Weekly Swim Workout #4

A Guiding Principle

We believe in deliberate practice: being systematic, purposeful, and attentive to details.

When you do this, you focus your attention on specific goals that will improve your overall performance.

Deliberate practice opens the door for you to focus on the process rather than the outcome.

When you do this on a regular and consistent basis, the outcome takes care of itself.

We help you focus on the little things so that you can improve your performance and finally achieve the BIG things.

Weekly Workout: Broken 200s

Note: the workout is listed above; what follows is the why / purpose as well as descriptions of workout components and drills

Warm Up

Aim to get in at least 10 minutes of easy swimming where you focus on rotating the arms forward (25 freestyle) and backward (25 backstroke) while building in some backstroke drill work (25 kayak) and waking your legs up (25 kick). Distance is irrelevant at this point — listen to what your body needs to wake up.

Pre-Set

The main set requires a hard push right out of the gates. Therefore, use the Pre-Set to extend the warm up while also elevating your heart rate. After the :10 wall kick (if you struggle with kick, think about trying to kick in a bucket to keep a tight and effective kick), either do a flip turn or immediate push off and do a strong underwater dolphin kick to the 12.5 yard mark (halfway). Swim an easy 25 (halfway to halfway), and then fight to dive back under at the 12.5 mark and return to a strong underwater dolphin kick.

Follow this with three speed play 50s with the 3rd 50 being all easy to set you up for each successive Round.

This is a great set to not only elevate your heart rate, but also work on underwater dolphin kicking and hypoxic training.

Main Set

The pattern of the Main Set is as follows:

4 X 25 IM order swim by round
4 X 25 IM order kick by round
4 X 50 freestyle drill
200 freestyle

The goal of the set is to find a 200 pace during a fully broken 200 (8 X 25 with flip) and then hold that pace throughout the set as you build up to a full 200 freestyle.

4 X 25s
Each round, subtract an all out swim and and all out kick as a way to promote active recovery and set up for the longer effort 200 swims.

Freestyle Drill
This is more of a cognitive drill to focus on kick timing and connection points. The paddle and fin are used to emphasis where you focus should be.

Opposite Side: When you are wearing the paddle/fin combination on opposite sides (e.g., Right paddle and Left fin), you want to make sure that your right arm (paddle side) is entering the water when your left leg (fin side) is engaging in a strong down kick.

Same Side: When you are wearing the paddle/fin combination on the same side (e.g., Right paddle and Right fin), you want to make sure that your right are (paddle side) is starting the catch as your right leg (fin side) is engaging in a strong down kick.

If you have a Finis Swim Snorkel, we highly recommend that you use it for this drill. The snorkel allows you to isolate parts of your stroke that you are working on while maintaining your body position.

Warm Down

Cycle through freestyle, backstroke, and kicking for at least 10 minutes to begin the recovery process.