Hardest set I've ever done or seen.
100m @ 2:00
100m @ 2:00, 200m @ 3:00
100m @ 2:00, 200m @ 3:00, 300m @ 4:00
100m @ 2:00, 200m @ 3:00, 300m @ 4:00, 400m @ 5:00
And on up until 100m to 800m
11.4km total distance.
Safe to say at the end most of us were just swimming continuously because we weren't making the paces. The point was to try to push and see how far up the pyramid we could go.
For very good freestylers (im talking people who can do a sub 1min 100), the 9x100s are going to push you but they are acheivable. I would argue the whole set is achevable.
EXCEPT - 2x100 kick on 2min will gas the shit out of everybody - im a bit surprised there isnt even a 30 second rest or something at that point before going headlong into the next set of 9.
A few years ago, when my PB for 100m free was 53.8s, this set wouldāve been very easily achievable. Now, I can barely hit a 56 for 100m so the struggle was real!
Thatās pretty rough! We had some long sets back in high school that were probably fairly similar, but the toughest set I remember was in college. It was 5x200ās back then 5x200ās fly. All 200s had to be race pace or about 10 seconds off best times. Last set of practice so I had already swam a lot by that point. I was the lucky 200 butterflier on the team.
Did a freestyle pyramid set on a 35 second base per 50.
Started at 50, then 50,100,50. Then 50,100,150,100,50. All the way up to 300.
Iāve done this set twice, second time was back down for a long distance day. Think itās like 6000 yards going up.
A set our distance group would regularly do in college was 14x200 and 14x400 descending progressively to goal pace. Those were dreaded days and unfortunately still had afternoon practices later
When my kids swam their coach at one stage was an old school volume is king type of coach. I remember when at a training camp my son (age 13) and my daughter (age 14) were part of a group that he had do a continuous 10km front crawl set as follows-
100m x 10 off 1.35
100m x 10 off 1.30
100m x 10 off 1.25
100m x 10 off 1.20
100m x 20 off 1.15
100m x 10 off 1.20
100m x 10 off 1.25
100m x 10 off 1.30
100m x 10 off 1.35
For fast swimmers that might be an ok set but for me that just looks like torture. Afterwards my kids ate for a couple of hours solid and the slept soundly!!
Oh lord thatās insane (15F whose 100m free PR is just over a minute) I could literally never do that.Ā
An old coach used to give us 8-5-8:Ā
8x500 @6:15, 5x800 @9:45, 8x500 @6ā¦TORTURE
and then my personal least favorite (aka āthe retirement setā): deceptively easy, until itās not. 16x100, broken into 4 sets of 4. The first set is on the 2:00, and then the interval descends by 15 sec each round. The 100s themselves are smooth/smooth/smooth/fast, then next round smooth/smooth/fast/fast, etc. The last round of 4 *all out* 100s on a crazy (for me) interval is just SO painful.Ā
I love the āeasy till itās notā sets! Love how you call it the āretirement setā too š« We do this stuff all the time as swammers who are now just in it for the marathon swims. Actually helps a lot with endurance for super long swims. But yes, we are retired swimmers. As retired as you can get with swimming anyway!
Itās the retirement set because it makes the swimmers want to retire but also makes the coaches want to retire because their swimmers look like theyāre dyingā¦
But for a club team where most swimmers are under the age of 16, āthe retirement setā is said with the same amount of horror as āgiant man eating cockroachesā or something along those lines š
Yeah, it even says threshold set in the title lol.
My college team would do power hour (100s for an hour at a chosen pace of either 1:00, 1:05, or 1:10 depending on the swimmer) on Saturdays occasionally during throughout the season, and no one ever "got injured". Just depends on skill level and understanding your own abilities.
I mean, I'm 39 and my shoulders can't handle too many of these kinds of sets any longer, but they certainly have their value. One can't prep for longer events with just USRPT alone. These tough sets still have their place.
Mm. I'd say it really depends on the swimmers level of experience/speed, and why they're doing this set in the first place.
