Not a Practice Swimmer

I apologize for taking so long to make a post. I just worked with an athlete that inspired me to share something with everyone. Have you ever coached an athlete that could do just about any movement or drill the first time you asked? I just coached one of those athletes this week, and they can be tough. While you are evaluating their stroke, they can do everything just right. In fact, I typically struggle to find something to improve in their stroke.

When I meet one of these athletes, I throw a tough aerobic set their way. I always want to see what the swimmer does while they are under stress. It can be amazing what you see when they are working hard. As a coach, the goal should always be to improve the swimmer's practice stroke, not just their drilling stroke. It is easy to get a swimmer to swim smoothly while they are fresh and thinking about their stroke. The true challenge is to teach your swimmers to swim smoothly while they are tired and working hard.

So, what do you do when you find one of these swimmers? I suggest that you have them swim short intense sets with consistent rest. They will need the consistent rest to maintain a quality stroke, and they will need to swim intensely to gain the strength necessary to swim smoothly for longer sets.

Internal Rotator - Stretch Cord Exercise

Start this exercise with the stretch cord wrapped around a railing. Place your upper arm at your side and your lower arm out to your side at a 90 degree angle. The stretch cord should be on the same side as the arm you are using. In this example, the stretch cord is on my left side and I am working with my left arm. While keeping your upper arm next to your body, rotate your lower arm to the inside of your body.















You will finish the movement with your upper arm next to your body, and your lower arm internally rotated. Move your arm slowly back to the starting position. Perform this exercise continuously for 45 seconds before taking 15 seconds rest. You can do 2-4 sets depending on your fitness level.

External Rotator - Stretch Cord Exercise

Start this exercise with the stretch cord wrapped around a railing, and your lower arm held across your body. The stretch cord should be on the opposite side of the arm you are using. In this example, the stretch cord is on my left side and I am working with my right arm. While keeping your upper arm next to your body, rotate your lower arm to the outside of your body.















You will finish the movement with your upper arm next to your body, and your lower arm externally rotated. Move your arm slowly back to the starting position. Perform this exercise continuously for 45 seconds before taking 15 seconds rest. You can do 2-4 sets depending on your fitness level.

Overhead Triceps - Stretch Cord Exercise

Start this exercise with the stretch cord wrapped around a railing, and your arms bent at a 90 degree angle above your shoulders. While keeping your arms above your shoulders, extend your arms so that they move out in front of your head.















You will finish the movement in this position with your hands out in front of your head. Move your arms slowly back to the starting position. Perform this exercise continuously for 45 seconds before taking 15 seconds rest. You can do 2-4 sets depending on your fitness level.

Triceps - Stretch Cord Exercise

Start this exercise with the stretch cord wrapped around a railing. Your upper arms should be at your side with your lower arms out in front of you. There should be tension in the cord. Now straighten your arms and extend them behind you.















You will finish the movement in this position and then slowly move your lower arms back to the starting position. Remember to keep your upper arms next to your body during the exercise. As always, keep the emphasis on the reverse portion of the movement. My high school athletes will typically perform this exercise continuously for 45 seconds before taking 15 seconds rest. We generally perform three sets.

Flys - Stretch Cord Exercise

Start this exercise with the stretch cord wrapped around a railing, and your arms out to your side at shoulder height. There should be tension in the cord. While keeping your arms straight and your hands at shoulder height, press them together in front of your chest until your hands meet.















You will finish the movement in this position and then slowly move your arms back to the starting position. It is very important to stress the reverse movement. Perform this exercise continuously for 45 seconds before taking 15 seconds rest. You can do 2-4 sets depending on your fitness level.

Straight Arm Pullback - Stretch Cord Exercise

Start this exercise with the stretch cord wrapped around a railing, and your arms out in front of you. There should be tension in the cord. Now pull your arms back towards you while keeping them straight.















You will finish the movement in this position and then slowly move your arms back to the starting position. It is very important to stress the reverse movement. My high school athletes will typically perform this exercise continuously for 45 seconds before taking 15 seconds rest. We generally perform three sets.

The Moment

There is that moment in each of us. The moment between our great idea and our decision that it is impossible and unachievable. It is between those two moments that I attempt to stand and begin to work.

