We thank our friend Paul Silver of the Marlins of Raleigh for sharing this great training set with us. We didn't have a chance to film this while in Raleigh, so we've asked some SwimMAC swimmers to give it a go with some group modifications.

Why do it:
When coaching large groups, sometimes it's tough to keep track of everyone's pace. By using Tempo Trainers, you can put the responsibility on the athletes.

How to do it:
1 - Take a bunch of Tempo Trainers and set them to a lane target. The target is 50% of the time you want them to complete a 25. In this case we set them to 7.00 - 7.50 - 8.00. This means the 25s would need to be done faster than 14 - 15 or 16 seconds.
2 - When you take these Tempo Trainers above 5 seconds, you'll hear a double beep. When the swimmer hears the double beep, they have to get ready. The next time they hear it, they have to react and GO!
3 - Now, they'll hear the double beep about half-way down, and they have to get their feet on the wall prior to the NEXT double beep going off. Imagine something is chasing you, and you have to get to the wall before the beep goes off.

How to do it really well (the fine points):
We started this set with a 1:1 work:rest ratio. The swimmers would go through the swim (14 seconds), then they'd hear the middle beep at the next 7 second mark, which means get ready, then they'd have to leave on the next double beep. So 14 seconds of swimming and 14 seconds of rest.

We then skipped the middle rest beep. They'd have to get to the wall before the 14 second beep, and the next time they heard the beep, they'd have to go. Now they'd have half the rest but would still have to swim as fast.

There are so many ways to play with this set. Faster swimming (we moved all the Tempo Trainers down .5 on the next set) with more rest, or faster swimming with less rest.

Play, invent, change strokes, and put the responsibility on the athletes to figure out a way to get to the other end in time.

Paul Silver sets his Tempo Trainers at the goal pace of his athletes and has them go at it. It's great motivation.

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