Free Swimming Workouts, Sets, Ideas, and Dryland Exercises from Professional Coaches Around the World
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
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We have been focusing on underwater kicking quite a bit recently. Today we injected some underwater work to our warmup (SCM):
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
LCM
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
LCM. This set makes use of the 12m diving well that sits alongside the 50m lanes we use. In order to maximize our space with our entire team practicing at once, we occasionally use it this way. For ease of communication, we call one width of the diving well a “25.”
We used 1-gallon buckets tied to waist belts for the set of 8 x50, timing each 25 and emphasizing racing a teammate.
For the diving well set, we used the aquavolo drag sox. The contrast between resisted kicking and non-resisted (when we take the Sox off) leads to some excellent speedy UW kicking.
Coach John Beyer, Calvert Aquatics Club, Southern Maryland
Here is a Fly, Back, Underwater practice I had my 13+ swimmers do.
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
We did this set recently and had a great workout. Mixing back and free for our long-axis focused swimmers.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
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
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
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
As many rounds as you want (and then a few more!)
This post was originally published here in January 2015
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Steady kick for distance on the 2:00 part. Then kick the A or B distance on the black parts fast for time.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
FPA = Fastest Possible Average.
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
We have enough Drag Sox (unpaid plug: get them at Aquavolo.com) for about half of my group to wear them at the same time. This I came up with this kick set that weather ended up forcing us to modify.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We use our old broken stretch cords tied together to form a longer cord that stretches across all of our SCM lanes at the 12.5m point. We tie it off to the lifeguard stand and use it encourage disciplined underwater kicking.
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
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Had the opportunity to use some deep water this morning. In our case the “black line” is about 10m from the wall.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Different distances for different kicking abilities. When repeating a distance, go faster.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
HVOs = Sprint 25s at ~100 pace
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM. For the broken 225 kick, we got our total kicking time (total time minus 3:20 for the 4 x 50 @:50). The goal on the following 200 was to beat that broken 225 time by at least 10 seconds.
In hindsight, the goal on the 200 wasn’t extremely tough, but it kept them honest and we got an effort level from the group that I would grade as an A-.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This is part of a practice I did recently with our top 11-12s. Our main focus was on underwater kicking. Our pool has a black line across the bottom approximately 9 yards from the wall.
For the 1:00 vertical kick and rotate, we were flutter kicking with our arms folded across our chest, performing a 90 degree rotation about every 5 seconds accompanied by my demonstration.
Texas 25 = push off and streamline underwater kick to the black line, flip, 4 underwater kicks, sprint back to the wall, turn, 4 underwater kicks and sprint to the opposite end. Texas 25 = 45 yards (everything is bigger in Texas).
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