Short Breaks

CSSC this year took some short breaks for the holidays. This was capped off by 4 days off from Sunday - Wednesday for the Christmas Break. After the break I did a long aerobic practice that didn't have much intensity. Had some feel for the water with a long kick set and some sculling. Followed by tonight's workout where went back to work. The swimmers looked great even with the break (well most of them at least).

I think some people get scared with short breaks. At the age-group level though, a short break so they can focus on holidays, celebrations, and family are good. They're still young, so they keep much of what they have developed over a short break.

Our senior swimmers are different. They tapered for their winter meet, and they had their breaks and their easier practices, and now the break is the time to develop the foundation again (which they might have missed in the early fall due to absences; lack of focus coming off of a two week break; or a newly developed sense of dedication after their winter championships).

We plan short breaks into our seasons. This year the Christmas Break I had in mind for awhile, even though we didn't finalize it with the Head Coach until November. I knew that I had a new game plan this year (in previous post), and I knew how the days off were going to land so that I could get good results with the designed breaks.

Breaks are good for young people. Going too long can be not good, but breaks coordinated by coaches are typically planned out and are good. We are a year round sport, so the kids, parents, and coaches all need a break from time to time. Know that they will come, and don't be scared that they are going to be detrimental to the athlete if they are designed by the coaching staff.

Backstroke Propulsion

The other night while working on backstroke I went to a drill I haven't used this season. It is a drill prograssion where one part of the drill is also described in Bryan Dedeaux blog as well, and one I have used throughout my time coaching.

The Drill Progression begins with the swimmer just kicking on their side. Concentrate on the lead arm. Be sure the lead arm is straight and submerged and at a very slight downward angle. It is a backstroke kick on the side, so the eyes remain up at the sky at all times. We do this for about a 100 with the left arm.

Then, we move to holding the position, but followed with an underwater pull which the hand remains below the body, and be sure they are "Setting Their Elbow" and then pulling the water. The remains below the body due to no rotation. The finish of the pull is followed by an underwater recovery back to the side kick position. We did this with the left arm for about a 2 x 100's, making corrections and reminders after the first 100.

The next step is to have the swimmer do the same motion, but this time begin a hip rotation about half way through the pull. Emphasize that most of the pull is done on the side kick position and then the finish is done with a rotation that allows the shoulder to rise on the finish of the pull. After a short glide the swimmer will then rotate back and perform an under water recovery. We would do this for 2 x 100's with the left arm.

I then would go through the whole process with the right arm. I would conclude the whole progression with some 100's of regular backstroke on a slow interval as the focus is on a powerful pull. I always listen to the swimmers on the wall as they chat amongst themselves, and the direct feedback they give me. This process led to many of them feeling like they could feel themselves pressing more water. They added comments that made me realize that they were improving their Distance Per Stroke. Even the complaint about their stroke count being off and having to do a flip turn too close to the wall, helped me conclude that they were improving DPS and feeling the water better on backstroke.

New game plan this season

So, normally I treat the short course season as a single long training season. I find myself lost in this planning as I had a championship meet in the middle of a training cycle. I look at my last three seasons and I feel like I have done well with these seasons, but come a little short on the results between WAG and Coastal Champs.

Now I am trying a new plan of attack for my training cycle. I made the fall season into a 16 week training cycle, and now I have an 11 week winter training cycle that will end with the Coastal Champs meet. In this approach I have scheduled a holiday break and what I plan to do with that schedule with days off. I think the shorter cycle allowed me to focus on the difficulty which is the winter season.

The cycle again begins with stroke work and aerobic development. Then there is a perfect fit to do the main work between meets, so that the swimmers will be prepared to swim well at our last meet before coastal champs, and then fine tune for the coastal champs meet. The coastal champs meet also falls in perfectly for the HS swimmers to begin HS meets and become unattached for the spring, and turn their focus to the HS season.

Always looking for a better way to prepare and develop my group, and I am excited about this new approach. I feel like I am more in the game, and not wondering if I should be doing something else or if my plan back in August still seems to be going well.

Propulsion / Drag

How do we create speed in our swimmers? It is the combination of Propulsion (positive force) and Drag (Negative Force). What is really going to propel you forward though? It is Propulsion. It is what a swimmer does under the water that creates propulsion. Drag is a negative aspect. It is improving the part of the stroke that reducing the amount of water that is going to slow you down. If you don't know how to push water well, there isn't as much water to slow you down, so decreasing drag isn't going to make you any faster.

So developing a swimmer, where do we begin? Well, through swim lessons, hopefully they picked up the basic ideas of pushing water, or creating propulsion. I like to begin with developing strokes reducing the amount of drag. Here you will create good muscle memory of what most people recognize as stroke technique. A swimmer doesn't get really fast by doing this, but swimming can become much easier for the swimmer (a big goal of all swimmers; make it easy). During this time, you'll always talk about catching and pushing water back, but the emphasis remains reduing drag. This phase though, you emphasize the main aspect of propulsion all the time; the Kick.

As the swimmer has made swimming easier, then you will begin to develop better propulsion in the arm pull (for breaststroke: the scull). Here is where you will see the swimmer get faster. As they get faster, now the move through more water, and drag becomes important to take more effeciency in the stroke. So, cleaning up technique is always good to do, even when you get to the point where creating propulsion becomes the emphasis.

Basically, what goes on under the water is more about creating the speed than what goes on above the water. I learned this early on, as I began coaching only fixing the stroke technique, and less on the propulsion aspect. My talented swimmers still got fast, and swimming became easier for all of my swimmers, but to get those hard workers fast I had trouble. I figured this out a couple years into coaching and it changed the level of my swimmers.

Recognizing the accomplishments

With my group, I hype up our Winter Age-Group Championships. We attend the meet in Vegas, which is a destiny location, and it can get kids excited by just being able to say, "You're so close to be able to make it to Vegas."

As a coach that emphasizes a meet, I need to recognize that there some in the group that don't make the meet, or just barely miss it. It is disappointing, but it becomes a point where the swimmer can show their resolve. How do they react to the disappointment during the next season. This defines a swimmer, and the swimmer who can bounce back from disappointment can be the ones who learn perserverence the best (It will be needed later on in their swimming career).

At the same time though, as a coach it is good to demonstrate what they have accomplsihed during the season. Sometimes a swimmer only looks at the missed goal rather than what they accomplished. This recognition of accomplishment can be used to help them get through a disappointment.

An accomplishment can be time improvement from one season to the next. It can be the courage do be able to do a new more challenging event that they had never done before. It can be an improvement of their worst stroke or skills that they knew were part of their practice goals for that season.

I set meets as goals to be able to provide the carrot. It works great, as many times there are those few kids who make the meet or barely miss the meet, which at the beginning of the season, it didn't look like they had a chance.

It is so important though to realize the accomplishments and be prepared to work even harder the next season.

What I do at meets.

So, all over the country swim meets are ran differently. I have worked in Central and Southern California. This may not apply to everyone.

What I try to get my swimmers to do at meet in regards to checking in with the coach. Before the race I ask for my swimmers to come tell me their heat and lane. Coaches have a psych sheet which only has the place which they are seeded in the event, and not the actual heat and lanes.

When I first started and I didn't have a lot of swimmers at meets, this wasn't that important. I could find my athletes, or check it myself, as I had plenty of breaks throughout the meet. At these meets, sometimes I didn't seat in the coaches area, as I really didn't need to always be looking at the pool. Once I figured out that I could hear how and what coaches said to their swimmers; I always sat in the coaches area to learn.

Now that I have a lot of swimmers at meets, the heat and lane helps me not only be sure I watch a particular heat, but allows me to plan: when to talk to swimmers; when to take a bathroom break; when to get grab something to eat or drink; or just when to sit back and take a deep breathe. With a lot of swimmers in various age-groups you may have a period of time that you are non-stop for a long time.

Before a race, I also try to give some reminders. Many times swimmers want a lot of explanation, but sometimes it is very simple. Many times the reminders are the same as every meet because they are important reminders for a particular race. My group is also learning and trying new events a lot, and providing strategies help them realize what we want to see. As they get more experience, creating a strategy for them becomes less, as they have learned the strategy of a race.

After a race, I try to tell them to cool down (warm down) first, but many times this goes in one ear and out the other. They are trained though to come talk after the race. I provide feedback. I try to include some positive feedback and some criticism. Sometimes, I am so fed up with saying the same thing over and over again, I have done more criticism than positive. When a swimmer is having a rough meet (a lot of swims with added times) I'll drift to more positive feedback, and just make quick comments about the errors. Sometimes if I can tell that they are being to hard on themselves, we'll have the talk about a race being in the past, and not to allow that race affect the next.

Talking to swimmers is hard at times, as a coach can be non-stop busy, but trying to keep a swimmer around until their is a quick break to have a talk with them is needed at times. We have to try to read our swimmers, and figure out what they need to be told. Coaching young kids and the more advanced age-grouper provides plenty of really good meets, but there are also some that are going to be dissapointing. Swimmers need to learn how to navigate through the hard times, and they aren't going to figure it out on their own. Coaches guide them the best they can to learn how to deal with dissapointment. It is one of the crucial lessons to learn to be successful in swimming, and actually, a great lesson for whatever they pursue.

