Just to get the ball rolling here, I'd like to post a practice we did last night. It was written by one of our team's co-coaches, Bill White, who swam at the University of Louisville and is the most knowledgable swim coach I have personally had the pleasure to meet (this includes, by the way, one year at the U. Michigan.)
Anyhow, Bill's workout seemed impossibly challenging, but somehow he coaxed us into making it.
5 x 200 on 2:45 warm up
5 x 200 on 2:35
4 x 200 on 2:30
3 x 200 on 2:25
2 x 200 on 2: 20
1 x 100 all out sprint
1 x 100 cool down.
We got about a minute and a half rest between each of the sets above. Our team only gets the pool for 60 minutes, so the total practice was 4000 yards completed in 60 minutes. I suspect this practice would be pretty easy for younger type swimmers, but I am 49 and it was quite challenging. I should point out, however, that when it was over, all of us who made it felt a tremendous sense of satisfaction!
Former Member
I don't think I could make those send-offs for too long. Last night our coach didn't show up, so we made up our own workout: for warmup-500 choice (mix it up); then 275 free @ 75% followed by 2 really hard 50's on your own send-off (I chose :45), next, a 250 and 2-50's, 225++, 200, 150, etc finishing with the 2- 50's of course. An easy 250 cool-down = 3500 yards. Interesting, and you can work this as hard as you like.
Back when I was coaching and didn't have time or inclination to really work/out hard, I developed what I call a "5x5" or 2500 yard swim. It's easy to remember, you go at your own pace, and for the fitness swimmer, it works nicely into a one hour time slot. Here it is: warm-up 500 free or choice
drill set 2 x 250 your stroke
kick set 5x 100 mixemup
pull set 2 x 250 free
sprint set 10 x 50 on your interval
Now you can readily see that to obtain variety, just mix up the numbers and/or the strokes swum. Just stay with the 5 x 500 concept. I hope this helps anyone out there floundering around looking for ideas but not wanting a complicated workout. Bert:D
Jim: That is an intriguing work-out and my hats off to all of you who can do that. Are most Masters swimmers in this league? I and many of my teammates would be thrilled to even hit a 2:30 on any 200 interval. Those times and repeats are not even close to what we do. And we do work hard. I would think reading a sample work-out like that might seem intimidating to novices--and others.
There are ways to avoid posting the intervals so that the workouts are more applicable to the majority of swimmers. For example, at www.mvm.org (Mountain View Masters) there is an excellent collection of workouts. All the intervals are specified as "cruise + :t", where cruise is an interval that you can make semi-indefinitely, and t is the number of seconds to add (or subtract) from that. If t is large, you are doing a sprint set, if t is small, you are doing an aerobic set (unless otherwise specified) and if t is negative I think you would be doing an anaerobic, build up the lactic acid set.
Lets say Jim cruises at a 1:20/100yd pace. His 200 cruise is then 2:40, and his workout would be
5x200 @cruise +:05
5x200 @cruise -:05
4x200 @cruise -:10
3x200 @cruise -:15
2x200 @cruise -:20
1x100 sprint
1x100 cooldown
This is a very tough workout, and definitely builds up the lactic acid. My only criticism is that I, at least, would need more of a cooldown after a workout like that.
Here is a fun workout - the workout was split between those who wanted to do sets of 500 swims and pulls, and this one. Obviously, the focus is butterfly:
4 x (100free, 75 free drill, 50 fly kick, 25 fly) :05 rest between sets
5 x (75 'fish'fly kick, 50 small fly kick, 25 underwater fly kick) with fins, :05 rest between sets
20 x 25 fly (first 8, focus streamline and straight elbows, next 6, focus 1 breath for every three strokes, next 4, focus long kick off wall on side, last 2, all out sprint) on last person.
300 swim
4 x 25 fly on :30
1min rest
4x25 fly on :25
1 min rest
4x25 fly on :20
300 cool down
3150 total yards.
I had to write it all down now, before I forgot it.:confused:
Effi,
Actually, our team has three lanes, with corresponding A, B, and C workouts. The workout I listed was the A workout; B does about 10 -20 percent less; and C does about 30-40 percent less. The A lane's 200s were extremely challenging, and I wouldn't have made it were it not for drafting off the guy in front of me!
I suspect there are elite masters who can easily do this workout; but most rank and file types (myself included) find it borderline impossible. The fact that I managed to cross the borderline on this occasion was cause for personal jubilation.
