Increasing swimming volume

What race distance are you training for?  That makes a huge difference.  Not necessarily in repetition length but in volume.

At 2:00/100y you have some technique issues that are holding you back.  A couple of lessons with a qualified coach/instructor will help you reduce drag and swim more efficiently which will eventually translate into speed.

As to what intensity to train at.  Swimming isn't like running.  You can swim VERY hard and not risk injury.  The idea is to swim repetitions with sufficient rest so you can maintain proper technique.  But here's the rub.  You need to develop proper technique and swim fitness simultaneously.  They go hand in hand.  You can't have proper technique without good swim fitness and you can't have proper swim fitness without good technique.  Technique and fitness are two sides of the same coin.

My suggestion is to first get your technique sorted out.  Then determine what your threshold pace is.  Once you know your threshold pace, start doing 50's at threshold + 3 seconds per 100.  For example, if your threshold is 1:30/100, your target pace would be 1:33/100 or 0:47/50.  Add 15 seconds to your target pace and round to the closest 0:05.  So, for the example I just gave, your target pace is 0:47/50 + 0:15 = 1:02.  Round  to the closest 0:05 your sendoff interval will be 1:00.  Then I would begin doing a LOT of reps.  Maybe start with 25 x 50.  The reps will get increasingly difficult as you get deeper into the set.  If you miss a send-off, take the repetition as rest and then continue on as if you had done the rep.  If you miss a second rep, get out of the water, go home, and try again next time.  In fairly short order you will be ready to increase either the number of reps or go to 100's.

As a general guide, you should be swimming 1.5-3.0 times your race distance swim at least 3-4 times per week for a MOP finish.  The shorter the race distance the more relative training you should be doing - for a sprint you'd want to be closer to 3-times the race distance per workout 3-4 times/week, for an Ironman you'd be closer to 1.5 times the race distance per workout 3-4 times/week.

Hope that helps.

You're right, this isn't really a one-size fits all type of thing.  GENERALLY speaking, in my experience when a swimmer gets their threshold pace below ~ 1:30/100y they have reasonably good technique.  That ISN'T to say that above a threshold pace of 1:30/100y they have crappy technique, nor is it to say that below a threshold pace of 1:30/100y they have great technique.  I'm merely saying a swimmer needs reasonably good technique to get around a threshold pace of 1:30/100y.

The key here is threshold pace.  I've seen people with TERRIBLE technique that were able to muscle their way to a 1:05 100-yard TT.  However they couldn't maintain that pace because their technique was so poor they were beating the water into anaerobic submission and they simply blew up.

As I said earlier, to truly have good technique, you need good swim fitness - and to have good swim fitness, you need to have good technique.  They go hand in hand and must be developed simultaneously - an adult onset swimmer (actually any potential swimmer for that matter) decides to swim with a purpose.  They begin to learn proper technique and with that rudimentary proper technique they begin to swim some volume.  With the increasing volume they begin to develop swim fitness built upon proper technique.  As they develop swim fitness, their technique continues to improve, as their technique improves, their fitness improves - technique and fitness are two sides of the same coin.

For an adult-onset swimmer, the very best thing they can do is get with a qualified coach/instructor early in their swim career - learn the fundamentals and NOT learn the bad habits so common among a large number of adult onset swimmers.

Just my humble two-cents.

The idea is that a swimmer isn't swimming at 2:00/100!

If someone were to do a VERY intense swim block in the off-season when they can devote the bulk of their training time to swimming, they can develop proper technique and get their threshold down to a reasonable pace.  6,000 yards at a 1:30/100y threshold with a 1:45 send-off interval is an hour-and-forty-five minutes  in the water.  Three times a week is 5:15 in the water per week.  The athlete wouldn't be doing that volume the entire season.  They would build to that volume over the course of the season just as they would build cycling and/or running volume.

Who does that?  The people that want to come out of the water aerobically after an Ironman swim tickling the one-hour mark.

Does that mean everyone has to put in that kind of swimming volume?  Nope!  That's the beauty of what we are doing.  We all have a choice on how to approach out training.

