Don’t you just love a simple set?
On this Friday afternoon workout for Herbie Behm’s Sundevil sprint group, the main set was:
8×25 off the blocks
- Odds: Fins
- Evens: No Fins
That’s it.
This group includes the likes of Olympic champions Simone Manuel and Ryan Held, Olympians Olivia Smoliga and Taylor Ruck, and NCAA All-Americans Jack Dolan, Grant House, and Jonny Kulow.
After the main set, Herbie had a few “Swim Battles” for the group planned, including some 50s fast, a 2×50 relay, a mixed 4×50 free relay pitting the US vs The World, and a men’s 200 medley relay pitting pros against the college team.
- 0:00 Herbie Explains the Set
- 2:26 Flag Touches
- 4:07 Warm Up
- 5:30 Main Set (8×25)
- 18:33 Swim Battles
Does anyone remember that photo of Gary Hall Jr diving over the flags
I don’t remember that, but if anyone can link to the picture I’d love to see it.
2 thoughts:
(1) Watching the jumps to the flags to start practice – it’s obvious these kids are not just good swimmers – they’re good ATHLETES, and the caliber of athlete in elite swimming is so much higher than it was 30 years ago.
(2) I’m somewhat surprised to see Taylor Ruck in Herbie’s group considering 200 has been her best event traditionally. I wonder if she’s doing a mix with Bob’s group. Or is focusing on 100s for Paris.
In her recent interview (posted on SwimSwam) she said the 100 free was her focus.
I enjoyed seeing Ryan hit the flags with his foot.
He made a point to not take a huge runway either.
I can’t swim as fast as any of those people, but I wonder if I could beat them running backwards? One- legged race?
damgum, when you look that suit in picture, it is not long way from those supersuit days….
I would like to see a comparison between the modern women’s suit vs LZR vs Arena X-Glide. Besides the buoyancy of the full polyurethane suits, I wouldn’t be surprised if the other characteristics are comparable.
Laughing at the a cut is wild. Just goes to show how elite this team is. Go devils!
Simone with some snap in her start and stroke, great to see!
Verbal start, hand timed, multiple athletes makes those times pretty useless (25’s)
Almost as useless as this comment!
Does it really matter? Even if it isnt perfect, useless is harsh. It’s about relativity and the context of the set. Does it really matter if the time isn’t correct down to the millisecond? If he’s within a couple tenths and is able to say the correct order of the touches, then that’s all that matters because he’s consistent to himself, so the athletes will know what to expect when he’s timing.
If you’re comparing hand times to hand times and it’s the same timer, the comparability does have value
Agree, it’s more about who you beat.
It’s all about finding creative ways to motivate swimmers to swim fast. Times are secondary . Just get up and race.That’s a dream group to coach but got to be challenging to figure out how to raise the bar seeing as they are already among the world’s elite.
God forbid they didn’t set up their touch pads for your validation . . .
I know, without those touch pads I’m not sure if they were going fast or not.
Did they measure noise and laugh lines to be sure they had fun, I can’t tell?