“WIN”. What’s Important Now

  "Talk doesn't cook rice."   Chinese Proverb It's easy to say things especially in today's world the real work starts bye going out and doing! For the past two weeks we have given you all a huge amount of sets to try and help each group with their UNDERWATER DOLPHINS off the walls or as we like to say using your fifth stroke. Adapting the strong underwater dolphin kick to human bodies isn't easy, but it is very effective.  Swimmers are limited by our "bow wave",  that little wave in front of us that travels down the pool with us.  Unlike dolphins who can literally jump over that wave 🌊 swimmers aren't capable of getting over or around it, but we can get under it and the longer we can stay under it the better off we are.   The debate for swimmers is whether the mastery of this stroke comes with a loss of speed.  That is the question,  at what point does using that kick affect your speed and thus your time.  Luckily rules are in place that you c

  “WIN”  WHAT’S IMPORTANT NOW So maybe that streamline or UW dolphin kick aren’t important to you in training today.  Maybe today isn’t the day you want to really work hard.  You’ve made up your mind that today isn’t the day but someday it will be. I only have one question for you which is, Where is someday on this calendar and where does it fall into the week?  I’ve checked all my calendar’s at the house at the pool and I can’t find one that has someday in it. If your putting off something today waiting for someday it’s going to be a long…long wait. Looking for a healthy snack for that appetite after a swimming session?  After that training session or meet you need to feed that monster with some healthy food.   Remember you need to fuel your body with "high octane food" if you want it to perform at high level.  Don't forget junk in = junk out.   It is important for swimmers to refuel after every 90 minutes of swimming g activity.  It is also important to snack before dur

 "If January is the month of change, February is the month of lasting change." Always swim tall, swim fast in and out of your turns and always finish to the hand on the wall. Without a vision you are swimming blind not much different than swimming with water in your goggles. Although swimmers have the vision of "big races, fast times and ultimate success" their vision often becomes blurred and hard to see.  I truly believe that most swimmers look at swimming as "swimming practice" and they think by attending practice and just swim that they will get the results they want.  This may be true in a young swimmers development but with each birthday those results become harder to attain especially as your times get faster.   So what can you do? The first thing is to have a vision of where you are headed and a plan on how to get there.  (Certainly you want to have a better plan than Coach Heather and I or else you never know where you'll end up")  The fi

  SENIOR PREP So, yesterday Dude and Anna had their birthday swims where they were ask to guess their times in a 50 free within 1.0 seconds up or down.  The reason I like doing this is twofold, first to see what your confidence level is and second to show you what it takes to swim fast. This 50 took place at the end of practice and after we did those 6x100 and 6x50 all out at a tight interval.  Forward to the guess (Dude 27.7 and Anna 27.9) and at first thought I wanted them to think about it, because at first thought I knew they were probably guessing high and being safe.  Let me repeat that “being safe”. THE RESULTS ARE IN —-The two of them finished in a dead heat coming in at 25.90 on my watch.  Compensating for human error let’s say 26.3 and so by playing safe they were outside of that 1.0 second of their guess. What’s your point coach?  It’s simple CONFIDENCE. The swimmer who is confident will have a much easier path towards their goals and it starts with how you talk to yourself

"If you're scared to lose rather than excited to win, then that's the wrong way to approach a race." CATE CAMPBELL... That one quote says a lot about what we as coaches observe while watching swimmers walk around the deck during a swim meet.  I venture to guess that the elephant in the room that most scares you is that final result that appears on the scoreboard be it the place, the time or both.  In your fantasy world you may think you can control that board but in reality all you can do is believe in yourself and the work you have put in and just race.  That’s how you control that board.  Put the pen to the paper and write your story.   We've talked about controllable and uncontrollable in previous sessions and now I want to put this question out there, Can you control the uncontrollable?  To an extent I would says but it takes practice just like anything else.  Swimming like life moves fast.  Situations happen, things go wrong and your ability to manage those