Tag: Underwater

Short Underwaters, Sprints, and Race Pace

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This was our SCY workout this morning. The race pace set at the end came from Mike Anzano of COM Aquatics

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It is amazing what people can accomplish with enough motivation!!!

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This was our finish to practice today. We have done 25s underwater pretty consistently, so every swimmer knows his or her best time. The lifetime bests were written down on a dry erase board and this challenge was thrown. If you can beat your best twice, you get to go home. Amazingly, more than half of our swimmers were able to accomplish this feat. The mind is an amazing thing!

Age Group Long Axis and Dolphin Kicking

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This practice was for our group of 10-12 year-olds. We focused on long-axis efficiency and finished with an emphasis on underwater kicking. The “bang bang” refers to a coach tapping a wrench in the side of the pool to indicate when to take a stroke.

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Underwater Excellence

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

SCM. We did this kick set recently and our swimmers were very engaged. We timed the underwater 25s (we keep team records on this) and asked for an elite effort on the green parts. We ended up with several lifetime best 25s underwater and an excellent overall group effort.

The intervals on the ez Swim were deliberately large so that the last person would finish before we had to dive on the next 25.

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Steal the Underwater Bacon

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Swimmers are divided into an even number of lanes with each lane serving as a team.. Lane 1 competes with Lane 2, lane 3 competes with Lane 4, etc. On the coach’s “go,” one swimmer in each lane pushes off to begin an underwater dolphin kicking length. As they push off, a coach throws one of our orange hockey pucks (we frequently use as bottom markers, but you can use anything that rapidly sinks) into the pool between each pair of lanes. The swimmers in each pair of lanes race dolphin kick to the puck and try to grab it off the bottom first. If you have the swimmers evenly matched by dolphin kicking ability you will get some excellent races!

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Speed, Underwater Kicking, and Fly

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Little bit of speed, underwater kicking, and fly. Dirty 20 = 10m no breath free sprint, flip, and dolphin kick back to the wall. B3 = breathe every 3 strokes.

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Underwaters & Speed Backstroke

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

In this set, we used orange hockey pucks on the bottom of the pool to mark the 10m mark we wanted them to kick past.

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Fartlek and Stations

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

We did the fartlek set followed by 4 rotations of the stations below. The diving well underwater kicks were done hooked to a stretch cord anchored to a nearby fence for resistance.

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Underwater Kicking Challenge Set

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

We did this set in a 25 m pool with a stretch cord stretched across the lanes at the halfway mark. We used hockey pucks on the bottom so the swimmers could tell where the stretch cord was located.

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The Oxygen Sucker

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

The first 25 underwater kick will suck the oxygen out of you..then you gotta hit a FAST 50. 75 easy to recover, then do it again. SCM.

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Underwater Kicking Squeeze Set

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

We had a small amount of time left after our main set today and we had to squeeze into three lanes.  We got it a little good work in on our underwater dolphin kicks with this simple set.

12 x 50 @ 1:00

#1 – Kick 10m fast off each wall

#2 – Kick 10m fast off the 1st wall, 15m off the second wall

#3 – 25 swim, 25 max underwater kick for speed and distance

We wore fins for the first 9 and then no fins for the last 3.

 

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Underwater Kicking & IM Blast Set

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This workout involved two stations – one working underwater kicks and one doing an IM set. We did each station 3 times — the cord set was the same each time, and the IM set progressed through the three versions listed. The 3rd round was essentially a broken 400 IM.

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