Swimming 101: How to Start Swim Training as an Adult

How Many Calories Does Swimming Burn?

How many calories you burn while swimming depends upon a multitude of factors.

Calorie expenditure in the pool relies on factors you can't immediately control, such as metabolism and weight, and factors you can, such as a workout's intensity or what strokes it includes.

There are many fancy gadgets and calorie-counter calculators out there to help swimmers estimate how many calories they’re torching in the pool, but most experts agree that you should treat these estimates as just that—an educated guess.

Since the formulas used in exercise equipment and fitness-tracking devices vary from company to company, people who treat calorie-tracking devices as gospel run the risk of dramatically overestimating their calorie expenditure, writes Gina Kolata for The New York Times. 

Still, these estimates can serve as general guides to how many calories can be burned through various swimming activities, even if it's not possible to pinpoint exact expenditures.

Harvard Health estimates the calories burned by a 155-pound person engaging in moderate swimming activities to be roughly 223 calories per 30 minutes. Calorie expenditure can jump to 372 calories in the same timeframe for vigorous swimming.

A 185-pound person might burn 226 and 444 calories through moderate and vigorous swimming activity, respectively, in the same period.

According to swimming.org, butterfly tops the list for calorie burning at roughly 450 calories per 30 minutes. But the stroke is the most difficult to maintain, making it the least practical choice to burn the most total calories over the course of a workout.

Freestyle ranks second for calorie-burning potential compared to the other strokes at roughly 300 calories per 30 minutes of swimming. That's followed by backstroke and breaststroke.

Although calculating exact calorie expenditure might be impossible, remember these general guidelines if you’re using swimming to lose weight.

Keep the intensity. The more intense a workout, the more calories you’ll typically burn. Incorporate high-intensity interval training into your workouts to ensure you burn calories long after you leave the pool, in addition to more moderate sets that you can participate in for longer.

Seek out variety. Train multiple muscle groups by switching up strokes and sets. Adding variety challenges your body and elevates the heart rate so you can burn more calories.

Watch your caloric intake. No amount of exercise can overcompensate for eating more calories than you burn when it comes to weight loss goals. Focus on eating healthy, balanced meals and getting proper nutrition, and avoid using calorie-counter estimations as a reason to overindulge.

—KATY BERGEN  

How Can I Find a Coach and a Club?

Finding a pool and a time to swim laps can be difficult. When you do get a chance to jump in the water, you may find yourself sharing with swimmers who are too fast or too slow, run you over or get in your way, push off the wall right before you come in for a turn, and just don’t know the general rules of lane etiquette.

Swimming by yourself can also be lonely and not as motivating. It is easy to skip the end of a hard set or even an entire workout when there is no one expecting you or holding you accountable. 

Finding a USMS club and coach can help you find a place to swim and people to train with and make your swimming much more enjoyable.

Use the USMS Club Finder

One of the best tools you have as a swimmer is the Club Finder section on the USMS website. You can search for a club in your area based on your location. Club Finder gives you information about what days and times the club swims as well as coach and contact information. Reach out and contact the coach to see what steps you need to take before attending practice as well as what to expect on your first day. 

Connect With Your LMSC

When you become a member of USMS, in addition to registering with a club, workout group, or as unattached, you also become a member of your Local Masters Swimming Committee, or LMSC. Your LMSC is a regional governing body that provides certain benefits to USMS members, including printed registration cards (if requested), event sanctions, newsletters about activities within the LMSC, websites, awards and recognition, and social activities. Your LMSC officers are local volunteers who might attend the USMS annual meeting, sit on USMS national committees, and vote on policies that set the overall direction for USMS.

Browsing through the website of your LMSC can give you information about local programs, events, and swim meets, as well as people who can help you in your search.

Each LMSC has a membership coordinator who is a great source of information about clubs in your area. Your membership coordinator may know which clubs compete in swim meets or which are composed mainly of triathletes, for example. If you’re looking for a Learn-to-Swim Program, the membership coordinator will know which of their LMSC’s member clubs has a program to help you. If there is no club in your area, your membership coordinator can be helpful in connecting you with other people who may be interested in swimming together and starting a club. 

Benefits of Swimming With a Coach

The benefits of swimming with a USMS-certified coach are numerous. USMS coaches spend time learning new techniques, giving you specific drills to improve your strokes, pushing you beyond your comfort zone, and helping you train for whatever goals you have.

Having a coach on deck to analyze your stroke and correct errors helps you become a much more efficient swimmer. You can watch videos online all day but without a qualified set of eyes on you, watching you make corrections and giving instant feedback, making changes is very difficult. Your coach will know which drills are most effective and work best for you.

