Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA
Author: rdwoodruff
The Hot Lava Set
Richard Heselton
UK
Encourage active sculling on rest or good body position floating.
See Coach Heselton’s previous posts:
The Swim Your Name Set
Kick Set from the UK
Tennis ball warm-down set
Free, Free, Free
New Braunfels YMCA Swim Team
New Braunfels, TX
KICK 8 X 75 FREE WITH BOARD
25 MOD / 50 FAST
3 BUILD / 3 BREATH EVERY 5 X 2
SWIM 3 X 150 FREE
MIDDLE 50 HARD
SWIM 8 X 75 FREE
DESCEND BY 4
DRILL 10 X 50 FREE
3 SIDE KICK 6
3 THUMB DRAG
4 CATCH UP
Age Group Developmental Set
New Braunfels YMCA Swim Team
New Braunfels, TX
-25 UNDERWATER 50 STREAMLINE ON BACK
SWIM 8 X 50 BUILD NON FREE
DRILL 1 X 150 SIDE KICK 6 FREE
SWIM 3 X 100 IM DESCEND
SWIM 8 X 50 BUILD IM ORDER
DRILL 1 X 150 SIDE KICK 6 BACK
SWIM 3 X 100 FREE RACE PACE FROM A DIVE
DRILL 3 X 100 50 BK / 50 FR
3 Year Flashback
Butterfly and Backstroke Set to Get You Going
Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA
LCM 4x through.
FPA = Fastest Possible Average.

Aerobic Set for SCM
I.M. What I.M
"Fun"derwater Kick Set
Meters. It’s What’s for Dinner.
Wilton Y Wahoos Practice with Coach Alex Baxter
Wilton Y Wahoos
Two notes- jump starts are 25s starting at the flags to work a turn. Fish flops are dive fast 25 + recovery 25. Dive in lanes 2,3,5. Come back recovery in lanes 1,4,6. Called fish flops because it’s 25 dive focused on fish kick and flop back to the blocks.
Time to Crush It
Back-Breast Mirror Set
Some fly and then bk/Br transition set
Benchmark Kick Set
Fartlek Fun. Is that redundant?
Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA
This is 8:00 of continuous swimming with 1:00 rest. Each time there are slightly different instructions. “Deep” refers to deep practice, where I ask our swimmers to focus on one technical element and try to improve it. On #4, they swim continuous backstroke until they hear me bang the wrench on the side of the pool. When they hear the bangs, they sprint br 2 walls (25-50m) and then return to swimming steady backstroke.
Flyday the 13th from Down Under
Snake Fly plus Back-Breast-Free with Coach Chris Brookover
Chris Brookover
YBCC Phoenix – Head Coach
Director of Competitive Swimming
Snake Fly – Use all 6 lanes
3 x 3 x 150
Each set of 3 is comprised:
#1 – Fly/Free by 25’s @ 2:00
#2 – 50 Fly 25 Free @ 2:15
#3 – All Fly @ 2:30
1st 75 = 50 Bk / 25 Br
125 = 25 Fr/50 Bk/ 25 Br / 25 Fr
2nd 75 = 50 Br/ 25 Fr
125 = 25 Fr / 25 Bk / 50 Br/ 25 Fr
1 × 125 @ 1:45 / 1:50
4 × 75 @ 1:00 / 1:05
2 × 125 @ 1:45 / 1:50
2 × 75 @ 1:00 / 1:05
4 × 125 @ 1:45 / 1:50
R: 1:40
Above 2 X
1st 75 = 50 Bk / 25 Br
125 = 25 Fr/50 Bk/ 25 Br / 25 Fr
2nd 75 = 50 Br/ 25 Fr
125 = 25 Fr / 25 Bk / 50 Br/ 25 Fr
Deceptively Hard Quality Set
Brian Clark
Chico Aquajets/Durham Dolphins
This is one of my favorites.
5 rounds of:
25 fast/1:00
50 fast/1:00
75 fast/1:00
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The Big Descend
Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA
This set went really well for our team. I like that it forced them to really pay attention to their pace and demanded exceptional effort for the last few rounds. We did 150s instead of 100s or 200s because there is less “mental baggage” attached to that distance — swimmers’ don’t have well-defined expectations of what their times for 150 should be.
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Breaststroke Cycle Count Set
Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA
The idea behind holding 2x cycle count on the 1st 25 is to practice an extreme tempo. Taking double the normal number of strokes is actually pretty difficult!
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200 Free Mania
Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA
Just make it on the first 1 X 200. Hold that time on the 2×200, 3 X 200, and 4 X 200. From there, get faster on the 3X200, faster on the 2 X 200, and all out on the last 1 X 200
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Freestyle Tech & Go Set
Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA
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Stretch Cord Power Kick and Breakout Set
Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA
Have a teammate stand on deck and gradually let out the stretch cord to apply steady resistance. Make them work for it, but don’t make it impossible to move forward!
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Back and Breaststroke to Beat P1000
Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA
We used P200 +8 per 100 as an approximation for P1000 on this set.
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Distance freestyle with race pace (SCM)
Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA
This is a 4800m set that our distance swimmers did recently. We had swimmers of different speeds in one lane. Faster swimmers did the whole 40, slower swimmers did the 350 with the goal being to beat their best 400 time.
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Swim/Kick Mixer with Greater Penscola
Greg Johnson
Head Age Group Coach
Greater Pensacola Aquatic Club
Another instagrammable Friday Fly Day
The Leg Crusher
Ryan Sprang
Head Coach
Nittany Lion Aquatic Club



