Coach’s Intel: Brown University’s “Bruno Strong” Distance Set

by SwimSwam 11

March 09th, 2015 College, Masters, Training

Courtesy of Chris Dart, Assistant Men’s Swimming and Diving coach at Brown University. Chris loves swimming, basketball, winning, and………toast. Follow him on Twitter here.

We were down in Boca Raton, Florida for a Training Trip two months ago. On our final practice, we went SCY, did about a 2000 warm-up and then challenged our Distance swimmers to this set. The set is as follows:

6 rounds of:
10 x 100** @ 1:00
200 EZ @ 3:00

(**If a swimmer misses the sendoff, they sit out 1 x 100, put fins on, and must finish the round with fins. Then, they start the next round without fins.**)

The goal of the set is to try and make as many of the 100’s on 1:00 as you can, per round, without having to put fins on. If a swimmer does have to put fins on, then he must help to pace the swimmers who are still swimming without fins. It keeps the swimmers working hard even after they reach failure. The 200 EZ serves as active recovery and is on an interval fast enough that the swimmers’ heart rate stays up and they don’t have the chance to relax.

We had two guys, Cory Mayfield (Jr.) and Grant Casey (Fr.) make all 60. Cory was holding 56-57’s (his last 100 was a 54.0) and Grant was holding 57-58’s the whole way. Our other guys all made right around 40 of the 60 x 100’s.

This set is just as mentally taxing as it is physically exhausting. And what was good to see was that as soon as some of our swimmers started missing the interval and had to finish the round with fins on, the next round they almost always improved on the number of 100’s they had made in the previous set of 10. It was a great indicator of how in shape they are and how mentally tough they can be.

Go Bruno!

11
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easyspeed
9 years ago

Great challenge set! And this is the kind of proper endurance training kids need if they want to be like Phelps or Ledecky.

There is another kind of training that is popular that does not have the necessary endurance. I just can’t think of the name of it right now…

Chris Dart
9 years ago

This set was not designed as an USRPT set. It was designed primarily to be one of those “mental test sets” that distance swimmers need to be able to do from time to time in order to be successful. Sometimes in a race, meet, or practice, you’re going to fail. Then you have to find a way to bounce back and find some success again. That’s what I wanted to get out of it, and that’s what I did get out of it. My guys hit failure, but then had to get back into it quickly and try to improve on their last round. The second benefit is obviously having them hit 1650 pace with minimal rest.

I understand… Read more »

Coach
Reply to  Chris Dart
9 years ago

I know my HS Senior is excited about rocking this type of work next year!

whitney
9 years ago

Go Brown!! Go Grant!!

Chris DeSantis
9 years ago

Not USRPT. The suggest rest time would be about :20, and these guys were not going 40. Also the volume wouldn’t be recommended either under USRPT

kin
9 years ago

This is one of the worst sets I’ve ever seen. Not even close to being USRPT, mate. The first two words of the acronym stand for Ultra-short. 7,200 yards is nowhere near being short. Plain and simple, this is a distance set. A distance set that was either written by an age grouper or stolen from 1986.

USRPT Protest
Reply to  kin
9 years ago

Is everyone here being sarcastic, or has everyone really jumped onto the USRPT bandwagon? This is a good set for guys preparing for the mile. It is mentally/physically taxing, and builds the confidence needed for successful distance swimming. In fact, I know it’s been taken further by other programs… And I don’t mean in 1986. The winner of the mile at Brown’s conference meet did 80 x 100 @ 1:00 on his training trip in Florida. Looks like it’s working pretty well to me.

mikeh
9 years ago

Thank you as always for posting training info swimswam! I don’t think this is USRPT, as the times the swimmers held are probably slower than any event they would swim st this level. Possibly 1650 pace?

AFC
9 years ago

please change my initials for the name to remain anonymous

hiswimcoach
9 years ago

Sounds like a derivation of USRPT. Or has that horse been kicked too many times already?