How to tell if your swim’s improved

During the season you’re bound to be working hard. There may be things that you’re working on with your stroke, and it can be tough to know whether particular tweaks are having an effect. Regular weekend races and ‘hard work’ training sessions might mean that you can’t, or don’t want to, do extra test sessions.

One way to keep an eye on how your stroke is performing is to do sessions or sets of ‘swim golf’, which give you a notional ‘score’ for your swims by combining time over 50m and your stroke count over the same distance. The lower the total number, the better your score. Fewer strokes doesn’t always mean better, as you may well be gliding and slowing down.

This is why swim golf is a useful measure or test. Less strokes but slower swimming would mean your score wouldn’t go down. Better stroke mechanics and faster swimming will hopefully require less effort as well as having a better score. Try the session here, and see how you get on over time.

WARM-UP

400m

As 100m swim, 100m kick, 100m pull, 100m choice of drills

8 x 25m

As half a length scull, half a length swim

10secs rest after each 25m

8 x 50m

Descend 1-4 (get quicker)

15secs rest after each 50m

MAIN SET

8 x 50m

As 25m doggie paddle, 25m swim

15secs rest after each 50m

8 x 50m

Swim golf – fast as possible with lowest stroke count

15secs rest after each 50m

8 x 50m

As 25m single-arm drill, 25m swim

15secs rest after each 50m

8 x 50m

Swim golf – fast as possible with lowest stroke count

15secs rest after each 50m

COOL-DOWN

200m mixed stroke,

include 50m kick

Adapt for beginners

Keep the reps to 25m rather than 50, the same rules apply. Take longer recovery between reps as an alternative.

Adapt for Ironman

Do more/longer reps, push harder too.