Swimming Exercise Routine: Fitting It Around Your Classes

The swimming exercise routine that works for most adults is one coached class plus two solo swims a week. The class fixes technique. The solo swims build fitness and make the technique stick. Reverse the ratio — three solo swims and no coaching — and you will get fitter at swimming badly, which is how people plateau for years. Practice between lessons roughly doubles the rate of progress, and it is the single cheapest improvement available to anybody reading this.

What follows assumes you can swim a length of something and attend a class. If you cannot yet swim a length, do that first; a routine is premature.

The Week

Swimming does not load bone. The two short land sessions are not optional if swimming is your main activity for the next thirty years. Include upper-back and rotator cuff work; swimming shoulders are grateful for it.

The Solo Technique Session

This is the one people skip because it feels easy. It is the highest-yield half hour of the week.

Warm up: 200m easy, then 4 x 50m alternating strokes, then 4 x 25m building from easy to fast within each length.

Main: 6 x 50m single-arm freestyle, alternating arms. 6 x 50m catch-up freestyle, one hand waiting at the front until the other touches it. 4 x 50m kicking on your side, lower arm extended, head resting on the water. 6 x 25m counting your strokes, trying to hold the count while going slightly faster.

Finish: 200m easy, thinking only about pressing your chest and letting your hips rise.

Slow, precise, unglamorous. Practise whatever your coach told you last week, twenty times, badly, until it becomes ordinary.

The Solo Fitness Session

Alternate two sessions week to week.

Endurance. Warm up, then 800m continuous at a pace you could hold a conversation at. Then 4 x 100m at the same pace, twenty seconds rest. Count strokes on the first and last length — a sharp rise means you went too hard.

Intervals. Warm up, then 8 x 50m hard, resting until your breathing settles. 100m easy. 6 x 25m sprint with thirty seconds rest. 100m easy. Cool down.

Never do intervals on consecutive days, and never in the twenty-four hours before a class — you will swim tired and learn nothing.

Progressing Without Getting Hurt

Add distance or add intensity. Never both in the same week. Around ten per cent more volume per week, with an easy week every fourth where you cut by a third.

The shoulder is the joint that objects. Swimmer’s shoulder is an overuse injury caused by volume, paddles and a dropped elbow. If it aches, cut the volume, remove the paddles, and see a physiotherapist. The same applies to breaststroke knee — if the inside of your knee hurts, stop breaststroke and get it assessed. Neither improves by being trained through.

Common Mistakes

• Three solo swims and no coaching. You get fitter at swimming badly.
• Skipping the technique session. It is the reason the class was worth attending.
• Swimming the same session every time. The body adapts, then stops.
• Two hard sessions back to back. Adaptation happens on the rest day.
• Adding volume and intensity together. The classic route to a shoulder injury.
• Living in a pull buoy or paddles. Aids amplify faults; paddles load the shoulder.
• Turning intervals into breath-holding sets. See below.

Safety

Swim where a lifeguard is on duty. Never train alone in a pool with nobody watching.

Do not add hypoxic breathing or underwater lengths to make a session harder. Prolonged or repeated breath-holding, particularly after hyperventilating, causes shallow-water blackout — consciousness is lost silently, with no struggle, and drowning follows. It has killed fit, experienced swimmers. No training benefit is worth that.

You sweat in the water without noticing. Keep a bottle on the wall.

If you have a heart or lung condition, are pregnant, are managing diabetes, or have not exercised in several years, speak to your doctor before starting. Chest pain, dizziness or unusual breathlessness means you get out and seek medical advice, not that you finish the set.

Getting the Most From a Class

Ask your coach one question at the end of every lesson: what should I practise this week? A good coach gives you one thing, not five. Then practise that one thing until the next class.

If your class has not given you a new skill in three months, ask what the next milestone is — and if nobody can name one, change class. Sociable learners do well in small-group swimming classes; frightened or plateaued swimmers usually progress faster in one-to-one private lessons. Practise between sessions wherever you can — see learning in a condominium pool. Beginners should start with freestyle for beginners and our one-length-to-four-hundred progression. Once you swim comfortably, the levers for going faster are in stroke count and tempo.

Pool timings and lane hours are published by ActiveSG.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many times a week should I swim?

Three sessions — ideally one coached and two on your own. Twice a week maintains. Once a week is enjoyable and will not change much.

How long should each session be?

Forty to sixty minutes in the water including warm-up and cool-down. Longer is not better if the intensity has drifted to nothing.

Is a class worth it if I already swim?

Almost certainly. You cannot see yourself swim, and most self-taught adults are working twice as hard as necessary.

What if I only have thirty minutes?

Keep the warm-up, halve the main set, keep the cool-down. A short session done properly beats a long one done vaguely.

Can I do this if I only swim breaststroke?

Yes, with the same structure. But learning freestyle opens up far more of the plan, and it is easier than most adults expect.

Do I really need land strength work?

For bone density and muscle mass, yes. Swimming provides neither, and this matters more with every decade.