Tempo Trainers and Buckets

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA Swim Team, Lynchburg, Virginia

I like to pair these two training tools. Each has their benefit and they are complementary. Buckets work power, and tempo trainers help us make sure we aren’t losing the speed when we use resistance. This practice was in SCM.

Tempo Trainers

2x through:

10 x 25 choice @ :30

    Odds min count

    Evens max tempo on tempo trainer

1 x 100 kick no board with max consistent UWs

Buckets (all choice)

4x through:

3 x 25 w bucket sprint to 15 m @:40

2 x 25 w bucket sprint to 20m @:40

1 x 25 w bucket sprint (for time) @:40

1 x 25 EZ no bucket

1 x 75 all out OTB

100 EZ

4 x through:

1 x 25 fast with bucket @1:00

1 x 50 all out OTB no bucket

1 x 75 EZ (kick on back holding bucket the first 25)

Killer 400

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Edie Rogers
Charlottetown Bluephins
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada

Here’s a fun set that’s a rite of passage for us. Mainly done on a Saturday morning.


This is swum as 400  (SCM) fly – all two arms every stroke. At the deep end get out and do a squat, shallow end out and do push-up. Starts with one squat then 2 push-ups, 3 squats and so on. The other rule is that you must get out on your foot – no getting out on a knee. If I see you do this you have to jump back in and get out again.

Enjoy!!

AN-EN + Lactate Tolerance

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Alex Muni, NOVA of Virginia

Our typical Tuesdays with our National group involve some anaerobic stacking. So our last 30 minutes are lactate tolerance. To “activate” the right system and get the most adaptation, I had to keep their rest under :30 following the max effort swims. As the set evolved, they got more active recovery swimming to help them maintain their speed on the max effort swims as well as maintain a higher but steady heart rate during the recovery swims. The subsequent max effort swims with the increasing acidosis combined with the high neuromuscular demand while metabolic stress is building is where this set becomes “lactate tolerance”. 

Free/Breast Set with Swim MAC Carolina

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Emily Laurent, Swim MAC Carolina Dolphin 2 Coach, Charlotte, North Carolina

1X200 @ 4:00 Free with Snorkel  

4X50 @ 1:30 25 Br kick on back, 25 breast races 

1X150 @ 3:00 Free with BP every 3  

4X50 @ 1:30 25 Breast Race, 25 Br kick on back  

1X100 @ 2:00 Free with BP 5  

4X50 @ 1:15 Bk/Br by 25 IMT 

1X50 @ 1:00 Free RACE! (Min breathing)

4X50 @ 1:15 Br/Fr by 25 IMT  

50s until…?

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA Swim Team, Lynchburg, Virginia

In most competitive swimming situations, there is a defined endpoint to our effort. The race is a certain distance, the set is a certain number of repeats, etc. Introducing a bit of uncertainty is an interesting experiment in motivational psychology.

I write this on the board:

2-3x through:

? x 50 all out effort, off the blocks @ ~2:00

1 x 150 EZ

Swimmers pick a stroke and stick with it for the full set. Every 50 is timed. The swimmers don’t know how many we will do. I watch the group and keep an eye on their effort, their results, and the overall energy in the squad. When those start to flag, I throw a wrinkle into the instructions, such as:

  • Beat your time on the previous 50 to make this 50 your last one. If you fail, do one more.
  • Find a partner. Now, beat your time from the previous 50 so that your PARTNER can be done. If your partner fails to go faster, you do one more 50.
  • Pick an individual and give them a goal time substantially faster than what they have been going. Announce it to the whole group. If they make it, the group is down with the 50s. If not, pick another teammate for the next one.
  • Write down a goal time on the back of the dry erase board for one person. Tell the group that if that one person makes the time, everyone is done with the dive 50s.

There are all kinds of ideas you can introduce here – get creative! Just make sure they are evoking the right response – more effort, more togetherness, more motivation!

7-meter Ins-&-Outs

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA Swim Team, Lynchburg, Virginia

SCM

We placed pucks at the 7m mark off each wall. Swimmers were instructed to UW dolphin kick the first AND last 7m of every 25. In between the pucks (~11m) was swim freestyle. At each wall, do an open turn and get a breath.

2x through:

4 x 25 @ :05 rest

3 x 50 @ :10 rest

2 x 75 @ :15 rest

1 x 100 (pause and regroup)

On the second round, we used fins and flipped all turns.

The Seven 50s Set

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Elise Knoche, Head Coach, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

“We did this the day before heading out of town for our training trip. The set is really simple and straight forward, but my team really got after it, and we had some really fast swimming on the 3rd and 4th rounds of the 50’s. The (pre-set) is one of my favorite warm-up sets to get heart rates up before the main set. It can be modified to intervals appropriate for most any level of swimmer.”

Team P200 Challenge

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Coach Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA Swim Team
SCM

Each of our swimmers has a card with their best time race paces. This set harnessed the team concept and got some good energy flowing. Here’s how it worked:
Each swimmer kept track of how many points they scored in the round, scoring 1 point if they swam faster than 200 pace (P200), 2 points if they swam a full second faster than 200 pace, and zero points if they swam slower than P200. We appointed a captain in each lane, and at the end of each round the captains totaled the points for their respective lanes. We set the team goal at 500 points, which was 20 points on average for each of the 25 swimmers we had a practice. Swimmers were allowed to individually choose their stroke by round, but if they scored more than 5 points in a round, they had to choose a different stroke on the following round. We ended up needing 5 rounds to reach the 500 point goal.

