Weekly Swim Sets: Thursday, 30th October 2014

This week – and for the foreseeable future – I have three triathlon swim sets available for you to use. I’ve taken on an additional club session every Wednesday morning; so another early start for me and another swim plan every week on the blog.

Tuesday, 28th October 2014 – Endurance Swim Session

Tuesday, 28th October 2014 - Endurance Swim Session

Tuesday, 28th October 2014 – Endurance Swim Session
Warm Up
400m Front crawl – focus on length of stroke
2x 50m Front crawl – single arm drill on 10s rest
100m Front crawl – thumb to thigh
4x 50m Front crawl – building on 15s rest
lift stroke rate with pace
800m
Main Set
3x 3x 100m Front crawl – descending on 30s rest
200m Front crawl – easy, pull, long strokes on 30s rest
2,300m
Cool Down
100m Front crawl – thumb to thigh
2x 50m Front crawl – kick on 10s rest
100m Choice
2,600m

This week the focus on Tuesday’s session was stroke length, swimmers were encouraged to concentrate on long strokes with good reach at the front and completing through to the hip. The risk is that length comes at a heavy price to stroke rate so I threw in a few faster reps to lift that up.

Wednesday, 29th October 2014 – Endurance Swim Session

Wednesday, 29th October 2014 - Endurance Swim Session

Wednesday, 29th October 2014 – Endurance Swim Session
Warm Up
300m Front crawl – easy
50m Front crawl – kick
200m Front crawl – pull
50m Front crawl – kick
100m Front crawl – building
700m
Main Set
5x 100m Front crawl – steady on 20s rest
5x 200m Front crawl – steady on 40s rest
2,200m
Extra Set
4x 50m Front crawl – building on 20s rest
2,400m
Cool Down
100m Front crawl – easy
100m choice (not front crawl)
2,400m – 2,600m

A very simple set to start with a new squad. Most of the swimmers in the Wednesday session are new to me, so I wanted an easy session that would let me see their strokes in action. I saw a very similar mix of stroke styles to my Tuesday and Thursday squads with the same kind of issues to address.

Thursday, 30th October 2014 – Endurance Swim Session

Thursday, 30th October 2014 - Endurance Swim Session

Thursday, 30th October 2014 – Endurance Swim Session
Warm Up
300m Front crawl
2x 50m As 25m catch-up, 25m front crawl on 10s rest
100m Front crawl
2x 50m As 25m half catch-up, 25m front crawl on 10s rest
100m Front crawl
2x 50m Front crawl – building on 15s rest
800m
Main Set
2-3x 4x 100m Front crawl – 1-3 steady, 4 hard on 30s rest
400m front crawl – steady on 60s rest
2,400m – 3,000m
Main Set 2
4x 3x 50m Front crawl – descending on 20s rest
3,000m – 3,600m
Cool Down
2x 50m As 25m catch-up, 25m front crawl on 10s rest
100m Front crawl – easy
100m Choice
2,700m – 3,900m

This morning’s session was all about stroke timing – comething I knew one or two of my regulars need to work on. Once I was sure they could swim catch-up (in some cases using a small tube to pass from hand-to-hand helped) I also tried half catch-up where the catch starts as the recovering hand enters the water; it’s a small move towards regular stroke timing that takes some concentration, but really gets the swimmer focused on their timing.

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