merlinextraligh

My few tri's have been: Flounder, Hammer, Limp.

sgroldan

Swimming once a week won't get you anywhere in my opinion, I am new to Tri but did swim competitively all of my youth. Minimum 2 to 3 times a week if you want to be average to good in the water. As many have said I recommend you combine with another workout. For example, yesterdays workout: Swam 3.2K in pool, went to gym and workout out for 1.5 hours (full body workout). Next swim I will not go to the gym but probably go out for a run.. etc.. I feel some variety is needed.

spiderbike

My wife can swim a sub 20 minutes 1500 in open water without ever touching the water until race day! She was a excellant college swimmer. I swim a lot in the winter and spring but only swim once a week in the summer and can easily do 1500M under 25 mintues. I would definatly swim a little more if I was doing a half or full ironman.

The summer time is for biking but if it takes you 45 minutes to swim 1500 you are a at major disadvantage. No offense but you must have terrible stroke. Try doing masters and working all strokes in the winter. I've seen poor swimmers drastically improve.

If only the run would be shorter...

WxGuesser

As long as you learn proper technique your times will be "decent"..... Don't worry about time.. worry about techinque and your time will improve.. ... now only if i could improve my technique!

andygates

You'll definitely see better improvement in swim skill if you get two sessions a week over one. Swimming's a skill game and the proprioception locks in much better with more frequent repeats.

When I've been pressed for time, I found that frequent short swims - a quick half-hour dip - were more productive than once-a-week long sessions. Mostly I squeezed those in before work.

Alternatively I'd suggest that you add a low-pressure, easy short swim to the end of one of your Olympic weights sessions, which is what I plan to do this autumn once my race season's over.

ranger5oh

As everyone has said... 1 day a week is not enough to improve. I have found that swimming takes a LOT more upkeep than cycling, and especially running. Its like if I take a week off swimming, I feel like my time is awful, a week off cycling and almost no change, a week off running and no change at all.

Jay Gloab

As long as you're combining it with a full schedule of other workouts, I think swimming once a week is enough to go from terrible to poor, or maybe all the way to mediocre. And I don't intend this to be mean; this could shave 5-10 minutes off your time.

Blossom

I'm in the process of trying to go from a bad swimmer (at an olympic distance 10 days ago) to somebody who doesn't feel like dying when exiting the water (for a 1/2 IM in 30 days). I got the Total Immersion Triathlon book and Freestyle DVD, and I must admit that the DVD shows the drills way better than the book, but the book does a better job at explaining the *reason* for what we are aiming for. I'd recommend getting both.

Throw in some swims on days that you do other activities. Doing the drills will not greatly fatigue your muscles so you don't have to worry about over-training. If it were me, I'd cut back on the lifting for a couple weeks and emphasize the swims. When you are trying to learn something new, it pays to do it several days in a row...

fueledbymetal

Thanks for all of the advice guys. After reading everything here I've ordered the TI freestyle DVD. I've given my workout shcedule some thought and think I'll rearrange things like this:

Mon - short bike over lunch and lift after work
Tues - short bike over lunch and run after work
Wed - long Swim workout
Thurs - short swim over lunch long bike after work
Fri - short bike over lunch lift after work
Sat - Long run
Sun - short swim/recovery


This way I'll have 2-3 days of swimming and my biking will get some much needed attention as well.

Thanks!

BigCat

I use to take off Mondays. Now I do 1800 meters with a pull-boy, just using my upper body. Since I do bricks on Saturday and Sunday, I think that gives me a good rest on Monday. I repeat the swim on Tuesday, and add in 10 miles on the bike in the evening. Then I resume running and biking Wednesday through Saturday, with another swim on Friday. So I have no formal rest days, but I think the lack of kicking on my swims on Mondays give me a full rest day in terms of my legs. What do others think?