KICK CHALLENGE

 

Hope the first week of school went really well for all of you.  Hope you have some awesome 😎 classes and teachers that will challenge you during the school year.

Now with a little down time over the next couple of days it may be a good time to dust off your equipment bag and head out for a tune up swim to lessen that feeling of swimming like a out of shape whale in about 12 days.

You certainly would like to avoid that feeling, I would think.  Remember how we talked last time about the importance of our kicking early in. the season, here is a set to try out over the weekend if your up for a challenge.

This whole set should take 55 minutes or less. So here we go.

WARM UP see if you can go for a 5 minute swim mixer 

 

MONSTER KICK SET. (I am just going to throw out 2 intervals for the 100's and you can adjust so you get about 20-30 seconds rest in between.

4x100 kick @2:20/2:30 last 25 all out

4x25 kick on back all out @45 keep the hips up

REST 1:00

3x100 kick @2:20/2:30  negative split 2nd 50 faster than first

4x25 kick on back all out @40

REST 1:00

2X100 KICK @2:20/2:30 FIRST 75 ALL OUT STAY WITH IT

4x25 kick all out @35

REST 1:00

1x100 kick all out @2:20/2:30

4x25 kick all out @30

WARM DOWN 200 swim IM/free nice long and controlled stroke NO SPEED HERE!

As you go through this kick set here are three things that will help you develop that killer kick;

1. Start the kick from your core and hips.  (notice how that word core popped up).
2. Kick narrowly with a very slight knee bend.
3. Kick near the surface and keep those ankles relaxed.  (this will help reduce resistance and will give you great body position and alignment.

So dust off this swim and equipment bags, follow that scent of chlorine and jump in and get wet.  You need a pool grab a friend come visit, we can have ice cream afterwards.

Have fun with it!

GOALS AND KICKING

HELLO SWIMMERS.  We hope your first couple of days back in the classroom went well.  Seeing old friends and meeting new ones is always exciting.  We are excited and looking for the same experience at our first workout  in 15 days.  Use the next couple of weeks wisely and settle into your academics before we add swimming to the mix.  Remember you are a STUDENT/ATHLETE.

Last we we talked about getting mentally prepared for our upcoming season and the importance of setting some good habits from day one.  Another way to mentally prepare yourself for the upcoming season is to sit down and ponder on what you would like to accomplish as you work through the season ahead, and it starts with setting some goals.  Goals don’t always have to be about your time.  They can involve many different areas of your swimming, but they will usually all affect your times in the end.  I came across this list the other day and immediately thought of you all and how it could help you start thinking outside of the box when you start setting your goals.  After reading the list grab a pen and put your thoughts to paper and see what you can come up with for your swimming journey this year.  

FIRST LOOK

   Early practice’s 

So what's our first couple of weeks in the pool shaping up to look like.  Our focus will be on some high intensity kicking.  Why?  First off is that along with your core it will serve as a good foundation for some fast swimming this season and its also is a great way to get into shape at the beginning of the season.  If your not sold on kicking yet let's look at it this way, the majority of your muscle mass is in your legs.  Let's set the groundwork now for some fast swimming.

I would like to ask the swimmers in Mike's Senior prep and Junior Gold groups to purchase the following piece of equipment for our workouts.  They are available on the Finis web site and through amazon.

Finis Alignment kickboards

 

Finis tempo trainer

Have a good week

CHASING DREAMS AND SETTING GOALS

Today let's turn our focus to the pool side of your upcoming year.  Before you even dive into the water

ask yourself these two questions; What can I do to to reach my GOALS and DREAMS for this season?  When should I start?  First off you should have started  the day after your last practice.  

If you have goals and dreams for your short course season you NEED to start chasing them now and not wait until the time is convenient for you.  Funny thing about dreams and goals the longer you wait the further they run away from you until it becomes impossible to catch regardless of your efforts.  First goal I would like all of you to make is, I won't be that swimmer.

So how do we prepare mentally to get ready for our upcoming season.  The first thing is to take a honest look back at the previous season.  What worked?  What didn't work?  Did you focus on your fundamentals with consistency or only when an important meet was coming up?  Did you meet your goals?  I venture to guess that there were stretches last season when things all went your way.  You were in that zone.  Reflect on those times and write down how you felt, what music you listened to, what you ate, your workouts and so on.  In other words take all those positive things and store them away.  Take all the negative stretches away from last season and let them go, we are not going to dwell on them as we are moving forward into the new season.

