Tag: Backstroke

Age Group Long Axis and Dolphin Kicking

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This practice was for our group of 10-12 year-olds. We focused on long-axis efficiency and finished with an emphasis on underwater kicking. The “bang bang” refers to a coach tapping a wrench in the side of the pool to indicate when to take a stroke.

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Long Axis Day

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This practice was devoted entirely to long axis strokes – back and free.

The blue set in the middle was a technical progression. The 25 was scull, the 50 was 25 scull/25 kick and rotate, and keep adding a skill or drill up to 150. On the way back down to 25, subtract the skill/Drill from the front end to finish with a 25 Swim.

“People paddle” = free with underwater recovery, like advanced doggie paddle

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Age Group Speed with Coach Gordon Brown

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Coach Gordon Brown, Head Age Group Coach, Regional YMCA of Western Connecticut

This is another one for my 10-13 year-old swimmers that go 6-days a week for 1-hour & 45-minutes. I included a description of what we talked about prior to each set.

See the FULL WORKOUT IN PDF FORM HERE.

CTAG 100119 workout for Swimming Wizard

See the FULL WORKOUT IN PDF FORM HERE.

Big focus on the first IM & UW FL kick set is replicating the feeling of a 200 IM with 25’s of race plan swims mixed with 25’s UW FL K. We talked about some of the key transitions in the IM before we began the set.

For example, we begin with a 25 UW simulating what they will do off their start and how they should focus on holding their rhythm in butterfly to finish the 50. When they get into backstroke, they need to establish their tempo and make sure they have a great wall leading into breaststroke. This is why we started with BK swim into UW kick. We talked about breaststroke being the make or break part of an IM. Having a strong build to the BR leg of the race really sets up a big finish in free. Starting with UW kick into BR sprint w/flutter kick allows them to really turn on the hand speed. Lastly, we finish with Free sprint establishing tempo right off the wall and finish with UW kick to ensure we have a great last wall. We did this all with fins.

They looked great and were putting down some good speed with the swims and improved their UW 25’s as the set went on.

We finished up the day with a Max VO2 set they will do about every 3 weeks. This was their first attempt at this set this season so they knew they were establishing their baseline times. Since we have a distance meet on Friday and a Long Axis Pentathlon on Saturday we wanted to focus on FR and BK. Everything in the set is all out effort and we mix in a kick distance that rotates by round. To keep it entertaining, I gave them some goal times that allowed them to earn “medals”. As the distance gets longer it is more difficult to earn Gold.

They really enjoyed the “medal” aspect of the set and were definitely going after it!

Underwaters & Speed Backstroke

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

In this set, we used orange hockey pucks on the bottom of the pool to mark the 10m mark we wanted them to kick past.

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Backstroke “GO!” Set

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This is a variation on the Nitro whistle set. We just did it backstroke, I shouted “GO!” as the intervals came up rather than blowing a whistle, and we added a few quality swims.

Swimmers begin with a 25 back @:20, then a 25 @:25 and so on, increasing to a 50 at the earliest opportunity, increasing to a 75 at the earliest opportunity… and so on. Their instructions were to make the jump in distance as soon as they felt it was feasible.

We paused after the :50, after the 1:30, and after the 2:00 to do the 50 ez – 100 fast backstroke-50 ez. We had some excellent performances on the 100s backstroke.

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Back and Breast Together Set

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This set allowed us to keep the group together while some swimmers trained back and others trained breast. This was a small group at an early morning practice, so keeping the group together was helpful for keeping the energy up.

For the 50s, backstroke drills are in blue, breaststroke drills in green.

We went on the same intervals for both strokes — backstrokers did 150s and breaststrokers did 125s.

SCY

Yup. Backstroke Fartleks

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

I wanted to get some low-to-medium intensity backstroke technique done.

“Beams” … our 25m indoor pool has 4 large steel beams that run perpendicular to the direction we swim…so for “beams” we kick on our side and take a stroke every time we pass under the beam.

Backstroke Kick & Snap + 75s

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

In the 4:00 “Kick & snap” at the beginning, swimmers kick on their side with one hand extended in front of them. When a coach bangs a wrench on the side of the pool, swimmers take one rapid stroke (snap!) onto the other side, being mindful of connecting the opposing pull and recovery.

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Any Stroke ‘Best Average’ Set with Coach Gary Galbreath

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Gary Galbreath, Columbia Swim Club

All the same stroke
125 @ 2:00 Fins & Paddles
1 x 75 @ 1:30 Best Avg
1 x 50 @ 1:00 BA
1 x 25 @ 45 BA
125 @ 2:00 Fins & Paddles
1 x 75 @ 1:30 BA
1 x 50 @ 1:00 BA
2 x 25 @ 45 BA
125 @ 2:00 Fins & Paddles
1 x 75 @ 1:30 BA
1 x 50 @ 1:00 BA
3 x 25 @ 45 BA
125 @ 2:00 Fins & Paddles
1 x 75 @ 1:30 BA
2 x 50 @ 1:00 BA
3x 25 @ 45 BA
125 @ 2:00 Fins & Paddles
1 x 75 @ 1:30 BA
3 x 50 @ 1:00 BA
3 x 25 @ 45 BA
125 @ 2:00 Fins & Paddles
2 x 75 @ 1:30 BA
3 x 50 @ 1:00 BA
3 x 25 @ 45 BA
The 125s were supposed to be DPS with a focus on Underwater Kicking & Pullouts
The 75s, 50s & 25s were to swim the same speed on all.

Aerobic Free/Bk/Br for Mid-IM Stamina

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Ryan Woodruff

This set was intended to focus on the middle part of our IM swims. Every swim has a 100 back/100 breast in the middle. That 200 is the focus of the set, and we aimed to descend that 200 across the 8 swims. Any distance before or after that 200 is freestyle. We did this in a SCM pool.

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Fartleks for IMers

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

A “fartlek” is a continuous swim where we change speeds or points of emphasis.

During the 10:00, I would occasionally bang a metal wrench on the side of the pool, signaling an all-out sprint to the next wall followed by continuation of the swim.

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