May all of you have worthwhile goals, and the gumption to believe in them.

Relay Speed Theory

We started a theory in our swimming program shortly after I arrived. The theory is that we can swim faster on a relay than we can as an individual.

I probably take relay preparation more seriously than any other coach out there. I like relays. There is no greater expression of what it means to be a "Team Swimmer," than participating on a relay.

We did a little experiment last week during the First Annual "Think Fast, Swim Fast" Clinic. I grouped the camper into a random group of four swimmers. Each "relay" took to the blocks and swam a 200 free relay together. Just after they finished, I announced the goal for the week. The goal was to drop the highest percentage of time. Every activity we did that week focused on improving as a relay team.

The final activity of the week was another 200 Free Relay. Without exception, each relay dropped time. They learned how to work together and how to act as a relay team.

I am sure you want to know what we did to get these kids to come together as a team, but that will have to wait for a future post.

Swimming - Scientifically Speaking

I just remembered that I haven't reviewed one of my favorite websites in awhile. Coaches' InfoService is a great source of scientific studies that have been conducted to advance the sport of swimming. Take a look!

Breaststroke Kicking Technique

The best breaststroke kick is very narrow. By narrow, I mean that the knees stay very close together throughout the kick. A narrow breaststroke kick is good because it enables your stroke tempo to be very quick, and it keeps drag to a minimum. If your knees separate too much during the recovery portion of the kick, they will stop you in your tracks - just like putting out a parachute.

Take a standard pull buoy and place it between your thighs for your next breaststroke set. You should be able to swim breaststroke and easily keep the pull buoy in place. If you're having trouble keeping the pull buoy between your legs, then your kick is too wide.

Training Frequency

Every athlete on the planet wonders how much they should be training. The answer varies greatly depending on the sport, the athlete, and the overall fitness level and goals of the athlete. Swimming does need a little special consideration when it comes to the question of training frequency.

The arms tend to be the primary muscles which generate power in the sport of swimming. This is in sharp contrast to many other sports that use the legs as the primary muscles for power. Your legs are composed of much larger muscles, and many years of evolution have adapted those muscles to be our primary means of locomotion and power.

Swimmers are not so lucky. They must train relatively small muscles into their athletic powerhouse. When it comes to small muscles, you must train frequently to keep those muscles performing at peak levels. Because of the small muscles involved in swimming, training frequency tends to more important than training volume.

4 Feet of Water

The National Federation of High School sports instituted a new rule in 2001 for the minimum pool depth required to use starting blocks in competitive high school swimming. That minimum depth is 4 feet of water. If you have less than four feet of water, you are required to start from the side of the pool.

I came to a crossroad this year.

Our meet schedule brought us to a pool that I had suspected was not 4 feet deep. I asked the coach and official to verify the depth of the pool before we started the meet since I had a swimmer who was recovering from a near paralysis injury. I did not want to risk the safety of my swimmer. As it turned out, my swimmers chose the high road and started from the side of the pool while the host school started from the blocks.

Interesting enough, one of this school's swimmers won Swimmer of the year honors from the local newspaper. Look at the photo, and tell me how deep you think the water is?

Six Inches of Water

My father-in-law, Coach Eroh, recently mentioned that six inches of water moves with you while you swim. This six inches of water is very important when you consider the arm recovery in the breaststroke pullout.

It seems like every conversation with Coach Eroh will bring out a new piece of information about swimming that I have never heard before. This particular statement is one that I have never thought about. The topic came up as we were reviewing the video for our Conference Championship meet. We focused on the breaststroke since I was a breaststroker, and we discovered something very interesting. While watching the video in slow motion, we noticed that my breaststroker's forward movement stopped completely during his hand recovery in the pullout. The reason was very simple: he had moved his hands outside of the six inches of water surrounding his body.

Make sure that your breaststrokers are recovering their arms within that six inches of water surrounding their body. Any easy method to evaluate their forward movement is to compare their position to the lane lines.

Age Group Swimming - Keeping Kids Interested

Judging by the number of hits this site has received in the last 24 hours, I am guessing that I struck a cord with my previous post on Age Group Swimming.

