01
New to swimming
Comfortable in water but never trained. Each session walks you through technique before asking for distance.
A six-week, beginner-friendly swim programme that takes you from short, broken laps to swimming 400 metres without stopping. Three pool sessions a week, drill-led technique, calm breathing, and a quiet build in continuous distance.
This is not a stroke-perfection workshop or a club squad. It is a structured first month and a half in the pool for adults who can move through water but have never trained with intent.
Comfortable in water but never trained. Each session walks you through technique before asking for distance.
Years out and wanting structure instead of swimming up and down without direction.
The discipline most adults find hardest. Get this right and the multisport path opens cleanly.
“Calm beats power. The fastest way to swim further is to swim slower — with better breath.”
The early weeks find the water — body position, breathing rhythm, short repeats. The middle weeks build the set length. The final two grow continuous distance and finish on the 400m goal swim.
Short repeats, breathing rhythm, body position basics.
25m repeats, head position, intro to bilateral breathing.
50m repeats with drills layered into every set.
First 100m+ swims, drill-then-swim ladder format.
Longer continuous sets, pace control, two-block work.
Polish, taper the load, swim the goal distance fresh.
Streamline kicks, catch-up, and short freestyle repeats with full rest between.
Side-kick, bilateral breathing, and slightly longer 50m repeats with rest.
The longer session — ladders, continuous swims, and the weekly distance milestone.
Swim coaching has its own short-hand. Three concepts cover almost everything you’ll see in the plan.
An exercise that isolates one piece of the stroke — body position, the catch, the breath — to make it cleaner before you put the whole thing back together.
A group of swims with a target distance and rest pattern, e.g. "4 × 50m, rest 30s". The session is a stack of sets in a deliberate order.
Rate of Perceived Exertion, 1–10. In the water it’s especially useful — pace clocks lie when you’re new; breathing doesn’t.
Keeps hair out of the way and goggles clear. Small wins, but real ones.
Most pools have these to borrow. Useful from week 3 onward for isolating upper or lower body.
Counts laps, tracks pace, and gives you a quiet record of your weeks. Not necessary, but helpful later.
400m continuous is a real swim threshold — the door to longer distance, structured open water, and the first triathlon.
Continue toward a 1km continuous swim — the next clean milestone after 400m.
Pair this base with Couch to 5km to build the swim–run foundation in parallel.
Carry these strokes into First Multisport · Sprint Triathlon.
First Strokes · Swim Foundations is available as a coached six-week programme for adult beginners and returning swimmers.