Swimming is one of the areas people have the most concern
and least amount of confidenece in. This is because it is not something
you did or do everyday, are is a popular exercise, such as riding a
bike, walking or running, sports you particiapated in or did growing
up. But don’t get discouraged we all had the same feeling and
started out just like you, we weren’t all born swimmers:-)
Lets get our feet wet, you need to swim 2 - 3 times a week, 30 min
to 1hr per session, your training schedule will guide you through
this. Training will vary using different techniques and drills
incorporating
the different equipment.
There are three basic workouts you should do once a week, depending
on the distance of the race.
• Technique – This workout is designed
to help you understand how to swim efficiently including working
on various aspects of breathing,
stroke, kicking, correct body position and motion through the water.
Incorporating drills such as one arm swimming, breast stroke, catch-ups,
polo swimming, etc. can all help you to improve your swimming technique.
(See coaching for more help)
•
Strength & Speed — Once you understand and feel
confident with your technique, you can add in drills designed to
improve your
strength and speed. These drills will consist of short sprints and
intervals, such as timed 50s, 100s and 150s, that are broken down
into sets such as 10x50 (which means swim a 50m length 10 times).
What is a 50m? Most certified pools are 25 meters in length from
one side to the other. A 50m (or meter) is one lap to the end of
the pool and back. So a
100m is there and back 2 times, etc. (See coaching for more help)
•
Endurance —Endurance swimming can be done a couple different ways. One
option is to swim continuously for a set time period, either in a pool (by
doing continuous laps without stopping) or by doing continuous open water swimming.
The second option is to do ladder drills. For example in a typical ladder drill
you would increase the distance of your lap length incrementally such as 150s,
200s, 300s etc.
Endurance swimming is done at a slower pace (or tempo) to teach your body to
last through the entirety of the workout rather than maintain intensity. Depending
on your goal and race distance, the length and frequency of the endurance workout
will vary.
