Lumber Kicks

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Ryan Woodruff
ryan.d.woodruff@gmail.com

We use these exercises to building kicking strength, teamwork, and critical thinking skills. Plus, they are a bunch of fun!

You probably should first know what inspired this workout:

We use regular 4″ x 4″ x 8′ pieces of lumber that you can pick up at your local hardware store (be sure to measure the width of your lanes to know how long a piece of lumber you can use) Depending upon the strength and ability of your swimmers, I recommend putting between 2 and 6 swimmers on an 8′ log.

Exercise #1:

More to come in another post!

The 12 Sets of Christmas

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Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org

“At Christmas, train hard with vigor and cheer, for Christmas comes but once a year.”
– Anonymous swim coach

This workout takes approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes

1 X 900 WARMUP CHOICE – OPEN TURNS, 4+ D-KICKS EVERY WALL @ 13:00

2 X 25 @ :50 at P100

3 X 700 FREE PULL-300 B3/100 B7/300 B3 @ 8:10 8:30 8:50
(PADDLES, BUOY)

4 x 25 @ :50 at P100

5 x 500 IM @ 6:40 7:00 7:20
(#1- 200 FLY, #2-200 BACK, #3-200 BREAST, #4 – 200 FREE, #5 – STRAIGHT IM)
6 x 25 @ :50 at P100

7 x 300 FREE ODD — 100 6-3-6/100 CATCHUP/100 OVERKICK @ 3:50 4:05 4:20
EVEN — DESCEND @ 3:30 3:40 3:50

8 x 25 @ :50 at P100

9 x 100 @ PRIME 1-3 BY 5+ SECONDS FLY & BK @ 1:25, BREAST @ 1:30

10 X 25 @ :50 at P100

11 x 50 @ 1:00 CHOICE – FAST TURNS & PERFECT FINISHES

12 X 25 @ :50 at P100

10,050y

Workout Links for Christmas

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Some web resources for swimming workouts:

50 Swim Workouts – Self-described easy-to-moderate workouts
Swimming World Magazine – a good database of searchable workouts by ability, stroke, and duration
Four Focused Swim Workouts – from Active.com
Beginner Swim Workouts
U.S. Masters Swimming Discussion Forum-for USMS members only
USA Swimming – workouts from our national governing body

Shallow End Kick Set

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Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org

We did the blastoffs (streamline push off the bottom and explosive dolphin kick to the surface) in the 7-foot shallow end of our pool. Works beautifully for 5 to 6-foot-tall senior swimmers. Have swimmers strive for 4+ dolphin kicks during each blastoff. All kick is choice without a board. Use a board on the 300.

:25 blastoffs @ :30
75 fast kick + 25 ez swim @ 2:00
:25 blastoffs @ :30
125 fast kick + 25 ez swim @ 3:00
:25 blastoffs @ :30
175 fast kick + 25 ez swim @ 4:00

300 kick for time

"D"cember Freestyle Set

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Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org

2x:
Round 1 – Swim
Round 2 – Pull with , make all P1650-based swims 2 seconds faster

300 free @ 4:00 Beat 1/3 of your best 1,000 free time
5 x 100 free @ 1:20 Beat P1650 + 4
600 free @ 8:00 Beat 2/3 of your best 1,000 free time
5 x 100 free @ 1:20 Beat P1650 + 2
900 free @ 12:00 Beat your best 1,000 free time
5 x 100 free @ 1:20 Beat P1650
300 EZ Backstroke swim

25 x 50 Challenge Set

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Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org

Here’s a challenging set we did Thursday that a few swimmers said they enjoyed.

25 x 50 yard

1 – EZ swim @ :40
1 – at P200 @ :40
1 – EZ swim @ :40
2 – at P200 @ :45
1 – EZ swim @ :40
3 – at P200 @ :50
1 – EZ swim @ :40
4 – at P200 @ :55
1 – EZ swim @ :45
5 – at P200 @ 1:00
1:00 rest
5 – Fastest possible average @ 1:00

All 50s at P200 are choice. IMers can do the 1 fly, the 2 fly/bk, the 3 fly/bk/br, the 4 fly/bk/br/fr, and the 5 fly/bk/br/fr + weak stroke.