Swimming with correct technique also helps prevent injury. Your coach can analyze your stroke to see if any bad techniques are contributing to an injury. Coaches can also accommodate any lingering injuries you may have and make changes to the workout so you can get the most out of your swim. Many USMS coaches are swimmers, team members, and peers as well. They understand what it’s like when you hurt your back and need to be in the pool but can’t quite complete the workout as written that day.

Certified USMS coaches will plan their workouts to accommodate all levels of swimmers. Workouts will include warm-ups, workout sets, and cool-down swims. Many coaches use a season plan or event-based plan to help you train for and achieve your goals. They’re there to guide your training, encourage you to reach beyond your limits, and support you on your swimming journey.

Benefits of Swimming With a Club

Swimming on your own can make training much harder. Finding a club to train with and swimmers of similar ability can help motivate you during practice. Swimming a hard set with people encouraging you and swimming it with you is much more fun than swimming it alone. Your teammates can inspire you to swim your best, or better than you thought you could, and you do the same for them. 

Friends, family, and fun are the greatest benefits of swimming with a club. You’ll meet swimmers who share your passion for the pool or beginners who are just getting started with you. The people you meet in the quick 10-second breaks on the wall may be the ones you join for coffee after practice for a longer conversation to get to know each other. They’re the ones who show up for birthdays, baby showers, funerals, or just when needed. The swimmers who share your love for 5 a.m. practices and a permanent smell of chlorine can become your friends for a lifetime.

—KRIS GOODRICH 

What’s a Typical Swimming Workout?

Your first time walking into a swim workout is a little like your first day on the job, both a little exciting and a little nerve wracking. You know that you’ll do well, but there’s a learning curve—new rules to learn, new people to meet, and procedures to follow. Knowing what to expect and getting prepared ahead of time can make your experience a lot easier and more enjoyable.

Meet the Coach

Even if you’ve had some email exchanges or met the coach before ever going to the pool, it’s best to show up a few minutes early to your first workout. The beginning of a workout can be chaotic as the coach is getting everyone organized and swimming. By showing up early, you have time to tell the coach a little bit about yourself. If you’ve spoken before, you can remind the coach what swimming experience you have, if you have any injuries or medical conditions, and what your swimming goals are. With this information, the coach can place you in a lane with swimmers of similar ability who can help you on your first day. 

Rules of the Pool

Swimming in a lane with more than one swimmer is very different from swimming by yourself. I like to call it “Rules of the Road” with new swimmers because it’s like driving. 

When swimming with two or more people in your lane, you circle swim in a counterclockwise direction. Just like driving on the road in the United States, you swim on the right side of the lane. Keeping the lane line to your right shoulder and the black line on the bottom to your left, swim to the other end. To avoid swimmers coming behind you or pushing off ahead of you, make your turn in the middle on the wall. When you push off to go back to the other end, stick to the right side of the lane again.

Just as in driving, tailgating—swimming right on someone else’s feet—will not make you any friends in the pool. It’s common in practice to swim a certain distance apart, usually indicated by time, to give people space and avoid crashes. Some coaches like to have swimmers separated by five seconds. Others like the interval to be 10 seconds. Ask the coach or your lanemates for the correct send-off between swimmers.

Do you ever get frustrated by those drivers who pass in a no passing zone? This can also happen in the pool. Even in a lane with others of similar ability, there are times when the order should be changed. Common methods of passing include tapping the person’s foot in front of you to signal you would like to pass at the next wall, swimming up the middle to pass (usually in long course only), or switching positions when you’re at the wall resting between reps. To avoid crashes or unintentional gaffes, asking your fellow swimmers to learn the correct procedure for your club is definitely best. 

The Clock

Swimmers live and breathe by the clock. If you’re lucky, your pool has a nice big digital clock up high and easy to see. Older facility with a limited budget? You may have an analog pace clock, also called a sweep clock (with hands that sweep around), to use during practice. Either way, most coaches use a common language to start each part of practice. “The top” means when the analog hand is up at the 60 on a traditional pace clock (:00 on the digital clock). “The bottom” is when the analog hand is at the 30 (:30 on the digital clock).

The Workout

Each workout is divided into separate parts. Most workouts are usually an hour to an hour and a half long. They typically include a warm-up to get you moving and your muscles warmed up, a drill or kick set, a main swim set for the focus of the workout, and a cool-down to bring your heart rate down and allow your muscles to recover before you leave.

Distance

What is a lap? Or a length? Traditionally, a lap was out and back (two lengths). But there’s dissension about this subject! To keep it simple, I (and many other coaches) use length and lap interchangeably. If you’re in a 25-yard pool, one lap or length is 25 yards. If you are in a 50-meter pool, one length or lap is 50 meters.

Sets

Coaches break workouts into groupings called sets. Sets may include all different types of work such as swimming, drilling, pulling, kicking, or sculling.

