Tri Swim Coach

Saturday Swim Sessions: Week 1 Swim Fitness Builder

The Swim Fitness Builder (SFB) is an eight-week training plan to build fitness for a swimmer currently confident in swimming about 600-800m to be able to swim 1,600m confidently in a session. I am providing the workouts from the training plan for FREE, through my website. If you’d like them as a training plan on TrainingPeaks, there is a link to purchase that towards the end of the article.

Each Saturday I will post a Swim Session, most weeks I will load three options up for you to do. Option A is for swimmers who are after a workout between 1,000 & 2,000 metres. Option B is for swimmers who are after a workout between 2,000 & 3,000m and Option C will be greater than 3,000m.

Spread the following sessions through the week. If you only have time to include two swim sessions, utilise the first two workouts. If you only have time to include three swim sessions, utilise the first three workouts. Spread them evenly through the week, eg:

  • 4 sessions Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday;
  • 3 Sessions Monday, Wednesday, and Friday;
  • 2 Sessions Monday, Thursday or Monday, Friday

Session 1

  • 200m W/U;
  • 4x 25m Drill;
  • 3x 100m Swim, 20sec RI;
  • 200m C/D (800m)

For the Warm Up (WU) start with a 200m swim. During the warm-up feel free to stop and stretch as needed.  It doesn’t need to be a continuous swim.

Next up is a drill set. There are four, 25m repetitions. Feel free to use fins whilst doing this set.  Do the drills below:

  1. Kick On Side (KOS) left side 
  2. Kick On Side (KOS) right side 
  3. 6/1/6 
  4. 6/3/6

The main set is made up of three reps of 100m. Swim them at a pace you can maintain for all reps. Take a 20-second Rest Interval (RI) after each rep.

For the Cool Down (CD) swim 200m. Unlike the previous sets which have to be freestyle, the cooldown (like the warm-up) can be any stroke you wish to swim.  You can also stop and rest after any length.  I encourage you to stop and stretch during the cool-down.

Session 2

  • 200m W/U;
  • 4x 25m Drill;
  • 8x 50m Swim, 10sec RI;
  • 200m C/D (900m)

For the Warm Up (WU) start with a 200m swim. During the warm-up feel free to stop and stretch as needed.  It doesn’t need to be a continuous swim.

Next up is a drill set. There are four, 25m repetitions. Feel free to use fins whilst doing this set.  Do the drills below:

  1. Kick On Side (KOS) left side 
  2. Kick On Side (KOS) right side 
  3. 6/1/6 
  4. 6/3/6

The main set is made up of eight reps of 50m. Swim them at a pace you can maintain for all reps. Take a ten-second Rest Interval (RI) after each rep.

For the Cool Down (CD) swim 200m. Unlike the previous sets which have to be freestyle, the cooldown (like the warm-up) can be any stroke you wish to swim.  You can also stop and rest after any length.  I encourage you to stop and stretch during the cool-down.

Session 3

  • 200m W/U;
  • 4x 25m Drill;
  • 12x 25m Swim, 10sec RI;
  • 200m C/D (800m)

For the Warm Up (WU) start with a 200m swim. During the warm-up feel free to stop and stretch as needed.  It doesn’t need to be a continuous swim.

Next up is a drill set. There are four, 25m repetitions. Feel free to use fins whilst doing this set.  Do the drills below:

  1. Kick On Side (KOS) left side 
  2. Kick On Side (KOS) right side 
  3. 6/1/6 
  4. 6/3/6

The main set is made up of twelve reps of 25m. Swim them at a pace you can maintain for all reps. Take a ten-second Rest Interval (RI) after each rep.

For the Cool Down (CD) swim 200m. Unlike the previous sets which have to be freestyle, the cooldown (like the warm-up) can be any stroke you wish to swim.  You can also stop and rest after any length.  I encourage you to stop and stretch during the cool-down.

Session 4

  • 200m W/U;
  • 6x 25m Drill;
  • 25m 10sec RI;
  • 50m 10sec RI;
  • 100m 10sec RI;
  • 100m 10sec RI;
  • 50m 10sec RI;
  • 25m 10sec RI;
  • 200m C/D (900m)

For the Warm Up (WU) start with a 200m swim. During the warm-up feel free to stop and stretch as needed.  It doesn’t need to be a continuous swim.

Next up is a drill set. There are six, 25m repetitions. Feel free to use fins whilst doing this set.  Do the drills below:

  1. Kick On Side (KOS) left side 
  2. Kick On Side (KOS) right side 
  3. 6/1/6 
  4. 6/3/6
  5. Popov
  6. Broken Arrow

The main set is made up of a pyramid set. Start with the first rep of 25m, for the second rep increase the distance to 50m. For the third and fourth reps swim 100m. The fifth rep sees the distance decrease to 50m and the final rep again a decrease to 25m. Take a ten-second Rest Interval (RI) after each rep.

For the Cool Down (CD) swim 200m. Unlike the previous sets which have to be freestyle, the cool down (like the warm-up) can be any stroke you wish to swim.  You can also stop and rest after any length.  I encourage you to stop and stretch during the cool-down.

Keep an eye out next week for the second week of this programme, or get it sent directly to your inbox by filling in this form:

Get Weekly Swim Workouts Direct to Your Inbox

If you would like further advice feel free to contact me.

Get the Training Plan on TrainingPeaks and get access to my fortnightly coaching calls:

I am the Head Coach & Director of Qwik Kiwi Coaching.

I specialise in assisting first-timers and recreational athletes to achieve their sporting goals. I can be contacted at coachray@coachray.nz and 021 348 729.

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Swim Sessions

The 20 Most Popular Swim Sessions from www.CoachRay.nz

With over 200 articles covering swim workouts published when this ebook came out, I condensed it down to the Top 20 most popular swim workouts. As viewed by people like you, the readers of my website.

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