Monday 10-29 workout

We had another very strong swim workout yesterday afternoon that I wanted to share.  It was meant to push the length that we were swimming at very high speeds.  We have been building the amount of threshold or what we call "cruise" speeds all season, and this pushed the total volume along with the length of time they were holding fast repeats.  They were swimming very fast for 9 minutes at a time (with rest) and 4 minutes of EZ swimming:

Warmup was about 1500 yards, ending with some 25's where we got the heart rate up to be ready to go.

I called these Indy 500's. the pattern I got from an old Mark Spitz set I saw, but I made it work to what we wanted to adapt to.

5 Rounds with a 200 @ 4:00 between each set:

1 X 25 from dive @ 30 (asked them to jump off the cliff, and go fast, get the heart rate up right away)
3 X 50 Kick @ 50 holding best effort they can, most of our team was under 40
3 X 75 Swim @ 1:30 holding our threshold paces or better (my top men's group was all under 40's, and top women were under 45
1 X 100 w/ fins & paddles @ 2:00 trying to go under best times.  We want them to use a bigger engine with the fins and paddles and finish feeling fast, and still working really hard.  We had a few men going under 50 and a few women under 55.  In the future, I may be more selective with the paddles as some of our team at our level, cant keep a high enough tempo.  We shall see.

The entire set takes an hour, very productive for our team.  Where it fits into our training schedule, we did an aerobic endurance set Monday morning, this set in the afternoon, and then no morning practice today, with short (05-10 sec) high velocity swims tonight.

STAY STRONG! Your test will be your test-imony, your Mess will be your Mess-age.

Monday Afternoon Workout

Monday afternoon, we had a Threshold type set that we swam very well.  We use the pace chart below from T2 aquatics for our goal times for the set.  This set and pattern is nothing ground breaking, but it matched what we were looking to do yesterday and we executed it very well which is what a good practice is supposed to do.


To set this up, we had a morning workout Monday morning that was very aerobic, endurance based with short rest intervals and a consistent steady effort throughout.  Just good hard work.

Monday, October 07, 2013

Afternoon

Warmup

400Choice-300pull-200kick-100IM

Short FR/Stroke (long FR did a version of this set which took them up to a 300 instead of 3 X 100, we had 2 men go 2:55 and 2:56 which is pretty quick for us)

18 X 100 @ 1:45

*stroke on last 3

1 EZ – 1 Cruise

1 EZ – 2 Cruise

1 EZ – 3 Cruise

3 EZ – 1 Cruise

2 EZ – 1 Cruise

1 EZ – 1 Cruise

18 X 75 w/ fins + paddles @ 1:10

Odd – Head up Kick, FL on BK, 6 beat kick

Even – stroke specific, coach will explain

18 X 50 Kick @ 1:00

*same pattern as 100’s

200-500 Warmdown

All IM

2 rounds

1 X 150 IM No FR Cruise @ 2:10

1 X 150 EZ @ 2:20

4 X 75 stroke @ 1:30

Odd – Cruise, Even EZ

1 X 150 FR Cruise @ 2:10

1 X 150 EZ @ 2:20

18 X 75 w/ fins + paddles @ 1:10

Odd – Head up Kick, FL on BK, 6 beat kick

Even – stroke specific, coach will explain

18 X 50 Kick @ 1:00

*same pattern as 100’s

200-500 Warmdown

Calvin College_________________________2013-14_______________________Cruise Speed

200 PR       100 Pace              125 Pace              150 Pace              200 Pace              300 Pace

1:35-1:39     51.5-53.5              1:06.0-1:08.0      1:21.0-123.5        1:48.5-1:151.5    2:49.0-2:53.0

1:40-1:44     54.0-56.0              1:09.0-1:11.0      1:24.0-1:26.5      1:53.5-1:56.5      2:55.0-2:59.0

1:45-1:49     56.5-58.5              1:12.0-1:14.0      127.0-1:29.5        1:58.5-2:01.5      3:01.5-3:05.5

1:50-1:54     59.0-1:01.0          1:15.0-1:17.0      1:31.5-1:34.0      2:03.5-2:06.5      3:10.0-3:14.0

1:55-1:59     1:01.5-1:03.5      1:18.5-1:20.5      1:35.5-1:38.0      2:08.5-2:11.5      3:19.5-3:23.5

2:00-2:04     1:04.0-1:06.0      1:21.5-1:23.5      1:39.0-1:41.5      2:13.5-2:16.5      3:25.0-3:29.0

2:05-2:09     1:06.5-1:08.5      1:24.5-1:26.5      1:42.5-1:45.0      2:18.5-2:21.5      3:32.5-3:36.5

2:10-2:14     1:09.0-1:11.0      1:27.5-1:29.5      1:46.0-1:48.5      2:23.5-2:26.5      3:38.0-3:43.0

2:15-2:19           1:11.5-1:13.5      1:30.5-1:32.5      1:49.5-1:52.0      2:28.5-2:31.5      3:45.5-3:52.5

Time to play Offense

With football season in full swing and second half of the fall semester upon on, I thought I'd use a little football terminology.  In order to get to Thanksgiving break, we are going to have to have a good offensive game plan.


1. Don't play defense.  When you are on defense, you end up staying up all night, you are always behind and trying to catch up, you overlook important things in your life that need attention, and eventually you will get scored on in the form of a bad test, illness, injury, or make a bad decision that leads to something worse.

2. Have a game plan.  Get your calendar out, put down all your deadlines for papers, exams, swim meets, other things in your life and create a strategy for getting things done on time.

3. Slow steady Drive. The best way to control the game is to run the ball and keep it simple.  Be consistent every day in your studying, sleep, health and faith.  It is more fun to run a flashy offense, but you are also more likely to turn the ball over and start to go on defense.

4. Good clock management. You have to manage the clock. Look at how you are spending your time.  Be efficient.

5. You can't use the whole playbook all the time.  Every coach has their favorite play or a play the crowd may like better.  You have to learn to stay disciplined and call the right play for the right situation.  Sometimes you have to say no.  The right play may be getting to the library, or getting to bed, or getting to Church on Sunday morning.

6. You can't win by yourself.  Use your teammates, you can do more together than you can by yourself.

7. Stick to the game plan.  When things start to go against you, we often want to over react and make bad decisions.  Trust your game plan and go back to executing what you know will work.

Enjoy being busy! You can always do more than you think!