"WHY DO WE DO IT"

 During practice on Monday I was asked why we were doing open turns.  For the past couple of weeks we have work through sets that involved some open turns while doing 75's (50 free/ 25 back and 50 free/ 24 breast or fly). Why do we do them?  I have notice during the last few meets that some of us are losing momentum at the walls on our exchanges.  We our not getting our hips and legs into the walls fast enough which hurts our speed coming off of them.  I wanted to come up with something that would help our speed  into the walls with the hope of helping you all get your hips and legs into the walls.   I decided that if we swim in free which is faster and perform open turns the result might be faster exchanges for the breast and fly, and also for the IM events.   Think about it there are seven turns in swimming and two of them are flips (free and back) which we do all the time.  The other five turns involve the IM, breast and fly Oh,and by the way are open turns.  Alot of time when we do these exchanges in practice, they are done at slower speeds.   The other two things are the 10 minute kick (00-40 easy and 40- 00 SUPER FAST BIL FREE KICK), and the 10-10-5 burst and stop kicks.  Why?  Watching the races I see two things at the walls, first we relax going into the turns and at the finish we just swim to the wall.  WE DON't FINISH the race, again with our legs.  That last 25 its come down to HEART!  That finish has to be set up coming off that last turn and build all the way to the wall.  A lot of this comes from those legs and by the way that 25 should take less than 20 seconds.  Do you see where I am going with those two kick sets?  If we expect to do it in our races WE need to first do it at every practice and not just when you want to to.

The Junior gold on the easy cycle of the 10 minute kick.

The 20 second fast cycle.   Stay healthy!   Mike

HOW TO TAKE OWNERSHIP

The very first step in this process you actually learned from your parents at a very young age and that is honesty.  Make no mistake about it everything begins with truth and that includes your swimming.  When you are ready to be honest with yourself it will require one very critical thing that swimmers often overlook, and that is “What do ?I really want?"

 

Over the years I have seen many swimmers just “Dive In” and start swimming without really understanding the process or why they are doing it.  Without understanding the process they have no roadmap to their final destination.  They develop habits that will carry them throughout their swimming years.  Some of these habits are GOOD, but some tend to be bad also.  Often swimmers will get sucked into just swimming laps and will forget to focus on the little things coaches are teaching within the set.  For instance the other day all three of our groups did a set that looked like this; 12 or 8 x75 (50 free-25 back) or 8x50 (25 free-25back) depending on the group.  The two main things to focus on for the set was “get to the 10" meter mark off the walls and the second was open turns off ever wall keeping are head in line and getting our hips turned into the wall quickly.  Now last I checked we all speak English but watching the set I started to wonder if we were having a communication lapse because some of us were all over the place.

 

The point I am getting to is this, sometimes we take the time to do the work but we come up short when trying to focus on the little things in the sport that will make us happy and successful.  I was told once that I was hard on swimmers when watching races.  I can accept that to an extent.  I am always happy for a best time because the time is an instant gratification which is the world we live in, BUT in the long run I get more excited when the swimmer executes what we have worked on in practice, which relates back to the process.

I understand that most if not all swimmers will have more failures than successes as they go through their swimming years, but if you go through the process correctly and trust it you will have a best time at those important meets, most of the time.

 

Simply showing up for practice/meets is only the first step.  The process involves being on time with the proper mind set.  Just this past weekend a swimmer said to me “I’m just not feeling it today”, (this will put your coach in a bad mood) about a half hour before the race.  I had to bite my tongue because I wanted to be brutally honest with my reply.  The next thing is proper warm ups and warm downs.  I have watched many swimmers leave a meet with no warm down and than wonder why they are sore later on.  Yes parents even your little ones should warm down, even if its a 50.  Its correct that they may not need one, but again my job is to teach them about the sport and how to be successful as a senior level swimmer.  Again the “PROCESS."

