Even the shortest triathlons are endurance events. That’s why triathletes spend most of their training time performing endurance swim activities. Longer is better!
And as most triathletes are aware, this can be a really effective strategy for cycling and running. The longer you go, the better you get. It’s no surprise then that many triathletes take the same approach to their swimming. The problem is that swimming isn’t running or biking.
In contrast to running and cycling, swimming performance relies just as much on skill development as it does on fitness development. And while long swimming will certainly develop your swim endurance, it can often do so at the expense of your skills.
That’s because long, continuous swimming can either lead to practicing poor skills, or prevent you from learning better skills. If you want to avoid that situation, you might want to take a different approach.
Keep swim reps short to improve swim endurance
If you want to improve your endurance in the water, you actually want to perform shorter repetitions, typically 25 or 50m repetitions. Swimming fast is all about possessing great skills, and the best way to develop great skills is to practise them.
Shorter distances might seem counterintuitive because they’re not the long work typically associated with endurance practice. However, it’s because the distances are short that you can get a lot more practice with great swimming skill as you never get so tired that your skills fall apart.
And because efficiency in the water is what’s key for speed, practising your skills really well is going to lead to more endurance.
Shorter reps equal more feedback
Shorter repetitions allow you to get more feedback, more frequently. You can get information about how fast you are and how many strokes you’re taking. Both of these numbers provide great feedback about the quality of your swimming.
In turn, you can use this information to re-affirm what you’re doing successfully, or as motivation to change what you’re doing. And because you’re getting this feedback with a lot more frequency, you’re going to make change faster.
Further, because you’ll be performing more repetitions due to the shorter distances, each repetition will feel like a fresh start, and you’ll get that experience much more often.
Short distances and more feedback equal better swimming
Because the distances are shorter, because you’re getting more feedback, and because you’re using that feedback to make changes, you’re going to swim better. And in contrast to biking and cycling, swimming is as much about skill as it is pure fitness.
As a result, you have to take a slightly different approach. There needs to be an equal emphasis on skill development and fitness development.
The best way to do so is to do the same volume, but just keep the repetitions shorter. That allows you to keep the same fitness benefit while improving the quality of your swimming.
Top image credit: Getty Images
