Swim Training: Four Short Swim Sets

“I love your emails…they are great and I love the telling of other swimmers stories….BUT….I always get disheartened when I read some of your training sets. I mean 800m warm up? Then main set…!”

I had a message recently from a developing swimmer, talking about how she aspires to be one of the swimmers who can do some of the swim sets we’ve been posting recently.

However, those sets seem so far away right now.

“I just want to be ‘that’ person doing those sets you write about & I see no way of it happening.”

If you find yourself in a similar situation to this swimmer, here are some shorter sets that I use with some of the developing swimmers I coach.

If you would like some more, or some help to progress from these types of sessions to the longer ones I often publish, get in touch!

One – Technique Focus – 1200m

This session is all about improving body position and posture in the water.

4 x 50m easy and relaxed. Not trying to break records here – find your rhythm and your breathing. (20s rest between each 50m).

Main Set – Thinking About Posture & ‘Swimming Tall’

8 x 25m – push off the wall in a streamlined position (arms stretched out in front) and start kicking (no arms). Do this for about the first third of the length and then swim full stroke for the rest of the length trying to hold the same posture as you did for the kick. (20s rest)

4 x 50m smooth and relaxed swimming – thinking about holding good posture in the water. (30s rest)

8 x 25m – full stroke swimming but being very aware of your legs. Keep them straight (no knee bending), all power coming from the hip and not the knee. (20s rest)

4 x 50m smooth and relaxed. (30s rest)

8 x 25m – full stroke but this time being aware of your toes – you want to point them as much as possible (within reason!). (20s rest)

Two – Smooth Into Strong – 800m

(Broken 200s)

1 x 200m

2 x 100m

4 x 50m

8 x 25m

The idea with this type of session is to start smooth and relaxed on the first 200m, increase pace slightly on the 2 x 100m, start pushing the pace on the 4 x 50m and then swim strong on the 8 x 25m.

You can increase the session length by adding a warm up and cool down.

Three – Pushing Pace – 1200m

This session is about pushing the pace over 400m.

4 x 50m (20s rest) warm up, thinking about good posture, swimming smooth.

Then, 8 x 50m (20s rest) swimming at the best pace you can maintain for all 8. You are trying to swim each 50m at the same pace – so try and avoid the temptation to blast off at the beginning!

We are then doing another ‘broken 400m’ but this time, 25m at a time. 16 x 25m (15s rest) at the best pace you can maintain for all 16.

If you have energy, a short recovery set / cool down – 8 x 25m (15s) swimming long and smooth.

Four – Endurance Focus – 900m

A simple pyramid session.

Starting with 25m, and then adding 25m on each rep, until 150m, and then taking 25m off each rep until you are back down to a single 25m.

This type of session is good because a) there is no pressure on pace and b) because you focus on technique – and holding technique – throughout.

Keep the rest intervals quite tight. I would start at 15s rest after the 25m and then add 5s per 25m. So 15s for 25m, 20s for 50m, 25s for 75m, 30s for 100m etc.

25m / 50m / 75m / 100m / 125m / 150m / 125m / 100m / 75m / 50m / 25m

Four sessions between 800m and 1200m in distance. Different types of sessions too. Hopefully, that gives our developing swimmers some structure and focus for their swims, so they don’t end up swimming aimlessly or just trying to cover a certain number of lengths.

Swim Training: Four Short Swim Sets