Tag: Woodruff

Two Kinds of Pain

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Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

I needed some swimmers to do distance freestyle pace.  Others to do some fast stroke work.  22 swimmers in 5 lanes with 1 coach… how to manage?  Parallel sets that allowed me to go back and forth timing the two groups.

A photo posted by SwimmingWizard (@swimmingwizard) on Jan 4, 2017 at 5:29pm PST

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Dryland Pictionary

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

In order to keep dryland fun, competitive, and highly interactive, one thing we have done recently is have “Pictionary Dryland.”  We divide the group up into 3 teams of 6-8 people, each group with a whiteboard and dry erase marker.  I used this Pictionary word generator website for the clues,and show it to one artist from each team.  All 3 teams try to solve for the same word simultaneously.  The winning team gets the satisfaction of watching the other two teams do a dryland exercise (30 squats, 20 push-ups, etc.) immediately after that round.  Continue doing rounds of Pictionary and dryland exercises as long as you want.

An extra-awesome thing has started to happen… Sometimes, a few members of the winning team will do the dryland exercise with the losing team. Coach is mighty proud when that happens!

The Best Things I Read, Watched, Listened To, & Experienced To Become a Better Coach in 2016

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Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

In 2016, I tried to do a lot of reading, listening, watching and learning.  I am always trying to find ways to be better coach (and human being).  Here is my annual list of the highlights from my search.

I stumbled upon the eponymous Chris Ritter podcast, where Chris interviews swim coaches about their philosophies and lessons learned.  Though I haven’t listened to them all, I enjoyed the ones with Matt Kredich and Tony Batis.  I haven’t yet ponied up for the Coaches’ Corner, but there is a free 7-day trial you might want to check out.

Though it wasn’t from 2016, Admiral William H. McRaven’s excellent speech to graduates at the University of Texas in 2014 was new to me.  I sat my swimmers down and made them watch it.  They loved it.  See the transcript here or watch the video.

A few of my favorite reads on the technical side of swimming were Jake Shellenberger’s post “Arizona Drill with Weight Belts” and his book “Power & Towers & Swimming.”  I wrote in-depth about his book here and highly recommend it.

I had a rich experience at the barely 24-hour-long NC State Wolfpack Speed & Power Camp in Raleigh.  I wrote more extensively about it here.

This article by Paulo Coelho was a good reminder that there is reward in the struggle and we need to prepare our athletes to overcome challenges by giving them challenges.

Though it was a bit snarky in my opinion, I enjoyed “An Open Letter to the Athlete We Must Stop Recruiting” by Becky Carlson and found many pointers for high school athletes who are beginning their college search.

Tim Ferris’ Podcast “The Magic and Power of Placebo” with Erik Vance got me thinking more about the psychological aspect of performance. His interview with Jocko Willink (“Don’t count on motivation, count on discipline.”) was also excellent.

Rich Roll’s Podcast with Ryan Holiday (“Ego is the enemy”) was one of my favorites, as was his interview with Anthony Ervin just weeks before Ervin shocked the world in Rio.

Joe Rogan’s interview with Steven Kotler taught me more about how to increase the likelihood of “flow states” for peak performance. 

Though it has nothing to do with swimming, I was inspired by Daniel James Brown’s The Boys in the Boat, a true story of nine men and their pursuit for Olympic rowing Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Two of our Olympians had inspiring stories that I wasn’t aware of until after the games.  Kathleen Baker’s medal represented more than the best race of her life according to Joe Posnanski, and Pat Forde enlightened me to the incredible story behind Cody Miller’s rise to Olympic fame.

Last but not least I have to recommend Michael Brooks’ book Developing Swimmers.  This is the best “How-to” book for club coaching that I have ever come across. I have loaned my copy to two of my assistant coaches already.

In case you didn’t see them last year, here are my lists from 2015, 2013, and 2012.

Let me know what I missed!!!

Fly Set with Relays (Yay!) That Burned (Double Yay!)

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Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

Three-person relay teams made this a set that burned. On the 1st round the relay required 10m underwater kick off the wall. The 2nd round required 12.5m off the wall. 3rd round required no breath in the last 10m of each 25.

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Challenging Set for Back or Breast.

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

The day we performed this set, we had only 2 swimmers per lane, which allowed us to have very individualized intervals.  We did this set in a SCM pool (our normal training location) using our SCY best times. Most of our swimmers were able to make their goal by 7-8 seconds and were able to push themselves pretty hard on short rest. This set could be used for freestyle or butterfly as well, we were just looking for some back and breast work.

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BOOK REVIEW: "Power & Towers & Swimming: The Guide" by Jake Shellenberger, Head Coach at Liberty University

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Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

This past summer I had the opportunity to share the pool deck with Jake Shellenberger, Head Swim Coach at Liberty University as his squad and mine both rented time at our local outdoor 50m pool.  I would occasionally pick his brain on training, and we had many interesting discussions on a variety of topics, so you can imagine my eagerness when he told me he was putting together a book.

His recently completed “Power & Towers & Swimming: The Guide” is a rich, detailed book on how to use some of what he deems the most valuable “toys” a swim coach has: Power Towers and Power Racks.  Shellenberger explains his power-based training philosophy that crystallized during his time as sprint coach at Penn State and during a particularly formative summer as an understudy at Frank Busch and Rick DeMont’s 2007 Arizona squad that would go on to win double NCAA Championships the following spring.  Shellenberger has brought that learning to bear since 2009 at Liberty with much success, and distills it very transparently and extensively in this book.

His very organized thought process is reflected in the 11-chapter construction of the book.  He leaves no stone unturned in outlining how to make make Power a part of the training for EVERY swimmer on your squad, regardless of distance or stroke orientation.  At Liberty, Shellenberger and his Assistant Coach Jessica Barnes have every swimmer train on the Towers multiple times per week, and the book provides many real-world examples of how it has helped his swimmers improve.  They don’t just do short 25 yard blasts with the Towers, but plenty of drilling, kicking, and other power-based training, each of which has its own devoted chapter.  The book doesn’t just explain what they do, it gives exact sets that you can use directly or adapt for your team.

As a club coach with a background developing swimmers with a hearty dose of training, I expected “Power & Towers & Swimming” to be in the vein of much of the recent USRPT dogma.  I was pleased to find Shellenberger’s treatise much more nuanced than I anticipated.  His examples and distilled wisdom were extremely valuable and thought provoking, and have made a significant impact on my thought processes about how I train my swimmers.

Regardless of training philosophy, this book will have coaches pondering new ways to help swimmers get better, and is a MUST for every smart swim coach’s library.


Buy “Power & Towers & Swimming: The Guide” here.

Read Coach Shellenberger’s blog here.

Follow Coach Shellenberger on Twitter and Instagram

Follow Liberty Swimming and Diving here

Dryland Descend Fartlek Set

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff
Head Coach
Lynchburg YMCA

3 x 9:00 continuous @ 10:30
   50 freestyle smooth breathing every 3
   10 squats
   50 freestyle from dive @ ~P200 +2
   5 push-ups
  50 freestyle from dive all out
  3 in & outs (climb out of pool, hop back in)
Do as many rounds as possible in 9:00

2nd 9:00 – swimmers do br or fly
3rd 9:00 – swimmers do backstroke