Triathlon - Swimming Help

I have been swimming laps for conditioning for years. I began doing triathlons in '05. In late March of this year I bought the Total Immersion triathlon swimming book and freestyle made easy DVD. I stopped swimming and started doing the TI drills. I just did TI drills and tried to change my muscle memory until May. I was pleased with how my swim stroke improved using the TI method. In July I had a lesson with a TI coach. That was a great help. He videotaped me underwater and made suggested some changes. I went back to doing drills drills drills. I now swim 25 yards in 14 - 16 strokes vs. 25+ strokes prior to TI.

Over labor day I did an olympic distance tri. The swim went well. I felt like I could have swam another mile. Finished in 29:20 - about 2 minutes slower than in the pool.

Since I started doing TI I have mainly been doing drills and slow swimming focusing on form or longer endurance swims. I have not done much in the way of intervals or sprints. I have gotten faster using the TI method, but not a ton faster. I see people in the pool swimming faster than me and it doesn't appear that their stroke is any better. I have come to the conclusion (rightly or wrongly) that I need to train at a higher intensity and add intervals and sprints. I also probably need to increase the time of my workouts (which are usually limited due to the rest of my life getting in the way).

What is the best thing to do to add speed at this point? What sort of workouts do you all recommend? I plan on taking more lessons which should help.

First, it is really hard to see if peoples strokes are better or worse than yours, very little of what you do out of the water with your arms translates into how fast you swim. body position/movement, and underwater pull are what make a swimmer faster. Watch swimmers bodies and how their hands/arms travel through the water, straight bodies that rotate with the stroke, and strokes that utilize the entire forearm are best (but TI probably told you about all that).

some swimming advice, to build speed, no drills.

The olympic ditance swim is 1500m. your probably acclimated to the distance so to build up speed do some shorter swims.

Start with something shorter like 8x(4x25), descend each group of 4 to almost a sprint, but try maintain your stroke count (or at least fewer then 2 additional strokes per length) from first 25 to the last 25 try to do the 25's on 10 sec rest

Then change the set to 50's; 4x(4X50) again working on stroke length but descending the 50's within each group. the interval for each group of 4 50's should get faster each round (ie: rnd 1: on 1:00, rnd 2 on :55, rnd 3 on :50, rnd 4 on :45). Again concentrate on stroke count...

Next move on to 75's and then 100's in a similar pattern (if you want to). you can adjust the repretitions but the key is to descend each group while maintaining a lower stroke count.

note: try not to go faster by kicking harder, kicking harder uses a lot of energy which may come in handy later in the triathlon, I mostly used my legs when racing distance to help keep my body straight.

Once speed has been established, then strategy for distance swimming comes into play: Often in distance swimming, the swimmer will "fall asleep" in the middle. Since this is a triathlon, a sprint end probably isnt that common. A few useful sets for getting used the not "falling asleep" are:

8X200 broken up this way: 2 at a little above warm up pace, note your time, try to keep it consistent. The next 4 should be swum at 10-15 seconds faster then the first two. The last 2 are back at the same time as the first 2. Rest should be around 20-30 secs on slower ones, 30-40 on faster ones.

set 2: (3X500) middle 500 is 30 secs faster than the first and third, 30 secs rest in between each 500, if repeating this set (ie: 2X(3X500)) take one minute break between repetitions.

A good interval-type workout that seems to come up a lot in masters swimming is pace times. Give yourself an interval set of, say, 6x100m on 2:00. That mean that every new 100 starts 2:00 after the last one started. The faster you go, the more time you have to rest between sets.

I also endorse descending sets. Doing a long set of intervals where you start at 50-75% effort for the first iteration, and go 95-100% for the last iteration are good. Keep a constant rest time between each set. Keep it long enough that you can go hard on the next set, but short enough that you're teaching your body to recover just a little bit quicker than it wants to.

Finally, mix speedwork into your regular routines. Speedwork is hard on your body. Get a good warmup before speedwork, get a good cool down after speedwork, and don't be afraid to skip speedwork occasionally, giving your body an extra day or two's rest. Remember that rest is one of the most important aspects of training.

