FlipTurn Pacing

Did a little pace game with the T2 Aquatics Age Group Performance group yesterday that worked out very well.  Add this to the list from my last post Teaching Age Groupers To Pace. I have some ideas on how to tweak this set for the future.  It is a great little type of set to add in during any practice.

8x50 NonFree/Free on :50

8x25 @200 Free pace with a  flip on :30

2 Rounds

1,200 yards in 22 minutes.  On the workout that sits in the gutter of every lane I copied everyone’s 200 Freestyle time from Hy-Tek.  Then I simply wrote:

14 – 1:52

15 – 2:00

16 – 2:08

17 – 2:16

18 – 2:24

I instructed everyone to figure out what time they should be seeing on the clock after their flip.  If you are a 2:00 200 Freestyler (or wish to be) you should flip, then look at the clock and see “15”.

I generally do not have the swimmers flip at the end of repeats, but going from the pushoff to the hand finish isn’t an accurate way to pace.  Maybe T2 Head Coach Paul Yetter can write something in the future about effectively using flip times vs hand touch times as pace indicators on his CreatePerformance blog?  (hint hint!).  The flip is a little more accurate unless you adjust the pace times.

I also don’t usually do broken type of swims with the age group swimmers – and I didn’t tell them to add up their 25’s so they were not thinking along those lines either.

Two awesome things happened at practice.  1.) Kids were swimming fast to get their “number”.   2.) The swimmers who go into flips sideways, or turn their head to take a breath on their last stroke started to go into the flips fast, straight, and with a still head.

Maybe the :30 interval was too slow for them? I don’t care.  It was easy for them to calculate their time.  Maybe they need to beat their pace by a second?  I noticed that kids were flipping better when the clock was right in front of them after they flipped.  At the opposite end they had to flip and worry about turning around.  Next time we do this I will do it with 50’s and they will finish with a flip.  Doing it this way they can do a great “real” flipturn and a great “finish” flipturn. 

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