Open Water Challenge

Have you forgotten how to swim with beautiful technique? This workout will review the basics and get you tuned up for a great season! Originally published on Oct 12, 2019.

This is the first workout of the fall season. Set lengths are variable, depending upon how much you have been swimming.

Workout focuses on catch drills and building endurance. Mostly freestyle.

This workout is a basic endurance one. In addition, the YMCA catch drill allows you to slow down your catch and pull. Thus giving you the feel of proper hand and arm position.

The focus of this workout is the transition from extension to catch position. The movement is initiated by pointing the elbow up. The hand will drop into position for your pull. Keep your wrist straight and pull water back.

Still concentrating on extension and catch, today we are incorporating the 6-3-6 drill. Start in arm lead kick position. Kick 6 times. Stroke 3 times. Breathe. Then kick 6 times in the other arm lead postion.

Building on our heart rate set, we will do a set of 100s on descending intervals. In addition, we will do another heart rate set incorporating strokes. Country Club IMs alternate 25 freestyle with 25 stroke.

In this workout, we will be doing some short distance stroke work. We will concentrate on technique rather than endurance. There is also an opportunity to practice IM turns.

Today’s workout features streamlining and changing speeds. The warm-up includes 12 x 25 power push-offs. These start with one hand on the wall, both feet on the wall facing up or slightly angled to the side and the other arm out. Sink, touch and push from the wall to streamline. Continue to push off from the all on all repeats in this manner.

This is a basic endurance workout with emphasis on turns. The warm-up includes turn drills as well as streamline jumps. The rest of the workout is to be swum at threshold pace (400 pace).

Adding onto turn work, this workout will emphasize adding butterfly kicks off the walls.

Equipment needed: fins, kick board and a pull buoy

Backstroke is star of this workout. Warm up includes some progressions. One of the keys to backstroke is that is it not done on your back. The kicking drills emphasize rotating the body from side to side. One arm kicks should be done at a 45 degree angle to the water with armpit pointing to the side. The 6 & 6 drill involves 6 kicks on one side with arm extended, switch and 6 kicks on the other side. The 6-3-6 drill is similar to the 6 & 6 drill except for the three arm strokes in the middle as you transition from side to side.

The focus on today’s backstroke workout is timing. Starting with a vertical kick hesitation drill. The goal is to pause your kick in a bent knee position, drive your foot and hip forward. See if you can rotate your body with this thrust. Aaron Piersol can rotate 360 degrees with one kick. Next, we move this drill to a horizontal position timing it carefully with an opposite arm pull and same side arm recovery.

Some will be glad that this is the last day of backstroke progressions. We will be concentrating on the kick, which needs to be powerful. The drill set includes fly kick on your back. Start the kick with your core. Titanic is a drill in which you are kicking on your back and both arms are pointed to the ceiling. Try not to sink! Mummy is a drill in which your arms are moving in opposition forward and backwards while kicking on your back. The main set is freestyle. Set your intervals so you only have 10-15s rest.

Today is the day to show off your backstroke. I will be taping you underwater. I will be looking for proper head and body position, hand entry and exit positions, pull, tempo and walls. I will give you the results of your assessment on Friday.

This workout is EN-2, or threshold pace minus 2 seconds per 100. There are 4-5 repeats of 400s, each starting with a portion of a 200 and finishing with a 200. Your goal is to keep an EN-2 pace throughout. Extra rest is provided after each 200.

Fine tuning freestyle and backstroke, this workout is designed to help levitate hips. The pull with buoy drill at different sites in the legs encourages a strong core to hold a balanced body line.

Welcome to breastroke! We start with breastroke kick basics and the pullout. There are also scull drills included in the warm-up. The main set starts with a basic endurance mini set, then moves to a threshold endurance mini set and finally to a threshold overload set.

This is a power workout with a breaststroke feature. The power portion will include tombstone and vertical kicking plus pulling with paddles and people. The breaststroke feature will focus on the kick.

The warm up continues with breaststroke drills. Still concentrating on the kick, pulling the heels to the butt. The main set concentrates on achieving negative splits based on threshold times. Hold your threshold time for the first half of the swim and then drop 2 seconds per 100 for the second half of the swim.

Today’s workout it a bit of a respite from the previous weeks. We will concentrate on a long and efficient stroke while reviewing breaststroke pull.

Todays set incorporates threshold swimming pace, EN-2 pace and an EN-2 Plus pace. In the main set, you will swim a 300 at threshold pace. Next 2 x 150 at EN-2, threshold pace minus one second per 50. Lastly, 4 x 75 at threshold pace minus 2s/50 yds. There’s plenty of rest, so I am anticipating everyone meeting their goals!

Today we are reviewing some drills, namely arm lead and buoy balance drills. The goal of the first drill is to keep your lead arm straight and still while you breathe. The goal of the buoy balance drill is to keep your core tight and don’t wiggle!

The warm-up of this workout emphasizes the feeling of weightless hand entry. Too many of us are letting our entry hand sink. We will be practicing by placing our hand on the buoy, NOT GRIPPING IT! Then we will perform a one arm stroke, breathing on the stroking side. Next, to simulate a pull using your lats, we will do a one arm drill breathing on the non-stroking side. The non-stroking arm will be at your side this time. The goal is to feel like you are doing a lat pull down as you pull.

