How to Set Up a Week of Swim Training Workouts

In general, if I want to swim faster, then I do most of my work swimming. If I workout 5-6 days a week, then I would swim 4-5 days/week and go to the gym once or twice/week, with one of those gym sessions on a no-swim day and one on a day when I swim. Increasing stress each week, then recovering from that stress at some point, is the idea behind all training plans. You can alter stress within a workout by changing:

• the distance of each swim (duration of work)
• the speed of each swim (effort)
• the number of swims (total distance)
• the rest between swims (recovery time)

More on swimming training plans can be found here.

How to arrange the workouts within a week is the tricky part, and that varies for each person's set of individual circumstances.

A rough idea on a week's workouts might be:

1. HARD DAY: Speed - Main set = short repeats with long rest at high speed.
2. DAY OFF
3. HARD DAY: Fast Endurance - Main set = medium repeats with short to medium rest at medium to fast speeds.
4. MODERATE DAY: Endurance - Main set = long repeats with very short rest at medium to slow speeds.
5. EASY DAY: Gym + Technique - Main set = Mix of medium and short repeats focusing on technique.
6. HARD DAY: Fast Endurance - Main set = medium repeats with short rest at medium speed.
7. MODERATE DAY: Gym only.

I would do some kind of technique work during every workout, I would do at least a few (3-4) very fast 25's at each workout, and I would do some short, fast kicking (6-10 x 50's or 25's with 20-30 seconds recovery) at every workout.

Swim On!