Swim Speed Workout: Feel For The Water

Swim Speed Workouts is a deck of waterproof cards of workouts, drills and dryland exercises that are carefully designed to develop a fast freestyle technique.

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Swim Speed Workouts is a deck of waterproof cards of workouts, drills and dryland exercises that are carefully designed to develop a fast freestyle technique. We’ll be featuring a few workouts from the deck over the next few weeks. Look for the book in bookstores or online in March.

Swim Speed Workouts For Swimmers And Triathletes: Week 1, Workout 2
Purpose: Feel for the water during all three phases of the underwater pull (high-elbow catch, diagonal, and finish).

Warm-Up

4 × 75 @ 0:15 rest 60–65% effort
50 swim / 25 horizontal scull drill

Drill Set


0:40 standing scull drill @ 1:00
4 × 25 one-arm drill @ 0:15 rest 70-75% effort

Round 1: Focus on arcing upper arm slightly outward and pointing elbow up as hand/forearm direct down for catch
Round 2:
Focus on pitch of hand/forearm during diagonal phase
Round 3:
Focus on pitch of hand during finish phase

Main Set

6 × 200 @ 0:20 rest 70–75% effort
50 one-arm with kickboard drill / 150 swim

1–2: Focus on high-elbow catch phase
3–4: Focus on diagonal phase
5–6: Focus on finish phase

Download the PDF version of this workout here.

Download the Week 1, Workout 1 card here.

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