Front crawl speed

Bob Smith said:

I'm still fairly new to swimming (since school, that is). I've managed to
improve my crawl to the point where I can happily jump in and do 2k+
continuous, but I'm still pretty slow. Does anyone have recommendations for
sessions to improve my speed? Currently I swim 2 or 3 times a week doing
between 1.2k and 2k continuous.

You should try swimming sets on intervals. That is, you allot a fixed
amount of time both to swim a fixed distance (50-200m is a decent range)
and to recover for the next swim. Pick a pace where you're working
pretty hard and you get about 10 seconds rest. There are countless
variations on this. For example, try to "descend" your times so that in
a particular set your time for each rep is faster the previous (but
still leave on the same interval; make up the difference with more
rest). Try to work down to faster interval times and do some sprints too.

Mark P said:

Bob Smith said:

I'm still fairly new to swimming (since school, that is). I've managed
to improve my crawl to the point where I can happily jump in and do
2k+ continuous, but I'm still pretty slow. Does anyone have
recommendations for sessions to improve my speed? Currently I swim 2
or 3 times a week doing between 1.2k and 2k continuous.

You should try swimming sets on intervals. That is, you allot a fixed
amount of time both to swim a fixed distance (50-200m is a decent range)
and to recover for the next swim. Pick a pace where you're working
pretty hard and you get about 10 seconds rest. There are countless
variations on this. For example, try to "descend" your times so that in
a particular set your time for each rep is faster the previous (but
still leave on the same interval; make up the difference with more
rest). Try to work down to faster interval times and do some sprints too.

It probably makes sense to try and introduce drill work and swimming
this also as interval training. That is, breaking the stroke down a
little - catch up, chicken wing (high elbows) and also kick work. These
drills should also be swum fairly hard once you get the right technique.
Will all add to efficiency..