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
| 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
| 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
| 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.
