Early Season Buckets Resistance Set

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Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

This was our first resistance set of a new season.  We stuck to 25s with our 1-gallon buckets on an interval that provided an approximately 2:3 work:rest ratio.  Once we have a little more training behind us, we will tighten the interval and lengthen the distance a bit.  Swimmers chose their strokes, but were instructed to keep it consistent throughout the set.  We got some very good times on the final 50 at the end of the set, which was without a bucket.

Finis Tempo Trainer: A Tool With Many Uses

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Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

One of my favorite training tools is the Tempo Trainer from Finis.  It is essentially a swimming metronome, giving an audible beep that can been heard underwater.  Just tuck the tempo trainer under your cap near your ear, and you are good to go.  You can get one at aquagear.com, who provided us a Tempo Trainer to use.

There are many creative ways you can use the Tempo Trainer:

1. In the conventional way, to help a swimmer hit a certain tempo at practice.  Here is an example.

2. For breaststroke, you can use it to help your swimmers hold their glide.  Check out this workout from Coach Parker Ramsdell. Here is another good workout for breaststroke.

3. You can use it as a sort of audible pace clock to help swimmers know when to start and stop an exercise like in this workout.

4. Try this: “The Beat the Beep Set“. Set the tempo trainer to beep on the swimmers time for a race pace 25.  Then, the goal is to get to the wall before the beep!

5. You can use a Tempo Trainer in dryland — try doing some stretch cord work at race tempos.

6. For swimmers who have difficulty hitting fast tempos (most often distance types, in my experience) it may be helpful to have a Tempo Trainer set to race tempo and listen to it behind the blocks or in the ready room.

Here are a few more of our best Tempo Trainer workouts:

Breaststroke Magic for Age Groupers


Beat It – The Michael Jackson Set

E.T.’s Backstroke Set

500 Tempo Trainer Pace Set with Chris Plumb

Check out aquagear.com to get a Tempo Trainer and get this awesome tool!

Blackjack Drill with Coach Raymond Keown, NRG Swimming

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Raymond Keown
NRG Swimming
Levittown, PA

 Blackjack Drill:
-100/125/150s (or appropriate distance for ability) on a moderate to tight interval (make it harder over time).
-Swim 21 cycles then streamline kick the remaining distance.
-If you make the distance 3x in 21 cycles or less= BLACKJACK- your done with the set.

This encourages kids to lengthen their strokes so that they kick less and get more rest at the end of the repeat.  The tight interval keeps them from exaggerating their stroke too much and maintain some moderate tempo.

*we do allow the kids to “cheat” by doing more underwater dolphins off the walls (kills two birds with on stone).

Once someone gets Blackjack, they move up in distance x25.

Strong Quality Set with Sarpy County Swim Club and Coach Nick Baker

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Nick Baker
Sarpy County Swim Club

This workout is from our second week back from a 3 week break. The 4 minutes on the first 100 was a little too much rest but being the first week back it worked out ok. The main set (5x) was for 200 pace work, all free. The 2×25 sprint were to simulate the 3rd 50, where swimmers need to really hit it hard. The final 150 had a 50 sprint kick to bring a 200 home with a hard kick, then 100 recovery for in between sets.

FunSprint Set to Finish Practice

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Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

This is a little set that we finished a long Saturday practice with.  In the outline for the workout I gave them before we started, it was called a “fun sprint set.” I think they agreed.

Swimmers teamed up with a partner to do all 18 x 25

Explanation of “partner slingshot” can be found here.

Have you checked out “One of the best ideas I ever had (or maybe stole)?”

Rocket Off Your Walls!

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Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

The IM Surprise Transition Set

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Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

20 x 50 @ 1:00 (mostly), all at 400 IM pace
Start with fly, and keep doing fly until coach announces at a time of his/her choosing, that this will be the last one fly.  Swimmers do that repeat fly @:40, and then immediately do the next one backstroke.  So the stroke transition happens at a time the athletes are not anticipating.  Keep swimming backstroke until the coach decides to transition to breaststroke, etc.

Broken 200s and 100s Quality Set

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Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

This was a little quality set with some broken 200s and 100s that we did recently.  The first set was just a pre-set to get us ready.  “Sprint the blue” refers to the solid blue part of our lane lines that is between the backstroke flags and the wall.  Swimmers sprinted the 5 yards into and out of each wall.



The Best Things I Read, Watched, and Listened to in 2016

Parallel Pace Sets

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

I like these sort of sets. They challenge our athletes to hit their pace and give them a manageable amount of active recovery. The parallel sets also give me a chance to have meaningful interaction with every swimmer in the group during the set, something that is often difficult with 22 swimmers and just 1 coach.

The Banana Set: Distance Day with Progressive 200s

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Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

This set was for our distance crew.  Above the green squiggly line, swimmers had the option to pull, and the instructions were the same for each swim — to negative split by 5.  Below the line, we look for each progressively larger set of 200s to also get faster.  We crushed it! The last set of 5 was great.  This set was very mentally tough but I was proud of our kids for persevering! After the set, they were so hungry they ate my banana that I brought for a post-practice snack, hence the name.

Three 9:00 Stations

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Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

Three 9-minute stations: Resistance, Race Pace, and Cord-assisted Sprints. We used 1-gallon buckets on the first station to provide resistance. The second station was 18 x 25 performed differently for distance, middle distance, and sprint. The third station used cords to assist at race speed into a fast turn.

Descending Race Pace Set

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Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

The purpose of the following pace set was a bit different than many of the others I have posted here.  Many of our pace sets are tough to complete successfully, and this sometime causes a negative “I failed” attitude.  As we get into championship season, it becomes increasing important for the swimmers to feel successful so they can be confident and mentally sharp headed into the meet. 

This set was tough because I asked them to be at faster than race pace, but the relatively low number of 50s and rising interval allowed them to be very successful.

IM Race Pace Set

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Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

This set was intended to help us practice IM transitions.  We did the 50s fly and the 25s backstroke on the first round, with the focus being on hitting that pace on the 3rd 50, then nailing the 25s.  Second round was Back and Breast, third round Breast and Free. Swimmers then repeated it for rounds 4-6 or went stroke instead of IM.

6 rounds:
    3 x 50 descend to P200
         #1 at P200 +2-3 seconds @ 1:00
         #2 at P200 +1-2 seconds @ 1:00
         #3 at P200 @:03 rest, go straight into
    4 x 25 Fastest Possible Average @ :05 rest
    400 Smooth Free Breathe Every 3 & 4 dolphin kicks off the wall