Set swimming targets you can control. “Attend both classes every week this term” is a target. “Breathe bilaterally for a whole four hundred metres” is a target. “Lose five kilograms” and “swim a fifty in thirty seconds” are outcomes, dependent on genetics, sleep, health and luck as much as on effort. Chase them directly and you will be demoralised by February. Control the process instead, and ask your coach one question at the start of every term: what is my next milestone, and what is stopping it?
This article used to be organised around a “swim set for weight loss”. It no longer is, for reasons set out below.
Process Goals and Outcome Goals
An outcome goal names a result. A process goal names a behaviour.
The distinction sounds academic until you miss one. Miss a process goal and you know exactly what happened: you did not turn up on Wednesday. Miss an outcome goal and you learn nothing, because a dozen invisible factors sit between your effort and the number.
Keep one outcome quietly at the back of the plan if you like. Build the process goals that would plausibly produce it, and judge yourself on those.
Targets Worth Setting
| Type | Example | Under your control? | Review every |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attendance | Both classes weekly for a term | Almost entirely | Week |
| Skill | Back float for thirty seconds | Yes | Fortnight |
| Technical | Bilateral breathing for 400m | Yes | Fortnight |
| Efficiency | One stroke fewer per length at the same pace | Largely | Month |
| Endurance | Swim 1,000m continuously | Largely | Six weeks |
| Performance time | A personal best over 100m | Partly | Season |
| Body composition | Any weight target | Poorly — speak to a doctor | Not here |
What to Ask Your Coach
Three questions, at the start of every term, in this order.
What can I do now that I could not do three months ago? A good coach answers instantly and specifically.
What is my next milestone, and what is stopping it? Also instant. “You won’t put your face in” is a real answer. “You need more practice” is not.
What one thing should I practise on my own this week? One thing. Not five. If you get five, ask which matters most.
A coach who cannot answer these has not been watching you.
A Word About Weight Targets
A swimming coach is the wrong person to set anybody a weight target.
What I will say: exercise supports health regardless of what the scale does, no exercise removes fat from a chosen part of the body, and no article can tell you what you should weigh. If body composition matters to you, that is a conversation with a doctor or registered dietitian who knows your history. Do not restrict food to accelerate training results — under-fuelled swimmers get slower, get injured, and quit.
If food, body image and exercise have become tangled together, please speak to a doctor. That is not a swimming problem.
What to Measure
Once you can swim lengths, count your strokes over twenty-five metres and time the length. Do it once a fortnight, at the same point in the same session, rested.
Those two numbers together tell you almost everything about your efficiency, and neither can be faked. A lower count with a slower time is gliding, not progress. A faster time with a much higher count is thrashing. Improvement means both move in the right direction together.
Write it down. Memory flatters everybody.
How to Write a Target
- Name the behaviour, not the result.
- Make it measurable in one glance. If you have to think about whether you hit it, it is a bad target.
- Set a horizon of six to eight weeks — a school term is ideal.
- Track one number. One.
- Decide in advance what a bad week looks like and what you will do about it.
- Review honestly, then rewrite. A target that survives six months unchanged was too easy.
Common Mistakes
- Setting five targets at once. Set one. Add the second when the first is habitual.
- Choosing an outcome you cannot control. The commonest reason people stop.
- Testing yourself every week. Adaptation is slower than that, and constant testing is discouraging.
- Counting only distance. Volume with no technique target produces a fit swimmer with a bad stroke.
- Abandoning the plan after a missed week. A week is noise.
- Building the plan around a weight number. Wrong tool, wrong professional.
- Adding volume and intensity in the same block. Shoulders keep the score.
Safety
Ambition is where swimmers get hurt. A target requiring you to add distance every week without an easy week will eventually find your shoulder. Build in a lighter fourth week, always.
If your shoulder or knee hurts, that is not something to train through in pursuit of a target. See a physiotherapist. Swimmer’s shoulder and breaststroke knee both worsen sharply when ignored.
Never set targets involving breath-holding, hypoxic sets or underwater distance. Prolonged or repeated breath-holding, particularly after hyperventilating, causes shallow-water blackout — a silent, warningless loss of consciousness that has drowned strong swimmers in supervised pools. There is no target worth that.
Swim where a lifeguard is on duty. Keep a bottle on the wall. If you have a heart or lung condition, or have not trained in years, talk to your doctor before setting anything ambitious.
Getting Help With the Process
Technical targets are hard to set alone, because you cannot see yourself swim. A handful of private swimming lessons gives you two or three specific things to work on — exactly the raw material a process goal needs. Regular group swimming classes supply structure for people who need a fixed appointment.
The training week most targets sit inside is our routine built around classes. Beginners should start with the milestones a beginner should pass. If your target is speed, read stroke count and tempo before you write it.
Pool timings are published by ActiveSG.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a realistic first swimming target?
Attendance. Turn up to every class for a term. Nothing about speed, nothing about distance.
Should I set a time goal?
Keep one in the background if racing motivates you, but judge your training on process goals. Times are influenced by sleep, stress, the pool and the day.
How often should I test myself?
Every two to four weeks, rested, at a fixed point in a fixed session.
Can I use swimming targets to lose weight?
Swimming is good exercise and exercise supports health. Weight targets belong with a doctor or registered dietitian, not a swimming coach.
What if I miss my target?
Ask what stopped you. If it was life, make the target smaller. If it was the plan, change the plan.
How long before a technical change sticks?
Usually a few months of deliberate practice. It will feel wrong before it feels right, and it will fall apart the first time you swim fast. That is normal.
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