Weekly Swim Session 31 October 2017

Download and print this session plan here: session plan 143

In this week’s technique session, we focus on balance and body alignment.  Low resistance comes from achieving a small frontal profile to the water.  Visualize slipping through the smallest hole in the water that you can.

Warm Up:

2 x 100m, the first easy, the second, steady.

Technical set:

200m easy, focusing on attaining a long, streamlined position on the push-off from each wall.

200m Skating drill to halfway, swim to wall, (alternate left and right-hand lead)

200m slow-arm finger-trail drill, ensuring good core engagement and balanced body roll during each swim stroke-stroke

Main set:

6-10 X 200m easy pace, maintaining good posture and balanced body roll throughout.

Warm down:

100m – 200m     Easy to very easy

Total Volume:

1500m – 3000m

Coaching Points:

A balanced body position is perhaps the most fundamental difference between good swimmers and those that struggle in the water.

Keep hand entries in front of the shoulder (no narrower, or wider)

Ensure that you achieve a good body roll but stop the roll crisply at 45 degrees of rotation. A good indication that you may be over rotating is if you can see the pool roof as you breathe, or the recovering elbow arcs over your back during recovery. These attributes will throw you off-balance and cause a high-resistance body position in the water, slowing your swim.

Weekly Swim Session Plan 24 October 2017

Download and print this swim session plan here: session plan 142

Back to volume this week and with the simplest of session designs, using the rest interval as the variable between novice swimmers and the more experienced / capable.

Warm Up:

2 x 100m, the first easy, the second, steady.

Technical set:

100m kick with, or without kick board

Main set:

100m repetitions (Rest 10s – 30s depending upon fitness / ability)

Warm down:

100m – 200m     Easy to very easy

Total Volume:

1800m – 3500m

Coaching Points:

During the kicking drill, keep the legs relatively straight and kick from the hips, engaging glutes and hip flexors.

Time your 100s and track your pace throughout the session. As with any endurance swim, don’t go out too hard, or the latter part of the session will become extremely tough.  Observe the selected rest period and remain consistent throughout.

Weekly Swim Session Plan 17 October 2017

Download and print this session plan here: session plan 141

This week, we are working on transferring an effective catch into the most propulsive stroke element – the pull.

Warm Up:

2 x 100m, the first easy, the second, steady.

Technical set:

200m as head-up life-saver (Tarzan) drill, going up the pool, swim back normal freestyle

200m as 1-finger drill going up the pool, swim back

200m as doggy paddle to halfway, swim to wall

Main set:

400m stroke count with pull buoy (use a powerful pull off an effective catch, to increase stroke length)

400m – 1200m zone 3 tempo / sweet spot swimming

Warm down:

100m – 200m     Easy to very easy

Total Volume:

1700m – 2600m

Coaching Points:

 

Keep the head still during lifesaver – look straight toward the end of the pool.

How many strokes per length are you pulling when focusing on a strong pull?  More, or fewer than your standard swim length?

Focus on effective catch and a pull that has purpose, throughout your tempo swim reps.

Weekly Swim Session Plan 9 October 2017

Download and print this session plan here: session plan 140

This week, we are back to volume but just to keep it interesting, we will use this as an opportunity for some back-to-back testing for comparison with previous swims, consistency in the session and future tests (perhaps at the end of the off-season transition?).

Warm Up:

2 x 100m, the first easy, the second, steady.

Technical set:

100m as ‘high swingers’

Main set:

T20.1 swim test – count / measure the distance swum in 20 minutes.

2 minutes rest

T20.2 swim test – count / measure the distance swum in 20 minutes.

Warm down:

100m – 200m     Easy to very easy

Total Volume:

2000m – 3000m

Coaching Points:

This session takes time, so if your pool access is constrained to 1 hour, get in and get on it – not too much time for socialising today!

During the T20 don’t set out too hard. I’ll always pace a distance swim by feeling easy at the start, steady in the middle and hard at the end.  If you feel yourself tiring, really hone your technique focus, to maintain your swim pace.

Make a note of your performance for past / future reference.

All Roads Lead to Kona

It’s taken a while to reach the end of the 2017 season and on reflection, it’s been one of mixed results both for the people I’ve coached and for my own season.

Actually, ‘mixed’ flatters my own season.

Unwinding the season, from most recent memories, Paul ‘Bear’ Machin, just this week having been leading Deca Ironman UK during day one, came off his bike on day two, which landed him in A&E. The good news is though, his new TT bike is OK (I know you all worry about such things).

Jane’s DNF at IM Barcelona, largely attributable to her bike accident before travelling out to the race was disappointing for her but is set on a backdrop of an outstanding race in Dublin 70.3 and a solid season opener at Staffordshire 70.3. Copenhagen awaits for her in 2018.

Nicola produced a solid 3rd place at Brutal Full, backing up her performance earlier in the season at Celtman ultra triathlon.

Dan was outstanding in Hamburg, with a sub-11 Ironman debut and looking forward to carving to 10:30 in Kalmar next season (he didn’t say that, I did).

Helen, rounded out the season with an impressive ultramarathon after her excellent swim-bike at IM UK, her performance only softened by digestion issues during the run.

Jenny completed her second Ironman at UK and almost skipped through the run, with what some might consider almost too much energy….hummm. IM Nice and Col de la Madone await in 2018.

Carl ‘Team Riptide’ Jennings roared over the finish line in IMUK, having not made the swim cut-off in Lanzarote. There’s unfinished business to tend to.

Monika rounded out the season with her first middle distance race at Yorkshire Sundowner, after a tough race at the Alpe d’Huez and takes forward many of her lessons learned into 2018.

Gabi was a DNS having not travelled to Alpe d’Huez, despite winning two early season races in Lanzarote.

My last mention, goes to Tanja, the fastest, hardest working athlete on the roster. She didn’t miss a planned session all year and became German Duathlon Champion having made incredible gains in her run performance. From all the races of the season, there were no Kona age group qualifiers to touch her. Having a 20-minute lead on the bike in her qualifying race, she approached the city of Hamburg for the final time, crashing out on a railway crossing and breaking her collar bone in two places and the entire left side of her rib cage, as a result. She’s just now on the verge of being able to train again, having swum her first few strokes of freestyle.

So here we are, a week out from Kona and looking forward to the live streamed coverage of Ryf, Vesterby, Cheetham, Frodeno, Sanders and Kienle. I’ll enjoy watching the best in the world in the greatest triathlon spectacle in the world but my mind will be on a relatively unknown German and the thought of what might have been.

2018 starts here.

Paul

GI Tri Coach

Weekly Swim Session Plan 2 October 2017

Download and print this session plan here: session plan 139

This week’s session continues our off-season alternating sessions or one week, technical, the next, high volume. This week we shift our focus to the front of our stroke, with hand entry and catch technique, over a fairly low volume session.

Warm Up:

4 x 50m, each faster than the last

Technical set:

200m as Finger trail drill

200m as Pause drill (hand entry pause)

200m as Sculling to halfway, swim to wall

200m as Doggy paddle to halfway, swim to wall

Quick catch

Main set:

400m or 800m Z3 tempo pace – use front end mental focus throughout

Warm down:

200m     Easy to very easy

Total Volume:

1600m – 2000m

Coaching Points:

Off finger trail, allow the hand to slip into the water, fingertips first (no splash).  Use a variant of pause drill, where the recovering arm is paused just before hand entry (the leading arm should be in catch position, not mid-pull).

Sculling video demonstration

Pause drill and quick catch video demonstrations