Tonight's concentration

It was all about the under water pull. I like for the swimmers to realize their muscles. I had them feel the stretching of the arm muscles as I pulled their arm slightly upward from the forearm. By their faces it seems like they have never stretched their lat muscle ever. (This kind of concerns me).

In the water we spent the whole time working on stretching, then we incorporated a stretch into a grab (or catch). Swimming long is really important, and this sense of stretch provided another way to demonstrate to the swimmers what I want them to feel in the stretch portion of the stroke, and that they can create a lot of power by catching water from this stretch position.

Short and Sweet tonight.

A quick sidebar from practice tonight

In the middle of practice I felt like I needed to give a brief talk, as I think they really needed to hear it.

Failure begins with the thought, and continues to manifest into a verbalization, and then it finally it becomes reality. The likelihood of it becoming real is more when the athlete first verbalizes it. Without the verbalization that they will fail, the less likely they will. Without the thought of failure makes the reality even less so.

So the first step is to stop verbalizing that you are going to fail. This is the easy part of reducing the likelihood of failing. The hard part is getting rid of the thoughts that you are going to fail. This is best done with positive self-talk, a great skill all high level athletes need to learn.

Although I talk about how failing is ok, and it is just a step in the path to success; doesn't mean that you should set your path to failure. Put yourself in the best situation to succeed (by removing the words and the thoughts of failing), and then deal with the results as they happen. If all you do is set yourself up for failure then it will become routine, and then the steps of making yourself better through learning from failure become null and void, as you haven't learned how to mentally be prepared to succeed.

Get rid of the verbalization that you are going to fail. Get rid of the thoughts of failing with positive self-talk. Don't take failure as finality, but an opportunity to make yourself better. Continue to stay positive after a failure is one of the hardest parts to truly succeeding, and you need to practice it.

For you Swim Instructors who may follow

I know there are some followers who are swim instructors for the Raisin Country Swim School, so I am writing this one with you in mind. I am not sure exactly what the curriculum is, as I know that it began with my curriculum, but was adjusted. That was the plan to do with it, as I knew that there were probably some holes and other ways that it could be better than what I had come up with.

One of the big things though is realizing that the skills and drills in teaching swim lessons all serve a purpose. Nothing is there to fill time, but can be utilized in the teaching of a child to swim. I want to go over some of the progressions that you can see in how you can use the skills taught to carry over into other skills, and the connection could help kids understand how to do it right without thinking of it as a completely new skill.

Let's start very simple. Blowing Bubbles. You are teaching the child to be comfortable with exhale into the water. Then there are Bobs. Here the swimmer is getting comfortable going underwater. Combine the two, and have them blow bubbles underwater and when they come up they take one breath and then back under to blow bubbles again. If you permit only one breath you are also developing proper air exchange that will serve them later as they learn freestyle.

They learn to float on their stomach and their back, and then they learn to roll from front to back and back to front. Do they need more of a challenge? Have them blow bubbles during front float, then roll to their back to breathe, and then back to the front to blow bubbles. Learning to roll early will begin to learn rotation.

I was watching a private lesson today at the YMCA, and I saw a young girl who was a good kicker, and then the instructor was trying to get her freestyle with no body position or proper air exchange. If you want to make the learning freestyle quicker begin with the foundation. Air exchange which begins at the blowing bubbles and bobs stage. (Only inhale when mouth is out of the water and exhale while face is in the water). The next thing is to teach body position. Kicking on their side, this girl was such a good kicker, but had no idea how to kick on her side. Teach proper Head position. Point the head down when they breath. Take a orange cone and put it on your head. Tell the kids that the cone need to point downward when they breath. Visual stimulus that the kids will think is really funny that you put a cone on your head. If the cone points up the hips will sink and they will sink. If the kids can do good body position and proper air exchange it will be easier to teach good freestyle. Not saying that it is easy to teach this as the body position stuff is against everything these kids are used to doing while on land in their natural medium.

Think about skills you teach, think about how they could make other skills they learn later easier. Think about skills they've learned that can help them learn new skills. Try to use the terms of the other skills to help explain what they are supposed to be doing. Incorporate all that you do leading into an ultimate goal. We do it as swim coaches, as we teach through progressions, to finally get to the actual stroke. The concept can be taken in teaching lessons, and most lessons are actually designed for this, but it is not always articulated to the instructors.

