I always run my swim sets past Gill the night before I coach. It’s a final sanity check to reassure me that they are interesting, engaging and easily understood, but sometimes I have to remind myself that giving the swimmers what they need is not necessarily the same as giving them what they most enjoy. So when an athlete grumbles about long reps on a Thursday, I’ll point out it’s what they should expect from an endurance focussed session. For the most part though – and this may simply be politeness – feedback is positive.
Tuesday 21st May 2013
| Warm Up | ||
|---|---|---|
| 200m Choice | ||
| 2x | 50m Side kick (body position) | |
| 2x | 50m 6-1-6 drill (body position) | |
| 2x | 50m 6-3-6 drill (body position) | |
| 2x | 100m Front crawl – odd lengths easy, even hard | |
| 700m | ||
| Main Set | ||
| 4x | 100m Front crawl on 15s rest Descending 1-4 (1 easy, 4 hard) |
|
| 30s rest between sets | ||
| 4x | 100m Front crawl on 15s rest Descending 1-4 (1 easy, 4 hard) |
|
| 30s rest between sets | ||
| 4x | 100m Front crawl on 15s rest Descending 1-4 (1 easy, 4 hard) |
|
| 30s rest between sets | ||
| 4x | 100m Front crawl on 15s rest Descending 1-4 (1 easy, 4 hard) |
|
| 2,300m | ||
| Cool Down | ||
| 2x | 100m Choice, at least one not front crawl | |
| 2,500m | ||
The Tuesday session is for beginners through to intermediate swimmers and covers a broad range of speeds and abilities. So Tuesday sets tend to go through a lot of adjustments for different lanes in the pool. I threw in some side kicking and 6-1-6/6-3-6 drills this week as body position and rotation are common problems in this pool. The main set works a range of paces with swimmers pushing themselves hard for the last of each block of 4. Over the last couple of months the regulars have got much better at judging and maintaining appropriate paces – easy was easy and hard was hard.
Thursday 23rd May 2013
| Warm Up | ||
|---|---|---|
| 400m Front crawl, every 4th length backstroke | ||
| 4x | 50m Front crawl kick – 35m steady, 15 m hard on 10s rest | |
| 4x | 100m Front crawl – build within each 100, hard to finish on 15s rest | |
| 1000m | ||
| Main Set | ||
| 500m Front crawl on 15s rest | ||
| 250m Front crawl pull + paddles on 10s rest | ||
| 400m Front crawl on 15s rest | ||
| 200m Front crawl pull + paddles on 10s rest | ||
| 300m Front crawl on 15s rest | ||
| 150m Front crawl pull + paddles on 10s rest | ||
| 200m Front crawl on 15s rest | ||
| 100m Front crawl pull + paddles on 10s rest | ||
| 100m Front crawl on 15s rest | ||
| 50m Front crawl pull + paddles on 10s rest | ||
| And if you think you miscounted: 50m Front Crawl to be sure | ||
| 3,300m | ||
| Main Set 2 | ||
| 50m Fly – 25 drill/25 stroke on 15s rest | ||
| 100m Front crawl on 10s rest | ||
| 50m Backstroke – 25 drill/25 stroke on 15s rest | ||
| 100m Front crawl on 10s rest | ||
| 50m Breaststroke – 25 drill/25 stroke on 15s rest | ||
| 100m Front crawl on 10s rest | ||
| 50m Front crawl – 25 drill/25 stroke on 15s rest | ||
| 100m Front crawl on 10s rest | ||
| 3,900m | ||
| Cool Down | ||
| 100m Backstroke | ||
| 100m Front crawl | ||
| 4,100m | ||
Thursday’s session usually has the luxury of two 50m lanes and on average 4 swimmers. It’s nice working with such a small group, you can be far more specific in feedback and tailoring of the session to the individuals. Not that anyone brought paddles and the second I got out my spare pair everyone had a shoulder problem! Nobody made it to the end – everyone had work to get to today and I finished up early. The second main set was there for the more advanced swimmers, but only one made it and we did a little work on her fly rather than follow the set.
As usual all sets are uploaded to instagram and pinterest during the week.
