Most people join Tri Swim Coach to get FASTER at freestyle for their next triathlon.
And then we give them all these stroke tips, followed by drills to improve their stroke.
And the ones who practice this for a while are like, okay, now what? I wanted to go fast, you helped me improve my stroke, now I’m the same speed with a better stroke… so what?
Well, there’s a method to the madness here!
And it’s not madness, it makes perfect sense.
Getting more efficient in freestyle will help improve your overall race results– even if your swim itself isn’t getting faster.
Without the proper stroke, there is a ceiling as to how fast you can go. But there does come a point where people spend too much time doing drills and need to move on to the things that will indeed make them faster in the water- and not just more efficient.
Just like efficiency in stroke technique work, we like to be efficient in our workouts.
Like I said yesterday, we don’t believe in “junk yards”, distance for distance sake, boring & pointless swim sets, or having no purpose in a workout.
So how will you gain speed, now that your stroke is up to par?
Once you’ve spent a few weeks building up an aerobic base (fairly low heart rate training), your body is ready for sprints!
Sprints CAN be overdone, so I would recommend no more than 1 sprint workout per week.
And despite what it may look like on paper, sprint workouts are the hardest of all! You will likely feel more tired afterward, but you will also likely sleep well that night. 🙂
Here’s a general sprint-oriented workout to help boost your speed. Of course, adjust to your level- don’t try to do too much if you haven’t been sprinting in the pool, just cut down on this workout a bit. If you’ve already been doing sprints and this is too begginer or basic for you, add more!
Here it is, your Fast Friday workout (distances in yards OR meters):
Warm Up: 400
4x75s build to 80% effort
Main:
5x through the following:
50 Sprint first 40 yards or meters, easy last 10
Rest 60 seconds
200 count your strokes, try to take 2 strokes off per 50
Rest 30 seconds
Warm Down: 300, breathe every 3rd stroke
Note we’re still paying attention to technique, and we’re not counting yards/meters.
Here’s to getting faster, before the weekend!
