Tag: Woodruff

More Butterfly Snakes

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

SCM. We have done similar sets before, but doing “Snakes” remains one of my favorite ways to get in a challenging fly set with good technique. We have 5 lanes to work with, so we do 125s swimming up lane 1, returning in lane 2, then lane 3, etc. We split the swimmers up into three levels of ability based on how well they hold together their butterfly strokes under fatigue. We go in order from fastest to slowest and everyone is on the same interval. The fly swimming has to be fast enough to be “in rhythm” and on top of the water.

Shorty IM Set

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

SCM. This IM set turned out to be a good challenging one for our group. The 150s IM were done with 50m of 2 strokes and 25m of the other two strokes, with the assignments rotating each rep. For example, #1 was 50 fly/50back/25 breast/25 free. We used 4 different intervals for our group in a 25m pool.

Speed Lemons

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This set was a pretty good one for us tonight. Swimmers who were diligent with their efforts got some very good results, particularly at the end. All of the 50s were swimmer’s choice of stroke, but the instructions were to stick with the same stroke for three 50s in a row. We did this set in a 25m pool. The 50s on :40 definitely made them feel the squeeze of fatigue, but they were able to give it a little extra juice when the interval opened up at the end.

Distance Freestyle Pacing & Control

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

This set was seeking a very specific pattern of pacing on each 600, as indicated by the line graph for each one. Failure to split it correctly meant repeating that 600. To interpret…

#1 – 300 at a consistent pace, 300 at a faster pace, also consistent

#2 – 3 x 200 descend, each one at a consistent pace

#3 – 2 sets of 3 x 100 descending

#4 – 4 x 100 descend + 200 fast and consistent

#5 – 3 x 100 descend + 300 fast and consistent

#6 – 2 x 100 descend + 400 fast and consistent

Here is how it turned out for our swimmer, with splits written next to each graph:

We had to do the first 600 twice due to some early set rusty-ness. Splits for the first of those two are not included.

Breaststroke Set-Up Set

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Our breaststroke group did this set recently as preparation for our main race pace set. This set seemed to flow well and then we really had some great results on the race pace set (which I will post tomorrow).

SCY

Explanation of terms:

3K1P = 3 kicks 1 pull drill

2K1P = 2 kicks 1 pull drill

2 up/2 down= 2 strokes underwater, 2 normal strokes

2 x P.O. = double pullouts off each wall

Speed Power Power Speed and GO!

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

We did this set this week and got some tremendous results. Swimmers got to choose their strokes by round. The 2 x 25s with the bucket seemed to help awaken their speed for the following 100. We did this in a SCM pool.

3x:

1 x 25 fast from start @:40

2 x 25 fast resisted with a bucket @:40

1 x 25 fast (no bucket) from a push @:40

1 x 100 easy swim any stroke 2:30

1 x 100 all out from dive

1 x 400 25 kick/25 swim with paddles and snorkels

Infinite 50s Mindbender

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

We started this set with about 40 minutes left in practice:

We started doing 50s fast from a dive. I wasn’t sure how many we would do. Just when I thought their enthusiasm (and speed) was starting to wane, I challenged an individual to hit a faster time to end the round for the group and start the 200 easy.

It worked better than I could have hoped. On each round, we had at least one swimmer expand their perception of their capability and get to be the hero for their teammates.

Short Axis Awesomeness

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

In this one, we spent some time working on fly and breast together. It turned out to be a little more challenging than I expected. We did this SCM.


The 50s breast started out with 2 pullouts and swim the rest of the 1st 25. On the 2nd 25, do 2 cycles with a 3-second glide, and then 1 cycle with a 2 second glide, 1 cycle with a 1-second glide, and then hit “speed drill” br (narrow pull, narrow kick, fast hips a la Dave Salo) for the remainder of the 25.


Fly 25s we were looking for a consistently high effort and no breath on the last 7m into the finish.
The 8 x 25 fly is only done once before you head back up the set.