workouts to improve 400m swim time?

50's and 100's, flat out the entire time.  A 400m tri swim in a pool should hurt...so should your workouts.

not sure how much you can do in 4 weeks although you should see some gains, but, regardless, some sets i have picked up//find useful (these are the main sets only).


sets of 50s, 15-40 of them depending on where you are in swim skill level
something like 20-30 x50 on whatever rest gives you 20-30 sec of rest, and swim them HARD.

10-15x100 on an interval that gives you 30 sec of rest, these should be again very hard, not cruise paced stuff, close to your all out speed).


10x50 on 1 min rest
4x100 on 1:30-2min rest


5-10x200 on 15-25 sec rest


bascially you need to be swimming fast, a lot.

long easy distance is a total waste of your time right now.

As per newbz's suggestions, remember that the more rest you get the harder you should be swimming to earn that rest. By the time you hit the wall you should need all of that rest, so the 1:30 or 2 minute rest on those 100s means you are really working hard. Good luck!

Edited by Micawber 2010-09-14 10:15 PM

Can you explain this a little more. 10-15X100...That's swim 10 to 15 times a length of 100 meters correct? on an interval that gives you 30 sec of rest  I don't understand that quote. Do you rest 30 seconds after you swim 100 meters? then do another 100 meters and rest 30 sec again?

20-30 x50 "On whatever rest gives you 20-30 sec of rest?" I don't understand that. And even thought you are doing half the distance (100meters vs. 50 meters) the rest is still the same?

And do you do all of these distance workout in the same session or just do a different one each time?

Thanks for the help still a newbie here.



10X50 on 1 min rest

^^^ A few really good sets above for what you want.

I would also make sure you don't go out too hard in the first 100 or so of a pool swim. You can very easily go out too hard in the first 100 which will effect both your swim time and overall time. I would do a 400 at least one time per week and treat it like a race with the goal being to either even or negative split the 400. It should give you an idea on pacing and if you are able to even or slightly negative split the swim you have likely set yourself up for a good overall race.

yes you got it for the most part: on 10x100 on 30 sec rest, it would look something like this.

If you are swimming 1:30 pace and really pushing, you'll go on a 2:00 min interval. this means every 2 min you go, you should be back hitting the wall at approx 1:30, leaving 30 sec to rest.

with the 50s (and you can do this with other distances as well), the longer rest means you are swimming faster/over speed. You are swimming faster than you would in a race, or faster than that same distance with less rest. in other words, unless its a recovery day, the longer the rest, the faster you should be swimming any given distance.

depending on where you are in swimming/how much you've been swimming, you may or may not include both sets in a swim, but for most people (myself included most times), no i would not do both of those sets in the same swim.

This is really key in a lot of swim workouts, but to explain it another way:

You'll hear people say stuff like "10x50, 1 min sendoff", meaning you swim a 50 and rest during whatever is left up to 1 minute.  Do ten of those.  That way if you swim slower, you get less rest.

the issue with a send off without a goal time is that you can take longer to swim and get more rest, effectively changing the workout.

your send off/interval is important, but so is the speed you are swimming.

I'm doing some sets of 100s on a 1:30 send off. i could cruise in on 1:20-1:25 and "only" have 5 sec of rest, but i would be swimming at a pace i could hold all day, and thus not getting much done.

so unless the interval is so short that you have to kill yourself just to make it (these do have their place), then you need some idea of your goal times.

Agreed, I was assuming (esp with 50s) that you're attempting a hard pace  

Here is a workout I used to do in College Swimming in preparation for a 500 yard race.

50 all out
100 moderate pace
50 all out
100 moderate pace
50 all out
100 moderate pace
50 all out

rest 10 seconds between each swim

Really work the all out efforts and try for smooth clean swimming in the moderate 100's.

Cheers,
-jason

By 'rest 10 seconds between each swim' do you mean between each 50/100/50... or between each overall 500 set?

after each segment not each 500

cheers,
-j

What is your current pace and experience level with swimming?

"more is better", "harder is better" is frequently not true especially when it comes to swimming.

Knowing your stroke counts, knowing your tempos and knowing your stroke flaws will give you the starting points you need to plan a sound improvement program.

Edited by AdventureBear 2010-09-15 1:51 PM

Do these interval training programs focus more on speed than endurance? If you're training for a longer swim, should you do less intervals and more longer swims?

In other words, how often would you suggest doing a training swim of say 1000 or 2500 meters (or whatever) where you swim the whole time at a moderate pace but with no breaks?

(Sorry if this is a hijack)

outside of races, i've done that maybe 4 times total this year, 3 of them were 1500m tests and one was a long pull where i was tired and not in the mood for intervals.

I focused on the Half Ironman distance this year, and for all my swim workouts, I rarely went longer than a 500 yard straight swim. It was usually during my warmup or cool down that I went 500 yards straight. I was always doing 100, 200, and sometimes 300 yard intervals, AND going hard during the intervals. Going shorter but harder and doing it over and over again with varying amounts of short rest helped me PR my swim during my last race this season.

Thanks for the ideas everyone!




I'm by no means an "experienced" swimmer, but I also wouldn't call myself a beginner.  Compared to everyone else, I am on the slower side however.  I guess there are probably flaws with my stroke I'd assume, but honestly I have never focused on it, and I don't do drills. (I know, I should change this...)  I feel very comfortable in the water, and I can go long no problem.  (Recently did a 5K OWS.)  I usually swim 3-4x/wk, and my interval workouts typically consisted of doing 50s, 100s, or 200s.  Maybe once a week a longer (continuous) swim of 2-3K, at least before the 5K.  I don't mind these longer swims so I'll probably keep that up.

I will say this.  I have seen huge improvements during my workouts since a few months ago (which I presume is because of all the pool time) when I least expect it.  Meaning, I will just be going at what I think is a solid effort, and then be pleasantly surprised by my time.  It is really encouraging!  So to answer the pace question, I have been very happy to see consistent 1:50s when I'm doing 100s (meters), or consistent 3:50 200m times during a workout.  These are times I wouldn't have expected at all.  Typically though, probably slower than that during an average workout.