjourney2. You can also find my journey on Instagram, dcsuiter. 

 

 

CATCH UP DRILL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNfBRkjCXrg                                                                                

SINGLE ARM FREESTYLE DRILL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMUMs8SrRcY

HOW TO USE A PULL BUOY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T50kaLA0Wo

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DC Suiter Coaching offers triathlon coaching and training specializing in the beginner triathlete. Here's how to find me:

• My website is https://dcsuiter.wixsite.com/tricoach

• My FB triathlon journey is www.facebook.com/mytriathlonjourney2

• My Instagram is www.instagram.com/dcsuiter

• My USA Triathlon Foundation donation page is www.usatriathlon.org/cherilyns

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