Hey there, welcome to Swim to Space. If you're looking to start your swimming journey as a beginner swimmer, then you're at the right place. 

We develop swimming workouts for all levels designed for you to crush your swimming goals at any level. Our coaching team has experience coaching olympians and working with elite level swimmers for decades.

Swimming is a great way to get fit and improve your overall health, heck, it's a great way to blow off steam and shake of stress after a long day at work of during exam season!

 

Beginner Swimming Workouts

Workout #1 

WARM UP

400 Swim (Progressive effort) start out easy, let your body warm up into it

PRE SET

6x100 holding the same stroke count and time for all 8 reps.
Take as much time as you need to keep the pace and stroke count the same.

MAIN SET

8x50 holding faster score than 100s (score = time plus Stroke count)

COOL DOWN

200 ascend- let your body cooldown

Distance: 1600m

 

Workout #2

WARM UP

200 warmup

PRE SET

100 build (gets faster as you go)

50 fast

MAIN SET

300 where each 50 is A-B-B-C-C-D where A is moderate pace and D is fast (so the pace builds throughout, no stopping)

6x50 as 25 sprint, 25 threshold on 10 sec rest

200 where each 50 is B-C-C-D

4x50 as 25 sprint, 25 threshold on 10 sec rest

100 where each 50 is C-D

2x50 as 25 sprint, 25 threshold on 10 sec rest

COOL DOWN

200 easy cool down

Distance: 1750m
 

• 400 warmup

• 4x100 descend to fast (get faster as you go)

• 4x50 descend to even faster

• 2x[50 fast on 5 sec rest, 150 threshold on 10 sec rest, 2x50 faster than threshold on 10 sec rest, 2x100 threshold on 10 sec rest, 50 easy backstroke or freestyle]

• 100 easy

Total: 2200
 

Level 3

• 200 warmup

• 2x[200IM or free/back mix]

• 2x150 as 50 drill/100 build

• 3x100 on descending time intervals (for example, on 1:55, 1:50, 1:45 or other appropriate intervals for you)

• 4x50 as 25 fingertip drag drill/25 free breath builds where you breath 5 times first rep, 4 times second rep, 3 on third red, and only 2 breaths on last rep, all on 10 sec rest

• Rest for 30 sec then repeat the set (minus the warmup)

• 200 cooldown

Total: 2400

 

Colleen's notes: I've found that one big difference between running workouts and swimming workouts is the recovery. Where in a track workout I might have 90 seconds or 2 min recovery, I might only  get 15 seconds in a swim workout! This is a little weird to get used to at first, so ease into it and let yourself adjust as best as you can. As far as strokes go, I recommend watching some Youtube videos and asking your lifeguards for pointers on your form.

 

 

Taking stock of injuries when swimming:

I've been injured quite a few times during my running career. I'm pretty open about my injuries and don't mind sharing with my followers what is going on with me even though some might say that puts me in a rather vulnerable state. I disagree. I actually believe that being open about our injuries and publicly acknowledging that we are not infallible or unbreakable actually makes us stronger.

Being injured can be a very lonely and dark time because we are often separated from our teammates, missing workouts, and feeling low self-esteem. One thing that has really helped me is recognizing that (of course) I'm not the only one out there at that very point in time who is suffering from an injury. If we take a minute to look around, we are actually not alone in our struggle at all. And sometimes all it takes is for a friend to reach out a hand... and drag you to the pool! I asked my teammate, Gwen Jorgensen (Olympic champ in the triathlon), to write some beginner swim workouts for me. They are sure to kick your butt into shape!