Free Swimming Workouts, Sets, Ideas, and Dryland Exercises from Professional Coaches Around the World
Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org
Using streamline sticks set at 12.5 yards:
1 x 25 swim (must kick to 12.5 yards) @ :30
2 x 25 kick @ :30
3 x 25 swim @ :30
4 x 25 kick @ :30
5 x 25 sprint + 20 frog jumps @ :50
4 x 25 kick @ :30
3 x 25 swim @ :30
2 x 25 kick @ :30
1 x 25 swim @ :30
Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org
100 free catchup drill @ 1:20
200 strong free swim @ 2:20
2 x 25 Fly sprint, 1 breath max @ :40
100 free catchup drill @ 1:20
100 tennis ball drill @ 1:20
300 strong free swim @ 3:30
4 x 25 Fly sprint, 1 breath max @ :40
100 free catchup drill @ 1:20
100 tennis ball drill
100 6-3-6 drill
400 strong free swim @ 4:40
6 x 25 Fly sprint, 1 breath max @ :40
Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org
“How fast should I swim at the beginning of my race?” It is a question often heard on the pool deck at meets. Don’t wait to decide this at the meet! Use the LCM Goal Pace Spreadsheet to figure out how fast you need to be in the first 50 or 100 to reach your goal time. Here is a set to get in that early-race-speed groove:
1 x 50 from a dive at P200 or P400
150 ez, perfect technique choice at race cycle count
For milers, I would suggest:
1 x 100 from a dive at P100 (get 50 split)
100 ez, perfect technique at race cycle count
Ryan Woodruff
To test your speed for long course swimming, do some 35m sprints off the blocks regularly. Using the Goal Pace Spreadsheet for LCM, determine the swimmer’s race-pace time to 35m for the 100m distance of each stroke. The 35m mark should be easy to spot (same as the 15m mark from the turn end). Time to the swimmer’s head crossing the line. 35m is a manageable distance for most swimmers to hold their 100m race pace in training. Strive to swim at your race pace as often as possible, and check your speed regularly with these 35m sprints!
Coach Ryan Woodruff
How fast are you planning to be this season? Are you swimming at race pace in practice? Check out our race pace cards that can be easily individualized to each swimmer.
Here are the instructions once you have the sheet open in Excel:
1. Type the swimmer’s name where it says ‘Name here.’
2. Enter a swimmer’s goal time in the C column. Do not use any punctuation. For instance, for a goal time of 24.99 in the 50 free, type 2499. For a 2:28.50 in the 200 breast, type 22850.
3. The sheet should automatically compute pace times for you. ‘Pace’ means the swim is from a push. ‘Start’ means the swimmers goes off the blocks (or from a start for backstroke). The sheet computes different pace values for different events based on what I deemed the most useful information. For instance, a 15m start time is of little consequence in the mile, but could come in handy in the 100 fly.
4. Print out the pace card and take it to practice!
A few other notes:
* The sheet is based on the assumption that a swimmer will swim an even pace for every length after the 1st 25 (50 for LCM). For freestyle, the difference between the 1st and 2nd 25 is 1.7. For fly, the difference is 2.0, for backstroke the difference is 1.0, and for breaststroke it is 2.5 seconds.
* The C column is cross-hatched and the goal time is in gray in order to keep the swimmer’s focus on the race pace rather than her goal time.
Enjoy – let me know how it goes!
Click here or on the top menu to go to our “Tools for Coaches” page to see other useful tools
Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org
Elite backstrokers make use of their propulsive movements and body rotation to generate incredible power throughout the stroke. I liken this motion to that of a kayaker. When paddling a kayak, the paddler places the oar in the water and pushes on the opposite hand to use the oar to generate leverage. So it is in backstroke.
Throw drill is essentially one fast stroke and one easy stroke, alternating. The emphasis is on the fast stroke. The swimmer uses the catch and middle part of the stroke as an anchor point and leverage into a high-velocity “throw” of the arm stroke on the opposite side. It ends up being a “limping” backstroke, but focusing on only alternating arm strokes allows for the athletes to really set up the throw motion well.
Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org
To improve your feel for the water, hold a tennis ball in each hand while you swim or drill. Instead of feeling the water with your hand, use your forearms to catch water. This drill is particularly good for freestyle or butterfly, but can be used for back and breast as well. The effect is similar to anti-paddles, but in cheaper and more convenient form. After using the tennis balls for a few minutes, put them away and go back to swimming with an open hand. The shifting sensation can be instrumental in improving feel for the water.
Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org
Often at practice it is helpful to have a tool to communicate with your swimmers while they train. I like to use a normal laneline wrench to bang on the stainless steel gutter. I use it to have the group change speeds during a long swim, shift from one drill to another, stop to kick, or any other task we are doing. Use one bang for a certain command, two for another command, and so forth. Swimmers can hear the wrench bangs far better than a whistle or any other noisemaker I have heard.
“The best oblique ab workout I’ve ever had,” said one of our swimmers after trying this exercise for 20 seconds.
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Editor’s Note: The Swimming Wizard’s goal is to publish at least one set, practice, or idea EVERY DAY for all of 2016! To keep it interesting, we need your help! Click here to help us achieve that goal by submitting one of your sets!
The Swimming Workout Wizard is on vacation this week. Enjoy some more videos from around the web.
Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org
Here is a set designed for 200 backstrokers. Distances listed for even 25s, 50s, and 75s are for underwater kicking
12 x 25 backstroke @ :40
odd at P200
even kick, 5m+ on #2, 10m+ on #4, 15m- on #6
3 x 100 backstroke drill @ :10 rest
6 x 50 backstroke @ 1:00
odd at P200
even kick, 5m+ on #2, 10m+ on #4, 15m- on #6
3 x 100 backstroke drill @ :10 rest
4 x 75 backstroke @ 1:20
odd at P200
even kick, 10m+ on #2, 15m- on #4
3 x 100 backstroke drill @ :10 rest
Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org
LCM
Use Streamline Sticks at 10m distance from each wall. Put two at each location, effectively blocking off the entire lane. Swimmers have to kick out 10m off the wall, swim 30m, and then kick the final 10m underwater. Do an open turn and do it again! Feel free to change up the underwater distance for a more or less challenging set.
Teamwork and strength, all in one exercise!
This could be awesome for chest and shoulder strength.
Check out the single-leg burpees with a push-up and jump. Interesting series of exercises here.
This an interesting series of exercises. Be careful with the first movement that he performs, as I think it might be a little risky for swimmers with loose shoulder joints.
Over the next week or two, we’ll be highlighting a few videos of some terrific dryland exercises we found on the web. Here’s the first in the series.
Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA
SCY
40 x 25 at P mile @ :20
100 easy swim
30 x 50 at P mile @ :40
100 easy swim
20 X 75 at P mile @ 1:00
100 easy swim
Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org
The Tag Relay is a fun challenge for your team that can help develop teamwork and flat-out speed.
If you are in a SCY pool, space out 4 to 8 swimmers along the lane in a circle-swimming pattern. For LCM you will need a few more (maybe 12-18). The first person will dive in, sprint to tag swimmer #2, who sprints to tag swimmer #3, and so on. You can do this for any distance and any stroke. Try having them go in medley order for fun. You will be surprised at how fast they can go when they touch hand-to-foot and get to practice it a few times. Try to break the national age group, American, or World records.
Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org
Here’s another way to use a Tempo Trainer for a distance set. Set your Tempo Trainer for an appropriate tempo for the following aerobic set. This should be significantly slower than your Threshold Tempo. Do as many as you want, and experiment with different tempos to change up the intensity.
‘?’ x 300 freestyle
1st 100 – Swim at tempo
2nd 100 – 5 cycles swim at tempo/5 cycles streamline kick (6 beats per cycle) at tempo
3rd 100 – Swim at tempo
Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA
This IM set should be quite challenging. It can help develop a sense of pace for the 400 IM as well as improve fitness and stamina.
