Idiots Guide to swim training in the pool

I hear the following statement all the time and it really frustrates me : ‘‘pool training is so boring”. Having grown up training in the pool and found open water swimming a little later, I love both. Typically when I hear the above statement my automated response (as I hear this a lot) is to ask how the person trains in the pool. Nearly 100% of the people I ask tell me that they jump in, swim 80 lengths (a set number of length depending on the individual) and get out. My second automated response is to say “no wonder you’re bored!” and/or find swimming in the pool boring! Following a black line for 30-40 minutes straight would be mind numbing. It’s like finding a dull, featureless and very long road and running 10 miles on it frequently…rather than finding new and exciting routes, or running cross-country. What needs to happen here, is that you need to mix up your training.

Even if you’re only interested in open water swimming, the pool can’t be ignored and definitely shouldn’t. Benefits of pool swimming include :

• CONSISTENCY : regardless of the weather, swimming conditions, pollution levels (factors that might prevent you from swimming open water), you can keep up your swimming fitness. This includes the cold. Whilst you may enjoy cold water swimming, the limit it puts on the distance you swim (particularly mid-winter) has an impact on your fitness and overall swimming technique and performance.

• INTENSITY : doesn’t matter how hard you try, it’s difficult to replicate the intensity you experience in the pool…completing a structured session (not simply swimming your 80 lengths!). Quite often people swim a comfortable distance at a comfortable pace when in the open water. It’s then difficult to swim anything but.

• TECHNIQUE : external factors like chop, the cold, additional buoyancy etc can make swimming drills quite tricky.

• BUOYANCY : (if) you wear a wetsuit or swim in the sea you’ll have additional buoyancy. This obviously makes it easier to swim as you don’t support your weight in the water. This can affect your body position, engagement with your core stability, leg kick…lots of factors. Long-term it can make you a lazy swimmer.

• SWIMMING : My partner goes crazy about this next point. Swimming isn’t just front crawl…or for some of you - breaststroke. There are 4 strokes…often the open water doesn’t cater for 2-3 of them.

• RSI : If swimming is your only form of physical exercise, or at least the main one…and you only ever swim one stroke you can over use….and then under-use (as a consequence) various muscles in your body and cause yourself an injury in the long-term.

In regards to speed and improving your pace over distance, this is how pool swim sessions work : let’s say that you generally and regularly swim 1km. You swim that km at a ‘comfortable pace’ and generally finish the swim in 20 minutes. So that’s 2 minutes per 100m. You can break this up in the pool and swim 10 x 100m (total of 1km) on a ‘set time’ that allows around 20 seconds rest…so 2.10, maybe 2.15 (so every 2 minutes 10 seconds that goes by on the clock, you start a new 100m). Now, you should be swimming each 100 on say 1 minute 50 seconds, getting around 15-20 seconds rest. In this scenario, over time you start getting used to swimming at a 1 min 50 second pace. Your body gets used to it. You can then transfer this into the open water. Whilst you don’t have those same rest gaps in the open water (like you do in the pool), you should still be able to hold say….a 1 minute 55 second pace, thus improving your ‘comfortable pace’ and bringing that 1km time down to 19 minutes and 10 seconds. Over time you may also start to reduce your ‘set time’ and work on pushing out quicker 100s. This way of training is also fantastic at teaching you how to pace yourself. There’s no point in starting the 100s swimming a 1 minute 40 second 100m, as you won’t make the latter 100 times (the ‘set time’) and fail to finish the 10 x 100s. This all leads me onto another advantage of pool swimming. Using the clock! The biggest rivalry I’ve ever had in swimming has been against this old foe (and friend!). When you use the clock during sessions there’s no hiding. It is always the clearest indicator of improvement and effort. If you don’t already swim against the clock, it’s well worth starting up a relationship asap.

HOW TO CHANGE UP YOUR POOL SWIMMING

Firstly, structure a session. Don’t simply swim your standard number of length. This sounds complicated but it really isn’t. You could simply divide you session up. Let’s take the 80 length swimmer. So…80 lengths is around 2000m / 2km or 40 lengths is 1000m / 1km - we’ll look at both.

So we’d start with a warm up. Idea being to warm the body and muscles up and get ready for harder swimming. I also like to add a few drills into the warm up. That way you’re warming up and practising your technique. *f/c is front crawl / you can find the drills below on youtube.

WARM UP :

2km swimmers : 100m f/c fist, 100 f/c catch up, 100 back, 100 f/c @ 80% (1 min rest before main set)

1km swimmers : 50m f/c fist, 50 f/c catch up, 50 back, 50 f/c @ 80% (1 min rest before main set)

Main set would be the main body of work, distance and effort during the session. The bulk of the session is typically front crawl but it’s also important to mix your strokes up.

