VO2max Swim: 10x100m Short Rest Speed Set

Session Overview

This 45-minute VO2max pool session uses 10 x 100m efforts at critical swim speed or slightly faster, with short 20-second rest periods to keep your aerobic system under sustained pressure. It’s designed for intermediate swimmers who can hold consistent pacing across a set and want to push their swim ceiling ahead of race season.

What You’ll Need

• Access to a 25m or 50m pool
• Poolside clock or GPS watch with lap counter
• Optional: swim paddles for the warm-up technique work

Warm-Up (10 minutes)

400m easy as: 200m steady freestyle, 100m catch-up drill (one arm extended until the other hand catches), 100m easy backstroke or choice. Finish with 4 x 25m build efforts, ramping from 70% to 90% effort, with 15 seconds rest between each. These wake up your fast-twitch fibres before the main set.

Main Set

10 x 100m at VO2max effort — approximately 5–10 seconds per 100m faster than your CSS pace, or RPE 8/10. Rest: 20 seconds between each rep.

• Reps 1–3: settle into effort — resist the urge to sprint early
• Reps 4–7: maintain pace; this is where the session is won or lost
• Reps 8–10: hold form — if your stroke rate collapses, extend rest to 25 seconds
• Optional finisher: 4 x 50m all-out with 45 seconds rest after the main set

Cool-Down (5 minutes)

200m easy choice, mixing freestyle and backstroke. Include 50m of fingertip drag drill (fingertips graze the surface of the water during the recovery phase) to reinforce feel for the water as fatigue accumulates.

Coaching Notes

• Track split times on every rep — if your pace drifts more than 8 seconds per 100m from rep 1, extend rest to 30 seconds
• Keep your hips high throughout; fatigue causes the kick to drop and drag to increase sharply
• Scale down: reduce to 8 x 100m or extend rest to 30 seconds between reps
• Scale up: 12 x 100m with 15 seconds rest, or add the 50m finisher set