Tag: Sprint

Taper Sprint Choice Set

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John Neff, Head Coach GPHS Girls Swim & Dive

Ran this yesterday – It’s a High school team taper set run in a 10-lane SCY pool. It went very well and we saw some awesome swims.

Favorite part of the set is that everyone gets to train together. The athletes are told that lower the yardage, the higher the intensity. Every individual swim is on 1:00, with the entire group racing at the end of each round for a fast 25 for time.

Swimmers can move between groups in between rounds and are encouraged to follow their meet order. 

Sprint group should be 100 Pace, IM is 200 Pace, Mid-Distance is 200 Pace.

Resist-Assist-BOOM!

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

SCY

We used stretch cords for this one. The 4-cycle sprints were done with the belt attached to a cord with a teammate holding the cord for resistance. They would quickly move to the outside lane for an assisted 25 with teammates pulling each other on the cord. As soon as possible after the assisted 25, we started the 75 off the block (OTB). We got some excellent performances on the 75s.

NOVA of Virginia Short Burst Speed and Speed Endurance

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Coach Alex Muni, Nova of Virginia

DKOB= Dolphin Kick on Back

“We are using different equipment to get different feel for the water and emphasizing/amplifying the use of different limbs to generate different speeds. In this set, I have the group descending 50s kick to a max effort and then going into a sustained speed group of 25s – they are trying to maintain tempo and overall effort under different fatiguing conditions which will help them adapt not only within an individual race, but in different races. The yardage isn’t high, but the effort and thought going into each effort should be.”

Undie-Sprint-Undie

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

SCY

The purpose of this set was to develop our underwater kicking ability while also working on sprinting after the underwaters. We typically took about

3 x (25 underwater off the blocks, walk back to the blocks) @ 1:00 rest

100 EZ

3 x (25 underwater kick off the blocks + open turn + 25 sprint free) @ 1:30 rest

100 EZ

3 x (25 underwater kick off the blocks + open turn + 25 sprint free + flip turn + 25 max underwater kicks + walk back to the blocks) @ 2:00 rest

100 EZ

High Octane with Nova of Virginia

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Alex Muni, Assistant National Coach – NOVA of VA Aquatics

For this one, we were targeting 100 pace and 50 speed. For the 50s off the block, swimmers were instructed to treat the race portion as they would a 50 (rate, power, and breathing (if free or fly)). For the 50s with equipment, we wanted them to get full reach and grab as well as getting as high out of the water as possible with assistance. There was a lot of race pace efforts, so active recovery was built into each swim/rep.

5 lanes, 34 swimmers. Speed, Underwaters, and Dryland.

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This is the sort of workout that could work well in the context of many high school practices. We had 5 lanes (lanes 2 through 6 in our pool). Swimmers dive off the blocks in lanes 3,4, and 5 for an all out 25. Their next instruction was depends on what lane they were in – either a 15m underwater kick, 5 push-ups/10 squats, or a 15m sprint. Get back behind the blocks and do it again!

Check Your Catch – Freestyle

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Coach Molly Hebzynski, University of Northern Colorado

We’ve done set variations of this set, but the one below is my favorite, and our swimmers too! We focus on maintaining a good body line and maximizing every catch without breathing. LB = Low buoy, NB = No Breath, the strap is a band around the ankles. On the 25s, our ultimate goal is to see how fast they can move across the pool in a 25 with no out-of-water arm recovery to check their catch efficiency.

SCY

2x

2×150 @ 2:30 50 Strap/50 Reg/50 LB (The switch at the walls is intended to be quick)

6×25 @ 1:00 NB Long Dog (Long Dog is the UW catch & pull)

R1: + LB 

R2: + Strap 

2×25 @ :45 Free NB @ 20 BB (20 Beats below Max HR)

1×100 @ 2:00 Reset/Recovery

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.

Animal 50s

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

We did this set in a pool with maximum depth of 4.5 feet. That allows for some challenging blastoffs (push vertically off the bottom in a streamline) and some good vertical turns (push off the bottom into a flip turn that happens mostly OUT of the water). We ended up doing them on 1:30 in a 25m pool.

IM Sprint Day

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Shawn Anderson, Swim Streamline at Northampton

The IM’s work on sprinting at Race Pace (RP) while the 50 Free drill forces us to focus on head and hand placement when tired.

TAO Drill (Tarzan, Alligator, Olympian) – This is a freestyle drill dividing the 25 yards (1 pool length) into thirds.

  • 1st – Third: Head is up looking straight ahead, hands entering the water at 11 and 1 o’clock
  • 2nd- Third: Head looking straight ahead, nose underwater, the eyes above water, hands entering the water at 11 and 1 o’clock
  • 3rd – Third: Head is down, hands entering the water at 11 and 1 o’clock

The set is done 3x times through, decreasing the 100s by 25 each and 10s off the interval each round. If you need more rest lengthen the 50-EZ interval as we want the swimmer performing the TAO drill when tired to force focus on head and hand placement/control.

Round 1
1×100 Fly RP @ 1:10/1:20/1:30
50-EZ (25xTAO Drill/25 Swim) @ 1:00/1:10

2×100 Back RP @ 1:10/1:20/1:30
50-EZ (25xTAO Drill/25 Swim) @ 1:00/1:10

3×100 Breast RP @ 1:10/1:20/1:30
50-EZ (25xTAO Drill/25 Swim) @ 1:00/1:10

4×100 Free RP @ 1:10/1:20/1:30
50-EZ (25xTAO Drill/25 Swim) @ 1:00/1:10

Round 2
(50 have more time to permit walk back to blocks)
1×75 Fly RP @ 1:00/1:10/1:20
50-EZ (25xTAO Drill/25 Swim) @ 1:10/1:20

2×75 Back RP @ 1:00/1:10/1:20
50-EZ (25xTAO Drill/25 Swim) @ 1:10/1:20

3×75 Breast RP @ 1:00/1:10/1:20
50-EZ (25xTAO Drill/25 Swim) @ 1:10/1:20

4×75 Free RP @ 1:00/1:10/1:20
50-EZ (25xTAO Drill/25 Swim) @ 1:10/1:20

Round 3
1×50 Fly RP @ 50/60/1:10
50-EZ (25xTAO Drill/25 Swim) @ 1:00/1:10

2×50 Back RP @ 50/60/1:10
50-EZ (25xTAO Drill/25 Swim) @ 1:00/1:10

3×50 Breast RP @ 50/60/1:10
50-EZ (25xTAO Drill/25 Swim) @ 1:00/1:10

4×50 Free RP @ 50/60/1:10
50-EZ (25xTAO Drill/25 Swim) @ 1:00/1:10

To make the set more challenging you can:

  • Flip the count on yardage by starting with 50 and work towards 100s
  • Flip the order of the quantity, start with 4×100 Fly and count to 1×100 Free
  • Add another set going down to 25’s


Note: 

This set can be done with age group kids by starting with 75’s and counting down to 25’s and adjusting the time to fit the group.

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.