220Triathlon Edição 334

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FEBRUARY 2017

PERFORMANCE

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REMY WHITING

Enjoying your training sessions can be a key driver in improving your swim. Add in a variety of

strokes, drills and intensity and you can make big gains in just 30mins. Over to

John Wood

…

wimming has a reputation for being

boring. For many people, simply

ploughing up and down the pool

is monotonous, and doesn’t lead to much

improvement – regardless of how much time

you spend in the water.

But every time you go to the pool, you should

have an aim in mind and you should know what

you’re trying to achieve. That doesn’t necessarily

mean that you should be looking to beat your

best times every session. Instead, working on just

one thing consistently throughout one swim can

produce real benefits. If you go to the pool ‘just

to swim’, how are you going to know whether

or not you’re improving?

Adding variety to your swims can improve

both your enjoyment and your performance.

Injecting a bit of pace into a steady aerobic

session not only keeps you awake mentally,

it can help improve your fitness, too. Trying

new drills to work on a particular area of your

technique can reward you with surprising

results, whereas introducing other strokes

helps improve your mobility and understanding

in the water. Whatever you do, don’t just trawl

up and down aimlessly.

It’s not just about swimming more. You might

have a long working day or short lunch breaks, so

can’t spend long in the pool. Or maybe you feel

that swimming for an hour at a time is a drag. If

it’s a choice between one 1hr swim a week or two

30min sessions, I’d always opt for the latter.

Spending 30 to 45mins in the water provides

plenty of time to work on form, improve your

awareness in the water or do some high-intensity

swimming to improve speed and fitness.

Try the session on the opposite page to help

squeeze training for good form and high intensity

into a short time period.

220

ADDVARIETY,

BOOSTMOTIVATION

TRAIN FOR 2017: PART 4 OF 6

Add variety to your swims – pace sessions,

different strokes, new drills – to improve

fitness and make pool time more enjoyable