Free Swimming Workouts, Sets, Ideas, and Dryland Exercises from Professional Coaches Around the World
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We have done something very similar in the past. This was modified from other versions to include a certain number of kicks rather than a specific underwater distance. UWK = Underwater Kick. SCM.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCY
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This set was done a day after a very intense quality set of 50s. The aim was to be a bit less intense while covering some distance, then hitting a leg-heavy backstroke set. SCY.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCY
Blastoffs were done in about 10 feet of depth, pushing off the bottom and dolphin kicking in a streamline position through the surface.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Coming off a 3.5-day championship meet that was pretty successful for us, the main part of our top group took a day off and then did this set on the first day back. Lots of kicking and freestyle to swim the meet out and get our legs behind us again.
We did this in a SCM pool.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCY
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM
Each round of this set, we swapped in a mystery set that the swimmers did not know ahead of time as the “unique challenge” in brackets.
The last challenge was “Save your partner”. Each swimmer had to swim a 100 off the blocks under a certain coach-determined time. Fail to make the time and your partner has to do it too. It was a somewhat clumsy attempt to get some peer-pressure motivation going.
The rest of the set worked well, with some of the unique challenges being a bit off-the-wall.
FPA = Fastest Possible Average
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
I thought I had this one planned out pretty well… turns out we had to insert a 25 EZ with the :40 rest t I get back to same end as our fins.
All in all, it was a good set.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
The ? for the fly swims off the blocks were a 50, 100, 150, and on the 4th round swimmers had the option to do a 200 or to do a 100 with the goal to beat the time from round 1 (or face a second 100 from a dive). This set went very well for us.
Coach Emily Wylam, University of Rochester
NB = No breath
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We did this one recently. The group had a very positive, motivated vibe and we threw down some very good swims. We did not time the 25s, just asked for effort and concentration.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We did this set 6x through after a tough main set, and the kids did well with the underwaters especially. With 4 people in each lane, one person was on each part.
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Coach Brad Herndon, Guilford College & Greensboro Community YMCA
4x
4 x 25 FR kick with board fast @ :30
3 x 25 FR kick with board fast @ :25
2 x 25 FR kick with board fast @ :20 (make it!)
1 x 25 CH kick with board easy @ 1:05
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This was our SCY workout this morning. The race pace set at the end came from Mike Anzano of COM Aquatics
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCY. We are currently swimming 4 swimmers per lane with 2 at each end of the pool. Some of the instructions reflect this arrangement.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We are currently able to practice with three swimmers per lane, and this kick set allowed us to get some excellent leg work in while keeping our distance.
The “black line” mentioned is about 15m from one end in our SCY pool. “Blast offs” consist of repeated streamlined vertical jumping off the bottom of the pool.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
HVO = 25 from dive at ~P100
This set was originally published to this blog in May of 2018.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
FPA = Fastest Possible Average
This set was originally published here in May 2018
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This kick set worked well with the wide range of kicking speeds in our group. Swimmers aim for the fastest total 400 time (25+50+75+100+75+50+25=400), always doing a 50 easy on a :50 interval. 6 easy 50s means there is a total of 5:00 “active recovery” in the total set. Coach can start the watch and just subtract 5:00 from the total time at the end of the second 25. We had swimmers pick one kick (stroke) for the first round and then they can change for the 2nd round.
This set was originally published to this blog in April 2018
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This kick set was able to provide a good challenge for everyone in our group, regardless of their kicking ability. Intervals were the same across the group for the 25s until the last round. Swimmers chose their longer distance based on kicking ability.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This is an example of a set we would typically do about a week and a half to two weeks prior to a championship meet. It works front end speed and gets the legs burning too. 25m pool.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
As many rounds as you want (and then a few more!)
This post was originally published here in January 2015
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
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