Good Weekly Workout for competitive swimmer?

Question

My family has recently told me that I need to get more into swimming if I would like to continue with it. They want me to do some dry-land training in addition to regular swimming.
I go to swim practice twice a week for 1-2 hours each time, (ugh, I know, that's nothing, but it's a long way away)
but we do simple things like 25's on 15 sec rest!!! I really want to break 30 on my 50 free sometime soon!!
Can someone please give me a workout that relies heavily on dry-land with 2 or 3 swim practices a week? Also, the practices are suppposed to be getting harder in a week or so. And I can spend extra time in the pool besides practice, usually from 1/2 to 2 hours.
One more thing: I don't have any free weights to work with, so most dry-land tactics need to be using body weight, although if that's too hard, give me the free weights.
Thank you sooo much!

Answer 1

Dryland is a very important prospect when it comes to swimming. For every dryland exercise you should spend 2 times that amount swimming. For example, if your practice is 1 hour long, you should try and do 30 minutes of dryland that day.

Here is what dryland should consist of for a 30 minute dryland workout. A good dryland workout usually starts with some basic stretches that stretches your entire body, especially legs and arms. Next comes running. If your dryland time is 30 minutes, then do a 5 minute jog, then work on some sprints for 10 minutes. Sprint maybe 50 yards then have 10 seconds rest. Then do some cork work. A good core workout would include superman (lay on your stomache and hold your legs and arms off the ground) for 3 repetitions of 30 seconds. Then some sit-ups varying types. You should probably do 30 situps. Do this core work repetition 3 times through. After this you should end with stretching again to make sure your muscles dont cramp.

If you are doing 1 hour worth of dryland, add long distance running to your workout right before sprints. You should probably run one or 2 miles depending on your speed. Then you should go into your sprints and then into the rest of your dryland workout.

Whenever you have free time you should also be stretching to extend your range of motion.

Then you should come to your swimming workout. For a swimming workout you should start out with a long warm up. Here are 2 good warm ups. On one day you should do one and on the other day do the other. One is a 200 SKIPS.
S stands for swim
K stands for kick
I stands for IM drill
P stands for pull
S stands for swim.
This would equal a 1000 for warm up. You would do 200 of each letter in SKIPS. Another good workout is a 6-4-3-2-1
600 swim
400 IM drill
300 kick
200 pull
100 swim.
This warm up would equal 1600 yards. A good warm up would last 45 minutes. Then you would come to a main set.

A good hard main set consists of 20 100's. First you would do 10 100's freestyle. Your freestyle should be about 15 seconds slower than your fastest time. For example, if your 100 free is a 1:05, you should hold about a 1:20 on all 10. You should only have about 5-10 seconds rest. Then you do 10-100;s IM. For IM your time should be about 15-20 seconds slower than your fastest time becuase you should be pretty tired by this point.

After a main set you should do like a 200 easy to loosen up, then you should do some sprint work. Do about 10-20 25's sprint on 30 seconds. This interval should be easy to reach, but if you are truely sprinting you should be tired.

Warm-Down comes next to make sure you are very loose and will not get cramped up when you exit the pool. A good warm down should be about 300 yards, and should be freestyle. Warm down should be easy.

When you get home it would be a good idea to take a warm shower to loosen up your muscles, then end with some stretching.

this is a very good swimming workout and should easily drop your 50 time to under 30 seconds. Hope this helps!

Answer 2

There is an old saying that says something along the lines of, "You get better at swimming through swimming." It's called the "Specificity of Training." Do a yahoo/google search for it...Really good stuff.

One of the examples it shows is how trainers made people do squat programs in the gym for 6 to 8 weeks, which works the quadriceps in the thigh. After the program was over they noted an 80% increase in strength during squats. However, doing similar exercises like leg extentions and leg presses netted only around a 10% increase in strength. It shows that although your quads are stronger, you really only get good at an exercise by doing that particular exercise and nothing else.

That said, the dry land I would recommend for you would be simple aerobic activities. Go for a jog, run stairs, do some sprints on land. Those will increase your aerobic VO2 capacity which WILL translate to a feeling a little more in shape in the pool.

Crunches, leg lifts, V-ups, bicycle crunches, crunches in streamline, leg extensions, all will get your stomach stronger but wont really help your technique on the ab-heavy parts of swimming like flip turns.

For a workout in the pool if you're cocentrating on your 50 time then work sprint practices. Try this:

Warmup:
200 easy - 4 x 75 drill/swim/kick by length - 4 x 50 building speed within each 50

Pre-set:
Something to get your heartrate up is good. Try 10 x 25 kick on 0:30, or a simple 6 minute fast swim taking 5 seconds rest on each wall.

Main set:
6 x 100 on a time 30% slower than your best. (so if your best time is a 1:00, put the 100's on 1:18)
4 x 100 on a time 20% slower than your best
2 x 100 all out sprint for time.
Then do an easy 150 or 200 backstroke to loosen your shoulders up (I'm assuming the main set is freestyle)
Then 6 x 50 on a 50 time 30% slower than best
4 x 50 on a time 20% slower than best
2 x 50 sprint.
You should be tired then but make sure you do it...the best way to get better is to train harder when your body wants to completely stop training.

Then either do an easy breath control set like 4 x 75 breathing every 3/5/7 strokes by 25

Then cool down. There are plenty of other options for good sets. Just keep the swims on an interval and stick to it!!

Answer 3

Chris is right, you get better at swimming by swimming. Too much dryland will not improve your wimming but may build excess muscle and throw your balance of lean muscle to fat ratio off causing you to slow down.

If you add running and biking to your routine you could become a triathlete, there's something to think about!

Just get in the water as often as possible and make every workout count!!! If your team seems too easy for you, find another one to swim for. Different clubs and teams swim at different levels, you need to find one that matches your goals and dedication.

Good luck!!!

Answer 4

thank you