This one was interesting and went well. Plenty o’ freestyle.

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

The “rebound kicking” is kicking into the wall and then pushing off of it immediately with the hands, and repeating that process four times.

A photo posted by SwimmingWizard (@swimmingwizard) on Dec 6, 2016 at 5:30pm PST

//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js

Turn Work

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

In my opinion, spending time “working on turns” is wasteful when it just involves starting from mid-pool and “doing turns.”  I prefer to do something more like the following set, intended for one of our freestylers who has been having a difficult time with getting the approach to the wall right.

9 x 100 @ 3:00 from dive
#1-3 80% effort (no higher) with maximum focus on approaching/attacking the wall, getting an excellent pushoff and streamline
#4-6  same as 1-3 but at 90% effort (only if #1-3 were completed satisfactorily)
#7-9 100 % effort, same level of excellence expected on turns. If #4-6 were not done well, these last three are still done at 90%

Groovin’ that Pace

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

I had a lone swimmer do this set in a 25m pool recently on her last day before beginning taper.  The idea was for her to get into a groove with her 500 free race pace and be able to repeat it over and over again.  Seemed to work well as most of the timed 50s were about 0.8-1.0 faster than her “best time” pace and near her goal pace.  While I didn’t want it to feel extremely difficult, she seemed challenged and performed well and fairly consistently.

40 x 50
repeating the following set of ten for 4 rounds
1 at P500 @ 1:00
1 easy free @ :50
2 at P500 @ 1:00
1 easy free @ :50
3 at P500 @ 1:00
2 easy free @ :50

She got a bit of rest on the 500 pace 50s, while the recovery 50s only provided 6-9 seconds of rest on the wall before pushing off on the next one.

Aerobic Back End Set with Coach Andy Figgins of Scotland

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Coach Andy Figgins
East Kilbride Swim Team
Scotland

 A bit of return speed/back end speed for form strokers and freestylers. One of my favourite sets. I like the increase in intensity as the aerobic portion gets smaller. This set is done in long course meters by my squad of swimmers 14-17 years old.

Distance     Stroke Group            Freestyle Group 
1,000          Always last 100        750 aerobic free + 250 at 1500 speed
900             at 200 return speed   700 + 200 at 800 speed
800                                               650 + 150 at 400 speed
700                                               600 + 100 at 200 speed
600                                               550 + 50 at 100 speed
500                                               250 + 250 at 1500 speed
400                                               200 + 200 at 800 speed
300                                               150 + 150 at 400 speed
200                                               100 + 100 at 200 speed
100                                               100 at 200 speed

Stroke group interval was 1:30 per 100 from 1,000 down to 600, 1:35 per 100 from 500 down to 100
Freestyle group interval was 1:30 per 100 the whole way

How to swim the 200 free

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

This was an effort to help some of our swimmers “figure out” the 200 free.  We followed up with a set specifically designed to practice for this event.  That set will come in a later post.

View this post on Instagram

How to swim the 200 free

A post shared by SwimmingWizard (@swimmingwizard) on

Overdistance IM set with Coach Alex Baxter

Posted on by rdwoodruff
Alex Baxter

Associate Director of Competitive Aquatics
Wilton Y Wahoos
 

This week I’m working with my top group of 11-12 year old kids on some over distance swims. I have two goals with this; 1- help the kids prepare for longer swims and longer sets in our Junior group without anyone losing count or focus. 2- use the longer swims to help the kids develop a sense of pace. This set from the other night worked well on both accounts.
1×450 progressive IM treadmill (25fly 50free 25fly 25back 50free 25fly 25back 25breast 50free 100 IM 50free). :45R
2×350 150 free 50 kick 150 free (2nd 150 needs to be faster than first 150) :45R
3×250 100 IM 50 back 100 IM (2nd 100 IM faster than 1st 100 IM. Think of a 200 IM where 1st length of each leg is DPS and 2nd length of each leg is fast). :30R
4×125 fins 100 free descend 25 prime fast on 1:55

A Recipe for Technical Change

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

I have been pondering recently how to best help my athletes make technical changes.  Below are the ingredients that I have come up with in order to make this possible.  I find it helpful to consider these when asking an athlete to change his or technique.  If it seems to be a struggle, it is likely one of these is missing.

A photo posted by SwimmingWizard (@swimmingwizard) on Nov 10, 2016 at 8:00pm PST

//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js

Group Goal 75s

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

This was a good motivating set for our group at the end of an arduous practice.

? x (75 at P200 +25 ez) @ 2:30

75s are timed to the feet.  We used our pace cards to determine Goal and Best Time 75 pace for 200 events.  If swimmer achieved Goal 75 time, he scored 2 points for the team.  If he achieved Best Time pace, he scored only 1 point for the team.  Instructions were that we would do as many rounds as it took for the team to score 120 points (15 swimmers).  We finished in six rounds.