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9 Ways to Become a Better Swimmer this Year
Small changes can make a big difference over 12 months
Becoming a better swimmer happens through deliberate and long-term focus rather than any radical overnight change. It requires consistent effort and attention, and progress is often slow. But over the course of a year, you should be able to make measurable improvements, whether that’s in your speed, endurance or open water skills. The problem is often either not having sufficient motivation or not knowing what to work on to make a difference. Here are nine suggestions to help you become a better swimmer this year.
1. Commit to a total distance goal for the year
Developing a consistent swimming habit can work wonders for your fitness, speed and comfort in the water. One way to help you achieve this is to set an ambitious total distance target for the year. Work out what this equates to per week and divide it by the number of times you want to swim each week to find your target distance per session.
For example, you could sign up for Outdoor Swimmer’s Million Metre Challenge — to swim 1,000,000 metres over the year. This works out as 19,178m per week. If you swim four times each week, you’ll need to average 4,794m per session. I’d round this up to 5km per swim to build up a…
