‘Best Average’ 100s

Today’s swim session is a real favourite of mine. I use it in my own training, I prescribe it to my 1-1 coached athletes and we often do this (or a variation of it) in our Swim Squads. Best Average 100s

Purpose

The session can be used as a benchmark session, to lay a marker of your current swim speed and ability to hold a strong pace. It is also a great VO2 Max set.

The Session

Before attempting the main set, we need to be well warmed up.

We start the session with an 800m warm up, with the aim of getting us ready to swim fast. This is something you want to do – get nicely warmed up and primed, ready to go!

Warm Up (800m)

200m easy and relaxed

2 x 100m building the pace in each 100m

4 x 50m swimming with a good distance per stroke

8 x 25m with the first half of the length fast and powerful, the second half easy and smooth

After this warm up, heart rates will be up, engines will be revved and swimming will feel fast.

Main Set (1,200m)

This 600m set is to be done twice through, to make a total of 1,200m.

4 x 100m (about 1 minute rest between each)

8 x 25m very easy

The main set is 4 x 100m – where I ask you to swim the best pace you can manage for all four. In other words, swimming at the same pace for all four – but a pace you can just about sustain on number 4.

A 9/10 effort I suppose.

What we don’t want is a really fast first 100m, and then the rest getting progressively slower. We want strong, controlled and fast.

You will be enjoying lots of rest so you can really push.

When we do this in our Swim Squads, our fastest lanes will swam these off 2.30. These swimmers will be doing the 100s in 1.15 – 1.30. For the rest of the Squad, we do these off 3 minutes. In other words, if they swim the 100m in 2 minutes, they will have a minute rest before starting the next one.

We follow up these 4 x 100m with 8 x 25m really easy, resetting the stroke, bringing heart rate down and controlling breathing.

Repeat

We will then repeat the set (4 x 100m & 8 x 25m). This time, we were aiming to maintain the time we achieved on the fourth 100m – and try and hold that for the whole of this set.

Cool Down

We can finish the session with some easy swimming.

Scaling & Customisation

We do a similar session in our Squads with 10 x 100m – but obviously we do not swim quite as fast. The idea is the same though – swim at a pace you can just about hold for all 10.

Depending on the time of the season, we do the session above with much less rest – maybe 20-30 seconds instead.

We’ve also done this set with 75m efforts too.

Why I Like This Session

Apart from the fact it is a chance to swim really fast, I like to use different benchmarks for swimmers and their progress. A 400m time trial is great, as is a 1,000m effort, but swimmers often feel pressure on these types of benchmark sets, sometimes setting off too fast!

Secondly, this set definitely teaches swimmers about control early on, about what fast feels like, about what sort of pace is sustainable (and what is not). Also, that last 25m can teach a swimmer the difference between 9/10 effort and 9/10 pace.

Thirdly, swimmers often surprise themselves with how fast they can swim when they thought they were at their limit. “I can’t hold that pace for the next one”. And guess what? They can!

Swim Session PDF