Weekly Swim Workout #15
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: Speed Wars: P500 vs. P200
Note: the workout is listed above; what follows is the why / purpose as well as descriptions of workout components and drills
Warm Up
The Warm Up cycles continuously through the following 200 for 10 minutes:
50 freestyle
50 non-freestyle
25 human stroke
25 light build
The Main Set is heavy freestyle-focused so the Warm Up includes a bit of variety to ensure adequate warm up of your shoulders while also building in a bit of drill work — human stroke — to focus on your catch while paying extra attention to not dropping your elbow. The light build is designed to help you find a bit of speed in the Warm Up while also slightly elevating your heart rate before the Main Set.
Main Set
The Main Set consists of 4 components that you’ll cycling through for five Rounds.
3 X 50 drill @ 1:10
4 X 25 set-up @ :40
1 X 125 P500 @ 4:20
1 X 125 P200 @ 4:20
Active Recovery/Form: 3 X 50 drill @ 1:10
Hip Rotation Kick Drill: keep your hands at your sides (by your hips) and simply kick a 50 while focusing on rotating your body — driven by your hips — from left to right. Take note of how your shoulders follow what your hips do.
Right/Left Kick Drill: 12.5 kicking on your right side — right arm out front in streamline position, right hip to bottom of pool, right shoulder to bottom of pool, and head down in streamline position; 12.5 kicking on left side — similar to above.
1/10 Drill: similar to the above drill, you’ll kick 10 times on your right side, take a stroke and then kick 10 times on your left side. Cycle through this pattern for a 50 with a focus of driving the rotation from your hips.
1/10 + L-Pivot Drill: similar to the above; however, during the pause (10 kick) you will go into a straight arm recovery. In a sense, your arms will be in an L-shape at this point. From here, pivot at the elbow to drop your thumb into your arm pit. From there, move your hand to the finish of your stroke (hips), and then complete the recovery portion of your stroke trying to drag your thumb by your arm pit. The purpose of this drill is to focus on finding a high-elbow recovery.
Fist Drill: this drill is designed to help you develop a feel for the water with a specific focus on finding surface area on your forearms to pull you through the water. Swimming freestyle, you’ll simply make fists throughout your stroke. And you start your catch, pay attention to grabbing water with your forearms since you’ll have lost the surface area of your hands.
Set-Up: 4 X 25 @ :40
Streamline Kick: in a tight streamline position, kick a 25 on your back. This is designed to get your legs into the workout and help you focus on good streamline position.
Ankle Pull: put the pull buoy between your ankles (rather than your thighs) and pull your 25s. The purpose of this is to draw your attention to where you “snake” in the water and/or where there are weak points (sag) in your core alignment. Strive to keep the streamline position and limit any side-to-side movement with your feet.
Paddles Only: at this point in the set, the paddles help you to redirect your focus to your catch of the stroke. Where can you find power? Do you have early vertical forearm?
Alternate easy/fast: nothing too hard here, just a way to prime your body for the P500 and P200.
1 X 125 @ P500 & 1 X 125 @ P200
There are two goals within this portion of the Main Set:
Hold consistent times throughout your P500 125s regardless of how the 125 is broken up. Similarly, hold consistent times throughout your P200 125s despite how the distance is broken up.
Your overall times for all of the P200 125s should be faster than your overall times for all of the P500 125s.
After each 125, use the remaining interval time (4:20) to swim an easy 50 or an easy 100 to set up for the next portion of the Main Set.
The P500 125s cut down from 125. In other words, you start with a full 125 at your 500 goal pace and then on the next one you’ll drop a 25 and rest for a set amount of time. You’ll continue to drop a 25 and rest for a set period of time until you get to Round 5 where you’ll swim 5 X 25 at your goal 500 pace.
The P200 125s follow a similar pattern; however, you’ll build up to the full 125 by starting with 5 X 25 at your goal 200 pace.
Warm Down
Backstroke and sculling for the Warm Down. The Main Set is freestyle focused. Therefore, use the Warm Down to work your shoulders in the opposite direction. Use the sculling to help you find the feel of the water and make sure to vary your hand position of the sculling throughout the Warm Down.