To compete within the group, have the swimmers keep track of their running total under-P200 time.

Underwater Proficiency Test Set

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Rick Shipherd, La Mirada Armada

This set was mentioned in Coach Shipherd’s 2009 address at the ASCA World Clinic. He credited Coach Terry Stoddard for the idea.

16 x 25 Underwater Dolphin Kick @ :25

Kick the entire way underwater. If you miss the interval or fail to make it the entire length, rest for two repeats (1:00) and then continue until making a total of 16. Get your time on each and record your time on your slowest 25.

Hypoxic from Utah

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Dani Caldwell
St. George, Utah

 
Here is one of our favorite hypoxic workouts — it’s not much yardage, but it does the job and the kids like it.
 

4 x 25 FR @:45 – NO BREATHERS

4 x 75 FR @2:15, taking two breaths per length, at same locations each 25 (helps if you do kick counts and SL!)

4 x 25 CH @:45 – NO BREATHERS (No Backstroke, for obvious reasons)

4 x 75 CH @2:15, taking two breaths per length (3 for BR), at same locations

4 x 25 FR @:30 – NO BREATHERS

 
 

The Armada I.M. Set

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Rick Shipherd, La Mirada Armada

The following set is from Coach Shipherd’s presentation at the 2009 ASCA World Clinic. He described it as one of the favorite challenging test sets that his team does.

4x through:

1 x 400 I.M. broken, :20 rest at each 100 (subtract 1:00 to get your time

1 x 300 done as 25 free active recovery@:25/50 fast stroke IM order (subtract 1:40 to figure your time for this broken 200 I.M.)

1 x 100 I.M. fast from a dive

Twenty Ways to Do 20 x 25 – #14

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Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org

#14 – Fun with Streamline Sticks

You’ll need four lanes to do this. Position one set of Streamline Sticks in each lane in such a way that the swimmers swim a “snake” pattern – down the pool in lane 1, back in lane 2, down in lane 3, back in lane 4.

Lane 1 – Streamline Sticks at 5 yds
Lane 2 – Streamline Sticks at near 15 m mark (about 7.5 yards from the wall)
Lane 3 – Streamline Sticks at 12.5 yards
Lane 4 – Streamline Sticks at 15 m

20 x 25 @ :30
Do freestyle, backstroke, or freestyle in groups of 4 x 25 at a time. Descend 1-4.
#1 – in lane 1
#2 – in lane 2
#3 – in lane 3
#4 – all out fast in lane 4

After #4, take an additional 30 seconds rest to migrate back to Lane 1.

Streamline Sticks

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Ryan Woodruff
Here’s a look at one of my favorite homemade training aids:

To make your own Streamline Sticks:
1. Cut a piece of 1″ PVC tubing to match the width of your lanes.
2. Thread a piece of 1/8″ diameter rope through the PVC, leaving about 1′ of rope hanging out either way.
3. Tie a 1-pound weight (SCUBA weights work well) to each end of the rope. These weights will drape over the lane lines to hold the Streamline Stick in place.
4. You are ready! Position them on the lane ropes (put a traffic cone on the pool bottom so that swimmers can judge the Stick’s location) and away you go!

Follow The Leader

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Andy Astfalck, Head Coach, International School Manila, Philippines
astfalcka@ismanila.org

A set I have started using recently and is great for getting the kids to work together as a team.

It’s called Follow the Leader.
A typical set would be 25X100 FR on 1:30.

I have a group of 4 boys who have similar send off times.
The idea of the set is to take turns leading, once you have lead you go to the back of the line. Just like cyclist take turns at the front.The swimmers leave 5 seconds apart which means they work hard for 4 efforts then get to rest then join the group at the back of the line. The reality is they are swimming on a send off of 1:25 for 4 repeats then when they go to the back of the line their send off will be 1:50, they really get into it and wouldn’t dream of stopping or getting out for the bathroom, they work hard so they don’t let down their team.

The P500 Challenge

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Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org

How long does it take you to swim a 500 free at your race pace?

Pick a distance – 50s, 75s, 100s, or 125s. Figure out the pace corresponding to your lifetime best or your goal time. You can use this excel spreadsheet to help you.

