Swimming: The Power of the Warm Up

Swimming: The Power of the Warm Up

The warm up has a purpose. It is not going through the motions. Sometimes, we want it to be a bit more than 10 minutes of easy swimming and then straight into the main set.

The warm up is where we want to build the stroke, the sensations and the feelings – so the swimmer is primed for the main set. This is how one of our recent Swim Squad sessions was designed. And judging by the feedback from this particular athlete, it worked!

An athlete swam probably his best ever main set of work, and attributes much of that success to the first 30 minutes of the session.

“I’m blaming the recent technique work, but also the warm up to the 100’s set – lengthening the stroke, slowing our breathing (I think this really helped take the ‘panic/rush’ out of the stroke), and the slow but strong 25’s in between the efforts.”

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The Warm Up

We did 1,000m of warm up / stroke work before we got into it. It was broken down like this …

4 x 100m – thinking about posture, swimming tall, riding high in the water.

4 x 75m – thinking about the reach, rotation and a little stroke timing.

4 x 50m – breathing every six strokes, focusing on controlled exhaling through the swim.

4 x 25m – distance per stroke (putting all of the above together)

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The Main Set

Then, a main set where we were looking to build the pace and intensity as the set wore on.

4 x 100m @ 6/10 effort

4 x 25m ‘easy speed’

3 x 100m @ 7/10 effort

4 x 25m ‘easy speed’

2 x 100m @ 8/10 effort

4 x 25m ‘easy speed’

1 x 100m @ 9/10 effort

This athlete executed the set perfectly – strong pace and expert pacing!

“Felt really good tonight. It’s not often I can hold the pace during 100’s, and tonight my pace was improving.”

Here are his 100m splits.

1.44 / 1.46 / 1.46 / 1.46

1.39 / 1.40 / 1.39

1.33 / 1.34

1.31

(For context, his best 100m time is 1.28 – which he’s obviously going to smash in the very near future!)

“Great session. Loved it. I can feel the small adjustments to my catch working too, more distance less effort, or so it seemed! I did 15 strokes to a length tonight. My previous best was 18.”

So much  to love in this session and this feedback!

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Hopefully, this post highlights the benefits of the recent technique work we’ve been doing as well as the importance of using the warm up to prepare swimmers for the main block of work.