The Cross Lane Swim Workout For Triathletes

Here is a great workout for a triathlete swim group, if you can get 4 lanes at your local pool and you have a few swimmers. It is incorporated into the March 1 workouts I posted in the blog. It works on all elements of triathlon swimming: sighting, awareness, body contact and endurance swimming. You will need to take out the lane line in the middle of the your 4 lanes (just attach it to the ends of one of the adjacent markers). You will also want to set up cones or prop up kickboards in the locations shown to simulate “marker buoys” on the swim course.

All swimmers (I have done this with up to 20 swimmers) gather at the end of the rightmost lane. The traffic pattern is as shown in the diagram: each lane has one way traffic, the big center lane is one way, but the swim traffic crosses in the middle. Start the swimmers one or two at a time. The traffic will naturally spread out as the faster swimmers get ahead of the slower swimmers…this is very desirable as it helps to simulate race condition as the traffic crosses in the middle lane. When a swimmer reaches the end of a lane, she turns and glides underwater under the lane line into the adjacent lane. When they cross into wide lane, the swimmers swims “cross lane” sighting on the buoy diagonally across the wide lane. The swimmer will also need to be aware of the traffic that will be coming diagonally across from the other side, not unlike actual race conditions. There will usually be some body contact occasionally at the crossing point, which is desirable if everyone is aware and not overly aggressive.

Passing can occur either in the wide lane, or on the outside of the either of the narrow lanes. I like to run this drill for at least 800 yds….but it can be done for much longer. This workout is typically enthusiastically received by swim groups. It is a lot of fun and breaks up the monotany of a long endurance swim…and its a lot more fun than circle swimming in a single narrow lane!

Have fun!

Cross Lane Swim Drill