[background music] Heather Fell: Swimming up
and down the pool without any structure can not only be a little bit boring,
it can also be limiting your progression. Today we have three beginner swim workouts
which will help keep you motivated as well as improving your swimming.
I know so many people who head to the pool and just go up and down until they either run out
of time or get tired and this might be the best way of covering the largest distance in the time
you've got available, but it is not helping you improve your swimming. Now, sessions are
the way forward. It might sound a little bit professional to you and you might have images
of Olympic swimmers with their coaches pacing up and down the poolside with their stopwatch, well,
all top-level swimmers use sessions and so should you because these are the best way to improve.
Today we've got a selection of three which will work on different aspects of your swimming. We've
got one for technique, speed work, and aerobic, and using this variety will really help you
move your swimming forwards. There is no point in plodding up and down the pool continually if your
technique is all over the place because you're simply going to be practicing those bad habits.
If you can include a technique session at least once a week, or incorporate it into some other
sessions, whether that's in the warm-up or the warm down, it'll soon start to make a significant
impact on your stroke. We're leaving things up to you here as to what drill you choose because
you've got to be honest with yourself and look at the weaknesses in your stroke and focus on those.
If you do need some specific drill ideas, we've got plenty of videos and we'll
share some of those in the link in the description below this. For the warmup,
just 300 meters of choice stroke nice and steady. Then for your main set, we're going to do two lots
of 8 times 50 meters as 25 meters, drill 25 meters swim, followed by 100 meters nice and easy.
Then the next bit is two lots of 150 meters. This time, it's a 50-meter swim, a 50-meter drill,
and a 50-meter swim and then finally, two lots of 25 meters of drill, 75 meters of swim,
with a cooldown of just 100 meters easy which gives you a total of 1,900 meters.
Swimming is predominantly an aerobic activity and for that, you need to build a base of fitness.
We're going to be focusing on your cardiovascular development to make you fitter in the water.
Starting off with another 300-meter warmup of mixed strokes nice and steady into a main set of
100 meters followed by 10 seconds rest, 150 meters followed by 15 seconds rest, 200, 20 seconds, rest
back down to 150 with 15 seconds rest, 100 meters with 10 seconds rest, and then 100
meters super slow recovery with 60-seconds rest. You're going to repeat that twice through, then a
final warm down of just 100 meters easy, which will give you a total of 2,000 meters. This is
a basic pyramid-style session that you can easily build on by either going further up in distance
or adding another set or two, and remember, it all needs to be at a nice aerobic pace.
It's a common misconception to think that you can't do speed work or you don't need to do
speed work unless you're a professional swimmer or a sprinter, but that's not so. Think of it
like a hits type of training that you would do for a different sport, it's going to be working
in different aspects of your fitness as well as keeping things nice and interesting. For
the warmup, a 200-meter nice and easy and then four lots of 50 meters, increasing your pace
every 50 meters so that you finish on the final one really strong with a 20-second rest between
each and 100 meters easy. Then for the main set is eight lots of 50 meters as 25 meters really fast,
25 meters super easy with 20-seconds rest. Have 100 meters easy and repeat the whole thing
through again, and then on to four lots of 100 meters, and this time you're going to increase
the pace every 25 so that you finish that final 25 nice and fast. Have 30 seconds rest,
repeat it three more times, and then you have 100 meters easy, and you finish out
with a 200-meter nice and easy cooldown and that will give you a total of 2,200 meters.
All of these sessions can be adapted to suit you, you can make them harder or easier,
longer or shorter, or even mix up the strokes. It's about just keeping that
variety to help your stroke develop and if you answer me three times a week, try and mix up
each of the sessions and you can even add in some strength which I haven't covered today,
but you can simply put on some paddles for one of the sessions that we've already covered.
Hopefully, it's giving you something to go away and work on. Let us know if you've done
these sessions and how you found it. Do that in the comments section below. Give us a like
whilst you're at it and remember, check out our social media channels to see what we're up to
and you can also follow us here on YouTube. [00:05:21] [END OF AUDIO]