Fun relay ideas?

Relays: 2 man (8 people total) relays. One person pulls, the other holds the lead person's feet and kicks. They switch at the turn. Works best as a 200 relay. Sculling relay Underwater relay - team is penalized 5 seconds for each breath a member takes T-shirt relay - must wear a t-shirt while swimming and exchange shirt. Corkscrew relay - swim alternating one stroke free, one stroke back (rotating from stomach to back). Crescendo relay - 1st swimmer does a 50, 2nd 100, 3rd 150, 4th 200. I.M. relay - each swimmer does a 25, 50, or 100 IM

We used to do a racecar relay with matchbox cars. It was an underwater relay. The swimmers each had one car, and drove it along the bottom of the pool on the black line. If a swimmer had to come up for air, they pulled the car off the road first. There wasn't any extra time penalty because pulling off the road for gas was its own time penalty. I believe Mike Collins may have been one of the first ones to do this relay in practice. He has a lot of creative ideas! Bill

When I was in high school, we had a studen t teacher/coaching assistant. He used to make us swim 25 yds then do sit[ups then swimm 25 yds then do push ups. then the next swimmer would go. We did IM relays, and free. It really got us going & my abs got really hard for a while. One problem with adding "fun relays" is that most meets take so much time that when youstart adding stuff to them, many can't participate because of the time. this is esp. true if some swimmers have to travel to get tot he meet.

Here are some that are adapted from track & field: Sprint Medley Relay: 100, 50, 50, 200 (or some variant) Distance Medley Relay: 400, 200, 200, 800 (or some variant) 2 Person relay: 2 people alternate legs until a specific distance is reached. In track this was done (back when tracks weren't metric) as 20 X {440 yards (person 1), 440 yards (person2)} for a total of 10 miles. It's brutal. "Endless" relay: for 2 to x people - each person goes a distance (say 50 yards) in a rotation until a specific time is reached. Team with greatest distance wins. "Handicap" relay: Pick a "standard" relay (say 4X100). When teams enter, you add the members' best 100 times together. Slowest total team time goes first, next slowest goes after the difference in that teams time to the first teams time in seconds and so on until the fastest team goes last. First team home wins. "Devil take the hindmost" - similar to the "endless" relay, except that at the end of each round of legs, the last team is eliminated. This is done until only three teams are left and then they either do one leg or round (your choice) for places. You can also combine this for the first round with handicapping, so that there is a chance that one of the faster teams will actually be eliminated. -LBJ

We used to go to a relay met and do a beer relay. Each swimmer had to down a cup (Usu 8-12 oz.) of beer and then swim a 25 or 50 and so on. Pretty fun, not sure how legal it was though!

Hey Billl, not sure what you mean by pulling off the side of the road (do they get to take the car up with them for air) - when we do this relay they have to leave the car on the bottom of the pool when they come up for air. Other relay ideas; Each team gets 1 pair of fins (size and who uses them is up to the team). Chain relay (similiar to the siamese relay) - 1st swimmer swims 1 length of the pool, they are then joined by a second swimmer who must remain in physical contact , they then swim the 2nd length together, those two are then joined by a third swimmer who must remain in physical contact during the third length and so on......... Relay where your hands have to stay interlaced on top of your head. In college our conference did a relay meet, where we swam relays of all the strokes, and IM relay. mixed relays, crescendo. Jeff

Originally posted by kaelonj In college our conference did a relay meet, where we swam relays of all the strokes, and IM relay. mixed relays, crescendo. Jeff Did one of those when I was in high school. Most interesting was the 4x50 backstroke relay. (This was before the current flip turn rules.) Legs 2,3,4 went off the blocks. (Leg 1 started in the water.) 2,3,4 were allowed one stroke after emerging from the dive to get on their backs. (Also no underwater dolphin kicks on backstroke starts and turns in those days. I wonder how they would handle that on the start in a relay like this now... Probably require you to get on your back underwater if you wanted to do underwater dolphin kicks on the start...)

Originally posted by kaelonj Hey Billl, not sure what you mean by pulling off the side of the road (do they get to take the car up with them for air) - when we do this relay they have to leave the car on the bottom of the pool when they come up for air. Hi Jeff, Yes, they pull the car off the road (the black line), and leave it on the bottom when they come up for air. Bill V.

Wow, these are all great ideas. How will we ever decide? I should have mentioned that this meet is scheduled for the weekend before Thanksgiving. One of the races should probably have a turkey theme. Hmmm... No, it's probably not a good idea to make the swimmers transport frozen turkeys the length of the pool.

Put slips of paper into a hat with a distance and stroke on each--say three with 50 free, two each with 50 *** & back, one 50 fly, one each with a 100 free, fly, back, ***, IM, etc. Pull out four at random. This is semi-serious in that each leg is a standard stroke and distance, but totally unpredictable. Matt