Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national level swimmer based out of Victoria, BC. In feeding his passion for swimming, he has developed YourSwimBook, a powerful log book and goal setting guide made specifically for swimmers. Sign up for the YourSwimBook newsletter (free) and get weekly motivational tips by clicking here.
Casey Charles of the freshly minted East Carolina Gators shares a broken 400IM set in today’s Coach’s Intel:
I used (and continue to use) set ideas like this for my former swimmer Matt Houser who was a 3:46 400 IMer coming out of HS. We are also the home club of Olympic Gold Medalist Lauren Perdue. Our Carteret branch developed Open Water World Champion Chip Peterson under the banner of the Carteret Currents.
I love IM training and I love for my swimmers to swim at race pace at some point in nearly every practice. I try to stress speed, technique, and transitions during all main sets.
I believe in 25s at high rates of speed as well as FR swims at distance being held under that strokes goal time (if you can’t consistently do it FR in practice – it’s probably not going to happen stroke in a meet).
I have submitted short 18-20 min sets that can be combined or done in multiple RDs… Intervals can and will vary by ability level. The intervals submitted are pretty general.
Broken 400 IM Set #1 [19 minutes per RD]
1 x 25 FL From a Dive – Strong – Establish technique and tempo @ :40
1 x 50 FL Build off of established tempo to fast @ 1:00
1 x 25 FL Maintain Fast @ :40
2 x 50 BK D1-2 @ 1:00
2 x 50 BR D1-2 @1:00
1 x 25 FR Best Effort – Strong kick – tempo up with the arms – control breathing @ :40
1 x 75 FR Finish @ 1:30
1 x 200 IM – Drill/Swim by 25 @ 4:00
16 x 25 IMO by 4s @ :30 – Best Average – Race all 25s
Broken 400 IM Set #2 [18 minutes per RD]
1 x 50 FL from the block
1 x 100 FL/BK by 50 – FL is Fast – Backstroke – establish technique – drive hand speed
1 x 100 Bk/BR by 50 – BK – Best effort, BR – establish technique – long up top finish kick
1 x 100 BR/FR by 50 – BR – Pick up tempo, FR – AO effort – fast feet and hands, fast low breaths
1 x 50 FR Best Effort
[50s @ 1:00 and 100s @ 1:40]
6 x 25 IMO by 2s [No FR] @ :40 – Perfect Stroke/Recover
1 x 400 FR under 400 IM broken time from above @ 6:00
Broken 400 IM Set #3 [19 minutes per RD]
1 x 50 FL – Strong, good body position, but ultimately easy speed
1x 75 (50 FL/25 BK) – Fly is build, faster hands; BK – establish body position, 3 underwater dolphin kicks, catch as much water as possible
1 x 50 BK – Build Kick and hand speed, 3/4 kicks off of each wall
1 x 75 (25 BK/50 BR) – BK – 5 kicks or more off wall, fastest hand speed; BR – strong pull-outs, 5 strokes on the first 25, 6 strokes on the 2nd 25
1 x 50 BR – Continue building speed through stroke count, 7 stokes on the 1st 25, 8 on the 2nd 25
1 x 100 FR – Swim should be at 400 IM FR Goal Pace
[50s @ 1:00, 75s @ 1:20, and 100 @ 1:20]
1 x 200 IM D/K @ 4:00 – Reinforce body position and general feel
16 x 25 IMO by 4s @ :30 – Best Effort
Broken 400 IM Set #4 [19 minutes per RD]
3 x RD1 – FL, RD2 – BK, RD3 – BR
1 x 25 Strong @ :30
1 x 50 Build @ 1:00
1 x 25 All-Out @ :30
After RD 3 – 1 x 100 FR best effort @ 1:30
1 x 100 EZ @ 2:00
3 x 25 FL D1-3 @ :40
1 x 50 FL/BK – FL – Best Effort, BK – Fast Hands @ 1:00
2 x 25 BK #1 – Fast Hands/Build Legs, #2 – AO BK @ :30
1 x 50 BK/BR – BK = AO, BR – Strong – think technique @ :50
3 x 25 BR D1-3 @ :25
1 x 50 FR AO @ :40
2 x 25 FR AO @ :20
1 x 100 EZ @ 2:00
Got a set that you would like to share with the swimming community? Send it on in to Olivier at [email protected]
You can find my email by clicking on my username and going to our team website. My email is [email protected]… Would love to trade ideas.
Great! Thanks, Casey! I will contact you later this week! I am excited to share ideas; I am a full time coach with Nation’s Capital Swim Club (formally Curl Burke and home to Katie Ledecky). 🙂
Casey…
I love this workout. I truly believe in rotating all types of sets into a swimmers workout. It keeps them from getting bored (unlike when I swam back in the day) and helps them think about things in a different way (better turns, stroke technique, underwaters, etc.). Although I am relatively young coach (only 33), I work with some top ranked 11-13 year olds in the country and if I can keep them interested and motivated, I am totally for it. Mixing this workout in with mid and long distance sets is perfect; it helps with the speed and thought process on how to swim a 400 IM. My swimmers constantly are asking “how they should swim their races”… Read more »
I like the phrase “mortgaging the rest of the race.” I may steal… stolen.
I think the whole point of posting these sets is to see what others are doing and if there is something we like, we try fitting it into our scheme…if we don’t like it, don’t use it. It is a fact that everyone has their favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies and they aren’t the same. Not sure why you need to bash someone else’s “recipe”.
If you look at world class 400 IMers here is the basic formula…
Fly – how fast can you get out without mortgaging the rest of the race…usually around 2-2.5 of their best 100.
Bk – Negative split 50s
Brst – Negative split 50s, crush the pullouts; the key having a strong free leg… Read more »
Nice set ideas Casey. Maybe we can talk IM training sometime soon, because I’ve been coaching some fast IMers too. You’d probably like some of my sets I use for my IM studs. I might do these same sets with the distances doubled since my swimmers are a little older and tougher.
Wow! Lots of colorful commentary here. Gave me a few good laughs! Some are tongue and cheek hopefully… I hope we have smarter coaching members in the swimming community.
Matt was helped by the suits – there’s no doubt about that. When I first started with Matt (around 14), I trained him for the mile. A good amount of yardage, but nothing too crazy (we can only train six 2-hour sessions per week). As he got older, we did a little bit less yardage and got more precise with turns, underwater kicking, and putting the entire race together.
By his senior year, he was (suit-aided), 20.3, 44.5, 139 (unshaved), 4:27 in the FR; 55.4, 1:58.8 in the BRs; 48.4, 1:45… Read more »
The trolls are out in force tonight. I see 4 pretty good set ideas. Better than probably every other set submitted to coach’s intel.
Dude, did you see Goldberg’s ladder? Come on…
Great comment on the illustrious ladder.
As to Matt Houser, credit to Casey Charles for developing Matt (20.3/139fr and 55/2:00br as well as the other aforementioned times) along with Lauren Perdue. They were clearly doing a lot of things right.
This was 2009 and the suits were in full force. Compare the 2009 suit-aided with Matt’s eventual UVA times and credit to Matt for continuing to work and improve. Those improvements are significant when accounting for the suits.
Swimming at and beyond race pace while fatigued is key to improving and these sets, if done correctly, accomplish that. Certainly Matt was doing other sorts of training to prepare his body to handle these sort of sets.
This is merely a… Read more »
I think Casey is trying to pull one over on us. You don’t go 3:46 in high school in the 4IM by doing 25s all the time. This was probably his recovery. Based on how his 200 improved in college much more than his 200, he was obviously developing his endurance with a lot of distance IM.