By Olivier Poirier-Leroy on SwimSwam
Most freestylers train hard for speed, but few actually train for maximum speed.
Instead, they turn sprint sets into conditioning, don’t recover enough between efforts, and never develop the force production needed to increase top-end freestyle velocity.
For swimmers looking to increase top-end speed, burst through a speed plateau, or just straight-up swim faster than ever before, here’s where to start.
How to Increase Top-End Freestyle Speed
Ways to increase freestyle speed include:
Use resisted sprint training Sprint with full recovery Work your starts and underwaters Increase stroke rate and stroke length Use potentiation to prime speed (PAP) Build more strength on land Improve the kickLet’s take a look at each in more detail, offer some suggestions for implementation, along with some sample sets to get you dialed in.
1. Resisted sprint training
Resisted sprint swim training—throwing on some added drag or load to increase force output—is our first stop in increasing top end speed.
Interventions with swimmers have shown resisted sprint training to outperform “regular” non-resisted sprint training in improving swimming velocities.
A study (Valkoumas and Gourgoulis, 2024) with swimmers short, all-out freestyle efforts with a drag chute for 11 weeks saw significant improvements in sprint velocity (+3.57%). A control group, who did the same sets but without drag chute, did not see the same boost in speed.
This mirrors other studies comparing resisted vs unresisted sprint training—Grznar et al. (2018)—showing that adding load can increase top end speed better than unloaded sprint swimming.
While both have a place, adding resistance increase force production in a way that is highly-specific to your stroke, making it a natural go-to for increasing top-end speeds.
2. Sprint with full recovery
“Sprinting” is often used as a way to measure effort and not necessarily the physiological adaptations that we are aiming for in the water.
For example, doing a heap of 25s all-out on short rest certainly feels like you are working at end range speed, but this isn’t sprinting. Or doing 200s where you sprint the last 25m of each rep may feel like you are performing a maximal sprint, but you aren’t.
Sprinting runs on the explosive alactic energy system, and this bad boy burns bright and fast, mostly depleting in ~10 seconds, at which point it shifts to the lactic energy system.
Sprinting—the real kind—requires plenty of rest to let this explosive energy system recover. Studies with athletes show that it can take 3-4 minutes to top it back up—an eternity for swimmers used to short-rest turnarounds.
But if building top end sprint speed is your goal in the pool today, your sprint sets should keep the repetitions short (6-10 seconds), explosive, and take plenty of rest between efforts to replenish the energy system that drives top end speed.
e.g.
6x20m freestyle off the blocks all-out on 4:003. Work your starts and underwaters
Top end speed in the water is one thing, but the fastest your body moves throughout the race isn’t at the surface—it’s when you are flying through the air and under the surface.
An explosive start—not just the reaction time but how much force you generate on the block—launches us into the race at speeds much faster than we can achieve in the water. A clean entry, tight streamline, and pausing a beat before kicking preserves as much of that speed as long as possible.
From there, we shift to the underwater dolphin kick.
While sprint freestylers typically spend less distance underwater compared to butterfly or backstroke swimmers (Veiga et al., 2016), there are many sprinters who are pushing it all the way to the false start rope.
Booming underwaters are especially valuable for short course swimmers, who can do up to 60% of the race under the surface.
The goal, however, isn’t to stay underwater as long as possible. Only as long as the speed is worth it.
Surface before your dolphin kick decelerates to surface speed velocities. A well-timed breakout means you carry faster-than-surface-swimming speed into your first few strokes, which should be faster than mid-pool velocity.
For the start, do lots of them! World champion 50 freestyler Bill Pilczuk developed a legendary start at Auburn by doing lots of them—sometimes upwards of 50 per session.
And the dolphin kick is hard—harder than full-stroke swimming—so get after it in practice!
4. Increase stroke rate and stroke length
Sprint freestylers rely on a high stroke rate to move quickly in the water. The faster you can move those arms, the faster you can get your chlorinated bottom to the other end of the pool.
But elite sprinters also hold water with each stroke cycle. They aren’t mindlessly spinning their arms, although it can certainly look that way at times.
Once you get to the elite level, all the sprint demons can red-line stroke rate. What separates the best from the nearly-elite is stroke length. They can hold water and turn the arms over.
A study by Staunton et al. (2025) looked at freestyle finalists at European Championships and saw that in the 50 free, stroke length had the strongest relationship with swimming speed—even more than stroke rate.
To play with stroke rates and stroke lengths, spend time going at max effort just below and above your usual stroke count.
For example:
If your usual stroke count for a 25 fast is 13 strokes, try reps of fast swimming at 11-12 strokes to test stroke length and at 14-15 strokes to test coordination. 6×25 freestyle all-out [2 with one less stroke, 2 with one more stroke, 2 with your usual stroke count]A study with swimmers (Silva et al., 2022) did a version of that set over eight weeks and saw speed and stroke length improve.
