How to Power Up Your 200IM with the “Quarters” Set

Got a fever to level up your 200m individual medley? Brandon Converse of EGRA has just the prescription with his “Quarters” set.

The individual medley is the decathlon, biathlon, and every other -athon of swimming (or something). It requires proficiency in all four strokes, something few swimmers can truly master.

Swim workouts should push and challenge you at the pool, and medley training is an excellent example of tackling the things we struggle most with in the water.

For most of us, it is the breaststroke that is our Achilles heel, leading us to spend half the race putting distance on everyone and then trying to catch up on the freestyle leg (every…single…time).

Anyhoo, for those who are seeking to improve their medley times head coach Brandon Converse of Michigan’s East Grand Rapids Aquatics has a challenging swimming workout that will help you develop speed and endurance through all four strokes.

The “Quarters” Individual Medley Set

“This set emphasizes speed in all four strokes followed by a fast 200 IM at the end. When we do multiple rounds, we challenge the swimmers to descend the 200 IM.

The set can also be adapted for swimmers who lean more towards the distance individual medley event.

“You can also do this set with 100 Quarters instead of 50s and a 400 IM at the end instead of 200 IM. We will only do that set one time through,” says Converse.

With all of the stroke 50’s the goal is to tack on more distance swum at high speed.

“For the 50’s add a quarter of the distance fast until the entire 50 is fast,” explains  Converse.

2-3 times through–

• 4 x 50 Fly Quarters @:50-1:00
• 4 x 25 EZ@:30
• 4 x 50 Back Quarters @:50-1:00
• 4 x 25 EZ@:30
• 4 x 50 Breast Quarters@:50-1:00
• 4 x 25 EZ@:30
• 4 x 50 Free Quarters@:50-1:00
• 4 x 25 EZ@:30
• 200 IM Fast

Thank you to Coach Converse for stopping by and sharing this set!

More Swim Workouts:

Ryan Lochte: “One of the Hardest Sets I’ve Ever Done.” Want to really test your medley training mettle? Give this epic IM set a look that one of the best medley swimmers in history declared one of the hardest he’d ever swum.

Phelps vs. Hackett: Two All-Time Greats Go Head-to-Head in Practice. For a week in 2003 two of the greats went toe-to-toe in a freestyle battle royale. Here’s what went down.