Tall Pauls Favorite Workouts and/or Sets

If you want to hold a certain pace in a given race, you should have a very good idea of what that pace feels like, and be able to do it without going all out. The "lactate tolerance" comes into play when you hold that pace with less and less recovery time. True, but I think a 3:00 interval for 50s is excessive for a pace set. That's a 5:1 rest to swim ratio.

I do a 10x50 SCM on 2:00 from a push set once every other month with my daughter's team. They do test sets like this quite often for all 4 strokes and track the total of all 10 swims. I can only hang on these sets swimming free. Ack this is the every other month :afraid:. This set is VERY challenging and painful and I generally only do it after an easy practice. I find this type of set allows me to get a feel for when my stroke breaks down under serious lactic acid. These are the kind of sets that sprinters (specifically 50 sprinters) need to throw in every once in a while.

So this morning I swam with Sun Devil (fast Friday) and had a chance to adapt the workout along the lines of the discussion we've been having on these speed sets. The main set was 5 x the following 1 x 75 @ 3:00 1 x 50 @ 2:00 1 x 25 @ 1:00 My goal was to work on 200 speed/tempo so I only did the "odd" rounds fast and did the evens pulling/hypoxic. For me my target speed for a 75 at 200 race pace (free) is about :38, 50 would be :25 and 25 :10. Whereas my target time for a 75 at 100 race pace is about :35, 50 would be :24 & 25 :11 (all of these from a push not a dive). In this workout the amount of recovery I did allowed me to hit those goal times pretty easilly even with fatigue building...which is when I really refocused on nailing turns/breakouts/maintaining a 6 beat kick. IMHO there is a "middle ground" of not being completely wasted or totally recovered which most mirrors the "feel" I have in an actual race...and where so often mistakes occur...the more I can practice in this "place" the more confident I am that it will be auto-pilot at the meet.

The main set was 5 x the following 1 x 75 @ 3:00 1 x 50 @ 2:00 1 x 25 @ 1:00 750 yards in 30 minutes with lots of potential pain! I remember one of my coaches telling me a few weeks ago that 800 yards is considered the sweet spot for fast sets like this.

Thanks to all who weighed in on the 12 x 50 on 3:00 set question. The varied exchange of ideas gave me quite a bit to think about for sets like that one. If nothing else, at least I'm trying to plan before starting a sprint set about what I want to take out of it, which is a good thing.

Swam the noon workout at brophy with Coach Rankin on deck. Aerobic day. SCY warm-up 4 x 150's @ 2:30 8 x 50's :45 Main 4 x the following: 3 x 200's (descend 1-3) + 100 back/recovery 1st round 200's on 3:00, take :10 off each of the following rounds. All backstroke swims @ 2:30 warmdown 10 x 25's @ :25 no breathers

For me my target speed for a 75 at 200 race pace (free) is about :38, 50 would be :25 and 25 :10. Whereas my target time for a 75 at 100 race pace is about :35, 50 would be :24 & 25 :11 (all of these from a push not a dive). I'm just about back into shape, so I have started working more sprints or race pace sets at practice. but I was curious if you had a typo, or do you really swim the 25 at 200 pace faster than your 100? shouldn't that be maybe 12 or 13?

I'm just about back into shape, so I have started working more sprints or race pace sets at practice. but I was curious if you had a typo, or do you really swim the 25 at 200 pace faster than your 100? shouldn't that be maybe 12 or 13? I should have given more details. In this case I was working on 1st 25 speed (from a push to a hand touch) for the 200 and second 25 for the 100 (also from a push to the hand and really looking to be closer to 11.9/12.2 range)...as you may be guessing, I do a LOT of speedplay work and don't always go into the full details of what I may be working on in this posts..

Coached the morning workout at Cactus, lactate day. SCY Warm-up 400 = (4x 25swim/25 kick/25 swim/25 scull) 6 x 25's drill - 25 swim "normal", 25 swim with fists - 25 swim with fingers wide open/ 25 swim with relaxed hand - 25 swim with fingers tight together/25 swim with relaxed hand * i see far to many swimmers with finger/thumb positions to tight, to wide, one hand one way the other the other way...thumbs all over the place. Today I did this drill because I feel far to many people "spin" when they work at speed and often complain that they are no faster...one of the reasons for this IMHO is incorrect postioning of the fingers/thumb. 2 x (3 x 75's @ 1:15) #1 1st 25 at 90% #2 2nd 25 @ 90% #3 3rd 25 @ 90% Main #1 2 x 300's @ 5:00 * 1st 100 is swam at 95%, 10 sec break then into 200 recovery focusing on perfect technique Main #2 4 x 50's @ 2:00 * choice of strokes, all 4 fast Main #3 20 x 25's @ :30 * All out to 15yds w/no breath, easy to wall breathing as much as needed Warm down 400 pull

Swam the Saturday morning Sun Devil workout, Coach Jon on deck. 10 minute choice warm-up 4 x 50's build @ 1:00 2 x (3x 25's cycle 3 @ :35) * cycle 3 = #1 DPS, #2 overspin, #3 tempr somewhere between the two Main 3 x thru the following: 400 pull @ 6:00 3 x 100's swim descend 1-3 @ 1:30 200 swim fast @ 4:00 50 kick fast @ 1:00 easy 100 @ 3:00