 

As for practice I believe I have demonstrated that the focus of the set should be doing things correctly not just some of the time, but all of the time.  During your sets think of it this way; Am I practicing just for a time, ore am I practicing for success and the chance for a Personal Best?  Remember those three kids in my pool at the gym, I could have just timed them no practice needed.  Just a thought!

 

Hey if you all have topic for me let me know

 

See you this week. Mike

OWWNERSHIP and JO EVENTS

I have been asked a lot of questions about choosing Your JO events, and that is awesome that some of you are thinking about them.  First off JO’s is where our plan and all your hard work come together, and the time of the year you should be at your best both physically and mentally.  Use the next feel weeks to fine tune all the small details in your events, catch up and get ahead in your school work, get the proper rest and nutrition and above all stay healthy, so you place yourself in the best possible situation to swim fast.  For our 14 year olds this will b e your last JO’meet so enjoy it!

 

CHOOSING YOUR EVENTS

 

This is a 4 day trials and finals meet.  The first step is break the meet into 4 days and write ALL the events for the day in your age group on a piece of paper in the order they fell including relays.  Step two place an asterisk next to all there events that you have qualified for.  Step three place a second asterisk next to your very best events.  We would really like to get this list down to two events a day.  Take into consideration where events fall in the meet and what heat you may be in.  For the 10 and under session it is a very quick turn around so PLEASE remember that.  Take into account that there are also relays that we will enter into the meet and you Will be expected to swim if asked.  We WILL NOT do the 800 free relay on Friday so cross that off your list.  There are no relays for 10 and under’s on Friday.  Understand that relays are at the beginning and at the end of the meet.  I have already had several requests for lead off spots and will consider all of them but the final decision will be the coaches and will be made at the meet.  NO promises will be made by ANYONE before as things can and will change leading up to the meet and as we work our way through the weekend.

 

After you have done all of the above and your comfortable with it, I will be more than happy to sit down and go over your plan with you.

 

“TAKING OWNERSHIP OF YOUR SWIMMING"

 

All athletes need to understand that whatever sports they participate whether you succeed or fail ultimately comes down to the person staring back at you in the mirror.  Your parents, friends, teammates are there to offer support in the good times as well as there bad times.  The coaches are also there to offer not only their support but also to help guide you and to put you into a position to succeed.

 

At some point all athletes/swimmers will face failure and disappointment with results.  Get use to it because it is called life, just ask your parents.  Swimmers struggle with these disappointments all through their careers, as do all athletes from the PEE WEE leagues through high school into college and yes, even at the professional level.  Ask the Patriots and KEVIN (Had to put that in).  They will spend all this wasted energy struggling with all kinds of excuses to justify or reason with the results.  I’ve heard them all through the years, although the best one was years ago when a swimmer had forgotten their googles.  The excuse was my mother used therm last night in the kitchen when she was peeling onions.   For the first time I had no come back for that one!

 

These excuses cover the gambit from “I’m so tired”, “water too cold”, coach didn’t prepare me, practices were not hard enough, not enough rest between events.  Why do we make excuses?  They help us deal with and justify the result in our minds at race time.  

 

Years ago I observed two different ways some of our swimmers handled adversity. The first took place 7 or 8 years ago Heather’s daughter LOGAN and Peter’s daughter RACHEL.  I feel so bless to always be coaching kids from other coaches, anyway both girls made finals so we stopped for lunch and knowing the two of them I in formed them to be careful of what they ate.  My first mistake was I did not follow them around.  Anyway we are back at the pool for finals and I told them to warm up and get ready, I still do not know if they got in. However I notice the two of them sitting behind the blocks propped up against the wall and Rachel is just sobbing on Logans shoulder in her practice suit.  Her race is minutes away and she is a mess.  Her biggest worry her dad was going to see her on TV in a practice suit at finals (which he did and I heard about minutes later by text, oh and that is why I no longer carry my phone at meets) and that she was going to get sick.  I still don’t know how Rachel and I did it but she gained her composure and swam her event and yes in the practice suit.  I asked Logan what was the problem and she took me back to lunch where they had gone next door and had this great  big piece of “cheese cake”.  All she could say was “It was so good….”.  Wonderful I hope you both get sick

Point was they knew it was wrong but they took ownership of what happened and performed well anyway.

