A Swim Workout to Help You Close Races Like a Pro

Looking to come home with a little less of a struggle stroke and increased dignity on race day?

This swim workout is designed to help you build back-half toughness by pairing an anerobic-taxing kick set with a high-aerobic swim set.

The goal: spike lactate early, then train your body to swim fast through it, exactly what elite swimmers rely on when things get spicy in the final laps/meters in competition.

WARM-UP

• 800 as swim, kick, pull, swim by 200
• 8×25 alternating front scull + freestyle swim build to 90%
• 4×25 free swim with DragSox @90% effort – 30s per rep

MAIN

Part A – The Nail

• 8×25 freestyle kick all-out with DragSox or small/medium drag chute
• 60-90s rest between repetitions

Take an additional 2:00 rest before Part B (this is right around when lactate peaks after sprint work).

Part B – The Hammer

• 12-16×100 freestyle swim
• Target pace: MAS (maximum aerobic speed)
• :30 rest per repetition

WARM-DOWN

• 12×50 freestyle alternating swim/kick – smooth as butter all the way through

Workout Notes

• Total distance: 3,100-3,500m
• MAS = Take your 400 freestyle PB, divide it by four, and this is your target pace per 100 (i.e. PB of 3:52 à Target pace of :58).
• Equipment you’ll need: Kickboard, DragSox (or chute), industrial size water bottle (you’re going to sweat)

Why This Workout Works

• Sprint first to increase lactate, MAS trains you to hold speed through it. Pairing all-out kicking with MAS elevates lactate and teaches your body how to tolerate and use lactate as fuel (Nikitakis et al., 2025).
• Kick primes the anaerobic pump faster. Kick gets us to our anaerobic peak faster than full-stroke swimming and much faster than doing pull (Agati et al., 2003), creating the exact physiological stress needed for back-half racing speed.

The result, a little less dying on race day, and a little more sauce on those personal best times on the clock.

Happy sprinting/swimming!

ABOUT OLIVIER POIRIER-LEROY

Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national level swimmer, 2x Olympic Trials qualifier, and author of several books for swimmers, including YourSwimBook, Conquer the Pool, The Dolphin Kick Manual, and most recently, The 50 Freestyle Blueprint.

The book is a beastly 220+ pages of evidence-based insights and practical tips for improving freestyle sprint speed.

It details everything from how to master stroke rate, technique, build a thundering freestyle kick, improve your start and underwaters, and much more.

The 50 Freestyle Blueprint also includes 20 sprint sets to get you started and a bonus guide on how to master the 100 freestyle to complete your sprint preparation.

👉 Learn more about The 50 Freestyle Guide today.