Swimming Workouts for Swimmers - Week 1

The Swim Workouts for Week 1

From Mat Luebbers, former About.com Guide

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Updated December 21, 2011

A series of swimming workouts for swimmers to help increase overall fitness, become a faster swimmer, or just to give a swimmer new swimming workouts for their next trip to the swimming pool for swim practice. This series of basic swimming workouts has four swim workouts each week, and each workout has:

a warm-up
drilling (swimming technique work)
kicking (just using your legs, either with or without a kick board)
pulling (just using your arms, normally using a pull-buoy)
a main set
a loosen or cool-down

The swim workouts are designed to take between 75-minutes and 90-minutes. If that is too much time or distance, then cut things out, but do not always cut out the same thing every workout. And never skip the loosen at the end of the workout; use that as one last bit of technique workout before you leave the swimming pool at the end of the workout.

There is nothing special about these swim practice sessions, other than what you bring to them. Lots of freedom here. You control how hard or fast you swim and what swim strokes you want to use while swimming the workouts. Normally the amount of rest per swim will limit your top-end speed on a workout, but that does not mean go as fast as you can all of the time. A few guidelines:

The more rest you get, the faster the swim.
The early parts of a workout should always be easy to moderate and very deliberate. Use your best technique.
Stop the workout if you are too tired, go for it again in the future.
You get to be a better swimmer by recovering from the workouts you do, not by doing more and more swimming without resting and recovering from that swimming.
Have fun with these swimming workouts.
Change the strokes you are doing from time to time, try new things, and don't get caught in a rut.

After the description of the set there is a number in a half-parentheses, like this - (:30 - that is how much rest you get after each swim. For example, 6 x 100 (:30 means you are to swim a 100 (yards or meters), rest 30-seconds, then repeat five more times for a total of 6 x 100 swims.

Swimming Workout #1

1 x 400 (:30 Think smooth, include technique work
1 x 200 (:30 Kick mix easy and fast efforts
1 x 200 (:30 Pull Second half faster than first half
1 x 400 (:30 Think smooth, steady, body position
1 x 200 (:30 Kick mix easy and fast efforts
1 x 200 (:30 Pull Second half faster than first half
1 x 50 (1:00 very easy technique work
4 x 25 (:45 FAST!
1 x 50 (1:00 very easy technique work
1 x 200 (:45 Do as 50 fast + 150 moderate
1 x 200 (:45 Do as 50 moderate + 50 fast + 100 moderate
1 x 200 (:45 Do as 100 moderate + 50 fast + 50 moderate
1 x 200 (:45 Do as 150 moderate + 50 fast
1 x 50 (1:00 very easy technique work
1 x 200 (:45 Do as 50 fast + 150 moderate
1 x 200 (:45 Do as 50 moderate + 50 fast + 100 moderate
1 x 200 (:45 Do as 100 moderate + 50 fast + 50 moderate
1 x 200 (:45 Do as 150 moderate + 50 fast
1 x 100 very easy technique work
3,500 Meters

Swimming Workout #2

1 x 200 (:15 Swim Count your strokes, aim to take less per length
1 x 200 (:15 Pull Count your strokes, aim to take less per length
1 x 200 (:15 Kick Steady effort
1 x 200 (:15 Swim Count your strokes, aim to take less per length
1 x 200 (:15 Pull Count your strokes, aim to take less per length
1 x 200 (:15 Kick Steady effort
8 x 50 (:15 25 Technique work, 25 Swim
4 x 25 (:45 Think Speed and Power
1 x 25 (:30 Easy
1 x 125 (:20 Moderate
1 x 100 (:40 Faster
1 x 75 (:60 Fastest
1 x 25 (:30 Easy
1 x 125 (:20 Moderate
1 x 100 (:40 Faster
1 x 75 (:60 Fastest
1 x 25 (:30 Easy
1 x 125 (:20 Moderate
1 x 100 (:40 Faster
1 x 75 (:60 Fastest
1 x 25 (:30 Easy
1 x 125 (:20 Moderate
1 x 100 (:40 Faster
1 x 75 (:60 Fastest
1 x 100 Easy
3,100 Meters

Swimming Workout #3

1 x 600 (:30 technique work the first 25 of each 100
1 x 600 (:30 pull, hold an even stroke count
1 x 600 (:30 kick 50 Moderate, 50
4 x 50 (:20 Find a steady pace
1 x 500 (:60 Hold a steady pace
1 x 500 (:45 Hold a steady pace
1 x 500 (:30 Hold a steady pace
1 x 500 (:15 Hold a steady pace
1 x 500 (:60 Hold a steady pace
1 x 100 Very easy technique work
4,500 Meters

Swimming Workout #4

2 x 500 (:60 Mix of swim and technique work
2 x 100 (:10 Pull second faster than first
2 x 100 (:10 Kick second faster than first
1 x 50 (:30 very easy technique work
4 x 25 (:45 Very Fast!
1 x 50 (:30 very easy technique work
4 x 50 (:60 very fast
1 x 100 (:60 very easy technique work
4 x 50 (:60 very fast
1 x 100 (:60 very easy technique work
4 x 50 (:60 very fast
1 x 100 (:60 very easy technique work
4 x 50 (:60 very fast
1 x 100 (:60 very easy technique work
3,200 Meters

Swim On!