Speed, Power, and Flexibility

It became a motto for our group for a few years. It was the focus to everything we did at RCA in the senior group.

Speed: 25's for time became one of our groups favorite things. We raced 2 - 4 at a time. Just raw speed. Our sets were not all speed based, but we did a lot of speed as a concentration. We all knew our 25 times, and we knew where we wanted to be at any given point of a season.

Power: Many would think weights, but our senior group did no organized weight program. Some of us would go screw around at the gym everyone once in awhile, but it wasn't a true weight program, and most of the time it was a social thing. We did do a lot of body weight exercises, stretch cordz, medicine ball, resistance bands, and power rack. We had sets that were brutal that were power based as well. Oh how I remember the 20 x 50 Fly with every end was 30 pulls with the stretch cordz with a feet first entry directly to the next 50 fly.

Flexibility: Our stretching was always on our own. We sat around and talked to each other and stretched. It was so familiar to us, I remember sitting at meets between events and doing a stretch here and there. Even warm-up had times that most of us knew it was a good time to stretch. It was also cool to go to a meet like Grand Challenge and watch the Berkeley guys stretch at the meet, it reinforced that it was always important to stretch, and not just to be loose, but stretch to improve flexibility, even at the highest level.

Was it the key to our success? Not sure, but we knew that it was the focus. We were told that those three aspects were the solid foundation to athleticism, and that high level swimmers need to be great athletes.