Free Swimming Workouts, Sets, Ideas, and Dryland Exercises from Professional Coaches Around the World
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We did this set 6x through after a tough main set, and the kids did well with the underwaters especially. With 4 people in each lane, one person was on each part.
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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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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We are currently able to practice with three swimmers per lane, and this kick set allowed us to get some excellent leg work in while keeping our distance.
The “black line” mentioned is about 15m from one end in our SCY pool. “Blast offs” consist of repeated streamlined vertical jumping off the bottom of the pool.
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!
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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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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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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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
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Elaina Moy Jacobs, Mason Makos
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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