Your coach may write 5 x 100s freestyle on the board. What they mean by this is that you’re going to swim 100 yards (four lengths of 25 yards) and repeat it five times. During a pull set, your coach may have you use paddles and a pull buoy.

You’ll often do swimming drills during a workout. A drill is a specific exercise to work one aspect of a stroke. If you don’t understand the drill, make sure to ask the coach or your lanemates for clarification!

Time

Time between reps and sets can be done several ways. 

Intervals are one of the harder things for newcomers to understand. The coach will tell you to swim those 5 x 100s “on the 1:45.” That means that you’ll push off the wall and swim 100 yards every one minute and 45 seconds. If it takes you one minute and 20 seconds to swim it, you’ll have 25 seconds of rest. If it takes you one minute and 40 seconds, you’ll have only five seconds to rest.

Rest intervals, sometimes abbreviated RI, are a little easier to understand and guarantee you a specific amount of rest. Using the example set of 5 x 100s, if your coach tells you your rest interval is 10 seconds, you swim 100 yards, rest for 10 seconds, and repeat that four more times.

Once you’re a regular at a workout, you’ll have a much better idea of how long it takes you to swim each stroke and distance. 

Gear

These first four are pretty much universal; the last one you might want to wait and talk to your coach before buying.

• A good suit that fits close to your body. Drag, or resistance in the water, makes swimming a lot harder. For women, one-piece suits without any additional material or embellishments are best. For men, a tight-fitting jammer (jammers look like bike shorts but don’t have the seat padding) or briefs is typical and a lot less drag than men’s swim trunks or board shorts.
• A good pair of goggles. If you have a local swim shop where you can try them on, find a pair that fits your face correctly. You can also buy them online. You may have to go through several different pairs to find the ones you like the best. Ask your fellow swimmers for recommendations and if you can try some of theirs on during practice. 
• A swim cap if you have long hair. Caps are primarily made of two materials: silicone and latex. Latex caps are cheaper and a little tighter. They’re also more prone to tear. Silicone caps are a little more expensive, though some feel they are a little more comfortable but may slide off in competition. They also hold more heat. Swimmers tend to prefer one or the other. Less common are lycra swim caps, which are more comfortable but allow your hair to get wetter.
• Hydration. When you’re swimming, you’ll lose water through sweat, the same as you would while doing any land exercise. It’s just harder to recognize this while working out in the water. Bring a water bottle with water or your favorite workout drink along with you to the pool. 
• Toys. Having equipment can make your workouts a lot more fun. After you’ve attended a couple of workouts, your coach can recommend gear for your swim bag such as kickboards, fins, paddles, and pull buoys. Keeping this equipment in a mesh bag allows it to drain and dry in between practices.

Questions?

Even though you’re now better prepared for your first workout, you’ll certainly have more questions as you begin. Your lanemates are a great source of information, and most swimmers are friendly. They were once where you are, so they know what you’re going through during your first couple of practices. And don’t be afraid to stop and ask the coach. Coaches are there to support you and help you become a better swimmer—and they want you to have fun and come back for another practice!

—KRIS GOODRICH  

Swimming Terms I Should Know

You walk on the pool deck for your first workout and the coach says, “Jump in lane 3, warm-up is 8 x 50s, kick-drill, reverse IM order on the minute.”

Wait, what? Swim practice has a language all its own. Knowing some terminology ahead of time can help with this new experience. Here are some helpful terms and definitions to help you navigate and translate the swim code for your first couple of workouts. 

Distance

There’s dissension over whether swimming from one end of the pool to another is a length or lap. Traditionally, a lap is out and back, or two lengths. Many coaches now just use length and lap interchangeably but ask your coach for their preference. Just know that swimming is counted in yards or meters, not miles. If the length of the pool is 25 meters, then “a 100” is four lengths swimming without stopping. 

Sets: A set is a group (sometimes several groups) of repetitions. You may have a kick set, a pull set, or a main set. There’s typically a goal or a purpose to a set.

Reps (repetitions): How many times you’ll repeat a distance. For example, five repetitions of 100 yards would normally be written as 5 x 100s.

Time

Time: The time it takes you to swim a specific event or distance. “My time for the 50 freestyle is 28.37,” meaning you swam a 50 free in 28 seconds and 37 hundredths.

Split: The time it takes to swim equal parts of a certain distance. “My splits for the 100 free were 28.45 and 31.12,” meaning you swam the first 50 of your 100 a little faster than the second.

On the top: When the second hand points up to the 60 on a traditional pace clock face (:00 on a digital pace clock).

On the bottom: When the second hand is pointing down to the 30 (:30 on a digital clock).

Intervals

The time it takes you to swim and rest for one repetition before you start another.

