“WIN”. What’s Important Now

 We are looking forward to some fast swimming this weekend for both our district swimmers and IMX swimmers. Try and get in a good warmup under whatever circumstances you find at your meet.  Remember everyone is working under the same conditions. All IMX swimmers should have received a email with warmup times, a layout of the pool and your seat assignments for the weekend. Here is your warmups for the meet so let’s be prepared and know what we are doing. 300 swim  200 kick (wake those legs up) 6x50 build into good turn and breakout smooth back  6x25 fast free (get your heart rate up some 100 swim down 11 and 12 year olds have 20 minutes so you may have to adjust with maybe a 200 instead of 300 and 4x50 instead of 6  13and 14 year olds you will have 25 minutes Take each event as it comes and have fun with each one.  Don’t look forward, Don’t look backwards.  Stay  in the present and work the moment in front of you.  Have fun with these events.

This week as swimmers from both the Senior Prep and Junior Gold groups prepare to head into their first championship style meets in almost a year it might be good to make a few mental notes before we head to the blocks.  We were asked the other day, should we suit up for IMX?  Simple answer, YES and that includes our High School kids swimming at Districts.  That will be the first mental signal that this meet is a little different and that your ready to swim fast. The last few weeks were spent on one task to improve your races and that was being more aggressive with your turns and maximizing your distance and speed off the walls.   This is such a simple task to perform during practice and as we try to get you to focus on it at every wall lets look at this task in a different light.  Your turn at the wall combined with your streamline begins the next segment of your race cumulating at, you guessed it, another wall.  See where we are going with this. Take a look at this diagram; How you

 JUNIOR GOLD GROUP Yesterday as we worked through our workout we emphasized how important your streamlines are off your blocks and every turn in your races.  We talked about how swimmers at your age and level should be able to get to the flags off every wall just with a good push and tight streamline, further off the start.  Stop and think for a second here, every 25 of your race begins at the wall where you should be moving at your top speed.  Without that good push off the turn along with a tight streamline combined with a couple of underwater dolphin kick.  My question to you all is, Why do we forget or ignore this one aspect in our swimming?  By the way I too when swimming find myself not having good streamlines off my walls.  I believe that in most cases it comes down to lack of focus, being lazy or my case being old and needing air. Remember playing the board game Monopoly with all the different properties, railroads, taxes and other spots you could move your piece to after the r

How do you handle setbacks?  Each of you look at your individual set backs in a different light and handle it in your own way.  The questions I have for each of you are; do you allow the setbacks define you?  How long do you let the setback fester before you bounce back?  If there was a flaw in your technique do you focus on correcting it?  Are you determined to bounce back Below are some stories that point out how swimmers at all levels have setbacks and how they deal with it.   Heyo, Gonna drop three quick stories on ya and then ask you what they all have in common. Here we go: 1. At the US Olympic Trials in 1988, during the final of the 200-meter individual medley, Summer Sanders was leading the pack at the 150-metter turn. She was 50-meters away from going to the Olympics. Sanders would end up placing third. Later, she reflected: "When I did lose, I underst

  Now that we have all our entries in for the IMX meet we thought this would be a good time to help you with some race strategies so that you walk in feeling confident.  The last thing you want to do is attempt to come up with a plan right before you head to the blocks.  Let’s try and come up with that plan now so that we have a couple of weeks to work out any concerns that you may have.  Go over your plan for each event in your head several times throughout the next two weeks and one last time as you head for the blocks for each race.  We are here to help you have a good experience with this meet. Let's start from the beginning, all your races will start with the dive but how important is it for the longer events that you will be swimming.   You are correct if you were thinking this, "I won't win this race with the start" but it does not make the start any less significant.  We have talked about finding that easy speed at the start of the race and with a good start

  SENIOR PREP.  So what were we trying to accomplish yesterday at practice with those 200’s and the 50’s at the end.  Now you all may have thought it was some type of game and in a way it might have been, and you may know it better as the sling slot set.  However we were also trying to teach you how to go about YOUR business and practice carefully but properly. One of the positives that has come out of this year is the fact that we are only swimming 4 in a lane giving all of you a great opportunity to really work on your techniques and race strategies.  As coaches we are able to really help you with your longer swims (200's) and you should seize on this opportunity and really try on making some big improvements.  To many times a swimmer looks at a particular event or distance and immediately their mindset goes from being relax and comfortable to one of instant fear, and sometimes you need to stare that fear down in order to move forward.  Again it's all about moving out of your

