Category: Uncategorized

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.

“Golden Race” 100s

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Coach Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

You may have heard about the Golden Race that debuted at the World Cup meet in Budapest recently. The race pitted the winners of the individual 100s against each other in a time-handicapped prize race. It’s an interesting twist on racing that we modified a bit to use at practice.

We were 2 days post-meet, so we have some recent fresh meet results.

3 x 100 Golden Race @ 7:00

We put 1 swimmer up on each block for a choice 100. Coach starts counting backwards with a stopwatch… 1:20…1:19…1:18…1:17 and so on. Each swimmer dives off the block for the 100 when they hear the time that they swam at the meet this past weekend. The winner is the one who finishes the 100 first. Essentially, the 100 is handicapped to their recent race results.

Swimmers enjoyed it and swam faster than expected. They could choose their stroke for each 100, and swimmers formed themselves into heats irrespective of speed.

The stopwatch that I started with the countdown can also be used to time the swimmers. Since I started counting down at 1:20, if the stopwatch reads 1:27.2 when the swimmer touches, then he swam approximately 7.2 slower than his meet time. This information allows swimmers to be racing the clock AND each other.

Next time I might try assigning swimmers to teams and awarding points for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.

Descending and Dropping Intervals

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

SCM

This freestyle set presents the challenge of descending within a set and dropping the interval. The four different columns of intervals represent different lanes within our group (this practice is in a 25m pool). We used the red sets of 50s in between as a buffer to allow us to regroup for each subsequent set. JMI = Just Make It.

Split Distance and Sprint

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

We have days where the whole group does one workout. Other times, we split by strokes. On this day, we split along distance lines. Part of the group worked around their distance race pace, while the other group did a small number of intense 50s from a dive. The sprinters also watched their 50s back on video and did some active recovery during the 6:00 interval. This workout was in LCM.

Speed with Unique Challenges

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

SCM

Each round of this set, we swapped in a mystery set that the swimmers did not know ahead of time as the “unique challenge” in brackets.

The last challenge was “Save your partner”. Each swimmer had to swim a 100 off the blocks under a certain coach-determined time. Fail to make the time and your partner has to do it too. It was a somewhat clumsy attempt to get some peer-pressure motivation going.

The rest of the set worked well, with some of the unique challenges being a bit off-the-wall.

FPA = Fastest Possible Average

Alex Trebek Memorial Jeopardy! Set

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Coach Ethan Leach, Burris Laboratory School

Swimmers will be separated into “teams:” each lane is their own team after reading the answer aloud, whoever buzzes in first may give the question if correct, that lane gets to do the “easy” option (200 K), everyone else does the “hard” option (200 Fly) if incorrect, another lane gets the option to give the correct question. this continues until one lane gets it correct, or all get it wrong categories were built around our high school’s team history, coaches trivia, and the colors of our rival schools, to name a few.

Jeopardy! game show - Fonts In Use

Categories:
● Burris Swimming History
○ Historical trivia related to our team
● Setting the Record Straight
○ Naming the time or holder of certain team records
● How Old Do You Think We Are?
○ Coaches trivia
● Sing the Burris Fight Song…
○ I will read a line of the school’s fight song, they give the next line
● Seeing Red
○ Name the colors of a rival school
● #RIPVINE
○ Completing a Vine quote

Answer Values:
● 4 x 25
● 4 x 50
● 100
● 4 x 75
● 200
Below are some of the answers I gave:
● “This was the year I graduated from [our school].”
○ “What is 2013?”
● “The name of the man who holds the boy’s 100 Butterfly record, set in 1960.”
○ “Who is Larry Schulhof?”
● “Road work ahead?”
○ “What is Uh, yeah! I sure hope it does?”
● “Yorktown High School.”
○ “What are green and white?”
And don’t forget: responses must be
given in the form of a question!

Rest in peace, Alex. Thank you for everything.

The One Where Coach Couldn’t Speak

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Right now on Saturday mornings we have just a 1 hour practice. Due to having to yell over a lot of noise at practice two days ago, my voice was almost totally gone for this one. The kids did a good job with minimal instructions and encouragement from me.

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Pushing the Pace

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

After two weeks back in the water, we did this one to push the pace and enjoy racing our teammates. To properly social distance, we had swimmers going from both ends of the pool, thus the opposite instructions that allowed me to time both groups. SCY.

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The Fight Against Ugly Fly

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

I like this fly set because it asks swimmers to go fast fly under general fatigue from the swims – we can fight “ugly fly” while avoiding doing any actual ugly fly. This workout is in SCM.

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Long Axis Day

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This practice was devoted entirely to long axis strokes – back and free.

The blue set in the middle was a technical progression. The 25 was scull, the 50 was 25 scull/25 kick and rotate, and keep adding a skill or drill up to 150. On the way back down to 25, subtract the skill/Drill from the front end to finish with a 25 Swim.

“People paddle” = free with underwater recovery, like advanced doggie paddle

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Freestyle Win/Fail Set

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This set prompted a discussion about how we judge success/failure during a set. Most often, there is a prescribed speed an interval that helps guide our effort level. On this one more than most, I wanted to push our swimmers to the verge of “failure” in the conventional sense of missing an interval. Post-set, we redefined success as having pushed ourselves to the limit and actually finding the point of failure.

Overall, our team embraced the challenge of this set. The intervals were specifically set up (25m pool) so that I expected the second set of 4 x 100 and the final 2 x 100 to be extremely challenging.

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The Good Morning Set

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

SCY. The purpose of this set was just to wake everyone up, get some good aerobic yardage in, and get the juices flowing for an aggressive end-of-practice kick set.
1000 free swim B3 @ 12:30 (1:15 base)

100 free pull B3 @ 1:15

800 free swim B3 @ 10:00

300 free pull B3-5-3 by 100 @ 3:45

600 free swim B3 @ 7:30

500 free pull B3-5-7-5-3 by 100 @ 6:15

400 free swim B3 @ 5:00

700 free pull B3-5-7-9-7-5-3 by 100 @ 8:45

200 free swim B3 @ 2:30

900 free pull B3-5-7-9-3-9-7-5-3 by 100 @ 11:15
5500 yards, 1 hour, 9 minutes

Editor’s Note: This set was originally published to this blog in 2010