Using physical Tools

This week I started back to do a lot of stroke work. Had a meeting where I took the tool of Steve Haufler's, the model head. With this model head I also used a noodle to represent the spine.

This group I have is very new to me as I have only coached here since September, and they were pretty raw despite being older than what I had expected coming here. 13 - 15 year olds who I had to teach circle swimming to and how to hold a position to kick on their side. The one 10 year old in the group was probably the best prepared in terms of practice etiquette and various positions.

So I had a lot of kids who still swam with their vision forward, and actually, maybe slightly upwards. They have improved so much, but now was a good time to iron some stuff out. One was this head position. I put the model head with the eyes forward, and then the noodle I bent and made it horizontal to the ground. I asked them, "So who feels a pain in their neck when we swim a decent amount of breaststroke or butterfly?" They took a look at the Head and the noodle (representing the spine), and they all gave me looks of agony, as they were able to see why their necks might feel a little tension.

Of course none of them are as extreme as the demonstration now after numerous reminders of eyes down and head down during practice, but they seem to really grasp the concept when they saw that curved noodle.

I went on and showed how they need to "lean on their lungs" and show that the head is dependent on the spine, and not to make the spine dependent on the head.

The other visual tool was simply a tennis ball tube with one tennis ball in it. I showed them the three body positions (Uphill, Downhill, and Neutral). The Tennis Ball was to help them understand the transfer of body weight in the various positions. They seemed to grasp the concept of staying uphill is bad as the weight would be dragging as the tennis ball couldn't back to center without going at least to neutral. They also seemed to start to see the idea of swimming down hill and the transfer of body weight could actually assist them forward.

Of course there were some kids who didn't seem to take in anything as they stared at me blankly, but seemed to do better as we applied these concepts in the water in group floating with the swimmers helping each other try to get neutral. Older kids who that are still learning practice skills had trouble with the group stuff but the young ones seemed to really try to make adjustments in the water.

The tools really seemed to work though. Visual demonstration. I've always done it, but it seems to work better with the different physical tools that I used. The group below mine has also seemed to do well as we have incorporated the model head in that group also especially with freestyle breathing. I am looking forward to the future as we are going to try to make an effort to up the usage of different tools for specific skills.

Stay tuned as we experiment with some stuff, and feel free to send some my way through comments.