  "Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will." Let’s dive into that quote and see if we can apply it to our swimming or even daily lives.   As a swimmer (athlete), being able to to quite that  negative and destructive voice in your head can hinder your ability to perform.   "Performance = Potential - Interference" Simply stated you will swim, compete and perform your best when you have no interference or mental blocks.  Remember our old mental exercise when we kept putting on backpacks, remember that heavy  feeling with each additional bag.  Thats you trying to swim with all that garbage dancing in your head.  You need to develop a  mechanism to clear your head of all that garbage. How can you take out that garbage and clear your head,  we give you the "4 step  R.A.C.E. formula. R for relentless.  It comes down to the fact you must be relentless about your ability and  your desire to change those negative thoughts in your

  This weekend will see the high school swimmers return to their individual school meets and although they may have a different look and feel to it, relish and enjoy in the fact that you are at a meet with your teammates be it at a distance.    There are still parts of the country that are unable to practice and train must less compete so enjoy it, treasure the moment and follow the protocols that have been put in place to allow us to do it. For some of you it may have been a while since you have seen or been in each other’s company, maybe up to a year.  Their will be the initial period of excitement with what High School swimming has to offer, but remember and understand we are not out of this yet.  We have all worked very hard over the year, we have sacrificed and given up things in not only our swimming but also in are daily lives.  While we want you to enjoy your meets, we also want want you to remain vigilant by wearing your masks, staying apart and washing those hands.  Protect n

 So most of you know that I have been a Dallas Cowboy fan for a very long time and now your probably wondering what this has to do with swimming.  You need to keep an open mind as I work through the background and try to tie it all into both your swimming and really anything you do in the future. What you may not have know is that Coach Courtney is a big New York Giant fan and in fact a few years ago her kids gave me a Giant Christmas  ornament (and yes Courtney I still have it).  I made the statement to her daughter Naomi at practice to let her mom know that yes the Giants won but they still aren’t going to the playoffs and better yet the Cowboys get the better pick in the draft.  Coach Courtney asked at practice today if I thought the Eagle coach threw the game with Washington.  And this is where we try and bring it back to swimming and life. I let her know that maybe I am a little naive but I don’t believe that any athlete or coach especially at the professional level throws in the

  QUOTE FOR THE WEEK “ Focus on the step in front of you, not the whole staircase .”  I am pretty sure you have heard of this saying at some point in your young life.  You might even recall when I’ve reminded you with our saying of “ right foot, left foot, breathe.   But what’s it all mean really, well let’s explore and highlight how important that really is. As a swimmer your races don’t start when you step onto the blocks, it begins long before that moment.  Some of you may be thinking it starts at practice but you would only be half right.  It all begins with that walk into the building and the attitude you walk in with. You can’t do everything at once and you certainly won’t accomplish much with a sour attitude.  Understanding what you need to work on and then going out and doing it is not always easy,  but with the right attitude those steps become easier to climb. For you all those steps could be as simple as adding 1 dolphin kick to your underwater’s off the wall or maybe as we

  Now that the holidays are over, we want to wish you a happy new year.  Here is hoping that your year gets off to a great start at home, academically, in the pool and with any other endeavors that you undertake in 2021. The new year will bring an end to our abbreviated holiday training tomorrow with a fast sprinting set, but it also will be a start with a clean slate and allows you a chance to review your goals and set some New Year's Resolutions to help you reach those goals.  Although you already have made your goals at the beginning of our season, we can always use New Year's as a time to make resolutions to enhance your goals. New Year, New You, New Swimmer   Some of you may not have set goals back in September and thats okay, but let's make 2021 the year to change that.  You should always take a few moments each season and set some goals for yourself.  These goals can relate to many areas of your swimming and they don't always have to be result oriented.  These go