Swimming: Holding Form Under Fatigue

One of the ways I like to design a swim session at this stage in the season is to pre-fatigue swimmers before doing a main set. This is usually through lots of distance per stroke (power) work or by doing a set of pullbuoy & paddles (PB&P). I think it’s a really good way to challenge swimmers and ask the question:

Can you hold your technique when your muscles are yelling stop?!

Often, when doing this type of set, swimmers strokes shorten. Stroke count increases. Efficiency disappears. Pace drops.

Doing this strength endurance work creates awareness of this faltering technique – and then requires discipline and focus to hold onto the stroke despite the increasing fatigue.

I want to share a session we did recently. This particular session was a big one (3,900m) – aimed at athletes preparing for their Ironman and Ironman 70.3 swims. And, as we identified above, it was about holding form and pace under increasing fatigue.

Warm Up

4 x 100m smooth and relaxed

4 x 50m focusing on a great push off, streamline, glide and kick off each wall

4 x 50m as 25m smooth, 25m picking up the pace

After the warm up, we split the set into 3 x 1000m blocks.

1st 1,000m

3 x 200m PB&P – keeping the stroke long (particularly at the back – not cutting stroke short) and feeling pressure on the water throughout the stroke.

1 x 400m swim – holding form, maintaining stroke count throughout.

2nd 1,000m

2 x 200m PB&P – same idea as above

6 x 100m at 6/10 – again holding form despite arms feeling quite heavy at this stage, maintaining a fairly strong but sustainable pace.

3rd 1000m

1 x 200m PB&P – same idea as above (increasingly difficult with heavy arms)

16 x 50m – picking up the pace, swimming at a strong 7/10 and keeping power through the pull

Cool Down

4 x 25m easy

There are lots of ways to do this type of ‘Strength Endurance’ work. But the focus – maintaining form under fatigue – should be the same.

Do you like the look of this session? Would you do this session (or a version of it) yourself? If you do, let me know how you got on?

Hold that technique!

Bryan