Showing posts with label workouts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label workouts. Show all posts

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Endurance Swimming Workout

I was pressed for time the other day, but B and I still wanted to knock out some yardage in the pool. I ended up doing one of those endless-laps routines that everyone hates so much, but I broke it up into more manageable pieces so I had a few thousand yards under my belt before my shoulders knew what hit 'em.

Warm up
3x300 easy

Workout
5x200 good effort
4x100 drill
4x50 odd fast, even easy
100 easy
5x200 good effort

Cool down
2x200 easy

Total: 4000 yards/meters 

Places to cut back on yardage if necessary:

  • Do 2x300 warmup 
  • Remove second set of 5x200
  • Remove 100 easy 
  • Do 1x200 cool down 

These modifications will lower the total to 2400 - still a very respectable amount of swimming.

Friday, November 2, 2012

Swimming Workouts

I have no idea how to put together a good running workout. People talk about "tempo runs," "hill repeats," "sets of 800s," and I'm all like "I'm just gonna go do some random miles, ok?" It's not the most interesting or productive way of going about my training, but I do it because I'm still inexperienced.

It hit me yesterday that some people swim this way! New flash: no one wants to just do laps for an hour straight. I'd try to drown myself. Sooooo: I think I might start a new page on the blog for swim sets so that you guys can get some fresh ideas. I'll try to post my own workouts to keep myself honest, and you can adapt them to your own skill level and time commitment. If anyone is interested in starting a swimming routine (DO IT!) I can post some basic workouts, too.

Yes, you. Get in the pool. 

To start you off, here's something similar to what I did the other night with B. Do these at your own pace - I didn't include times.

Warm up:    4x150 choice (I do mostly freestyle)
                   4x50 freestyle - descend (1st 50 is slowest, 4th 50 is fastest)
Kick:           5x100 kick - odd flutter, even choice (I do breaststroke kick)
Main set:     2 times through (first time through freestyle, second time stroke/choice):
                       2x100 drill
                       2x75 kick, drill, swim by 25
                       2x50 choice - HARD
                       1x50 easy freestyle 
Cool down:  200 easy choice

Total:  2500 yards (or meters, depending on your pool)

Good luck! We didn't get through all of it..it was a little overambitious for our first time back. We'll get there soon, though! We've been calling ourselves "swammers" (like the past tense of swimmers, get it? har har) and we're finally ready to commit some serious hours to the pool. There's nothing like staring at that black line :)

Would a new page on the blog be helpful for you?
Do you ever schedule "workouts" for your running?  If so, have any tips?