Back in the mid-1970’s, former Harvard University swim coach Joe Bernal presented daily challenges to his 16-year-old future Olympic swimmer Bobby Hackett with some very tough distance freestyle sets. One of those sets was the renowned 100 x 100 set of freestyle swims on 1:00 in a short-course 25-yard pool.
Note: the equivalent in a 50m pool would be 100 x 100 @ 1:05.62 – pretty tough for a swimmer of any age, especially without fins, hand paddles, or pull buoys.
Hackett’s tough, gut-busting, hard-core workouts paid off as he swam to a silver medal in 15 minutes 3 second in the 1500m at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games at the age of 17 behind another American 18-year-old phenom Brian Goodell.
Hackett’s unprecedented workout caught the eye of other competitive and masters swim coaches and the tradition continues to carry on in pools around the world.
Especially around year end, these annual 100 x 100 rite of passage of 10,000-yard or 10,000-meter sets in short-course or long-course pool continue to performed.
Two-time Japanese Olympic marathon swimmer Yasu Hirai Fukuoka, OLY devised his own 100 x 100 set en route to his Road to LA 2028 at the renowned Icebergs Baths in Bondi Beach, Australia.
100 x 100 @ 1:30
- #1-10: freestyle swim average 1:10-1:15 with fins
- #11-40: freestyle pull with hand paddles
- #41-50: freestyle swim average 1:10-1:15
- #51-60: freestyle pull with hand paddles
- #61-70: individual medley swim
- #71-90: freestyle pull with hand paddles
- #91-100: freestyle swim average 1:05-1:07
Along the same tradition, several years ago, Antonio Argüelles in Mexico, Ned Denison in Ireland, and others around the world from Germany to California decided to step up their 100 x 100 game with 200 x 100 sets. Argüelles convinced dozens of his fellow swimmers to challenge themselves to a 20,000m high-altitude workout at 2,240 meters or 7,350 feet in Mexico City.
Then there is Hell Week at the Redding Swim Team in northern California under the tutelage of Coach Mark Wagner where Lexie Kelley trained for years. His old-school 20th century test of stamina and mental strength includes one five-day period of a set of 100 x 100 … done twice per day. One 100 x 100 set in the morning and another 100 x 100 set in the afternoon. That is 20,000 yards per day five days in a row or a total of 100,000 yards or 91,440 meters in 5 days.
Kelly [shown below with recalls, “I was so tired [during Hell Week] that I didn’t even want to brush my hair. But we all did it and we looked forward to it. I did it year after year with the rest of the team.”
Coach Wagner explains his philosophy, “It’s a test mentally and physically for the athletes. It’s seems scary for the rookies, but once they complete it, the sense of accomplishment is unmatched. For the seasoned athletes, it provides a different test: I’m really tough enough mentally to go through this again physically. The surprising results those athletes realize they can handle anything mentally or physically.”
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I always thought it was Coach Bill Rose who first had Mike Bruner do the 100 x 100 set?
Regardless, doing it twice a day for five days …
Truly mind-numbing to imagine.
That must have been around 1974-1976 when Bill Rose was coaching De Anza Swim Club. Mike Bruner with his coach Bill Rose and Bobby Hackett and his coach Joe Bernal must have had an intense rivalry. Mike is 3 years older than Bobby and held the American record in the 1650 yard freestyle in high school before going to Stanford, but it was the 16-year-old Bobby who qualified second in the 1500m freestyle at the 1976 US Olympic Trials (Brian Goodell was first in 15:06, Bobby Hackett was second in 15:12 with Paul Hartloff third in 15:13, Casey Converse fourth in 15:15, and Mike Bruner fifth in 15:24 (with Jesse Vassallo sixth in 15:33, Doug Northway seventh in 15:37, and Tim Shaw eighth in 15:45). In the 400m freestyle, Bruner finished 6th in 3:55.62 and Hackett 7th in 3:55.65. But it was Bruner who won gold at the 1976 Montreal Olympics in the 200m butterfly while Hackett won his 1500m freestyle silver. I wonder how many of those swimmers did 100×100 sets? Paul Asmuth recalls 100×100 scm @ 1:10 back in 1978. We need to follow-up with Coach Rose, Mike and Bobby. Interesting distance freestyle history.
The definitive history of 100×100, first performed in 1975: https://ishof.org/historic-set-an-appreciation-and-breakdown-of-the-legendary-100-x-100s-of-olympic-champion-and-ishof-honoree-mike-bruner-splits-included/