 

The next example happened about 3 or 4 years ago again in Florida at finals, but involved LEXI.  I got her to the pool late for her first event one evening.  The way I understood that it went down was that as I was parking the van Lexi walked through the doors and over to the block (I think she ran). You have to understand that her heat was just getting into the pool (backstroke event) as she arrived to the block.  Lexi dropped her bag, removed her warm ups and hopped in the pool with her practice suit.  She went her best time as she won the event.  Again an example of no excuse just get to work and whatever happens, happens.

 

A lot of times we will make all kinds of excuses, because we only want to take OWNERSHIP of our success, but on the other hand blame the world for our failures.  I see it all the time where swimmers dive into the pool thinking they are owed a best time.  It is so much easier to sit back and expect success and not have to work for it, or take ownership of the process.  When you don’t take ownership of the process bad things tend to happen and then you may find yourself on that slippery slope that will result in more failures than success.  We become less detail oriented which creates an environment where mediocrity grows like a weed and it’s ugly.

 

“If it’s success you want in the pool or life then you need to wrap your head around the fact that  it’s completely on YOU."

It’s not your coach, friends, or parents, It’s YOU. They are your support group. Take ownership and be honest when you talk to the person in the mirror!

 

Next week How to take ownership!   Mike

 

 

IMX MEET WRAP UP

On Monday Coach Heather asked if this meet was one that we should do in the future.  I told her to give me a few days to think about it because there are advantages and disadvantages.   I know the parking was an issue but on Friday the university thought we were starting at four so they were prepared and on Sunday they had a basketball game so we had to park a distance.  In fact it took me over an hour to find my car Sunday night and when I did it had a ticket on it, I guess I had the wrong lot. Sunday morning it was dark and raining so I just wanted to be on time.  Oh by the way you can bet I am passing that ticket off to Coach Heather one way or another. Disadvantages that I took from this meet were that it was a long day for some coaches who spent 12 hours at the pool all three days, but then again it was not much different then any other meet if you attended all three sessions, just an extra day.  I know for the parents the events were long ones to watch and I really appreciate the support you gave your swimmers and myself. Several coaches said that we should positive check in the 500 free on Friday because we could have saved 9 heats and been finished over an hour early.  I pointed out that though that would have been great for coaches, the swimmers would suffer because they may have to be on deck longer not knowing when their heat would swim. As for the meet itself I think it offers the swimmers a chance to challenge themselves in a unique environment where all swimmers swim the entire program and not just events or strokes they like.  It gives the coaches a real chance to see how they swim the strokes and how they execute the race.  It allows more one on one time between coach and swimmer to talk over technique also.   As we worked through the meet our Mako swimmers did very well.  If my calculations are correct we improved our times in all the races except for four events and three of them were right on their best times.  We had a lot of our swimmers winning their heats.  It was also exciting to see how they could carry that energy into the third day and still drop time.  Now of course some of our 12 and under girls were only swimming their entry times in the first event Sunday (100 back). But after going over and letting them know that the boys were making them look silly they picked it up and dropped time in all of their last events which was the 200 IM. I think that in the end we get more from a meet like this during this time of the season then we get from a January Open meet.   The kids who swam this meet had to swim 6 long events over a three day period and in the end, I believed they gained an enormous amount of confidence going into championship season. Hopefully in the future more swimmers from Makos will take advantage of this unique swimming event! 

IMX ACTION

Our 12 and under's at the IMX meet after warm ups getting ready for the first of their three events

Saturday done the 200 fly and the 200 IM.  Looks like theyare excited for the 200 breast.