If your interval is 2:00 for 5 x 100s freestyle (written as “5 x 100s – 2:00” and spoken as “five 100s on the two minutes), you’ll push off the wall every two minutes, regardless of how fast you swim. If it takes you 1:32 to swim the first rep, you have 28 seconds to rest before leaving for the second. If you swim the second in 1:40, you have 20 seconds of rest before leaving for the third rep.

Rest interval: If your coach gives you a “rest interval” rather than just a regular interval, that set could be written as “5 x 100s – RI :10,” and spoken as “five 100s with 10 seconds rest.” So you’ll rest the same amount of time after each rep, regardless of how fast you swim.

Strokes

There are four competitive strokes with their own stroke rules. The freestyle race may be swum using any stroke.

Front crawl: Because front crawl is typically the fastest stroke and the one that most people use in a freestyle race, many people swap the correct stroke name out for “freestyle” or simply “free.”

Backstroke: Swum on your back, usually with alternating arms. It’s also legal to use the older-style “elementary backstroke,” in which both arms move simultaneously. Often written and spoken as “back.”

Breaststroke: Swum by scooping water from out in front of you and using your legs simultaneously in a whiplike motion behind you. Often written and spoken as “breast.”

Butterfly: Swum with both arms coming out and over the water simultaneously and using a dolphin kick. Often written and spoken as “fly.”

Individual medley: Or IM, a race swum with all four competitive strokes in the order of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle. During the freestyle portion of the IM, you must swim anything other than butterfly, backstroke, or breaststroke. How many lengths you swim depends on the length of the race, but it’s always the same for all four strokes. A 100 IM would be 25 yards (or meters) of each stroke and a 400 IM would be 100 yards (or meters) of each stroke.

Reverse IM order: Sometimes the coach will say “reverse IM order” or write “RIMO” on the board. This means that the stroke order is backward during that set, and you’ll swim free, breast, back, then fly.

Other Terms You’ll Hear at a Workout

Drills: A drill is a specific exercise to work one aspect of a stroke. Drills isolate a particular motion or change a motion to highlight it and allow you to concentrate on it. Drills often uncover stroke flaws and help you make technique adjustments to become more efficient.

Pull: Pulling means using only your arms to move. Pull sets are often done using a pull buoy and/or paddles. Pulling with and without gear allows you to focus on important parts of your stroke and identify weaknesses.

Kick: Kicking means using only your legs to move. Kick sets are often done with a kickboard or a snorkel and/or fins. 

Scull: A small, quick back-and-forth motion with your hands that teaches you how to move water.

Catch: The point in your stroke when your arms begin their propulsive motion. Each stroke has a catch, and having a good one is critical to efficiency.

Streamline: The position used after the start and to push off the wall after each turn. Your arms should be in front of you and squeezed tight, one hand stacked on top of the other, your legs straight, your feet together, and your toes pointed. The key is trying to keep your body as small as possible to glide through the water.

Glide: Moving through the water in a streamlined position. Also, the part of the breaststroke between each set of arm pulls and kicks. 

Stroke count: How many strokes it takes to get from one end of the pool to the other. Some coaches count each hand entering the water and some coaches use the stroke cycle in freestyle and backstroke (two arm pulls, so you might count each time your second arm to stroke enters the water and multiple by two). 

Distance per stroke: Abbreviated DPS, this is how far you swim with each arm pull.

Flip turn: A somersault-like motion to change direction quickly at the wall and swim another length.

Open turn: One or two hands touch the wall at the end before you push off with your feet to go the other direction.

Choice: You can pick the stroke you swim during that part of the set.

Stroke: When swimming a set, this typically means any stroke other than freestyle (front crawl).

Alternate or bilateral breathing: Breathing on odd numbers of strokes during freestyle so that you breathe on both the right and left sides.

Pool Terminology

Lanes: Just like a bowling alley, the pool is divided into lanes by ropes called lane lines. If your pool has starting blocks, they will be numbered to match the lanes.

Starting blocks: The items at the end of the pool from which swimmers dive into the water.

Backstroke flags: The flags hanging a few yards or meters from the ends of the pool are the backstroke flags. Backstrokers use these to determine how far away from the wall they are so they can flip over and perform a flip turn.

Circle swimming: When swimming with three or more people in your lane, you circle swim in a counterclockwise direction. Just like driving on the road in the United States, you swim on the right side of the lane. Keeping the lane line to your right shoulder and the black line on the bottom to your left, swim to the other end. To avoid swimmers coming behind you or pushing off ahead of you, make your turn in the middle on the wall. When you push off to go back to the other end, stick to the right side of the lane again.

The T: The bottom of your pool typically has a black line running straight up the middle of the lane. The “T” is at the end of the line and lets you know you are approaching the wall. Other pools have a cross at the end of the lane.

