Most of the time I set rest intervals, the time to be spent at the wall between reps, because when you don’t know who will turn up for a session it makes it easier to ensure everyone takes a reasonable amount of rest. I may have to adjust in the session if individuals are struggling, but it’s simple and generally works. On the other hand a turn around time, the time allowed for each rep including the rest, puts a little bit more pressure on the swimmers and can help ensure they’re focussed on pace. Tuesday’s lanes tend to be quite consistent in ability so I thought, for a change, I’d go with turn around.
Tuesday 28th May 2013
| Warm Up | ||
|---|---|---|
| 300m choice | ||
| 4x | 50m front crawl on 15s rest 1: Breathe every 3 2: Breathe every 5 3: Breathe every 7 4: Breathe every 3 |
|
| 2x | 75m front crawl – building on 20s rest | |
| 650m | ||
| Main Set | ||
| 4x | 100m Front crawl on turn arounds of: 1:55, 2:00, 2:10 (allowing roughly 5-8s per 50) |
|
| 4x | 150m Front crawl on turn arounds of: 2:50, 3:00, 3:15 (allowing roughly 5-8s per 50) |
|
| 4x | 200m Front crawl on turn arounds of: 3:45, 4:00, 4:20 (allowing roughly 5-8s per 50) |
|
| 2,450m | ||
| Bonus Set | ||
| 4x | 50m alternating backstroke, front crawl on 20s rest | |
| 2,650m | ||
| Cool Down | ||
| 200m Choice, ease down | ||
| 2,850m | ||
Reality is that if you’re not watching closely swimmers sneak in extra rest anyway; admittedly my times were tight for the fastest lane once the distance was extended out. The timings of the main set were intended to allow around 5 seconds rest per 50m of swimming if the athletes roughly held their threshold pace.
Thursday 30th May 2013
| Warm Up | ||
|---|---|---|
| 300m Choice | ||
| 300m Alternating 50 front crawl, 50 back | ||
| 3x | 50m front crawl – 25 easy, 25 hard on 20s rest | |
| 3x | 50m front crawl – 25 hard, 25 easy on 20s rest | |
| 900m | ||
| Main Set | ||
| 4x | 600m front crawl on 30s rest 1: Alternating 150m hard, 150m easy 2: Alternating 100m hard, 100m easy 3: Alternating 50m hard, 50m easy 4: Steady |
|
| 3,300m | ||
| Bonus Set | ||
| 5x | 100m on 15s rest 1: 100m front crawl 2: 75m front crawl, 25m fly 3: 50m front crawl, 50m backstroke 4: 25m front crawl, 75m breaststroke 5: 100m front crawl |
|
| 5x | 100m on 15s rest 1: 100m front crawl 2: 75m front crawl, 25m breaststroke 3: 50m front crawl, 50m backstroke 4: 25m front crawl, 75m fly 5: 100m front crawl |
|
| 4,300m | ||
| Cool Down | ||
| 200m Choice, ease down | ||
| 4,500m | ||
A lot of alternating pace today, but only two swimmers to try it! Neither completed the session – I did some one-to-one technique work with one as he has much to gain there and the other got out early. Perhaps the idea of 75 fly near to the end put him off, but I was going to offer him the option of doing drills.
I’m on a Strength and Conditioning Coaching course at Bath Uni next week so won’t be swim coaching. The next sessions will be on June 13th, unless I decide to write up a couple in my book anyway.
