Swimmer Success Stories: Mid-Pack To Front-Pack Swimmer

Swimmer Success Stories: Mid-Pack To Front-Pack Swimmer.

If you are a swimmer who can swim a set of 100s at around 1.55/100m pace and are thinking you’ll never get much faster, I have some hope for you.

This was the position one of our athletes found himself in back in late 2020 when we first started working together.

At that time, a 1.45 would be a really strong 100m for Luke, with the average sitting at about 1.55/100m. Sessions were quite short, because swim fitness just wasn’t there.

In those early days, swim pace improved gradually, but not spectacularly.

His swimming really improved when he started coming to our Swim Squad sessions. This was at the end of the 2021 season (November). Monday nights (9-10pm). Luke was pretty consistent, worked hard and times tumbled.

By the end of the 2022 season, Luke was now a 1.30/100m swimmer, with a fast 100m around 1.20.

More recently, partly because he wants to further improve his swim, and partly because he now loves swimming, Luke has been coming to both Monday and Wednesday Swim Squad sessions. Constantly pushing, constantly chasing feet (or swimming extra fast to stay in the front of the lane). And we’re seeing the benefits of this two-a-week hard work strategy right now.

What sort of improvement am I talking about?

A 1.11 for a 100m effort a couple of weeks ago was a little mind blowing (with touch turns, no tumbles).

This athlete is now ripping up the pool!

This Week

In our Swim Squads this week we were swimming ‘Broken 400s’. This was 8 x 50m (with short rest) with the aim of swimming strong and hitting the same pace on each 50m. When we add the times of the 50m efforts together, we want to see a super fast 400m time.

Last night, this swimmer’s 50s were all between 35-37s, which, when added up, gave us 4.50 for a broken 400m.

That’s moving!

Compare that to the 1.55/100m swimmer a few years earlier.

What a journey and what an improvement.

“I know for a fact that swimming is now my favourite discipline. I never in a million years thought I’d say that. Especially as I’ve only been swimming for the last 2 years.”

 So, if the 2020 version of this swimmer sounds like you, don’t lose hope and don’t give up trying to improve.

Improvement – very big improvement – is out there!