In our Swim Squads, we like to use hand paddles and pullbuoy in many of our swim sessions.
I find this helps swimmers focus on swim technique, helps them become aware of ‘feel for the water’, as well as developing some strength and power. We can also work hard without the same cardiovascular cost as full-stroke swimming (the less we use our legs, the lower our heart rate).
Warm Up / Set One
5 x 100m – smooth and relaxed, feeling our way into the session (30s rest). As an additional focus, think about your turns. When you push off the wall, stretcgh out into a good streamlined position and glide for a moment.
10 x 50m – breathing every four or five strokes (20s rest). This helps us focus on our exhale, making sure we are not holding our breath at any point. It also helps us think about our stroke, without the ‘distraction’ of breathing.
5 x 100m – thinking about consistent stroke count (30s rest). Being aware of how many strokes you take on each length, trying to keep the stroke count within one (or two max!) on each length.
Main Set
This is a strength endurance set. You will feel achy, weak and tired towards the end! That is the intention. When this happens, stay focused, hold good stroke length and try and maintain power through the stroke.
It is a simple set.
1 x 100m Pullbuoy & Paddles (PB&P) (30s rest)- smooth focusing on a good pressure on the water, moving well with each stroke
4 x 25m swim – strong effort (15s rest)
Repeated 10 times for a 2,000m main set.
Cool Down
4 x 25m super easy and relaxed
Why I Like This Set
This set teaches us to hold our technique even when everything aches! Most of our race day swims are long, and we need to be able to hold our power, our pressure on the water throughout the swim. This type of set will help us do that.
Scaling
Initially, this set was going to be sets of 200m PB&P with 8 x 25m strong. However, we had a lot of swimmers in our lanes so 200s may not have worked very well. You could do the intended 200s instead?
Or you could scale it down and maybe do the set five times through (instead of ten)
Give It A Try?
Is this set something you would like to try?
Let me know how you get on?
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