And How to Plan a Sprint Training Session

At masters swim training, sprints are often an afterthought – literally something added into the last few minutes of the session.

That’s not necessarily a bad idea. Practising changing pace when you’re tired is good for developing a finishing sprint at the end of an open water race, for example. It also works well for people who swim for general fitness rather than performance.

But, as you’re already fatigued, it’s not necessarily the best way to improve your all-out speed. For that, you should sprint when you’re fresh. You also need to take plenty of rest between your sprint efforts, so that you can recover and swim at full speed again.

This can be something of a barrier to swimmers for a couple of reasons.

Waiting and waiting

First, sprint sessions, by their nature, involve a lot of hanging around while recovering from a hard effort. This can lead swimmers to feel they are not making the most of their time in the water. If you only swim once or twice per week, you probably want to actually swim rather than hang off the wall gasping for breath.

Second, sprint sessions are short. However, many swimmers (sometimes subconsciously encouraged by their sports watches or Strava) judge their training effectiveness by the total distance covered. Swimming less than half your usual distance doesn’t look good in your stats.

You can mitigate these barriers to some extent by doing active recovery swims between sprints, but you will not get close to the distance you might cover in a solid endurance-focused set.

Who needs to sprint anyway?

The other objection to sprint training is often heard from triathletes and long-distance swimmers. They never need full-speed efforts in their events, so why should they train them?

In reality, almost all swimmers could benefit from including sprints in their training. Here’s why:

Sprinting improves stroke efficiency and technique

Sprinting forces you to try to maximise propulsion and minimise drag because technique inefficiencies are magnified at high speeds. Also, practising at high intensity enhances neuromuscular coordination. These should translate to improved efficiency on endurance swims.

Sprinting increases anaerobic capacity and lactate tolerance

Sprint training improves the body’s ability to buffer and clear lactate. This can help on long swims that demand a change in pace.

Sprinting enhances neuromuscular power and fast-twitch fibre recruitment

If you only ever swim at a steady pace, your fast-twitch muscle fibres will be underused. Sprinting activates them, which improves overall muscle power and speed.

Sprinting helps improve your VO₂max and aerobic performance

Traditionally, endurance is built through long miles, but high-intensity interval training (HIIT) improves your VO₂max and mitochondrial density too, and potentially in less time.

Sprinting develops mental toughness

Doing hard sprints hurts. They therefore teach you to cope better with discomfort and maintain good technique as you get tired.

Sprint training sessions are fun and sociable

Maybe it’s the endorphin surge. Maybe it’s that you seem to spend most of the session loafing around. But whatever the reason, and while they may lack the satisfaction factor of completing a tough endurance set, sprint sessions are fun. Plus, with more time to talk, they’re more sociable too.

Sprint session design

Now, hopefully, you’re convinced of the benefits of sprinting, how do you go about creating one? It depends on your objectives, but there are certain principles to follow.

When creating the sprint sets that I use, I think about the following:

Who is swimming with me, and what are they training for?

We’re all training for different things and have different tolerances for rest intervals and stroke variety (long-distance swimmers are sometimes reflexively opposed to resting).

What kit or equipment can we use?

Where I swim, we’re not allowed to use training aids. But sprinters often incorporate resistance to their training with parachutes, paddles and so on. For example, if you do a few short sprints against a resistance, then remove the resistance, you feel released.

What races have we got coming up?

I will try to tailor the session towards specific distances and strokes if an event is imminent.

Session components

Warm up

Typically, 400 to 600m starting with easy front crawl and backstroke, with a little bit of gentle breaststroke and some butterfly drill. I like to take the body through the full range of swimming movements while focusing on technique.

Prep set

Now is the time to introduce some speed, but only in short bursts. For example, single lengths starting slow and building to full speed, or starting with a half-length sprint and finishing easy. This is a good time to practice underwater dolphin and streamlining too. If the option were available, I’d like to finish with a couple of racing dives.

Main set

This is where the work is done. Distances might range from 25m to 100m (very rarely 200m) of maximum effort swimming, with lots of rest (often twice to four times the amount of rest as swim time). Do what you can to swim as fast as possible. Feel the burn and enjoy the long rests, which may include some slow recovery swimming. I like to include all strokes.

Steady swim (occasionally)

Sometimes it’s nice to finish with a sprint and leave the pool feeling the buzz of speed. Other times, a steady swim – say 4 to 6 x 100m FC – is a good way to restore your swimming equilibrium and refocus on technique.

Cool down

The best part. All the hard work is done. Now just enjoy being in the water. Swim as slowly as you like.

How often?

This depends on both your goals and how often you swim, but even if you only train once per week, I would encourage you to include some full-speed efforts during the session and perhaps dedicate one session per month to sprints.

With two swims per week, you might consider devoting one to sprints on alternate weeks, and increasing to once per week if you swim three times or more. Unless you are a dedicated sprinter, you probably don’t need more than that.

Just one word of caution to finish. Sprints put a strain on your shoulders and cardiovascular system. You might want to avoid them if you’re struggling with an injury or need to moderate your effort levels due to a medical condition.

Anyway, I hope you find the above helpful. Please also take a look at this sample sprint set for more ideas.