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 on the flaws in your strokes, but only if you embrace that thought and really focus. In the short course pool it becomes vital to perform all of your turns and underwater dolphins as if you are racing. Why?, because most if not all age groupers are still developing their stroke and therefore flaws do exist. Your walls are a way to overcome some of those flaws.
On Tuesday and Wednesday we got some good stroke and IM work in with a couple of good kick sets. yes everyone may have that favorite stroke they enjoy doing but the coaches really feel that it is vital to have a good IM in your tool box, therefore lets really get some outstanding efforts in the future as we work through our season.
We finished off our week with our challenge sets on Thursday and Friday. This set built off of our previous sets and what we were asking you all to do was simple, CHALLENGE YOURSELF on every repeat. Again we are trying to help you learn how to race. Sure it is always easy to drift in and drift out of a set, go fast when I feel like it, go easy on some and catch my breath. This does not work in a race and that is what we are trying to teach you. We are looking for consistency with the set, in short the same time on every repeat. We believe with this type of set we are starting to realize that we have more in the tank than we thought.
Sometimes we think too much about racing and how fast to go and what we are trying to teach is to get out faster at the front of your race. You all are pretty smart and mentally your brain will not allow you to go out too fast so lets not worry about holding back, it may very well backfire. And when you have a chance to race, Ask yourself "Why Not Me?" and for for it wether be it a meet or practice.
Be the BEST version of YOURSELF
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