Weekly Swim Sets: Thursday, 8th May 2014

This week’s pair of swim sessions and as it’s May and open water venues are opening up I thought it was time to practice some open water skills.

Tuesday, 6th May 2014 – Endurance Swim Session

Tuesday, 6th May 2014 - Endurance Swim Session

Tuesday, 6th May 2014 – Endurance Swim Session
Warm Up
200m Front crawl – easy
200m Front crawl – open water sighting practice
200m Front crawl – pull
4x 50m Front crawl – descending on 15s rest
800m
Main Set
5x 100m Front crawl – drafting practice on 20s rest
change lead every 100m
4x 150m Front crawl – drafting practice on 30s rest
change lead every 50m
5x 100m Front crawl – hard on 30s rest
deep water start, away from the wall
2,400m
Cool Down
200m Choice
2,600m

For once I didn’t want my swimmers leaving 5 second gaps – the main set today focussed on drafting practice, sitting on the feet of the person ahead (no foot tapping, it’s annoying). Then, to finish, a series of hard 100s without a wall push off to start, practicing deep water starts and getting to speed without the benefit of the wall. The faster athletes added some extra 50s as 25m easy swim, get out, 25m hard from a diving start too.

Thursday, 8th May 2014 – Endurance Swim Session

Thursday, 8th May 2014 - Endurance Swim Session

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Thursday, 8th May 2014 – Endurance Swim Session
Warm Up
400m Front crawl – easy
200m Front crawl – pull
100m Front crawl – building
700m
Main Set 1
3-4x 300m Front crawl – pull + paddles on 40s rest
200m front crawl – building on 30s rest
2,200m – 2,700m
Main Set 2
2x 50m Breaststroke – drills (1 stroke, 2 kicks/2 strokes, 1 kick) on 15s rest
2x 100m Breaststroke on 20s rest
2x 50m Backstroke – drills (catch-up) on 15s rest
2x 100m Backstroke on 20s rest
2x 50m Fly – drills (kick/single arm) on 15s rest
2x 50m Fly on 20s rest
2x 100m Medley on 30s rest
200m Medley
3,400m – 3,900m
Cool Down
100m Choice
2,300m – 4,000m

We have a new goal for a few of the Thursday swimmers – 400m Medley before the year is out. Some could probably get through it now, others have a long way to go, but to work towards it the faster lane is now doing the Medley set (main set 2) first then switching to crawl. It’s a little more challenging for me, I’m less experienced coaching the other strokes and it means I’ve got more to keep an eye on. It’s more challenging for them too – switching back to crawl after a lot of fly was new. It’ll keep things interesting over the next few months though.

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