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

Posted on by rdwoodruff

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

Posted on by rdwoodruff

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

Posted on by rdwoodruff

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

Low-Stress Breaststroke

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

12x through @ 2:30

(100 Breast       +      50 Free)

The 100 breast is done as:1
Odd rounds: 25 3 kicks-1 pull drill
                     25 2 kicks-1 pull drill
                     50 build tempo
Even rounds: descend to all out on Round 12

      

Breaststroke Technique Pre-Set

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach

Lynchburg YMCA
This set gave us a good pre-set warmup before we did some fast 100s off the blocks that included several times within 2 seconds of our lifetime bests.
Speed Drill is heads up with a narrow kick and pull, focused on driving the chest forward and popping the hips up. 

Descend the Steps and Then Pound the Kick

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

This is a kick set that I have repeated as a benchmark over the course of a season in the past.

Major Kick Set split into 3 intervals based on kicking speed
3 x 100 kick
1@ 2:00/2:10/2:20
1@1:50/2:00/2:10
1@ 1:40/1:50/2:00
200 50 catchup/50 overkick with a snorkel then REGROUP
3 x 100 kick
1@ 1:55/2:05/2:15
1@ 1:45/1:55/2:05
1@ 1:35/1:45/1:55
200 50 catchup/50 overkick with a snorkel then REGROUP
3 x 100 kick
1@1:50/ 2:00/2:10
1@1:40/1:50/2:00
1@ 1:30/1:40/1:50
200 50 catchup/50 overkick with a snorkel  then REGROUP
8 x 100
Odd ALL OUT kick @2:30
Even easy swim @2:00
 
 

What’s Your Magic Number? Make It and You Are Done!

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

The Magic Number set will challenge your swimmers mentally and physically.  Here is how it works.

  • The set is 7 x 100 @ 7:00 all out from dive (or any other distance and interval that you choose). Make sure there is a sufficient enough recovery time for your athletes to really be ready to go for the next repeat.
  • Before the set write down goal times for each athlete.  Try to make them very challenging but do-able.  For our team, I set them a bit faster than lifetime best practice times, frequently within 2 seconds of actual lifetime best times.  These times are the “Magic Numbers” for each swimmer.  Achieving this time means the swimmer is done with the set.  

  • But here’s the kicker — don’t let the swimmers see their Magic Numbers before the set.  Let them wonder what it might be — this will help them race without putting a mental limit on how fast they can go!  Only after they have completed a few rounds should you show them the Magic Numbers.

  • When our team did this set, we had some athletes  make their Magic Number on #1.  They relished “just going for it” without knowing what the real goal was.  Others swam hard but weren’t able to dig REALLY deep to go fast until after they find out the goal.  Some swimmers completed the set without ever meeting their Magic Number, but nearly all of them had their best-ever sets of 100s from a dive.

Distance Freestyle Descend

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

Sometimes, the sets posted here are interesting and creative. This post is not one of those. Sometimes, you just need to do work. Today’s post is straight challenging, and is intended for milers only.

A post shared by SwimmingWizard (@swimmingwizard) on Mar 20, 2017 at 4:52am PDT

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