Want to improve your swim times this season? Add some rest (and speed) to your sets

“If you want to swim faster then you need to swim faster.”
                                                Swim coach Tony Zezza

They call it a sprint triathlon, but there’s nothing sprinty about a 750 meter swim – let alone one between 1,500m and 3,800m. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work on your sprint speed.

Why do you need to go fast?

Let’s say any full gas effort under a minute is a sprint. For most triathletes that means sprint efforts will need to be under 75 m, and often less than that.

So why bother working on your 50 m speed when any race you enter is going to be at least 10 times that long? There are lots of reasons. In a broad sense, increasing your swim speed will contribute to your overall swim fitness. Think of it like this: your top speed is your ceiling and your race pace is the chandelier that hangs from the ceiling. The higher the ceiling – the higher the chandelier.

Having a strong sprint in your arsenal will also come in handy if, during a race, you notice a clump of swimmers packed up in front of you. A short hit can get you into their draft. Burn a match early and save the rest of the book for the remainder of the race.

Consider the start of the race, as well. Whether it’s to put yourself in with the best possible swimmers out of the gate (again, an advantage since you can draft off them), or you just got carried away at the sound of the gun, you’ll be better able to manage the challenges imposed on your body that come with going in the red zone if you’ve done sprint work.

But how do you swim faster?  It’s simple (but not easy): shorten your interval distances, lengthen your rest in between intervals, kick more and increase your stroke rate.

From a beginner swimmer to top-10 in Kona. Find out how she did it

Recovery is key

If you’re currently doing workouts that include a bunch of 50s it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re already doing sprint work. If you’re not getting adequate recovery, then you’re not sprinting.

So:

10 x 50m best average with 5 seconds rest
Is going to be profoundly different to

10 x 50m as:
Odd: Dive start – full gas with 1 minute rest
Even: Easy with 30 seconds rest

In case it’s not obvious, the second set is the sprint set. That’s what increasing the rest duration looks like.

Sprint technique

When we move from an endurance pace we would execute in a race to a proper sprint, our swimming changes. Your stroke rate increases, and your kick rate should do the same. Triathlon swim coaches have been drilling it into athletes forever that you do not want to over-kick. You need to save those legs for the bike and run. But, to pull off a good sprint: get those legs going. You will also want to utilize more of a straight arm recovery, which allows you to “windmill” your arms to achieve a faster stroke rate. Through all this, it’s important to not lose focus on your technique. You can hit the gas, but if your stroke goes to pieces you’re just going to exhaust yourself, but go no faster. So, when you start sprint work, start with manageable distances, as short as 10 m in order to promote good technique.

Your warm-ups need to be a little longer to ensure your body is ready to go before you put the stress of a maximal effort on those shoulders. You also want to see some speed in the warm-up.

A good warm-up might look like this (adjust distance to suit skill level):

• 300 m easy choice
• 300 m as 50 kick with board/50 shark (place the board between your legs and use like a pull buoy) x 3
• 200 m as 25 single arm right/25 swim/25 single arm left/25 swim x 2
• 200 m as 25 head up (promotes faster turn over)/25 swim x 4
• 300 m as 25 easy/25 build (start slow and build to fast)

Self-coach yourself to a swim PB this season

And here are a few Main Sets to work on your sprint speed:

4 or 6 x

• 6 x 50 m with 20 SRI (seconds rest interval) as:
• 35 m full gas/15 m easy
• 50 m easy
• 25 m full gas/25 m easy
• 50 m easy
• 15 m full gas/35 m ez
• 50 m easy

OR

8 x 200 m with 30 SRI as:

• Odd 200 easy
• Even 50 full gas/150 easy

That’s 200 meters of sprint speed divided over 1600 meters.

Like the warm-up, the cool down needs to be longer. A continuous, easy endurance effort to flush things out. (Something like 400 m to 800 m with fins and/ or a snorkel.) Fins take some of the load off your shoulders, which will likely be appreciated.

Sessions like these shouldn’t be done too often, but getting a good sprint set in once a week or every ten days will pay off. Whether you need to close a gap, recover from a fast start, or just gain some overall swim fitness, working on your sprint speed is a worthwhile goal for this year.

Clint Lien is Head Coach of Mercury Rising Triathlon www.mercuryrisingtriathlon.com