Saturday’s Workout

We are back in the thick of training. We coaches are very happy with this turn of events. Tapering can drive a coach crazy…not really but we think you get our drift. Here in Northern California high school swimming is a spring sport so all our club swimmers, while training mostly with our club team, are representing their individual high schools and competing for them at the usual dual meets leading up to the mid-May Championship Meets. We have swimmers at 12 different high schools so we get the rivalries going, even in our club training sessions. The kids have a great deal of fun with it and this adds a seasonal sense of levity to the normal training process.

Here is what we did last Saturday for our workout. We have access to a 40 meter pool so that gives us 16 short course lanes…plenty of room for creativity. We used about 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Warm-up consisted of about 15 minutes of their choice of swimming/kicking/pulling...mostly social kicking...they love that. Then we did an 800 “mix and match” where they get to swim - not pull or kick –whatever they want, they may use paddles and snorkels...gotta keep moving, the talking is over. Then we pulled with paddles a 400, again their choice of stroke and/or drills. Then we swam a 200 IM. Then we did a few 25’s build up. I think we were in the 2,000 range at this point.

We then did an Eddie Reese set that is awesome...thanks Eddie for sharing! We did four rounds with about a minute or so between rounds giving them a chance to switch lanes to a different interval for strokes or fatigue or wimp factor - whatever!...yeah, we’ve got some wimps on our team, just as do most of you...

4x100 on a tight interval…we had lanes of 1:00 - 1:05 – 1:10 or 1:15... we had no slower interval than 1:15 but you could easily do this on a slower interval if that is where your team is training/development wise. We simply didn’t want to give anyone the "out" of 1:20...there were only four 100's anyway.

On the interval of what would be the 5^th 100 you go immediately into 4x50/1. The 50’s are 25 kick, 25 swim then 25 swim, 25 kick (repeat and you have 4 50s’)... then we rested a minute or so to reset lanes.

This is 2400 yards in about 45 minutes and no one was chatting. The set is all about the 50’s and they are leg dominate. Make certain everyone is kicking on the swim 25’s, not just the kick 25’s. We only allow flutter or breast kick with the board. Dolphin and back kick are without the board. IM’ers love this set because they can do a 50 of each stroke, kicking a 25 and swimming a 25.

We have 10 lanes with blocks so after this set was done we had everyone get up on the deck and gave 2 tempo timers (trainers?) to each lane. We had about 4-5 swimmers per lane. They set their tempo timers to the appropriate tempo for a 100 yard swim, depending on their choice of stroke (IM’s were not possible)(see recent postings on the US Swimming’s web site for current data on tempos). We then went off the blocks, one swimmer per lane at a time, practicing relay takeoffs while swimming at the correct tempo until all swimmers had done 3x100 (there was no interval, just continuous takeoffs). 

Again, there was very little chatter other than the occasional “go” as a shout out to a teammate. We didn’t allow anyone to sit while waiting their turn. It was a very stressful set...basically 3x100 on 4 to 5 minutes.

We followed this with 5x50 using the same format.

We then loosened down with 8x25 hypoxic rotation (3, 2, 1, 0 breaths per 25) from a dive or running dive on the other end of the pool. The interval was 45 seconds. Again, there was very little talking. When they don’t chatter we know we have their attention.

We then gathered on the deck, put all hands on Emily’s head and did a team cheer...perhaps you heard it... Saturday March 23^rd   12:20 Pacific Time...

Awesome workout; enormous energy…

Cannot wait for tomorrow morning 5:30 AM!