Best ways to improve swim?

I would start to incorporate some drills to help with technique. You'd be surprised at how changing your stroke just a little bit could help make it easier or harder.

X2

Oh, and swim at least 3 times a week if you are not doing so already.

Well, 27:30 for an Oly is about 1:50, which isn't a slouch time.

The bad news is, unless you have some fundamental stroke flaw that has gone undiscovered and can be fixed in a week, I don't know if you can drop 3:30 in 4 weeks, that's a pretty significant chunk of time. (When was the 27:30, and was that a pool timed or OWS?)

Things you can do -

1. Threshold sets - 10x100 on 2:10. 5x200 on 4:20. Things like that. High intensity but not all out, short rest. (Edited to add: You may need to shorten the rest some on those examples, if your sustainable 1500 pace is 1:50/100, your drop dead 100 time is probably faster, so something like 10x100 on 2:00 might be better. You want it to be uncomfortable, but not killing you.)
2. Interval sets - Something like 10x100, all under 1:40, rest 3:00 or less, but make sure you have enough rest to make EVERY interval. (Edited again to add: You need to know your drop dead, all out 100 time. That speed is what you want to achieve on each swim in the set.)
3. FORM FORM FORM - Form is one of the key elements of swimming. You will get more speed with less effort the more your form improves.

If you were one of my athletes, and swimming 3x/week, I'd have you doing something like the following:

Day 1 Form - 2000-2400 yards, pull drills, kick drills, one armed swimming, plus some swim/drill combined sets.
Day 2 Endurance - Longer sets, such as 3x500 on :30 RI, 2400-3500 yds.
Day 3 Speed/Threshold - Swap these out, one week do threshold, next week do intervals as described above.

Threshold sets (fast sets, short rest) are designed to increase the time you can spend at a given speed (Lactate threshold), and interval sets (Very high speed, long recovery) are designed to boost the top end speed that you can go.

Now, all bets are off if you've got decent form and have just been slacking in the workouts. If you start hitting the pool 4-5x/week, doing between 2200-3500 yards, sensible interval and threshold training, then it's entirely possibly you could hit the swim really well and drop that PR.

Good luck!

John

Edited by tkd.teacher 2009-05-04 3:45 PM

I will try the above.

X3

Other thing that may help is to swim with a Masters team.

Just an example, here's a recent interval/threshold mix workout I did a little bit ago-

2200 scy (Short Course Yards)

wu - 8x50 SKPS (Swim, Kick, Pull, Swim. Normally it's SKIPS, where the I is Individual medley, but I omitted that here)
3x100 at 80%, :25 ri (1:25, 1:27, 1:22)
8x50 sprint, 1:00 rest (All between :31 and :33)
2x200 at 80%, :20 RI (2:54, 2:49)
8x25 sprint, 1:00 rest (:15,16,15,15,14,15,14,15)
1x200 @ 80% (2:59)
50-100-100-50 wd, cruise.

I was pretty cooked after this workout, this was the first real threshold/interval type workout I'd done in swimming this year.

John

correct...

Double Post

Edited by Aikidoman 2009-05-04 3:53 PM

X4. Also, like the previous poster mentioned, learn to draft.

Form is important.  Swim 50m and count how many strokes it takes.  Work on cleaning up your form.  If, over time, your stroke count goes down then you know you are getting more efficient. 

All solid responses!!!

Going to begin doing some kicking drills, because I'm pretty sure my kicking is more like wild flutter. Will also try to slow down and spend time on my form each swim session. Lastly, I'm definitely adding in some interval/threshold drills. I do these for the bike and run have not for the swim until.... TOMORROW!

x5 on a swim coach to check your form. Or a fast swimmer in the lane next to you, or going to masters workouts.

In 3-4 weeks, the best way to get faster is to improve some part of your swim technique. And th best way to do that is to have an expert check you out and then work on correcting yoru form. (Note that fitness is secondary unless you have not been doing ANY intrerval work)