Workouts that Can Increase Your Swimming Speed

Swimming is among the most challenging sports or exercises to perfect. However, this shouldn’t be a problem if one gets the right trainers to supervise workouts. It is not uncommon for an adult to try and perfect the art because they were not taught in childhood.

There also are those who have been swimming for years but have failed to improve their speed and resilience. Fortunately the fundamentals of swimming and the drills used to help improve a swimmer’s freestyle remain the same and are used today to obtain enormous success through swimming lessons.

Swimming faster doesn’t necessarily mean swimming harder. To achieve this, swimmers have to focus on perfecting two aspects of their technique.

Reducing Drag While in the Water

Similar to traveling through air, the faster you travel through water, the more drag hinders your speed. We can think of drag as friction between the water molecules and the swimmer’s skin. This is why at the upper level of competitive swimming (olympics), swimmers shave their body hair and wear swim caps. This reduces friction (drag). For the average swimmer, however, perfecting drag-reducing swimming techniques will get the job done.

Improving Propulsion in the Water.

Once you have reduced drag to a minimum, you can focus on improving your propulsion with each stroke in the water. This doesn’t necessarily rely on you simply getting stronger, but rather improving the mechanics of your stroke with specific workouts.

Below are some of the workouts that our swimming instructors propose to help you swim faster:

Technique centered workouts

Technique centered workouts usually entail a blend of long, short and medium training sessions focused at helping you master swim styles and strokes. Our swimming instructors will not only demonstrate the right way to do it but also advise you to work through a variety of strokes and kicks that will expand your exercise repertoire. The plan will alternate freestyle and butterfly swim styles, breaststroke and backstroke.

Sprint workouts

Sprints are focused on short or medium-length bursts. Speed will vary during each sprint; the first run might cycle through slow and medium speed while the second takes on medium and fast speed. When doing the fastest lap, the ratio of medium to fast strokes should be around 3:1. Be sure to take a break between the heats to catch your breath.

Distance workouts

Distance workouts, on the other hand, focus on the freestyle stroke. Normally, swimmers have to kick with a fin and board when doing the kick parts of the exercise, then change to using a paddle and buoy for pull workouts. This gives the swimmer a chance to concentrate on the areas he intends to strengthen. One can prevent injuries that arise from swimming too much through cross training for endurance, including running and biking.

Interval training

Interval training is similar to sprint training. If a sprint workout set varies between fast and medium, then an interval training set will be a blend of slow and fast changes depending on the different distances in the pool.

There is a misconception with many endurance athletes on how to strength train and that is why you can count on our swimming instructors to give you the best tips on improving your swimming endurance and speed. We offer year round swimming lessons to kids and adults of all ages. Our programs are designed to be fun while teaching you a vital life-saving skill.