These swim practice workouts for college will get you into shape and ready for your next swim meet. These college swimming workouts are designed for serious swimmers, so if you're just beginning, scale down the volume and intensity. No matter what your level is, you can add or subtract the number and length of each repetition to fit your personal needs. Note that a standard lap (to the end and back) is 50m and the strokes used in these workouts are the free, breast, back, fly, and IM (individual medley).
To do these college swimming workouts, you will need:
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College Swim Practice Workout One: Swim a 400m warm up. You will then do twelve repetitions of 75m, divided into three sets of four. Swim one set of freestyle, one set of flys, and one set of freestyle. Work hard but do not overexert yourself, as there is more to go. Once you have completed the twelve reps, do ten intervals of 150m. For the odd intervals, use only your legs, and for the even intervals, swim IM. This workout is made to improve your speed, so give yourself adequate recovery in between each set.
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College Swim Practice Workout Two: After you've warmed up, do six 125m repetitions using only your legs, then six 125m repetitions using the buoy. After you've completed both, you will swim an interval ladder with varying numbers and distance. Start out swimming 500m, then two sets of 400m, then three sets of 300m, four sets of 200m, and five sets of 100m. Give yourself about a minute in between each individual interval and two minutes in between each set. As this is an endurance workout distance is more important than the stroke, but you can add strokes based on which ones you will be racing. For a well rounded workout, use a different stroke for each ladder set.
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College Swim Practice Workout Three: The first two workouts in this article are designed to work on speed and strength; this workout is a middle distance workout designed to work on both. After you warm up, swim eight repetitions of 200m at a moderate pace using a stroke of your choosing. Give yourself a minute rest and then swim 200m freestyle as fast as you can. Repeat this cycle for each of the individual strokes outlined in this article, making sure you have fully recovered from your 200m all-out effort before you move to the next set.
In order to be a successful college swimmer, you are going to need to train vigorously. While these workouts are a great starting point, you'll want to periodically increase distance and decrease recovery time so you can continuously improve. Remember that if you are swimming this much on a daily basis you are bound to have an off day; if you feel particularly bad on a given workout just do some easy swimming and resume hard training the next day. You want to push your body, but you don't want to burn yourself out.
