Early Season Swim Workouts For Creating a Base

Early season training is all about creating the foundation for successful racing and training during the upcoming year.  While most triathletes associate the establishment of a training base with aerobic development, and aerobic development certainly plays a big role, it goes well beyond that. To set yourself up for a great season, it’s also critical to establish a base of skill and speed. Early season swim training is the time to create a solid foundation of endurance, speed, and skill workouts.

Because skill, speed, and aerobic endurance all create the foundation for racing performance, these types of training should be the focus early in the training season before progressing to the harder threshold or race-specific training that many implement later. With more speed, better skills, and a higher level of aerobic fitness, more intense training will have an even greater impact on performance.

Too many triathletes make three key mistakes in their swim training early in the season: They swim too fast, too early during their endurance training, they simultaneously swim too slow to practice their speed, and they think that skill development is an afterthought. While focusing on hard endurance work early in the season can produce results in the short-term, it ultimately compromises performance in the long-term as it compromises the development of a broad base.

To help you avoid making this same mistake, the following three workouts will each focus on one of these three themes—skill, speed, and sustainability. Although each workout will have a specific theme, you’ll notice that elements of all three are present in each.

All of these workouts can be scaled to your ability level and the amount of time you can commit to training in the water. To increase the amount of work done, simply increase the number of repetitions or the distances of the repetition.  The opposite approach can be taken to reduce the amount of work that’s to be performed. If you need to make adjustments, retain the framework of the workouts and modify the volume.

For all three workouts, we’ll use the same basic technique exercises:

Ball Float– Learn to feel your lungs support yourself in the water.  Relax and settle in.

Ball Float to X Float– Focus on creating tension in your back and the backs of your legs, holding your legs up.

Power Pulls with Buoy– Focus on moving a large amount of water directly backward, using the entire arm to create as much surface area as possible.

Workout #1 Skill

This workout is focused on learning and reinforcing the key skills for faster swimming. Because it is not particularly demanding from a physical perspective, it can be used as a lower-intensity workout in between harder sessions in the water or on land. This workout will focus on two key skills: improving alignment in the water and improving the effectiveness of the arm pull.

Warm Up

100 Freestyle; EZ; perform 10-second Ball Float before each 25
16×25 Freestyle; perform 10 seconds floating exercise before each 25

ODD Ball Float
EVEN Ball Float to X Float
10 seconds rest between repetition

Main Set

5x
25 Power Pulls With Buoy; take as few strokes possible
25 Power Pulls With Buoy; build speed
25 Freestyle with Buoy; take as few strokes possible
25 Freestyle with Buoy; build speed
15-20 seconds rest between repetition

4x
25 Freestyle
50 Freestyle
75 Freestyle
100 Freestyle
10 seconds floating exercise before each repetition
ODD Rounds ODD Ball Float EVEN Ball Float to X Float

15-20 seconds rest between repetition

8x
25 Power Pulls with Buoy; take as few strokes possible
100 Freestyle; take the same number of strokes each 25
15-20 seconds rest between repetition

Cooldown

100 Freestyle; EZ; perform 10-second Ball Float before each 25

Workout #2 Sustainability

This workout is focused on sustainability. It’s all about accumulating volume at controlled intensities. The goal is to remain in control of your effort and execute great skills. You should be able to finish the workout with the same speed and effort as when you began. During your training week, this workout should be the largest one. Simply adjust the volume up or down depending on your current fitness levels.

Warm Up

100 Freestyle; EZ; perform 10-second Ball Float before each 25

Main Set

3x
100 Freestyle; perform 3x Ball Float to X Float before each 25
100 as 25 Power Pulls With Buoy + 75 Freestyle with Buoy; count your stroke
100 Freestyle; as relaxed as possible
15-20 seconds rest between repetition

5x
Perform 5x Ball Float to X Float before each round
3×100 Freestyle; aim to go the same speed each 100
10 seconds rest between each 100
45 seconds rest between each round

4x
2×25 Power Pulls With a Buoy
350 Freestyle; aim to take the same number of strokes per lap

Get slightly faster each round
15 seconds rest after each 25
45 seconds rest after each 350

Cooldown

100 Freestyle; EZ; perform 10-second Ball Float before each 25

Workout #3 Speed

The purpose of this workout is to spend more time swimming fast over short distances, while minimizing the accumulation of fatigue. Swimming fast is a skill and practicing swimming fast in this way allows one to develop that skill.

Warm Up

100 Freestyle; EZ; perform 10-second Ball Float before each 25

Main Set

10×50 Freestyle; perform 10-second Ball Float before each 50
ODD As effortless and relaxed as possible
EVEN Build to a strong effort; build to a stronger effort each time
20 seconds rest between each repetition

5x
2×25 Power Pulls With A Buoy; take as few strokes as possible
50 Freestyle; Build to a strong effort; build to a stronger effort each time
20 seconds rest between each repetition

8x
25 Freestyle; FAST
75 As easy as possible; take the same number of strokes each 25
Perform 3x Ball Float to X Float before each repetition
20 seconds rest between each repetition

4x
25 Power Pulls With A Buoy; build to fast
25 Freestyle; build to Fast
25 Freestyle; Fast
125 Freestyle; as EZ as possible
30 seconds rest between each repetition

Cooldown

100 Freestyle; EZ; perform 10-second Ball Float before each 25