21 Club

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Brian Ruffles

Head Coach & Aquatics Director

Coe College Swimming and Diving

Three Rounds of:

7 x 100 @:1:10/1:05/1:10

7 x 50 @:30/:35/:40

In each round the 100s interval decrease by :05 and the 50s increase by :05.  The 50s starting interval should be challenging while the 100s are more manageable.  You can customize it in many ways.  I have done the 100s free with the 50s specialty, the 100s specialty with the 50s kick, or really whatever fits the group with the time of year.  I would make sure that the last round of 100s is not the interval that is too fast for them to make as the first two rounds will take a lot out of them.  If they make the set they join the prestigious 21 club!

This set was originally published here on October 31, 2015.

Army IM Set

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Tim Loeffler, Assistant Coach at West Point

Here is a workout our 400 IMers are doing today at Army. A nice way to get them back into serious IM training and to have them push each other on the descends. We call it “welcome back 400IM”

5×100 Free (120) – 50R 50L

5×100 Kick (150) – one of each plus one IM

5×100 Free IM (130) – descend 1-5

5×100 Pull (120) – descend 1-5

8×25 single arm free (40)

8×50 (55)

odds: Free Swim-Fly Drill 3R 3L 2Full or 2R 2L 2Full – evens: Free Swim-Fly Kick on Back Fast

Main Set

3×50 (45) Free-Fly x 25; work the fly, descend the 50s

3×100 (125) add on a 50 Back; work the back; descend the 100s

3×200 (255) add on a 100 Breast; work the breast; descend the 200s

3×400 (525) add on a 200 Free; work the free; descend the 400s

***Descend to FAST

300 {25 DBL arm Back + 25 Free + 25 Scull}

Finish Set A:

5×300 Pull (330) – last one fast + 6×100 Free IM (130)

Finish Set B:

5×150 FINS or Swim Free (205) + 6×100 Free

IM (130)

This set was originally published here on April 11, 2014

The Broken Mile for Age Groupers with Coach Max Cristofori

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Max Cristofori, Head Age Group Coach, SwimAtlanta Midway

Fun Main Set I did with an advanced group of 11-14 year olds (A-AAAA Level).

1x

11×25 Fr K, fins and board, fins off :20

10×25 Fr Drill, Catch up w/ board, board up :30

9×25 Fr Swim, Up and Outs :30

8×25 Fr Kick, Stream Line w/ Snork, snork off :30

7×25 Fr Drill, Pull buoy at ankles, buoy up :40

6×25 Fr Swim, 3-2-1 x2 breathers :40

5×25 Fr Kick, w/ fins and board :20

4×25 Fr Drill, 3/4 Catch Up :30

3×25 Fr Swim, BP5-7-9 by 25 :30

2×25 Fr Kick w/ buoy in hands :30

1×25 Fr Sw, Tarzan swim trying to keep buoy in front of you

Extend the Sprint!

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

The idea behind this SCM set was to challenge our swimmers to maintain “top” speed over progressively longer distances. It turned out to be a very difficult set, but one that went well.

We used our pace cards to set objectives for the 15m sprints, and then the instructions from there were to go “all out” on the 35s.

From there, we set goals for the 55s and so on.

For example:

15m time = 6.6

35m time = 18.2 (difference = 11.6)

55m goal = 18.2 + 11.6 = 29.8

75m goal = 29.8 + 11.6 = 40.4

95m goal = 40.4 + 11.6 = 52.0

This gets difficult quickly! As an alternative to the math above, you can re-calculate the goal after the 55s and the 75s.

One thing I would change would be to give a little more active recovery between swims. We just didn’t have the lane space/time to make this happen.

Flying Snakes!

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

I have posted here before how we sometimes use “Snakes” (swim one direction in each lane, sidewinding your way down the pool) as a means for training fly in narrow lanes. This set took it a step further with the final 25.

I timed each individual on the final 25. Their goal was to score points by achieving their individual race pace but also by kicking underwater to one of two orange hockey pucks placed on the bottom at about 8 and 12m off the Wall. This dual incentive led to some individual experimentation with more underwater kicks than they are normally comfortable with.

RACE PACE + GREAT UNDERWATER KICKING = SUCCESS!!!

When swimmers finished the final 25 of each snake, they added the points to a tally counter on a nearby iPad. This helped us keep an accurate tally without me doing extra work. We ended up requiring 6 rounds to achieve our 300 point goal.