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Over this summer, I have been focused on swimming, 3-4 times a week, almost 1 hour each time, mostly in outdoor 50m pools. Now, when fall arrives (outdoor pools closed last week in Stockholm) and work picks up, it will not be possible to swim that often.

My question is: What is the minimum of workouts per week and duration for a swimming maintenance program for the next six months?

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  • Are you asking about swimming maintenance stuff or dryland exercises to minimize swimming losses? Do you have any pools available? – JohnP♦ Aug 30 '12 at 13:30
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    i just got goose bumps reading "outdoor 50m pools". jealous. – Ryan Miller Aug 30 '12 at 15:53
  • @JohnP, both. Didn't even think about dryland exercises. There are a number of 25m indoor pools available. – FredrikD Aug 30 '12 at 20:18
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    @FredrikD - Then you can pretty much just swim as you can, if you can get 2 hours a week in in separate workouts, then you should maintain most of your fitness. If you could do total body movement exercises as a supplement to keep strength up a couple times a week as well, then I don't think you'll lose much at all over the next few months. – JohnP♦ Aug 31 '12 at 13:32
  • @JohnP, looks like an answer to me.. – FredrikD Sep 1 '12 at 12:20
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Since you can swim in an indoor pool a couple times a week, then here's a hypothetical workout schedule for you:

  • Mon - 1 hour in pool, 300m warmup, mixed strokes. 10x100 HARD freestyle, 1 min rest between. 5x200 moderate freestyle, :30 rest between. 5x100 IM, :30 rest, 2-400 cooldown.
  • Tue - Full body routine, squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, lat pulldowns, chest flys
  • Wed - off
  • Thu - 1 hour in pool, 300m warmup. 10x200 IM, 1:00 min rest between. 500-1000m easy swim. 2-300 cooldown. Use the long swim to work on form, stick in form drills every 100m or so.
  • Fri - Smaller muscle group/isolation exercises, curls, extensions, etc.

That should keep your fitness, and if you can't do all the strokes, sub out things for the IM portions.

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