By Coleman Hodges on SwimSwam
SwimSwam wants to give you an inside look at what a normal day-in-the-life looks like for any given swimmer, and how that differs from team to team or city to city. We send our head of production, Coleman Hodges, to be a fly on the wall at practice, then relay what he discovered back to you over pancakes. Or at least breakfast.
Remember that practice we went to with NC State where they had 3 groups going? Well they actually had 4 groups, but the 4th one was so fun we wanted to highlight it by itself. Welcome to Braden Holloway‘s underwater world.
In these 2 lanes your doing underwater kicking all the time. Seemingly Braden just cooked up as many different ways as possible to make the athletes not breath. Here’s some examples of the stingers he came up with:
Pre set
12×25 w fins @ :40
- 1-4: odds – 4kicks uh2o + right leg up fast, evens – 4kicks uh2o + left leg up fast
- 5-8 w board: 4 fast kicks uh2o + 4 big kicks + uh20 fast to the wall
- 9-12 w med ball: 6 kicks uh2o + ball to sky fast
Main set
All 50’s = 25 free (desc to hard by chunk w 4 kicks uh2o off walls) / 25 stroke FAST w kick count below
- 5×50 @ 50 (4)
- 4×50 @ 45 (6)
- 3×50 @ 40 (8) (focus on equal force distribution on both sides!
- 2×50 @ 35 (10) Breakouts! (fly – low and forward, back – eyes and toes together, chest first)
- 1×50 @ 30 (12)
100 ez
- 5×50 @ 55 (4)
- 4×50 @ 50 (6)
- 3×50 @ 45 (8) (all kick counts on stroke from DEAD START
- 2×50 @ 40 (10) flip @ 22 YDS – create movement from RIB CAGE)
- 1×50 @ 35 (12)
100 ez
2nd Set
3 Rounds
3×125 + 75 + 2×25 + 50 ez
125’s –
- Rd 1– 75 stroke (4/5/6 kicks uh2o by 75) + 25 fr cruise 6 kicks uh2o + 25 stroke fast w 12 kicks uh2o @ 1:40, desc 1-3
- Rd 2– 75 stroke (7/8/9 kicks uh2o by 75) + 25 cruise 6 kicks uh2o + 25 stroke BLAST w 12 kicks uh2o @ 1:50, desc 25’s within each 75
- Rd 3– 75 stroke (10/11/12 kicks uh2o from dead start) + 25 uh2o cruise + 25 stroke BLAST w 12 kicks uh2o dead start @ 2:00
75’s – Desc 25’s 1-3 @ 1:30
- Rd 1– 50 fr/25 stroke (8/8/4 kicks uh2o)
- Rd 2– 25 stroke/25 free/25 stroke (4/8/4)
- Rd 3– All stroke (8/8/8)
25’s – @ 30
- #1 dead start, max uh2o kick
- #2 push, MAX 100 kick count, then ez
Round 1 – SOX, Round 2 – SOX + Fins, Round 3 – Fins
Read the full story on SwimSwam: Practice + Pancakes: Braden Holloway Goes Deep with NC State Underwater Group