Open Practice with Todd DeSorbo: Power & Speed Training for the 50 Free

with Todd DeSorbo,
University of Virginia Head Coach;
2024 US Olympic Swim Team Women'ss Head Coach (Paris);
2x USA Swimming Foundation's Golden Goggle Coach of the Year (2024, 2025);
2025 ASCA George Haines Coach of the Year;
2x Swammy National Coach of the Year (2021, 2024);
Six Straight NCAA Women's National Championships (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026);
Five Straight CSCAA Women's Coach of the Year Awards (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025);
8x Women's ACC Championships (2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026);
5x ACC Women's Swim Coach of the Year (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024);
2021 US Olympic Swim Team Assistant Coach (Tokyo);
North Carolina State Associate Head Coach from 2011 to 2017
Helped the Wolfpack men capture three consecutive ACC titles and the women win the 2017 ACC title;
University of North Carolina Wilmington Assistant Coach from 2007 to 2011
Cape Fear Aquatic Club (NC) Coach from 2005 to 2007
College swimmer for Kentucky and University of North Carolina Wilmington

In this ‘Open Practice’ video you will get a behind the scenes look at Coach DeSorbo’s training program for the 50 free in a live practice session.

50 Free Training Program
Coach DeSorbo leads the athletes through a practice that focuses on developing power and speed for this specific event. The beginning of the practice starts with a series of drills to get the athletes focusing on a lower recovery in their freestyle stroke. This helps the athletes set up their strokes and gets them ready for power work.

In the second part of the practice, DeSorbo leads the athletes through a series of turn drills and finishing drills. You will see that the focus for the turns is to spin fast while keeping a low profile with the surface of the water. The emphasis is on hitting the wall high and hard on the finishing drills because a low angled finish takes longer to get to the wall than a higher finish

Up next, Coach DeSorbo focuses on power development while having his team use the power racks. The athletes do a series of swims and kicking against the rack. Throughout this part of practice, DeSorbo emphasizes to the swimmers to “swim big and powerful.”

Finally, DeSorbo has his athletes go as fast as they can with a 2x25 blast to finish practice.

Afterwards he leads them through an active warm down.

Developing strength and power are essential in 50 free training and this front row view gives you an excellent idea of some of the most effective drills, techniques and strategies covered!

77 minutes. 2025.