1000 Meter Freestyle Workouts for Triathletes

1000 Meter Freestyle Workouts for Triathletes

by | Apr 12, 2016 | Swimming

suzSwimUW1000 Meter Freestyle Workouts for Triathletes

Whether you are looking to swim a sprint distance or an Iron distance triathlon, having a few “goto” 1000 meter or 1000 yard freestyle workouts will help keep you from getting into a rut when training.   For the long course triathletes, do these 1000 meter/yard sets 2 or even 3 times through to cover the distance needed in your training.

Creating a Mini-Project Accelerates Your Progress

You can use these sets to create mini projects or tasks to challenge yourself. It is a great way to stay engaged with your swimming and take control over your own training plan.

For example, a 1000 yd improvement project may look like a sequence of 3 sessions cycled through for 3-6 rounds before retesting.  You can use these 1000 meter/ yard sets as the main set, add a 500yd tuneup or warmup to swim exactly 1500m (a swimmers mile).  If you are swimming in a yard pool, just add on a 150 yard cool-down for an imperial version of the swimmers mile (1650 yards)

If you are looking for a main set that’s longer, such as 2000 or 3000 yards or meters, you can repeat the main set, or combine two of these into one practice.

Suppose you’re looking for 2000yd main sets, you could take these three suggestions below, each at 1000 meters/yards and to them in any of 3 combinations (1 & 2, 2 & 3, 1 & 3).  Rotate through these combos for a unique set of 3 main sets, each having a set that you do twice before taking a break from it.  There are a lot of ways to customize this practice idea.

Here are sample 1000 meter practices sets for you to play with

Pre-project test set: favorite warmup, 1000yd TT with splits & stroke counts, cooldown

Swim #1: 5 x 200

Swim #2: 10 x 100

Swim #3: 5 sets of 4×50

For each of these swims you can choose some element to improve like…consistent SPL across all sets, or consistent tempo (use a tempo trainer). When you gain or if you already have good control, manipulate a variable…like 5 x 200 swimming the first 50 at one SPL, the next 100 at SPL + 1 and the last 50 at SPL + 2. This should result in a build within each 200.

Vary the rest intervals to create a bit of variety. Since the 200s are more aerobic, keep the RI short in that practice. Since the 50s *can* be anaerobic, maybe choose to swim descending 50s with 30 sec rest, rest 2 minutes and repeat that 4 more times.

Then you cycle back to the 5 x 200 set and have some comparison…choose 1 metric to try and improve.

After 3 cycles of this…whether you swim every day, every other day or 2 times a week…you go back to your 1000yd TT and by that time you should KNOW before you swim it that you’ve improved based on metrics from the previous sets.

Maintain Focus on Form and Skill During this time as well.

Be sure to toss in at least 1 swim, possibly 2, of un-timed, form only swim sets, other strokes, or a team workout for variety. Or a water aerobics class.

Comment below with how you are using these sets!

For more ideas on creating swimming improvement projects consider downloading this Fresh Freestyle Sampler for 3 practice swims from our book.

Triathon Swimming – What can Tuna fish teach efficient swimming technique?

by | Oct 26, 2010 | Swimming

I just got back from a quick 5 day trip to San Francisco Bay visiting a friend and 2nd cousin.  My cousin Steve is having a great start to his cyclocross season (they just started their CX season out there) and podiumed in his age group, 45+.  I hope that some of those genetics found their way to my legs!

While I was there, we took a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  If you love the ocean, you really need to make this a destination someday. It’s on the site of a former sardine cannery right on the pacific ocean. In fact, it’s so close to the ocean that the aquarium pumps in water from the bay as part of it’s exhibits. I learned something really amazing about Tuna and similar fish during the Aquarium Visit.  Tuna use a form of propulsion called thunniform swimming.  In this type of swimming, the propulsion comes mainly from the tail and very little movement occurs from the fish’s body.  As a result, the area just in front of the tail fin has a unique streamlined shape specialized for side to side movement!  A small ridge pointed to each side allows the part of the tail that articulates to move left & right while slipping through the water….leaving the large crescent shaped tail fin to propel the fish forward.

Look carefully at this video…it’s short, but notice the narrowing of the body immediately in front of the crescent shaped tail. If you look closely, you’ll see the horizontal ridges in this narrowest part that I’m talking about!

If reducing drag is so important for tuna, which are naturally designed to swim, how much more important is it for us lanky humans…with dangling arms & legs to work on reducing drag as well?  This made me think about importantit is for us as humans can improve our swimming by spending most of our time focusing on drag reduction.

The problem is that frequently our brain tells us things that aren’t true about what our body is doing in the water.  We are not designed to live, breath and swim underneath the water and therefore GOOD swimming feels very unnatural to us…our brain simply doesn’t know what it should feel like.  As a result we tend to learn one way and that way sticks.  The sensation that we are working hard feels “right” to us. 

Learning to reduce drag immediately makes swimming feel like less work and our brain tells us that we must be doing something wrong…so as a natural tendency, most of the time we actually convince ourselves that what we are doing is wrong…and we revert back to what felt like we were working hard.  After all if it feels hard, it must mean we are building strength and power.

We need to be willing to step back and look at what is really happening under the water and what allows us to slip easily forward.  If you feel yourself pushing hard against the water, something is probably not right.  Post a link to your swim video in the comments and i’ll take a look at it for you!