Best Swimming Workouts for Beginners

Jumping into a Masters club practice can be intimidating for someone with no competitive swimming experience. Not only are you learning a new sport, but there’s a new language, lane etiquette, equipment, and many more things.

If you’re the kind of swimmer who wants to get some practice on your own before joining a club, doing structured workouts on your own can help you to improve in many different areas. Learning how to read a workout and building your endurance can also make you more comfortable should you decide to swim with a club. Brushing up on your freestyle technique can also be beneficial.

Here are five different workouts, written by USMS coaches, that are great for beginners. Check out the Glossary of Terms for help in understanding the lingo.

Pay particular attention to the difference between send-off time (swim intervals) and rest intervals. With send-off time, you have that specified amount of time to swim and rest before beginning the next repeat, regardless of how fast you swim. You can adjust the send-off time, of course, or you might just want to swim and then take a consistent rest period between repetitions. This is called rest intervals.

As you build your endurance, you should find your swimming getting more consistent and, before you know it, you’ll be ready to start thinking about swim intervals.

If you find that even a few back-to-back lengths of the pool is beyond your endurance at this point, add in as many breaks as you need to rest. The workout is about you and getting your body moving. Whether the workout takes exactly the recommended amount of time or twice that, you’ve still done more than someone sitting at home on the couch.

Workout 1: Breathe

No matter how great of shape you’re on land, nothing prepares you for your first workout in the water. There’s no other sport that requires you to move your body on a limited amount of oxygen throughout the whole workout.

• Remember to exhale whenever your face is in the water. Not only does it keep you better oxygenated, it improves your body position and timing for all your strokes.
• In this workout, you’re reminded to think about breathing in through your mouth and out through your nose during the cool-down, but try to do this throughout the whole workout. You’ll also find it a little easier to breathe this way during the pull sets because you won’t be using your leg muscles to kick, and the pull buoy will help you maintain a good body position.

Warm-up

100 freestyle on 2:00

100 choice on 2:00

100 pull on 2:00

(Work your distance per stroke.)

Main set

4 x 25s choice on :30

100 pull on 2:00

2 x 25s choice on :30

2 x 100s pull on 3:30

50 choice on :50

3 x 100s pull on 3:30

4 x 50s choice on 1:00

Cool-down

4 x 50s choice on 2:00

(Try to get your heart rate down, work on breathing in your mouth and slow exhale out of your nose.)

Total: 1500           

USMS members can view this workout and hundreds more in our Workout Library

Workout 2: Learn Your Intervals

Swimmers use the pace clock to time almost everything. As a new swimmer, you might have no idea how long it takes you to swim 25, 50, or 100 yards. As you progress through your training and gain more awareness and consistency, you can start to focus on your intervals.

• When you’re asked to swim 50 yards in an “interval” or “send-off time” of 1:30, that means you get one minute and 30 seconds to swim and rest before beginning the next repeat.
• So, if you can swim 50 yards in 45 seconds, you’ll have 45 seconds to rest before taking off again. But if it takes you 1:20 to swim, then you only get 10 seconds to rest.
• Sometimes the coach will want you to have 45 seconds rest so you can work harder, but sometimes a set will be written for you to keep your heart rate up and all you’ll get will be 10 seconds.
• With this main set of 20 x 50s, you’ll get a lot of practice watching the clock. “Best average” means you’re trying to swim as fast as possible while keeping your technique good and your stroke count consistent throughout the set.
• Make it a goal to try to keep your swim time consistent throughout the set as you’re learning about times and intervals.

Warm-up

4 x 25s choice on :30

2 x 50s choice on 1:00

100 choice on 2:00

(Distance per stroke goal: 15 or fewer per 25 yards.)

Freestyle

4 x 50s choice on 1:15

20 x 50s choice on 1:30

(Try and hold best average time plus stroke count through the entire set.)

Cool-down 

300 choice

Total: 1800           

USMS members can view this workout and hundreds more in our Workout Library

Workout 3: Use Toys

Just the thought of swimming mostly butterfly for an entire workout can make all but the craziest swimmers want to jump right back out of the pool. Learning how to use your training tools can help you to finish a set or workout that may be beyond your current ability.

