Simple Fantastic Fly Workout

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that our Friday Fly workouts are some of my favorites to post.  This particular workout was one of our best fly sets ever.

We train in a SCM pool primarily.  The lanes are a bit narrow and we have about 20 swimmers in 5 lanes (really not bad from a space standpoint, but still hard to train fly with doing 1-arm strokes).  This set allowed us to swim fast repeatedly with out sacrificing stroke quality for safety.  We had 16 swimmers at practice, so I split the group into two squads of 8.  The first squad of 8 swimmers used 4 lanes (2 per lane going :05 apart so that swimmer 1 would still be kicking underwater when he or she passed swimmer 2) for a fly set and then moved into a single lane for the “recovery set.”  Then squad 2 would move into the 4 lanes and do their fly set.  Thus they alternated doing the fly set and the recovery set.

The groups were split not based on speed/distance orientation but more based on how well each swimmer holds his or her fly technique under fatigue.  Those whose technique tends to suffer under duress were in group 2.  Both groups were well challenged and nobody could complain about being in the “harder” group because both swam the same total distance butterfly.

We had some excellent performances, particularly on the 75s and 100s at the end.

Tempo Trainer Set with Coach Bob Kizer

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Bob Kizer
Head Coach
Sienna Plantation Aquatics

We did this set today to work on race tempo swimming in practice before a meet tomorrow. The 200s were done at 500 race tempo for each swimmer, the 100s @ 200 tempo, the 50s @ 100 tempo, and the 25s @ 50 tempo.

3 x 200 w/ TT @ 2:40
2 x 100 Kick All Out @ 2:30
12 x 25 w/ TT @ :30
1 x 100 recovery @ 2:30
2 x 200 w/ TT @ 2:40
2 x 100 Kick All Out @ 2:30
8 x 50 w/ TT @ :45
1 x 100 recovery @ 2:30
1 x 200 w/ TT @ 2:40
2 x 100 Kick All Out @ 2:30
4 x 100 w/ TT @ 1:30
1 x 100 recovery @ 2:30

Free and Stroke Set for SCM

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

We performed this set in a SCM pool, same as for most of the sets I post during the September-May time period. In this one, the time expectation of beating our best 500 SCY time during each 400 was key to the success of the set.

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Free and Stroke Set for SCM.

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Our 5 Most Popular Posts of All Time

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Based solely on the number of views, here are the 5 all-time most popular posts on this blog:

1. Backstroke Workout #1

2. Speed Set for Taper Time by Coach Jack D. Roney
 
3. Halloween Set for Adaptation Week by Coach Clare Labowitch

4.  19.5 Ways to get Better Even When Practice Gets Cancelled

5. Important Concepts for a Successful Taper

Got any sets for Thanksgiving, Christmas/Hannukah, or New Year’s that you would like to share? Send them our way so that we can feature them in the coming months!

Workout Combo with Coach Tony Carroll

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Coach Tony Carroll
Lakeside Seahawks

I wanted to share two of my workouts with you.  I coach for the Lakeside Seahawks Swim Team in Louisville, Ky and coach our Senior 13-14 group which is our highest level 13-14 year olds, along with 1 or 2 really advanced 12 year old girls.

We typically do these two sets 3x per year. The first set is usually done on a Monday night and then the second set is done the following morning. 
The first set: Monday PM 

The second set: Tuesday AM
Meet warm up followed by – 
         – 16 x 50 @ 2:00 – As Fast As Possible, Best stroke (1 stroke only), Choice gear, no 15m rule
For the first set, I seperate them into interval groups based on their goal times because it makes it really challenging at the beginning of the season and it reminds them what they are working for. As we repeat the set again in January and then the week before we start our taper in late February / early March, they tend to be very successful with the set and they can see the progress they’ve made. 
The first set pushes them to their limit and is very challenging aerobically. I like doing the second set the morning after for several reasons. 1) It’s good for them to get up and go fast after working hard the night before. 2) When you give them fins and take away the 15m rule, it encouages them to really work their underwaters and they can see how much faster they can go from working their underwaters. They also have to push themselves to stay fast through the whole set. The kids get really excited for this set and do a great job racing each other. 
Last year doing this set the third time, I had a 14 year old girl who averaged 21.3 with seven sub 21 50’s (backstroke with fins) and a 13 year old boy that averaged 20.4 (free with fins) and was able to go under 20 seconds on two of them. Both had huge drops over the course of the season (girl went from a 1:06 lcm / :58 scy 100 back to 1:02.1 lcm / 54.03 scy 100 back. The boy went from :59 scy 100 free to a 50.3 100 free and 9:48 1000 free. The first time they did the set, the girl averaged 23.7 back with fins and the boy averaged 23.9 free with fins. 
It’s fun to watch how the excited the kids get when they see how fast they are able to go. This will be the third year we’ve done these sets and it’s been great for us. Hopefully someone else will be able to benefit from the sets as well.