The number of practices, length of practices, the amount of fun, and the amount of physical and social growth are all elements that can affect a young swimmers interest in the sport of swimming. It is easy to stay interested when they are having fun, improving quickly, and they are not making huge time sacrifices to be at practice.

Somewhere around age 13-14, young swimmers seem to stop having fun, and have to start making big sacrifices of their time to continue improving and growing in the sport of swimming. This is the point that most swimmers throw in the towel and move onto other activities. I personally believe that competitive swimming is at a crossroads. We must change or perish. Who wants to sit in a hot pool all day to watch their kid swim four 30 second races? I would much rather watch those same four 30 second races in an hour, and then spend my afternoon talking about the fun we had at the swim meet. Read my previous post and Wayne Goldsmith's article, and let your voice be heard. Leave a comment.

The Guest Coaching Experience

After my first night with the Bronze group, ranging in age from 6 to 9 years of age, I was in awe. I was in the presence of the master. Coach Eroh had those kids busy for the entire hour and a half. Variation was his key to success.

At one point, he had the kids doing doggie paddle with the only rule being that they could not bark. Naturally, there were 22 kids barking the entire length of the pool.

All fun aside, I was left with a few questions after my experience with the Bronze group. How long should practice be for this age group? What is the appropriate coach to swimmer ratio for this age group? Are we short-changing some swimmers because of our arbitrary three level skill groupings of Bronze, Silver, and Gold? My experience has shown me that there are as many skill levels as there are lanes in the pool. I would be interested in what you think. Leave me a comment.

Guest Coaching Appearance

Tonight I am making a guest coaching appearance at PAWW, the local USA Swimming Club. Some of the regular coaches are out of town for spring break so I was asked to fill. This is my first time working with younger swimmers so I am excited about the experience. I will start the evening with the "Minnows," and then move into the "Bronze" Group.

I think that are three critical things to remember when coaching young swimmers: 1) Make it fun, 2) Make it fun, and 3) Make it fun.

Tricep Exercise with Stretch Cords

Here is a photograph of the beginning position for Exercise #2, the stretch cord exercise to improve tricep strength. From here, you will keep your upper arm at your side, and extend your lower arm behind you. Do three sets of 45 seconds, movely slowly back and forth.

More on the Swimming Taper

I don't know what I was thinking earlier when I posted about tapering twice at the end of the high school swim season.

A good taper is nothing more than some rest which allows the body to heal and grow stronger. When your muscles are healed, they are stronger and you can swim faster. A successful taper has two parts: hard work and rest. You can't have one without the other. Almost any coach will agree on those two elements. What coaches don't agree on is the amount of hard work and the amount of rest.

I believe that the amount of rest should be proportional to the amount of hard work that you have done. This is why I was foolhardy to believe that you can taper twice in two weeks at the end of a high school season. A high school season is only 15 weeks in length. Generally, the last 4 weeks of the season are dedicated to championship meets such as Conference, Sectionals, and State, so you really have a 11-12 week aerobic development period. Twelve weeks is enough time to develop some significant aerobic capacity, but it is nothing compared to aerobic capacity developed over many years of consistent training.

In general, a seasonal high school swimmer will only be able to peak at one meet during the championship meet cycle. It would take a more developed, year-round swimmer to peak at multiple meets. To be more clear, that year-round swimmer would not peak at multiple meets, but would be able to rest for a longer period of time and therefore hold their conditioning at a peak performance level for an extended period. My opinion is that tapering twice isn't really possible, but maintaining a peak performance level for a period of time is possible for a highly conditioned swimmer.

How long can they hold that peak performance level? That's a topic for another day.

Coaching Secrets Revealed

One of my swimmers just lamented that I was revealing all of our team's "secrets" in this swimming blog. I quickly responded that most of what I was posting was common knowledge.

There is a difference between the possession of knowledge and acting on that knowledge. 99% of success is flawless execution. How many times have you watched a swimmer repeatedly do a poor flip-turn and just let it slide? There is a difference between knowing that your swimmers should drink water or Gatorade during practice, and insuring that they drink fluids without fail each day.

It is one thing to possess the best knowledge, it is another to act on that knowledge without fail.