This week commencing Monday 1st January 2007:

All our FREE weekly sessions can now be viewed here

Starting today is our new free online swim training program. This program is designed for swimmers capable of swimming 1000m in between 12 and 25 minutes and whom would typically cover ~2,000 to 3,500m in a given session. We will post a once weekly training session, which should be supplemented with your normal training program of between 2 and 5 swims per week (depending upon your ability and aspirations etc).

Sessions will feature drills from the Swim Smooth DVD Boxset, so if you haven't yet got yourself a copy, add one to your wish-list!

You will also find the generic Swim Smooth Short Hand Reference sheet to be a very useful guide for helping your way around some of the more 'technical' swim training terms.

OK, so let's get started!

Week 1 of 52:

The purpose of today's session is just to get the arms moving again after the holidays and to run through a few simple drills to enhance efficiency and feel for the water. At no time today should you feel under stress to go 'fast'. Enjoy!

Warm-up:

Take an easy 200m freestyle warm-up not trying to rush things, but just enjoying the sensation of being back in the water after the holiday period. Break for 15 seconds and then perform 4 x 150m swims with 20 seconds RI (see Reference Sheet for details of these terms). These should be perfomed a little faster than the first 200m, but focus here is given to a smooth stroke with excellent body rotation and preferably breathing every 3 strokes.

Drill set:

Slip your flippers on and perform 4 x 100m with 15s RI alternating 50m drill into 50m freestyle. Do the drills 6/1/6, 6/3/6, Popov and Spear Fish for each of the 100m swims.

Build set:

8 x 50m focusing on a long smooth stroke but aim to breathe every 5 strokes and keep things "unhurried".

Main set:

Repeat the 4 x 150m repeats from the warm-up but do these progressively, i.e. start out quite steady on the first 50m, build the 2nd 50m and finish off with a good 50m effort in the final 50m. If you are using the Swim Smooth Pace Calculator from the 8-week Training Program, set yourself a leaving time of Level 3 plus 30 seconds, i.e. if the Calculator suggests that your 150m time should be 2'30", make sure you leave for each new interval on 3'00". If you're not using the Calculator, simply rest for 30 seconds between each interval but make sure that you're timings are consistent.

Drill set:

2 x (4 x 50m as 25m scull into 25m f/s + 100m f/s steady swim focusing on a good catch and feel of the water). Take 10s RI between the 50m swims and 30s RI after the 100m before starting the set again.

Cool down:

200 easy swim. Do first 100m with fins, 2nd without. Long and smooth!