Saturday Swim Session: Sprints and other Strokes

These sessions will help develop your speed and feel for the water.

Each Saturday I will post a Swim Session, most weeks I will load three options up for you to do. Option A is for swimmers who are after a workout between 1,000 & 2,000 metres. Option B is for swimmers who are after a workout between 2,000 & 3,000m and Option C will be greater than 3,000m.

Option A

• 400m Warm Up;
• 6x 50m (25m Drill/25m Swim);
• 4x 50m IM 20sec RI;
• 8x 25m F/S on 10sec RI;
• 4x 50m IM 20sec RI;
• 8x 25m F/S on 10sec RI;
• 200m Cool Down (1,700m)

Option B

• 400m Warm Up;
• 8x 50m (25m Drill/25m Swim);
• 8x 50m IM 20sec RI;
• 12x 25m F/S on 10sec RI;
• 8x 50m IM 20sec RI;
• 12x 25m F/S on 10sec RI;
• 200m Cool Down; (2,400m)

Option C

• 1,000m Warm Up;
• 8x 50m (25m Drill/25m Swim);
• 8x 50m IM 20sec RI;
• 12x 25m F/S 10sec RI;
• 8x 50m IM 20sec RI;
• 8x 50m (25m Drill/25m Swim);
• 12x 25m F/S 10sec RI;
• 200m Cool Down (3,400m)

Start the workout with a Warm Up covering of 400m (Option A or B) or 1,000m (Option C). During the warm-up feel free to stop and stretch as needed.  It doesn’t need to be a continuous swim.

Next up do a set of six (Option A) or eight (Option B & C) 50m Drill/Swim, where you do a drill for the first 25m of the repetition and then normal swimming for the next 25m swimming. Feel free to use fins whilst doing the drill/swim set. Here are the drills to do:

• Kick On Side (left side)
• Kick On Side (right side)
• 6/1/6
• 6/3/6

For Option A, do them all then do an extra rep of both the Kick On Side (KOS) drills on each side to make the six reps. For Option, B & C do the four drills twice through. Take a short pause between each repetition of no more than 10-15 seconds. Take the fins off once you’ve done all the reps.

The next set involves swimming an Individual Medley (IM) set. As the distances involved are less than four lengths long, you will swim each competitive swimming stroke for one full length prior to taking a Rest Interval of 20 seconds. The order of swimming is Butterfly (B/F), Back Stroke (Bk), Breast Stoke (Br), and Freestyle (F/S). For Option A, do four reps total (one of each stroke) and for Options, B or C swim eight reps total (twice each for each stroke, but stick to the order – don’t double up with back-to-back reps of the same stroke).

Next up is a sprint set of Freestyle (F/S). Option A involves eight reps, with twelve reps for Options B & C. There are ten seconds of Rest Interval (RI) after each rep.

Next up you repeat the Individual Medley set again, prior to repeating the sprint set for a second time as well.

All three workouts have a 200m cool down. Feel free to pause and stretch when needed and/or include stretching as part of each break until the distance is covered.

If you would like further advice feel free to contact me.

I am the Head Coach & Director of Qwik Kiwi Coaching.

I specialise in assisting first-timers and recreational athletes to achieve their sporting goals. I can be contacted at coachray@coachray.nz and 021 348 729.

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If you enjoyed this workout, I published a similar session 12 months ago.

Saturday Swim Session: 100’s and 50’s

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