Resting between Swim Intervals (Page 2)

I like the idea of Bryan barking at all of us. I need some barking at when I'm on the bike trying to get my HR into Z-4! Let's get back to the swimming though.

Bryan's right on the money with his advice. 30 sec rest is a good rest interval for a beginning swimmer but doesn't serve much purpose as far as training goes. It's too short to fully recover to work on speed and too long of a rest to really work on your endurance pacing.

If your workout calls for 10 x 100, set up your interval so that you get 10 sec rest on the first swim. The last swim of the set you may only get 3 or 4 sec rest but that will improve each time you do the set. If you come in on the first 100 on 1:40 and your interval is set for 1:50 keep that interval until you can get 9 or 10 sec rest on the last one. At that time you may actually find yourself getting 13 sec rest on the first one. When you can do this, move the interval to 1:45.

There are several ways to keep sets of 100's interesting. Splitting a set of 10 x 100 into 2 sets of 5 x 100 with 1:00 breat after 5 works well. My all time favorite set is one we did every Monday in college. It kind of ruined your Monday but looking back it did it's job! When you look at this set plug in your own intervals and be prepared to work your a$$ off.

15 minute warm-up
16 x 100 @ 1:05 (If you miss the interval, sit it out and start on the next one)
4 x 500 @ 5:20 (Pay attention to stroke count
15 min cool down

If you are doing 1:30 100's, set your interval for 1:35 or 1:40. When you can make the set without sitting a swim out move the interval down 5 sec.

The key to doing 100's is to swim like they are 500's. Keep your stroke long and efficient. Try to keep track of your strole count because you will notice your stroke count go up as you tire. When your stroke count goes up you are wasting energy and need to "get long" again.

Good luck, sorry this is so long winded.

Our masters coach is very big on descending sets. Typically we do sets of 4x150s on 3:00. Descending forces you to start out at what feels like a ridiculously slow pace, but by the end you are hauling butt to go faster. So...if you blow out the first one and stay the same speed or get (gasp) slower...you get yelled at. He's fun like that.

Nick, I don't think Bryan was really rubbing anything in. What motivates some I guess rubs others the wrong way. I am sorry you are frustrated with your swimming. I have taught enough people to swim to say that it is not a skill you are born with.

I can say from experience that adult athletes, especially runners,  are by far the hardest group of people to teach mechanics to. They take everything an instructor says literally and want formulas and exact angles to hold their hands and elbows, etc.

A large part of swimming is to develop a feel for the water and your body position in the water. In the water, as I am sure your coach has gone over with you, your lungs act as a center of buoyancy. If there is no air in your lungs, there won't be any floating. If you aren't floating, you can't be relaxing and staying relaxed is a key to swimming more efficiently.

Feel free to PM me if you have any specific problems you are having in the water. Most of the time there is actually a "click" when it comes to individual drills. I wouldn't say the "click" is from being a struggling swimmer to a competitive swimmer.

Keep up the work in the pool and it will pay off. 

Bryan wasn't being mean. Someone had mentioned they need Bryan up on the pool deck barking at him when he's doing his 100s. I think Bryan was merely demonstrated what he would say to the guy that asked him to yell at him. No worries.

How about descending intervals? I like those, but they are TOUGH. I usually just end up doing touch and go for the last few 100s and just hope I finish the last one on time .

No worries, and you'll do fine. Thirteen weeks is still a long time. Is the breathing issue a panic thing? If so, I can tell you what a friend did that really helped. I've recommended it to other people, and it's helped them as well.

He said, he would just put on a pair of fins, kick EZ and swim underwater (arms at side or above head, not sure). This is NOT a swim drill, and NOT a hypoxic drill...if you need air, come up and breathe. But he said it really helped him to relax in the water and really calm him down, because it was nerves/panic that was most interfering with his breathing when swimming. Once he was comfortable underwater, he said he could do anything above water.

Good luck and keep at it. you'll be fine !

I managed the 10x100m on 2:00's today.  I should be doing 1:55's, but forgot my watch and didn't want to attempt that much thinking while in oxygen debt.  .

Splits started at 1:40 and migrated up to 1:46.  Work-out was plenty hard as my form deteriorated badly during the last few intervals.  Again, probably need to go with leaving on the 1:55's, and slow to a more manageable 1:45/100m.  I'll give that a shot next week.

From today...

5x200 (swim,pull,kick,swim,pull)
10x100 on 2:00's (1:40-1:46/100m)
100 kick (on back) with zoomers
4x50m sprints on 2:00's (0:36,0:39,0:40,0:41)
75 breast EZ
25 back EZ

I venture to guess, most triathletes, who just recently learned to swim like myself, don't push that hard.  I generally have been focused on endurance and form for the first two years of learning to swim.  Just recently, have I attempted to get faster.  For both my Olys and my HIM last year, my pace was right around 2:00/100m.  Probably because that's pretty much the pace I did most of my trianing.  I can swim a fully rested 1:22/100m and a 0:36/50m.  I'd love to translate something close to a 1:40/100m in a triathlon (Oly/HIM).

It sounds like faster intervals with less rest will get me closer to that goal.

Thanks a ton for the insight.

OK. I pushed harder today and feel like I've made some progress.  10x100m swim today.  Met goal of 1:45 on 1:55 intervals.  Here's how it went...

Clearly need to continue endurance work as my pace/form faded big time.  It's definitely a harder work-out than 1,000m straight-through at a 1:53 pace.