DON’T FORGET THE PARENTS

Gold group working on exploding into streamlines.  We need help!

We know that a lot of the parents have been missing the opportunity to have the little glimpse of their 🏊‍♀️ swimmer in the pool, be it catching a practice, watching a race or even maybe working the tables or on that hot deck.  Come on you may think Saturday’s have been calm and relaxing 😎 but you know that you miss that organized chaos that all of you participate in.  Without giving away age I will say that this is thefirst summer that have not had  a meet to go to since I was 6 and it was probably a few more years as I had older siblings who were on the team, but my guess is those early years were spent at the snack bars or in the 👶 kiddie pools across the league.

Anyway I thought I would try and update all of you on what your swimmers have been doing in the pool as to make you feel like your still involved especially since some of them may not share as much as others.  As I approached this summer and started working with these kids I had to switch the way I prepared workouts for the groups.  We all know how hard it is for all athletes to have a goal to work toward and for most of them it’s comes down to “ game day” or for swimmers race day.  It’s all about them shooting off the wall or the blocks and getting those fingers back to the finish wall as fast as they can.  So we had to really design some workouts that are different, challenging, new, fun.  We have I introduced the crossover turn for the IM transition which has been interesting 🧐 to see the progress which as you can imagine runs the gamut.  However some have picked it up really well, others are progressing, some are struggling but keep trying, but all have an understanding of it and continue working on it with some kind of set each practice.

 Senior prep working on Distance per stroke

This past week we have reintroduced the old tempo trainer which some swimmers love and others view as a nagging coach in their ears, a constant reminder of how you are doing against yourself.  We have shown them how to use them in a variety of ways that can be both challenging and motivational while at the same time help with their racing techniques.  We have used them in some kicking sets showing them how to have little bursts of speed within their races.  Today we had a little contest where we all set our trainers on the same time and had to beat that beep to the wall in a 25 free.  Everyone would lower it to what I decided until we had one left swimming.   As you missed your beep it was time to exit the pool, you were done.  Talk about watching kids swimming fast and putting forth a great effort.  Parents you would have been proud of all the swimmers.  We actually ended 10 minutes late (sorry parents) but even the kids who were out stayed to watch our final two Rece and Ryan go for the grand prize. You didn’t think I’d tell you who won did you, I’ll let the kids tell you.