Good Luck, as Learn to Swim is a skill not just for some, but should be a skill that all kids learn.

Discussion: Physiology

I am not well versed in the study of physiology. I mainly have done some reading, and go off of observation and from what I hear from other coaches. So, please take any of this with a grain of salt, and feel free to correct me or any other kind of response. Again, I am not that trained in this field.

Swimming demands a great amount of aerobic conditioning. As I coach age-groupers, I have athletes that are in the very beginning of aerobic development, and it is very important in my seasonal plan to ensure that I develop this in my young swimmers for future success.

Swimming in itself is a mix of aerobic and anaerobic exercise as it requires some kind of breathe holding. I read though that the anaerobic levels can only be developed so much, so it isn't quite as vital to develop as the aerobic. I think about the great long distance runners from Kenya though. Isn't the argument that they are able to train at such high altitudes that they have been able to become so good. So, in essence this aerobic exercise has taken on a anaerobic aspect as the thinner air wouldn't provide as much oxygen to the blood. So these runners should go into oxygen debt faster and develop lactate tolerance by being able to perform through oxygen debt.

Could this be a reason why my swimmers who do cross country are getting better now that they swim for certain seasons?

Then, are we not pushing anaerobic exercise enough in our training for even our distance swimmers. Yes, Sprinters and middle distance have a decent amount of anaerobic training, but are we putting too much emphasis on the aerobic side and not enough on the anaerobic side of training.

Senior Swimmers whether they are sprinters, middle distance, or distance; would it be beneficial to do more lactate tolerance? More anaerobic?

I think we need to be careful of course about recognizing anaerobic exercise from pushing the limits of no oxygen. We just lost a swimmer from testing his own limit of no oxygen from Oklahoma Baptist. That is not what I am talking about. Hypoxic swims can be controlled and not push the limit to extended time of no oxygen.

I am sure there are coaches out there that already do a lot of anaerobic and emphasize it, but so many times I hear about the amount of aerobic yards that teams do.

I think my one example of Kenyan runners is only one example, and not enough to come up with a great conclusion. It just made me think about how I have heard about training, and how I have interpreted some of the readings that I have done.

I don't coach senior swimmers, so really it doesn't effect me, but I am trying to do more anaerobic this season than I did the season before to see how it effects the performances of my age-groupers. I still focus on the aerobic side, but I wanted to see if I had pulled too far off the anaerobic this last season. That planning is how I got to thinking about the training of senior swimmers, and looking at other athletes to consider the training methods that we traditional have done.

Learning (Talent Code)

I have blogged before about reading the Talent Code. I really have tried to incorporate parts of this way of learning into my coaching. Of course the book doesn't tell you exactly how you can apply the concept, but that you have to see if you can create a way to use their concept in what you do. The idea is of self-correction and not just repeating what you are told, but realizing what you are doing. What you are doing right, and what you are doing wrong. The coach helps you along the way, but they allow you to mess up repeatedly to get to what you want to accomplish.

So, for my group I try to make the swimmers first aware of their body and their muscles. I talk about the muscles in the body and what muscle you use with certain motions. In the beginning, this is hard because some of the kids have no idea what the muscles are called so you as a coach have to teach this. Now, I talk about correcting motions by also referring to muscles that they may not be utilizing which has created the motion to be incorrect.

I also do an occasional drill which is designed for the swimmers to focus on specific movements, and situate their eyes in a position so that they can watch their hand motion in the water. (Finis Inline Snorkels is a great tool for this, but sometimes you need to just tell them to watch their hand and breathe when they aren't pushing against the water). Trying to get the swimmers to recognize when they are doing something wrong. They can feel when they drop their elbow, or when they allow the hips to sink because they arched their back. These are things that I can repeat myself all the time, but if they realize it, they can make a correction, and with the theory behind The Talent Code, that is when the athlete would actually be doing the learning (by correcting their own error.)

Even when I talk to my swimmers at meets, I'll ask them what were they doing wrong. Some can answer correctly, some just make up something that they've been told over and over again, some have no response. If a swimmer can tell what went wrong, then I'll ask them when do the mistake start happening in the race (what lap). Some of my swimmers can now tell me what and when. These are the swimmers who are doing the most learning at practice now, as they have developed this skill of recognition. It doesn't happen in a short amount of time, but something that needs to practiced. The swimmer must also always being paying attention at practice to the coach and to their body (movement and muscle), to really begin developing the skill.

