Swim Workouts

In Novermber I stayed with Loren Pokorny in Marin County (north of San Francisco). It was not the first time I stayed with the Pokorny Family, but it was the first time I was able to give a 1:1 swim lesson to Loren.  He has been raving about that one lesson on his blog, and bugging me to get back into giving swim lessons, which I have done very little of since moving to Seattle.

I may start doing private lessons again, but in the mean time I think I should give some pointers to the triathletes out there who just don’t know what to do when they get to the pool. My guess is boredom is a big part of why triathletes struggle with swimming.

Here’s a workout I gave Loren after my stroke lesson. It’s easy to remember, simple to follow, and is less boring than what most people come up with on their own.

25 perfect stroke
50 fast
75 perfect stroke
100 fast
125 perfect stroke
150 fast
150 perfect stroke
125 fast
100 perfect stroke
75 fast
50 perfect stroke
25 fast

20-30 seconds rest after the perfect stroke, 5-10 seconds after the fast (shorter rest forces active recovery).

For the perfect stroke, speed doesn’t matter. Just focus on all the things your stroke coach has taught you. If you don’t have a stroke coach, set up a lesson with me. You want to go slow enough to feel any errors in your stroke and just think about your stroke (high elbows, head in line, kicking, etc.), but without somebody looking at your stroke the "perfect stroke" part is less effective. For the fast part you just want to make it hurt. Try to keep your stroke together, but go as fast as you can. This set will work on endurance, some on speed, but most importantly after each hard interval it will force you to rework your stroke.