MAIN SET :

2km swimmers : 4 x 200m as 150 f/c @ around 75% effort, with the last 50 choice of stroke @ 75%. 30 secs rest

1km swimmers : 6 x 75m as 50 f/c @ around 75% effort, with the last 25 choice of stroke @ 75%. 20 secs rest

(1 mins rest before kick session)

KICK : we’ll now do a leg kick session, with a kick board (kick float). This allows the upper body a rest, whilst still working the lungs, core and legs.

2km swimmers : 12 x 25m kick. First 6 f/c kick with board, last 6 back without board. 10 secs rest intervals

1km swimmers : 6 x 25m kick. First 3 f/c kick with board, last 3 back without board. 10 secs rest intervals

Sprints are your chance to increase the intensity and work on your speed. It’s less about endurance and technique and more about swimming faster, building lactic tolerance and putting your muscles and lungs under pressure.

SPRINTS :

2km swimmers : 6 x 50 alternating f/c and choice @ 90%. Going off a ‘set-time’ that should allow you between 30-40 secs rest between each

1km swimmers : 8 x 25 alternating f/c and choice @ 90%. Going off a ‘set-time’ that should allow you between 20-30 secs rest between each

The swim down allows you to stretch out and work out any lactic acid in the body, flood your system with a bit of oxygen.

SWIM DOWN :

2km swimmers : 100 f/c catch up, 100 single arm f/c

1km swimmers : 50 f/c catch up, 50 easy back

ARTICLE CONT…

I’ll also simply add that sessions are always more enjoyable when you swim with people, particularly people of roughly the same speed and ability and that short breaks in your session always make the session more socially enjoyable.
Best of luck swimming in the pool! If you want some session ideas sign up to our free newsletter. Simply wait for the pop-up sign up form to appear.

SUMMER SEASON TRAINING GOALS / OBJECTIVES

Now that the ‘new year’s resolution’ crowd is starting to thin out a bit and hopefully the lanes are less crowded, I thought I’d write a little piece on your current training (probably mainly pool based). At this stage of the year you should be looking at the summer season and figuring out exactly what you’d like to achieve, setting goals and basing your training around those objectives.

I’ll mention the usual bits about setting realistic goals…but what I would like to focus on is making sure that all of your training has a point. It’s far too easy to get into the pool and simply swim up and down, or blindly follow someone else’s training programmes that aren’t necessarily designed to suit your needs. You also need to do is listen to your body. If you’ve hammered out a leg session in the gym or been on a hard run, doing a leg session/set in the pool the very next day probably isn’t advisable. So try and be flexible. I obviously write my weekly session (through the newsletter) but I find it incredibly difficult because I’m writing a session that isn’t specifically designed for an individual. As such, I generally write a session that has bits of everything and try my best to mix up the objective of each session. These sessions are perfect for general swimming fitness but might not suit you…if you’re training specifically for a sprint event or marathon swim. I also regularly mention the fact that my session should be adapted and altered to suit you, your fitness levels, ability and needs. Hopefully when completing these sessions or reading them you look at the structure and sets and start to get a better idea of how to write your own sessions and create your own imaginative sets.

GOALS : Look at your seasons goals and figure out what you need to achieve through your training. If you’re training for an Otillo get the hand paddles out and regularly use them in the pool (along with a appropriate weights programme), on occasion swim more than once a day… If you’re signed up for a few open water events and want to do well, keep in mind that a lot of your open water training will be lower intensity open water swims (during the summer) so make sure you still swim in the pool and hammer out some shorter, high intensity sets and swims. Most swimmer don’t get a lot of drill work done in open water, so if there’s a flaw you need to work on do it in the pool now….

SESSIONS : Like I’ve already mentioned, start to write your own sessions designed for you. Your sessions should follow a basic structure ie.

WARM UP – MAIN SET – KICK/TECHNIQUE – SPRINT WORK – KICK/TECHNIQUE – SWIM DOWN

…but you can throw in a second main set, extra this-and-that. You may need to change up the session if you swim in public session and it’s busy. Always have a Plan B. Keep this in mind.

Don’t simply turn up to the pool and swim “whatever”. Every session should serve a purpose and have an objective. Put some thought into your session.

BOREDOM : My business partner Jo used to hate pool training. Said it was boring. When we started up our training squad and following structured sessions, within 2 weeks he was loving swimming in the pool. If you get really bored in the pool you’re simply not training correctly!