I believe this is the skill that is required for success at the senior level, and a level of training that can lead them to be very successful in the future. It takes time to develop this awareness, and that is why I try to develop in my group which is before going on to the pre-senior and senior level of training.

Talking to former swimmers

It is fun to talk to former swimmers. I normally don't ask them how their experience is, but many times they feel like they want to tell me what a positive experience swimming was for them.

A former College Water Polo, who swam club swimming most of her career as an age-grouper and high school career explained to me that although she knew that she wanted to be a polo player, she felt like the club swimming was great for her. She said that she had no regrets about doing club swimming, and felt like it prepared her for the training that finally saw in college. She recognizes now how important that club swim team training was for her success in both high school and especially in college.

This last weekend, a former teammate of mine, who did not swim in college, but did do USA Swimming competitions to about 21 years old, he said that he loved the experience of swimming. His main point was that it was such a positive experience for him, and he feels helped him become the person he is now.

Many other teammates have told me that at the time, there are doubts about whether they feel like it is all worth it, but now most of them look back on it, and are quite grateful that they pushed through and endured. It wasn't easy, but it made them stronger and helped prepare them for what they saw later on in life.

Another former teammate, who swam with us from November - June, as he was a water polo player came to me on one visit home. He had just finished his senior year playing water polo as a two-time Division 1 All-American and was about to move to Australia to play professionally. He told me that club swimming was the reason he was able to succeed in college. He was recruited as a goalie, but after becoming the back-up he changed over to a hole man because he had the speed to play the field at the college level. He said that club swimming was a positive experience that also developed enough skills of how to swim fast that it allowed him to be able to achieve what he wanted to do.

It really is great that former athletes can look back and see the benefits of swimming club swimming. So many choose not to follow through, or not make the commitment to be a club swimmer. Some times these people look back with regret as they wish they had pushed through and endured to learn the hard lessons which they had to learn another way later down the road, sometimes in more serious position. When former athletes come up to you and feel compelled to  tell you about their positive experiences it does make you as a coach feel good. It helps reaffirm what you believe that you are doing.

The Taper Game

Tapering is a game. There is science behind it, but coaches have to play with it to make it most effective. Taper is an individual plan for each swimmer. The practices can be generalized, but normally you have swimmers sometimes do different things during the taper.

I coach age-groupers so taper isn't really a big thing for my swimmers. Normally with lack of muscle development at the pre-teen and early teen phases of a child taper is not much of a physical enhancement.

The other thing with taper is it does depend on work load. My groups normally don't have the work load to benefit from a taper. This season may be different, as my top portion of the group is beginning to get some good yardage in as they have progressed a lot. Teams that don't put in the heavy workload (not just yardage, but intensity as well) will benefit from the longer tapers, whereas those without the heavy workloads can benefit from the smaller tapers.

Distance and Sprint swimmers also differ. Distance swimmers may not see yardage drop significantly at this time, but see more weight lifting of heavy speed sets begin to taper off. Sprint swimmers will probably see yardage go down, but may also see some more SP3 sets (Fast with a lot of rest). This is also why older swimmers benefit from taper, as most high level swimmers don't specialize that much until at the oldest 16 years old. Some don't specialize until college, and swimmers like Phelps and Lochte, well they never really specialized, they just wanted to be the fastest at everything.

What makes taper hard is that you can't do it very often. You need the workload to make taper effective, and when you don't give your program the time to get the work in to make a taper effective, then you have problems with taper. Maybe 2 - 4 times year can an athlete really taper (4 is stretching it though). So, a coach must choose the meets carefully on where they want to focus. There can mid-season tapers, which are more like "rest meets" where you'll rest the body, but not allow it to drop to a comfort level like you do in a full taper.

I am from the belief that a swimmer must make time standards for a meet without a taper. You don't taper to make a cut; you taper to perform at the meet at which you have qualified. This is a way to reduce the amount of swims you have which have no chance for a second swim. If you made the cut barely mid-season, you may be seeded in the back, but because you are now tapered, you actually still have an outside chance to get a second swim as the taper can produce some amazing results.

