A Guide to The Pool Sessions

Welcome to the pool sessions guide! I've been promising to write this for a while now, hopefully it clears a few things up for those of you using the sessions and encourages more to start using them. Please feel free to comment if there is anything you feel I haven't covered I will add to it. Additionally feel free to ask any questions!

I started writing these sessions for myself since pools reopened after lockdown with a "get back into training" theme and decided to make them available to people to access them online for free. I have since decided to continue them further and take them into more serious training techniques moving forward.

As a coach I always encourage the swimming of all four strokes, whether you're swimming for fitness, training for a triathlon or swimming competitively so on that belief these sessions will encourage just that! I can't tell you the amount of times someone has said to me "I'm only going to race Freestyle so I only want to train Freestyle". I believe whatever stroke you're trying to swim the principle is the same - learning movement in water. Each stroke has elements that force more focus on important aspects of Freestyle, such as body position, the catch, rotation and much more. That said, I want people to be able to adapt the sessions to themselves and that may include changing of stokes.

The same goes for drills, I often get resistance from swimmers with a non-competitive backgrounds that are reluctant to train drills. Drills are meant to expose weaknesses in our strokes and force us to strengthen them, often the hardest drills are the ones that are most beneficial to us.

My ultimate hope is to encourage swimmers to get more out of their swims and have a better understanding of some of the training techniques we use in competitive swimming enabling you to apply them to your own workouts.

Suggestions

The session plans are written as roughly an hour long (due to time limits set in most pools) so depending on your speed you may need to add or subtract repeats or distances to suit yourself. Don't feel the sessions are set in stone and that you can't change anything, just try not to avoid drills you find difficult, often these can be the most beneficial.

Don't be afraid to change down a lane to complete slower drills or kicking etc. You shouldn't feel rushed by a busy fast lane every time you swim!

Acronyms

FLY = Butterfly

BK = Backstroke

BR = Breaststroke

FS = Freestyle (Front crawl)

IM = Individual Medley - Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke, Freestyle (In that order)

IMO = Individual Medley Order - for example 4x50 IMO would be 50 FLY 50 BK 50 BR 50 FS

Choice = Your choice of stroke or drills!

Descend or Desc. = Descend on the time it takes you to swim - Swim each repeat faster than the last.

EZ = Easy!

NSCS = Non-Stop Continuous Swimming

SC = Stroke count - The number of strokes per length

SR = Stroke Rate - The speed of the cycle of your stroke

DPS = Distance Per Stroke - This means swimming with as few strokes as possible per length.

Hypoxic Training = A type of training which involves limiting the amount of breathing we do.

"For time" = Normally reserved for the last repeat in a set, it means to swim it as fast as you can! It's worth remembering and recording those times.

"As" = It just means as! (most commonly asked question!)

Swimming Off The Clock

The most effective way to train in a pool, no complicated watches needed! If your pool has a pace clock then great, it's time to start using it. If not, a watch with an analogue second hand is ideal. It's important to understand we are mostly training in heart rate zones, so a set should take you into a HRZ and keep you there for a prolonged duration. Think about that the next time you swim 100m and rest until your HR drops down to a comfortable level!

Within the sessions you may find the @ symbol followed by a number, that number represents seconds (or minutes if over 60). This is what we refer to as a "Turn-around time", meaning if the set was written as 20x50 @60 you are to start another 50 every 60 seconds. If you were to swim those 50s in 40 seconds you would be getting 20 seconds rest between each. Swim them in 50 seconds and you'll have 10 seconds rest between each.

*A quick caveat to the times I have written on the sessions, these are based on the speed and level that I swim at, they will need to be adjusted to your own ability and I really do encourage you to get an understanding of this. There's no point trying to swim 10x50 @60 if the fastest you have ever swum a 50 is 55 seconds, you will likely give up after the first two having taken your heart rate straight to maximum! So if 55 seconds is the fastest you can swim 50m then giving yourself a turn-around time of 1:20 will likely suit your speed better.

To add another level of complexity to this, where repeats are blocked together within the session we also want to carry the times over to the next set of repeats in the block. Looking at the set below we can see repeats of 25s, 100s and a 200 together in a block. We want to swim that block as one, so we'll start the 2x100 on the 30 second time of the last 25 and the 200 on the last 100 time. The space between blocks and/or repeats represents around a 1-2 minute rest period.

4x25 @30

2x100 @2:00

200 for time

10x50 @60

4x300 @6:00

Pace

A quick one to complicate again, I also use the @ symbol for pace as well. You might come across something like 4x50 @60 @200 pace. This means you will swim each 50 at the speed you would swim a 200m race. Obviously that may not mean a lot to you if you're not competing or have never raced a 200, my best tip would be to push the 50 at a fast pace that you could continue for another 50 at least!

Example Session

Warm Up (I generally keep my warm ups the same)

300 Choice - Personally I swim 100 FS 100 BK and 100 BR

4x50 Descend - Meaning each 50 gets faster

2x50 Kick

200 Pull breathing every 5 strokes - Pull meaning the use of a pull buoy. Use between thighs unless stated otherwise.

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Main Set

2x (If seen at the top of the dividers by itself it means twice through everything within those dividers)

4x100 - We're covering 400m but we are not just swimming 400 otherwise I would have written 400! We stop after each 100.

8x25 @30

4x50 @60

2x100 @2:00

200 @4:00

*Note there is a difference between each of the above! You have to swim them to understand but what you will find is your technique and stroke strength with hold better for the 25s and diminish faster swimming a straight 200.

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4x100 IM as Kick/Swim (1&3 Swim 25 FLY 25 BK 25 BR 25 FS, 2&4 Kick 25 FLY 25 BK 25 BR 25 FS)

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Cool Down

200 EZ (your choice of stroke, we want to allow our HR to drop slowly)

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If there is anything you feel I haven't covered or are still confused about then please leave a comment and I can add to this post. Thank you in advance and happy swimming!

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