Weekly Swim Workout #7

A Guiding Principle

At Steele Coaching, 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: Fatigued Pacing

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

Warm Up

Because there is a bit of stroke work—drill work—in the Main Set, the Warm Up focuses on each of the four strokes; however, this is broken up as follows: 50 easy freestyle, 50 freestyle streamline kick on your back, 50 stroke drill, 50 stroke streamline kick on your back.

As you cycle through the 200 above each time, you’ll rotate through the four strokes in IM order.

Pre-Set

The Pre-Set is designed to increase your heart rate while also helping you find your goal 500 pace (P500). In distance swimming, it’s easy to focus on your 100 times—it makes logical sense. However, when swimmers do this, they often slip into pacing that is slower than their goal pace. By the time they hit the 100 marks, they’ve fallen too far off their pace.

Therefore, the focus of this set is “feeling” your goal 500 pace (P500) for 50s. For example, if your goal 500 is 5:30, you would want to hold :33s for the P500 50s.

Having goals gives you focus. Whether you reach them or not is irrelevant. But, fully engaging in the process of striving for goals—to the end—is what matters. Know your goals for swimming. Use your practices to engage in the process.

Main Set

The Main Set includes 3 Rounds of the following pattern:

2 X 100 IM order stroke drill
4 X 50 kick 
2 X 25 underwater dolphin kick (hypoxic)
1 X 50 sprint
4 (+2 by Round) X 50 P500 
1 X 100 recovery

2 X 100 IM order stroke drill
For the IM order stroke drill, Round 1 will focus on butterfly, Round 2will focus on backstroke, and Round 3 will focus on breaststroke. The drills for each stroke are below:

Butterfly
25 dolphin kick on your back
25 butterfly with your right arm only
25 butterfly with your left arm only
25 with 3 perfect full strokes, and then cycle into one arm butterfly

Backstroke
25 backstroke with your right arm only
25 backstroke with your left arm only
25 L-Drill: with each stroke, pause to make an “L” shape with your arms by focusing on 90 degree formations; as one arm enters the water, pause at the streamline position while the recovery arm is paused at the top of the stroke (toward the ceiling).
25 backstroke

Breaststroke
25 kick on your back (focus: keep your knees under water)
25 breaststroke pull with 1 or 2 dolphin kicks per arm cycle
25 breaststroke with 1 pull and 2–3 underwater streamline kicks
25 breaststroke

4 X 50 Kick
The kicking portion of this set is designed to get you to build strength in your kick by pushing against resistance and then feel the freedom of the resistance by kicking a 25 in streamline position.

For the push board, position your kick board so that it is perpendicular to the water (think of a snow plow) to generate resistance against your kick. Kick this 25 as hard as you can. At the 25, drop your kick board and kick a 25 on your back in streamline position.

Rotate this pattern for the remaining 50s.

2 X 25 Underwater Dolphin Kick
This is designed to start to generate fatigue by having you focus on hypoxic training. Fight to make the whole 25 under water without a breath. If you need to come up for air, dive back under water and continue without a breath to the wall.

Notice that the interval drops by :10 each Round.

1 X 50 choice all out
You get to pick your stroke here. Nothing fancy here other than speed. Aim to match or beat your time each Round. Similar to above, the focus is to generate increasing fatigue as you move into the P500 50s so that you can try to hit your goal 500 pace while tired.

4 (+2 by Round) X 50 P500
Know your P500. Find it early and settle in to an increasing number of 50s per Round. By the time you get to Round 3, you will have generated a lot of fatigue throughout the Main Set. Fight to maintain your pace (and form) while tired.

Warm Down

A 10 minute Warm Down cycling through a 25 freestyle, 25 backstroke, and a 25 kick with (or without) a kick board. Be sure to use the Warm Down to find your form again—be mindful of your technique at all points of your workout and fight to maintain it, even when tired. Muscle memory is key to efficient and effective swimming.