Workouts to break under 30sec

[redcliffe]

Hi, hope nobody minds that I'm an Australian masters swimmer, but nothing like this forum down here.

I've been swimming for about a year, and am 25. I've made some good progress, and am aiming to do about 25km a week eventually, currently doing about 14-15. Usually I do about 3km per session. My freestyle 50m PB is 0:32 and 100m is 1:14. I've been stuck at that sort of level for a few months now. I can reliably swim under 50m in under 40 and 100m in 1:20 as part of a training session for a while.

Could someone suggest exercises I could incorporate into my training program to try and work on breaking through 30 and 60 seconds for the 50 and 100 respectively? Thanks,

David

[dolf]

Originally Posted by redcliffe

Could someone suggest exercises I could incorporate into my training program to try and work on breaking through 30 and 60 seconds for the 50 and 100 respectively? Thanks,
David

These two goals are not achievable together. To swim a sub 60sec 100, you need to be swimming a 26. for a 50.

Initially work on your speed. Swim fast 25's, and even fast 15's and 20m.
Perfect your starts and turns as these can gain or loose you seconds - which is huge over 50/100.

Read the Swimming Faster Faster tips too. They are brilliant. Some technical tips, some psychological and some inspirational tips. But beware - there's a lot of them. It'll take you months!!!!

[NewportGeek]

This might be 'bad' advice... but its worked for me...

work with your coach on reducing your 200 freestyle time.

This will require any of the following:
inscreasing your strength
making your stroke more efficient
correct turning and breathing

In my expierence, swimming lots of 200 frees for time over the course of a season will yield a much better indicimprovment in you sprinting ability anbd race awareness.

I remember my coach grabbing the entire sprint group one day a week and making us swim a series of 6-8 heats of 200 frees, off the blocks, for time. with ample warm down and rest in between (10 minutes or so) The staff would get our splits and we would all talk to each other and the coaches about our strategies for the race we'd just swam and the next race.
this included breathing patterns, power output per 50 etc.

After that the 100 became a simple and managable event for us - and with tremendous time dropped by our whole group. (I went from 57's to 52's in about 4 months)

just my 2cents