Swim Meet Terminology

A swim meet also has its own terminology to help keep things organized and running smoothly.

Events: A specific stroke and distance that the swimmers will race. Examples include the 100 freestyle, 200 breaststroke, and 400 IM.

Heats: Groupings of swimmers in a race. If 64 swimmers are swimming the 50 freestyle and your pool has eight lanes, there will be eight heats of eight swimmers each. 

Heat sheet: A heat sheet is a listing of all of the swimmers in all of the heats in all of the events. Some swimmers write down their event number, heat, and lane in marker ink on their body so they remember where to go to swim their races.

Starts: A start is when swimmers begin their race. They can either push off from the wall or dive in from the pool deck or starting blocks. Don’t forget to be quiet during the start, so the swimmers can hear the signal to go!

Disqualification (or DQ): A disqualification occurs when a swimmer breaks a rule.

Seed times: These are the times a swimmer submits when entering a swim meet. Some swimmers will submit a time of NT, or no time, if they haven’t swum a race before or don’t want to submit a time.

Knowing your terminology will help guide you through swim practices and swim meets like a seasoned veteran.

—KRIS GOODRICH

How Do I Join a Workout That’s Already Started?

It happens. Whether you’ve overslept your alarm, gotten hung up at work, had a minor crisis with arranging child care, hit a traffic jam, or any of a million other reasons, you might end up being late to a Masters workout occasionally. We’ve all been there—it’s part and parcel of being an adult swimmer who has a life outside the pool.

Arriving late can be a bummer, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world; it would be a real shame for normal life events to prevent you from swimming at all. So instead of skipping the workout altogether, here are some tips for how to enter a workout that’s already in progress without disrupting others who arrived on time and are already working hard. 

• Check in with the coach. It’s always smart to check in with the coach before hopping in, especially when you’re arriving late. Ask the coach if you’re OK to enter, and confirm which lane you should be joining. Your coach can also bring you up to speed on what your lanemates are working on so you’re not totally clueless when you start swimming. 
• Let your lanemates know you’re getting in. Have a seat on the wall at the end of the lane with your legs in the water, but stay close to the lane line and out of the way of swimmers doing turns. As the swimmers come into the wall, they’ll see you and understand that another swimmer is joining the lane. Make sure each swimmer has seen you before slipping into the water at the end of the line. 
• Enter carefully. Don’t dive or jump into a lane where swimmers are already swimming. A mistimed dive can lead to serious injury or major disruption to the rest of the swimmers. Instead, simply slide into the water a few seconds after the last swimmer has pushed off the wall and push off behind them.   
• Stay at the back until you’re warmed up. It might be tempting to try to swim fast to catch up on some of the yardage you’ve missed, but this will only annoy your lanemates (trust me on this one) and can lead to injury for you if you push too hard before your muscles are ready to perform. Even if you’re the fastest swimmer in the lane, swim slowly at the back of the line until you’re warmed up.
• Adjust your position at the next set. Once the swimmers have completed the set you joined, you can adjust your position within the lineup. Be sure to communicate with your lanemates before simply jumping in front of them, and make sure you understand where they are within the whole workout to be sure you’re all on the same page. 
• Enjoy the rest of the workout! Although getting a late start can make the workout harder or less effective, some swimming is always better than none. Put forth your best effort and congratulate yourself for making it there for as long as you could.

—ELAINE K. HOWLEY 

How Do I Use a Pace Clock?

Some athletic endeavors revolve around team cohesion or scoring more goals than the other side, but with swimming, it’s all about time. Can you beat the clock? Can you improve your best time? And while doing so, can you swim faster than the swimmer in the next lane?

Time is fundamental to winning or losing in swimming competitions, but it’s also a key element of training. Virtually every Masters workout is structured around interval training. This common approach to swim training can help you build fitness and boost speed. It relies on the principle of engaging in periods of exercise interspersed with periods of rest. 

In swimming, interval training spans the gamut from training for sprint events to building endurance for ultra-marathon swims, and understanding how to use the pace clock is a critical component of completing this swim training correctly and effectively at all levels. 