Taper is as much physical. as it is mental. Many swimmers kill their own taper by losing faith in their taper. If the mind thinks the taper isn't working, then the taper has very little chance. Coaches can talk to the swimmers all they want about how the taper is going right on schedule, but it depends mainly on the thoughts in the swimmers mind. This is tough phase as some swimmers go through the "Taper Blues" which sometimes happens just before they are ready to hit their taper. I have seen a 50 freestyler hit taper blues so bad that the weekend before they go a 23 low in the 50 free, and then go a 20 low in the tapered meet. Thank goodness that swimmer had gone through taper blues in his high school years that he knew what had happened, and still believed that he was going to be ready the next weekend.

What parents and swimmers need to understand. You can't be fully prepared for every meet to give yourself the time to develop to the high level. "Mid-season" meets is about effort and execution. Doing everything right, and racing the field that is with you. A Coach Bill Huey always refers to it as "dress rehearsals" when I have talked to him about his kids in their season. I think that this reference is a good one. It's not showtime, but it is a time to try to execute, and then analyze by finding the bugs within a race. The next mid-season race you see if you can execute better now knowing the bugs you need to iron out. We try to simulate races at practice, but there really isn't anything like a meet. Only time to really find the bugs, and then see if they still exist is by doing multiple mid-season meets.

Parents and Swimmers also need to realize that you need to understand the coaches game plan. If you know the 2 meets or so that the group is concentrating on then it is easier to understand performances at the other meets. Once a swimmer knows the concentration meets, then they can find out what will be 2 (maybe 3) "rest" meets during the training cycle will be.

Younger Swimmers normally not go through a taper. Some coaches do rest young swimmers, and some just swim them through the big meets. It is a matter of philosophy. Actually there Senior Coaches out there who never taper there older swimmers. Young swimmers need to have the mindset though that they do not rest to make a cut. If they miss a cut, then they go to the lower culmination meet and strive to perform at the one, and hopefully they will make even more cuts at the lower level meet. Remember it is about taking one step at a time to get to the top; not one giant leap to the top.

Observing lap swimmers

I now spend three hours a day life guarding at the local YMCA. Three hour shift with no one but me and no rotation is a long shift. I have plenty of people to scan over as there are water aerobics classes, and there are some lap swimmers who do come. I have noticed how much some these people enjoy the pull buoy.

The pull buoy is a good tool for certain skill development and can help with some drills. There is a big problem though to over using the pull buoy. Yes, many of them enjoy swimming more with the pull buoy, but that makes perfect sense. The biggest problem that people have with swimming is understanding that you do not balance in the water on your center of gravity, but your center of buoyancy. The artificial floating of the legs allows swimmers to balance on their center of gravity and swim much better. This is not like how you will actually swim though. If you swim with balancing on your center of gravity you will end up swimming freestyle in a "uphill" position.

With my swimmers this something that I work on almost every late August and Early September when we first get back into the water. I talk about how it is going to feel awkward to press the lungs downward and try to lean your weight on to them, but this balances the body out better to balance on the center of buoyancy which is in the lungs as it has the largest mass of gases that float.

Lap Swimmers, I know you enjoy those pull buoys, but you need to begin to develop balance on your center of buoyancy and not your center of gravity. Your body doesn't want to do this as all other time you balance on your center of gravity, but that is why swimming does take a long time to adapt to. Adaption is important, and done earlier the better. Breaking old habits isn't easy.

Going back to basics

So I like to try things with strokes. I research and find how others have developed their athletes and I try to teach a different method to the swimmers. Some of them do well with these other techniques, where others try and just can't grasp the concept or are less effective using that slight difference in the stroke.

I always go back to basics though. I am doing this now with breaststroke with my group. I mean I began the training season actually going back to have them thinking about the "ice cream bowl" in front of them. Scooping ice cream up by scraping the sides of the bowl with their pinkies and then putting it in their mouth, and not all over their shirt. This leads to a pinky turn that occurs a little sooner than I'd been teaching and much more of creating that "open book" as the hands meet in front of the chest. Going for more of a powerful breaststroke.

I think that a lot of my swimmers haven't developed "feel" for water well enough to do really effective lift force strokes, so I have been focusing a lot on "feeling" the water. This means for all strokes I am now emphasizing the hand turns to maximize resistance force against the hand. The pinky sweep to catch more water is a huge focus. Even with sculling, I am having them do more hand sweeps than before.

I think that this season will be a season where I concentrate more on the catch portion of strokes. That means more paddle time.