Ways to make swimming workouts fun for groups of people

Let’s face it.  There are a lot of sights to be seen while running outdoors.  And with cycling, you get to see miles and miles in training.  There’s just not an equivalent in swimming.  For the most part, you are training in an indoor pool going back and forth in the same place.  The purpose of this article is to show ways to make your pool workouts more fun and exciting.  It may never be as exciting as watching the great outdoors whiz by.  But these workout ideas may make you a little more interested in hitting the pool more often. 

These ideas rely on the one thing that all triathletes have in common:  we all love to compete!  The great thing about a swimming pool is that people of many different skill levels can all swim in the same place.  I will first provide an example of a fun workout design for large groups (more than 5 people), another design for smaller groups (2-5 people) and a third design that works well for 2 people.  This article covers group workouts only.  I will leave the topic of single person workouts to another article.

Design #1 – Relays (large groups)

For larger groups (like 5-20 people), relays are a great way to bring people of different skill levels together.  Divide the group into teams of 2-4 people.  In a relay team, each individual athlete swims a set distance (usually a 50 or 100, but could even be 25).  When the first team member finishes, then the second person can begin (either by diving in or in-water push-off).  When the second finishes, the third person starts, and when the third finishes, the last person (or the anchor) starts.  Relay teams typically involve four people, but they can also involve 2 or 3 as needed (but not 5 or more as it forces people to sit around too much waiting for their turn).  Your relay team finishes when the team’s anchor touches the wall. 

Relays are fun because you can mix varying levels of experience onto the same team.  Then you can compete against other teams with mixed levels of experience.  Thus, everyone gets engaged, and all levels of experience are swimming the same workout.  What if you do not have the right mix of skill levels to make it a race for everyone?  You can either choose a time handicap (one team starts earlier than the other so they both finish at approximately the same time), or you can allow beginners to wear fins, or you can have the better swimmers swim non-freestyle (backstroke or butterfly).  The handicap concept can also be utilized in smaller groups (even with just two people).  Just have the faster swimmer start later and/or swim something slower and suddenly you have a race on your hands.

Design #2 – Team (2-5 people)

Another concept that works well is to swim a set with a team goal time.  This idea works well if there are 5 or less people in the group (any more and it is a challenge to manage).  Here’s how it works.  Before the set begins, the team decides on an overall goal time.  Then everyone swims a repeat and the average of everyone’s time is calculated.  If the average meets or is below the goal, then the repeat counts.  If the team missed the goal, then the repeat doesn’t count.  If you really want to make it interesting, you can place a “penalty” on the team for every repeat the group misses.  For example, you can have the group do some other less desirable stroke discipline (like butterfly or underwater breath holding or something else not so fun).  You can either perform the “penalty” once, or have a separate goal time that has to be met before trying another repeat that actually counts.

Here’s the version of this workout that I have run while training with professional triathlete David Thompson.  The set is 10 x 200 meter freestyle on 4:30 send-off time.  In other words, each repeat starts 4 minutes, 30 seconds after the start of the previous repeat.  Our average time (Dobko/Thompson) had to be 2:18 or better in order to count.  A missed goal time is the same regardless of how far off the goal we miss.  It didn’t matter if we averaged 2:19 or 3:30, it still doesn’t count.  For the “penalty”, we did 50s on 2:00 where we would swim freestyle on the first 25, then turn and kick the entire second length underwater.  These were very undesirable; especially when tired and lacking oxygen.  We kept doing those horrible 50s until we met another goal time (average time of 32 seconds).  When we met the 50 time we got another crack at the 200 we missed.  We kept going until all ten repeats were done (or until we agreed to quit!).

The workout creates an entertaining dynamic even though it sounds horrible (you don’t have to make it as ugly as the version David and I do – the penalty is optional!).  It forces everyone in the pool to work together.  In between repeats, David and I would discuss if we try and make the goal or “sandbag it”, or take it easy in order to take the penalty 50, and then try the 200 again when a little less tired.  The other dynamic is that on a hard effort, you are thinking about the team as much as yourself.  No one wants to be responsible for a team’s failure.  I found this was very effective in getting that extra ounce of effort. 

The other interesting aspect of this set is it forces the participants to think about and work on weaknesses.  In a hard set, it is all too easy to go back to your strengths when fatigue sets in.  Use your strengths too much though, and they can become liabilities.  For example, I tend to start off fast and slow down very rapidly in the middle of the set.  If I slow down too much in the middle of a team set, we start missing repeats and incurring penalties.  Thus, I have to pay attention to pacing the beginning of the set correctly so I have enough fuel in the tank to make the goal times later.  Also, in teams you really pay attention to the condition of your teammates.  If a team member looks like they are in trouble, it motivates you to try and go faster in order to make the goal.

Design #3 – Racing (2 people)

The third set design works well for 2 people.  At a high level, here’s how it works.  There are 3 “basic races”.  The first race is “neutral” for both swimmers; meaning that it is moderately painful but not awful.  This usually means freestyle swimming.  The other two races contain elements that are painful for one and easier for the other.  A more painful element might be butterfly or underwater kicking.  An easier element might be kicking with a board or swimming with flippers.  The two swimmers swim the “neutral” race first, and the winner is determined (whoever touches the wall first).  Then, the next repeat is easier for the winner and more challenging for the loser.  Start times are handicapped such that both athletes have an equal theoretical chance of winning for any of the 3 races.

Here’s the version I use while training with David Thompson.  The repeat distance is 50 yards or meters and the sendoff interval is 2 minutes.  The races are as follows:
Race 1 (Neutral):  freestyle for David and Duane
Race 2 (Duane’s easy race):  Duane kicks with board (with head start), David kicks underwater for 25 and swims freestyle for 25
Race 3 (David’s easy race):  Duane swims freestyle for 25, then kicks underwater for 25, David goes 50 freestyle breathing every 4.

If David wins race 1, then we proceed to Race 3
If Duane wins race 1, then we proceed to Race 2

If David wins race 2, then we proceed to Race 3
If Duane wins race 2, then we proceed to Race 1

If David wins race 3, then we proceed to Race 1
If Duane wins race 3, then we proceed to Race 2

This set is very confusing when written in words, and is better represented in a flow diagram.  The diagram is shown in the Figure below.

An interesting dynamic has occurred every time I have done this set.  It follows a similar pattern in that winners and losers for given races tend to be the same.  This is surprising.  The next repeat is not pre-determined and is only known from the result of the previous repeat.  Since it is a race of inches, a slight advantage means one person wins almost every time.  Hence, the winner of race 2 and race 3 tended to always favor one individual, while the “neutral” repeat was close enough that it was fiercely contested.  As the participants got tired, they tended to rest a tiny bit on the repeats they weren’t favored to win in order to fight that one close race harder.  As a whole, this set is as competitive as any I have ever experienced in a swim practice!  I have found this concept to be tremendously motivating and a great way to get excited about the sport.

So, the next time you are in the pool and swimming in a large or small group, give these set designs a try.  It is a lot of fun to swim as part of a team as opposed to feeling alone.  The relay design is a great for large groups to bring together a large variation of skill levels.  Likewise, the team design is great for 2-5 people and gets people engaged and motivated.  Finally, the racing design is a dynamic and high-octane method of swimming fast and getting excited about that extra inch of performance.  Until next time, happy training!