What’s the Best Get Out Swim You’ve Ever Seen?

Recently at the 2024 ASCA World Clinic, SwimSwam asked coaches what the best Get Out Swim they’d ever seen in practice was. For reference, a Get Out Swim is a one-time swim (or task) a coach gives to a swimmer during a practice accompanied by a goal time. If the swimmer hits the goal time, the swimmer (or sometimes the entire team) gets to forego the rest of the practice.

Moving forward, I’d also like to start asking podcast guests about this, so don’t worry. There will be more editions. In the mean time, what’s the best Get Out Swim you’ve ever seen?

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Kevi n E
24 days ago

A Saturday morning, Fall of ’81. The dungeon, University of Southern California. Bruce Furniss (retired) dropped in to show us young’ns how it was done. After 2 1/2 hours of Peter Daland brutality, He decided to go with Jeff Float on a get-out 400im. When Jeff just out touched him, Bruce called him out, and they went again. When Bruce won the second one, Jeff wasn’t having it. By now the entire rest of the team was surrounding the pool, making more noise than any of the dual meets I was ever a part of. They went back and forth 4 more times! It was simply The most pure, for the love of competition moment(s – 40 minutes!) I’ve ever… Read more »

James
24 days ago

Not a get out swim but I heard that Jeff Kostoff did a set of 3X1650 on the NCAA cut as the interval in practice in college

Bubba
24 days ago

I heard a story going around that Phelps did a get out swim with Bob at UMich back in ’06/’07 — 1:40. 200 back

Mark Rauterkus
24 days ago

My go to challenge for our middle school swimmers is for getting out of swim practice and then getting to go off the diving boards. We don’t dismiss early. And the challenge includes everyone in a breath counting 25 yards off the blocks. If the 15 kids swim from a dive to other end, one at a time, in a total of 16 breaths or less, then we go off the boards. Number of total breaths change per coach’s estimate. Some need to do zero while others will hit 3 or 4.

La all star
Reply to  Mark Rauterkus
24 days ago

this sounds like the easiest get out swim ever

Mark Rauterkus
24 days ago

Joe Bernal at BGSC staged great get out swims all the time. They were for birthdays often. Whole team was into it.

MarkB
Reply to  Mark Rauterkus
24 days ago

If you had said “My coach staged. . .”, I don’t think the number of downvotes would be so high.

NCAA Fan
25 days ago

While in high school, occasionally our head coach had to leave practice early and our assistant coach was a calculus teacher. He would give us sets on random intervals to test our mental math. 20×25’s on 37 sec. Anyway, his cool down sets were drop out 100’s. Clocks were turned off and he’d give us a goal time. Closest person to it without going under was done and the rest had to try again with a different time. It could be 1:12 the first time, then backstroke at 1:27, then breast at 1:41 and so on.

There was one guy who wasn’t the fastest kid but would always get within 1-2 seconds on the first try. Sometimes he was… Read more »

Last edited 25 days ago by NCAA Fan
FGM
25 days ago

I recall being at an ASCA Clinic many years ago and hearing this story – maybe someone can elaborate/back it up. Doc Councilman was trying to rebuild the confidence of Mark Spitz after the 1968 Olympics and he would have him come into practice while they were at Indiana just to challenge him to perform a specific time. In one such “get out swim” Spitz broke the American record in the 100 fly.

Mark R. Lambert
Reply to  FGM
24 days ago

Actually, it was the 500ud freestyle.
Spitz asked Doc, “how fast do I need
to swim for the ENTIRE TEAM to get
out?” Doc said, “faster than the
American Record [1/1969, 4:37]!”
So, Spitz swam, beat the time, and, the
team went home!

zthomas
Reply to  Mark R. Lambert
24 days ago

the story in Spitz’s book says this was a 100 fly.

James
Reply to  zthomas
24 days ago

I heard that Spitz broke both the 100 fly and 500 free American records in a get out swim. Spitz would love to do get out swims as he was allowed to miss some of the practice to rest up for the get out swim. He said that he never missed making a get out swim time. He loved to train this way and Doc loved to coach him this way

MarkB
Reply to  zthomas
24 days ago

Well, Mark Lambert swam with him so maybe it was both but definitely the 500.

James
Reply to  Mark R. Lambert
24 days ago

I saw a picture of Spitz holding a sign with 4:37 written on it after the get out swim.

Billy
25 days ago

I did just about the greatest get out swim in history. I was body surfing near 18th street in Newport Beach with Churchill fins on. Behind a nice wave, a big sea critter surfaced with a big dorsal fin and goes back under. I’m not sure what it was (probably a dolphin) but I wasn’t waiting to find out. I covered the 35 yard swim to shore in about 8 seconds and ran to the sand. I’m sure the local fish were very impressed and I felt safe once on shore. Whew, it was a close one and I lived to talk about it!

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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