Practice + Pancakes: Mizzou Tigers Tackle 25-50-75 Lactate Set (Video)

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.

Since head coach Greg Rhodenbaugh’s arrival in 2010, Mizzou has been pumping out top level athletes, with the likes of national teamers Michael Chadwick, Hannah Stevens, and Carter Griffin. I went to visit the University of Missouri to see what they had in store over winter training. I caught them just 2 days before they were hitting the road to dual Texas A&M and SMU, and it was clear they were not taking it easy.

The main set was 10 rounds of 25 fast @ :30, 25 EZ @ 1:00, 50 fast @ 1:00, 25 EZ @ 1:00, 75 fast @ 1:30, 100 EZ @ 2:00, with a goal of maintaining 25 speed through the 50 and 75. The first 5 rounds were swim, the next 3 rounds were with paddles, and the last 2 rounds were with fins (and paddles, if you prefer). The tigers threw down some serious speed, with highlights including a 23.2/36.4 50/75 back from Nick Alexander (paddles), 33.9 (out in 22.3) 75 free from Mikel Schrueders (paddles), and 42.9 75 breast from Katherine Ross (paddles).

While most of the team did that set, on the other side of the pool the distance group did the same thing, but double the fast distance and only 5 rounds. So while everyone else was going 25-50-75, D-group was going 50-100-150 with the goal of maintaining 50 speed as much as possible. Their coach, Jack Brown, actually wanted them to reach failure at some point during the rounds, and them between rounds reset and try to make it a little further before reaching failure on the next round.