Take pool swimming training to the open water

 As discussed in the previous blog, A Guide to Swimmers’ Lingo, being able to understand and set pool-based training sessions is a useful skill to have as an open water swim coach to add an extra element to your clients’ training plans. Running squad or individual fitness sessions is a great way to increase your client base as well as being fun to coach.  But how can you run pool-style training sessions in the open water?

The first question swimmers ask each other after finishing a swim at any open water venue is: “How many laps did you do?” And while it is important to include long swims as part of a training regime, structured speed and threshold sessions incorporating open water skills should be essential elements of your coaching offering. Running sessions with a training goal in mind will motivate your swimmers and allow you to set some fun, interesting and worthwhile sessions.

Set the pace

Structure your open water training sessions in the same way as you would a pool session, with warm-up, sub-set, main set and cool-down swims. The main difference between training in a pool and in open water is the lack of a pace clock and the easily definable distance of a length. However, this is where the fun starts! These “limitations” can be overcome by thinking less of time and more of effort and using your venue’s landmarks to define distances.

If you coach at a venue with a buoyed course these will allow you to easily define distances in your sessions. An easy and measurable way to improve fitness is to time your swimmers’ laps over the season. Establishing personal bests is good motivation as they see times improve and fitness levels increase.

Introduce long interval training into your sessions by swimming one lap hard, one lap easy (depending on your course distance you can either swim one lap or swim 2 buoys hard, etc). Take note of your swimmers’ first hard lap times and encourage them to try to maintain this throughout the session – this will improve pacing as well as fitness. Swimmers can also time themselves on their training watches if they wear them.

Use the buoys of the course to structure your sets. Eg, instead of 10 x 100m swim fast to the first buoy, rest 10 seconds, swim fast to the second buoy, rest 10 seconds etc. You can change this up with longer distances, shorter or longer rests, alternate easy and hard swims.

If you coach somewhere without a buoyed course, it is time to get creative! Think about the set-up of where you coach and how you can use landmarks or objects to define distances. Eg, if you coach off a jetty is there another jetty or landmark that you could use to define distance – from the jetty to the tree, from the jetty to the boathouse, from the jetty to the sailing buoy. The same works if on a beach, lakeside or river bank – from the beach to the groyne, from the shore to the stream, from the bank to the big tree etc. Get creative with where you coach and use its “limitations” to your advantage! You could also use counting strokes – 10 strokes hard, 20 strokes easy etc. 

 Toys

Just because you are coaching in the open water doesn’t mean you can’t incorporate training toys into your sessions. Paddles and fins can be hooked onto to towfloats, swimrun pull buoys that strap to the thigh can be used. Or toys can be left on shore and picked up when needed.

Speed play

If you are familiar with fartlek training in running, this is an easy way to incorporate speed and interval work into your coaching. Fartlek is Swedish for “speed play” – so instead of set intervals with set recovery, fartlek is unstructured and alternates between moderate to hard efforts with easy efforts throughout as active recovery. Play with speed by swimming hard for short periods of time followed by easy-effort swimming to recover. For example, swim hard to the first buoy, easy to the oak tree, hard to the moored boat, easy to the bend in the river etc. Use the features and course of your venue to create a fun but challenging workout.

Different strokes

Introduce other strokes into your open water training sessions. Intervals of breaststroke, backstroke or butterfly will keep things interesting, work different muscles and improve your swimmers’ front crawl.  A bit of a change will also help keep swimmers motivated if they are doing a lot of distance front crawl.

Strength training

As we saw in the Evening with… Menopause Movement talk, strength training as we get older is essential for both men and women. This can be incorporated into your sessions in a really fun but challenging way by including land based exercises in your training sessions. Eg, swim hard to groyne 1, get out and perform 10 press ups, swim steady to oak tree, get out and perform 10 star jumps, swim hard to jetty, get out and perform 10 squats, swim easy to jetty, get out and run to beach entry point etc. Be aware of your swimmers’ abilities and any conditions and offer alternatives, eg press up variations from the knees, walk instead of run etc. And of course always check your entry and exit points beforehand to ensure your swimmers’ safety.

Kit

If you are having your swimmers get out the water to run it is a good idea to have them wear shoes. These could be swimrun shoes, swim shoes if the terrain is suitable or a pair of old trainers (drilling holes in the soles can help if they are becoming waterlogged, but swimming in shoes is usually surprisingly easy).

Open water skills

If running a squad session, this is the perfect opportunity to introduce some open water skills in a race environment. Eg, start the session off with a deep water start, incorporate buoy turns into the sets, get your swimmers to sight every sixth stroke, put your swimmers into pairs or threes and have them practise drafting, alternating taking the lead.

These kind of sessions can be really fun and challenging both for your swimmers and yourself!