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 and High School group worked on our 200 races.  The first thing to consider is how you look at the 200 free, it’s not a sprint, but it is not a distance event either.  So what in the world is it?  It falls somewhere in between but I believe it is closer to a sprint than many of you want to admit to yourselves.  So where do we go now?  You are always telling us how smart you are so let’s step up to the chalkboard and do a little math problem. Yesterday we were trying to get you to look a

at the  200  as 4 races within itself.  Here is a formula we found learns ago that goes a long way in understanding when looking at the 200.  It goes something like this,  X + (x+1.7) + (x+1.6) + (x+1.5) = time.  Let’s break it down so that our fellow teammates will understand.  What is the x ?  Simply this is that first 50 from a dive.  As you get into that second 50 there is just a little drop off, not much and is usually from the fact that we lose the dive.  A  big mistake a lot of swimmers make here is that they back off too much and can’t recover.  You have to find that easy comfortable speed in that first 100 which hopefully will only be 3-4 second off your best 100 time and set you up for a great second 100.   As you  can see that 3rd 50 is faster than your second.  This 50 is really when a lot of swimmers slow down, but it’s also the time where you can take over the race be it another swimmer or the clock.  This is where you have to decide to race.  It’s a mental thing now.  You either want to be average today or great.  You decide at that moment.  It’s your decision.   On to that last 50 now and this is where you have to really believe in yourself and the training that you have been doing.  If you have been honest with your training that 4th 50 will be there and you will get your hand to that wall in record time.  In order to get the results that you are looking for you have to put in the work.  Notice I did not say putting in the time anyone can do that, what you do with that time at practice is the true answer to all your swimming problems.

Class dismissed