Typical Workout for Speed Swimming

Swimmers spend hours in the pool working on stroke technique and endurance. But if you are a sprinter in the pool, you need to do short yet intense speed workouts. The focus is on all-out speed with long bouts of rest or recovery time in between. This type of interval training is called HIIT or high-intensity interval training.

  1. Warm Up

    • A thorough warm up is important for speed work. If you normally take five minutes with your warm up, double it so that you are thoroughly loosened up. Swim some easy laps using different strokes to move the body in all directions before the real work begins. Warm-ups are very individual; some swimmers warm up quickly, while others take much longer to feel like they are ready to go.

    The Set

    • Go at race pace when speed training.

      Take a set and go all out. This will be eight sets of 50 yards, or 8 x 50. Each 50 yards is done at race pace. Rest intervals in between will be about one minute. The entire speed workout is only 400 yards, but if you go all out on each set, you will feel it. Keep track of your times during the sets. If your first 50s are on race pace, but the last four fall off the time, it is an indication that you need to spend some time working on your endurance.

    Cool Down

    • After an intense interval session, a cool down is vital. You need to bring your heart rate back down to the normal range by slow easy swimming or even grabbing a kick board and doing some easy kicking through the water. In a good HIIT workout, the warm up and cool down take much longer than the speed work. The cool down can also include some deck stretches to help the body stay loose.