Distance Freestyle Ramp-Up Set

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

The basic concept here is to ramp up the challenge by adding a constant amount to the interval with each increasing 100 so that the average pace gets progressively harder. In this case, we added 1:00 each time so that all of the intervals ended in :20. Maybe for your swimmer the way to keep the set challenging but doable would be to add :55 or 1:05 or 1:15, but I like the symmetry of this set-up.

In this case, the lines are there to highlight the pattern. You could certainly insert brief breaks or recovery swims if needed.

The way the set is written, the swimmer does 5,600 yards in 63 minutes, an average of 1:07.5 for the interval.

SCY