Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from 2020

Happy New Year’s Eve

To kick off our first practice of 2021 on Saturday the senior prep can suit up.  We will bring in the new year with challenging sprints.  It’s time to challenge yourself, have a little fun, go a little crazy and just maybe swim really fast. Have a good news years eve.

HOLIDAY MESSAGE

  Participating in sports can be one of the greatest experiences in your life. Sports not only provide a healthy way to stay active and in shape they also help shape you as a individual.  Sometimes with all the distractions and stress that come along with the competition we lose sight of the true meaning of being an athlete.  This year each of you have been faced with many challenges not only in swimming but also at school and at home.  So as we go through this holiday season here are some things that you the athlete can reflect on as we enter the new year. First off , Do you have to be the best?  No one said that you had to be, except maybe the person in the mirror, and that’s okay to strive for, but let’s face it there is only one person in the entire world that is the best.  As long as you always focus on being the best version of you, and are doing the best that you can do, you’re always be a winner.  Always focus on improving and at the end of the day be satisfied with being a bet

The Pace Clock Doctor

So let’s have a little fun with this exercise shall we.  Today we as in the senior prep swimmers were having a little trouble with the clock, seems we were still having a snow day, especially Caitlyn.  Now in her defense she reported that she got confused with too much math.  It’s at this point where I have to ask everyone else, Why is everyone just looking at each other asking, should we go  This was not rocket science interval.  Just pretty simple stuff like 4 rounds of 4x50 stroke@55 and 1x100 recovery @2:30. No extra rest between rounds as it is built into the set So here are 4 simple pace clock equations  X = first send off. X-5 = second send off. X-10 = third send off.  X-15= fourth send off. X-20 = our 100 free recovery @2:30 First things first, what is X.  Coach Paul and Mike gave you X when they said leave on the top which for our purposes was 00. QUESTION 1:  when do we leave for our second 50?  Think Caitlyn QUESTION 2:  when does our third 50 begin?  Sara QUESTION 3:  when

SNOW DAY

  Okay really I’m sure your as happy as Pooh Bear that you don’t get to do our Wednesday workout 🏋️ that you already saw on line.  What do you think, maybe move it to tomorrow?  Not even enough snow for a distance snow fight, but a good day to take the truck out to the mountains. Enjoy your day off, see you all tomorrow.

Meet Wrap and Moving Forward

 This past weekend our groups had great success at the meet, with a lot of personal best times recorded.  We want to thank all of you for such a great effort at the meet and all the months of hard work leading up to this past weekend.  All of you should be proud of the way you have handled all of the new challenges that have been placed in front of us this past year. One of the areas that we need to keep working on is our crossover turns if we are going to use them in competition.  An official brought to my attention that we had some disqualifications on Saturday and as explained to me the problem is that we may be over rotating the body past 90 degrees before the hand actually hits the wall.   A BIG NO NO.   Apparently after talking with the referee all the DQ’s were pulled with the benefit going to you, the swimmer.  It’s something that we want you to be aware of as we continue to move forward and this may be a good time to just review the video and really pay attention to that first

TRYOUTS

  For all of you who will be trying out for your high school teams this week, everyone from the group will be cheering you on.  Swim fast, have fun and above all stay safe.  Don’t forget you will be adding people to your bubble so keep the masks on and stay apart.  We know it’s hard but we all want to stay in the water until this gets better. With that in mind for your planning purposes this week, on the days you actually are swimming I think it would be alright to skip our practice that day.   You’ve been going hard since June so I think it’s okay to take that little break.   Talk to your high school coaches so that they are aware of your practice schedule.  It will look a little different this year.