I love swim meets. I am always excited to see what my swimmers are going to do. I hate bad meets, but I know they are going to happen. Great meets are amazing to watch your swimmers take lessons they have learned and apply it, and have success from them. The procedure I do is daunting to do and takes a lot out of me, but it has worked out well for my athletes.

Breaststroke kick work

I have always found that teaching breaststroke kick can be very challenging with new swimmers. Of course there are always those who naturally turn the ankles out, then it's easy to teach a good breaststroke kick. If you have taught young swimmers before you know that there are always those few who really have difficult time learning this skill.

I always start basic. Try to teach them with learn the ankle position in the setup of the kick. Then it is teaching the motion of the kick by moving the heels: up, out, and around. Emphasizing the backwards force during the around, and not including the out motion during the backwards force phase of the kick.

Only some kids grasp the kick at this point. I then try to tell them to spread their toes on the setup and during the force portion of the kick. I got this from Steve Haufler, and this method has worked really well, but some kids still don't get the spreading of the toes.

After the swimmer has done the kick wrong, and you have also been doing some other kicks in your practices; some have realized what it feels like to push water. My newest thing I've been using is having the swimmer try to only push water with the bottom of their feet, and never push with the top of the foot. I did this on accident the other day, but it worked for some of my swimmers who had trouble of being consistent legal breaststroke kickers. They surprised me that they could feel the difference in pushing with the bottom of their feet and the top of the foot, and being relatively new to the sport.

The other battle is with "diamond kicks." This is when the swimmer makes a diamond with their legs pushing their knees outward and their heels stay together as they bring their heels "up." I battle this with the basic breaststroke kick with a buoy. They'll hate it, but it will begin to teach them proper setup of the kick.

Relaxing during fly

Not sure how many times I talk about relaxing is a key aspect to becoming a really good swimmer. I have a swimmer who finally it clicked. Butterfly is a gruelly stroke, but when done right, it becomes easy. Knowing how to relax becomes very important to making it easier.

The back muscles must relax for the recovery. The lifting of the chin to breathe forward uses a lot of the upper back muscles. This lift occurs during the pull. As the hand finish the pull and come out of the water the body that you just lifted above the water during the pull, now tilts forward and the back muscles must relax to allow the shoulder to lift up and inward. If you tilt the body downward and continue to keep the face forward the upper back muscles tense up and makes it very difficult to rise the shoulders properly.

So, as the hands exit the water and the body tips forward you must relax the upper back and neck. Gravity will then drop the head (the head is very heavy), no need to force the head down. The shoulder can then rise above the spine and head, and the arms can swing around straight forward without a lot of force.

At the time of the entry, the chest should be pressed down and forward to help pop the hips upward to allow the water under the body to pass, and not create drag by going directly into the hips and lower abdomen.

Some swim Butterfly with a big body undulation that has the hands stay in front for a long glide phase. Many think that this will allow them to keep their arms fresh as they'll be doing less strokes. This is not the case though for butterfly. Reducing the strokes reduces the amount of recovery phases (the time the arms relax and swing over the water). It increases the amount of time that a swimmer will hold their hands above their slowing down and losing momentum in their stroke. The shoulders are working harder in this glide phase than the recovery.

The best thing to do in butterfly in regards to tempo is to maintain a continuous fluid stroke. You can increase tempo towards the end of a race, but do not create the long underwater glide phase. The shoulders will hurt just as bad, and you will be going much slower.

Important part of all strokes, as it is with butterfly, is to be able to relax while swimming the stroke.

4 hour rule

So, I write periodically parent ed articles for the members of my team. They are sometimes just quick writes by me, or sometimes I include articles from other sources to help educate the swim parents on our team. I find it very important to educate parents of the sport as many things in our sport are not intuitive, but many times we as coaches feel like they are. My last two have been about time standards and divisions at swim meets, and then about the different formats at championship meets (Timed Finals and Prelim/Finals). I won't write another one for at least another month, but I wanted to put some up here on my blog as I know some parents do read the blog. I want to explain the 4 hour rule with some opinion as well.

The 4 hour rule is some what simple. One Session of a swim meet can not exceed 4 hours that has swimmers 12 years old or younger. This is why a large LSC like Southern California Swimming has most of their meets as two sessions on a single day, to allow for more swimmers to participate. This rule does not apply to meets that are designated championship meets.

The origin of this rule is based on a great concept. 12 and under swimmers and their parents don't want to be at the old style marathon meets of 6 to 8 hours for two days. It was an effort to promote the sport at the younger level. This rule was estlablished around 2000 and has done a great job to make meets more tolerable, and has been great to getting people to be more willing to participate in swim meets.

What went wrong? The sport exploded. Now there are so many swimmers, that there aren't enough meets to provide a good opportunity to all of them. If more teams hosted meets, then the problem comes up that we don't have enough officials to do all the swim meets because of the rules regulating how many officials need to be officiating a swim meet.

What else has suffered? Distance Events for the most part. 11 - 12 swimmers have less opportunities to do the longer more challenging events, as they take up a lot of time, and expand a timeline. We have discovered that most of our best swimmers had early success in longer events, but when do they have the opportunity to try the event out? Let alone, trying to excel at a longer event.

We are lucky, as our team has a good amount of officials that we can run a Intrasquad meet that only has distance events. We have a good relationship with another team that helps put on meets that are geared towards the non-JO swimmer, so the longer events don't have time standards on them. Still, the 4 hour rule does affect our other regular BRW Meets.

The rule is a great concept, but we have to adapt to make it be effective with the boom in numbers for our sport. We need more volunteers to be officials, so that teams can run more meets at the same time within an LSC (or Section in our case). We have to clearly identify swimmers who should be attending the meets geared towards developmental swimmers, and other swimmers who need to attend meets that are designed for racing faster competiiton. (This also goes back to the blog post of picking events for particular meets).

I hope that explains what the rule is and why it was created. The meets that you've attended and you might have noticed the frustrations that I indicated. Know that they exist because of the rule, but it isn't the rule that needs to go; it is the adapting to make the rule effective that needs to happen. So coaches need learn to identify meets, and parents need to consider volunteering to be an official (especially if you're one of those parents who doesn't want to coach your child, but you want to be involved in childs acitivity. This takes you away from possibly coaching your child at a meet, and gives you a purpose to be at meets, and to give to the sport your child participating.

Developing a swim team

I have to say that I have seen the development of two teams, and they were very different, and I have not seen them all the way through, but what I have learned from going through the process.

The first thing is that you must figure out what you want to do with your team. Not all swim teams are equal, and they don't all have the same focus. Knowing what you want to create is a step many forget, and just decide in their mind that they want to be the best swim team.

With what you want your team to be, what kind of numbers do you need to develop what you want your team to be. When I first sat down with my Head Coach at CSSC, this was the biggest things that we created in our minds about the future. What kind of numbers. We reached our goal much faster than we thought we were going to, which makes right now really exciting. Numbers are important. There will not be 100% retention. Look at the national statistics, across the country retention to the sport of swimming is not 100% and not even in the 90's. You can only develop with what you have on your team.

Set your philosphy next. I asked my Head Coach, what is our team culture now? and what is the culture we ultimately want? This was not a straight forward answer, but a converstation that made me understand where she was coming from. I then told her my philosphy, and how we can adjust to make our philosophys work well together. From there we made choices based on what we wanted the culture to become.

You do need to look at performance as well. We looked at the team's performance and realized that there was some good performance on the team, but it lacked depth. This was a byproduct of lack of numbers in our developmental part of the team. We knew that numbers would come first, and to stay consistent with our performance as we re-develop a base. Well, we soon were outperforming very quickly.

Choices you make are many times financially connected. Both teams I have been on, I have come in with bad financial situations. It is hard to limit things because of money, and even harder to realize something is really important for the future of the team, and then have to sell the idea to a parent board. But this is how it must be done. Financial choices become hard and excruciating, and can delay a teams progress at times.

One thing I learned about the first go around was that there are going to bumps. Sometimes really big ones. I wasn't ready for that in the first go around, and I handle them much better now. I was also there to help my new Head Coach through some of those hard bumps on this go around. Funny thing though, sometimes it is a big bump in the road, that really helps push you to the next level.

As you in motion with executing your plan, you may get ahead of the timeline. That has occurred here at CSSC. We have now had conversation about where do we go now. We can't just sit around and be stable with no new vision once we already reach one point. It is good to re-evaluate where you are now, and whether you need to make adjustments according to where you have come. We know what we want to accomplish now, even though we were slightly ahead of schedule. We put higher goals on the table now, and we continue to push to accomplish the higher goals.

Vision is the most important thing. Know the details of that vision, and then monitor how those details are doing within that long term vision to see what changes or adjustments need to be made. Sounds similar to the goal setting process that we teach our swimmers. Because it is the same, it is how we feel you can become successful in everything: swimming, developing a team, school, and any other activity you wish to succeed in.

