WRITE YOUR OWN POOL SWIM SESSION

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It’s January!!! I love swimming in the lead up to Christmas, the pools are always empty. I don’t like swimming in January…but it’s the start of the year and lots of people have over indulged during the festive period and are now ‘back on it’. It is a great time to start the years fitness regime.

So I’m quickly going to look at how to write your own session. A guide to the basics. I write a weekly session for our newsletter and this is a good place to start, as it will give you a few ideas and you can look at the structure of a session. I’ll also give you some ideas below.

You should always tailor a session to your needs but just watch out that you don’t get lazy and repeat yourself too much. This is where a touch of boredom will come into the sessions and you may start to lose motivation.

TAILOR THE SESSION

Simply avoid anything that sets off injury problems, anything that doesn’t work for you, causes pain. Distances should be tailored to your needs. Make sure you also mix distances up a little. Generally, a more intense session should cover less overall distance, a less intense session should cover a greater distance overall. You have any slight injuries or you’re following a hard running session or gym session you can include more leg work or pull out the pull buoy…

The distances of each session and/or intensity may also vary depending on what you’re training for, or towards. If you’re training towards a specific event, you’re training should obviously trail off and lose intensity towards the ‘big event’, with a tapering period directly before the race.

MIX UP YOUR STROKES

The aim of your pool swimming might be to swim front crawl in the open water. Whilst that’s your aim, it’s still really important to mix up your strokes. To work lots of different muscle groups (particularly backstroke). Imagine going to the gym and only ever working your arms and chest. Whilst your arms and chest are nice and strong, your shoulders, back, abs, legs etc and comparatively quite weak. Eventually you’ll start to have problems as your back (for example), can’t take the heavy loads that your chest and arms can. Swimming only front crawl or the vast majority of your sessions front crawl can lead to injury problems.

TIME IN THE WATER

Might be dictated by the public session availability, other people in the lane, work commitments, family commitments… Try and sit down each work, figure out when you can swim and then base the swim session around those factors. You can also look at other types of training and when you may need some recovery time. A less intense pool session could well follow a hard gym session, for example. You may also cover a shorter, sprint set when you only have 45 minutes available in the pool (a lunch time swim or something similar).

SWIM STRUCTURE

WARM UP - always start with a warm up. I like including drills at the start of the warm up, two birds, one stone. You’ll need to increase the intensity towards the end of the warm up, so start with drills and then move on. Idea of the warm up, like any other sport is to warm the muscles and get the body ready for action. This can be done as one long distance, broken up into a ’set’ where you’ll gradually increase the intensity…

MAIN SET - generally the main effort and is the section of the session that covers the most distance. The main set can be broken up into two parts, with a ‘rest’ section in the middle.

REST PERIODS - generally depends on the set your doing and the purpose of the set. If you’re doing ‘quality’ work and hard efforts you may give yourself a bit more rest. If your aim is to produce lactic acid and improve your lactic tolerance, you will give yourself a shorter rest period.

Going off a ‘set-time’ ie. if you swim 100m in a session at around 1 min 40 seconds, you could swim 10 x 100m on 2 minutes, so if you swim a 1.40 you’ll have 20 secs rest before going again, 1.35 you’ll have 25 secs rest and so on. This is a really good habit to get into as you can’t slack off and it’s easier to chart your progress. If you simply give yourself 20 secs rest after each effort, you generally have no idea what time you’ve just swum and you can slack off if you fancy. Swimming off set-times also teaches you how to pace yourself. If you did swim 10 x 100m (and we’ll stick with the previous example) and you swam the first one on 1.20 and had 40 secs rest, by the last one you’ll struggle to make the 2 mins, as you’ve gone out too fast. Far better to consistently swim 1.35-40’s and complete the whole set. It’s really important to get used to using the clock.

LEG KICK - you may not like leg kick or enjoy it as part of a session but it’s an important part of a good swim session. It obviously improves the leg kick, technique and strength/stamina. If used correctly and well timed, a leg kick set can break up your session. Allow you to get some oxygen to the lungs and allow the arms to recover, whilst continuing to work hard. If you really want to work hard and avoid too much socialising (in a group setting), try vertical kick sets.

