Michael Andrew Swims Around 4,000 Yards in His First Arizona State Workout

Arizona State head coach Herbie Behm has sent SwimSwam the workout that Olympic gold medalist Michael Andrew swam in his first practice as part of the Sun Devils training group.

For anyone expecting that Andrew’s new coaching regimen would launch into some kind of massive aerobic-work, quite the opposite took place. Andrew swam a total of 3,880 yards, and aside from a 200 warmup, no repeats were longer than 100 yards.

In total, the set was 3,880 yards (rounding to about 4,000 for where he presumably completed a length after a 15 yard effort), plus a presumed cooldown (which wasn’t on the document that Behm provided).

While the workout wasn’t pure USRPT, the training that Andrew made famous, it did have a lot of short efforts on fairly-long rest intervals. USRPT is predicated on training full-speed at mostly under-distances, replicating race speed for a shorter length, on repeats.

This workout incorporated some less-than-max-speed work, and the closest thing it had to aerobic work was a set of 8×100 loaded up with equipment. That’s another derivation from Andrew’s previous training, where he used very little equipment.

The Workout Dissected (original workout follows)

Warm-Up and Relay Starts

1. 200 choice – 200 yards
2. 4 relay starts – Generally, relay starts don’t cover a lot of distance; let’s estimate 15 yards per start = 60 yards

Total for Warm-Up: 260 yards

First Set (2 Rounds)

1. 2×100 flutter kick w/board = 200 yards per round
2. 2×50 w/4 kicks + 7 strokes = 100 yards per round
3. 4x (5 kicks + 4 strokes) MAX SPEED on :30 = 100 yards per round

Total per Round: 400 yards
Total for 2 Rounds: 800 yards

Second Set

1. 8×100 w/buoy + paddles + band + breathing every 3 = 800 yards
2. 4×25 w/paddles + buoy @ ankles = 100 yards
3. 4x (6/6 buoy drops) MAX SPEED = 100 yards

Total for Second Set: 1,000 yards

Third Set

1. 4×50 w/4 kicks + 7 strokes = 200 yards
2. 4×15 MAX SPEED – Since 15-yard swims are specified, 4×15 = 60 yards
3. Alternating MAX SPEED and easy swims:
   • 1×50 easy = 50 yards
   • 2×25 MAX SPEED = 50 yards
   • 1×50 easy = 50 yards
   • 1×50 MAX SPEED = 50 yards
   • 1×50 easy = 50 yards
   • 1×50 MAX SPEED = 50 yards
   • 1×50 easy = 50 yards
   • 2×25 MAX SPEED = 50 yards
   • 1×50 easy = 50 yards

   Subtotal for Alternating Section: 400 yards

4. 4×15 MAX SPEED = 60 yards
5. 4×50 w/4 kicks + 7 strokes = 200 yards

Total for Third Set: 920 yards

Fourth Set (2 Rounds)

1. 1×100 streamline flutter on back = 100 yards per round
2. 3×50 IM switch = 150 yards per round
3. 8×25 on :30 = 200 yards per round

Total per Round: 450 yards
Total for 2 Rounds: 900 yards

Total Yardage

• Warm-Up and Relay Starts: 260 yards
• First Set: 800 yards
• Second Set: 1,000 yards
• Third Set: 920 yards
• Fourth Set: 900 yards

Total Yardage: 3,880 yards

Click to Enlarge