Picking Swim Meet Events

There are so many different ways events are picked. Biggest suggestion is for coaches to pick the swimmers events. This makes it so the coach needs to pay attention to the rules of the entries that are indicated on the Fact Sheet. If your team uses Team Unify, this is easy, as all you have to do is commit to the event, and then leave a note for the coach. The coach has to approve entries anyway, so if they see a swimmer no events, they go in, check the note left, and then pick the event. If your team doesn't use team unify, contact the coach via e-mail or after practice.

So, coaches how do you pick events? There is no perfect way to select events. There are some guidelines to be sure that you are developing a good age-group swimmer. The biggest one is be sure that they swim all 4 strokes. Don't allow a swimmer to decide that they are only going to do their best event, as this is not in the best interest of the swimmer in the long run.

Some teams mandate meets. If your team does this, then the coach will know exactly how many meets they are attending, what meets, and how to configure a great schedule that will allow multiple opportunities in their main 5 - 6 events, and also be sure that they do all the events in a season. Some teams also mandate events. This is where a group is required to swim particular events, and then they choose the other events that they want to do for the meet.

If you are a team like I coach, participation in meets is purely optional. It does make event selection a little harder, but you can still use some ideas to select the best events. First thing, swim max events almost all the time. Forget about the kid not having the energy to do 4 or 5 events in a day. There is time between events, and kids have a lot of energy. Get them use to the long event schedule. Next have a variety of strokes. Again, best to develop IMers at the age-group level and beginning senior level. Next, always try to push the envelope when it comes to longer events. This makes them tougher both physically, and most importantly, mentally. If a swimmer is going to a lot of meets that season, you can put tough events with a smaller event schedule. Other swimmers you want to push them a little more and mix the long events in with the longer event schedule.

The toughest thing is to balance, long-term success with challenging events and opportunities in best events to try to make a time standard. Due to my philosophy, I'd rather develop long-term than to provide opportunity, but I do give in at times to focus on events they are close to making a cut in, especially those that only go to a smaller number of meets.

I think that IMR and IMX programs by USA Swimming are good programs to help get kids to swim the events they may not want to do. Swimmers who have high goals in the sport, should be trying to make it to select camps, where they can train with some of the other fast swimmers in the Zone. This is done by being the top time in a zone for an event, or having one of the higher IMX scores in the zone. USA Swimming believes that swimmers who are good at the IMX eveents, are the swimmers who will be the fast swimmers in the long run, and that is why they have developed the camp system with this format.

Selecting events can be tough, and you are going to give in at times, but do your best to stay within the guidelines. Be sure to get swimmers to realize that challenging themselves to new events when their coach feels they are ready, is good thing for their development as a swimmer.

A re-post: The inconsistent 10 and under

 I wanted to re-post some old blogs. This one is a very popular blog I posted last year. I know that some viewers have recently began to read the blog, so I though re-posting some popular ones will be good for those who might have missed some of the blogs that my readers have enjoyed in the past.


As I finished a private lesson last night with one of the younger swimmers, I was chatting with the parents. I realized that we probably need to do a better job of doing some parent education. I may have to stop waiting for the board to tell me when this great time will be and just organize one myself.

I mentioned to the parents about what happens at times with 10 and unders when it comes to performance. Young kids are testing things out, similar to the way they typically test things out in the real world when they are very young. They learn things by messing up, and then learning from their mistake. You know, like eating grass or dirt, and then you watch as they spit it out and they realize that dirt and grass may not be made to eat. In swimming, the 10 and under is the time for this same kind of growth. It needs to be guided by a coach, as they need to learn from the mistakes that they make.

During this time you are going to see some of the biggest improvements and some of the biggest adds you will see in a swimmers career from meet to meet. I know any coach has watched their fast 10 and under dive in the water pop up and swim, and they ask themselves, "What is that? I have never seen that before." Many times this is in a bad way. Parents of these young kids are going to get frustrated. You'll hear all the time, "How did they add so much? I thought they were getting so much better after seeing the last meet." Hopefully you hear them say this when the child isn't around, as this would be completely against the supportive aspect of the parent that is needed for long term success in the sport.

It is the time of inconsistency. It frustrates parents and coaches alike. It can also happen with swimmers who are new to the sport and are older, and some 11 and 12 year olds who a maturing slower than their peers. Remember that the physical and mental maturation of a child kind span up to 5 years (according to studies, I think its more like 4 years). That means a 11 year old who matured really fast could have the physical and mental development of a 16 year old, there is little chance of any peer is going to be able to compete with this swimmer until they are 14 or 15 years old and they mature and the early bloomer doesn't mature as much.

When I told this to the parents they smiled, and said that that was exactly what was going on with their swimmer, and they really were wondering why. This made them feel better. Also looking at the progress of this swimmer, you can tell from year to year there was good progress, and that probably came from not getting to upset or frustrated over those few bad swims along the way.

If there are parents of 10 and unders reading this, prepare yourself, it is a bumpy ride, but when you look at the season progression there should be progress. Things to watch out for though: Swimmers getting upset about a single performance, Swimmers over thinking their technique, Parents adding their own critiques and thoughts on stroke and progression to the swimmer, and Swimmers feeling like they are letting their parents or coaches down.

Courage to Fail

This is from a blog post from Hillary Rettig, an author and a personal development coach. You can find her blog at: http://www.hillaryrettig.com/

Years ago, I was fortunate to hear one of my heroes, former world chess champion and current Russian democracy activist Garry Kasparov, discuss important lessons he had learned from chess. Here’s how he began his talk: “I have won hundreds of chess games, and lost thousands. You have to have the courage to fail.”

The courage to fail. What an amazing phrase – and coming from a hypercompetitive chess champion it takes on a special meaning. Kasparov probably hates failure more than just about anyone – in fact, as his use of the word “courage” implies, he probably fears it – but he had to develop a tolerance for it to reach his goals. That he chose to begin his talk with this point only underscores its importance.

Swim Meet underlying lessons

Most sports provide life lessons, and swimming does the same. Many times we talk about the life lessons, just as life lessons in a vague sense. I think we do that because there are many lessons to be learned in sports, and each lesson is learned at different times and with time. This growth is different for each individual, and we bail ourselves out by being vague in the term life lessons.

I think sometimes we just use the loose term so much, that now there are some people who actually don't realize some of the specific ones that are attainable for their sport. I want to point a few out that I focus on when dealing with my swimmers in regards to swim meets.

Early in the swim career, swimmers can gain self-esteem through swim meets. If the coach and parent go into the competition understanding that in the beginning they may get dead last. Praised for their courage to go out there and compete, and praised for the things that they did right in the swim. The coach then tells the swimmer what they need to work on, so they get to know that they have more things to work on to get faster in the future. (I emphasize, the coach provides criticism; not the parents. That includes repeating what the coach just told the swimmer).

The early meets are the time where they can build self-esteem. If they attend practice on a regular basis and listen well, they will improve most of the time. This is why I am not afraid of newbie swimmers to attend swim meets because they may miss a lot of those early chances to have dramatic improvement, and an opportunity to build the self-esteem. Example, a swimmer get's DQ'd in the breaststroke the first meet (even though you have been telling him for weeks how to kick correctly, and have done so many various drills to try to teach it), then they listen better at practice and are rewarded by doing a legal breaststroke the next meet. Even though the swimmer got dead last by 2 seconds in a 25 breaststroke, it doesn't matter, you can celebrate the legal kick.

As the swimmer gets more experienced, the improvements become not as regular. This becomes difficult, but it is one of the best lessons that many sports provide. How to deal with failure. I remember listening to an interview of the two time heisman trophy winner, Archie Griffin, talk about his football career. He said the most important thing he learned was how to deal with failure. After he had a carry where he had 0 to negative yards, he had to get back to the huddle and perform again, whether it was another run, a receiving route, or a blocking assignment. To him that was more important than awards, accalades, or recognition. It prepared him for life.

Next is the idea of challenge the impossible. As I have my swimmers increase their training, many times they do not gain confidence in being able to do the longer events. The events that seemed impossible when they first joined the group, but now have the training to actually be able to do the event. The lesson of learning that what you once thought impossible for you, is now possible; can provide a great lesson. Something is only impossible if, you never put the effort in to accomplish it and you never step up and try.
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The last concept was something I began teaching in my last season or so with RCA. With that new philosphy I had two swimmers who really embraced it, and has gone on to do very well in swimming. Since then, I have tried to continue the challenge the impossible view point, without repeating myself all the time, and have had success with it, as many of my swimmers do the longer events before moving to our lower level senior group now.

The lessons as you can see aren't going to work all the time juist by participating and going to a meet. The environment must be setup correctly, and forcing swimmers to do all the events, good events and off events, throughout the season. Remember that young swimmers meets are more than just opportunities to qualify for the next level of meet, but part of the building process to a more successful career. Coaches and parents must focus on the long-term, which can be difficult due to the amount of patience that it requires.

Variety of sets: Warm-up to Challenging

In my Blue Group, an advanced Age-Group group just below our lower level senior group, I do various kinds of sets throughout the season. We continuously do stroke work and skill development throughout, but the sets are what pushes them to develop aerobically and help develop the ability to get maximum speed from them.

There are the warm-up level of sets, these are sets that are more developed on rising Heart rates, and the intervals are not that hard. There is normally a concentration of stroke work in many of these style of sets. The next level is the day to day level. I expect my whole group to be able to make these. On occasion a new swimmer to the group may miss these, but after about two weeks they are able to make these sets.

