These speed sessions in the pool will help you race faster even at long distance

The shortest swim distance in triathlon isn’t really that short. Even at a sprint event the swim isn’t going to go down at a sprint pace. There are still many benefits to improving your short distance speed even when your race distance is much longer.

Increasing your swim speed will contribute to your overall swim fitness. Your top speed is your ceiling and your race pace is a percentage of that top speed. Raising your ceiling means raising your race pace. In fact, it will raise your all your paces, including your slow pace.

Benefits of a sprinting in long distance

Being able to access your sprint speed during a race goes beyond your swim time. It is a useful skill to have in order to execute a smart and tactical race. You will need to tap into your speed skills to surge ahead of a group of slow or weaving swimmers in open water, or trying to catch up to someone’s feet to draft.

Speed also comes in handy at the start of the race when you are strategically vying for a place amongst a group swimming at your pace, or diverting from a full contact situation. The key to improving top speed is to swim at max effort and take quality rest in between intervals so you are fresh for each repetition. Short changing on the rest diminishes the quality of each interval and prevents you from swimming as hard as possible on each one.

Where does speed work fit in?

There will be a time and place for threshold work on shorter rest, and long endurance sets on even less rest. But neglecting speed work minimizes your gains in these other important areas too. Raising the ceiling of your VO2max during sprint work makes all your zone paces faster.

Sprint work can be the main focus of a pool session or incorporated into a longer workout. Always tackle the sprint sets after a good warm up but before the longer endurance or threshold sets which will zap your energy for the shorter, more intense speed work.

Speed sets for your next workout

Try these breathtaking workouts at your next visit to the pool.

Warm up

200 swim/200 kick/200 pull using pull bouy on choice rest in between each rep

Primer Set

4 x 25m with fast turnover for 10-15 strokes, then easy to the wall on 15s rest

Main Sets

4 x 25m all out on 30sec rest

Speed pyramid:  3x through – 25m on 30sec rest/50m on 30sec/75m on 30s rest/100m on 30sec rest

These speed workouts can make up the first part of your pool workout, followed by a more endurance based workout.

4 x 200m alternating at race pace and easy on 20s rest

4x 100m steady effort with pull buoy and paddles

Cool down

100m easy swim any stroke

Keep a smooth not frantic technique

When the workout calls for an all out effort it’s easy to fall into the trap of flailing arms and legs as fast as possible. A smooth stroke is more efficient and faster than a frantic stroke. Expending more energy doesn’t equate to faster times in the pool. The highly technical nature of swimming rewards a smooth stroke over brute force.

Think “smooth” not “fast” when speeding up. Of course the goal is to move your arms and legs faster, but not so fast that your form falls apart and all you end up doing is increasing output not speed. It is better to give up a bit of speed to maintain form while still sprinting. By working on speed while still maintaining proper form you will spend less energy going faster.

Speed work should be an important and regular part of your training plan. While it’s tempting to stick to the slower, more endurance-based sets, don’t pass up the opportunity to elevate your swim skills and set a PB at your next race.