Fartlek Swimming: swimming interval training for everyone to boost your endurance.

Swimming interval training is one of the most effective swimming workouts when it comes to boost your overall cardiovascular conditioning and swimming speed. It is a tough training if performed with a certain level of ambition and it might be too strenuous for the average swimmer. Also, depending when in your swimming program you are, you might want to focus more on building endurance than speed. Fartlek swimming is very effective in building up your aerobic capacity without killing your base speed and it is less intense than interval training making it a valuable workout even for the average swimmer.

Fartlek Swimming: An alternative to Swimming Interval Training to built endurance.

Fartlek is a Swedish word which means “speed play” and refers to a training technique used by distance runners for many years. Fartlek workouts consists in short high intensity efforts in between a steady state aerobic effort. The high intensity work periods can vary in lengths, intensity and frequency throughout the workout. Opposite to interval training, fartlek workouts allow the athlete to start the new high intensity effort when he feels ready for and not on a specific time base. This training technique is most suitable if you want to start increasing your workout intensity or just want to introduce your body to work at varying intensity.
Fartlek swimming has the benefit to make you train at higher intensity without the risk of injuries connected with non-stop or repetitive high intensity activity.
Swimming interval training is the most effective way to train your body to work at high intensity above lactate threshold but if you come from a maintenance type of workout or if you are just starting swimming it can be difficult to pick up interval workouts at once. Fartlek swimming is then the perfect alternative.

Fartlek Swimming : A swimming workout for everyone.

Fartlek swimming training is a valuable swimming workout not only for competitive swimmers or advances fitness people but is a great swimming exercise everybody should put into his routine. If you are starting to swim today and you do not feel in good shape, do not look any further than fartlek training to get the best out of your water fitness exercise.

When you undertake a training you should always have a target. Plan the level of effort you feel ready for and the distance you want to swim. Let’s take the example of a low volume swimming training. Let’s say you are planning to go for a 1500 meters of swimming. After your 400 meters of warm up you are left with 1100 meters, 300 of which you will use for cooling down. So, we have 800 meters to work on and you want to make it the most effective swimming training you can for both endurance and cardiovascular conditioning. In case you do not feel ready for swimming interval training go for a 800 meters continuos swim with some speed play. During these 800, every time you feel ready for it, go for a 25 meters at higher intensity. Keep your technique clean and swim following the swimming tips I gave in my previous post.

As you proceed doing this training for some weeks you will see you can swim at higher intensity during the whole 800 meters. You can then increase the speed play lap to 50 meters and increase the volume of the whole training. Finish up the training with 300 meters of relaxed and stretched swim.

Fartlek swimming , or speed play swimming teaches you also something very important. The more you train this way the more you learn how to control your speed and how to keep the technique correct at any pace. This is invaluable for any swimmer which wants to improve and to get full control on the way he swims.

Fartlek swimming training: The bottom line

Fartlek swimming or, speed play swimming, is a type of swimming workout which alternates low and high intensity swim not based on time interval, as in swimming interval training, but on how the swimmer feels. It is a great swimming exercise for starting to swim at an higher intensity and to improve endurance and aerobic conditioning. It is very easy to implement.
To start with, just plan your swimming for a long and continuos swim and increase the pace now and then when you feel ready for it. You will see your swimming performance improve rapidly.

Keep healthy keep swimming.

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Tags: benefits of swimming, fartlek, Swimming Training