Systematic front crawl training

With variety and zing to break up the monotony of tiles.

Whether for a triathlon, Ironman, or one of the numerous lake crossings: amateur athletes wanting to swim a longer distance at a brisk pace in summer would do well to work on their basic endurance in winter. To ensure this training does not culminate in the mindless repetition of metres and kilometres, there are numerous ways to make the training entertaining, and above all, beneficial.

The most efficient way to bring variety into your basic training is through technical and playful forms, such as:

Swimming with one arm or with clenched fists
«Immobilising» individual limbs
Combining swimming styles
Doing specific technique exercises (go to the video tips)
Doing isolated core exercises

The possibilities are almost limitless. Best of all: each exercise, no matter how weird, in some way serves to improve your swimming and coordination skills. Unfamiliar movements help you to feel the water resistance, overcome it and train your feel for the water. The more aware you are of these factors, the more economically you will move in the water. Because especially for amateur swimmers: strength alone is of little benefit in swimming and basic endurance swimming training can easily turn into a mindless, monotonous affair.

Notwithstanding the technical and playful swimming exercises, it would still be a mistake to focus your entire swimming training purely on these. Interval training, speed variations, and speed endurance also belong to a balanced year-round swimming training program.

The time spent on building your foundation, however, is particularly suited to incorporating technique sections into your training from time to time. These should not involve swimming hundreds of metres at a time, but rather short stints, so that the body always has to respond to new stimuli and the head stays fresh.

By incorporating these exercises into your basic endurance training, you will improve your position in the water, leg kick and arm stroke, and ensure there is variety in your training. Each swimmer naturally has their own individual weak points that they need to address in their training. Our suggested exercises should therefore only be seen as technical / playful additions to your personally favoured technical elements. Further exercises can be thought up at will and integrated into your training – so that dreary tile counting finally becomes a thing of the past!