Making Today Count

All of you have been going strong since June and this weekend will allow you to reap the rewards from those tough training sessions in the pool.  Getting yourself mentally prepared during the next 24 hours is just as important as all the physical preparation you’ve worked so hard on in the past months. Everything that you have done during those months could be undone if you’re head isn’t in the right place as you walk out to the starting blocks. “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” It’s human nature to have doubts, worries, and nerves leading up to races, but what is important is that you try and cleanse your mind of these pitfalls before you allow them to overwhelm you mentally and physically.   Each swimmer has there own routines that allow them to manage these pitfalls.  Make sure that you fully understand your goals. And that they are specific, achievable, and realistic heading into the weekend. Visualize your race as you see it unfolding beginning with a great start

Meet Goals

As we enter our last meet of the year it might be a good time to revisit your swimming goals to get a picture of where you stand.  We want you to think of this meet as a championship meet, the first since last winter.  We hope that the holiday season combined with this great opportunity that you have been given that you are able to have a little more bounce in your step, that you come prepared to swim fast.  Just Do You! Speaking of preparation the meet sheets should be out by Friday, so our suggestion is to figure out your events, heat and lane assignments before you arrive at the meet.  This will relieve that stress from your day.  Write it on your hand, piece of paper or take a picture of it with your phone. Do something to prepare.  Pick out someone to beat. This may also be the best time to revisit an old story, you may remember it as, Good.....Better.....Best....a old Mother Goose nursery rhyme that easily relates to your swimming.  What it means is “Never rest until your good is

Great Test Set

  So, both the Senior Prep/Blue and the Gold groups just finished a week of practice that cumulated with our 50's test set.  So your parents have an idea of what we are doing during this set, let us take a moment...... the first thing that the kids notice as  they walk onto the deck is our "special pace clock with green numbers".  The purpose of this is to change the atmosphere and to let the kids know we are going to race.....and race all day. This set started back in September and repeats about every 3rd week  hopefully having it fall one week out from our upcoming meets.  The Senior Prep/Blue group set consists of 50x50 while the Gold groups set consists of 40x50.  The interval for the groups were set the first time we went through this and have been getting faster by a few seconds each time we repeat the set. You may wonder why use a different clock, but in addition to changing the atmosphere it can be set to reset to 0 after each swim  and allows each swimmer to pick

DECEMBER MEET

So, this morning a few of you asked about what events to swim at the December meet.  We want you to think of this as a championship meet and with that it is important for you to be smart when picking events. We will try to answer a few questions here in the hopes that it will help you.   The first thing to discuss is what suit should I wear.  Our suggestion is that do what ever is going to make you comfortable and be able to race fast.  You all know what the right thing to do is. Now when picking your events as we said, be smart. Notice that on Saturday the 13-14 year old events are both in the morning and evening.  Sunday it changes to allow the 15 and over swimmers to swim both in the morning and evening.  The reason for this is to allow us to get more events in and give a feel of a championship meet, where we are swimming both in the morning and evening.  Do I need to swim both sessions on Saturday or Sunday?  We highly recommend that you do to get the feel of a championship meet.  

THANKSGIVING MESSAGE

  With each turn of the calendar page we get closer to saying goodbye to 2020, but first we have Thanksgiving arriving this week so I ask all of you kiddos out there, What are you truly thankful for this year?  We want you to really give that question some thought as Thursday draws upon each and every one of you.  Swimmers are usually up before the sun be it practice or those weekends of meets.  While others are still in bed sleeping take a moment, and instead of feeling sorry for yourself, be THANKFUL for the  opportunity to watch a sunrise while creating memories that will last a life time.   Are you THANKFUl for your teammates,  after all you do spend most if not all of your pool time with these people.  Have you ever just thanked them?  What for you may be thinking  Your teammates are the ones that you are training with and who are there pushing and encouraging you.  Your teammates are the ones who will have your back, no matter what.  As you go through the process  teammates are t

MEET PREPARATION

 Meet preparation takes many different shapes, and comes at you in your own individual forms and at different times.  Instead of waiting for the day of a meet to make a plan, we encourage you all to make a plan in advance of the meet. Of course one of the first items to check off is what’s in your swim bag, 2 pairs of goggles, extra caps, and of course an extra suit.  An extra towel and sweatshirt is always nice to snuggle in and stay warm during the meet.  The coaches have a season plan laid out for the group and this meet will help us in adjusting this plan as we head back to practice.   We understand that these meets look different this season but be thankful for the opportunity to race and take hold of that opportunity with a plan to be successful.  This will all pass and if you take advantage of every opportunity that is afforded to you, you will be in a better position both as a young person and a swimmer when that day arrives. When this meet appeared on our calendar, we decided

