3 x (8x100 free, 100ez choice)

My old standby that was probably the biggest contributor for me progressing from a pretty slow swimmer to a fast one is the classic 10-15x100 free (best average) on an interval that gives you 5-10 seconds rest. When I was killing myself every day during my freshman year of college trying to earn a spot on a college team I did this on my lunch break 3x per week and got it down to a 1:05 interval coming in just under a minute. Nowadays I only do it every few weeks and normally hold a 1:20 interval, sometimes a 1:15 interval if I am feeling really motivated. This set hurts the lungs pretty bad, but will really improve your ability to recover quickly.

Yeah, for all that work I was able to have someone talk the coach into letting me on the team (I even got a tiny scholarship), but my first year on the team I was a nobody. However, the work ethic paid off and I was a conference champ and All-American by my second year and only got better from there. Tell the guy at the pool to keep it up, being part of an NCAA team was easily the best education I ever got at a school and was worth almost any cost.

Haha, definitely not even close to Olympian level. I swam DII so AA wasn't quite as tough. Though I still take pride in the fact that after my Jr year I checked the splits at DI nationals and I could have been the 3rd or 4th guy on half of the top 8 (All-American) 200 free relays! But my individual events weren't even close.

*Interesting note - I was proof reading my comment above before sending it and the part where I said "I still take pride in the fact..." My iPhone auto-corrected the word "pride" to "PEDs!" That would have been awkward trying to back pedal from that one lol!! I think auto-correct does that on purpose sometimes for the comedy of it.

My old standby that was probably the biggest contributor for me progressing from a pretty slow swimmer to a fast one is the classic 10-15x100 free (best average) on an interval that gives you 5-10 seconds rest.

A favorite from back in the day of being a real swimmer:

2x[ 500-400-300-200-100 with a 300 after each. ]
round 1: do the 5-4-3-2-1 on a tight interval, should be barely able to make it. do the 300's on an easy interval
round 2: do the 300's on a tight descending interval. Last one should be balls to the wall. Other reps nice and easy

swap out the 300's for something shorter if needed

Oooh.

I did this on Tuesday and almost barfed:

200's. Start on 4:00, and every time you finish one, take off 15s rest. So the first one is on 4:00, second one on 3:45 etc. When you realize you wont make the next one, bump down to 150m, so initially you will get some rest, but every time you touch the wall you're still knocking off 15s. Do 150m's until you wont make your pace time again, then bump down to 100's. Keep going all the way through 50's and 25's. It's not fun.

No, you keep the off time going down from 4:00 down to 15 seconds. There will be 16 repeats total.

e.g.
200 @ 4:00
200 @ 3:45
200 @ 3:30
200@ 3:15
200 @ 3:00
200 @ 2:45
150 @ 2:30
150 @ 2:15
150 @ 2:00
100 @ 1:45
100 @ 1:30
100 @ 1:15
50 @ 1:00
50 @ :45
25 @ :30
25 @ :15

i only had 3 workout in my tool box. Doing them for 6 weeks in a row get me back to front pack swimming. I m boring, i keep doing the same thing over and over for years...

15X100m on 1:30 hold best average

8X400m on 5:20 hold best average

10X200m on 2:45 hold best average

Repeat over and over for 6-9 years until your in the front pack!

i only had 3 workout in my tool box. Doing them for 6 weeks in a row get me back to front pack swimming. I m boring, i keep doing the same thing over and over for years...

15X100m on 1:30 hold best average

8X400m on 5:20 hold best average

10X200m on 2:45 hold best average

Repeat over and over for 6-9 years until your in the front pack!

I did this on Tuesday and almost barfed:

200's. Start on 4:00, and every time you finish one, take off 15s rest. So the first one is on 4:00, second one on 3:45 etc. When you realize you wont make the next one, bump down to 150m, so initially you will get some rest, but every time you touch the wall you're still knocking off 15s. Do 150m's until you wont make your pace time again, then bump down to 100's. Keep going all the way through 50's and 25's. It's not fun.

I'd be okay with listing a few sets I think are helpful, but when I see requests for things like this it reminds me of what a Russian-born American coach (who used to train with Vladimir Salnikov) once told a room of 200 American swim coaches at USA Swimming conference I attended. Paraphrasing, because that was 1996:

'Americans are always looking for a magic set. Was it this many 200s or that many 50s that made such-and-such break the world record? Can we explain Alexander Popov by the to-do list of things on the chalkboard?'

I think the answer is no. Execution is far more critical than the checklist of things you put in front of yourself. This is why I find the workouts sent to most triathletes through their Training Peaks coaches to be almost useless. They tend to be a list of things to do with almost no direction on how to execute, what to prioritize, and often fail to explain the coach-speak hieroglyphics. I could insert one of my mostly triathlete-centered practice sessions here and would probably be shouted out of the room for using up too much digital space. It is extremely hard to commit to paper both the specific tasks, the key points of execution and the clarity of terms/expectations.

