Free Swimming Workouts, Sets, Ideas, and Dryland Exercises from Professional Coaches Around the World
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
After two weeks back in the water, we did this one to push the pace and enjoy racing our teammates. To properly social distance, we had swimmers going from both ends of the pool, thus the opposite instructions that allowed me to time both groups. SCY.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This is a two part SCY workout. The first set was freestyle and had two options — long swims for the distance group, 75s for the middle distance kids. We did a 200 ez before the second part, which proved to be quite a challenge.
Part 1
Part 2
This set was first published here in May 2018.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This set can be done in a SCM or LCM pool. All 35, 65, and 95s are done from a start and timed to the head crossing the line.
Athletes are instructed to go all out on the 35. The goal for the 65 equals 2 x 35m time. The goal for the 95 equals the 35m time + the 65m time.
4x
35m sprint, 100 ez @4:00
65m sprint, 100 ez @4:00
95m sprint, 100 ez @5:00
We did the set 4x through to allow our IMers to go 1x each stroke.
This set was originally published to this blog in May 2018.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM. Our group responded really well to this set.
This set was originally published here in May 2018
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This pre-set led us to some pretty good performances on the “long quality” 6 x 300s.
This post was originally published to this blog in April 2018
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This was in a 25m pool. The goal on the 85s was to beat your best 100y time.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM. We did this IM Set recently. At the conclusion of the set I asked each swimmer two give me two scores on a scale of 1-10. The first score was for how challenging the set was (lowest score was an 8), the second was for how well they thought they did (lowest score was a 7).
Note the stroke instructions on the right were different for each of the four parts on each round. On the 16×25 of the fly round, the EZ 25 was permitted to be freestyle, but on all other rounds all 25s were of the specific stroke.
Total distance: 4,000m
Total time: 1 hour, 20 minutes
Q: Why is it called the “I.M. Merry-Go-Round”?
A: Because it looks fun, but after an hour you can’t wait for it to stop!
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This set builds toward a fast finish.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM pool. The goal was to really push ourselves to hold some aggressive times in practice. The main group did the top set while the distance crew did the bottom set.
If done in a SCY pool, I would probably change the goal on the 150 to “beat your best 200 time by :20”
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
For this set we split the group up into distance and mid/sprint to do these sets in parallel. This allowed me to time both groups by myself on a single watch. Both groups commented that they thought the race pace set was tough but they liked it.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Remember when everything used to be $1 at the dollar store? Simple and easy to figure out like today’s workout intervals.
Done in 6 sets of 10. Everything is @ 1:00. Every set finishes with 1:00 vertical kick with hands out of the water. This allows time to see the next set of 10. FPA = Fastest Possible Average. JMI = Just Make It
Set #1 — 3 x ( 25 no breath free + 50 choice FPA + 75 JMI) + 1:00 vertical kick
Set #2 — 4.5 x (50 choice FPA + 75 JMI) + 1:00 vertical kick
Set #3 — 3 x (75 choice FPA + 50 ez choice) + 100 Free FPA + 50 ez + 100 Free FPA + 1:00 vertical kick
Set #4 — 3 x ( 25 no breath free + 50 build w fast turn + 75 choice FPA) + 1:00 vertical kick
Set #5 — 25 all out + 50 ez + 50 all out + 50 ez + 75 all out + 50 ez + 50 all out + 25 ez + 25 all out + 1:00 vertical kick
Set #6 – 4.5 x (100 free FPA + 50 ez) + 1:00 vertical kick
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Coach Mike Cook, Mason Makos
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
FPA = Fastest Possible Average.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM. This one requires one stopwatch per swimmer. In each set, the fast parts add up to a 400. Stopping and starting a watch with each fast part will give total 400 time at the end of the set.
Coach Rory McGlynn, ESB Swimming Club
I thought I might share a deceivingly tough sprint set that I drop on my home programme 2-3 times per season.
Depending on what you are looking for , I have sometimes only timed the 50’s or just the 100’s.
On one occasion we turned off all the pace clocks and simply went off whistle on each interval, focusing on effort level and technical aspects such as the efficiency of breakouts under pressure.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Fun challenge set combining a little technique work, quality, and some underwater kicking across our 6 lane pool.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This set was originally posted here October 17, 2018
Every swim was on a 1:00 interval. Everything is fast unless otherwise indicated. In a few cases, we had to add an extra 25 easy to get our swimmers back to the end of the pool with all of our equipment. Otherwise, this set worked really well. SCM.
Mathieu Leroy, Bishop’s Stortford Swimming Club, UK
Who said 25’s can’t be hard?
Age-Group 13/18 yo.
50-100 swimmers (even 200).
Power and lactic workout.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This is one of my all-time favorite quality sets for LCM.
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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
We don’t have enough buckets or drag sox for our whole group, so we split the group and did them separately. 2x each station with a quality set after each station.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This set is similar to yesterday’s post but a slightly different format led to a very different feel.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Our sprint group enjoyed this one recently. P100 = at 100m race pace. The 350/300/250 was just steady good technique freestyle with the distance option decided by their relative distance capacity.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM. Simple Set
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We did this set off the blocks, and several of our swimmers said they liked it despite the fact that it turned out to be much harder than they expected. SCM.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
On the 175s, the goal is to beat your best 200 time (should get them at least :20 rest on those).
This turned out to be a good set for us, though we ended up needing to make some modifications at the end due to time constraints.
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