In order for you to be successful in this sport, you need to mentally challenge yourself. You need to start building good habits from day one.  Everyone should have this as their number one goal, be consistent with your workouts. Some other examples off building good habits are;

• Be on time for workouts and meets.  (if practice starts at 5 that means caps on bags at there edge of the pool ready to go.  we are not putting our c app on arg 5.)
• Dolphin kicks- start from day 1 with a minimum of 3 overtime you leave the wall.
• Turns- every wall- speed in-speed out- deep arm pull no breath.
• Hydration- bring your water bottles- drink so you can maintain your energy level.
• Time Management- It's critical that you stay up with your academics so that you can run your schedule.  Don't let work pile up putting you in the position where your schedule is running you
• Journals-  From time to time connect with your journals and write down how it's going.  'Your ups and downs.  What worked or didn't work.  Sets you like. Sets you didn't like.

Get ready to Rock your swimming with good habits.

Have a Great weekend!

Enjoy that first day of school.

LOOKING FORWARD TO NEW SEASON

SUMMER FADE

I hope you are enjoying the last few days of the summer.   It seems like the summer has melted away as fast as a popsicle but unlike a swimmer who can stop a clock with a touch to the pad we can’t really stop the clock of life.

As the Senior Prep, Junior Gold, and Junior Blue groups begin preparing for the upcoming season it’s time to come up with a theme for the season.  I have always encouraged you all to take ownership of your swimming because the person that it is most important to is “U”.  Therefore for the last week I have been working on putting together our first few weeks of workouts and our theme for the year will be, There is a “U” in success. 

Say that to yourself right now.  Now write it down on an index card.  Now post it in your room where you can see it every day.  If you say it enough, you see it daily,  you will start to believe in it and yourself.

What can you do to start off the new academic school year and our short course swimming season in a strong positive way.  

Start getting into your school year routine NOW.   The first thing you can do is to think about adjusting your body clock.  Since summer swimming ended a lot of you may have fallen into those lazy dog days of summer, staying up late and sleeping in.  Some of you may think of me as an "old wise man" or maybe not but here is a piece of advice  to lessen the shock next Monday morning.  Make an attempt this week of going to bed a little earlier and if you need it set that alarm and get up earlier each day.

If you had summer reading or homework assignments this might be a good week to finish it all up and for those of you who never started it, what are you waiting for?  just like we do in swimming start visualizing how you would like your school year to go.  Start making some goals and like in life be ready to adjust on the fly because you will hit bumps throughout the year.

Above all remember that you are a student/athlete.  Read that again and the order that the words student/athlete appear.  You can't be a swimmer without being a student first.

Now that we have you ready for the school year lets turn our attention to the pool.  The first thing you might want to think about is heading out to your summer pools over the next few weeks and just jumping in and going for a swim, nothing hard just something to get get rid of the cobwebs and avoid that heavy/sluggish feeling that always happens when we return to the later.  Let's call it a tune up to put you in a better position for those first couple of weeks.

GEAR BAG- When was the last time you checked it or cleaned it.  Get rid of anything that has mold on it and replace it.  Do your fins still fit?  Mako Cap?  Goggles in good shape?  Snorkel in working order? Pull Buoy anywhere? Paddles with bands?  Kick boards?  Water bottle?

Now that we have taken care of your gear bag let's turn to your body and what you can be doing to prepare it for the upcoming season.  The NUMBER 1 thing to physically get ready for that first day of practice other than some light swimming is to do a lot of core work.  A strong core is crucial to your success in swimming.  A strong core gives you a powerful platform from which you can pull, push, and kick through the water.  A strong core helps you maintain a good body position, keeps your hips high (have I ever told you to get your hips up) reducing drag and making you more efficient as you chase your goals. If you spend 15 minutes 4 times a week now, I promise you that you will feel better and stronger and it will pay BIG dividends later in the season.

CORE EXERCISES FOR FASTER SWIMMING

PLANK

• Support yourself on your forearms.
• Squeeze your abs and your butt to achieve a straight body position.
• Your mid section will try to sag toward the floor, don't let it.  Hold that straight line including your head
• Breathe.
• Hold for 30 rest for 15. (try increasing time until you can hold for 1 minute rest 30 and repeat.

HIP BRIDGES

• Get on your back, lay your arms down at your side.
• Keep your feet flat on the floor and raise your trunk towards the sky.
• Stop when you have achieved a straight line spine.  Don't over extend.
• Hold for a three count, and SLOWLY descend.

SUPERMAN

• Lay face down on the ground, arms straight above head.
• Tighten your gluten (butt muscles). Pull them in towards your belly button.
• Lift your left arm while also raising your right leg.  Hold for 3 count. Now switch arms and legs.
• Don't drop your arm and legs, you want a controlled movement.
• Continue with this combo for 30 seconds and rest for 30 and repeat.