Hey Marc,

I think the percentage of weekly training volume that should be devoted to the swim is going to be a function of the race distance and goal.

If the goal is to qualify for Kona, all anyone has to do is look at results.  It will take close to an hour IM swim to get into a KQ conversation (I looked at M30-34 results from Florida, Louisville, and Arizona).  1:30/100y will yield a 1:03 IM swim which gets the athlete out of the water at or very near the front.  Swimming 4,200 yards at 1:30/100y isn't going to happen swimming 5,000 yards/week in training.

On the other hand, if the goal is to finish an Ironman before the cutoffs, there is quite a lot more leeway.  A 2:20 IM swim requires 3:20/100y.  I'm working with an athlete now whose sum total of swim volume last year was less than 14,000 yards and he finished an IM swim below the cutoff.  Of course he then struggled on the bike and his run was a death march.  Is that because he was deeply anaerobic during the swim and never recovered?

I know the argument - "An Ironman swim is only 11% of an Ironman so I'm only going to devote 11% of my training volume to the swim" (Assuming a 9-hour finish [1:00S, 4:45B, 3:15R]).  The problem I have with that argument is that it completely discounts the importance of the swim.  The swim impacts the swim, the bike, and the run.  The bike impacts the bike and the run.  The run impacts only the run.  It is true you can't "win" a triathlon in the water - but you can lose it there.  If an athlete goes deeply anaerobic in the water - as they likely will with insufficient swim volume - they will come out of the water with a HR in Z5.  The only way their HR is going to recover is to sit.  But they aren't going to do that - they're going to get on a bike and ride - with a HR that might have recovered to high Z4.  During their long training rides, they were typically riding high Z2?  Now their riding high Z4 under race conditions where conditions are conspiring against them; leading them to ride faster than they should so their HR never recovers.  If they get to the run, they've likely used up a good portion of their glycogen stores and the run quickly spirals down into a death march or DNF.  And it all started because they didn't want to put in sufficient swim training volume.

What % of total training volume should be devoted to the swim?  My opinion is that an athlete should do sufficient swim training so that they can complete the goal race swim (both distance and pace) while remaining aerobic.

Hey Joel,

Yes, I use the CSS method.  I call it Swim Threshold Pace (STP) as, in my mind, STP more clearly defines what it is but that's semantics.  In my experience, the CSS/STP results become less accurate for "more pace challenged" swimmers - those who are swimming below ~ 2:00/100y.  For those swimmers, a 500 or 1,000 TT may yield a more accurate result.  (500 for NEW swimmers, 1,000 for swimmers who have some fitness but are still struggling with pace).

Here's how to perform a STP test and calculate the result - http://triathlonswimcoach.com/index.php/en/resources/2014-11-30-20-43-15/ct-menu-item-3/75-how-to-determine-swim-threshold-pace

Hey Jeff,

I didn't take it as you were arguing.  How we define MOP depends upon who shows up on race day.  At any rate, that's great that you know a couple people that can complete an IM swim in 1:20 on 3x 1hr workouts per week.  If they're happy with that result, then more power to them.

As to "But, if I was swimming 3-4x/wk @ 6k/session.....I'd hope I was a LOT better than MOP" - back when I was swimming, I was putting in 13-15,000 meters per day, 7-days a week.  It takes HUGE swim volume to get fast.  Every time I see a triathlete "bragging" about their 10,000 yard swim week I find myself smiling - then I remind myself that this is triathlon where you don't have to put in "swimmer's" volume.  Nonetheless, if an athlete wants to get fast, want's to be front MOP or better, it isn't gonna happen on a couple 3,000 workouts per week.

I'll second this notion!

I started swimming in 1969 and swam competitively for nearly 14-years.  Since I retired my Speedo I have been coaching and competing in triathlons.  That's over 45 years of swimming experience.  I still to this day get with my swim coach a couple times a year and do a technique block every off-season.  It's a never ending "battle" to keep good stroke mechanics.