40 minutes to get pace? Why not just one rep at 400 close to max and call that pace?
40 minutes to get pace? Why not just one rep at 400 close to max and call that pace?
If the reason for the 6 x 300 were simply to get pace, I’d agree with you, but the value is actually in the swimming of it and knock-on effect it has on the rest of that workout.
Need proof? Swim it.
This thread has a lot more useful info than the monthly swim thread. I’m going to add this to my “watched threads”. Great ideas for workouts!!
100 x 100 y on 1:05. Did it 3 times in my career in HS/early college. Tried 1:00 once but didn’t make it very far, maybe 15 or so
I think I’d get through about 2 of those (on 1:05).
I remember doing 100x100 LCM on New Year’s Day a couple of times. don’t remember the off times though, 1:20 seems to ring a bell, but it might have been 1:15.
Also - 1500 butterfly for time. Multiple times. Our HS club coach was a sadist.
A little off topic but this thread has me thinking (and does anyone else feel the same way??) - why did I swim 50k yards per week back in the day to train for a 1500 max in a race, and now I do 10k per week to train for that same distance plus another 4-5 hours of biking and running? Just because I could?
My coach currently has me in a big swim block, so I’m doing a lot of different sets. These are some of my “favorites” (may not always enjoy them but they are doing wonders for my swimming):
1500 as 400 easy, 200 fast, 300 easy, 150 fast, 200 easy, 100 fast, 100 easy, 50 fast
10x200 at a strong but not crazy interval, leaving 15-30 seconds for rest
3x 4x50 balls out at an interval allowing ~20 seconds rest (I’m doing them at :60), 400 easy with paddles, buoy, band around ankles
Broken 1.2 mile endurance set (1,950 meters)
300,275,250,225,200,175…25
Fast, moderate, fast, moderate,…
I call this one the 5’s
Used when doing a workout with others that cant remember things very well!
500 WU
5x200
5x100
5x50
500 (pull/paddles)
5x50
=3250 meters
30 x 100 at 1500m pace, ie harder than race pace for an oly distance swim, unless of course you are maxing that oly swim out…on an interval which gives you 20s rest. ie if you do them in 1.15, you leave on 1.30.
N x (200 IM Sw/200 IM Kick/200 Br Sw/200 IM Kick/200 Fr Pull) on :15r per 200, with N = 2 to however many you want to do. If desired, rotate strokes on the 3rd 200, but that gets really hard to keep up with after the first time you go through all 4, e.g. after 4000 yd/m. I usually do breast on the 3rd 200 b/c it is the stroke I need to work on the most.
Warm up (600-800)
Main set:
12 x 150yards @ 2:00 (:05, :10, :15, :20… whatever is needed)
On each repeat, go :01 faster.
1800y set
I did this on my birthday a few weeks ago, and it was fun to play around with specific aspects of each 150 that could make me :01 faster/150. Faster turns. Tighter streamline. Fast first 50. Fast last 50. Etc, etc, etc
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.
So I did this today with some slight mods as the main set of a 5200 workout …it went by really fast and was harder than I thought it would be given the large amounts of rest at the start of each new distance…The only change I made was to keep dropping the 15 seconds until I missed making the interval send off time…then straight into the new distance at the same interval with whatever I missed by eating into rest on the first set…so after missing the 200 on 2:30 (went 2:36)…it was straight into 150 on 2:30, 2:15…etc… but first 150 was actually on 2:24 as I lost time on the previous 200…made the transition intervals really tough and gave a good balance to the generous rest intervals at the start of each new distance. I liked it! Thanks for the suggestion.
5 x 1000 descend (15 min, 14 min, 13 min, 12 min, 11 min…or mushroom cloud)
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Good one over the weekend I thought I would share.
1000 w/u
16x50 on 1:10
1x100 on 1:25
1x100 on 1:20
1x100 on 1:30
2x100 on 1:25
2x100 on 1:20
2x100 on 1:30
3x100 on 1:25
3x100 on 1:20
3x100 on 1:30
4x100 on 1:25
4x100 on 1:20
4x100 on 1:30
5x100 on 1:25
5x100 on 1:20
5x100 on 1:30
200 c/d
A few that stand out from my competitive days:
Countdown 100’s: start on an easy interval and take one second off for every repeat. Depending on how much volume you want to do start about 30 seconds above you max. i.e. We would start on 1:30 (1:29, 1:28, etc). I “won” a couple of times on my college team by missing the 55 second repeat, meaning that last 1000 yards were under 10:00.
4-5 x 400 IM challenge interval, 4x100 FR strong. My intervals in college for this were 4:15 and 1:15 (yards), also did this set LCM at 4:45/1:25. This could easily be scaled by going 200’s and 50’s.
2x7x400 Descend Odds, Smooth Evens Also scalable to 100’s or 200’s
Round 1:
1- Free
2- IM
3 - 300 FR/100 BK
4 - IM
5 -100 FR/300 BK
6- IM
7 - BK
Round 2
1- IM
2- FR
3- IM
4- FR/BK
5-IM
6-BK
7-IM
Rounds of 350’s and 400’s on the same interval. i.e. 6x{350, 400} on 4:00. Harder to scale at shorter distances, but could be done as 150’s and 200’s.
Fridays were always called Vo2 Max days (whether that’s truly what the set does is another matter, but very hard none-the-less). 5x 50’s are on a very hard interval and are fast - i.e. <10 seconds rest, 150’s are easy. At my peak, we’d go the 50’s on :35 and 150’s on 3:00. This is a low volume way to get into the pain cave quickly if you do it right.
W/up whatever
20 x100 on the :15
4 x 200 on the :15
warm down whatever
Alt main set: 10 x 200 on the :15
8 x 100 on the :15
.
Here’s a couple for the adult onset, time poor, non Fishtwitch ‘my set’s bigger than your set’ types - those of us that just can’t swim that bloody much…
5x100 SKIPS - Swim, Kick, IM, Pull, Swim. Repeat as many times with as many strokes as you like.
4x (100 easy/100 Hardish)
3x (100 easy/100 harder)
2x (100 easy/100 more harder)
1x (100 easy/100 bloody hard)
I’ve seen a few here that I will try out. Lately I’ve been liking interval driven sets, as I don’t seem to have the stuffing to push myself through a pyramid or 5x300 on some set base.
Two I have recently done that I liked, and both of these are easy to modify faster - slower, longer - shorter for variation:
3x150 @ 2:00, 100 in 2:00
3x125 @ 1:50, 100 in 2:00
3x100 @ 1:40, 100 in 2:00
The on intervals are hard, I try to come in 5 seconds or faster than an 80 basis, so the 150’s in 1:55 or faster, 125’s in 1:35 or faster, 100’s 75 or faster
and
(100’s @ 1:40, 1:35, 1:30, 1:25, 1:20, 1:15) x 2 or 3
These are more about the recovery than the interval. I’m thinking about trying it starting at 1:30 and doing 4 rounds, but I need a day when I really feel like drilling it.
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