Best of luck!

what zaphod said (like the name, the book is amazing) is right on target. swim training is very specific to the goal you are trying to achieve. since you are training to swim 1500m, you want to train with the capability to maintain a constant speed and effort for the whole thing. so in this case, to become faster in a long race, you must practice maintaining a higher intesity (not exactly sprinting) for a longer period of time. some sprinting (and by sprinting i mean swimming as fast as possible for a short period of time) is ok, but its really not the goal here and i really wouldnt dwell or worry about it that much. like zaphod said, the efficiency of your stoke and the way you train will allow you to maintain a higher arm rate (think cadence in cycling) for a longer period of time and thus become faster.

a couple training suggestions: i dont know how often you swim, so make sure you are focusing on a different goal for each individual practice. for example, if you are training 3 days a week, have a moderate practice, followed by a long challenging one, then finish the week with a drill specific/recovery. drills should be done every practice, although more or less time spent on them will depend on that day's goal. i like to (should say liked because i havent swam in about a year) set up practices in this way: warm-up, drills, rev-up (to get your heart rate going), a main set, quick recovery, smaller slightly higher intensity set, followed by a warm down. the main set should focus on longer swims (ie 5 x 400 descending) in order to build your aerobic base. the set following this could be a little higher intensity, but i wouldnt really call it sprinting (maybe 2 x(4 x100) with rest in between each set of 4 with the goal being to hold the fastest time for every 100).

just remember your goal, ultilize, focus, and think about your drills and you should drop a lot of time. good luck.

-jeff

A few thoughts - Wouldn't you expect the time in the pool to be faster due to pushing off the wall every 25 or 50 meters? Also, when you swim 1500 in a pool, you swim 1500. When you swim 1500 in open water I would think the actual distance is likely to be somewhat greater. I swim in a masters program and would reccommend that if it's possible where you live. That could give you the kind of training you're looking for.

Thanks for the responses everyone.

This past weekend I did the MS150 in Columbia Missouri. One of the rest stops was staffed by volunteers from the University of Missouri swim team. I asked "who here is a distance swimmer." A kid that was about 6'2" and 175lbs said he was a distance swimmer. I asked him what his time was in the mile. He said about 15:45. Wow. That is smokin fast.

Aaaahhhhh I'm having college flashbacks. I'm of absolutely no help here because I can't stand swimming like that anymore. And that whole "fall asleep" thing? Reading these sets makes me want to fall asleep! (No offense, I'm just still burned out, even after almost 12 years...). I want to advocate for making it FUN! So here are a couple of ideas.

Pyramid sets! Don't just do 3 or 4 or 5 of the same thing (Bo-ring) Do something like 50, 100, 150, 200, and then back down. You can incorporate descending (getting faster) or also negative split (making the second half faster than the first half of a swim).

Here's one that's kind of fun (can't believe I just said that...) Take a distance, say 300. Pick an interval that will give you a moderate amount of rest (maybe 20 secs). Do the swim, and then each time, take :05 off the interval until you can't make the interval anymore. When that happens, drop your distance, and your interval to the next set. So now you'll be doing 250s, on a new interval that will give you a moderate amount of rest. Do those with a decreasing interval (by :05) until you can't make it anymore, then drop down to 200s, then 150s, then 100s, then 50s, each time dropping the interval until you can't make it. This is something that will take the whole workout, so leave yourself lots of time.

BTW, the masters workouts that I (very occasionally) go to are all posted, so you can get ideas there. Go to

http://www.kimberlygross.com/

Then click on the link for Masters Swimming and then go to the workouts. Great ideas there. I'm all about having somebody else motivate me and tell me what to do nowadays (at least with regard to swimming!)

Cheers!

Thanks for the responses everyone.

This past weekend I did the MS150 in Columbia Missouri. One of the rest stops was staffed by volunteers from the University of Missouri swim team. I asked "who here is a distance swimmer." A kid that was about 6'2" and 175lbs said he was a distance swimmer. I asked him what his time was in the mile. He said about 15:45. Wow. That is smokin fast.

he's got me beat by a little bit (ok, almost 40 secs)...It takes some serious dedication to get to that level, hours of training every day. imagine being at a workout, all your friends finish and your just getting to your main set...distance swimmers shower alone, they swim alone, they think about a lot of things, like how many tiles are on the bottom of the pool...sorry rambling of a distance swimmer....

Pool miles tend to be faster than open water miles (my best open water mile is about 2:30 slower than my fastest pool mile). if your going to swim in open water a good fitness base is a must, then get a spotting technique....