Quality Versus Quantity

Coming from a competitive swimming background, coached by professional coaches, I went through my swimming career following highly structured coaching sessions that were set by the various age group coaches in the clubs I attended.

These sessions were broken down to focus on several key areas:

Technique 

By far the most important area and of critical importance. The main focus of the technique sessions is to reduce your drag in the water as well as fine tune your stroke timing to produce more power. Many swimmers who are not from a swimming background completely overlook this and treat this as a side topic with "distance" taking the primary importance.

Power

usually consisting of short distance sprinting sometimes with minimal rest intervals and sometimes with very long rest intervals depending on the required outcome usually linked to heart rate tracking but the goals being power generation.

Endurance

Longer distance swim sets minimum of 400 metres but often 800m and 1500m intervals, using a critical sustained speed or pace for the duration of the intervals. 

Both the power and endurance sessions are intricately linked to the technique sessions.

Starts and Turns

Yes, starts and turns! Entire sessions on a regular basis were devoted completely to fine tuning your starts and turns which in Pool swimming can gain you valuable seconds but also in an open water scenario starts turns and finishes are critical in any race.

Dry Land Training

Lots of dry land weight training to compliment stroke technique. It's no good doing weights that are not engaging your swimming muscles.

Since doing swimming for personal fitness/pleasure in my later years, and also Masters competitions in the pool and open water, I've employed the same kind of concepts and write my own swim sets based on whatever event I have coming up, which usually range from 3 to 10+K open water events.

These types of events, which are typically open water swimming events or as part of triathlons are the norm in Pembrokeshire and are extremely popular with locals and non-locals alike, who come to Pembrokeshire specifically to train for the events every year.

A recurring theme that I notice though, when people are doing swim training, is that many swimmers completely miss the concept of "quantity versus quality".

Quantity

Many people, men and women but usually men, only seem to focus on the "quantity" aspect and think that doing regular, long distance sets of three/four or more kilometers is the way to go, with no variation on the theme, sticking to the same routes, often in good weather only, at a rather slow pace, seemingly so they can just complete the distance, regardless of how they complete it 

Shortly after these sessions the inevitable screen shots of the Strava route also appear on social media, or comments on their Strava feeds are added, like "watch stopped halfway", "missing 500 m", "4km swim this morning".

It all smacks of bravado in my humble opinion. I mean, what is the point of doing the distance? To improve your stroke and fitness and see improvements over time? Or to use the swim as a bragging point? 

It entirely misses the point of doing the distance.

As a swim coach I often get asked by students " do I think I could swim the English Channel". Of course I can. At least the distance. If you can swim 10 kilometres you can swim 40 kilometres. It's not about the distance. 

For me, I go out to win any event I do. I may win it. I may not. Some I may not get in the top 10. But I also I'm very familiar with my distance times and pace and how I felt in the water, which are all metrics are used to assess how the event went, for me. 

Often, the pace metric and stroke metrics are completely overlooked. In other words, the quality and goal of the training is not considered at all. 

Sure, if you are doing a 10k event then you do need to build up your distance over time, so you have the stamina and resilience to keep going and so you know what it feels like to do a 10k event. But you should also pay attention to your technique, drag, timing, pace, stroke count, heart rate and many other metrics, even if you are only doing it for fun.

Many of our students are with us simply because they want to gain confidence and this is even another metric to use! 

Often swimmers are choosing to do their lengthy swims in perfect conditions too, but you should also look at improving 'conditioning', getting out in the sea when the weather is not so good, when the conditions are not flat calm. When they are shit in other words!

In addition, what about practising starts, exits, turns, sighting? Every event involves every one of these aspects of the stroke yet I never see them being practiced, it's always about the distance, seeing who does the furthest swims. 

Quality

Far better is to focus on the quality of your training and build up a map of your training journey with projections of how you plan to improve your physical fitness and swimming ability over the months leading up to the event. 

Training should be broken down into warmups, build-ups, main set, starts, turns, exits, sighting, good weather, foul weather, no waves, big waves, long stretch swims, sprints, plus random skills such as learning how to cough and splutter under the water without interfering with your stroke, learning how to refuel in the water, learning how to handle goggles being knocked off... 

And of course swim technique: the glide, head position, stroke rate... do you even know your average stroke rate and what you should be trying to achieve? 

Doing a 3km swim at a slow 2:00m / 100m pace and then repeating it for a 4km swim, or a 5km swim does not really show any improvement other than you can plod along, all day probably. You already know you can do that 10km distance - what's the point of repeating it? Why not try to bring that pace down a bit? Aim for 1:55/100m, then 1:50/100m. Learn your pacing for different distances.

The pool plays a very important and integral role in any open water swimmer's training programme too. It is a controlled environment in which you can practise technique and in which you can learn to 'feel' things such as your stroke count and more, and of course build up lung power for those parts of any open water swim where explosive power is required such as the start and finish.

Plodding along at the same pace, each swim, doing 3, 4 or 5 km and then plastering it on social media does not achieve anything. 

Sure, it has some health benefits and in the case of open water swimming simply being out in nature, in the sea, or a lake, is hugely beneficial to mental health, but if you are specifically training for events, and if you want to see improvments in times and performance, then why not do it properly?