Once you have developed a good swim style and good endurance, it is time to develop your speed or, in other words, to perform drills aimed at making you swim faster.
The speed at which a swimmer moves forward depends on three factors: the length, power and speed of their arm stroke; all of which are very closely tied to the techniques we have already looked at.
We would like to point out that, to prevent any possible injuries and to make sure the main workout is effective, every speed session should be performed after a long warmup.
The usual methods for improving your swim speed are sprint training or anaerobic lactate threshold training. This method involves a set of different drills, as follows:
MAXIMUM INTENSITY SPRINTS: do 6-8 maximum intensity sprints (15-20 m) with 2’ – 2’30” recovery.
VARIABLE INTENSITY SPRINTS: this drill involves swimming very short reps (25 m) without full recovery (1’ – 1’30”) varying the intensity. For example, 12×25 with 1’30” recovery: 1 with 12.5 m max/12.5m easy + 1 with 12.5m easy/12.5m maxi + 1 accelerating + 1 flat out.
ALTERNATING SPRINTS: this type of drill is performed alternating flat-out sprints with easy swimming. There is less recovery time, because easy swimming already allows you to…
