Tag: Freestyle

THE ELIMINATION GUESSING GAME

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Ryan Woodruff,  Lynchburg YMCA

I’ve posted before about The Guessing Game and The Guessing Game for Sprinters.

Tonight we tried the guessing game with a new twist: Elimination.

We had 12 swimmers in the pool near the end of practice.  Everyone swam a 100 free (any speed) and immediately had to guess their times.  Top 3 swimmers who guessed closest to their actual time got to climb out and go home. Everyone else swam again and repeated the process. Incredibly, in order to be in the top 3 in the first round, a swimmer had to guess within 0.8 seconds.  Similar results happened in subsequent rounds as the group sharpened their skills. One swimmer managed to finish 4th in both the first and second rounds.

The final three swimmers had the task of cleaning up the deck (equipment, etc.) before leaving.

Overall, it was a fun (and agonizing for some) way to finish practice.

150s Madness

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

SCM

The format is similar to my most recent other post, with a more aerobic focus. The intervals stay the same for each part, with the quantities at each interval shifting slightly. The effect is a set that gets steadily a bit harder, with the peak intensity coming in the final 4 x 150 at the end. FPA = Fastest Possible Average.

Check Your Catch – Freestyle

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Coach Molly Hebzynski, University of Northern Colorado

We’ve done set variations of this set, but the one below is my favorite, and our swimmers too! We focus on maintaining a good body line and maximizing every catch without breathing. LB = Low buoy, NB = No Breath, the strap is a band around the ankles. On the 25s, our ultimate goal is to see how fast they can move across the pool in a 25 with no out-of-water arm recovery to check their catch efficiency.

SCY

2x

2×150 @ 2:30 50 Strap/50 Reg/50 LB (The switch at the walls is intended to be quick)

6×25 @ 1:00 NB Long Dog (Long Dog is the UW catch & pull)

R1: + LB 

R2: + Strap 

2×25 @ :45 Free NB @ 20 BB (20 Beats below Max HR)

1×100 @ 2:00 Reset/Recovery

Distance Freestyle Ramp-Up Set

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

The basic concept here is to ramp up the challenge by adding a constant amount to the interval with each increasing 100 so that the average pace gets progressively harder. In this case, we added 1:00 each time so that all of the intervals ended in :20. Maybe for your swimmer the way to keep the set challenging but doable would be to add :55 or 1:05 or 1:15, but I like the symmetry of this set-up.

In this case, the lines are there to highlight the pattern. You could certainly insert brief breaks or recovery swims if needed.

The way the set is written, the swimmer does 5,600 yards in 63 minutes, an average of 1:07.5 for the interval.

SCY

Disappearing 100s

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

SCY

Some days I write the entire practice out for our group to see before we begin. Other days, I like to give it to them step by step or in parts. I firmly believe there is an enormous mental difference between these two methods of presentation, and each has its pros and cons.

This set was presented to the swimmers in parts. The first part was written on the board with the instructions to hold a consistent pace at each step and that we would be doing a total of four rounds, erasing one line from the set with each subsequent round and possibly changing the instructions. (JMI = Just Make It)

Round went well, so we upped the ante significantly for round 2:

Part 2 was a significant increase in challenge, leaving them wondering/guessing what part 3 would bring. Well, here it is. Not what they might have expected, but they could pretty well guess what Part 4 would be once they saw Part 3. And they stepped up with some great swims! OTB = Off the blocks (dive). FPA = Fastest Possible Average

Context: We are at the beginning of our third week of training and thus far we have done very little high intensity work for any significant distance. The swimmers who performed the set on the intervals listed have best 100-yard free times ranging from :43.8 to :47.3. We had a few other athletes with slightly slower best times performing the same set on intervals that were :05 slower for Part 1 and Part 2.

We ended up with many lifetime-best practice times and a challenging practice with a motivated group.

Bit of Everything

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

LCM

We needed an all-purpose practice with a little bit of everything. This set was done in a 50m pool. (Olympic course).

3 rounds:

1 x 400 Free @ 5:20 Paddles & snorkel, steady pace but sprint 2 strokes into every turn

2 x 200 IM @ 3:10 Descend 1-2

3 x 100 No Free

Rd 1 – Descend 1-3 @ 2:00

Rd 2 – 50 fast/50ez @ 2:30

Rd 3 – FPA (Fastest Possible Average) @ 3:00

Split Distance and Sprint

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

We have days where the whole group does one workout. Other times, we split by strokes. On this day, we split along distance lines. Part of the group worked around their distance race pace, while the other group did a small number of intense 50s from a dive. The sprinters also watched their 50s back on video and did some active recovery during the 6:00 interval. This workout was in LCM.

IM Challenge Set

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

We did this set the other day with a few of our 13-14 year-olds in SCY. It proved to be a motivating and challenging set.

In each 8:00 part, the goal was to do as many repeats of the given distance and stroke as possible. We recorded the total distance covered, which allowed us to calculate average pace and set goals for possible future sets.

Rhythm Fly and Free

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

The purpose of this set was for us to get some medium-intensity butterfly reps in during some aerobic freestyle. We interspersed that with some brief fly sprints on large rest. Performance was solid on this one, but not amazing probably due to a difficult practice the day before. SCM.

Distance Freestyle Pacing & Control

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This set was seeking a very specific pattern of pacing on each 600, as indicated by the line graph for each one. Failure to split it correctly meant repeating that 600. To interpret…

#1 – 300 at a consistent pace, 300 at a faster pace, also consistent

#2 – 3 x 200 descend, each one at a consistent pace

#3 – 2 sets of 3 x 100 descending

#4 – 4 x 100 descend + 200 fast and consistent

#5 – 3 x 100 descend + 300 fast and consistent

#6 – 2 x 100 descend + 400 fast and consistent

Here is how it turned out for our swimmer, with splits written next to each graph:

We had to do the first 600 twice due to some early set rusty-ness. Splits for the first of those two are not included.