Training to cope with changes in swim pace – An Olympian’s guide

I’m sure many of you may have been putting the hard miles in over the winter months and may be feeling very happy with your progress with the season start upon us.

On the other side of the spectrum, there may also be some of you who have not done as much as you would have liked, be it due to injury or other commitments, and are looking to vamp up your training with the new season bearing down on us.

Whether you have put the miles in or not, one thing that many athletes forget and which is crucial to your swimming success is being able to change pace, and more importantly, being able to recover from these pace changes and settle back into race pace.

Lisa Mensink, a 2008 Olympian and professional athlete on the ITU World Championship Series, outlines a training plan that can really improve this aspect of your racing. Lisa puts a lot of her success down to these sessions and highly recommends you incorporate them regularly into your training to see the best results on race day.

“This session is great to get you ready for pace changes that inevitably happen in a race situation - fast starts, closing gaps to swimmers ahead, surges around buoys. These sessions are crucial as they not only prepare you to swim at varying paces, but more importantly they train you to recover from changes in pace and allow you to return to your desired race pace” says Lisa.

Warm up:

4 x (150 freestyle/50 choice)

4 x 100 drill and technique work

8 x 50 as 25fast/25easy

Main set:

2-4 x:

50 start speed/fast, 15s rest

100 race pace/strong, 20s rest

2 x 150 steady, 20s rest

100 race pace/strong, 20s rest

50 start speed/fast

100 easy

Cool down:

2-400 choice


To read more about Lisa and hear her news throughout 2014 go to www.lisamensink.com