Swim set

Mostly because I did it this morning for the first time after getting by lazy arse back in the pool, I thought I’d share my favorite swim workout set which dates back some 40 years to my competitive days. Coach called them gutbusters.

Not sure how it would classify in the 80/20 library. Perhaps Speedplay is the closest fit. You can adjust it for whatever distances you want. So you can do it by 25s, 50s, 100s, whatever. Simply adjust the rest times. Our usual set was in groups of 50s broken down by each 25 lap. Thinking of things in lengths of 25 is goes:

Hard-Hard (rest)
Easy-Hard (rest)
Easy-Easy (rest)
Hard-Hard (rest)
Repeat

So, this morning’s set looked like this:

50 Z4 – 15 sec. rest (I do the hards borderline Z5 if not in Z5 according to my latest CV test.)
25 Z1, 25 Z5 – 10 sec. rest (Z1 vs. Z2 is debatable. Not sure which fits the 80/20 philosophy best. Back in the day the easy would be Z2.)
50 Z1 – 5 sec. rest
50 Z5 – 15 sec. rest
repeat

If I do it by 100s I simply double the rest time. Very rarely do I do it by 25s. A set by 100s would look like
100 Z4 – 30 sec. rest
50 Z1 – 50 Z4 20 sec. rest
etc.

Total workout this morning was 1500Y
250 Z1
5 gutbusters
250 Z1

For me, I always set a target time for the Z4 50s. My current threshold is 1:28/100. I target < 40s for all my Z4(Z5) 50s.

Anyway. Give it a try if your looking for something new.