Set Of The Week: Long Course Aerobic Descends

Photo Courtesy: Annie Grevers

Welcome to Swimming World’s Set Of The Week! This week’s set is an aerobic descend set designed specifically for long course, just in time for many college and club team’s winter training trips. Take a look at the set and the description that follows:

300 cruise on 4:30

3 x 300 dec 1-3 on 4:45

300 cruise on 4:30

3 x 200 dec 1-3 on 3:15

300 cruise on 4:30

3 x 100 dec 1-3 on 1:40

300 cruise on 4:30

4 x 50 dec 1-3 on 1:00

The set alternates between 300’s at a moderate cruise speed and descending sets of descend swims. The idea behind the set is to make the 300’s on an interval where your swimmers only get 15-20 seconds of rest while holding an aerobically challenging pace. Moving into each set of descends between the 300’s, swimmers should aim to hold that same pace on the first repeat before descending. The intervals on each of the descend sets should be slightly easier than the interval for the 300’s cruise, giving your athletes a little more room to set up a good descend.

This is a good set to incorporate as your team is getting reintroduced with long course training. The focus of the cruise 300’s is to set up a consistent, long stroke that gets them into the rhythm of swimming long course. The descends add in a little bit of speed work, but it shouldn’t be a descend at the sacrifice of technique. The reason you’ll want your swimmers to hold the pace of the cruise 300’s to start the descends is to ensure they keep that length in their stroke and speed up by adding power, not by spinning.

All told, this set takes roughly 50 minutes (depending on intervals) and gets in 3,200 meters of high quality aerobic work that should help your athletes get accustomed to long course training. Happy swimming!

All swimming and dryland training and instruction should be performed under the supervision of a qualified coach or instructor, and in circumstances that ensure the safety of participants.

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Nino Sieling

7 years ago

Jeroen Dellebeke

7 years ago

Reply to Nino Sieling

Al gezien, beetje saaie set