Beginner triathlon swim program

Understanding your goal race pace for your swim can help you break down how fast you need to go in training. If your triathlon swim is in open water, try to incorporate open water workouts into your training.

If you can, make time for 1 open water swim per week. In open water, you can also practice sighting to make sure you stay on course during the race.

To sight, lift your head forward and find a landmark straight in front of you a tree, a hill, a pier, etc. Take more strokes and sight again, always keeping your landmark in front of you. The swim is just like the bike and run: You need a training plan! The right plan will challenge you and ensure you continue to progress in speed, endurance and technique. It should build up your volume and then taper down as you get close to race day.

Check out our plans designed for building endurance and open water racing:. You will get there, and you will have a much easier time if you put in the drill work and learning proper technique ahead of time. You will need to practice, kicking, balance in the water, pull, body rotation, and of course, breathing. As you master each of these, move on to the next challenge. Start with short workouts.

Everyone is going at their own pace. Later, you may be able to easily swim meters. But for your beginner swim training plan, longer is not better. Your workouts early on need to consist of warm up, drills, some longer swims, interval training, and cool down. There are no short cuts. Practice counting your strokes. Just get an idea of how many strokes it takes to get from one side of the pool to the other. Be aware of how you can decrease that stroke count without sacrificing speed.

Once you get the hang of it, make sure you are being efficient with your swim training , and not overdoing it. Endurance workouts should be based on time instead of distance. Speed workouts should include yard swims for sprint and Olympic, and yard swims for longer distance athletes.

Technique workouts help improve your swim mechanics and should include kicking and stroke drills. Try the one-arm drill: Swim 25 yards with the left arm only, followed by 25 yards with the right arm only, then swim 50 yards with both arms.

This teaches you to develop a more even stroke. When performing kicking drills, try to drive the kick from your hips with knees slightly bent. Think of dancing the twist but with a slower motion so you are incorporating more of your thigh muscles. This will help develop a more powerful kick. Remember to take a day or two off between each workout to rest and recover, and be sure to start these workouts at least five weeks before your race.

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