Open Water Swimming Workouts

Is open water swimming boring? Or… are your workouts boring? Open water swimming doesn’t have to be all long slow distance.

You can swim “Point-to-point” intervals or dock-to-dock or tree-to-tree. Just like doing 100s in the pool, here I’m swimming out to the point and back. I reach my destination, then 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Go! Head back.  10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Go! Repeat as needed.

If you have a group of swimmers, you can do a “reverse pace-line” where the swimmer in back sprints up to the front of the line. You’ll want to group swimmers of similar ability in each pace-line. This way, everyone will get to practice leading, sighting, chasing, and passing. You need to make sure that the lead swimmer slows down when they get to the front. Otherwise, you’ll have a runaway train, and drop swimmers off the back.

You can do stroke work as well. Here, my daughter is going to do some IM work (15 strokes butterfly, 15 strokes backstroke, 15 strokes breaststroke, and 15 strokes freestyle). While you have to cognizant of where you’re going on backstroke, it’s not like you have to swim freestyle all the time unless you want to.

If you’re familiar with “Fartlek” training while running, you can do similar workouts on the open water. Speed it up for 20 strokes or a set period of time. Then, follow that with a recovery period. Speed it up… And, slow it down.

Use these ideas to spice up your open water workouts.