Here’s what to know about using the pace clock:

• Interval. Swimming intervals means you’ll be swimming a set distance on a set time. This could be 8 x 50s on the :50, 6 x 100s on the 2:10, 4 x 200s on the 2:45, or any number of other arrangements of distance repeats on a set period of time. The sky is truly the limit, but the repetitive nature of the interval is what makes it valuable as a training tool, and a great coach can create some fascinating patterns with different distances and send-off times. Intervals are usually referenced in terms of the period in which you need to complete the swim and rest. For example, a 3:00 interval for a set of 200s means you need to finish swimming each 200 in less than three minutes and push off to start the next 200 on the next 3:00 increment. 
• Rest interval. Some coaches use a “rest interval” system in which they don’t prescribe one time increment for both the swim and the rest but rather tell you to take 10 or 15 or any number of seconds rest before starting the next repetition in the set. So, no matter how fast or slow you swim a rep, you will always get that set amount of rest before starting another one. This can be especially helpful if you’re swimming through or coming back from an injury when rest time often becomes more important than how hard you’re exerting yourself.
• Base pace (or cruise interval). When swimming with a group, it’s usually a good idea to know and understand what your “base pace” is. This is the pace at which you can comfortably repeat swims of 100 yards (or meters, depending on the pool). For many Masters swimmers, a base pace of somewhere between 1:15 and 2:15 is standard, but there’s nothing wrong with being slower than that.
• The top. This is a throwback to analog pace clocks that have sweep hands in which each rotation of the second hand is 60 seconds. The 60 (the :00 on a digital clock) is “the top,” and that’s the most common time to start a new set because it’s usually easier to calculate an interval based on that starting point.
• The bottom. Another reference to an analog pace clock face, leaving on “the bottom” or “on the 30” means you’ll push off when the digital clock shows :30.
• Giving 5 (or 10). When swimming with a group in a Masters workout, keeping up with the clock is important for the overall workout but also for maintaining harmony within the lane. It’s important to wait after the person ahead of you has pushed off before you push off the wall so as not to crowd them—five or 10 seconds is the standard waiting period. Seriously, don’t be that person who rides the leading swimmer’s feet the whole workout—you’re effectively drafting off them and making them work harder to make the interval while you get a little bit of a free ride. Instead, give them some space to move and breathe, and swim your own workout. You’re always welcome to ask to go in front of the lead swimmer if the pace isn’t up to your standards.
• Build sets. Coaches love build sets because they encourage swimmers to explore the difference between fast and slow swimming and help them build pace awareness. In a build set, you’ll get faster across the swim piece, meaning that each 25 of the reps will be incrementally faster until you’re sprinting or nearly sprinting on the last one. So if your coach tells you to swim 5 x 100s build, the first 25 of each 100 will be relatively slow, and you’ll get a little faster on each 25, until the fourth 25 of each of those 100s is all out.
• Descend sets. Descend sets are like build sets, but the pace change occurs across the whole set, not just within an individual rep. With a descend set, you’ll get incrementally faster across each segment of the set. For example, if the coach gives you 3 x 200s descend, the first 200 will be slow, the second will be medium pace, and the third will be fast. Build and descend sets are related but different, and focus on teaching pace-setting skills that can come in handy in a range of situations from racing another pool swimmer to beating a ferry in the English Channel.
• Negative split. Considered by some to be the Holy Grail of distance swimming, “negative splitting” means you swim the second half of an event faster than the first half. It’s an exhausting way to train but can be super helpful for building closing speed in everything from a 100-meter race to a 50-miler. If your coach calls for a negative split set, be ready to want to puke at the end. 

—ELAINE K. HOWLEY  

How to Write a Swimming Workout

Becoming a better swimmer requires effective training. Whether you train yourself or are responsible for providing training for others, success requires workouts that progressively improve technique, fitness, and psychological strength. Although USMS offers a huge library of great workouts written by expert coaches, crafting your own workouts lets you fine-tune a training plan for your specific situation. This article outlines things to consider on your journey toward becoming a workout-writing wizard.

Context

Use the answers to these questions as an overall framework. 

• What performance goals should the workouts support? Is your training plan broken into “seasons” culminating in championship competitions? Are you primarily concerned with maintaining fitness and healthy aging? A mix of both? 
• Who are these workouts for? Will you need to provide adaptations for multiple talent/experience/ability levels? 
  Is participation predictable? If the same athletes show up for every practice, it’s easier to craft a progressive sequence that builds on what’s been done. If attendance is random and inconsistent, each workout should stand on its own. 
• What abbreviations, jargon, and notation shortcuts will you use? How will you ensure that your athletes clearly understand what they’re expected to do? 
• How will workouts be communicated? If you’ll be able to announce and explain each set in person, you can add nuance and detail in your on-deck speeches. If the workouts are printed to be used without direct access to the coach, the concepts either need to be simplified or the subtleties clearly defined in writing. 

Principles 

What makes your workouts special is your technical expertise, your understanding of your team and its athletes, your leadership skills, and your unique creativity and humor. Be proud to incorporate your personality into your workouts, and feel free to violate any of the “standard” workout concepts shared below. That said, here are a few things that most coaches rely on as guiding principles. 

