Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
50s 5-4-3-2-1-1-2-3-4-5 = The Valley

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Free Swimming Workouts, Sets, Ideas, and Dryland Exercises from Professional Coaches Around the World
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
50s 5-4-3-2-1-1-2-3-4-5 = The Valley

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We have enough Drag Sox (unpaid plug: get them at Aquavolo.com) for about half of my group to wear them at the same time. This I came up with this kick set that weather ended up forcing us to modify.

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This distance set was designed for a medium intensity day — I wanted the swimmers to descend the 600s without going all out. It was also an opportunity to get a better individual sense of how effort relates to heart rate.

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This set was a lead-in for our main quality set — just a chance to work some technique and make sure every stroke was ready to go.

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This set allowed us to hit race over a range of distances from 100 to 500 pace. It seemed a good challenge — doable and not super-hard.
SCY

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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

FPA = Fastest Possible Average.
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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This is a variation on the Nitro whistle set. We just did it backstroke, I shouted “GO!” as the intervals came up rather than blowing a whistle, and we added a few quality swims.
Swimmers begin with a 25 back @:20, then a 25 @:25 and so on, increasing to a 50 at the earliest opportunity, increasing to a 75 at the earliest opportunity… and so on. Their instructions were to make the jump in distance as soon as they felt it was feasible.
We paused after the :50, after the 1:30, and after the 2:00 to do the 50 ez – 100 fast backstroke-50 ez. We had some excellent performances on the 100s backstroke.

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
6,400 SCM

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
9 x 400 IM done as…(SCM)
#1
12 x 25 fast @:30 (4 each fly/bk/br)
1 x 100 free strong & steady @1:20
#2
4 x 100 IM @ 1:30 Descend 1-4
#3
1 x 400 IM @6:30 (descend #3-6-9)
#4
8 x 25 fast @:30 (4 each fly/bk)
1 x 100 breast strong & steady @1:30
1 x 100 free strong & steady @1:20
#5
2 x 200 IM @3:00 descend
#6
1 x 400 IM @6:30
#7
4 x 25 fast fly @:30
1 x 100 strong & steady bk @1:25
1 x 100 strong & steady br @1:30
1 x 100 strong & steady fr @1:20
#8
1 x 400 IM ez @6:30
#9
1 x 400 IM fast
Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
This set allowed us to keep the group together while some swimmers trained back and others trained breast. This was a small group at an early morning practice, so keeping the group together was helpful for keeping the energy up.
For the 50s, backstroke drills are in blue, breaststroke drills in green.
We went on the same intervals for both strokes — backstrokers did 150s and breaststrokers did 125s.
SCY

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
These could be done any stroke. We did the either all of one stroke or 6 and 6 of two different strokes.

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCM. This one requires one stopwatch per swimmer. In each set, the fast parts add up to a 400. Stopping and starting a watch with each fast part will give total 400 time at the end of the set.

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Here are brief definitions of many of the abbreviations and terms that I frequently use in workouts posted to this blog.


Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Hold your technique and maintain your rhythm as the fatigue builds. A/B/C instructions based on varying levels of butterfly-specific endurance. SCM.

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We do this set or something similar a few times per year. Good test for fitness, ability to recover (how quick does HR drop on the last three?) and sense of pace/ability to descend. SCM.

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
Fun challenge set combining a little technique work, quality, and some underwater kicking across our 6 lane pool.

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
We did this set 6x through…but the point was to go until everyone failed at least 1x. Failure was defined as not making all 3 x 100 on a given interval.

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
SCY

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
In this case we had 5 lanes SCM. The interval allowed for about :30 rest. KOB = kick on back.

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA
I wanted to get some low-to-medium intensity backstroke technique done.
“Beams” … our 25m indoor pool has 4 large steel beams that run perpendicular to the direction we swim…so for “beams” we kick on our side and take a stroke every time we pass under the beam.

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

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.
