short course meters.
when fit…
100s in 1:10-12
200s in 2:22-25
400s in 4:50 finishing in low 4:4X
i eliminated all sprint work also …focus entirely on diesel engine approach with no waste of energy sprinting
Out of curiosity, what is your oly swim time?
i havent race olympic distance in years and i m not in great shape anymore.
when in good shape doing those set, i would put it at around 2nd pack at the world cup series and front pack at any ironman or 70.3
i was doing long distance exclusively in the second part of my career so that s why i cut on all sprint and swam long stuff…48-50min at ironman,
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!
So how much rest between sets?
Joking aside, that is pretty low volume. I would pretty much double those sets, but swim them sligthly slower of course. Or do 10x200 first, then cruise a 400 and then do 15x100. Is it your opinion that it is unnecessary? I feel that time in the water is very important for a new-isch swimmer like me. Or did you do these workouts daily? Then it will still be about ~20k/week counting in warmup and cd and decent volume.
it really depend of your level as swimmers, time available and distnace your focusing on.
personnally, 2000m of main set for a ironman athlete is a decent amount. add warm up, cool down, and easy stuff and the volume is decent.
I have swim with the national training center for year and we swam 7-9 times a week 5-7km… so i have been through this. But my biggest improvement happen when i simplified the training, repetition of my staple swim sets and keep the swim quality VERY high.
but i agree with you, if you are a newish swimmer…you need to get the volume in, there is no way around this
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 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.
But my biggest improvement happen when i simplified the training, repetition of my staple swim sets and keep the swim quality VERY high.
I think this is good wisdom. Could you define “swim quality” (for you), and how quality swimming differs from any other type of swimming?
my fave sets these days looks like:
8x100 on 1:30
try to come in around 1:15–1:20
I also enjoy
6x100 on 1:40
trying to come in around 1:25–1:30
*I’m only about 2 months ‘back’ into swimming , have always been an occasional surfer which possibly gives me some kind of a base
*I historically struggle w/distance and have decided to A.G. compete in 50s/100s again moving forward.
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.
Here’s a short video with me swimming next to a new student. I think it does a decent job contrasting turbulent vs low drag swimming. It was definitely a challenge to swim that slowly, and I’m not particularly fast to begin with. The warm up listed in my previous post was designed to get my swimmers thinking in these terms. Rather than using the first 15 minutes of practice to ‘get their muscles warm,’ how about setting their brains/bodies into problem solving mode?
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=531119603660058&saved
And I apologize if I ambushed this thread, as I clearly have not contributed what was asked for.
I don’t believe in magic sets. That’s why this is a “favorite” set thread, not a “perfect” set thread! There are a ton of ways to achieve a goal, and most important is effort and technique, but at the same time it’s nice to do different arrangements of work just to stave off boredom.
There are only so many times I can do 10x100 on 1:45 or 1:30 without going mental.
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.
“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”
The quote above is from the OP and explains what he was looking for…peoples “faves”, with no mention at all about wanting any magic bullet workout. Most posters appear to have understand exactly what he was after and delivered the goods, as requested.
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 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.
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.
I did the same as you then. I did the 200 @ 2:45, came in at 2:32, so I switched to 150 @ 2:30.
I’ll probably do this set again next week, and really go for that sub 2:30 200.
For points:
500/400/300/200/100 on 1:20 per 100, with 4x50 on 1:00 between each. Short course yards.
One point for making the interval, plus one point for each :10 under (so for the 500, 6:40->1pt, 6:30->2pts, 6:00->5pts)
Did it this morning: 5:58 (5 points), 4:44 (4 points), 3:30 (4 points), 2:19 (3 points), 1:06 (2 points), for 18 points.
The main set I did this morning was suprisingly “fun”. Minimal changes in speed but great for density.
400 - 75%
2x250 - 80%
100 IM
15s RBI
I did it 3 times through with a 500 warmup and 500 pull afterwards.
I’m such a bore. Did another set that I found fun this morning:
2x400 @6:30 (~25s rest)
2x200 pull @3:30 (~25s rest)
4x100 @1:40 (15s rest)
Two times through = 3200.
I’ve been doing variations of this one for the last month or so:
500 w/u
3 x (
500 alternating 100s band / band+bouy
1000 as descending 100s or 200s
)
4 x 50 as underwater out / easy swim back
200 c/d
.
These aren’t really sets but I found these very helpful drills to make me a more efficient swimmer! Here is the link: http://goo.gl/wSenkp
500 Choice WarmUp
6 x 300 for Best Average on 1:1 swim to rest ratio (calc. avg pace when finished)
10 x 100 holding pace from above (30"RI)
8 x 75 holding pace from above (20" RI)
6 x 50 holding pace from above (10" RI)
4 x 25 holding pace from above (5" RI)
200 All Out!
To pare it down to 3000, cut the 500 WU and substitute 200s for the 300s, yeah…that would work!