Perform the following set:

10 x 50

OR

6 X 75 + 1 X 50

OR

5 X 100

OR

4 X 125

Do the first repeat from a dive. All remaining repeats from a push. Take as much rest as you like between repeats, but they MUST be faster than your target pace. Any swim that does not meet the target pace does not count. No easy swimming in between – stay “in the race.” Time the set from beginning to end. Next time you do this set, try to do it in less time (take less rest, hit your target pace every time, etc.).

Slot Water Polo

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Ryan Woodruff
Slot Water Polo came about when I wanted a fun game for my swimmers to play that was safe, was easy to set up, didn’t have too many rules, and wouldn’t be overly physical while still demanding their effort. It is similar to traditional water polo in several ways — it has a ball, two teams going in opposite directions, an out-of-bounds area, etc. Here is what makes it different:

1. Play with a physio ball (swiss ball). This makes the game slower and less dangerous (it doesn’t hurt to get hit in the face).
2. Swimmers wear fins. Makes for a great lower body workout.
3. Swimmers must stay in their lanes (slots). At the beginning of the game, swimmers must choose their slot and remain in it until a goal is scored. A swimmer may reach outside of his lane, but his waist may not cross the lane line.
4. The goal is a traffic cone placed on each side of the pool. A goal is scored when a cone is knocked over.
5. If one team is camping out defensively, the coach may move the cone to another lane at any time during the game. This also adds an extra element of strategy to the game.
6. For a more interesting game, play with two or three physio balls at a time.

Sprint 25s with Curl-Burke

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Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org

Lately, I have enjoyed reading “Reach for the Wall,” Washington Post writer Paul Tenorio’s blog about training with the Curl-Burke Swim Club and Coach Jeff King. As a coach, it is interesting to hear what the workout feels like from his perspective. Thursday he wrote about one of Coach King’s sets which I have written below:

Warmup 700 (100 IM order)

200 swim
200 kick
2 x 25 sprint swim
175 swim
175 kick
3 x 25 sprint swim
150 swim
150 kick
4 x 25 sprint swim
125 swim
125 kick
5 x 25 sprint swim
100 swim
100 kick
6 x 25 sprint swim
75 swim
75 kick
7 x 25 sprint swim
50 swim
50 kick
8 x 25 sprint swim
25 swim
25 kick
9 x 25 sprint swim

Thanks for sharing, Paul!

The Guessing Game (For Sprinters)

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

The concept here is similar to yesterday’s post – The Guessing Game. For a sprint or non-freestyle version of the Guessing Game, I like to do 50s, and have the swimmers guess within a 0.2-second range. They also have to be within a certain range (like 4 seconds) from P200. I use the same points system as in the regular Guessing Game.

I actually had a swimmer recently who guessed his 50 time to the one-hundredth of a second exactly on his first one. He was thus done with practice and the rest of his teammates seethed.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

The Guessing Game

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This set is useful for helping distance freestylers refine a sense of pace.

? x 100 freestyle @ coach’s send off

Continue until you achieve 3 points.

Earn 1 point by guessing your time correctly within .5 seconds
Earn 2 points by guessing your time exactly to the tenth of a second
Earn 3 points by guessing your time exactly to the hundredth of a second

Swimmers may swim whatever speed they wish.

I like to use the Guessing Game during taper, typically at the end of practice. Once a swimmer achieves his three points, he warms down and is done with practice.

Tip: Be sure to turn off your pace clock or have the swimmers turn away from the clock when you send them off. You don’t want them looking at it – there won’t be a pace clock at the meet!

Twenty Ways to Do 20 x 25 – #13

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Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org

#13 – The Cookie Cutter Set

? x 25 Any stroke @ :30

Keep doing them until you achieve 20 in five successful sets of 4. The coach times each 25 to the tenth of a second. To perform a successful set of 4, all swims must be in a range of .2 seconds. Try to do everything the same each time – same streamline, same underwater kicks, breakout, cycles, and finish. If one of your 4 swims falls outside the range, those do not count. Start a new set of 4. You are done when you have achieved five sets of four.

200 Goal Busters

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Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org

Want to swim a great 200 yard race? Try this set to test your speed and build your confidence for your race!

