Threshold 100s – With Reducing Rest

This swim session is one I did recently – and really enjoyed!

Have a look and give it a go.

Straight Into The Session!

When I did this session, I didn’t do an additional warm up. I used the first few 100s as a warm up, swimming slightly slower than the rest of the session. You can do the same – or you can include a warm up (e.g. 200m easy, 4 x 50m building pace) so you start the set feeling ready to go!

Aim of the Session

This session has four blocks of 4 x 100m with reducing rest on each block. These 4 x 100m blocks are split up by 4 x 25m where we recover and reset technique.

This means we can push the 100s, swimming at a strong 7 or 8 out of 10 effort, knowing that we have a recovery coming up shortly!

The Session

No warm up, straight into it.

Main Set

4 x 100m (40s rest)

4 x 25m smooth, with good technique (15s)

4 x 100m (35s rest)

4 x 25m smooth, with good technique (15s)

4 x 100m (30s rest)

4 x 25m smooth, with good technique (15s)

4 x 100m (25s rest)

4 x 25m smooth, with good technique (15s)

Pacing

In this session, we are aiming to swim the 100s all at a similar pace, despite the rest intervals reducing as we progress through the session.

If this is your first time doing this set, aim for a slightly slower pace than you think you can achieve and see how that feels? Then the next time you do the set, you know how it is going to feel and whether you can be bolder and push the pace slightly.

Interval Times or Rest Intervals

When I did this session, I used ‘interval times’ rather than ‘rest intervals’ as highlighted above. So, I started off doing the 100s off 2 minutes, then off 1.55, then off 1.50 and finally 1.45.

You can use tighter rest intervals if you want to – so 30s / 25s / 20s / 15s – to make it a bit more challenging!

I used the slightly longer rest intervals so I could maintain higher paces.

Extending The Session

To make this a longer session, you can include a warm up prior to the set above. Or, you could do what I did and add a short set onto the end of it. In my case, I added some pullbuoy & paddle work to help focus on swim technique.

10 x 50m pullbuoy and paddles – focusing on smooth swimming, feeling the water and moving well with each stroke.

Reducing The Session

If a 2,000m main set sounds a bit much, you can take a block of 4 x 100m out of the session, or even reduce the 100s to 75m or 50m intervals.