EFFORT

Last week as we worked through our test sets in the Prep and Gold group we would periodically look at the clock to check on everyone’s effort as the set evolved.  You may have figured out, or maybe not that the green clock also helps the coaches keep track of the groups effort with more consistency.  It makes it harder for you all to  ZONE OUT during the set, and you all know what we mean. We were amazed to watch the last (5) 50’s in the test set when we asked you to really work some magic and drop some time.  We were expecting some 1 and 2 second drops.  The problem arose when we were seeing over 5 second drops in a 50 at the end of a test set.  I’m not sure what you were waiting for other than the fact that you were at that fork in the road with 2 paths to choose from, the easy path or the harder path that involved a little more work and a big effort along the entire path. If the thought crossed your mind that we were going to get in and help you down the pool, you might want to ret

Veterans Day Workout

In honor of Veterans Day we will do the following workout to honor all of our veterans in each of our countries armed branches.  Before we do we think it’s important for you to understand the origin of Veterans Day.  WWI know as the “Great War” ended in June of 1919 with the signing of the treaty of Versailles, however the fighting actually ended on November 11th, 1918 when a armistice was signed by all forces to end all hostilities at the 11th hour.  At the time it was  believed to be the armistice to end all wars. November 11 was first know only as Armistice Day, but WWI brought about WWII and soon after we found ourselves involved in the conflict in Korea.  Because of these events the Congress struck out the word Armistice and replaced it with the word Veterans in 1954 and later that year it was signed into law by President Eisenhower and became a national holiday to honor all veterans of the past and also those currently serving our country.  Veterans Day is always observed on Nove

UPCOMING MEET

  Some information for you all as we look at our next 2 meets that are on the horizon.  Although the schedule is presenting some challenges this year, let’s attempt to keep it as normal as we can.  That being said as we look at the one day meet in November let’s look at events that will put you in a good position for a GREAT meet in December.   The December meet will be our first 2 day meet since last February and in any other week it falls on the same week as the Sports Fair meet which is our fall championship meet.  We will approach that meet with a championship attitude.  We will practice with that meet ⭕️ on our calendar.  We will continue to prepare for that meet and when the date nears, we will taper a little, we will suit up, we will swim our best events and we will have a good time, be successful and walk away happy 😃 . But coach what about our November meet?  Well guys this is what we call a training meet therefore there will be NO SUITING UP , no exceptions. When signing up

Practice is Everyting

The mindset that one has when arriving for practice goes a long way in determine one’s successes or failure’s during a meet.  You all know this sport well and how you are conditioned to viewing whether a race is successful or not, think about it.  After getting your hand to the wall, where do you shift your attention, the clock.  That clock will tell a story at that exact moment, but what I can tell you is that you start writing that story at practice and it is your story, no one else.  When we scrawl something on the whiteboard or verbally communicate the focus of a set to you, do you absorb it and really work on it, or do you just flush it and go about swimming along the line on the bottom of the pool.   We know your thinking they are on their soapboxes again, but we feel this is important if you truly would like to reach your goals and potential whatever they may be.  Let’s take a step back and look at that scoreboard for a moment.  It is something that all swimmers or most of the

Election Day Workout

So kiddos today is the last day of your 4 day weekend and it just so happens that it coincides with Election Day.  Have you ever wondered why Election Day falls on the second Tuesday in November giving you a day off from school every year.  Why not the first Monday or for that matter any other day of the week, of any other month. Although it's become more and more easy to vote early sometimes a couple of months before, the first Tuesday of November remains the official day.  But Why November?  Do you remember how Halloween came to be?  Harvest Time.  Yes it has to do with the same thing.  It was that time of the year when all the work for the year had been completed.  Why Tuesday?  Well long before polling places were far away and people had to travel long distances to vote.  For religious reasons people did not want to travel on Sunday and did not want it on Monday  for those same travel reasons, thus we land on Tuesday.   Another reason for that first Tuesday is because November

