Tag: Quality

The Speed Machine

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Problem: Schedules and pool availability meant we had a crowded pool and only 5 lanes.

Solution: The Speed Machine

SCY with starting blocks at one end

Swimmers start in lane 1 and progress to lane 5. All swims timed by coach to a hand finish.

We did 8 rounds @7:00. Swimmers stick with a single stroke for each round.

Lane 1: 1 x Dive 25 fast, climb out and walk back around to lane 2 @1:30

Lane 2: 1 x Dive 25 fast, finish, get time, and then duck under the lane line to lane 3 @:40

Lane 3: 1 x 50 fast from push, get time, duck under lane line to lane 4 @:50

Lane 4: 1 x 50 fast from push, get time, duck under lane line to lane 5 @:50

Lane 5: 50 easy and then climb out and walk back around to lane 2 to begin the next round.

We went in a generally fastest-to-slowest order and swimmers went :10 apart. This setup allowed for excellent racing opportunities. Swimmers always had a swimmer faster or slower than them in the next lane to race.

Golf & Quality

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

SCY

Golf= add time (in seconds) + cycles (per 50). Bring this score down.
OTB = off the blocks, fast.
All choice, but do the Golf and OTB the same stroke for each part.
Context: we are less than 48 hours after our first SCY meet of the season, where we swam a very full order of events in short sessions. We had a medium-difficulty practice yesterday. We were on fire with this today.

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.

LCM Sprint Stations

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This was the second time we set up a series of sprint stations in our long course pool utilizing a 10m diving well and the regular lanes. We got some great times overall.

We rotated through the stations 3x. The buckets we use are like parachutes, but are just 1-gallon buckets from Home Depot.

The run & dive “50s” in the diving we are really just 20m (10m across the diving well and return), so they got lots of rest there.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Pre-Set with Fast Turns and Then We Go Racing!!!

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

In the pre-set, we used an approximately 10-foot long rope (with a loop in each end) to have a swimmer stand on deck and pull a teammate into a fast turn (imagine a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier accelerating from zero to takeoff) and then sprinting through the breakout and one cycle. P100 = 100m race pace. OTB = off the blocks, FAST!!! EZ = Easy speed. We did this set in a 25m pool.

Speed Lemons

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This set was a pretty good one for us tonight. Swimmers who were diligent with their efforts got some very good results, particularly at the end. All of the 50s were swimmer’s choice of stroke, but the instructions were to stick with the same stroke for three 50s in a row. We did this set in a 25m pool. The 50s on :40 definitely made them feel the squeeze of fatigue, but they were able to give it a little extra juice when the interval opened up at the end.

Speed Power Power Speed and GO!

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

We did this set this week and got some tremendous results. Swimmers got to choose their strokes by round. The 2 x 25s with the bucket seemed to help awaken their speed for the following 100. We did this in a SCM pool.

3x:

1 x 25 fast from start @:40

2 x 25 fast resisted with a bucket @:40

1 x 25 fast (no bucket) from a push @:40

1 x 100 easy swim any stroke 2:30

1 x 100 all out from dive

1 x 400 25 kick/25 swim with paddles and snorkels

Infinite 50s Mindbender

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

We started this set with about 40 minutes left in practice:

We started doing 50s fast from a dive. I wasn’t sure how many we would do. Just when I thought their enthusiasm (and speed) was starting to wane, I challenged an individual to hit a faster time to end the round for the group and start the 200 easy.

It worked better than I could have hoped. On each round, we had at least one swimmer expand their perception of their capability and get to be the hero for their teammates.

Speed with Unique Challenges

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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

Hour Of Power Revisited

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Ryan Wooodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

I have posted several “Hour of Power” type workouts on this blog over the years. Each one has been slightly different to work for the swimmers in my group that year, where we are in the season, and what course we were swimming (we train in SCM and SCY). Today’s version is one that I was particularly happy with for our squad for this year.

We used AquaVolo’s DragSox and simple 1-gallon buckets to pull behind us.

Blasting Buckets and Sox

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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.