The Comeback Trail | Day No. 17: Hour Of Power

The Comeback Trail | Day No. 17: Power Hour

Australian swimmer Bobby Hurley is a former world-record holder in the short course meters (SCM) 50m backstroke and the 2012 world champion in the same event. In 2009, he won a bronze medal as part of Australia's 4x200m freestyle relay at the FINA World Championships in Rome. He has five FINA World Championship medals to his name -- two gold, one silver, and two bronze. Most recently, Hurley coached with Energy Standard Team and led South African swimmers Cameron Van Der Burgh and Chad Le Clos to success at the 2017 FINA World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, in July.

Hurley is making a comeback to competitive swimming with his eyes set on the 2018 Commonwealth Games Trials in April in Gold Coast, Australia. Along with his coach Tim Lane, Hurley is giving us behind-the-scenes access of his training sessions for 30 days. Stay tuned!

Day No. 17 (SCM)

Thursday AM -- October 19th

Another hour of power session. In accordance with the routine, this morning hit some really short, but super high intensity bursts focusing on transition to backstroke power. As we get closer to racing (seven days out), the volume of this will decrease, but the intensity will increase.

The hypoxic pre-set was tough for me, and that is unusual for the coach to be able to get one over me like that. I had to extend the breaths on the swim part on the last round to 6 just to survive.

The resistance cord work is something we are trying to introduce more into the weekly scheme of things as we progress the next six months. From my personal experience -- this is very popular, along with power racks, in the U.S., but pretty hard to get a hold of in Australia. Enjoy feeling some speed this morning.

200 swim -- Warmup 

{3 rounds}

4x100 fins -- 25 underwater/50 free with 4 breaths/25 underwater

  • Round 1 -- 30 secs rest
  • Round 2 -- 20 secs rest
  • Round 3 -- 10 secs rest, but 6 breaths on swim

8x25

  • 2x double arm back -- 4 cycles fast!
  • 2x single arm back – 4 cycles fast!
  • 2x push+glide to dead stop, then 2 cycles fast!
  • 2x surface push + 2 cycles fast into flip turn!
    • Round 1 fins+paddles
    • Round 2 fins
    • Round 3 no gear

10x resistance Cord efforts

  • Odd -- fins UW max distance! {I was getting 13 kicks}
  • Even -- fins+paddles surface push + swim {I was getting 10 strokes}

100 easy

2,400m TOTAL