Swimming Sprints and Underwater Challenges

Location: Woodcock Sports Centre Swimming Pool, Aston University

Front crawl - 1 length sprint
(30 seconds rest)
Front crawl - 1 length sprint
(longer rest)
Underwater lengths - 1 - up for air midway
(longer rest)
Front crawl - 1 length sprint
(30 seconds rest)
Front crawl - 1 length sprint
(longer rest)
Underwater lengths - 1
(longer rest)
Front crawl - 1 length sprint
(30 seconds rest)
Front crawl - 1 length sprint

Where the rest time was just 'longer', it was pretty much random - just until I felt ready for more. In fact the whole workout was a bit more random than the list suggests - that's just my best summary.

Total time: 15 minutes

Post Workout Nutrition: this, 40 minutes later

I stopped doing as much swimming a few months back, and have now remembered how great a tool it is to have in the workout toolbox. The problems I have found in the past with swimming are:

In the pool:
- Hordes of squawking, armband-clad kids
- So much chlorination you worry you'll go in a brunette and come out a blond
- Leaking goggles
- Too many 'length plodders' and not enough room to 'do your thing'
- Greater amount of 'messing around' required to execute a session

In the wild
- it can be too cold (as I found out here!) and hard to find long enough stretches of swimmable water to support structured workouts
- it's usually not close by.

Yet this morning at 7am in the pool that shares a building with my gym, I was able to share a large lane with two other people and still more or less 'do my thing.' My goggles leaked only a little and I was pleasantly surprised at the levels of chlorination. And no kids - no big surprise since this is a University pool.

The great thing about swimming is that you can do front crawl sprints that are every bit as intense as running sprints - but without the heavy emphasis on the legs; and of course it is also low impact.

When I know my body needs a rest from heavy resistance work, but still want to do something that makes me work, swimming can be a great way to achieve that. I guess it's because you are able to use multiple major muscles simultaneously at low resistance but high speed. Sure, you can do that on a cross trainer, but I've never seen anyone truly 'sprint' on one of those.

The underwater lengths are also a unique challenge. In the past I have progressed from doing one length underwater to two, using progressively shorter intervals between single lengths to improve my lung capacity. Initially the sense of panic and involuntary lung spasms are not pleasant - but you get used to these. In fact as you can see from above, in a single session you can get used to them! I lost it on the first attempt but got back in the groove on the second.

I have read somewhere that there may be some Growth Hormone release from holding ones breath under these conditions. Either way, you certainly leave the pool feeling as though you have pushed yourself sideways in a new direction and added some worthwhile rounding to your conditioning.