500 Race Pace Challenge Set

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

500 Free Race Pace Challenge Set. Intervals were for SCM for swimmers whose best times are sub-5:00. 50s were do-able, 100s were challenging, and the 150 turned out to be a very tough swim at this point in the season.

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Underwaters & Speed Backstroke

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

In this set, we used orange hockey pucks on the bottom of the pool to mark the 10m mark we wanted them to kick past.

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Sox and No Sox Kick Set

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

We have enough Drag Sox (unpaid plug: get them at Aquavolo.com) for about half of my group to wear them at the same time. This I came up with this kick set that weather ended up forcing us to modify.

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Freestyle Race Pace Spectrum

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This set allowed us to hit race over a range of distances from 100 to 500 pace. It seemed a good challenge — doable and not super-hard.

SCY

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Backstroke “GO!” Set

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This is a variation on the Nitro whistle set. We just did it backstroke, I shouted “GO!” as the intervals came up rather than blowing a whistle, and we added a few quality swims.

Swimmers begin with a 25 back @:20, then a 25 @:25 and so on, increasing to a 50 at the earliest opportunity, increasing to a 75 at the earliest opportunity… and so on. Their instructions were to make the jump in distance as soon as they felt it was feasible.

We paused after the :50, after the 1:30, and after the 2:00 to do the 50 ez – 100 fast backstroke-50 ez. We had some excellent performances on the 100s backstroke.

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The 9 x 4

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

9 x 400 IM done as…(SCM)

#1

12 x 25 fast @:30 (4 each fly/bk/br)

1 x 100 free strong & steady @1:20

#2

4 x 100 IM @ 1:30 Descend 1-4

#3

1 x 400 IM @6:30 (descend #3-6-9)

#4

8 x 25 fast @:30 (4 each fly/bk)

1 x 100 breast strong & steady @1:30

1 x 100 free strong & steady @1:20

#5

2 x 200 IM @3:00 descend

#6

1 x 400 IM @6:30

#7

4 x 25 fast fly @:30

1 x 100 strong & steady bk @1:25

1 x 100 strong & steady br @1:30

1 x 100 strong & steady fr @1:20

#8

1 x 400 IM ez @6:30

#9

1 x 400 IM fast

Back and Breast Together Set

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This set allowed us to keep the group together while some swimmers trained back and others trained breast. This was a small group at an early morning practice, so keeping the group together was helpful for keeping the energy up.

For the 50s, backstroke drills are in blue, breaststroke drills in green.

We went on the same intervals for both strokes — backstrokers did 150s and breaststrokers did 125s.

SCY

The Diamond Sprint Set

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Coach Rory McGlynn, ESB Swimming Club

I thought I might share a deceivingly tough sprint set that I drop on my home programme 2-3 times per season.

Depending on what you are looking for , I have sometimes only timed the 50’s or just the 100’s. 

On one occasion we turned off all the pace clocks and simply went off whistle on each interval, focusing on effort level and technical aspects such as the efficiency of breakouts under pressure.