This is a practice I designed for a swimmer with excellent control over form up to cruising speeds, who is preparing for his upcoming Ironman. He has not done much work with tempo before so I have been introducing him to the Tempo Trainer and how to prepare the nervous system to memorize a suitable tempo and maintain a consistently.
Warm Up
300 silent swim FR
4x (25 FR easy + 25 FR brisk) with different synchronization focal point for each repeat
Estimate your tempo during the brisk swim to establish tempo TB
Main Sets
Swim 200 FR with tempo TB = 1.18
Then do 4 cycles of the following set with increasing tempo on each cycle:
3 rounds of 2x 50 for each cycle.
- Round 1 use focal point for sync ‘torso plus entry’
- Round 2 use focal point for sync ‘torso plus catch’
- Round 3 use focal point for sync ‘foot plus extension’
And, per cycle use tempo:
- Cycle 1 at tempo TB
- Cycle 2 at TB – 0.03
- Cycle 3 at TB – 0.06
- Cycle 4 at TB – 0.09
Maintain your standard of quality for each sync focal point at each increased tempo.
Then swim 300 at tempo TB with a 25 sprint within each 100 (for a total of 3x 25 sprint inside 300)