The cruising + or - seconds concept is a good one. Another way to go is to do a long swim (from 1650 to 3000) as fast as you can go without dying, then calculate your average 100 pace. This is your so-called anaerobic threshold. Example: I just did my best all-time time for the 1650--a 19:27. This works out to about 1:10.8 per 100. When I am doing sets of 100s on very low rest, I add about 5-10 seconds-- i.e., 100s on 1:15 to 1:20. Double this for 200s.
For people whose AT pace works out to, say, 1:25, you can push the aerobic envelope, so to spead, by again adding 5-10 seconds--100s on 1:30 to 1:35, or 200s on 3:00 to 3:10. Over the course of the season, by regularly doing such sets a couple times a week, your AT time should slowly but surely drop a bit.
To improve middle distance speed, you can add rest and try to beat the AT time. For instance, instead of trying to make 10 x 100s on 1:20 (averaging around 1:10 per 100), I might try to do 10 x 100 on 1:30 (averaging 1:08s) or 10 x 100 on 2:00 (averaging 1:04s). For true sprinting, jack up the rest and the intensity considerably--last night, for example, we did 3 x 100 on about 4 minutes (:59; :56; :56) followed by 3 x 50s all out sprint on about 3 minutes (:26; :26; and a :29.9 for fly)
Times should be relative to your own speed. If your AT time is 1:25, and you're repeating 100s on 1:35, you're working harder than a college stud repeating 100s on 1:10 (but whose AT time is :58).
Here is a fun workout, if you like fly and IM. I did it today because I had to w/o on my own. I find doing fly keeps me from goofing off when I'm on my own.
W/U:
500 Swim
300K
200IM Drill
300Pull
8x50 kick
Main set:
10x300 Flyims (Fly-IM's) 4:30
Flyims are like this: First IM regular then, replace 3rd 25 of free with fly. Then 3rd 25 free and 3rd 25 *** with fly. Then 3rd 25free,*** and back. Then
continue replacing non-IM strokes with fly, 25 at a time until the 10th "Flyim" is all fly.
W/D 300ez
5,000Yds. Total
I happened to be in LA for a few days and had a chance to train with Gerry Rodrieguez who coaches the UCLA Masters. I've worked out with these guys in the past and needless to say they are one of the harder training clubs I've come across.
Gerry organizes his workouts in a very "inclusive" format in which I''ve seen only a few other places but that I really enjoy. Basically everyone is leaving on the same interval but the distances are changed to accomadate peoples different speeds.
This morning Gerry put the hammer on everyone (must not have slept well last night!) with a "backload" main set. I mention this also as a workout for those middle distance/distance types wanting to train in a way to develop pace & endurance.
Warmup:
- 300-500 easy
- 6 x 200 (50kick, 50 breath x 3, 50 dps, 50 breath x 5) @ 3:00
- 8 x 50 (25fly/25free) @ :45
Main Set:
1 x 150 (or 125, 100 or 75) @ 2:00
1 x 150 @ 1:55
1 X 150 @ 1:50
1 x 150 @ 1:45
1 x 150 @ 1:40
1 x 150 @ 1:35
* Hold your pace on all of these to come in right at the interval
Phase Two: Repeat the above set reversing the intervals holding the time from the 6th 150 (or 125, 100 0r 75) for all 6 repeats.
Pretty Cool workout (and painful)!
Our coach, a great guy named Bill White, has designated Mondays as our distance-y challenge workout. Here's what we did tonight, which is quite possibly the hardest practice I've managed to finish since I was in college 35 years ago:
300 pre warm up
10 x 100 on 1:25 warm up
10 x 100 on 1:20
10 x 100 on 1:15
4 x 100 on 1:10
4 x 50 on :35
1 x 100 sprint
1 x 100 easy
further cool down if there was any time left (alas, there wasn't)
It might be interesting to see what others out there consider to be extremely challenging workouts that they've actually made (or come close to making.) I propose this not as a "Mine Was Harder!" kind of competition, but rather just to see the kinds of sets other people around the country are doing. It probably would make sense to comment on age and gender here so we're comparing apples to apples, so to speak. The four swimmers in our lane who swam the above tonight were the coach himself (31 year old male); a 40 year old male; a 23 year old female; and me, a 49-year-old codger in the making. The other three all swam for four years in college; I got cut from our team (Michigan) after my freshman year, but have kept swimming masters fairly consistently since getting out of grad school in 1983.