The moderately hard sets, is where I push a little more. a small portion of the group may miss these sets on occasion. I always talk about trying to be able to make a set that you missed prior, to try to improve their training ability.

The hard sets, are to really make sure my top end is working hard. Unfortunately, the bottom end of the group normally miss these, but again I talk about recognizing the growth in ones training, so many of these swimmers who are missing at one time, will develop to become part of the focus group later down the road.

Then there are the challenging sets. These sets is where I look at what we have been able to do so far, and then I try to take it to the next level to see if my top end of the group is up for the challenge. So, far I haven't been dissappointed where everyone has failed the set.

The challenge sets are developed to make most of the group fail. It is not a bad thing to make them fail on occasion, in the attempt to see what you can pull out of them. These sets are where you always get pleasantly surprised, and find the swimmers really ready to go to that next level.

Test sets are the normal way to test your swimmers with their training progress, but I do enjoy giving them a challenge set on occasion. If growth comes from the occasional failure, then you need to provide them the opportunity sometimes. The top end doesn't get too many opportunities, so the challenge sets I have found can really benefit the top end. The bottom end of groups need to understand that they want to grow and eventually be one of those swimmers accomplishing the challenge sets.

We always try to push them a little bit more. It is not a constant thing, as they need to be able to build their training ability, but challenging can really allow them to step up and be above and beyond.

Feeling the stretch in the muscle

For most coaches it has been awhile since we were unaware of what it was like to swim before we were taught. As a senior swimmer, you do so much repetition that it becomes the only thing you remember. This gets in the way sometimes, as you notice something in your swimmers, and you realize that you might have missed something that you needed to explain, and possibly help them realize what they should be feeling.

I have noticed that some of swimmers grasped when I talked about moving the elbow forward, and others picked up on the concept of rotating the shoulder forward. There are still some though that haven't quite grasped the concept, so I went to a more kinesthetic approach.

Here I had them all lay down on the ground, and then they moved into a side kick position. I have them move their elbow to the shark fin position. In both positions, I have them check their body line spots in regards to their arms, elbows, and head. I then instruct them to move to the sailboat position. Here is where I go to each swimmer, and slightly pull their elbow forward with their high elbow. They can now feel the stretch that I want them to feel in their lats.

When talking to the group, I asked if they felt the stretch. There were some responses that they felt pain. The swimmer did not recognize the difference in pain than a stretch. I continued to talk about the stretches we do everyday that helps build flexibility for this particular muscle. We tried the stretches, and some felt the stretch better now that they knew what they were feeling for in the stretch.

Some of the freestyles we did with the stretching as part of the focus, seemed longer than normal. Now we'll see how they apply it after a few workouts emphasizing this stretch.

I have done this kinesthetic method on a few other things, and it has worked out for some. I haven't emphasized the stretch on the recovery yet, and I just realized it while watching so many short strokes that glided their hand forward in the water from the top of their head to extension. After seeing the short strokes, I decided that talking about rotating the shoulder forward, needed to have some kinesthetic teaching to go along with it.

Coaching the beginning groups

What you teach at this level does make a big difference, but is that really what makes a beginning group better? I think that one big aspect to a beginning level group is the order of the group. Now, these groups are always chaotic; they are little kids most of the time. The trick is figuring out how to create an organized chaos with these little swimmers that are bouncing off the walls.

I also believe that some chaos is ok. Don't think that everything being perfectly organized is great either. Understanding the generalized psychology of young kids, shows that if you have workouts that are completely orderly and no chaos at all; boys get disinterested, as they enjoy some chaos. No organization though leads to unproductive workouts and concerned parents.

Swimming is a sport that requires discipline. The small little things really become huge in competitions at the higher levels. Discipline ends up leading to success in the pool. So creating order is extremely important, but also not to overdo the organization that you push kids from being interested, and probably a team full of girls.

Coaching young kids requires learning how to create this balance. Most coaches who are successful with young kids probably begin very organized, and then learn where chaos can be allowed within a practice. I was the opposite, my practices were chaotic and I learned how to grab their attention with bringing up the desire to be better. I then went on to learn how to organize the workouts better. I began differently though, as I had very little training on how to run a workout, but rather some basic guidelines.

Best thing is to create boundaries. They are never allowed to cross those boundaries. A little playing around is allowed as long as they are within the boundaries. As the groups progess in ability, the more structure there needs to be, and the learning the discipline aspects of the sport that will benefit them in the pool.

Monday's Main Set

So this year I have decided to be a little different. I always do aerobic work, but this time I am doing it differently than I have in previous years. I felt like I was guilty of possibly not getting enough aerobic into my groups workouts, so I am trying to increase the aerobic work for my group who is in that really important stage where aerobic work is very important to their swimming, and long term success.

I did a test set where the swimmers swam 9 x 200 freestyle. I had one group swim it on the 3:30 and another group on the 3:20 (pretty sure the interval will get slightly faster the next time I do the set).

The 200's were swam with different a emphasis on each one:
#1 = Pace
#2 = Pace
#3 = Negative Split
#4 = Pace
#5 = Pace
#6 = Negative Split
#7 = Pace
#8 = Pace
#9 = FAST for Time

I managed to catch a few on each of the negative split 200's to catch honesty to the set. I had most of them doing a negative split, but a few were even splits, which showed that they were trying they were just a little off.

The Fast 200, I recorded the times of all the swimmers. The results were interesting. I felt like most were good, but there were a few bad ones. A few were really good though. We have a meet this weekend, which I believe many of them are swimming the 200 Free. I look forward to seeing how they translate. It's hard to compare to best times, as most are from so long ago. I tried comparing to Long Course Conversion, but I have never been a fan of any conversion time.

Next time, the interval will be faster, as I realized the pace 200's need a little less rest between them. It was a good set for my group, as they are not used to sets like this one. Interested in seeing how the extra aerobic this season translates to the races.

The Before Practice

It was the part I remember so much. The time before practice. Showing up 15 minutes early, and playing a game when we were younger. Un-organized and slightly chaotic, but it was fun. As we got older it became the time where you could socialize with your teammates and do a little stretching before the workout. It was where many memories were made and friendships developed. It wasn't a long time, but it was just enough before we went to work in the workout.

Some days I watch my swimmers as they are in the grassy area at Rancho-Simi, or the other day they were just outside the gate. All of them socializing or playing. It is just pure play, nothing to tell you what you have to do. Games that are based of being fair even though there isn't someone watching over the rules.

I feel like this time is so important. Some days I give them a few extra minutes for this time. I am letting stragglers come in, and not miss something, but many times I am just watching as my swimmers are continuing this part of creating friendships in swimming. It will be these people who later on will be your teammates that you suffer through hard stenuous workouts. They are the ones that you will create an even stronger bond with, as they can relate to the pain of main set, or an all out swim.

Trying to allow some chaos at this time, and then asking for their attention during the workout portion. It gives them that time to grow with their teammates without being a part of the organized workout. I feel like it is important, and I am so glad to see it in my swimmers.

Taking the Time to Talk

This season I am back coaching little swimmers. It's fun; it's frustrating; it takes a whole lot of patience; and I am really enjoying it. Our practices with this group is only one hour, and we do a 10 - 15 minutes in the beginning to do dryland and put in lane lines, so we don't have a whole lot of time, but that is very normal for beginning groups.

It is overwhelming in the beginning because there is so much you want them to learn, and you know you need to teach them enough that the parents feel like they are getting something out of it. Let's face it, at this level it is winning over the parents as much as it is winning over the swimmer. To take some extra time away from the water can be very hard to do as a coach because you know you are already limited, but it something that can really help get practices running better.

So, we did our first six weeks, which were crazy for these groups. I began with fundamentals, which if viewed by a regular person, seem like I am not really teaching them competitive strokes, but really it is teaching beginning aspects that will benefit them later. Then I moved to stroke construction, along with skill work. Kids were joining throughout this time, and some even left in this short amount of time, so the group was very inconsistent. Now, I am starting this next phase with my new formed group, as I feel like I weeded out some that were never going to make it anyways.

First practice, after dryland I took the group and sat them down, and talked to them for 6 - 8 minutes. I talked about training and learning as group. Developing to become better can help those around you. Talked about how the worst thing they can do is distract from another person trying to succeed. It's one thing to not push yourself, but it is completely different to get in the way of someone else. I talked about leaving in the correct order, so that there is less people catching up to one another. (This is never perfect at this level, but the idea that it is better for them to leave in the right order at least makes it a little more organized.)

My group has swimmers as young as 7, but the talked was good. Practice has been a little less chaotic. Of course, there was a whole mess of kids who missed the talk, but I'll just have to do the talk again later (I'll probably only talk about one thing at a time in the future, so it takes just a minute or so). I know they are young, and they may not completely grasp everything we are trying to get across in a talk like that, but it may pay off a lot.

It is worth a few minutes for a more efficient practice in the future. They all understand now that I want them to know how to practice before they move up. One swimmer even asked about move-ups, and I explained that I didn't care how fast they got, if they didn't know how to practice, then there was no reason to be moved up. The few minutes was so worth it.