• Every set has a purpose, and the coach understands how that purpose is fulfilled. It helps if the athletes also understand the set’s purpose (especially drills), so be prepared to explain the set’s goal. A set may have multiple purposes, including drag reduction, power enhancement, aerobic fitness, feel for the water, mental toughness, recovery, and a host of others. Pure frivolous enjoyment and socialization are also important and legitimate purposes, but showing off the coach’s diabolical skill at creating complex workouts is not. 
• Keep it simple. Let the swimmers focus on the set’s purpose rather than getting bogged down in myriad details. It’s probably OK to ask them to track both stroke count and swim time for a few 50s, but asking for simultaneous management of breath control, odd intervals, changing strokes, and swapping lane leaders might be too much. Use patterns (ladders, pyramids, bookends, IM order, increasing effort, etc.) rather than expecting them to brute-force remember a collection of random strokes and numbers just because you decided to create a nonsense set using an alphabetic crypto-cipher of the Fibonacci sequence. 
• Rest intervals matter. The ratio of effort to recovery interval determines the type of metabolic training achieved. For example, a set targeting maximum speed requires long periods of rest but a set about distance pacing can be done with very little rest between repeats. The rest amount should not only support the physical training goal of the set but must be tailored to accommodate variations in skill/speed. A set that is 10 x 50 on 2:00 is a sprint workout for someone who swims each 50 in 30 seconds—but it’s a distance workout for a beginner who is struggling to repeat 1:30 on each 50. 
• Great coaches are flexible. It’s OK to modify a workout on the spot if you see an opportunity to improve the outcome. If swimmers seem more fatigued than you expected, offer a less intense set. If everyone’s turns stink during warm-up, swap out your planned drill for some focused turn practice. If a swimmer has a sore shoulder, suggest one-arm fly, etc. 
• Keep ’em coming back. Not every workout needs to be fun, but we do need to give swimmers a reason to return. Those reasons may include improved skill, better fitness, faster times, social satisfaction, or a sense of belonging and individual respect/recognition. Most athletes want to work hard, be challenged, and even suffer in pursuit of their goals, so write workouts that prioritize the needs and desires of your swimmers. 

Structure 

There’s nothing sacred about this approach, but here’s a breakdown of a typical Masters workout:

• Warm-up
• Drill/technique focus set
• Main set
• Pull or kick set
• Supplementary set
• Cool-down

Warm-up/cool-down 

Though flexibility is awesome, both warm-up and cool-down are considered mandatory because they are physiological necessities for enhanced performance, injury prevention, and effective recovery. They can be done as a team under the coach’s guidance or by individuals based on how they feel. Coaches frequently include drill or stroke focus elements as part of warm-up and cool-down. If time and space are available, you may also include dryland exercises such as stretching/yoga/core work before and/or after the water session. 
Every other element in this list is optional and can be arranged in whatever order works to achieve your training goals. 

Drill/technique focus 

Because swimming is such a technical sport, more performance gains come from improving skill than from increasing strength and fitness. This segment of workout can either be a specific breakdown element (one-arm butterfly, breaststroke pullout practice, six kicks on each side in catch position, etc.) or regular swimming with focus on a single element (full freestyle swim with focus on smooth in-line breathing, backstroke swim with emphasis on hip rotation, etc.). Drills focus on perfecting execution rather than speed, so it’s OK to go slow. Fins, paddles, and snorkels, etc., can be used to support the purpose of the drill. 
Athletes vary wildly in their success with drill execution, so it may be wise to implement different drills to achieve the same goal, and to keep working on them across multiple practices until the desired result is achieved. Bad habits are reinforced if drills are performed incorrectly, so it’s important to monitor drills and provide timely feedback. 

Main set 

The main set incorporates the bulk of the workout’s physical exertion, and its completion is typically what exhausted swimmers brag about to their family and friends. What’s great is that there are an infinite number of ways to accomplish the set’s purpose, whether it’s designed for lactate tolerance, pacing, turn execution, or sprint butterfly with breath control. Start by identifying what result you want the swimmer to achieve, and then be as creative as you want in designing a set to meet that goal. 
Schedule a variety of main sets throughout the season to cover the gamut of training needs, including base fitness, lactate tolerance, race pacing, pure speed, and of course, technical fine-tuning in all competitive strokes. As you taper for your goal competitions, the main set should focus on meet preparation while allowing the muscles to recover to full strength by race day. 

Here are the elements that go into defining the set: 

• Duration. There’s no hard rule, but the main set is typically from one-third to two-thirds of the entire practice. 
• Repeat distance. Choose the distance for each repeat within the set. These are measured in yards or meters, so it could be 25s, 50s, 100s, 400s, etc. The distances may vary within the set. You might have a descending ladder, such as 250, 200, 150, 100, 50. Or you could do 2 x 100, 2 x 50, 2 x 25 and repeat that sequence three times. 
• Stroke. You may assign a specific stroke to each repeat, or you may let the athletes choose. 
• Rest. The rest allowed between repeats has an inverse relationship to the speed that can be sustained in the set. Longer rest generally means faster swims, and shorter rest generally means more of a steady pace that would be appropriate for distance swimming or low-intensity aerobic conditioning.
  