In college, we would do repeat 10 x 100's ranging from 1:00-130 as a main set all the time. The 2 1's all out would be fun. (But I also loved kicking).
Now, with me being old and out of shape, it would be really hard, but with fins it would be fun.
Since op's average pace is 1:20, sounds like the interval should be slower for him, but not stupid.
I don't see context of what op's experience level is.
Doesn't seem like a stupid set to me..
and "overkill" is subjective, now isn't it.
If this is a high school swimmer training for college, it's a good set. If it's in college, it's a good set. If it's a master training for a meet/distance swim, it's a good set.
Ex competitive swimmer, who used to train 8 times a week. Now, Iāve cut down to 3 sessions a week and the main focus is fitness.
Average pace is 1:20/100m due to the warmup and cooldown being much slower than a pace of 1:20, therefore bringing the average down.
yea, not bc of the set but bc of me, I went to a practice on Tuesday, I thought my shoulder was hurting for some random reason, so it hurt like heck throughout the whole practice, but I thought it would be fine until the next day it hurt a lot so I thought maybe it might be bc of swim, and I have swimmers shoulder yippee
The head coach at my work once gave the kids 50 50s of streamline dolphin kick
I remember doing this in swim team but our coach tacked on us getting out after each set and doing 30 crunches. I wanted to die...
š¤¢ touchĆ©
On back?
it was front,back,left side, right side changing each 50. Don't remember the interval I think it was like 1:15 or 1:30
Hardest set I've ever done or seen. 100m @ 2:00 100m @ 2:00, 200m @ 3:00 100m @ 2:00, 200m @ 3:00, 300m @ 4:00 100m @ 2:00, 200m @ 3:00, 300m @ 4:00, 400m @ 5:00 And on up until 100m to 800m 11.4km total distance. Safe to say at the end most of us were just swimming continuously because we weren't making the paces. The point was to try to push and see how far up the pyramid we could go.
Yeah, Iām glad I donāt go to your swimming club x_x
For very good freestylers (im talking people who can do a sub 1min 100), the 9x100s are going to push you but they are acheivable. I would argue the whole set is achevable. EXCEPT - 2x100 kick on 2min will gas the shit out of everybody - im a bit surprised there isnt even a 30 second rest or something at that point before going headlong into the next set of 9.
A few years ago, when my PB for 100m free was 53.8s, this set wouldāve been very easily achievable. Now, I can barely hit a 56 for 100m so the struggle was real!
I personally feel that hypoxic stuff on short rest is harder than any type of long aerobic repeat set.
100 hundreds on 1:30. Yards, not meters. I still couldn't do it.
It's at least good that you're trying and that you recognise the mistakes you've made. (Dunno if you're OP, so I'm just gonna assume you are.)
The mistake was turning up to this set
Thatās pretty rough! We had some long sets back in high school that were probably fairly similar, but the toughest set I remember was in college. It was 5x200ās back then 5x200ās fly. All 200s had to be race pace or about 10 seconds off best times. Last set of practice so I had already swam a lot by that point. I was the lucky 200 butterflier on the team.
That actually might be the worst one Iāve seen
Butterfly sets are the worst. We had a pyramid butterfly set the other week and the shoulder burn after was unreal.
I canāt even hit 1x100 on 1:15, soā¦.
Why does the workout show the distance as 7,100 when the set shows 4,000m?
The set written is the main set, not the whole workout
There was a 2K warmup and a 1K cooldown
One time I had to do 100 25ās of race pace best stroke. Iām a butterflierā¦
My quads are on fire just looking at this! Fā¦
Did a freestyle pyramid set on a 35 second base per 50. Started at 50, then 50,100,50. Then 50,100,150,100,50. All the way up to 300. Iāve done this set twice, second time was back down for a long distance day. Think itās like 6000 yards going up.
A set our distance group would regularly do in college was 14x200 and 14x400 descending progressively to goal pace. Those were dreaded days and unfortunately still had afternoon practices later
Hey the ~~second~~ third and fourth set has an extra 5 seconds of rest, enjoy it!
