Tag: Woodruff

Friday Fly Day Relays

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

We sometimes swim butterfly relays in order to get some quality butterfly swimming done without the need to one-arm drill or lose our rhythm in order to not smack arms in narrow lanes.  Recently, we did a little change-up on the relays that worked well.

  • 3-4 swimmers per lane are on a relay team.
  • We placed markers (in our case, orange hockey pucks) on the bottom of the pool 15m and 20m from the start end.
  • Each swimmer swims 3 times.  The first time, the swimmer sprints fly to 15m mark, does an open turn on an imaginary wall at that point, and swims back.  Next swimmer does the same.
  • The second time a swimmer goes, he goes to 20m and back.  The 3rd time to 25m and back.
  • After the relay concludes, swim a bit easy, and do it again! Change up the distances, the order, the number of total swims, whatever you want!

Tempo Trainer Set for 1/2 the Group

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

We have enough Tempo Trainers for half of our top group to use them at the same time, so I devised this two-station set.  The set in red is designed to use the Tempo Trainers to challenge their ability to hold Distance Per Cycle at  race speed.  The set in blue encouraged long, kick-driven strokes.

Tempo Trainer Kick Set

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

We did a version of the following kick set to challenge our dolphin kicking ability and to probe the limits of our ability to kick fast underwater.  We used Finis Tempo Trainers and did the first round with the beeping tempo set at .60, second round at .50, third round at .45, fourth round at .40.  Some swimmers were able to maintain an effective dolphin kick down to .40. Others lost “hold” on the water and became inefficient.  This is potentially useful information for our training.

4 Rounds of:

8 x 25 @ :35
10 underwater kicks at TT tempo, then swim ez the rest of the way

1 x 50 ez free B3

Backstroke Progression

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

3 x 75 backstroke w/ band (around ankles) descend 1-3 @ :20 rest
3 x 75 backstroke w/ buoy and band (around ankles) descend 1-3 @:20 rest
3 x 75 backstroke w/paddles, buoy, and band (around ankles) descend 1-3 @:20 rest
3 x 25 spin drill (max hand speed, sitting up) w/band and buoy @:30 rest
1:00 rest
1 x 200 backstroke for time

The Fly Back Grinder

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

1 x 200  done as 100 fly strong/100 back get your time @ 3:30
1 x 100 ez @ 2:00
1 x 300  done as 100 fly strong/200 back get your time @5:00
1 x 100 ez @ 2:00
1 x 400  done as 100 fly strong/300 back get your time @ 6:30
1 x 300 ez swim

add up your 100-200-300 backstroke times.  Now go:

600 backstroke for time — try to beat that total time!

Fly Fri

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

This was our most recent version of our Friday Fly Day Set:

LCM

30 x 50 @ 1:30
descend 1-3
After #1 of each set of 3 – 5 pushups
After #2 of each set of 3 -10 squats