Swimming blog - TRAINING and FUN How to spice up your training routine?
Do you want to know how to put the fun back into your swimming? Get creative. There is no “B” for boring in swimming, so don’t let yourself or others convince you there is. Swimming is so much more than just swimming up and down. It is multi-faceted and just waiting for you to spice it up.
If you are looking for inspiration, then look no further than our varied workout and training plan library at SwimGym.com. Read on to see how you can use your creativity to make every training fun, challenging and new.
Different strokes
You have four strokes to choose from. Freestyle is not the only stroke you know! Swimming different strokes will help prevent injury and keep your trainings fun. The skills you learn from one stroke can be used in the other.
Mix and match the strokes. Practice the ones you don’t like and see your swimming get a well-deserved boost. Be creative and swim all four strokes one after the other in a what is called the Individual Medley. Traditionally it is swum in the order of Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke and Freestyle. Yet there is no rule outside competition to make this any combination you want. Just take a look at our Individual Medley workout library for inspiration.
Different strokes for different folks, but all the strokes for all the swimming folks will put a smile on your dial.
Watch the clock
We admit that swimming up and down at the same speed, week in and week out, is boring. Pros don’t swim like this. Nor should you.
Watch the clock or your sports watch. Set yourself some realistic or unrealistic, depending how your feeling, swim goal times. Do this and you will see how exciting it is to learn to read the clock and use it in your trainings. This alone will spice up any training you have planned.
Plan in rest and keep track of it all by watching the clock. You will come away from your training super focused and feeling like you have swum like a pro, which is never boring. Moreover, you will know yourself and your swimming pace better because you tracked your own swimming times.
Intervals
Add a bit of speed or intensity into the mix. Just like pacing off the clock, it’s fun to vary your speed in a training and that is what intervals give you the chance to do.
Do a block of slow and easy swimming, then use that same block but make the goal to swim faster, to swim it in another stroke or use less rest between the distances. These are all great ways to keep a set looking and feeling fresh and make you a stronger and faster swimmer at the same time.
Technique
Add some technique to your trainings. This is a great way to go slow on those days you aren’t feeling it yet working on those thorny technical issues we all face. Technique sessions help you focus on the nitty gritty of swimming, clear your mind of anything else and help you come back stronger and faster.
Technique sets can be applied to all the strokes, so there is no limit to what you can do in a technique training. Let your imagination run wild and then go and find the drills you need at SwimGym.com. If you need help, make contact with us, use our analyser or come on down to Amsterdam for a personal training session. All valuable resources available to you.
Group therapy
Swim with others. You may not feel like swimming, but once prompted by a swim buddy, how can you refuse not to go and swim? You will be the motivation for others on the days you are on fire to go swimming.
Swimming with others gives us that drive to finish the hard sets and or complete the technique drills. It’s fun because we can laugh at ourselves and others. There is limited time to talk, but heck, keeping time is fun and the few words of encouragement in between is too.
Swimming with others means getting to know others at their best and worst and will build lasting relationships outside the pool.
Toys
Use swimming equipment like paddles, snorkel, fins pull buoy and kick board. The assortment of tools available these days is very big. For every facet of swimming, you will find a tool and toy. This will spice up you’re training and make it fun and challenging.
The fun comes in the mastery of a swimming toy. Freestyle arms with a pull-buoy is no mean feat if you are doing it for the first time yet it stays fresh and fun no matter how long you have been swimming.
There are toys for helping you with technique, for resistance training or making you go faster. Using them in a varied way can really make you excited to get down to the deck time and again.
One word of advice, use them with discretion and don’t buy all the toys in the store. A good beginning is to have a pull-buoy, kickboard and snorkel in your toolkit. Ask a coach what they think you need to best help you improve before you go out and buy it all.
The ways to make your training fun, fresh and spicey are limitless, as you have seen. Let your imagination run wild. Every training can be completely different or the same, but with a different focus. Whether you choose a different stroke, toy or technique focus, our workout library got you covered. From now on let your swim trainings be the spice of your life.