One-Hour Workout: Aerobic Swim With High-Intensity Bursts

Every Tuesday we’ll feature a different coach’s workout you can complete in 60 mins (or less!).

This week’s swim workout from comes from USAT certified coach Michael Gallagher, a coach and owner of Oregon-based Rogue Tri Performance.

This workout is appropriate for athletes training for sprint- or Olympic-distance triathlons and is ideal for the base-to-build phase of your annual plan.

“It incorporates aerobic endurance and includes short high-intensity bursts to simulate race pace, passing and getting the athlete use to consistently higher intensities as his or her race is approaching,” Gallagher explains. “The goal of this workout is to slowly increase the yards/meters the athletes will swim at a higher intensity so when the build phase is over the athlete is doing majority of their long swims at or slightly below race pace.”

Warm-up:
200 Swim (focus on extension and technique as this is not about speed)
200 Kick
200 Pull (Focus on EVF and core rotation, do not apply a lot of force as you are still warming up.)

Drills:
3×50 One arm (25m each arm)

Main Set:
1×600
1×500
1×400
1×300
(5-10 sec rest or the athletes pace per 100 in practice)

The last 25 of each 100 should be at or above race pace but still keeping your form. This is not all out.

Keep the same stroke count throughout the workout if possible. We want to be efficient without expending too much energy.

Focus on getting into a rhythm with your stroke and rotation.

Cool-down:
1×200 swim
1×150 kick

Total = 3000