How many days a week should you swim?

This is one of those questions asked constantly on forums and social media sites by beginners who would like to start seeing results as quickly as possible. The answer is – it depends on your level of experience and you should never 'skip ahead’ thinking that you’ll achieve more starting at 9 training sessions a week and trying to swim advanced drills. This is an easy way to injuries, overtraining and finally losing interest in swimming as the motivation plummets soon after you started swimming.

Let’s learn a little about the journey that is swimming and answer the question – how many days a week should you swim to achieve your goals.

How often should a beginner swim every week?

At the very beginning, you can start with two or maximum three sessions in the pool every week as you’ll be focusing on your technique which requires you to process the new learnings between sessions as well as prepare your body for what comes next.

That means a lot of drills focused on your body position, reach, extension and breathing. These are the building blocks for your future success and it is fundamental to turn those elements into your second nature every time you jump in the pool. The other elements like endurance should not be more than 20-25% of your overall time spent in the pool

How often should an intermediate swimmer train every week?

After getting your basics down you are ready to intensify your effort and go to 4-5 training sessions a week while changing the regime to reflect your level of experience.

You should still maintain some drills focused on your technique but cut them to 25% of your time spent in the pool. The rest of your time you need to spend on…swimming. It is a game of repetition and the only way to get better is to do it A LOT! So 75% of the session you should do sets while not forgetting about the technique lessons and keeping your swim flowing and build your strength and endurance at the same time.

This is the time that you use to incorporate the techniques you’ve learned into your swimming while getting stronger.

How often does an advanced swimmer train?

The pure competitive swimmers are in the pool anywhere from 5 to 9 times a week while also incorporating some time at the gym. This requires all the previous knowledge you’ve gained before. The advanced swimmers are always aware of their technique and by repetition, they are reinforcing good habits. The work at this point is focused on the speed and endurance leaving just about 10% of the time for drills.

As you can see, swimming is an epic journey where every chapter is crucial for you to move to the next. Without it, you’ll be reinforcing bad technique and be prone to injuries as a consequence.

And if you want to understand this journey better, you can see how Swimmo training watch can help with the automatic measurements and pace guidance so you can focus on what’s important and be able to analyze your progress when out of the pool.

Kamil Market Development Expert at Swimmo

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