Threshold Stroke Medley: 8x100m Mixed Strokes

Session Overview

This 60-minute threshold medley session uses all four competitive strokes to build aerobic capacity, body awareness, and mental toughness. It is ideal for intermediate triathletes who want to develop a more powerful freestyle by contrasting it with butterfly, backstroke, and breaststroke at a sustained threshold effort.

What You’ll Need

• Access to a 25m or 50m pool
• Swim goggles and cap
• Poolside clock or waterproof watch
• Optional: pull buoy for warm-up variety

Warm-Up (12 minutes)

Swim 400m easy mixed strokes at RPE 3-4 — roughly 100m each of freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and easy kicking on your side. Finish with 4x25m choice stroke with 15 seconds rest to bring your heart rate up before the main set.

Main Set

The main set is 8x100m Individual Medley at threshold effort (RPE 7): 25m butterfly, 25m backstroke, 25m breaststroke, 25m freestyle. Take 30 seconds rest between each. Focus on efficient stroke transitions and holding your effort across all four legs. Follow with speed work on the CSS and sprint sets.

• 8x100m IM (25m fly / 25m back / 25m breast / 25m free) at RPE 7 — 30 seconds rest
• 4x50m freestyle at CSS pace — 20 seconds rest
• 4x25m butterfly all-out — 30 seconds rest each

Cool-Down (8 minutes)

Swim 200m easy backstroke or choice stroke to flush your arms and shoulders. Focus on long, relaxed strokes and controlled breathing at RPE 2-3.

Coaching Notes

• Don’t skip the butterfly — even 25m builds the shoulder power that carries into a stronger freestyle catch
• If butterfly is too demanding, substitute a paddles-only front crawl pull for the first 25m
• The threshold effort should feel hard but sustainable — you should not be gasping during backstroke
• Make it harder: increase to 10x100m IM or cut rest to 20 seconds
• RPE target: 7 on IM sets, 8-9 on the all-out 25m butterfly efforts