The drill in the warm-up emphasizes a high hip position. We are swimming distance today, so low hips are really a drag. Moving the pull buoy down the length of your legs gives you the feeling of swimming downwards. Keep that feeling when you remove the buoy.

In the main set, your pace should be 1-2 seconds faster per hundred than your average 100 on your 400 for time. So if your 400 time was 6:00, your average 100 pace was 1:30. Try to swim your 200 in 2:56-2:58, your 150 2:12-2:13, your 100 1:28-1:29 and your 50 in :44. Determine your intervals based on your goal times. Give yourself :45s rest for a 200, :35s for a 150, :25 for a 100 and :15 for a 50. Enjoy!

The main set here is a basic one – repeat 100s. For those who are strokers, replace the free with your stroke and see how long you can hold your pace. When and if you start to slow by more than 5s, take an extra minute’s rest and start up again.

This workout takes a break for all the freestyle that we have been doing. Choose two other strokes to work on today. You will start by drilling and kicking the stroke, then building to 75s.

Time to work on stroke sprints! The main set will work on stroke endurance and finish with a sprint. Choose 2-3 different strokes to work. Keep the same stroke for each round. Enjoy!

Working on IM transitions today. I am reminding everyone of the rules. Two handed stroked like breast and fly required two handed wall touches. The back to breast transition requires a wall touch on your back. There are lots of turns to day, so you will get plenty of practice on your technique and speed.

This is a threshold overload or EN-2 workout. Pace should be about 2s faster than threshold pace per 100. Rest is a bit longer so you can hold your pace.

Time for another time trial. Why? To see if the training is working and to make adjustments. After the 400 time trial, there is a basic endurance set in which you will be asked to hold your previous threshold pace PLUS 4s per 100.

Using our new threshold endurance times, this set starts with a basic endurance tempo and works into a threshold tempo. Two hundred repeats are a great way to train for distance events.

We have been working on building our endurance for quite some time. Now it is time to work on speed. Today, you will swim a 100 yard freestyle from the blocks for time. This will set your 25 yard pace for Ultra Short Race Pace (USRP) training. Afterwards is an IM set.

This workout encourages fast arms for the 25s, a long stroke for the pulls and a technique-accurate stroke for the super slow swims. Freestyle is the main stroke, although alternate strokes may be substituted for the 25s and 200s.

This workout encourages fast arms for the 25s, a long stroke for the pulls and a technique-accurate stroke for the super slow swims. Freestyle is the main stroke, although alternate strokes may be substituted for the 25s and 200s.

Broken 500s are a distance swimmer’s friend. Start with your threshold 100 pace. See if you can hold that pace for 5 x 100 with only 10s rest. If you can, move on to 3 x 150 + 50. Give your self 10s rest again. If you are still holding pace, move on to the 200s. At any time, if you cannot hold your threshold pace, repeat that distance intervals. You may not be ready to move on. If you do move on, you will surely be disappointed at your inability to hold pace.

Today starts our Ultra Short Race Pace Training (USRPT). To determine your race pace for repeat 25s, take your 100 sprint time and divide it by 4. Add 15s rest for your interval time. Read the directions for how to complete the set if you are not familiar with USRPT. Good luck!

Today’s workout employs equipment to build power into your stroke. Bring you fins, paddles and pull buoys.

This workout is for the entire team to do together. Lanes with slower swimmers can swim with fins or switch to 150 yards. The challenge is to hold your pace as your rest gets progressively shorter.

Equipment needed for this workout: fins, paddles, t-shirt, PJ pants with drawstring, and kickboard. This is a power workout. We will put on equipment to swim and then take it off. The 12 x 25s are to be down fast for 8-10 stroke cycles, then easy to the wall.

This is week three of USRPT. You should be able to do more repeats without failing. If you can successfully complete this set, drop your goal time by one second for next week’s challenge.

We will be working on two new drills based on your freestyle videos. The first one enforces proper head position, which is a long neck with a tucked chin. Hold a flat paddle vertical to your head and swim. Breathe when you have to, but keep the paddle in place. The second drill promotes a high elbow catch. Get the skinniest pull buoy you can find – maybe a kids. You will be gripping it and initiating the catch twice and then pulling with the buoy in your hand. Make sure your elbow is pointing up and not to the side. The main set includes an overload endurance set. Set your goal times to be about 2 seconds under threshold per 100 yds.

After two hard workouts this week, this workout brings some recovery. No sprinting. The main sets are shorter distances at threshold pace. Keep working on head position and catch position with the vertical paddle and buoy drill.

This workout is a recovery workout for those who participated in yesterday’s meet or had a long weekend of training. The first part of the swim is to be done at about 70% of maximum speed. The heartrate set varies by age. For those between 30-50, wait until your HR goes down to 110-120bpm. For 50-60, 100-110 bpm, and for 60+, 90-100bpm. The last part of the workout is a lactate production set of 25s. Make sure you do an easy cool down.