The first thing you need know to when creating your workouts is establishing how much time you have for each one. Its probably safe to say the average swimmer tends to swim between 45min and 75min in each workout. Anything less than 30min probably won’t be very effective, and with workouts over 90min, you need to have a lot of time on your hands AND be in great shape. Once you establish your time range it should be relatively easy to gauge the distance. Though I’ve been out of the water for some years now, I can usually keep a pace of under 2:00 / 100 yards for the entire workout. So, if I have an hour to swim I can usually get in a little over 3,000 yards. What you need to do is figure out how much you can swim in an hour (your overall pace), then it’s pretty easy to structure the workout from there.
Warm-Up
I tend to keep my warm-ups between 20-25% of the total yardage for that swim workout. This usually consists of a longer swim to start, then some shorter kicking, drills, and/or short sprints to get my heart rate going. I’ll also base my warm-up on what I plan on doing for the main set. If I’m doing more distance freestyle, I’ll have more freestyle in the warm-up. If I’m going for a stroke based main set, I’ll put some stroke drills and maybe some IM sets in the warm-up.
Pre-Set (optional especially for shorter workouts)
I use the pre-set especially in my longer workouts and also in workouts where the main set is very fast. Its perfect for a build up to that tough main set and you can really get your heart rate exactly where you want it if you do this right.
Main Set
Yardage for the pre-set, if I use one, plus the main set usually equals 60-70% of the total yardage for that swim workout. Within this set I like to have descending sets or negative split long swims. I’ll also keep the intervals tight so that I’m not getting much rest in between each set. You can really build up your endurance by designing your main sets like this. Don’t be afraid to be uncomfortable during your main sets. If you are “comfortable” throughout the entire workout, then you aren’t pushing yourself enough and you need to crank it up a notch or two. Also make sure you alternate between freestyle and stroke for your main sets BUT try to stay consistent with one overall theme throughout the entire workout.
Warm-down
The warm-down should be the shortest part of your swim workout, and is really just there to help you get rid of some of that lactic acid build up. Just like if you went for a run, you would want to walk it off for a few minutes. Make sure you do at least 200 yards of freestyle/backstroke mix, or even just kicking on your back.