12 Weeks to BUD/S swimming workout. HELP!

[StraussE]

Ok, tomorow the book says:
Swimming
200m warmup
500m sidestroke
3x 100m sprints with 20 sec. rest
200m cool down

Its my guess that I should do the warmup and cool down in sidestroke, but the sprints i'm not sure about i'm thinking freestyle because they seem like more of a faster stroke than sidestroke.
Can any SEAL or person who has done the 12 Weeks to BUD/S workout answer this.

[Anthony7929]

Im not a SEAL or anything important but i would say sidestroke since most your swimming will be in sidestroke.

[future_frogmanstudd2]

Sprints are usally done crawl stroke (free style).

[DonW]

Try the following during your pool sessions and let me know if this helps. DonW

1 X 500 Side Stroke as follows:
5 X 100 Side Stroke @ :30RI
(Establish your pace on the first 100 side stroke and maintain that same pace for the next 4 repeats. Let’s say that you can swim 100 yds side stroke in 1:30, then you would want to hold 1:30 for all FIVE 100’s. If you have trouble maintaining your pace increase your RI. When you are able to hold the same pace over all FIVE 100’s reduce your RI by :05. Continue to reduce your RI until you can hold the same pace over each of the FIVE 100’s with only a :05RI (5 seconds rest between each 100). Your set would then be:
5 X 100 Side Stroke @ :05RI

In order to reduce your pace for each 100 you must do some speed work.
4 X (4 X 25) @ :30RI Side Stroke Sprints
Sprint as fast as you can doing Side Stroke, if you need more rest then increase your RI.
You are going to swim 4 X 25 Side Stroke 4 times, in other words you are going to swim 16 X 25 yards. As your conditioning improves you’ll be able to reduce your pace on each 100 in the above set (5 X 100 Side Stroke). So instead of swimming each 100 on 1:30 you should work to reduce that pace to 1:25, 1:20 and so on.