See also: A Sprint Set That Builds Stroke Length at High Stroke RatesThe lower tempo will force you to really zero in on maximizing every pull and kick, while over-clocking tempo will challenge your ability to coordinate your stroke.
5. Use potentiation for speed bursts
Sprint swim sets are generally pretty simple—get in, sprint your brains out, rest a bunch, repeat a handful of times.
But sprinting hard is only part of the challenge with raising your speed ceiling. You also gotta train smart.
And that’s where potentiation steps in.
Post-activation potentiation (PAP) pairs a brief, high-force effort with an explosive swim. The high-force can be done in the pool (with resisted sprinting) or on the pool deck (with a relevant resistance exercise like pull-ups).
The pool version is the one that I like best because the potentiation transfers very cleanly. Plus, you feel awesome in the water once you take the resistance off and haul down the pool—like someone wrapped you in brand-new tech suits.
PAP sets can be done as a one-off as part of a broader warm-up—a study (Hancock et al., 2015) showed a ~0.50 second improvement in 100 freestyle performance with a short PAP protocol—or with shorter rest to allow for some accumulated fatigue to change the training response.
For example:
2-4 rounds:
2x10m resisted sprints – 60s rest between reps +2 minutes rest 25 fast off the blocks 5:00 full recoveryOne of the constraints of sprint training is that you can only really do so many maximal effort reps in a session. Potentiation gives you a sneaky tool to improve the quality of those reps.
6. Build more strength on land
If your sprint speed has plateaued despite months of hard and fast swimming, the problem may not be what you are doing in the water, but your ability to produce big piles of force.
Training in the pool is the sport-specific strength training (hi there, resisted sprint training), but building more strength and power outside of the lanes gives you more raw materials to work with in the water.
Stronger swimmers tend to perform better in sprint events (West et al., 2011), particularly when it comes to the explosive elements of sprint races like starts, turns, and acceleration.
Increased strength means:
More power off the starting block for quicker 15m times Push harder off the walls, getting more speed and distance out of the turn Apply more peak and mean force with each stroke, increasing propulsion Increased power for the underwater dolphin kick, which is expensive in terms of powerBuild that strength, pair it with high-quality sprinting in the water, and you’ll be better equipped to turn that extra horsepower into increased sprint velocities.
7. Improve the freestyle kick
The faster you sprint, the more important the kick becomes.
When we are swimming easy and moderate freestyle, the kick is relaxed and contributes little to forward propulsion.
A study (Silveira et al., 2016) with masters swimmers found that at very easy speeds, the kick contributes around –1% in direct propulsion (yes, negative). At those speeds, the kick is purely a balance and drag-reduction tool.
But as we accelerate into maximum speeds, the legs step up and contribute around 10-15% of direct propulsion. And a study by Strzala et al. (2021) found that a 20s tethered kick test was a better predictor of 50m free speed than a tethered pull or several common dryland tests.
A fast, powerful kick does more than help us motor along the pool quicker. It also:
Keeps the hips high, reducing drag and improving body position so that your arms can attack those higher stroke rates Stabilizes the body at max speed, giving the upper body a strong platform to generate force and manage rotation Carries speed through the breakout after the start and each turnSprint freestylers use a fast, very high kick tempo that is also surprisingly compact. They have to in order to stay in sync with what the arms are doing.
So train a “sprint” kick: Reps of all-out kick with a narrow window, very high tempo, plenty of rest between efforts, and throw on some resistance to increase force output and build legs of speed.
Wrapping Things Up
The frustrating thing about building more top-end speed—or at least, trying to—is that we can’t just do it by stacking more volume and reps into our sprint sets.
True speed comes from training it as its own skill. That comes with its own constraints, including how we move through the water, the energy systems at play, how often we can train it, and the importance of elements like the start and underwaters.
Train speed properly, do it consistently, and you’ll raise your speed ceiling, watch those pool tiles turn into a blur, and show up on race day with superchargers under your feet.
ABOUT OLIVIER POIRIER-LEROY
Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national level swimmer, 2x Olympic Trials qualifier, and author of several books for swimmers, including YourSwimBook, Conquer the Pool, The Dolphin Kick Manual, and most recently, The 50 Freestyle Blueprint.
The book is a beastly 220+ pages of evidence-based insights and practical tips for improving freestyle sprint speed.
It details everything from how to master stroke rate, technique, build a thundering freestyle kick, improve your start and underwaters, and much more.
The 50 Freestyle Blueprint also includes 20 sprint sets to get you started and a bonus guide on how to master the 100 freestyle to complete your sprint preparation.
Learn more about The 50 Freestyle Blueprint here.
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