Dryland: Running outside the Comfort Zone

So, my group many times runs once or twice a week. We typically only do 3/4 to a full mile of running. It is a short aerobic warm-up before getting into the pool, and a good cross training exercise that can pay off in swimming.

Yesterday the group did a mile and a half run for time. It was challenging, as many of them aren't great runners, and it is easy to go outside their comfort zone in running as they aren't trained runners. Afterwards I told them all that they did a great job as many were winded. Most missed the goal time, but most gave their all to reach that goal.

I talked to them about how most of them went outside their comfort zone, and that they must push the same way when they are in the water. My group has become better at swimming, so to just do what they once did is easily done, and they get used to training inside the comfort zone. The question would be, when was the last time you felt this tired from a swim set? I think the answers would vary.

Moved to the water and at the end of practice we did a 600 IM for time. The effort was there, as many ended winded the same way they were winded from the run. Most of the group took the lesson from the run, and applied it to the pool. I am not saying that my group swims in their comfort zone all the time, but sometimes they need that reminder that you must always push outside that comfort zone to continue to get better. It's part of the doing the "extra" on daily basis to become extraordinary, and not just ordinary.

Encouraging Competition

I believe competition is a good thing. I feel like, in the past, I have had most success in teaching life lessons with swimmers that compete and correlate their training with their competitions. It was one of those things that I was told as a young coach by my father. "Swimming is Objective, it is a time on the watch. When you make the connection between working hard and improvement when they are young they look forward to training. It is something that they can actually see, as the time on the watch gets faster."

A few weekends ago I watched the documentary, "Happy." It is a look into the study of happiness. Films are bias, so I always take these things and analyze with my own thoughts. One thing that I took from the film though was a Ph. D from Baylor who talked about the release of Dopamine. I remember this from my psychology class a little bit. The more happy someone is, the more dopamine is released in the brain. With time, the release of dopamine slows down, and can lead to diseases like Parkinson's. So they were encouraging doing activities to help keep dopamine releasing quicker. The doctor mentioned that aerobic exercise helped the release of dopamine, but so does competition. He concluded by saying that the best way to keep dopamine being released quickly is obviously physical sports as they have aerobic exercise and competition.

Competition though has led to many with low self-esteem and unhappiness. If competition in itself does help release dopamine, and thus make people more happy. What is the cause of the inverse result? My belief, is that it is the emphasis of winning and losing by the culture. An over emphasis over comparison at the young ages. Competition in itself has a stress of winning and losing, but we have magnified it by our attention to awards, recognition, and comparison to others.

Is there fun in competition? I believe so. Winning and Losing is a single result, not the competing itself. How many times have you played a board game and lost? Or played a card game and lost? Does this weigh on you and taken critically by your friends and parents? Normally not, so you just play again and enjoy yourself. No awards, no ranking, no comparison; just a fleeting sense of loss or victory.

What can emphasis on the result lead to? A slippery slope sometimes. I was also very much into poker when I was young, and I learned about poker. It helped, that right as I was interested poker it had become more main stream, and there was a lot of knowledge being put out on television shows. There is a phrase in poker referred to as being "On Tilt." This is when a poker player takes a loss so personally that they start doing dumb plays that they normally would not have done, and it becomes a slippery slope that can last for days, weeks, months, or years. That one bad hand stays on the mind, and then the next bad play is caused by the previous bad play, and then the next bad play is caused by the two last bad plays are still on the mind. This becomes the overwhelming increase of negativity that burdens you. This isn't just a poker symptom, but a symptom that can overtake anyone who competes.

Competition is a good thing neurologically as it helps the release of dopamine. This release of dopamine can lead to happiness, that I stress to my athletes and many times on this blog. Don't shelter your young swimmers from competition, but see it as an opportunity to compete and increase their happiness in a physical activity. Protect them from our culture that wants to put these heavy burdens on young athletes, and allow them to grow and enjoy themselves. As they grow older they will make higher goals that will be used to push them higher, and the competitions as just another opportunity to try to achieve those goals.

Development Programs

Developing Swimmers have a lot to learn, and as a coach you take your time and try to not only teach strokes, but proper execution of strokes, skills, and drills. At the same time you want to provide programs that are different and can teach swimmers different things about swimming.

I have tried to put together various activities and programs in the past to provide a change of pace, or an opportunity to teach a part of the sport that isn't learned at a normal practice. Many times these programs or activities are hit or miss. Even a program that in theory would do great things, can go really bad because something comes up that you hadn't planned for, or something that creates a lot of chaos.

This season I tried to put one together, and it worked out great.This program began with one day when we brought in our two senior level swimmers to work one-on-one with our two beginning level groups. The fear is, how will the senior swimmers do in the instruction of these young swimmers. Our senior swimmers did a great job. The young kids enjoyed themselves a lot and they also got to know a senior swimmer. The senior swimmers seemed to really enjoy getting to know a swimmer, and trying to help them with swimming (which they themselves put so much time into). It went over so well, many of our younger swimmers wanted to know when they could work with their senior swimmer again.

Today, we took a friday workout and turned it into a practice swim meet. Again I used senior swimmers, and they walked the young swimmers through check-in, warm-up, checking heat and lane, reporting to the block, and they also cheered their swimmers on as they swam across the pool. It was a learning experience for the new swimmer, and another opportunity for our senior swimmers to help a person new to our sport.

There were some mistakes, including my own (the starter for the meet) as I forgot there was a 3rd heat, and I moved onto the next event. Whoops. There were others, but for the most part, it was another positive experience for all involved. I also hope that what we covered with athlete and parent about the meet process, will make their first meet experience better than without the practice meet. Anything to provide a better chance for good experiences at swim meets.

These kind of programs, we always create in theory to work really well, but sometimes they just fall flat on their face. I have had success' and failures, but continue to try to develop programs and activities to better prepare our swimmers and provide positive experiences. I got lucky this time, and it worked out really well.

Open Turns and IM Transitions

Last night we practiced IM Transitions. They were pretty good for the group, as this group has been taught many times on how to do a proper open turn. I made one change, and I had them try this out. To touch the wall and never grab on to it.

I remember doing this as a swimmer, I believe in the senior group, and remember that is was actually difficult at first. Last night for my swimmers, some had trouble, and some had no trouble at all. The results were very close to what I wanted from the direction; less pulling their bodies towards the wall. This created a better transfer of their hipsfrom one side to the next. The swimmers who had most dificult had a slow transfer of the hips, and thus, began to sink with no wall to hold onto to help them stay on the surface. Some made the adjustments as we repeated.

Another thing that began to improve as we did repeats, was the position of the hands for the finish. The grabbing of the wall has created a habit of touching the top of the gutter, but with the no grab touch turn, some made the adjustment to touch the wall just below the surface to reduce the amount of swimming out of the water. This also will create a ahbit to finish correctly for touch pads, as touch pads on the portion that goes over the lip of the gutter doesn't trigger a touch, so the swimmers need to be able to touch the wall and not the top of the touch pad.

I think that I'll move forward doing this a little more to see if I can break some bad habits with this method, and see what ends up hapening with our open turns and IM Transitions.

Know Your Why

You can find good information, when not even looking for it. Last sunday I was watching ESPN and the morning NFL show was on and they did a segment on the rookie quarterback Robert Griffith III (RG3). The segment interviewed veteran players who had gained a lot of respect for him as he came to the team. Most of these segments are all the same, but I took away a message that is RG3's catch phrase, as it is also his twitter tag. It was, "Know your why"

This seemed to really be an aspect that many of the former players seemed to respect. The idea that he knew exactly his "why." Many of the former and veteran players believed that this is why he'll be successful in the NFL. I believe it is a message of how to be successful at what you are focusing on at being successful at.

It goes directly to 2 points that I have brought up before in this blog: Goals and Purpose. I have stressed the importance that a swimmer's main purpose should be for themselves, as if the main purpose is for an outside source it is hard to keep that motivation over time. I also stress goals as being the key to long term success and being able to continue the work ethic through years of hard work.

Even the interviewees mentioned that fact that if you know your why, you can use that to push you to do that extra set, repetition, or effort. I believe that a goal can be used the same, as what is going to push you through that Saturday Morning Workout when it is workout number 9 on the week; you are in hour 2 of that workout; and your coach gives you a long aerobic set that you know you can totally fake the effort through the set. The self-reminder of that goal can be that motivation you need to push hard and do that "extra" to be extraordinary.

Knowing your why, I believe has to do with purpose as well. I think that if you know why you are there, you know why you have to always push through. I think it also makes you happy with what you are doing, and happiness is important to be successful, and part of sports that many ignore and prohibit them from achieving higher. Happiness is important.

So, do you know your why?

The mental side

There is a chance that I have already blogged about this, but after so many posts I lose track of what I have and what I have not blogged about. As our pool is shut down to due a swim lesson swimmer pooping in the pool last night, I am going to be doing an all dryland workout. Yes, some of the swimmers will attend the workout at our other site, but I am going to offer an all dryland workout at our rancho-simi pool.