ISOLATE BODY PARTS - sometimes important to isolate the legs, arms, lungs, core… Include arms only sets and distances, leg kick sets, hypoxic work. These can be done as a separate set or included as part of the main set.

SPRINT SET - generally a anaerobic shorter set of sprints. This will generally come after the main set (as the body and muscles are warm and can take the higher work load on the muscles) but this set could also come before the main set.

COOL DOWN

Stretch it out, work out any lactic acid from the body…you’ll feel better for it in the morning. Again, I like to work in the odd drill. Saves time if you have any time restrictions.

EXAMPLE SESSION

WARM UP - 100 Single arm fc (front crawl), 100 Catch Up fc, 100 back, 50 fc fist (fist is a fc drill).

MAIN SET - 12 x 100 fc as…10 x 100 fc on 1.45, last 2 x 100 back stroke on 2 mins. *mix up your strokes

KICK - 6 x 50 fc leg kick, with float. 20 secs rest *allows upper body rest before sprints

SPRINTS 18 x 25 sprints, 5-6 secs rest after each. First 10 fc, last 8 choice. *Builds lactic acid and speed

100 easy back *mini-cool down

ARMS - 2 x 100 arms only, with pull buoy and hand paddles *isolate body parts/elements

COOL DOWN - 150 easy back/breaststroke

*The above is a fairly straight forward session. Remember to tailor the session. You could for example, tweak the main set rest period and reduce 3 x 100 (so 9 x 100 in total), if the overall distance or the session was too much. Alternatively, you could add and cover 16 x 100…

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS ARTICLE, YOU MAY ALSO FIND OUR ‘IDIOTS GUIDE TO POOL SWIMMING’ USEFUL - CLICK HERE


Engaging your brain whilst swimming

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One of the things I love about swimming is the ‘brain re-set’. It’s allowing your mind to wonder and drift off. It’s very easily done and beneficial in lots of ways. BUT…you shouldn’t be doing this all of the time. If you enjoy a challenging sea swim, like the odd race, want to improve…go faster and further…then you need to learn to engage your brain whilst swimming. Particularly in a race scenario, there shouldn’t be any points where you stop thinking about what you’re doing.

My old swim coaching used to say ‘‘if you want to get good at fighting, get in a fight!’’. If you want to be a swimmer that can adapt to the conditions and swim to a race plan and/or adapt that race plan mid-race, you need to practice engaging with your brain in training. No good trying it in the middle of a race. You also need to be able to think clearly when you start to get tired…which takes practice.

During either a pool or open water swim there will and should be times where you adapt your stroke technique, stroke rate, kick rate, breathing, sighting (when and where you sight), head and leg position, draft someone… This all needs to be practiced fairly regularly.

Technique - if you swim in the open water, swim with hand paddles for swimrun/Otillo events etc you need to think about the chop. Swimming directly into decent sized chop can be tricky, as it can catch the back of your hands and disrupt your rhythm and stroke. You should practice swimming with straighter arms and giving your hands increased clearance of the water. This also goes for your breathing and which side to breath on. You always want the chop hitting the back of your head.

Kick - whilst your leg kick is far less important in the open water, it’s still useful. Putting in a little ‘kick’ at the end of a race or to stop someone drafting can be a very useful tool. Conserving your kick rate when you start to get tired can also conserve valuable oxygen. Getting your legs a little higher in the water and promoting a quick flutter kick when you’re swimming with the chop can also be a good tactic. These all require practice and they require some thought whilst you swim.

Breathing - reading the conditions and knowing whlich side to breath to, waiting to be at the peak of the swell rather than the trough before you breath can also be a great tactic…that needs thought.

The difference between an average and good performance and an average and good swimmers very often doesn’t come from all those muscles you’ve been training in the pool and gym!

The ability to look back and evaluate a swim and make adjustments before the next is also a key factor in improving performance.

Summer Swim Project 2022

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At the start of 2022 we took a number of applications from swimmers looking to start swimming front crawl ie. they had no previous experience of front crawl swimming. We ended up selecting 2 swimmers. Both female, aged between 30-40 years. Over a series of 6 sessions head coach Tom went through a number of different sessions, teaching different elements of the stroke, setting ‘homework’ and supervising a couple of mid-distance swims. We then charted the swimmers progress over the summer.

