Swimming Workout of the Week - September 19, 2014

This week’s set offers lots of practice at negative-splitting your 100s.  Negative-splitting can be a very effective race strategy, and was used effectively by backstroke world-record holder Margaret Hoelzer.

MAIN SET:  1800
Goal of the set is to get a good feel for how to negative-split your swims.  This means that the second half of each 100 should be faster than the first half.  Try to negative-split by 1-3 seconds, rather than simply dog it on the first 50 and then pick it up on the second 50, achieving a negative split by 3+ seconds.  Know yourself and your pace!

5 X 100 anything but IM; negative-split each 100; use a sendoff/turnaround that gives approximately 30 seconds rest

100 kick

4 X 100 anything but IM; negative-split each 100; take 5 seconds off your sendoff (or use a rest interval of approx. 25 seconds if you have switched strokes)

100 kick

3 X 100 choice; negative-split each 100; take another 5 seconds off your sendoff (or use a rest interval of approx. 20 seconds).  If swimming IM, descend 1-3.

100 kick

2 X 100 choice; negative-split each 100 AND descend 1-2; go back to your original sendoff (approximately 30 seconds rest).  If swimming IM, descend 1-2.

100 kick