• A pair of long-blade fins will help you cruise through this set in no time.
• Other tools, such short-blade fins, snorkels, and paddles, can be used during other workouts to improve body position, help with breathing, or even keep up with other swimmers.
• Fins also help to get your head up to breathe a little faster.
• Get ready to impress when you tell everyone your swim workout was all butterfly.

Warm-up

4 x 100s choice on 2:00

(Free, kick, scull, free by 25) 

Butterfly Drills and Kick

Make sure to kick when your hands enter the water and when they exit. Breathe first, then pull, and get your arms over your ears.

4 x 25s kick on :30

(Arms at side, roll chest, belly, toes.)

4 x 25s kick on :30

(Arms in streamline, roll chest, belly, toes.)

50 choice on 1:00

4 x 25s kick on :45

(Underwater 2 kicks on side, 2 kicks on belly, 2 kicks on back, 2 kicks on belly, etc.)

4 x 25s choice on :30

(Single-arm butterfly, right arm for one length, left arm for the next, breath forward, nonstroking arm at side.)

2 x 25s choice on :45

4 x 25s drill on :30

(3 right arm only, 3 left arm only, 3 together.)

2 x 25s choice on :45

Cool-down

200 choice

Total: 1250           

USMS members can view this workout and hundreds more in our Workout Library

Workout 4: Improve Your Stroke

Swim workouts shouldn’t always be about swimming as many laps as possible in your allotted time. Learning how to swim more efficiently makes swimming easier, helps you to swim faster, and can also help to prevent injuries.

• Coaches will use drills to fix errors with your stroke or teach new techniques. A drill is something that focuses on one part of a stroke at a time. Although drills may be done at your regular speed, or even racing speed in some instances, as you’re learning a drill it’s best to take it slow. That will give you time to fix and focus on the specific things the coach is helping you with.
• This workout for backstroke will work on your body position and keep your arms moving in opposition, like a propellor, rather than only one arm moving at a time. At the end of the workout, you’ll be able to put it all together and just swim to see the improvement in your stroke.

Warm-up

100 freestyle on 2:00

2 x 50s kick on 1:00

100 pull on 2:00

Workout

8 x 25s kick on :30

(Kick on back, arms at side, head back, belly up, work body position.)

6 x 25s drill on :30

(6 kick on back with one arm extended in front of you and one at your side, then switch arms, keep them opposite.)

4 x 25s drill on :30

(Lift and switch: Lift bottom arm before top arm pulls underwater.)

4 x 50s backstroke on 1:00

50 choice on 1:00

2 x 200s freestyle on 3:30

(Build each 50.)

Cool-down

 8 x 25s choice on :30

(Odds easy freestyle, evens easy backstroke.)

Total: 1600           

USMS members can view this workout and hundreds more in our Workout Library

Workout 5: Try New Things

If you find that you’re swimming the same stroke and same workouts time after time, search the Workout Library for other workouts that will encourage you to try things you wouldn’t typically do in your own workout.

• This workout challenges you to swim all four strokes. IM, or individual medley, is the event in which you swim butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle.
• Each stroke must be swum a quarter of the required distance. So the 100 IM in the set below is 25 butterfly, 25 backstroke, 25 breaststroke, and 25 freestyle.
• At the end of the set the 200 IM would be 50 of each stroke. If this is especially challenging to you, feel free to take extra time at the wall if needed. If a specific stroke is challenging, it can always be done as a kick or drill instead of swim. For example, if you’re just learning butterfly and you’re great at kicking but terrible at swimming the whole stroke, the 100 IM swim could be: 25 butterfly kick, 25 backstroke swim, 25 breaststroke swim, 25 freestyle swim.

Warm-up

2 x 200s choice on 3:30

Workout

100 IM on 2:00 kick

100 IM on 2:00 drill

100 IM on 2:00 swim

100 IM on 2:00 reverse IM order

50 choice on :55

200 IM on :30 rest

Cool-down

 2 x 100s choice on 2:00

 (Work distance per stroke.)

Total: 1250           

USMS members can view this workout and hundreds more in our Workout Library