If you're swimming competitively, speed is a critical part of your stroke. Training to increase speed means focusing on more than simple endurance workouts or one specific part of your stroke technique. While you're overall aerobic capacity and stroke technique are important parts of your stroke conditioning, speed training requires a specific focus. In addition, if you want to increase your speed, you need to hone your workouts carefully to focus specifically on speed training.
Features
When training to increase your speed in the water, your workouts should differ significantly from endurance workouts. The intensity of the training, not the distance you swim, is the critical part of the workout. In addition, you need to focus your training to the distance you will be swimming. Shorter distances require more of your anaerobic capacity.
Function
Speed training focuses on high-intensity, low-volume workouts. Similar to running workouts that focus on the pace you run, speed training in swimming focuses on sprint training. Multiple sets of high-intensity workouts that have you swim at race pace or just below your fastest sprint help increase your anaerobic threshold. In addition, these workouts don't fixate on your lactate-threshold--the amount of lactate in your blood after your body uses glycogen to power your swim. Lactate threshold training is more useful if you're swimming endurance events.
Identification
Speed training workouts consist of short sprints with set paces. When you're speed training, you must be able to see a clock to pace yourself. For example, a speed training workout might include eight sets of 50 meters or yards at sprint speed with a minute rest in between each set. The goal is to keep the same pace for each set of 50 meters, which will become increasingly difficult as you swim through the set.
Effects
Sprint training helps avoid fatigue of the fast twitch muscle fibers, which are the muscle fibers that speed you in the water. The difficulty of the workout and maintaining your pace also helps increase your anaerobic capacity, making you a better sprinter. The effect is similar to what you might practice when training for a sprinting event on dry land. In short, the more you practice sprinting, the better you get at being faster.
Potential
By focusing specifically on speed training, you can become faster in the water. Workouts that have you swimming lap after lap at a slow, steady pace, actually work against you if you're seeking to improve your sprints. These endurance workouts help your aerobic condition and overall fitness. However, they dull the fast twitch fibers. While a combination of these workouts is essential for a well-rounded, fit swimmer, you should time your sprint workouts to coincide more closely with your races to ensure you're in peak form for the sprint.
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