The aim of the documentary is to highlight how much progress can be made with swimming, particularly in the sea (with the additional buoyancy), over a relatively short space of time.

The sessions (roughly), started with breathing, going onto look at body position and leg kick, then arm pull and catch and some time and sessions to then put it all together…

Rotator Cuff and swimming

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Due to the low impact involved with swimming, provided you have reasonable technique, swimming should be an activity that you can do into your old age. There are very few issues that could prevent longevity in the sport.

That said you still need to be proactive and take some preventative measures to ensure you can keep going. One of the issues that might prevent you from swimming into your later years is the dreaded rotator cuff injury.

The rotator cuff is a group of muscles and tendons surrounding the shoulder joint. There are many reasons why you might develop a problem with your rotator cuff. Best practice is to keep the area nice and strong and be a little pro-active. Adding a stretches and exercises into your weekly training program could be a great start.

*As with all exercises, they may not suit absolutely everyone. If you experience pain with a certain exercise, stop immediately and speak to a professional.

We’ve added a few below.

The first 2 minutes of the video work on an already sore shoulder. From 2 minutes onwards we’re into the rotator cuff specific exercises and strengthening.

Open Water Front Crawl Breathing

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A high percentage of people I’ve coached over the years, that are typically learning front crawl (freestyle) or have learnt to swim front crawl recent to their coaching session, struggle with the breathing aspect of the stroke. One of the major barriers to swimmers progressing is a poor breathing technique and a lack of confidence when it comes to breathing.

So… the best way to typically improve a certain aspect of your stroke is to isolate that part of the stroke and carry out drills on that specific aspect without having to worry about the rest of your stroke. For example, if you want to work on your leg kick, you’d perform leg kick drills and ditch the arms. You’d use a kick float for example. This way your sole attention is on the aspect of the stroke that you’re trying to improve.

Breathing is no different. What I typically suggest is that you work on your breathing in the safest environment possible. This would be the bath tub. If you don’t have a bath, possibly a large bucket outside, on a table. The bath provides you with a safe, warm and calm environment. If you breath in some water, you simply have to lift your head and you’re sat in the bath!

STEP 1 : Start by kneeling in the bath and simply learning forward and putting your face in. When breathing during front crawl you’re not looking to fill your lungs with as much air as possible. Breathing is the slowest and least streamlined part of the stroke. You want your face out (well half out) and your breath to be as quick as possible. Also, if you open your mouth nice and wide and take a massive gulp of air, you’re more likely to get slapped in the mouth with some chop/small wave. So it’s a short sharp breath in and then a short sharp breath out, once your face is in the water. Should take under a second to breath in and marginally longer to breath out. You obviously breath out whilst your face is in the water. You should do so through your mouth and nose. If you don’t breath out through your nose, you tend to get water going up it. You’d want to repeatedly breath in and out in this manner for up to a minute or two at a time. Try this a few times, possibly on different occasions, until you’re confident and/or bored to the back teeth of doing it.

STEP 2 : You could then progress into the open water. Stand at around chest depth or slightly under and lean forward and carry out the same exercise. Again, 1-2 minutes at a time.

STEP 3 : Once you’re confident with your breathing you simply (hummmm), marry up your stroke with your breathing.

POTENTIAL ISSUES : the odd person has real issues with breathing out through their nose. If you have a persistent problem and find water going up your nose, it might be worth thinking about a nose clip. When you first start practicing front crawl, if you can only breath to one side ensure that any chop is hitting you on the back of the head and you’re not breathing directly in the direction of choppy water.

Another issue or problem you might encounter might simply come from you being too eager to start swimming. Always acclimatise and make sure you’re comfortable before starting your stroke. If you simply get in and start trying to swim or try the breathing stroke drills, you may gasp for air as you’re simply not used to the water temperature. Always take your time.

Just remember that the human brain can only really focus on one task at a time. We can multi-task but that’s simply the brain flicking from one activity to another very quickly. This is why it’s important to work on the breathing in isolation and get to a point where you don’t have to think about it. From there, you can then pay attention to the aspects of your stroke that you need to. Not worrying about the breathing aspect should also make you more confident when first starting out.