Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
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.

Alex Morris, Kansas City Blazers
Looking to build speed on the stroke 50s throughout the set, work on closing speed in a 200 race
2 rounds, can change stroke between rounds
100 free @ 1:45
2×50 stroke @ :50 – 200RP +1
100 Free @ 1:45
4×50 @ 1:00 – @ 200RP
100 free @ 1:45
6×50 @ 1:10 – 200RP -1
300 ez – 50 kick/50 scull/50 drill
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM. The purpose of this set was to be swimming at around 100 race pace at our designated cycle count (determined previously).

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Editor’s note: This set first appeared on this blog on May 24, 2017.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Editor’s Note: This set was originally published to this blog in December 2017.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
LCM
We did this quality set interspersed with some stretch cord work today.
The goal on the 35 and 65 was to get a total time faster than your best 100.
Goal on the 85 was to beat best 100 time by 4 seconds.
Goal on the 100 was simply AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.
I really liked how it demanded flat-out speed early on and then encouraged them to hold it for longer.

Gordy Westerberg, Clovis Swim Club
3 Rounds
50 chute for feel
50 from dive on :50
3×100 at 400 pace on interval ~25 seconds rest
50 push all out
E200
Goal of this set was to work on the middle 300 of a 400. I wanted them to go fast on the dive, not reckless, so they start the 3x100s with an elevated HR. Then apply pressure on all 3 100s. Once they are really tired, then sprint that last 50.
Results? They were way too conservative on round 1 in the dive and first 2 100s. Round 2 was better and then round 3 is where they should’ve been.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCY
On the second part of this set, we actually cut the 200 down to a 150 and took a shot at our P400IM.

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCY

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
The purpose of this set was to work on the 3rd 50 of our 200 events. The shorter interval on the 2nd 50 makes that 3rd one a bit tougher, so the goal was to keep #3 equal to number 1 and 2. Then bring #4 home even faster. The first three were done to a “foot touch” and the last one to a hand finish.

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This a two part SCY workout. The first set was a freestyle and has 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

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We use 5 lanes of our 6-lane pool during practice. We did the following circuit that used an underwater camera hooked up to a time-delayed DVR and TV. The camera was positioned to gets “head-on” look at the swimmer coming down the lane. We looked at the video immediately after each swimmer finished the 25 in lane 6. This allowed us to make some technical adjustments while still performing a challenging set. Swimmers left the wall :15 apart so that the camera could adequately film each one.

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
The idea behind this SCM set was to challenge our swimmers to maintain “top” speed over progressively longer distances. It turned out to be a very difficult set, but one that went well.
We used our pace cards to set objectives for the 15m sprints, and then the instructions from there were to go “all out” on the 35s.
From there, we set goals for the 55s and so on.
For example:
15m time = 6.6
35m time = 18.2 (difference = 11.6)
55m goal = 18.2 + 11.6 = 29.8
75m goal = 29.8 + 11.6 = 40.4
95m goal = 40.4 + 11.6 = 52.0
This gets difficult quickly! As an alternative to the math above, you can re-calculate the goal after the 55s and the 75s.
One thing I would change would be to give a little more active recovery between swims. We just didn’t have the lane space/time to make this happen.

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
I have posted here before how we sometimes use “Snakes” (swim one direction in each lane, sidewinding your way down the pool) as a means for training fly in narrow lanes. This set took it a step further with the final 25.
I timed each individual on the final 25. Their goal was to score points by achieving their individual race pace but also by kicking underwater to one of two orange hockey pucks placed on the bottom at about 8 and 12m off the Wall. This dual incentive led to some individual experimentation with more underwater kicks than they are normally comfortable with.
RACE PACE + GREAT UNDERWATER KICKING = SUCCESS!!!
When swimmers finished the final 25 of each snake, they added the points to a tally counter on a nearby iPad. This helped us keep an accurate tally without me doing extra work. We ended up requiring 6 rounds to achieve our 300 point goal.

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
The purpose of this set was to generate some fatigue with fast fly swims and then:
Our swimmers found it quite challenging. We had around a 50% success rate.

Gordy Westerberg
Brad Robbins
We saw some killer speed with this one today.
Had a girl breaststroke push a 30.8 on the last 50, a boy flyer push a 23.9, and a couple milers pushing 24s for free!
Very fun to watch!

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Ryan Woodruff
The purpose of this set was to help our distance freestylers refine their sense of pace and feel pretty good doing it.
Coach Mathieu Leroy, France

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Ryan Woodruff
Follow @WoodruffRyan
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SCY
? x 50 @ :50
Using a dry-erase board, give the swimmers a different set of instructions for every 50, erasing the old instructions and writing the new one while they swim. Mix it up, changing speeds, strokes, drills, breathing patterns, etc. Don’t let the swimmers know what is coming beyond the next 50. All swims are choice unless the stroke is specified. Here’s an example:
#1- P200+5
#2- P200+3
#3- P200+1
#4- P200-1
#5- EZ free B3
#6- Free B5
#7- Free B7
#8- At count
#9- Race!
#10- At cycle count -1
#11- 25 underwater dolphin kick/ 25 sprint
#12- 25 sprint/25 underwater dolphin kick
#13- 25 race/25 ez kick
#14- Fly B 1 up/1 down
#15- Fly B 1 up/2 down
#16- Fly B 1 up/3 down
#17- Fast fly
#18- EZ breaststroke
#19- Race!
#20- At cycle count -2
#21- 12.5 fast/12.5 ez of same stroke as #20
#22- At cycle count
#23- Breast with dolphin kick
#24- Backstroke 12.5 spin drill/12.5 swim
#25- P1650
…
The set could go on for as long as you like. The changing up speeds and instructions every 50 keeps the swimmers alert and the set fresh and interesting. What other interesting instructions can you come up with?
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Here’s a set I did with our Senior 1 (National) Group. I thought it went real well, kids loved it, but were dead tired.
Coach Ryan Woodruff
LCM
1 x 400 free @ 6:20 25m at tempo/25m ez free
2 x 200 free @ 3:10 35m at tempo/15m ez free
4 x 100 prime stroke @ 2:00
#1 – 35m at tempo/65m ez
#2 – 50m at tempo/50m ez
#3 – 65m at tempo/35m ez
#4 – 75m at tempo/25m ez
6 x 50 prime stroke, just fast, no tempo trainers
#1 @ 1:20
#2 @ 1:10
#3 @ 1:00
#4,5,6 @ :50