Do you ever get to the pool and wonder what swim session to do? Or perhaps the sessions that you tend to do regularly are getting a bit stale?
I feel your pain!
To give you a little inspiration, I am going to post a new swim session each week for the next few weeks.
I have ten sessions lined up so far, so these will come out over the next few weeks. The sessions have all been tested out (by me) in the last four weeks and are all 3,000m or less. They can be scaled down for time and ability level too.
Types of Sessions
- Threshold sets
- Changing pace sets
- Building pace sets
- Stroke rate sets
- ‘Fast Start Into Threshold’ sets
- Reducing rest sets.
Here is the first one of these sessions.
Session 1: Reducing Rest 100s
This is a reducing rest set. You are aiming to swim at the same pace, despite the rest time reducing after each interval. You can do a short warm up or go straight into the set. I went straight into the session – so that’s how it’s written below. The rest intervals at the beginning are quite generous, so you can try and hold a strong pace through the set.
These are my interval times – you may need to adjust the times to suit your own swim pace.
Set 1 – 16 x 100m
1 – 8 off 2′ / 1.55 / 1.50 / 1.45 / 1.40 / 1.35 / 1.30
(short rest before starting the next 8 x 100m)
9 – 16 off 2′ / 1.55 / 1.50 / 1.45 / 1.40 / 1.35 / 1.30
These are my interval times – you may need to adjust the times to suit your own swim pace. To give you an idea, you are aiming to have the following rest between 100s …
40s / 35s / 30s / 25s / 20s / 15s / 10s
As you get more comfortable with this session, you can try and hold an even stronger pace throughout. I was holding 1.20s – so around threshold / CSS type pace.
Set 2 – 8 x 100m
8 x 100m off 2′ / 1.55 / 150 / 1.45 / 1.50 / 1.55 / 2′
This was similar to the set above, but was the rest intervals were more generous due to fatigue creeping in! Try and swim at the same pace as you did in Set 1.
That’s 2,400m of pretty solid work. You could finish with an easy swim down, or crack on with something else if feeling good!
Scaling
To scale this session, you could do sets of 5 x 100m – reducing rest by 5s on each 100m. You could also do 75s or even 50s instead of 100s. Or you could just do the first set once through.
Or, if you want to make it more difficult, do sets of 10 x 100m where you swim strong and reduce the rest every 2 x 100m. So you would start off at 30s rest.
2 x 100m @ 30s rest
2 x 100m @ 25s rest
2 x 100m @ 20s rest
2 x 100m @ 15s rest
2 x 100m @ 10s rest
You could do sets of 15 x 100m with reducing rest every 3 x 100m, or 20 x 100m reducing rest every 4 x 100m.
Lots of possibilities!
Why I Like This Session
I really like this session. It teaches patience. You are trying to hold the same time on each 100m – so you don’t want to go out too fast on the first one! It also teaches you to be strong towards the end of the set, when fatigue sets in and rest gets tight.
I also think you are able to swim at a higher pace throughout the set – rather than if you had (say) 15s rest for all 8 x 100m.
What do you think? Do you like the look of this one?
If you try it out, let me know what you think?
