Powerhouse? Not at all, but we had a great coach. And it was in Indiana where Boys and Girls Swimming is a huge sport. Our coach never put a whole lot of stock in dual meets, tri meets, or really anything other than Sectionals. We always just looked to swim as fast as we could then just to have a shot at making it to the State meet which was not an easy thing to qualify for. And yes, we did lots of dryland work too.
We also loved the Crazy 8’s which after a few week into the season would start doing every Friday. 8x100 ALL OUT with 8 minutes rest. Goal being to beat your best 100 time on every rep. We raced each other on these in heats and it was a blast. Made the long Saturday practices suck though.
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.
Just did this today; either I am a moron (distinct possibility) or it’s harder than it seems to remember what set I am on and what’s next. But it gave me plenty to think about while I was swimming!
For this one you’re trying to hold ~P200 for the fast swims, 1-3 seconds to get your split, then right into the EZ 25 active recovery. 8 rounds totals 2400 with 1600 of that @Pace. Intervals are generous enough to allow a wide range of ability in the same lane if you have multiple swimmers in the lane.
Set 1: 20x100 on 5 seconds rest or less. These are at a sustainable effort.
Set 2: 10x100 on 10 seconds rest fastest average. These need to be near the same time for all of them. If the variance from 1 to 10 is more than 5 seconds, your pacing was bad.
Set 3: 10x200. 4 on one interval, 3 -5 seconds, 3 -5 more seconds. You should be getting 15 seconds rest on the first set of 4.
Set 4: 3x800. First one paddles, buoy snorkel, second one snorkel, third one swim. Do these on ~1 minute rest.
My lunchtime swim (when I have time to get one in) typically follows this pattern: I have about 45 minutes in the water.
600 warmup as 150 swim/drill, 150 kick, 150 pull, 150 swim / drill. That would take you about 15 minutes.
Main set - depends on my mood and what I want to do that day.
100 easy.
A nice main set that takes about 25 minutes for you and gives you a bit of aerobic work with a bit of speed
2 x 100 @2:40
2 x 75 @ 2:00
2 x 50 @ 1:30
2 x 25 @ :50
repeat the whole thing twice. second time do it in reverse.
You want to build the effort the first time through, steadily build the effort / get faster as the distance comes down. Then going back up try to maintain as much of the same speed as possible.
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.
Cut down your warm up and cool down a bit. For lunchtime swims I’ll wear my jammers under my pants to the office. hilarious. Just don’t forget clean underwear in your pool bag.
20 x 50m
500m easy to moderate to final 25 fast (~11 minutes)
Rest (~1 minute)
20 x 50m on (:80). (~27 minutes) (your interval might need to be :85, or you can cut down the reps)
Rest (~1 minute)
100m cool down (~3 minutes)
=1600m in 44 minutes.
50/50/50/50 ladder
50 Easy
50 HIM pace
50 Easy
50 Hard
Each time through the set, add 50 to the HIM pace interval. Got this workout from Tower26.
So, time breakdowns:
Set 1, 200m, ~5 minutes
Set 2, 250m, ~7 minutes
Set 3, 300m, ~9 minutes
Set 4, 350m, ~12 minutes
Set 5, 400m, ~15 minutes
=1500m, 48 minutes
I’m not sure where it originated, but I got it from a Youtube video. Click on the “MS” in my post for the video. Very few workouts I do originate with me…I used to attribute them properly but got tired of the “That’s not a Kredich workout…he got it from…”
Yeah that’s the one I saw come across my YouTube feed. Though it was Eddie cuz I saw another Eddie video around the same time, got confused and mixed the 2
