Swim Stroke Workout

This swim stroke workout is from my January 2014 “Get Your Swim On” blog. Usually, you can borrow some equipment at your pool, like a kickboard and a pull buoy, which is a little float that you hold between your legs for support, so you can relax your legs and pull with your arms. See if you can get your hands on one or both of these for this next workout. If not, you can kick or pull without the equipment, or substitute a different stroke if you know one.

1. Start with a 200 meter warm up. Take a 30 second rest break.

2. Next, you will swim a kick-pull-swim sequence. Grab the kickboard and kick for 50 meters. If you don’t have a kickboard, flip onto your back, stretch your arms up above your head and kick on your back. Then grab the pull buoy and pull for 50 meters. If you don’t have a pull buoy then let your legs balance in the water and try to swim 50 meters with your arms only. Then swim (using your arms and your legs) 50 meters.

3. Swim the kick-pull-swim sequence 3 times.

4. Now, we’re going to try a 100 individual medley, or “IM.” The official 100 IM order is 25 m butterfly, 25 m backstroke, 25 m breast stroke, and 25 m freestyle. Don’t panic! It doesn’t matter if you don’t know any strokes other than freestyle. What I want you to do here is change your stroke every 25 meters. So if your 100 IM is 25 m freestyle, 25 m kick on your back, 25 m pulling with your arms, and 25 m freestyle again that is just fine with me. Just change your stroke and do something different after each 25. Give it a try.

5. Now you’re going to swim 3 100’s of freestyle, with 10 seconds’ rest after each 100, followed by your own personal 100 IM. With the 3 100 free I want you to get a little faster each time, or “descend,” so the program will look like this: 1st 100 at 75 percent effort, 2nd 100 a little faster at 80 percent effort, 3rd 100 at 85 percent effort, then your 100 IM. Take a 30-second rest after the IM.

6. You can repeat step 5 one or two more times to lengthen your workout.

7. Cool down with an EZ 150 m.

If you swam step 5 once, you swam 1000 meters, and add an extra 400 meters for every repeat of step 5.

 

 

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