Weekly Swim Sets: October 3rd, 2013

In the absence of fresh race results it’s been a quiet week on this blog. I’ve been busy preparing for Kona and testing some new ideas that aren’t quite ready to go live.

Of course I’ve been coaching as well and having covered an extra club session I have three swim sets to offer. The extra session meant I had to get up at 5am on both Tuesday and Thursday. I’m not used to that.

Tuesday 1st October 2013 – Varied Pace Session

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Tuesday 1st October 2013 – Varied Pace Session
Warm Up
400m Front crawl – easy
6x 50m Front crawl on 10s as
50 kick, 50 pull, 50 stroke
2x 100m Front crawl building easy to hard on 15s
900m
Main Set
4x 100m Front crawl – descending on 20s
2x 50m Front crawl kick on 15s
2x 200m Front crawl – last 50m hard on 20s
2x 50m Front crawl kick on 15s
400m Front crawl – negative split on 20s
2x 50m Front crawl kick on 15s
2,400m
Bonus Set
2x 200m Front crawl – last 50m hard on 20s
2x 50m Front crawl kick on 15s
4x 100m Front crawl – descending on 20s
2x 50m Front crawl kick on 15s
3,400m
Cool Down
200m Choice
2,600m/3,600m

Not normally coaching this group I didn’t want to pile in with drills and opted for a simple session, mixing paces and breaking things up with quite a lot of kick. With one swimmer well ahead of the others I added in the bonus set to form a pyramid.

Tuesday 1st October 2013 – Varied Pace Session 2

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Tuesday 1st October 2013 – Varied Pace Session 2
Warm Up
300m Choice
2x 50m as 25m front scull, 25m front crawl on 15s
2x 50m as 25m doggy paddle, 25m front crawl on 15s
2x 50m as 25m fist, 25m front crawl on 15s
3x 50m Front crawl – descending on 10s
750m
Main Set
100m Front crawl – steady on 20s
400m Front crawl pull – steady on 20s
2x 100m Front crawl – 1st easy, 2nd steady on 20s
300m Front crawl pull – steady on 20s
3x 100m Front crawl – 1st easy, 2nd steady, 3rd hard on 20s
200m Front crawl pull – steady on 20s
2,250m
Bonus Set
4x 100m Front crawl – 1st easy, 2nd steady, 3rd hard, 4th best effort on 20s
100m Front crawl pull – steady on 20s
2,750m
Cool Down
200m Choice
2,450m/2,950m

The second session of the morning had a longer warm-up with drills looking at the catch. My only frustration coaching such a mixed group of swimmers on my own is the difficult giving sufficient instruction and feedback to all. Things can become a little disjointed. The main set was mostly steady with a small amount of faster paced work. Nobody swam the bonus set, but it’s there to take things to their logical conclusion.

Thursday 3rd October 2013 – Endurance Session

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Thursday 3rd October 2013 – Endurance Session
Warm Up
400m Choice
3x 100m as 50m drill, 50m front crawl on 15s
1: Straight arm recovery
2: Broken arrow drill
3: Zipper drill
4x 50m Front crawl kick on 15s
100m Front crawl building pace
1,000m
Main Set
2x 400m Front crawl – steady, paddles and pull on 30s
2x 200m Front crawl – negative split on 20s
100m Front crawl – stroke count, focus on distance per stroke on 10s rest
2,800m
Bonus Set
4x 200m Front crawl pull on 10s rest
100m Medley on 10s rest
4,000m
Cool Down
200m Choice – easy
3,000m/4,200m

Bonus sets will be returning to Thursday swims as my fastest swimmer is back in the pool after a couple of months off. A few drills to start, focusing on recovery and rotation, and then into a longer mixed main set. Finally the return of some medley swimming for one of the lanes and an almost continuous 1,200m alternating crawl with medley.

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