A HALLOWEEN MESSAGE

  We hope that this Halloween brings each of you Happy haunting.  This Halloween coincides with a full moon which should make for a nice crisp night to be outside with family or even maybe a few close friends.  The last time we had a full moon on Halloween was 2001 and all you swimmers had not even been born. Let's take a moment away from the pool and take a look at October 31, which started out being know as "All Hallow's Eve" or what you have come to know as Halloween.   This very special day began centuries ago at what was know at the time as the Celtic festival.  It was a time that coincided with the end of their harvest season along with the end of summer and goodbye to the long warm sunny day and the preparation for the dark cold days that lay ahead.  It was believed to be a good time to communicate with the deadened divine (having supernatural or magical insight) future. Now that we have an understanding of this day, let's look at some of the traditions of

MONDAY PRACTICE

Good Monday workout from all the groups. The Junior Gold group worked really hard on getting our head position corrected in free and back while at the same time trying to work on extending our strokes so that we were able to swim “tall” and thus more efficient and faster.  You guys were great with your focus on what we were trying to get you to do.  We also reminded you of our “5 second” rule off the turns and when you all applied it to your swimming, your walls improved tremendously.   Great effort! Why the 5 seconds?  Do we expect that in you races?  At your level and age at the moment 5 seconds is a lot to ask for, we agree, but if we can commit to 5 seconds in practice we believe that would translate to 2 seconds, maybe more when we are racing which would be a very good thing to strive for.  The more time we can be under water the better off we are as long as we are doing it efficiently.  So keep at it because it takes time to develop and become comfortable doing. The Senior Prep a

More than You Think

We had a really good week of practice cumulating with our challenge sets on Thursday and Friday.  As Tony said on Friday "I don't like when you bring that clock out." Hold on for a second that clock is your coach for the day and is a tool to motivate each and every one of you. Sunday started with a lot of good work on trying to lengthen our strokes.  For the time being we are going to use the long course format on Sunday to really focus in on our strokes so that when we get to our races we can just go.  Yes it can be harder, and requires more stamina but it does help you become a better swimmer.  Age groupers will find that if you have weak spots in your stroke, they surface very quickly in a long course pool.  In a short course pool flaws can be hidden especially if you have strong walls and underwater dolphin kicks. Think about that for a second.  If you are swimming in our groups on Sunday you have the best of both worlds.  A long course pool where you can really work

MEET FEEDBACK

We hope that all of you enjoyed yourselves yesterday with the opportunity to get back to what sports is all about, being able to compete.  Remember to send a little thank you to Coach Heather and also Mrs. Lim for all the hard work that they put in to afford all of you with the opportunity to get back to some racing.  We would also like to thank all of our parents for helping us with the meet.  It was much appreciated. We were so proud of each and every one of you for following all the safety precautions that were in place to allow us this opportunity.  You all took care of your warmups flawlessly with no issues and most of this was done on your own, and guess what no missed swims. THE MEET First observation was that within our groups we had no DQ's and this was with a lot of you executing your crossover turns in the IM.  Apparently a few of you still feel a little uncomfortable with the turn and that's okay as we will continue to work on it to help you get there. The personal

First Meet Back

  Yes it may be the season of witches, ghosts and goblins but this is no trick, we will be allowed to hold our first meet in over 7 months this coming weekend. As we prepare for this meet we would like to impress upon everyone in our groups how important it is to follow the guidelines that have been set up for everyones health and safety.   It is important to remember that while not swimming we are not going to be able to sit around in little groups socializing.  we need to keep are masks on and keep that distance between ourselves. Yes its is a small sacrifice that will keep us safe and hopefully will allow all of us to stay in the water and participate in future meets. Not knowing what the future holds we hope everyone has entered their best events for this meet.  Yes, you heard correctly lets swim our best events and have fun with this meet.  We would like to see you suit up for the meet and take the mental approach of a "mini" championship meet.  Prepare yourself mentally