Wetland Set from SwimMAC Carolina

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Coach Emily Laurent, SwimMAC Carolina

This is a set that I modified from a couple of the sets on the website, but my swimmers seemed to really like it. Main focus was the 100s doing the correct underwater under stress. This was for a combo practice of a set of 11-14 that are BB-Age Group Cut for their respective ages. 

4X50 @ 1:15 IMO Fast  

8X100 @ 3:00 Back, 25- 5 squats, 25- 5 pressouts, repeat 

4X50 @ 1:15 Choice Fast, perfect swims  

6X100 @ 3:00 Breast 10 squats, 5 pressouts

4X50 @ 1:15 IMO Fast  

4X100 @ 3:00 Fly 15 squats, 10 pressouts

4X50 @ 1:15 Choice Fast  

2X100 @ 3:00 Free 15 squats, 10 pressouts

4X50 @ 1:15 IMO Fast  

IM Mystery Hour

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA Swim Team at the YMCA of Central Virginia

We did this one recently at a morning practice. Most swimmers said they liked and that it was pretty challenging.

SCY.

? x 50 Fly strong @ :40

1 x 100 Back Fast for time 

1 x 50 EZ

? x 50 Back strong @:40

1 x 150 Breast Fast for time

1 x 50 EZ

? x 50 Breast strong @:45

1 x 200 Free Fast for time

1 x 50 EZ

? x 100 IM Fastest Possible Average @ 2:00

                  (Last one from a dive)

We ended up doing between eight and twelve 50s in each of the three sets. The top part of our group went on the intervals listed — the rest went on an interval :05 slower. My intent with the 50s was to let fatigue build gradually through repetition at speeds that would give them ~ :05 rest. Once I sensed we were starting to wobble a bit, I gave the “final 50” warning. We did a last 50 and then launched into the timed swim of the next stroke.

For the last set of 100 IMs, we did a little “stopwatch roulette ” (start a watch, then stop randomly — use the number in the hundredths pace) to determine how many we did. We got 4 – so we did three from a push and one off the blocks.

Taper Sprint Choice Set

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John Neff, Head Coach GPHS Girls Swim & Dive

Ran this yesterday – It’s a High school team taper set run in a 10-lane SCY pool. It went very well and we saw some awesome swims.

Favorite part of the set is that everyone gets to train together. The athletes are told that lower the yardage, the higher the intensity. Every individual swim is on 1:00, with the entire group racing at the end of each round for a fast 25 for time.

Swimmers can move between groups in between rounds and are encouraged to follow their meet order. 

Sprint group should be 100 Pace, IM is 200 Pace, Mid-Distance is 200 Pace.

200 IM Predictor Set

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Coach Ben Seamer, Australia

I designed this set for younger age group swimmers and it predicts their 2IM potential when done correctly – I’ll explain after the set.

[10×50(1:00) as]
1×50 Dive Fly Best Effort
2×50 Back 1:Cruise 1:Best Effort
3×50 Breast 2:Cruise 1:Best Effort
:30 Rest
4×50 Free @ Best Possible Average

Add the best effort of the three form stroke components to the best average of the freestyle and that should produce a total that is usually + or – 3 to the next 200 IM time your swimmer can drop.

Aerobic Capacity and Aerobic Power with NOVA

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Alex Muni, NOVA of Virginia

A key part of this practice was education—helping swimmers understand the difference between aerobic capacity and aerobic power (VO₂ max).

  • 100s (Aerobic Capacity Focus):The goal was to hold the same effort on both freestyle and IM swims while progressively reducing the rest across each block of six. Ideally, swimmers were expected to keep the same times on free and IM repeats, while rest was cut by two seconds per block. If rest drifted above 15–20 seconds, swimmers were told to push a little harder.
  • 75s and 50s (Aerobic Power Focus):The first rep came off short rest, serving as active recovery while keeping the heart rate elevated and shifting gears toward harder swimming. From there, swimmers were asked to maintain ~90% effort—sustainable but very challenging—with no fewer than :30 rest between repeats. If their rest fell below :30, they were instructed to increase intensity slightly, but not push all the way to maximum effort.

This combination gave the group exposure to both capacity and power early in the season, reinforcing how each system feels and how to manage effort and rest accordingly.

Aerobic Capacity & Power Hybrid:

6X100 Swim P.T. [O: Free E: IM] @ Guys: 1:24/Gals: 1:26 – SKILLS

4X75 #1: Choice #2-4: Free [#1: Build HR^ #2-4: Hold Best Maintable Average] @ 1:15

6X100 Swim P.T. [O: Free E: IM] @ Guys: 1:22/Gals: 1:24 – SKILLS 

4X75 #1: Choice #2-4: Free  [#1: Build HR^ #2-4: Hold a FASTER Average] @ 1:15

6X100 Swim P.T. [O: Free E: IM] @ Guys: 1:20/Gals: 1:22 – SKILLS 

6X50 DESC 1-3 to RED Hold 4-6 –  #1+2: Choice / #3-6: One Stroke @ :55

6X100 Swim P.T. [O: Free E: IM] @ Guys: 1:18/Gals: 1:20 – SKILLS 

6X50 DESC 1-2 to RED Hold 3-6 – #1: Choice / #2-6: One Stroke @ :55

Spicy 50s Freestyle

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Ryan Woodruff

The three columns of intervals (SCY)here represent an A/B/C option for different levels of swimmers. Ideally, the fastest interval should push the swimmers a bit on the first 3 rounds and be a significant challenge at the end of the set. This was a good finisher for a recent practice of ours. The last set of 6 got spicy for sure.