Yeah those workouts look fine.

But I ahve a little something agaisnt workouts that tell you to swim X distance in X time. Why?

Because you are suposed to target a specific HR Zone depending on where you are in your training at the particular moment.

So for example if you are in Base and the time demanded makes you jump to anaerobic it´s not that good for you, but anyway... not many people have HR monitors that they can wear in the pool.

But donpt take me wrong here.....the workouts geochuck gave you are much much better than what you are doing now. give them a shot!

I might try some of those. I've been having a hard time finding workouts online that are in the 2000-2500yd range, and some of those definitely fit the bill.

Quick question about terminology though - what does "4x(200, 3x50) stroke" (part of the first workout) mean?

4x(200, 3x50) stroke"

I am not positive I would need the coach's terminolgy sheets but to me I would do something like 4 x 200 and each 200 break it down to 4 x 50 with with 10sec rest and after 4 x 50 rest 30 sec then start another 200 set of 4 x 50 until you complete 4 sets of 200.

What you do not understand change to fulfil your needs.

Pull is just pulling (no kicking) with a pull buoy. The buoy goes all the way up, not at your knees or ankles like I see some people do from time to time.

Power 12.5 means go hard for the first 12.5 yards or meters (half the length of a short course pool, 1/4 the length if it's long course)

Drill means a stroke drill that helps improve your technique. There are many different ones, but some easy ones that I like are (for freestyle, since there are different drills for each stroke):

fingertip drag (usually I'll combine this with wrist-flicks at the back of the stroke)
catch-up (your hands will meet together in the front while you're pulling one arm at a time)
3-8-3 (3 strokes then eight kicks on your side)

yep...people always talk about keeping your stroke long. It's pretty easy to do out front, but lots of people have a tendency to chop their stroke short in the back and not even realize it. Remember though, this is just a drill. You shouldn't swim like that all the time, just to get your body used to extending out the back.

For what it's worth, this was today's and I'm in Base:

400wu, 100 kick wu. 4x100 (25kick, 25 right arem, 25 left arm, 25 swim). 6x100 (25swim, 25kick, 25pull, 25swim). Main set 10x100's with 10 seconds rest 'threshold pace based on 1,000 yd tt. (averaged 1:17 for each 100). 10x50's at T pace with 10 seconds rest. 400 cd. Total 3,400.

I much prefer doing sets of shorter distances with short rests. About the longest I'll do is sets of 500's other than the occasional 1,000 tt to see where I'm at or a striaght 1 hr swim every once in a while.

Those all look good. The fist swimming and the one arm are really good drills to improve your feel for the water and your coordnation, which are both very important for swim speed. And the wrist flick at the end of your stroke also has a second positive, as well as extending your stroke out the back, it can help to catapult your arm through the recovery poriton of your stroke.

They're one of my favorites, too. There's another one I do (I absolutely hate it since it's so hard, but that's why I do it), but I didn't mention it before since most people probably shouldn't do it because it won't help at all unless you do it just right. Here goes anyway:

Doing catch-up, every third stroke as your hand hits the water in front, just bounce it back with a high elbow so that you're just tapping the water. This is when you breath. Then continue with another three strokes. Your body rotate about the hips (not the shoulders!). This should help smooth out your breathing and make it more like the rest of your stroke.

Be careful, though. Only people who are already swimming with good form and can keep their body from snaking at all while not breathing should do this drill. This will help get rid of any little bit of snaking you might have that occurs just during breathing. Also, this will take a while to get used to, and you'll probably look pretty silly the first hundred yards or so while you're trying to figure out exactly how the drill goes until it's fluid.

Deedlit, that seems like a lot of rest...how hard are you swimming those? Usually for me 100m repeats have only about 10 s rest or less. The harder I go, the more rest I take. If I'm doing lactate, there can be up to a couple minutes between.