Coach’s Intel: Jake Shellenberger from Liberty University Shares a Sprint Set

Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national level swimmer based out of Victoria, BC. In feeding his passion for swimming, he has developed YourSwimBook, a powerful log book and goal setting guide made specifically for swimmers. Sign up for the YourSwimBook newsletter (free) and get weekly motivational tips by clicking here.

Today’s Coach’s Intel swimming workout was shared by Jake Shellenberger of Liberty University. As you’ll see it is a speed and power workout that sprinters are sure to love. Shellenberger has coached at Liberty since 2009. Before that he was an assistant coach at Penn State, where he coached mostly the sprint group for the men’s and women’s program.

Here is the workout, that his athletes did on January 25th, 2014–

Warm Up

300 as 3×100 Reverse IM Order Drill

4×100 Kick Choice

5 x 100 Odd = Free @1:20, Even = 50 Drill non-Free/50 Choice

Drill/Pull…

4x [4 x 50]

Paddles by round — The goal here with paddle play was to work a forearm focus… progressing from the anti-paddle with hand to the agility paddle with a bigger hand.

1. Finis anti paddle
2. Tennis balls
3. No paddles
4. Finis agility paddle

50’s, by 50–

1. Scull/Pull x 25 with buoy and snorkel for all
2. Drill that helps you the most/Pull x 25 with buoy and snorkel for free types
3. Scull / swim x 25 with snorkel for free types and no buoy….extremely light kick on the scull, just enough to maintain body position
4. Drill that helps you the most / swim x 25

Pre, 3 times through –

50 with Finis anti paddle, cruise, working early vertical forearm

2 x 12.5 Max Blast with a parachute….  1 = kick, 2 = swim

2 x Blast Efforts with choice of gear, 1 = 15 Max Blast, 2 = 10 yard Blast Finish from a “lights off, lights on” go

One of the only benefits to having a small pool is the ability to turn the lights off and on…A lot of programs will go blast efforts from a float from a whistle start…the athletes will have to react   to the whistle and this trains reaction time.  We do a lot of that but do not want to neglect the sense of sight for reaction as well.

Here is video of the drill in action:

We do a lot of reaction drills to sound with underwater starts … Why not light? SwimSwamNews, @luswimdive https://t.co/Wa7BZKm3ia

— Jake Shellenberger (@JakeShell) January 11, 2014

Main Set 4x

50 Dive Max to foot touch @ :40 (no gear)

25 underwater @ :30 (must make the underwater and hook up to Power Tower in :30)

4 x 12.5 Max. blast swim on the Power Tower, bucket filled 1/3, choice of paddle, if any at all

50 Push Max for time

Best times on the last 50 on the set from our three best short types –

• Free – 26.5
• Breast – 33.9
• Fly – 27.4

Got a workout you would like to share with the swimming community? Send it over to Olivier — [email protected] along with any video or pictures.

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