Free Swimming Workouts, Sets, Ideas, and Dryland Exercises from Professional Coaches Around the World
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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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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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We use our old broken stretch cords tied together to form a longer cord that stretches across all of our SCM lanes at the 12.5m point. We tie it off to the lifeguard stand and use it encourage disciplined underwater kicking.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This was challenging for some. Always good to challenge us underwater. Will probably use this set to build off of for later in the season.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We did this set on the first day of a new season. On the 300s, the focus was on doing effective underwater kicks, making them progressively faster on the 200s and 100s.
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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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCY. 10x through @3:30
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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 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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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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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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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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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This is part of a practice I did recently with our top 11-12s. Our main focus was on underwater kicking. Our pool has a black line across the bottom approximately 9 yards from the wall.
For the 1:00 vertical kick and rotate, we were flutter kicking with our arms folded across our chest, performing a 90 degree rotation about every 5 seconds accompanied by my demonstration.
Texas 25 = push off and streamline underwater kick to the black line, flip, 4 underwater kicks, sprint back to the wall, turn, 4 underwater kicks and sprint to the opposite end. Texas 25 = 45 yards (everything is bigger in Texas).
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
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Chris Brookover, YBCC Phoenix
This one is simple and could be changed around but it turned out really well. The fly 25’s turned out to be more of a kick set than swim.
A+ had 1:20 Base for the IM, A had 1:25 and B 1:30
6 x 25 @ :35 Fly – Minimum FIVE Kicks
4 x 100 @ 1:20 – 25 FR / 25 BK / 25 BR / 25 FR
Rest :40
6 x 25 @ :35 Fly – Minimum FIVE Kicks
Rest 1:00
8 x 25 @ :40 Fly – Minimum SIX Kicks
3 x 200 @ 2:40 50 FR / 50 BK / 50 BR / 50 FR
Rest :40
8 x 25 @ :40 Fly – Minimum SIX Kicks
Rest :40
10 x 25 Fly @ :45 Minimum EIGHT Kicks
2 x 300 IM @ 4:00 75 Free / 75 Back / 75 Breast / 75 Free
10 x 25 Fly @ :45 Minimum EIGHT Kicks
Rest :30
12 x 25 Fly @ :50 Minimum NINE Kicks
1 x 400 IM @ 5:15 100 FR / 100 BK / 100 BR / 100 FR
12 x 25 @ :35 EZ FREE
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
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Mike Cook, Mason Makos
4 rounds odd rounds fly even rounds back. Fast fish kicks underwater get up when you decelerate into fast stroke. Stay with the beep and feel the difference. Fly no breath first stroke. Can not past 15 meter with fins
4x8x25 @35 fins
1st round TT@0.7. 2nd round TT@0.6. 3rd round TT@0.5. 4th round TT @0.4
Now PICK A COMFORTABLE SETTING AND SET YOUR TRAINER 0.1 lower and do the next set
20×50 @50. Odds fly to back evens back with fins
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
On this set, we used stretch cords with a teammate providing the resistance for the 4 x 8 underwater kicks (do all 4x within the 1:00 interval).
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This was a brief underwater kicking set that we did in a SCM pool as a pre-set before yesterday’s post. The instructions were to kick fast underwater to 12.5m every time (this was cut off in the picture below). For the first 6, the swimmers held one paddle out in front of them with the broad surface perpendicular to the oncoming water (to create drag).
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We used stretch cordz for this set. We don’t have power towers, so swimmers partnered up and one person supplied the resistance while the other swam. The real challenge of the set was to hold the stroke together at speed after the resisted sprint cycles.
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Here is a underwater kicking and sprint combo that we did recently. The part in red was done with stretch cord resistance.
After the kicking pre-set, we did the 60 x 25 set adapted from this article about Gregg Troy’s favorite sprint sets. Turned out to be an awesome day!
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We used these two stations to measure our underwater kicking ability, keeping half of the group busy with some freestyle technique work in the meantime.
