Free Swimming Workouts, Sets, Ideas, and Dryland Exercises from Professional Coaches Around the World
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM. Intervals listed are an A and B interval for round 1, round 2, and round 3. 3 x through that for 9 total rounds. For instance, for the A interval it would be 100 kick @1:45, 50 swim @:35, 100 Kick @1:35, 50 swim @:45, 100 Kick @1:25, 50 swim @:55.
Gary Galbreath, Head Coach of the Columbia Swim Club, formerly of the Dayton Raiders
This set was originally published to the blog in 2010.
Here’s a set we did Saturday morning. Just as a reminder it’s base building time! We did it SC meters. Everyone was on the same cycle. The Kick part was the chance to catch up if the were struggling with the Times. It’s just a good Aerobic set. Total 8800 meters
25 Kick@ 30
4 x 50 @ 45 Descend 1-4
Free
75 Kick@ 1:30
4 x 100 @ 1:30 Descend 1-4
25 Stroke/50 Free/25 Stroke
125 Kick @ 2:30
4 x 150 @ 2:05 Descend 1-4
Free
175 Kick@ 3:30
4 x 200 @ 3:00 Descend 1-4
BackStroke
225 Kick @ 4:30
4 x 250 @ 3:15 Descend 1-4
Free
275 kick@ 5:30
4 x 300 @ 4:30 Descend 1-4
100 IM/100No Free/100 Free
325 Kick @ 6:30
4 x 350 @ 4:25 Descend 1-4
Free
375 Kick@ 7:30
4 x 400 IM @ 6:30
#1 4 x 100 IM
#2 100IM/200 IM/100IM
#3 2 x 200 IM
#4 Reverse 400 IM
8800 meters
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
FRIM = FreeIM (free in place of fly)
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We did this set in SCM. This made the challenge at the end a pretty tough one.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
LCM. Our distance group enjoyed this challenging set. The aim on the broken 800s was to go pretty fast, and the set-up allows them to descend their total time.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCY. We use the term “fartlek” to mean a continuous swim where we are changing speeds or instructions. In this set, we alternated a fartlek with a brief freestyle set. Swimmers were on either the more “distance-y” left side (milers) or the more middle distance-oriented right side. We came together for the 150s FPA (fastest possible average) at the end.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
The idea for this fly Set was to a good amount of “almost fast” fly on the 25s and then put together some good fast 100s. We incentivized the 100s and swam so well that we ended up doing only 1 each round (instead of 1,2,3). Some of the best fly we have done this early in the season!
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This was a good challenging set for us in our first SCY practice of the new season (We have been LCM for the first 3.5 weeks).
We did the odd 75s from a dive and the even ones from a push… the goal was to keep the even ones within the amount of time listed for each stroke relative to the odds.
The Swimming Wizard Blog is always looking for submissions. If your practice yesterday was a good one, tell us what you did: swimmingwizard@gmail.com
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Our breaststrokers enjoyed this one. The vertical kick was “eggbeater style.” In the 200, swimmers did 3kicks-1pull-2kicks-1pull-1kick-1pull where they focused on getting Distance per Stroke. The 6 x 50 with the squats was a great leg workout and we saw some pretty decent early-season times at the end.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
The purpose of this set was to work the kick in the middle 1/3 of each distance while still maintaining a consistent kick in the first and last thirds.
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Greg Johnson, Team Lead Coach, Greater Pensacola Aquatic Club
Here is one we conquered this morning. This was with our Senior group. This was taken from Paul Yetter:
50 x 50 (O=free E=fly)
20 @ 45 (P200 +2)
20 @ 50 (P200 +1)
10 @ 1’00 (P200)
P200 = 200 yard/meter race pace
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
LCM
Have you seen our new FREE e-book “The Quotable Swim Coach?” Check it out here.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This was a pretty strong workout for us in week 3 of the season.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We have the good fortune of being able to still train LCM. This is a quality set we did recently. All red swims were of the blocks. I liked how the 35s primed them for fast swimming, and then we raised the challenge by asking for more distance.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We recently tried a new innovative product from the folks at SwimSmart. It is called Squeezeline.
The Squeezeline is a small rubber-covered sensor that resembles a soft blue rubber pierogi in size and shape. It can be placed under a goggle strap or inside a swim cap so that when a swimmer streamlines tightly, the arm presses down on the sensor and creates an audible beep. This gives the swimmer feedback that they have “squeezed” the streamline well.
As a coach who has gone hoarse hollering “streamline!” at practice, this little device is a game-changer. Our age groupers tried it and liked it. Their feedback was that the beep was a little hard to hear when it was placed in a cap but was easier to hear when worn on the goggle strap.
It is important that the device be properly placed. If it is not directly between the arm and head, the pressure won’t trigger the beep. The Squeezeline works, though. The instant feedback it provides might be the exact thing that your absent-minded age groupers need to help them remember to do swimming’s most basic skill. My guess is that a few weeks of using this thing on a daily basis and a new lifelong habit of excellent streamlines will be in place.
Our club is going to buy a handful for our worst streamliners. Once we have new habits established, we will pass them along to the next ones who like to “Superman” off the walls. Thank you SwimSmart!
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We used stretch cordz for this set. We don’t have power towers, so swimmers partnered up and one person supplied the resistance while the other swam. The real challenge of the set was to hold the stroke together at speed after the resisted sprint cycles.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
LCM. The intervals for the longer swims were pretty loose on this set, and we got some good results out of the dive 100s, particularly for early in the season. On the black sets, swimmers could pick the freestyle or FRIM (IM with free instead of fly) track. On the purple 100s, the instructions were to pick one stroke and stick with it or go in IM order.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM. The purpose of this set was to be swimming at around 100 race pace at our designated cycle count (determined previously).
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
LCM
9 x 100 Breast @:20 rest
#1 – 2 cycles max kicks/2 cycles max DPS
#2 – 50 br with flutter kick/50 br build
#3 – minimum cycle count swim
100 ez backstroke
6 x 100 breast @2:00
must descend 1-6 to all out
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
LCM
Do not attempt unless you are a butterfly BEAST!!!
Instructions refer to the “first” and “last” 25 or 50 of EACH SWIM, not the entire set.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
LCM
DP = deep practice, whole-stroke swimming with a singular focus
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
LCM
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
As we transition back to short course season, we used this set to dial in our cycle counts that we will use to achieve our goals this season.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
LCM. As we went down this set, swimmers tried to make a gradually faster interval. When they could no longer make a faster interval, their goal became to go faster in the same interval.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCY This one is just a little fly mixed into some freestyle.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Yesterday I posted that we were using the classic backstroke drill balancing a cup on the forehead. Today, we added a competitive component.
50m backstroke (LCM) race with a cup…winner is the person who goes the fastest without having the cup fall at all. Everyone else does 20 squats after the 50. We had 2 swimmers per lane go at a time, so they were racing 8 swimmers across in our 4 lanes. Most swimmers were able to make it without losing the cup, but it was interesting to see who pushed the envelope in terms of speed.
For the second competition, we split into two groups, and we tried to see which group could have more people make it an entire 50 LCM without losing the cup. 14 out of 17 made it the whole way successfully. Got me thinking about what other kinds of “technique competitions” we could have…got any ideas you would like to share?
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Simple set today, working on keeping the head stable. Using the classic cup-on-the-forehead drill.