1 x 100 fly at P400IM @ :10 rest
1 x 300 back/breast/free by 100, 50 drill/50 swim @ :20 rest
1 x 400 IM @ :30 rest
1 x 100 back at P400IM @ :10 rest
1 x 200 breast/free by 100, 50 drill/50 swim @ :20 rest
1 x 400 IM @ :30 rest
1 x 100 breast at P400IM @ :10 rest
1 x 100 free easy @ :20 rest
1 z 400 IM @ :30 rest
1 x 100 free at P400IM @ :10 rest
1 x 400 IM @ :30 rest
Descend the 400 IMs to all out on the last one. The 300, 200, and 100 following the P400IM are intended to be active recovery. Give them some bonus rest before the last one if you want to see them really go for it.
Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org
LCM
18 x 15 meter sprint @ 2:00
#1 – from a start
#2 – 7.5m in and out of a turn
#3 – from mid-pool into a finish
All start and turn sprints are timed to the head crossing the line. Swim easy between the repeats. Use this chart to see how fast your 15m “chunks” need to be based on your best time.
Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA
Here’s a set to help your athletes sustain that killer kick you are looking for at the end of the race. We performed it 6x at 6:00 per round:
3 x 50 swim at P200
#1 @ 1:00
#2 @ :50
#3 @ :40
1 x 75 all out kick w/ board for time
1 x 125 easy swim with perfect technique
Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org
One of my favorite pieces of training equipment is the Power Tower. It’s a terrific tool for making your athletes stronger in the water. In order to keep our swimmers’ shoulders safe, we never load it up to see how much we can do. In order to determine proper levels of resistance for training, we gradually increase the resistance by pouring water into the bucket to find the maximum volume at which the athlete can hold a normal cycle count. Other teams put discrete amounts of weight into the buckets using water jugs, lead weights etc. We prefer to just use water and measure the amount using a yardstick. Any great Power Tower sets out there?
Here is on of ours:
20 x 50 @ 1:00 SCY
25 against the resistance fast, 5 each stroke in IM order
25 freestyle assisted, 1 breath max
Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org
This set mimics late race fatigue. Each set is 8 x 50 all out effort from a dive and has a slightly different feel due to the varied intervals. Holding technique under the duress of fatigue should be a priority.
Set #1:
4 @ 2:00
2 @ 1:30
2 @ 1:00
Set #2:
2 @ 2:00
2 @ 1:30
2 @ 1:00
2 @ 2:00
Set #3:
2 @ 1:00
2 @ 1:30
4 @ 2:00
This motivational idea comes from the Panama City Swim Team and Coach Jonathan Kaplan. Check it out on the PCST website.
The premise: Simply count daily yards for all of the swimmers on your team. Use an excel spreadsheet to make it simple to count up the running total. Recognize those swimmers who achieve milestones – 1 million, 2 million, 3 million, 4 million (!?!) yards. Post a weekly running total in a visible place at your facility. This exercise encourages attendance and becomes a good measuring stick for who “has been putting in the work.” Jonathan’s swimmers at PCST were able to achieve a million yards on mostly single practices, with doubles only in the summer months.
Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org
This set can be done backstroke or freestyle, and is meant to challenge the athlete’s ability to hold tempo. Use a Tempo Trainer and be sure to establish your Threshold Tempo (TT) first.
5 x 100 @ :20 rest (includes time to adjust your tempo trainer)
#1 – Hold TT + .30 for as long as possible, then swim perfect technique for the remainder
#2 – Hold TT + .20…
#3 – Hold TT + .10…
#4 – Hold TT…
#5 – Smooth perfect technique (recovery)
Perform multiple rounds if desired.
After the set, use The Swimming Calculator and your Cycle Count to determine what a reasonable time goal you could achieve if you were able to sustain your tempo longer than you did on the above set.
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