30 x 50 @ 1:00 at P200, all from a push

The goal is to hit P200 every time. Create a goal pace card using this excel spreadsheet. Count how many you make. For an extra challenge, do the 1st 10 @ 1:00, the next 10 @ :50, and the last 10 @ :45 or :40. For competition within the group, have each time made count as a point in the 1st 10, 2 points in the second 10, and 3 points in the final 10. Person with the most points wins, and gets to do the least warm down, pick teams for water polo, or some other motivating reward.

Determining Goal Pace

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Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org

Don Swartz and Ken DeMont over at Swim Coach Direct had an interesting post Sunday on race splits and training for the 200. I highly recommend it.

Their post encouraged me to share with you a tool we use to help swimmers on our team establish race paces for training purposes.

Click here to download our Excel spreadsheet for determining goal paces.

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. 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. 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!

G. I. D.

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Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org

Warm up:600 100 swim/100drill/100 kick/100 swim/100 drill/100 scull

800 free pull B3 9:20/10:10
2 x 400 free pull B3 4:40/5:10
4 x 200 free swim 25 strong/25 perfect technique 2:20/2:35

600 IM 50 swim/50 drill/50 swim 8:00/8:40
2 x 300 IM descend 4:00/4:10
4 x 150 IM, leave out one stroke in IM order 2:05/2:15

400 prime, 50 drill/100 swim/50 ez free @ :10 rest
2 x 200 prime swim, race pattern @ :10 rest
4 x 100 descend by improving turns & underwaters @ :10 rest

Warm down

The Whatchamacallit

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Ryan Woodruff, North Carolina Aquatic Club
coachryan@ncacswim.org

1000 warmup – 150 free/100 no free

2 x 500 free pull B3 @ 5:50

5 x 200 free swim
#1@ 2:20
#2 @ 2:30
#3 @ 2:10
#4 @ 2:30
#5 @ 2:00

20 x 25 @ :30 prime stroke w/ Tempo Trainer
odd – build to Threshold Tempo
even – ez kick

5 x 200 @ 2:40, middle 50 is fast prime, the rest is ez free

2 x 500 @ 6:15, middle 100 is fast prime

1 x 1000 middle 200 is fast prime

12 x 50 @ 1:30
#1 – 35 m fast, then ez
#2 – 25 y UW kick fast then ez
#3 – 15m fast then ez
#4 – all ez

Boom Set

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by Louis C. Cavadini

Ryan: First off I must say that your blog is great….keeping the
swimmers interested in what they are doing in practice is the number
one way to keep people happy and in the pool at the same time. I also
used your blind goal set this week in high school practice. Total
psychological set! After the first 100s, they saw that I wasn’t
playing around with the times. Then they started to go fast and get
them. It was great to see them come out of their comfort zone at
5:30am. So since I took a set, here is one for the blog.

I wrote it at 2am, its the hardest practice I’ve given out, and out of
30 high school kids only one person finished it. 8500 total, with
2200 fly.

400S, 300P, 200K
20×25 drill @ :35, 4 fist, 4 horns, 4 okay, 4 regular, 4 fast

base :45
100: 75 fr @ 1:10 + 25 br @ :30
200: 150 fr @ 2:15 + 50 br @ 1:00
300: 200 fr @ 3:00 + 100 br @ 2:00

base :40
100: 75 fr @ 1:00 + 25 bk @ :30
200: 150 fr @ 2:00 + 50 bk @ 1:00
300: 200 fr @ 2:40 + 100 bk @ 2:00

base :35
100: 75 fr @ :55 + 25 fly @ :30
200: 150 fr @ 1:45 + 50 fly @ 1:00
300: 200 fr @ 2:20 + 100 fly @ 2:00
…might as well keep going…..continue of free base :35
400: 250 fr @ 2:55 + 150 fly @ 3:00
500: 300 fr @ 3:30 + 200 fly @ 4:00
600: 350 fr @ 4:05 + 250 fly @ 5:00
700: 400 fr @ 4:40 + 300 fly @ 6:00
800: 450 fr @ 5:15 + 350 fly @ 7:00
900: 500 fr @ 5:50 + 400 fly @ 8:00
1000: 550 fr @ 6:15 + 450 fly @ 9:00

no break in-between sets. total = 8500