Unfortunately, I am all too familiar with these workouts as I began my coaching at the old Selma Pool, and that old pool had problems all the time, and we didn't have an alternative site for a few years. I learned from these workouts that you can actually get a lot done in the form of doing activities that you want to do, but you have a hard time finding a good time to put it into a practice where you extend dryland beyond its normal allotted time.

One thing I get to do is do breathing exercises. I did this my first season I was here, but didn't do it last year. This allows the swimmer to learn the skill of controlling breathe, and trying to get them relax their bodies. If a swimmer cannot relax while on land, then they probably can't be able to do it while in the water.

From the breathing exercises you can move on to Visualization. This visualization is both to help them create in their mind the feeling of going through their trained motions, but also to help them visualize positive moments, which make it more possible for positive moments to happen in their life. It is hard to do the first time you do the activity, but with practice it can be a great tool to keep positive energy in a swimmer.

The other aspect that I plan to do (other than traditional dryland of running and body weight exercises) is talk about the goals that I am seeing in their goal sheets that have been turned into me. The group has a hard time making long term goals. One year seems to be the trend of the long term goal. I plan to talk to them about looking beyond the one year, and look to 3, 4, or even 5 years down the road. They also show a tendency of being very conservative with the goals. Typically, I have to calm down swimmers goals, but with this group it seems as though I am going to have to pump them up.

Dreaming big is ok. The fear of dreaming big, is that you won't be able to achieve it, but without a dream that is big, the likelihood of doing something big is very small. Dreaming big though needs to have an appropriate timeline, and their lack of looking beyond 2 years makes this difficult. Don't be afraid of failing, set the bar high as it will allow you to do more than if you set the bar too low all the time. Dreaming Big can become demoralizing if you just stop there, but if you create appropriate short term goals along the way, the big dream can stay as that highest bar that you continue to move towards.

Swimming, like many other things, is highly driven by a mental state. These three exercises are all about the mental side. Change the motivation of fear to the motivation of positive thoughts and goals. The goals must be set by the athlete so that they can own it. It should not be done by a parent or coach. The motivation is driven from the swimmer not by: an award, compensation, or fear of what an adult may say or do.

Those that can develop their mental side of the sport will have the best chance of success in their career as a swimmer.

Today's short talk with the group

Sorry, I had two things on my mind today.

I was talking with my brother this weekend, as he attended the World Swim Coaches Clinic (Man, I wish I could have gone). He told me about the Key note speaker, Bill Sweetenham, someone who I have mentioned in previous posts. I kind of already knew his thoughts about how we are trending to not doing enough aerobic development with our young swimmers, but my brother also mentioned that he referred to the lack of participation of the 200's of stroke and the distance freestyle events in our 11 - 12 year olds.

I have been telling my swimmers for awhile now that I expect them to do these events. Not something that they'll do at every meet, but that they try these events before the age of 13. Of course, this is for those swimmers who have a background of swimming properly, as it isn't pretty to watch an unprepared swimmer do these events. Not sure if I created this idea off of reading Sweetenham, but I might have.

My brother told me that Eddie Reese, Head Men's Coach at the University of Texas, talked at the clinic and referred to Sweetenham's key note, as he noted that many of our nations best sprinters such as, Ian Crocker, Brendan Hansen, and Neil Walker; all made their first national cuts in longer events before becoming great sprinters. He referred to these 3 as they were 3 swimmers that swam for him that became elite sprinters.

I talked to the group about thinking about doing these events going forward, and that it doesn't matter if you think you are a sprinter or not, excellence in these other events could become a path to excellence in your main events.

I am excited about my group though, as on a few of their goal sheets that they have turned in, some did include a particular long event that they'd like to do this coming up season.

Coaches: Creating a Culture

This is not easy to do, but it is the thing that will best serve your team and swimmers. I've read about how we are suppose to change a culture that is limiting a teams success. Many times it is the culture that is the underlying problem. They all say how hard it is to change culture, and with any kind of change; it takes time. The thing they don't tell you is what possibly is going to happen when you change a culture. Do they talk about how many people get upset with the way you are now doing things? Do they tell you that swimmers who aren't made out to be part of what you are trying to sell are going to quit your team? Or how those who quit your team may go to another team? Some mention it, but really don't go into detail.

My experience, I tried to change a culture. Only to have it thrown back into my face. It was done passively, but it was done nonetheless. The deep rooted culture defeated me, and I basically just resorted to figuring out how to change it slowly, and create a grassroots system to try to create the culture earlier. I didn't stick around to see what would happen, as I had fought upstream for so long that I got tired even though I was making ground in changing the culture.

Now, I joined a team that the culture change had already begun. It was going into the hard times though. We battled with trying to convince people of what we wanted in our athletes, and there was some resistance. We lost some very good and talented swimmers. Now we are going into the third season, and we are still losing swimmers who have a hard time fitting into what we expect, but the team is becoming more and more filled with swimmers with the mentality that we want. I preach to my group about things all the time. I preach about the things that I have seen that will allow them to succeed in our program. We talk about swimmers needing to be persistent, but as a coach we need to stay persistent as well. I feel like I might have made the mistake before in hopes of getting more numbers, when I truly should have been persistent in changing the culture.

As it is the year of the Olympic Bump (numbers for most teams rise), it is a great time to creating the culture as so many are new. You weed out a few who feel like your crazy, or you don't know what you are doing, but you end up with the core group that will be the core of your team for the next 3 - 4 years. These kids develop that culture, and you hope they can portray it well enough, that they wear off on other new swimmers in the future. In 2008, I didn't do a good enough job of this, as I was so busy trying to reconfigure the business side of the club, that I allowed the summer league culture to continue.

Again, I say to the coaches out there. Good Luck.

swim meet scheduling

We did our swim meet schedules a few weeks ago, even though they aren't finalized yet. This is always a fun process, trying to figure out how meets are going to provide a good opportunity to perform and at the same time not do the exact same meet each time you attend one. So, what are the different ways of having a swim meet? I am going to provide some different types of meets and what the purpose of those meets are in my opinion.

First thing is the normal ABC or BRW meet (depending on what LSC you swim in). These meets are your normal meet that offers a lot of different events and are swam by age-groups. These meets have become so much the norm, that meets do become somewhat stale after so many. These meets are typically done with the scoring and placing by division (the reason why they are called ABC or BRW). For a ABC meet, the divisions will be based on national motivational times, and there will be a 1st place for the A division, B division, and a C division. This makes it so the swimmer competes within their competition Level (Southern California has their own time standards of Blue, Red, and White, BRW). These meets I see as the best opportunity to be gearing up to make qualifying cuts for championship meets. Even though you can do so at other meets, this meet provides the swimmer most of the events to try to qualify.

Next there is the next most common meet, which is the Senior Meet. These meets normally have time standards, and all swimmers compete against others of their same gender, age plays no part in scoring, placing, or any aspect at this meet.

The intersquad meet. These meets are to provide your own team an opportunity to compete in a smaller meet environment. These meets will normally be much shorter and many people enjoy that aspect. New and younger swimmers benefit from this kind of meet because there is not the huge number of swimmers in attendance, and the pace of the meet can be slowed down due to the smaller size. The downfall of these meets, is that your faster swimmers don't have the competition from other teams, but it is still a nice change of pace for even your fast swimmers.

The Dual, Tri, or Quad meet. These meets are with 2, 3, or 4 teams competing against each other. These meets are designed to be fun, and it is easy to cheer as there are only a few teams that are competing, so there is a high likelihood that a teammate is swimming in the pool in every heat. I like to allow the swimmers to enjoy these meets, and the idea of racing and not about achieving a time standard. This is a good change of pace, and a great way to build team spirit. These meets also are typically smaller and quicker, so it allows for the pace of the meet to be slower and not as rushed.

Pentathlons. These meets are meets where swimmers can compete in all four strokes and normally an IM event. Scoring is kept for all five events, and the awards are for a cumulative score. This is great to promote development in all strokes, which is a major emphasis of an age-group program. Again, I don't stress qualifying for championships at these meets, but rather competing to try to get the best score possible.

IMR and IMX Meets. These meets are like pentathlons, but the format of events is defined by a nationally recognized program by USA Swimming. The scoring is based on Power Point System that doesn't take into account what place you finish, but rather a score from 1 - 1000 based on your time. This is probably a more accurate scoring system than by placement of pentathlons, and again it awards the highest score by age. These meets are really important as it helps get more participation in the IMR and IMX program, which becomes a determining factor later on if the swimmer wishes to apply for national or zone camps, or special programs offered by USA Swimming. Almost all of these programs include some requirement of a good IMR and IMX score.

These meets all have their own flavor, and can be very different experience. What kills many of these meets intent, is coaches and parents who treat them all the same as a way to get a qualifying time standard. These meets are available, but there are other meets that should just be fun; developing a team atmosphere; or developing a racing mentality. Allow meets to be different, and not all like the normal ABC or BRW Meet. This change reduces that amount of times that we increase stress on the swimmer (stress not being a bad thing, as it can be a motivation, but we need to control how often that stress is applied).

To everyone, have a great short course season this fall.

My Experience: Welcome to the Senior Group

I moved into my fathers Senior Group at 14, the summer after my 8th grade year. It was a new experience swimming in the senior group. I remember one experience very vividly though, as I remember being very shocked, and it set my view of what was expected of me now at this level.

