The Long Course Season is over, and we will take one more week and finish with the JO Max SC Meet, but my new preparation begins now. I have done some more studying of the spring as I am going to take on the Senior 2 group, and I will be running an actual pre-senior group now. This will involve a lot more planning on my part, and more use of the physiology knowledge, which is the main part of my studying right now. At the same time I have to look at what I have done this season, and what I was able to accomplish and then look at ways that I can make it all work better.
Doing things exactly the same is not always in the best interest of the swimmer. It can become stale, so the Blue Group needs to be ran differently. As a swimmer, my father changed things up every season. He always had a new trick or new concept up his sleeve. Who knows if those little things helped us, but it definitely didn't keep it the same all the time.
I got here, and I didn't like all the stroke mechanics that my swimmers had, so the last year I did a lot more stroke development than I had anticipated. This might have stalled some progression, as when re-developing a stroke a swimmer normally goes slow for a time, and then reaps the benefits after a duration of repetition. The trick here is to convince the swimmer that it is in their best long-term interest to go through this period of time. The younger swimmers are developing in their bodies so are improving in strength and endurance, so stroke development is good because they typically will get a little better in this slump period when re-developing the strokes.
The Summer Season I worked a little bit more, but I have to admit that I need to get better at developing Long Course workouts, as I feel a little lost when designing these workouts. I never trained Long Course so my expectations of interval sets for particular target speeds is a little off, but I think I was getting better towards the end.
So, the first season here I feel like I set the table for my athletes. I developed strokes (and Casey developed strokes very well as well) and then I introduced some training aspects this Spring and Summer, and now I will get into more extensive workout regimen in the fall. It will give the athletes a better base for the remainder of the season. Unlike last fall where I was stroke development when I probably should have been mixing in more base building workouts.
In my studying, I have found that I probably don't do enough aerobic training with the level of swimmer that I have. The group is primarily at the right speed to get the correct aerobic sets done in the time of practice now, but I need to become better at developing an aerobic base for my young swimmers.
Senior 2 will be the same challenge for myself. The aerobic aspect will be the part of my development as a coach. Once we get into November though, that is when I'll be able to get to the part that I think I'll be good at as I begin to develop race aspects and race speed in the swimmers. The blue group will be going into more of a training period here, but the Senior 2 will change into more intense practices trying to develop senior like strength and speed. I am really looking forward to this group, even though I know I have to stay focused and not stray too far from the plan.
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