Free Swimming Workouts, Sets, Ideas, and Dryland Exercises from Professional Coaches Around the World
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This was our finish to practice today. We have done 25s underwater pretty consistently, so every swimmer knows his or her best time. The lifetime bests were written down on a dry erase board and this challenge was thrown. If you can beat your best twice, you get to go home. Amazingly, more than half of our swimmers were able to accomplish this feat. The mind is an amazing thing!
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM. We did this kick set recently and our swimmers were very engaged. We timed the underwater 25s (we keep team records on this) and asked for an elite effort on the green parts. We ended up with several lifetime best 25s underwater and an excellent overall group effort.
The intervals on the ez Swim were deliberately large so that the last person would finish before we had to dive on the next 25.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Swimmers are divided into an even number of lanes with each lane serving as a team.. Lane 1 competes with Lane 2, lane 3 competes with Lane 4, etc. On the coach’s “go,” one swimmer in each lane pushes off to begin an underwater dolphin kicking length. As they push off, a coach throws one of our orange hockey pucks (we frequently use as bottom markers, but you can use anything that rapidly sinks) into the pool between each pair of lanes. The swimmers in each pair of lanes race dolphin kick to the puck and try to grab it off the bottom first. If you have the swimmers evenly matched by dolphin kicking ability you will get some excellent races!
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
LCM. The purpose of this set was to get us primed and ready for our main set. We did this in about 8 feet depth – the blastoffs involve sinking down to the bottom, pushing off, and exploding vertically through the surface while dolphin kicking. After the 5 sprint cycles, swimmers continued the rest of the 50 smooth.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Progression leading up to sprint 25s off the blocks. Gave us a good chance to do some specific work on entries and breakouts.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Underwater kicking with stretch cord placed across the lane lines at 12.5m. Instructions are to kick past the cord every 25 and add fins when the interval requires it.
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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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This was challenging for some. Always good to challenge us underwater. Will probably use this set to build off of for later in the season.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We did this set on the first day of a new season. On the 300s, the focus was on doing effective underwater kicks, making them progressively faster on the 200s and 100s.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We did the fartlek set followed by 4 rotations of the stations below. The diving well underwater kicks were done hooked to a stretch cord anchored to a nearby fence for resistance.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Echoes of the Jellylegs Set…on round 1 we did the set as written. On round 2, we added 5 squats after each EZ part. Round 3: 10 squats. Round 4: 15 squats.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We ended up doing them @ 2:30. Second set is in our 12m diving well. We treat one width as a 25 for ease of explanation.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We did this set in a 25 m pool with a stretch cord stretched across the lanes at the halfway mark. We used hockey pucks on the bottom so the swimmers could tell where the stretch cord was located.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
The first 25 underwater kick will suck the oxygen out of you..then you gotta hit a FAST 50. 75 easy to recover, then do it again. SCM.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This workout involved two stations – one working underwater kicks and one doing an IM set. We did each station 3 times — the cord set was the same each time, and the IM set progressed through the three versions listed. The 3rd round was essentially a broken 400 IM.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We generally don’t do “recovery workouts.” Not because I don’t believe they have benefit, but rather because rarely do I have an entire group on the same page where that is what they all need at the same time.
Today was one of those rare times. Most of the group has just come off their high school state championships. We spent time at the beginning of practice going back over what we learned, how we swam, and what we can do better next time.
Here was the main block of the workout:
3 x 10:00 fartlek @11:00
#1 – 10 cycles kick against the wall at every wall then great underwaters on the push off
#2 – 25 drill/25 build done as 50 free/50 no free
#3 – all choice, sprint 1 cycle on first lap, 2 cycles on 2nd lap up to 4 cycles on fourth lap, continue that pattern.
3 x 500 kick @ coach’s go
25 fast -25 ez
50 fast- 50 ez
75 fast-75 ez
100 fast-100 ez
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
On the 25s, the goal was to hold the farthest possible average distance (with some pretty good speed) on each set.
The 225/200/175 was an A/B/C distance dependent on swimmer’s kicking speed. Swimmers chose the appropriate distance for themselves individually.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
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Mike Cook, Mason Makos
4 rounds odd rounds fly even rounds back. Fast fish kicks underwater get up when you decelerate into fast stroke. Stay with the beep and feel the difference. Fly no breath first stroke. Can not past 15 meter with fins
4x8x25 @35 fins
1st round TT@0.7. 2nd round TT@0.6. 3rd round TT@0.5. 4th round TT @0.4
Now PICK A COMFORTABLE SETTING AND SET YOUR TRAINER 0.1 lower and do the next set
20×50 @50. Odds fly to back evens back with fins
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
On this set, we used stretch cords with a teammate providing the resistance for the 4 x 8 underwater kicks (do all 4x within the 1:00 interval).
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