So first let me explain that we trained in a small pool, and the lanes were very skinny. There wasn't a lot of us in the group, but we still shared lanes and had to circle swim.

We were doing one of the main sets that we did all the time in the senior group (4 x 400 Free style pull descend 1 - 4, the intervals changed depending on the lane you were in). So, we have pulling gear on; pull buoy and paddles, and we are going on this set. I'm focusing a lot on pacing myself as I want to be sure that I am descending the set, and I wasn't able to change my kick speed (my favorite tool of controlling my descend set) as it was a pulling set.

I am swimming down the lane, and my scrawny long arm is peaking over the lane line on occasion with these brand new paddles (a size larger than I had ever used). On the 3rd 400 pull I am passing Heidi who was swimming in the other lane. Heidi was attending Junior College, and was a Junior National level swimmer, so I had a good deal of respect to her. I smacked her in the face with my paddle because my arm had come over the lane line. I stopped, as it wasn't just a graze; it was a smack. I looked over to say sorry that I hit her. I here my father yell, "Kacy! what are you doing stopping?" I glanced back at Heidi, and noticed she didn't even break stride when I smacked her. I didn't respond to my father, just put my face back in and picked it up.

I got back to the wall. I was ready to say sorry, but she left on her final one, and she never even seemed to care that I had just smacked her in the face with a paddle.

I learned very quickly, nothing stops you from achieving your goal; even a practice goal. When you get smacked you just push on through like it never happened because you have something that you are trying to accomplish. My time in the senior group, I got hit and smacked all the time. The group never was as small as when I first joined the group, so it happened more often as I got older. I played it as Heidi did, you just keep going, no matter how much it hurt. That soon translated into other parts of my workout. There were times when I got back into the water and there was no reason for me to try to keep up with some of the other guys in my group, but I did. It hurt, but I had learned that despite the pain, you pushed through to accomplish what you want to do.

That was my welcome to the senior group moment, and it helped me as I grew into a senior group member.

Swimming levels

I am going to begin with explaining the levels. There many new people to swimming who read this and the explanation will be the main part of this post for them. I will continue on my opinion after that.

There are two levels of swimming. There is the Age-Group Level and the Senior Level.

Age Group is actually a type of competition that swimmers are divided up by Age-Groups. Sometimes the swimmer will compete with other Age-Groups, but awarded and placed by their Age-Group. This is typically done to help make swim meets not take so long.

Senior swimming is also a type of competition where the swimmers compete against everyone in a particular event with no regard to age. These meets normally have qualifying requirements, and is the higher level of competition.

Ok, so now to the rant. Why is this so confusing even within the sport? Because not even all the coaches can define where Age-Group ends and where Senior begins. It is confused by the group of swimmers that barely make senior meets and therefore still attend Age-Group Championship Meets. Many believe that you are an Age-Grouper until you are 19. Others think that you are a Senior swimmer once you make a specific Senior Meet. Some Swimmers and Parents think that you are a Senior Swimmer once they are in a specific practice group. Everyone comes up with their own definition. The problem comes when we try to create meets for these levels.

I wish we just saw it as three levels (names don't really matter, so we'll make them basic). The beginning level will be 1, the middle level will be 2, and the last level will be 3.

1 would be 14 and under. 2 would be 15 - 18, and 3 would be college and post grad. Local areas could then expand by making other levels based on ability as it applies to the area (all areas have different issues and demographics that require different programs).

Get rid of the in between we have now that confuses the transition of Age-Group and Senior swimming.

Swimming Tall

I remember the first Age Group Clinic I attended. It was at Soka University back in 2003 or 2004, and it was put on by ASCA. Learned a lot from that clinic as I was still pretty raw as a swim coach. I remember one of the messages from that clinic was the idea of swimming tall.

A coach explained that they talked to their swimmers about what their height is and what their swimming height is. She talked about how the swimming height is dependent on the length of a stroke, and that short people can actually swim very tall, although they lack in size out of the water.

The swimmer height was from toes to fingertips. The length of the body line measured when the toes are pointed and the arm is extended to its max. Any bend or curve in the body will shorten the swimming height. If the arm is not fully extended; if the knees are bent; or if their toes aren't pointed all the way; the swimmer has reduced their height in the water.

The height of swimmer does change, as one side the may swim taller than the other, or the swimmer can change their height as the speed up their tempo, but the goal is always to swim tall. This is to maximize the distance that the swimmer can cover in one stroke and glide. This will ultimately result in the maximum speed as they'll develop turnover rate while maintaining the length.

I just talked to my group yesterday about swimming long. It was in regards to not having a swing arm that allowed momentum to move their arm across the body (thus making a bend in the body and shortening their swimming height). Instead to stay on their side and have the arm swing down and forward into the entry. I have been talking to them for a few months now about rotating their shoulder forward on the freestyle, and now we are applying it to be sure that the rotating forward leads to better length.

Younger swimmers need to learn this. Their length of stroke not only will create a better distance per stroke, but creates more length to their surface area, which results in better buoyancy.

Swimmers need to swim as tall as they can.

The Training Season

I remember reading about how training on a year round basis for youth sports can actually be not beneficial, except for the exception of track because of its use of periodization. This article was not a swimming magazine, but from a youth sports magazine, so the author was familiar with the fact that track uses periodization in their training process. The author didn't realize that swimming also uses this process when training year round athletes.

Doc Councilman was one of the earlier researchers when it came to applying science to how we develop our swimmers. One of the things he did was look at how track and field trained their athletes, as the sports do have some similarities in what we want to accomplish in terms of developing physiologically. The idea of periodization has been developed in our sport now, to be pretty universal amongst coaches.

So, this blog is mainly for the parents to understand what we are doing and for young coaches who might not know what periodization is (but you probably do it in your training regimen already because you grew up in it). It is when we look at our season in phases and in these phases we train differently. Our rest to work ratio changes between the phases, and the emphasis of development changes depending on the phase.

Parents have asked me in the past, "why aren't they swimming more laps?" A common question. The answer is normally because of the phase we are in within our training cycle. I'll also hear question about why are we doing so many long yardage repeats, or why are we doing so many short yardage repeats. All of this normally comes down to the training phase that a group is in.

Let's say that the group is in an aerobic development phase. They will probably be doing longer free yardage repeats, intertwined with kicking and IM's. Intervals probably not too hard (relative to the group), so that heart  rate doesn't get really high, but is maintained for a long period of time. Then it will contract with a period of time when the group will be doing short free repeats with fast interval. This period of training will be more focused on developing some speed, but also hybrids with some aerobic and anaerobic training. End of seasons are normally ended with a taper, where the swimmer will work on more race specific aspects and clean up things, while tapering off the yardage so that the body fully recovers from the long season of work that they have done.

Age-Groupers also do a type of periodization. My phases aren't as physiological as they are developmental. One phase will be fundamental; to the construction of strokes; to the beginning to learn to train; to race skill development. The level of the age-grouper and the experience with fundamentals and basic strokes will determine the phases concentrating on, and the length of phase.

So when you are out there watching workouts, realize that you are going to see practices change depending on the coaches training cycle. Those that are totally focused on stroke to the practices that the swimmers are training, and those workouts where they will be working on little things and race speed. The seasons are long, and we have a lot of time to develop. We use Periodization as it is a great way to develop the athletes, and not make the whole season monotonous.

Beginning Backstroke

Last week, while I was concentrating on freestyle, I did bleed into some backstroke. The main reason was because of my frustration of watching these young swimmers kick.

The flutter kicks were inconsistent, and lacked downward propulsion on the finish of the flutter kick.

We have done some streamline work, so I had them do some backstroke kick in streamline. I believe there is no reason to have them kick with hands to their side, as you'll be teaching them body position and buoyancy with a different center of buoyancy than when they actually swim backstroke. When the hands shift to above their head, then you move their center of buoyancy. This is the position the need to learn how to float. If they swim backstroke with a center of gravity with their hands down, it is develop buoyancy for a backstroke that has the hands down to their side, and the will swim one arm stroke until both arms are back to their sides and then an arm stroke with the other arm. We have all seen this stroke. They have develop knowledge of how to float with this center of gravity, so they use this backstroke technique to be able to use that buoyancy method in their backstroke. Teach back kick with arms above head!

Eyes dry; chest up; belly button out of the water; and always boiling water at your toes. These are what I was yelling at them throughout their 25's of backstroke kick. This begins to build the leg muscle to finish through the downward portion of the freestyle kick, as well the feeling of pushing water with the top portion of the foot.

I think next week will have a plenty of this backstroke kick on back, as we have to get this flutter kick better in the Green and White groups for their success now, but mainly for their long term success in the sport, as I believe the kick is the foundation of good strokes and fast swimming.