  If you use a rest interval—assign rest by saying “Rest 10 seconds”—it means the swimmer will begin the next repeat exactly 10 seconds after they finish the previous swim, regardless of how fast they went. The other option is to define a interval, such as “go on 1:30.” This means the swimmer begin a new swim every 90 seconds, regardless of their previous finish time. On a 1:30 send-off, if they finish in 1:20, they’ll get 10 seconds rest. If they finish in 1:12, they’ll get 18 seconds rest, etc.
  
  I prefer using send-offs when training for distance pacing because it creates awareness of how pace affects fatigue throughout the set. I prefer using rest intervals when doing broken swims such as a 200 broken five seconds at each 50. Those sets help swimmers get the feel of racing that specific distance.
• Number of repeats. Typical workout notation lists the number of repeats times the distance followed by the stroke, rest (or interval), and any coach’s notes. Here are a couple of examples:
  10 x 100 free on 2:00, breathing every 5th stroke
  5 x 200 IM, rest 45, odd lengths hard
  1 x 800, broken by 10 seconds rest at each 100, steady pace throughout
• Recovery. Based on your training goal, you may want to assign a recovery swim after a challenging set or set segment. An easy 50 or 100 gives swimmers a chance to mentally and physically recover before beginning the subsequent challenge. 

These formulas show how these elements influence set duration. 

For sets with rest after each repeat: [Set Duration] = ([number of repeats] x [swim time + rest amount]) + recovery swim duration. 

For sets on a send-off: [Set Duration] = ([number of repeats] x [interval]) + recovery swim duration. 

When swimmer speed varies within the group, send-offs should vary accordingly, which means that one of these accommodations must occur: 

• Slower swimmers will be assigned fewer repeats for the distance. 
• Slower swimmers will be assigned a shorter distance for each of the designated number of repeats. 
• The set is assigned a specific duration (e.g., 30 minutes), so individual numbers of repeats are not assigned. Each swimmer does as many swim/rest repeats as can be fit into the time limit. 

Supplementary sets (including pull and kick) 

Your workout’s duration may only leave time for warm-up, drill, main set, and cool-down. But for those who have the luxury, there are other options to add. A supplementary set can be a smaller version (or perhaps even a repeat of) the main set, or it could focus on strokes rather than freestyle. It’s structured the same way, with repeats and rest organized to fill a predetermined amount of time. As with the main set, supplementary sets fulfill a specific training purpose (even if that purpose is just to have fun.) 

Pull buoys, fins, snorkels, and other gear offer variety and can be used to strengthen arms and legs because they enable the swimmer to apply additional force. They can also be used to increase speed so the athletes can feel their drag profile at race pace. They serve a specific training purpose and should not be used as cheats just to make swimming easier. 

Supplementary sets may also include routine test sets you can use to measure progress over the season. These could be anything from an all-out 100 for time to a set of 10 x 400 with 20 seconds rest. I like to include timed swims in every workout to keep racing skills sharp and collect feedback on individual fitness. 

Some coaches establish designated days for test sets, such as the first Monday of each month. Some coaches announce the focus of each day’s workout on a published team calendar. The point is to remember that workouts are for the athletes, and it’s OK if you repeat the same sets from time to time. Workout design is about effective training, not about uniqueness. Feel free to include workouts from the USMS site or sets that you’ve learned from other coaches. 

That said, though, remember to have fun. Design special workouts for holidays, and celebrate birthdays with sets you know the birthday swimmer will enjoy. Include sets that involve social interaction and team building. Add enough variety to avoid boredom, but don’t feel pressured to create novelty just for the sake of novelty. Take advantage of available predesigned nationwide workout events, such as USMS’s Fitness Series events or Virtual Championships.  

Delivery 

Experiment to find the best way to deliver the workout, whether it’s with printed sheets encased in waterproof sleeves for each lane, giant handwriting on a humongous white board, or just walking the deck with a booming and confident voice. Explain your terminology and notation quirks, preferably backed up with a printable explanation page on your team’s website. Clearly explain the purpose of the set and its rest intervals and solicit questions to ensure your communication was received. If a swimmer doesn’t understand the set or its purpose, it’s the coach’s fault, not the swimmer’s. 

Your greatest assets in writing and delivering workouts are your own personality and enthusiastic commitment to swimming and to the athletes you coach. Write your workouts with a passion that shows you care about your swimmers, and the results will speak for themselves. 

—TERRY HEGGY