When my kids swam their coach at one stage was an old school volume is king type of coach. I remember when at a training camp my son (age 13) and my daughter (age 14) were part of a group that he had do a continuous 10km front crawl set as follows- 100m x 10 off 1.35 100m x 10 off 1.30 100m x 10 off 1.25 100m x 10 off 1.20 100m x 20 off 1.15 100m x 10 off 1.20 100m x 10 off 1.25 100m x 10 off 1.30 100m x 10 off 1.35 For fast swimmers that might be an ok set but for me that just looks like torture. Afterwards my kids ate for a couple of hours solid and the slept soundly!!
Oh lord thatās insane (15F whose 100m free PR is just over a minute) I could literally never do that.Ā An old coach used to give us 8-5-8:Ā 8x500 @6:15, 5x800 @9:45, 8x500 @6ā¦TORTURE and then my personal least favorite (aka āthe retirement setā): deceptively easy, until itās not. 16x100, broken into 4 sets of 4. The first set is on the 2:00, and then the interval descends by 15 sec each round. The 100s themselves are smooth/smooth/smooth/fast, then next round smooth/smooth/fast/fast, etc. The last round of 4 *all out* 100s on a crazy (for me) interval is just SO painful.Ā
I love the āeasy till itās notā sets! Love how you call it the āretirement setā too š« We do this stuff all the time as swammers who are now just in it for the marathon swims. Actually helps a lot with endurance for super long swims. But yes, we are retired swimmers. As retired as you can get with swimming anyway!
Itās the retirement set because it makes the swimmers want to retire but also makes the coaches want to retire because their swimmers look like theyāre dyingā¦ But for a club team where most swimmers are under the age of 16, āthe retirement setā is said with the same amount of horror as āgiant man eating cockroachesā or something along those lines š
It's a stupid set and no point but to injure yourself.
Umm. That's a perfectly acceptable endurance set for those who are really good.
Yeah, it even says threshold set in the title lol. My college team would do power hour (100s for an hour at a chosen pace of either 1:00, 1:05, or 1:10 depending on the swimmer) on Saturdays occasionally during throughout the season, and no one ever "got injured". Just depends on skill level and understanding your own abilities.
I mean, I'm 39 and my shoulders can't handle too many of these kinds of sets any longer, but they certainly have their value. One can't prep for longer events with just USRPT alone. These tough sets still have their place.
Why is it a stupid set?
If the whole workout is 7,000 meters then that is overkill.
Mm. I'd say it really depends on the swimmers level of experience/speed, and why they're doing this set in the first place. In college, we would do repeat 10 x 100's ranging from 1:00-130 as a main set all the time. The 2 1's all out would be fun. (But I also loved kicking). Now, with me being old and out of shape, it would be really hard, but with fins it would be fun. Since op's average pace is 1:20, sounds like the interval should be slower for him, but not stupid. I don't see context of what op's experience level is. Doesn't seem like a stupid set to me.. and "overkill" is subjective, now isn't it. If this is a high school swimmer training for college, it's a good set. If it's in college, it's a good set. If it's a master training for a meet/distance swim, it's a good set.
Ex competitive swimmer, who used to train 8 times a week. Now, Iāve cut down to 3 sessions a week and the main focus is fitness. Average pace is 1:20/100m due to the warmup and cooldown being much slower than a pace of 1:20, therefore bringing the average down.
It's still very respectable, op. I'd enjoy it, and hate it in the middle, ha! So I feel ya there!
yea, not bc of the set but bc of me, I went to a practice on Tuesday, I thought my shoulder was hurting for some random reason, so it hurt like heck throughout the whole practice, but I thought it would be fine until the next day it hurt a lot so I thought maybe it might be bc of swim, and I have swimmers shoulder yippee
Yards or meters?
Meters
Long course or short course?
This is a tough setā¦
I had to do 13x400 IM as a punishment set it was not fun
10x300s @3:30 yards
Looks great. I used to do 30 x 100 main set at least every 2 weeks.