Practice + Pancakes: Brendan Hansen Throws Serious Speed Set at ASC

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.

If you didn’t see already, Brendan Hansen is turning into a mighty fine swim coach. But how hard is he working the senior group at Austin Swim Club? SwimSwam got to get an inside look into their dryland and water workout.

First things first: their facilities, as you can see, are incredible. Full weight room/dryland area, turf, and an olympic size outdoor pool that glows in the dark. The kids at Austin Swim Club are certainly blessed, and they make the best of it. Watch the movement and swimming focused lifts they do, and hear what Dan has to say about applying what they do in the weight room to what they do in the water. It essentially functions like a college team built for high schoolers, which is exactly the way Brendan has set it up.

In the water, it’s a different story. While it’s a normal day for the kids to pump out 7-8k per workout, we caught them on a more speed based workout. Brendan expressed his hesitance with doing a set where the kids get so much rest, but also recognized the importance of giving his athletes speed work with the hopes of giving their Day 1 at meets a little more umph. And there was certainly some umph within the workout. To name just a couple highlights, World Champs Semi-finalist in the 200 fly Dakota Luther dropped a 25.9 50 fly, while World Jr’s gold medalist Matthew Willenbring sprinted to a 21.9 50 free.

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mikeh
7 years ago

Wow those facilities are the envy of the club swimming world.

tea rex
7 years ago

(Dakota Luther?) is moving, but 25.9 fly from a push would be in…sane.
Picture a girl swimming the 100 fly, and splitting:
23.5 + 0.5 seconds on the 50 turn
26.0
=50.00
That’s world class.

crooked donald
Reply to  tea rex
7 years ago

You’re giving her a Dressel start. Probably not the 2+ second difference in her push and a start.

tea rex
Reply to  crooked donald
7 years ago

Crooked Donald –
At 2017 NCAAs, every finalist had 2.7-4.0 second difference in their splits, with two incredible exceptions (both won):
Dressel 20.70 + 22.88 = 43.58 (2.18 delta)
Osman 24.04 + 26.01 = 50.05 (1.97 delta)

For reference:
Worrell 23.09 + 26.34 = 49.43 (3.09 delta)
Luther’s PR = 52.27

Dakota looks very impressive underwater, and in the 3-4 strokes we can see in that video. Just saying, 25.9 is probably a little generous with the stopwatch.

Fluidg
7 years ago

Would love to swim for that guy! He’s gonna have a lot of success on the deck to add to his legendary career in the pool.

Swimswim
7 years ago

Coleman, you should go to ucsd and do this with new coach David Marsh

Rob
7 years ago

Is it definitely SCM, not SCY? 21.9 50m free from a push-off sounds insane!

millian
Reply to  Rob
7 years ago

A SCM time should be slower than a SCY time…. it was yards.

YoungFish11
Reply to  millian
7 years ago

He’s saying it is probably SCY…

About Coleman Hodges

Coleman Hodges

Coleman started his journey in the water at age 1, and although he actually has no memory of that, something must have stuck. A Missouri native, he joined the Columbia Swim Club at age 9, where he is still remembered for his stylish dragon swim trunks. After giving up on …

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