COMPANY – swim with friends, meet people of a similar ability/speed, join a masters group…swimming by yourself can get boring, there’s no competitive element to the training, no social factor. If you’re swimming at a different speed to friends simply handicap the training. Get the ‘fast one’ to wear drag shorts/pair of old shorts (slow them down), or get them to breath every 5 during the session. If you use your imagination, it can be done.  

USE THE CLOCK! – always use the clock when swimming in the pool. Use it for rest periods and take your times. You can even use if to take your pulse (6 secs x 10). Nothing better to get you moving, control your rest periods, make training more of a challenge and chart your progress.

TRAINING AIDS : Use them. Some are great for correcting technique (check out Finis products), some are great for getting you to work harder and longer, some are great for keeping you going when you’re exhausted. Add these aids into a session when you look to write one.

FEAR : There’s no better motivator than fear…as I discovered training for a 40km Otillo a few years ago, my first endurance event, at the age of 36. I’ve never completed as many sessions or trained as hard as I did for that event. Go Big! Enter an event you know will really push the boundaries and slightly scares you.

For all the pool haters out there this is one of the main reasons it’s good to stay in the pool, use the clock and break down the session into sets – even for a limited time whilst you swim the summer season in open water. Let’s say you swim 1km in open water at a 2 minutes per 100m pace…so 20 minutes to complete the 1000m. 2 minutes being your comfortable, go-to pace. Most of the time whilst swimming in open water you’ll use that pace (lower intensity-distance pace). Working reasonably hard, whilst still being comfortable. You’ll swim that pace all summer season long. The problem is that eventually that’s the only pace you can swim. You get fitter but not faster. You get to a race and when you try and shift through the gears and speed up, your body isn’t used to it and you’ll eventually drop back to the safety of the ‘go-to’ speed. Now let’s say all winter you’ve been swimming 10 x 100m (so 1km) going off 2.10, aiming to come in on 1.45-1.50 with around 20 secs rest. Over the winter your body will get used to swimming at this pace. So when it comes to the summer, whilst you’ll struggle to swim at 1.45-50 pace (without that 20 second rest interval) you should still be able to comfortably hold a 1.53-1.55 pace. Thus getting faster and improving your general distance speed, as well as fitness. Plus, if you do a few of those 100s (towards the end of the set) at a faster pace, your body is also used to speeding up and if you need to ‘kick’ at the end of a race, you have the training under your belt to do so.

Also, worth pointing out that you should regularly change up the rest intervals and the times for set distances that you ‘go-off’. In the example above, if you start to get comfortable with swimming the 100s off of 2.10 either increase the number of hundreds (ie. 12 x 100) or reduce the time (ie. swimming off 2.05), or eventually both (ie. 12 x 100 off of 2.05).

Lane Etiquette

As swimming gains in popularity and as it’s January and any kind of training facility is fit to burst after Christmas, I thought’s I’d do a little piece on the rules of the road.

 I regularly swim in public sessions and as a former County swimmer and reasonably fit guy, I’m still fairly quick and find myself having to (very carefully) swim around people in the lane. This said I rarely have any issues in public sessions. When I do it always seems to be with men in the 40s. A couple of years ago I gave a guy in this age group a good half length head start and proceeded to swim backstroke up the lane, catching him at the flags and head butting him up the backside. A few lengths later he started an argument with me which ended up with him threatening to fight me outside. “For your sake I hope you fight better than you swim” was my  response. So First up…

1.         Leave your ego at home. It doesn’t matter that you’ve swam in the fast lane for “20 years”. Pick the lane that suits your speed. If you’re being lapped on the regular basis move down a lane. If you’re constantly catching people up go into the fast lane.

2.         Swim the right way around the lane. If you don’t there’s a good chance you’ll smack someone on the hand.

3.         COMMUNICATION. I had a great session sharing a lane with a lady in her 60s a few weeks ago. I simply told her to keep swimming and I’d give her a little tap on the toes when I was overtaking. Problem solved.

4.         Look at the timetable. I’m self employed and it’s quite easy for me but I know the pool will be really busy at lunchtime and it’s a waste of my time. There are sessions during the week at 3pm during the school run that are completely dead. That’s where you’ll see me churning out the lengths!

5.         Common Sense. As previously stated, if you’re too fast/slow move lanes. If someone is catching you up don’t hit the wall and push off in front of them….stop at the wall and let them overtake. If you’re resting at the shallow end move to the side so people can continue to turn…

Those are my top 5. I think it all really comes down to manners and common sense. Everyone pays the same entry fee and no one has more of a right to a lane than anyone else. Like I said before don’t be afraid to have a chat with the rest of the lane when you get in.

Happy Swimming.