Endurance

richiemack

Im currently trying to build up my swimming endurance, at the moment I do 10-15 100's as my main set with 20sec rest, what Im wondering is would it be better to continue this decreasing the rest period, or increase the distance such as moving from 15 X 100 and 20sec rest, to 15X125 and 20 sec rest, or go from 15 X 100 and 20 sec rest, to 15 X 100 and 15sec rest.
Any advice much appreciated

AngryHippie

switch the middle of your set to 200's, increase the rest time a little, and concentrate on your stroke count, efficiency is key to building up endurance, ideally after a few weeks you should be able to throw in a 400 or two in there, they'll be slow, but bear with it and keep your stroke consistent. sculling might help a little bit if you find your arms are getting very heavy.

Clseeper

I suppose it depends on your interpretation of endurance. I’d take it as being able to do the same distance on the same time for numerous repetitions. It this what you mean or do you want to increase your fitness and up the distance?

Angry Hippie is fairly on the money if you want to get the longer distances in, and quality is key.

The advice I’d give is first, start off on an actual time as opposed to a set rest period. From what I read in your post, you take 20s rest after each 100m. This is ok for just putting in the distance but you should get a time to go off to get a real gauge of your fitness and push your system. Otherwise it’s too easy to slack off and you’re not forcing your body to adapt as much as you could.

Pick a very manageable time to start, example 2.00. As you go through your set, you’ll see the amount of rest decrease as you get tired. With the aim to be making them all with similar amount of rest, you can then increase either the distance or drop the time depending on your aims.

Also the whole idea of training is to force your body to adapt to the increase strain you place on it. Even if it is endurance, I’d be inclined to vary the sets you do to keep it interesting and make sure you don’t plateau.

richiemack

Thanks to you both. What Im trying to do is build up endurance for my 1500m races, so say if I start doing my 100's with specific time per 100, at the moment Im doing about 12/13X 100 for main set should I stick to a time for each 100 and build up to 1500, or should I aim to do more than that? or should I just get to 1500 and then drop the overall time per 100

Clseeper

Long term you should aim to do more but it’s a good start. Definitely start setting a time to do your swims on.

For your goal, I suggest going with Angryhippies advice of increasing the distances. You’ll need to start doing a lot more 400’s but build up to them. Still keep the 100’s every so often as you can focus and concentrate more over the shorter distances but even at this you should be setting a time for the longer distances also.

I’m not sure of your training schedule or level. Stick at the 100’s for the next 2/3 weeks and try it with a time. See how many you get done, you may find it a lot tougher than normal. Then start increasing the distance.

If you do 10x100’s on 2.00, try 4x200 on 4.15 the next time and work from there. I don’t know your level so the times are just examples.