Having said that, here is the warm up to our April 17 practice:
Warm Up: Active Streamlining
3 x 200 (or 175/150/125) on 3:15 send off
Objective is to manage ONE great streamlining skill per swim. Eliminating drag is critical to advancing through water, as it increases speed while reducing workload. Win-win. And it merely requires smart choices rather than inordinate fitness. We will focus on "wave drag,' the active drag created by your movements, vs "form drag," the passive resistance generated by the shape of your body. Movements that create turbulence disturb the water, channeling your energy into 'pushing water around' rather than slicing through it. The waves you create contain energy--YOUR energy. Don't give it to them.
1 = Maintain neutral head while face down / Hide lower goggle lens while breathing. A consistently low head position supports front to back balance and improves alignment. The goal is to maintain horizontal stability and minimize up and down movements.
2 = Experiment with "wide tracks," the X axis coordinates at peak extension. That typically means wrists forward of the shoulder. Narrow tracks (or midline or crossover) can induce fishtailing or lateral sway. We want a clean, longitudinal axis from head to toe, preferably one that is horizontally level.
3 = Reduce the size / range of your kicking actions, particularly when using a 2-beat kick. Within the 2-beat kick pattern there should exist a moment of near-perfectly streamlined legs. Picture 'toe flicks' vs leg kicks. Can we find the sweet spot where you maximize the benefit of the kick movement at the lowest drag cost?
6 x 50 Free, Increase tempo with each swim. You may want to do that organically rather than tinkering with the tempo trainer. The drag penalty is amplified at higher speeds, which is why it takes so much more energy to swim a little faster (and why gas mileage suffers at high speeds.) Can you retain a "drag reducing" focus as you increase stroke rate?

i could have just written "3 x 200 on 3:15, focus on streamlining" but I think the explanation and guidance that follows (the wordy stuff) is the difference between effective and unfocused practice. I email these out to my swimmers ahead of time and am happy to field their questions should my coach-speak not connect.

I would be more interested in WHY those who are submitting have selected these sets, and what they (or their athletes) hoped to gain from them.

I liked the look of this one, did it today at lunch. That was the entire workout other than 100 warmdown at the end,

first 4 200's were easy swim, 200 kick, 200 pull, 200 pull. after that all freestyle.

I was on the cusp of making the cutoff for the 200 on 2:30, so I switched to 150's there.

40 minutes to get pace? Why not just one rep at 400 close to max and call that pace?

Good on ya! I only made it to 2:45, and even on that it was pretty much touch and go right in to the first 150.

A set can't get much simpler than this, but it is a solid, tough set. No pacing them. Each one is just all out every single time.

20x50s
(4 fast, 1 easy) x 4

Ha - wheels is one of my go-to's. My two favorite hard sets are both courtesy of Byron @ UofT:

5 x (100 on 1:30, 2 x 100 on 1:25, 3x 100 on 1:20, 4 x 100 on 1:15). The first time I swam this I misunderstood the directions: I thought we were supposed to swim the first 100 on 1:30, the second one on 1:25 and so on, for a total of 2k. And yes, it would be a bit painful swimming 100 LCM on 1:15, but then you could just roll into the easy one. That was a pretty painful misunderstanding.

Yeah, for all that work I was able to have someone talk the coach into letting me on the team (I even got a tiny scholarship), but my first year on the team I was a nobody. However, the work ethic paid off and I was a conference champ and D2 All-American by my second year and only got better from there. Tell the guy at the pool to keep it up, being part of an NCAA team was easily the best education I ever got at a school and was worth almost any cost.

I've done this set twice in the last couple weeks. Its tougher than it looks...those last 50s are killer! Thanks for posting, good way to get through 2,000 quickly

I thought I'd try to start a bit of a repository for good sets. I see a lot of good ones in the monthly ST swim club thread, but they easily get lost in there.

This is a friendly place to share your faves, either yours or others you see that you like the idea of. Not the whole workout, just the main set, and try to scale so it's easy to fit into a typical triathlete or masters workout, which is around 3000 m / yards total. So if the main set is between 1000 and 2000, that would be about right in my view.

I'll start with one we called "wheels" in college. still a favorite. this is the 1000 version, easy to scale up as desired.

4x250 as {
25 fly, 50 back, 75 br, 100 fr
25 back, 50 br, 75 fr, 100 fly
25 br, 50 fr, 75 fly, 100 back
25 fr, 50 fly, 75 back, 100 br
}

Any sets that would be good for a time-crunch lunchtime swim? Only have an hour, including showering/changing. I'm also a 2:00/2:10 swimmer.

MS (3000)
<10 Rounds> (6:00 ea)
25 Fast & 25 Recovery @1:00
50 Fast & 25 Recovery @1:30
75 Fast & 100 Recovery @3:30
(5 Rnds no equip, 3 Rnds Paddles & Fins, 2 Rnds Fins Only)

Previewed today for a future masters swim session. I like.

Wow, that's a tough one for sure. I think I would implode somewhere in the SI - 20.

Here's another one I did last year with the swim team kids I swim with sometimes. It helps to have a coach on deck keeping track of when to leave.

? x 50 on 1:01 and the only rule is that you have to finish each 50 before the clock gets back to the top. So, first one you have 60 seconds to finish, next one 59, next 58 and so on. I made it to #29.

no warmup; 2000 on time; 1000 pullbuoy to cool down
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