PE class

I remember PE. I was part of the new era of PE that shifted from getting a good hour of fitness to trying to make it more educational. There was some positives to that education, but did it provide the fitness that the students needed?
I also remember many kids just passively looking like they were doing something, and the teachers tried to get everyone to exercise, but the number of kids in the class made it impossible to be sure everyone was fully participating.
Reducing the size was made possible as schools began to allow those participating in numerous sports seasons were exempt from PE, but this left out the athlete that was aiming towards a single sport. This was the case for swimmers many times.
Now I coach in Simi Valley that allows for independent PE. It requires some paper work, and some extra time to complete the forms monthly and on the trimesters, but it is worth that extra time.
It is only for higher 3 groups, but these groups practice at least 11 1/2 hours a week not including competitions. This far exceeds that of a normal PE class. From these athletes I also see a better attendance as now it is for their grade.
It is a positive for us as a swim team, a positive for the athlete who now has more time at school to concentrate on academics, and a positive to the rest of the students who can have smaller PE classes to allow more participation and help those not involved in sports get the fitness they need.
The red tape involved is time consuming for the club, but it is worth it to benefit our athletes in their athletic and academic endeavors; no matter what level it is that they compete.
I wish all places allowed for the idea of independent PE for those who have developed in a program for years and now are training at a level well beyond the normal PE class.

Coming Out of the Break a little different

We take a two week break in August. This break is great because a year round swimmer really doesn't have too many opportunities to take a break. Many younger ones don't want to stay out of the water for two weeks in August, but it is good that they do take the break. It eventually weighs on them after doing multiple years of consistent swimming, to the point that feel like the sport is never ending. (Well, it has become never ending because they chose to swim over the swim clubs break).

Out of the break I have changed what I do with my swimmers. My young groups I still go back to basics, but my older advanced age-groupers I have trended to doing aerobic work with an emphasis on kicking. This allows the body to get back in shape, and with limited swimming, it doesn't allow for too much bad habits from bad stroke that may be a cause of being out of the water.

I include many basic drills into the workouts, this is to reinforce basic technique that may have been lost in the short break. I also include a day of some sculling (which was yesterday) to try to get a feel back for the water.

I did include a swimming aerobic set yesterday that consisted of gradual increase in freestyle yardage and some 100 IM's. This was for aerobic development utilizing some IM to maximize total muscle work for the workout.

Freestyles thus far have been mainly low hypoxic repeats.

Dryland has been big for the first week. I am going to try to build strength earlier on this season.

Once aerobic has begun to develop, as well as total body strength, then I plan to go into stroke work phase that also concentrates on DPS (Distance Per Stroke). This is different, as my stroke work and DPS phase I normally start with, but I think that doing stroke work while in a little better shape may provide for better results for swimmers who have some more developed strokes than those of our three lower age-group groups.

Every season I try to do things a little different since I have swimmers who are going to end up in my group for 2 - 4 years. Switching things around allows me to test different approaches to developing the swimmer in the beginning of the season, but also provides that change from season to season to not allow it to become too stale.

Take offs

Take offs are an essential part of beginning swimmers. It takes time away from swimming laps and developing swimming strokes, but it allows them to understand how to leave the wall in any swimming stroke or race.

There are many ways to teach take-offs, but essentially it all ends up being the same. In the beginning I teach the "Ready Position." This position is with one hand on the wall and one hand pointed towards the other wall. Arms are fully extended. Both feet are on the wall, but no heels, as if they are ready to push off. Their torso is rotated so that the belly button is towards the side.

The first take offs will be so the hand goes by the forehead and into a streamline position as they push off the wall. This will get them used to the motion of the hand going by the head. I have many times told the swimmer that they need to "comb their hair" and then get into a streamline.

I move on to have them do everything in steps now. Step number one is to "sink." Step number 2 is to "streamline." Step number 3 is to "push." "Sink, Streamline, Push;" I use this phrase when I go over it with my blue group.

From there you will teach them some of the smaller aspects. Their eyes will remain on the hand on the wall is a big one. "Never look the direction you are about to go," I'll tell my swimmers all the time when we do open turns (which is essentially a take-off from a ready position). I have them feel like they are falling backwards as the hand on the wall goes up and "combs the hair" the body falls backwards as the swimmer sinks into the water.

Teaching the beginnings at the beginning of the season, and then refine throughout the season. That is what we are doing with our beginning swimmers (they should know streamline and freestyle). Don't forget that Streamline work becomes a part of the take-off.

It takes some time away from the workout in terms of laps, but it will pay off when you have swimmers who know how to push on their side and to get rid of the habit of pushing off on their stomach very early.

Beginning the new season with two different groups

We started our new season yesterday, and I am coaching a beginning level and the advanced Age-Group Level now. It is crazy how different these seasons start, and how the level makes a huge difference of what we are doing in the first few weeks of practice.

First thing was our beginning groups. Jen and I are coaching these groups together and so our two bottom level groups are beginning together. We did some stretching and some side body position out of water for our dryland, and then we hit the water. I think we did about 300 yards total for this entire workout. We went over take-offs, and freestyle kick on the side. Thank Goodness most of these kids have been taught some kind of streamline that we actually got to the take offs. (Streamlines still need a lot of work because they break or loosen many times after a take off).

The next group is my Blue Group (Which is the 4th of 6 levels for our team). Here we began with me doing some talking to the group about the upcoming season; our training looking forward; performance goals and training goals; as well as the new group at our other site. We did some arm rotations and just a little bit of abs and upper body strength for dryland. We ended up swimming only about 2800 yards, 1200 of which was kicking and 400 of drills. The rest was warm-up, breathing pattern swimming, and push off wall work.

The Blue Group was about normal for this time of season, and the Green and White Group was different mainly because Jen and I did not run this group before. We know what these kids need to progress into the later groups, and allow us to make more out of the higher groups because the kids know the little things and we won't have to teach it, but just review it.

I know that it is the beginning of the season for everyone, and for those parents who read the blog and you have swimmers in the beginning level groups for your swim team. You may be wondering why your child only did 12 laps in that whole workout, but as the season moves on and the swimmers learn the fundamental skills; they will be doing more laps. You've joined a year round swim team, and we develop swimmers at a pace to maximize results later in the season, and later in their careers. It takes some patience and a realization that your 8 year old has a quite a long career to become fast and it isn't going to be made in a month.

The message is the same

So, I am going through old keep sakes that my mother gave me. I see a lot of old pictures and school stuff of my brother and I. There is also old stuff of my mom's including newspaper clippings, and old swim stuff in the boxes.

I came across a self-written note that my mother wrote down, and saved for some reason, but the message on the note is great. It was definitely a note to herself, and what she told herself during this time in her life. I can tell it was still a time when she swam with Chaos Swim Club in Selma, as it has one part when she mentions Patti (I know this was one of her teammates while still in Selma).

The end of the note this are some of her thoughts:
"Sprint in practice to PAIN."
"GOOD ATTITUDE TOWARDS YOURSELF IN SWIMMING"

I left the underlining and Capitalization as written.

This is what a world class swimmer thinks to herself, and reminds herself on a note. It is how a person rises above all around her. How a little girl from a small town can rise to be amongst the best in the world. Not to be afraid of pain and to have the insight to know that her attitude towards herself; are the most important things. This note had to be written in the mid to late 70's, so it was a time when athlete psychological development wasn't something that coaches focused on (It was an era focused on aerobic conditioning, and pounding out yards to be the best).

I write this in hope that athletes out there realize that it is more than just showing up to practice. It takes that inner desire inside of you to rise above your opponents. A Coach can help motivate when you struggle from time to time throughout the seasons, but the motivation from within is so powerful. Also remember, that without that "good attitude" towards yourself; all the work and pain is for not.

Student Athletes are not ordinary people, but extraordinary people. They strive to do the "extra" on a daily basis to not just be ordinary.

Watching the Olympics

It was another great year for US in the Olympics. We came one medal shy of our medal count from the last Olympics, but we took away four more gold medals than the last.

The Olympics is an exciting time for swimming, as it is our showcase event that only takes place every four years. So many watch, and so many of our young athletes watch.

I get questions every time though about the Olympic swimmers swimming. Yes they look amazing flying through the water, but the kids pick up on their other techniques as well, and begin to question and possibly try out. Oh, how this is hard to deal with sometimes.

Our Olympic swimmers don't swim text book strokes. Many of them have alterations to their strokes that they have developed to take advantage of something about their bodies and their ability. Young swimmers learn the rules, the basic strokes, how to swim more text book. As they progress, coaches will look for advantages for what their body has to offer, to be able to go that little extra bit. Swimmers should not emulate these techniques, as they are trained for that particular swimmer.

I got the question about why the Olympians breathe on one side (of course not all of them do), and I had to explained that as they developed they realized that they were dependent on one arm for maximum force, and that they sacrificed a little on their weaker side to take advantage of their powerful side. This is not something a young swimmer should do. We develop the balance stroke, to learn all the proper techniques that best learned balanced. Then as they go into specialization (girls around 16 - 19, and boys around 17 - 20) they will take all that they learned about proper technique and tweak it to try to maximize their stroke with what their body make-up is (as not every person has the exact same body).

Coaches, we have some fun times trying to not get our swimmers to swim these altered strokes. Good Luck. Swimmers, be patient, master the basics and the rules before you start breaking them. Parents, (I reiterate) don't coach you kids, and that includes comparing your kids strokes to Olympians or that fast kid from another team. Kids grow at different rates and bodies are different. You can't develop fast swimmers based primarily off emulation.