What are some legendary jaw dropping workout sets you've heard of people doing or you yourself have done? I've always been curious as to what kinds of mind blowing things Grant Hackett or other distance Gods has done but have never found anything. I remember an article of olympians talking about the craziest sets they've done, but I couldn't re-track it down. I figure someone on these boards must have heard of some doozies and done some! Here's some that I heard about that I thought were amazing.
Erik Vendt 30 x 1000 (short course yards) going 10 off 10:45, 10 off 10:30 and 10 off 10:15. Who knows what the times were but jeez!
Erik Vendt 5 x (500 free followed by a 400 I.M.)
The 500's were on the 5:30, with a goal of holding just below five minutes.
IMs descending on five minutes
First 4:08 last 3:43
Larsen Jensen
20x1500 on 20:00 goal to go under 18:00 each. Apparently he stopped at 17 because he didn't make the time.
Michael Phelps
5,000 free for time in a 46:34.
James Hickman
12 x 200 fly on 3:00 (Hickman does 2:16 to 2:20)
12 x 300 fly/IM (alternate) on 4:30
2400 fly (Hickman does under 29 minutes-1:12 average/100m)
There are lots of jaw-dropping sets mentioned in "Four Champions One Gold Medal" (which is excellent, by the way). Here are just a couple.
Mike Bruner swam a 10,000 (yards) for time in 1976. His splits for the 1000s were 9:47, 9:55, 9:56, 9:59, 9:59, 9:59, 9:59, 9:59, 10:00, 9:40.
Bobby Hackett 100x100 (yards) on 1:00. According to the book he started out holding 57s and gradually started descending. For the final 20 he held 54s, and swam a 52.1 on the final 100.
I have to admit having done some pretty 'nasty' sets as a sophomore in high school back in '79. 10,000 yard days during the season, including the days right before and after meets, etc. Christmas vacation consisted of 15,000-16,000 yard days. Don't remember the workouts too well, some of them were done on autopilot, as you might imagine, but sets of 10x100 on 1:00 or 1:05 weren't uncommon. Some days we started out with 5x200 butterfly!
We all lost count of how many times we came out of the pool puking. But then, of course, we got right back in and kept going!
Of course, we spent not one minute of practice on technique throughout that entire season. It really was the Dark Ages, wasn't it?
Originally posted by etrain
Pretty rough set, but I made it through and felt pretty descent.
Actually, broken up the way it is, it doesn't seem so bad.
Not that I'd want to do it right now...:)
This is my first reply to a thread. I remember a workout when I was 14 (1979) and the main set was 4000 straight. One of our members (age 14) swam it in 40.00. He averaged 1:00 per 100.
Here's one that is right up there or better than Bobby Hackett - Jeff Kostoff did 3x5000 on 50 minutes. I've got his repeat times at home (old Swimming World magazine) and I think he descended the third one down to 46+.
Jeff swam for Stanford, held the American Record in the 1650 for over 10 years and still holds the National high school record in the 500 free from the early 80s. Just this year he was listed in Swimming World as perhaps the greatest workout swimmer of all time. He also did sets like 10x400 IM on 4:20 (he held the American Record in the 400 IM, too).
My college team once did a drop out set of 100s on 1:05. I "only" made 55 but a teammate made 100. We never had a swimmer qualify for NCAAs so I'm quite sure dozens of teams each had a dozen swimmers that could have routinely done sets like that.
Jeff Roddin
The hardest sets I ever did were 10 x 200 meter fly and 10 x 800 free. I don't remember the intervals! I just remember after the 800's I almost passed out and had to lay down for an hour before I could drive home!
when I was 16 I used to compete open water, my legendary workouts were
-1x 10.000 + 20 x 25
or
-1 x 6000 + 20 x 50
(morning) SCM, I didnt even warm up (for some reason I didn't need to), I just jumped right into the pool and start counting 400 laps trying as hard as competition.
and then 3000 to 10000 on the sea (afternoon)
I could only swim freestyle, and I wasn't fast, but I could swim forever if my coach asked for.
Right now, the longest set i do no-stop, is 1000 free...and my warm ups are long and mixed with lots of drills. :D
Hey do you guys know of any good distance sets that emphasized quality over quantity?
Lots of good ideas were posted in the holiday/New Year's sets threads, if you want to look back about 4 weeks.
I'd be interested in sets that are legendary not because the Olympians did them but because they are classic: scalable up or down, depending on one's pace; can be done in a mixed group (slowest swimmer - me - leaves out the last iteration, e.g.); work every stroke; add spice to taste. From experience doing the daily online USMS coaches' workouts, I'd also like something that feels like a whole-body workout if I have to stop halfway. Tall order...
Regards, VB
Hey Vivebene,
Here's one of my husband's favorites to assign: the Fischburn set.
5x100 on x
4x200 on x + 1 min
3x300 on x + 2 min
2x400 on x + 3 min
1x500 on x + 4 min
So the trick is, what is x? The last time I did this set, maybe 5 years ago, x=3. So I did my first 100's on the 3 min, the 200's on the 4:00 etc to a 7:00 500. The key is to start smoooooth and build your way into the longer distances. Obviously, 100's on the 3:00 are pretty easy to make, but if you go too hard, you will be hurting bad by the time you get to the 500. Ideally, you want to set x such that the 500 requires near race quality speed to make that last interval. I think when my husband used to do this set as an agegrouper, he started at the 1:15. So the 500 was on the 5:15... Quite a different set from starting at my 3 min!
