Today was stroke technique. For me, that’s a mixture of drills designed to improve my stroke (do they when I don’t have a coach telling what I’m doing wrong and what I can improve?) Regardless, I do them and it helps mix up my workouts. Someone mentioned how they couldn’t swim any of my workouts at the intervals set and finish them in 50 minutes. Then adjust the intervals to fit what you can do and decrease the distance to work for you. You can also snag two, three, four warmup sets and use those as a main set. These are meant to give you something to work with. You don’t have to follow them to the letter. Make them work for you.

Another person asked me why I always swim a 500 warmup and wasn’t that wasting good swim time when I only have 50 minutes. Well, I’ve been doing a 500 warmup for a good 20 years now. It’s kind of that first test of the water and feeling out where my body is that day. It’s the unwinding of my thoughts and slipping into the meditative place that’s swimming. Obviously, people can adjust the warmup to suit them. I add a warmup set because I don’t really feel completely ready to swim at my optimum until I’ve swum at least 1100 yards. It varies from person to person, so do what works for you.

50-minute swim workout, stroke technique emphasis

500 warmup (~7:30 min)

Warmup set 2x (600 yds, 11:40 min)
100 on 1:40
8 x 25 on :30
R1:
1st 4: odd 25s: 10 kicks on your side face in the water, breath as you take a breath, then switch sides and repeat until you read the other side/even 25s: regular free, but work the technique
2nd 4: odd 25s: 8 kicks instead of 10/even 25s as above
R2:
1st 4: odd 25s: 6 kicks as above/even 25s: as above
2nd 4: odd 25s: 4 kicks as above/even 25s: same as above

:30 rest

Main set (1500 yds, 20:45 min)
4x (900 yds, 11:15 min)
3 x 75 on 1:15
1st 75 of each round: 25 least amount of strokes across the pool/25 head up free/25 focus on technique
Remaining two 75s, descend within round. Last 75 of entire set, set a time to beat. (e.g., under 1:00)

10 x 50s on :45 (500 yds, 7:30 min)
The goal for this set is to swim it easy-fast. Easy-fast is how you swim the first 50 of a 200 race. So, you work your stroke, stay relaxed, but swim fast. You really should only have 5 seconds rest. If this interval is too slow, drop the time. If it’s too fast, increase it.

4 x 25 on :30 sprint (100 yds, 2:00 min)

150 warm down

Total yards: 2750

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