Why Masters Swimming is Great
I love masters swimming and I am a huge advocate for it. It successfully transitioned me from not knowing my place in competitive swimming and having no motivation for any form of exercise to loving swimming more and having so much pride in my endeavour to swim faster.
It combines and enhances everything I have ever loved about the sport. It keeps the competition, adds another layer of teamship and comradery as well as gives me some much-needed social time in adult life. On top of that, by using "adult strength", you can swim, faster than ever without 20 hours a week in the pool. It also is so inclusive with no sense of elitism. Competitions will range from swimmers competing for their first time, ex-Olympians giving swimming another crack to others just using it as an excuse to meet up with family and friends. Yet still, everyone competes in perfect harmony.
My affinity with masters swimming revolves around two competitions a year where I will spend a long weekend with my family and best friends, sharing an Airbnb and racing a range of relays together. That is enough to keep me focussed on my fitness almost year round and I think that is vital to my overall well-being.
Where do I fit in?
Wherever you want! That's the beauty of this thing. You can do as much or as little as you want. You can be hyper-competitive, racing weekly, or not competing at all. You can swim an hour a week or 10 hours a week. It is down to you.
I like having two focus meets a year:
Britsh Masters Championships (LCM) in June
Swim England National Championships (SCM) in October
I may do a meet or two if there is one locally before either of these but the biggest reason I like having two meets, well spread out, is because I don't have to be fully focussed all year around. I don't have to feign the life of a pro athlete where every decision revolves around swimming faster for 356 days a year. Instead, I enjoy working out and I enjoy life, then around 8 weeks before either of my two competitions, I make a plan and add some focus to my training. I think this balance is half the reason I can find personal success at these meets. I should clarify my most recent success has been defined by a personal best in the 100m freestyle, 6 years on from the previous PB.
That being said, don't let my version of success define you. If your success is being able to go and enjoy an hour of social masters club training, three times a week, year-round and stay happy and healthy. That's just as good a reason as any.
But if you do have goals when it comes to competition, the rest of this article is for you....
I want to swim faster
Part of my motivation to write this post is because I know there are so many swimmers out there who are frustrated. After all, they do still have goals, they do still want to swim faster than ever and they do want to be competitive... but they don't know how.
You kind of have two options when it comes to training. Find a masters club in your area or go swim in public sessions. Both of these have a massive scope of quality, from downright horrible to perfect.
Public SEssions
I know in the US, public sessions are a goldmine. 20 short course lanes with about 2 lanes per person. In the UK for the vast majority it is the oppsosite. A lot of pools have just a few lanes to choose from and sometimes there is 10 or more in each lane. Heres a story from my public session last week There was three lanes:
Slower Lane - Empty
Medium Lane - One person swimming freestyle at a medium speed.
Fast Lane - Two swimmers swimming head up breaststroke at about 90 seconds a 25.
While I was fortunate there was space for me to swim. I think this sums up the delusion of some public swimmers who will let their ego only allow them to swim in the fast lane regardless of whos in it. On multiple occasions I have been trainng with multiple friends in a fast lane doing a big threshhold set and I will have swimmers in board shorts and no goggles get in the lane with us, even though the lane next to us is empty. I am not exaggerating!
Moaning aside, I do think as long as you play around with the time of your session, you can find the quieter hours and also with regular attendance, people will come to know that your pretty fast and they want to steer clear.
The biggest plus side with swimming in public is that you can do whatever session you want. You can train something specific to you and work on your weaknesses and further develop your strengths.
Masters clubs
When it comes to masters swimming clubs I know there are some great ones out there. We have a few brilliant options in the UK (would mean a 5 hour commute for me) and I know the US has some masters teams that probably have better coaches than the majority of UK age group programs. Even with these outliers, sadly, in my experience the majority of these masters club are troubling.
In the UK, most swimming clubs will have a "token" masters squad. These are nothing more than an afterthought to the main swimming club and if they are fortunate enough to even have a coach to lead them (some will be led from in the water or just have a session on the board), it is probably a volunteer who is just trying to help out but doesn't have huge levels of experience. These masters squads are normally inclusive for all and will have swimmers range from ex national champions to triathletes who would happily tell you that swimming is their weakest of the three disciplines. This means you have some swimmers who probably want to focus on getting faster over shorter pool events to others who just wnat to be able to lower their average 100 in the 3.8km swim of Ironman. This results in generic, blanket training sessions that don't really do anything if you have genuine goals.
I am not trying to slight anyone here. I am glad these places exist and I am all for them being inclusive and I am all for coaches giving up their time to run these sessions, but that doesn't mean they are the answer for you getting truly faster at swimming.
Regardless of the quality of the sessions, the one thing that invaluable with a masters swim clubse is the social aspect and comradere of team mates and the accountabilty that brings.
The Solution
The content of your training sessions is everything. If you truly want to get faster and your masters club is not giving you the sessions to enable that (this is the reality if you aren't improving), then you have to take matters into your own hands. Find out when your local pool is quiet and start doing your own sessions in public. If you are worried about missing the social element then you can can keep one (or two) of your clubs sessions and supplement them with two (or three) public sessions. Even better you find a friend who wants to train with you in public.
Here is a truth with masters swimming. The following training schedules can lead to success.
If you just want to swim 50m sprints:
3 Swims a Week
1 Session Power
1 Session Top End Speed
1 Session Speed Endurance
Constant Technichal Focus
Can Supplement with Gym
Can be less than 5000m a week
If you want to race a range of events up to and including 200s and 400s:
4 Swims a Week
1 Race Pace Session
1 Pure Speed Session
1 More Event Specific Session
Concious development on your technchal deficiepts
Around 10,000m a week is fine.
Can do more of course
What Training plans should i do?
If you have got this far and realise that you do what to make a change and start swimming faster but if you was to go swim on your own, you wouldn't know where to start with session planning, I can also help.
To clarify this post was not just one big sales pitch leading up to this point. There are plenty of free resources online that can help you with session planning, including my YouTube channel which has 100s of videos that include full workouts with detailed explanations of their purpose. Want to do some aerobic power for a 200?
How about a crazy IM set?
Finally here is some top end speed.
But if you did want someone to write you personalised programs, that are specific to your events, your goals, your needs, then that is something I offer. I have helped guide over a 100 swimmers to surpise themsleves with life time bests all over the world. Some of these swimmers are as old as in their 60s and are still crushing not just age group bests but ALL TIME LIFETIME BESTS with these personalised plans. I have actually recently renamed the training plan to Personal Best Membership for this very reason. If you have any further questions on these plans don't hesitate to get in touch with me, I am very responsive.
I also have a range of ready made programes if you want something less personal.
Regardless of whether or not these interest you, if you have been struggling with a plateu, I do hope you make a change and in turn, start seeing sucess in your racing.
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