What's your favorite workout?

This is my all time fav. workout!! Really, REALLY, easy for anyone who just got back into it!! I love it!! 250-free 250-*** 400-IM 50-free sprinit 50-*** Repeat Total -- 2000 I usually take the last 100 and do drills or something else, and sometimes add extra drills onto the end, and then a warm-down. Can't wait to see some other ideas..I'm running low on sets to do!! ~Kyra

We did a fun one the other day (fun is a relative term) 4x100 IM - NO stopping b/w IMS 2x 200 IM - No stopping b/w IMS 400 IM We repeated that set 3x ... it's actually kind of fun and it always reminds me as to why fly is the first stroke in the IM. Another fun one is swimming "off" disances IM - like 300, 500, 600, 800 ... My friend and I always say the 600 and 800 aren't so much for time as they are for survival. (We usually either get an interval or a "do this at 80% the whole time" - to which we usually laugh and just try to hang on). Another one we do is 200s of each stroke twice through in reverse IM order

One from a recent Sun Devils practice: 600 warm up 3 x 400 pull (@ 5:00, 5:30 or 6:00) 4 x 100s @ 1:45 100 easy 4 x 75s @ 1:30 100 easy 4 x 50s @ 1:15 100 easy 4 x 25s @1:00 each rotation is a different stroke warm down

This is the workout I have been doing every Sunday. I like it a lot and look forward these sessions. The drills between repeats let you work on your stroke, and breaks up the workout into 3 mini-sets. You can also make this a 3000 yd workout by doing only 3 repeats at each distance, or a 4200 yd workout by doing 5 repeats. Warm-up: 500 swim, 200k (2x100 IM) Main Set: 4 x 300 on Lane Base 4 x 50 drills on :55, fists/back/catch-up/*** 4 x 200 on Lane Base 4 x 50 drills on :55, fists/back/catch-up/*** 4 x 100 on Lane Base cool down: 100 *** 3600 yards total.

One of my favorite workouts to do is: Start with 200's on 2:45 and drop five seconds each time you swim a 200. So you do ?x200 on 2:45, 2:40, 2:35, 2:30, etc. When you cannot make the interval, you drop down to 150's and then when you cannot make the interval, you drop down to 100's and then to 50's. Practice goes by fast when you do this workout. I like to do it Freestyle, but I have done it IM before. A lot of yards, a real challenge, and an enjoyable practice! I usually end up doing 6x200 2:45 to 2:20 5 x150 2:15-1:50 7 x100 1:45-1:10 7 x50 1:05-30

On New Years Eve morning, I took an hour and did 30 x 100s freestyle. I liked it more than I thought I would. You get into a rhythm.

Paul, Finally got back in the pool today after surgery. Come by Brophy sometime if you can. Would love to catch up with you. You know we have some good workouts here! (I won't be doing them anytime soon, but at least I can watch y'all)

this is my first post! one of my favorite sets is a sweet set of 50's 5 x 50 @ :55 5 x 50 @ :50 5 x 50 @ :45 5 x 50 @ :40 5 x 50 @ :35 and then back up. another good set of 50's 10 x 50 @ :55 10 X 50 @ 1:00 10 x 50 @ 1:05 all three sets are all out, for each interval you should have an average time that you are holding...with each interval, your average time should drop 2 or 3 seconds. IM set: 4 x 75 @ 1:20 im order by 25's (ie: 1st 75 fly back ***, 2nd 75 free fly back, 3rd 75 *** free fly, 4th 75 back *** free) 100 im all out 1 minute rest repeat 5 times the first time i did this set, it totally kicked my butt. the time seems generous, but it definitely worked. happy swimming!

Here are some sets that I love to do: Broken 1650 - You swim 11 laps, then 10, 9...and so one until you end up with just one lap left. You rest 10 seconds between each "set" of laps. Here's another one: Sometimes, if we have the right number of people, our coach breaks us up into teams of 3 or 4, but all the lanes have the same number of people. The levels vary - one slower person, one faster person (determined by best 100 time) and finally a really fast person is in each lane, so you don't end up with a lane full of really fast people and lanes of slower folks and non sprinters, like yours truly. Then we do a set of 5 x 100 on 5 minutes - 100 fast for time; and the rest is active recovery. Everyone swims, and we leave 10 sec. apart. The lane that ends up with the lowest overall time wins! Yet another favorite: 12 x 25 fly with fins on a really long interval - like 45 sec., which means these are FAST! (part of the reason for my love affair with fins). :p

10x100@2.15 (about 45 seconds rest) 1st 25 is freestyle minimum breathing 2nd 25 is choice stroke maximum effort 3rd 25 is freestyle minimum breathing 4th 25 is choice stramline kick The idea behind this is to get yourself into oxygen debt and still be able to sprint and kick strong. This set should only be done supervised and you should keep the breathing relatively comfortable depending on age and fitness. Along the same lines a breaststroke drill that I love doing works on the split stroke component. The set is swam over 100 metres: 1st 25 stroke - 2 kicks then split stroke - stroke (repeat till end of 25. You only breathe on the stroke. The two kicks are there to help gain speed and depth. 2nd 25 stroke - 3 kicks then split stroke - stroke (repeat till end of 25.) 3rd 25 max effort breaststroke 4th 25 Same as 1st 25 I find this really handy for breaststrokers to get used to the last turn of a race. Again you should read about the effects of hypoxic breathing because it can be dangerous if done too often or not properly.