V-SITTING KICKING

• Sitting on the ground start fluttering your legs up and down.  Focus on making small kicks as close as possible to your kick in the water.  Remember big kicks create drag.

• Balance yourself and bring your arms above your head into a streamline position.  You may have to cross your arms on your chest until you build that core.

RUSSIAN TWISTS

• Sit on the ground, raise your ankles off the ground, lean back a little to balance yourself.
• Use a med ball, pull buoy and turn your shoulders 45 degrees. Touch the mat. Now the other way. Continue for 30 seconds and rest for 30 seconds.
• Perform these with control.  Don't flop around.

HOW OFTEN

POSITIVE VERSUS NEGATIVE

For all you Gold/Blue swimmers who came out this weekend to race, it was great to watch you.  As we watched you go through your events we were pleasantly pleased to see how much a lot of you improved especially in the breaststroke and butterfly events.  It goes to show how your hard work on those stroke days have really paid off.  The fact that your in that long course pool and are able to get into a good rhythm without the walls have helped all of you tremendously.

The work that we have done with those tempo trainers have been helpful in figuring out your pacing and as long as you combine that with your color chart you will continue to see those improvements.  This was very evident in those 400 free events.   It’s awesome to see it starting to come together for all of you.  Now you won’t see the big drops if any as those times come down. I will promise you this however, if you show up, work smart, work hard those great swims will be there at the right time.

Some of you will be ending long course after this week but regardless where you practice remember to work hard, play hard and have fun with your summer friends and teams.  Don’t forget summer swimming is about STARTS, TURNS AND FINISHES.Take them seriously.  RACE AND SCORE POINTS for your teams unless of course you swim for Oakton, Orange Hunt, or Mantua in which case feel free to head to the beach those weekends.

 Feed the positive.  Starve the negative.  Stay positive this summer and remember it’s about racing and scoring points.  Let’s not get wrapped up in times until around divisional.  If your lucky you may see time drops each week, but it’s hard to do.  So go into each meet with this thought, I own this race. Be the big dog and get your hand to the wall first.

Think about this statement, “You become what you feed your mind,” and it got me to think about it’s importance in swimming if not your life in general.  Can any of you say that you can have a healthy body by eating a steady diet of empty calories such as chips, candy or any other food filled with sugar that gives you that roller coaster ride of the ups followed by the, you guest it, the big downfall.  How do you expect to have positive performances in your swimming if you are constantly feeding your mind with a steady diet of negativity.  

It’s take as much training to train your mind as it does your body.  What in todays world it’s hard not to focus on some of the negative things from time to time.  The key was from time to time.  You can’t let the scary things out there overwhelm you to the point that it affects your performance.  At the same time it is unrealistic to have nothing but positive thoughts.  You need to come up with a balance that works for you and allows you to perform at your best even if does not always result in a best time.

Worrying for a few seconds during a meet or before a race is one thing but spending countless time in that dark hole worrying about things that most of the time are out of your control is just foolish and can become very contagious to those around you.  Not only are you own mind with junk food but you are force feeding those around you and now everyone is on that junk food mentality and quite frankly I can’t see any positives arising from that dark hole.

If anything choose your worries carefully and start talking positive a little more often and remember you can’t just mouth things like I’m going to go fast.  You need to believe it.  Saying it doesn’t make it so.

Feeding the positive starts with your thoughts and feelings.  It’s so easy to walk around feeding your negative side such as, I’m tied, or I don’t feel good.  You might even think why show up, I’m going to just get a good old fashion beat down.  Maybe so but that’s why we race.  Our team might face that this summer but I will promise you that we will show up and RACE.   If we get beat we will tip our caps, say good job and move on.  The alternative is to not swim and that’s not an option period.

RECONNECTING PART 2

 You made a choice to be a swimmer, You made a choice to make your workouts.  You've made sacrifices.  Now maybe it is time for you to sit down and consider how powerful a process-focused mindset can be for you in the water instead of leaving all your goals and dreams to chance.

The process is like a checklist that includes everything from proper rest, proper nutrition, proper hydration, consistent dry land, proper technique, proper turns, proper finishes and of course that last thing on all of your checklists, the outcome.

A mouthful in that paragraph.  My question to you is; Are you a swimmer who trusts that process and has your own checklist, or are you the type that is all about the outcome and ignore everything else.  If your the latter your ignoring all the little steps that go into that GREAT swim.  When you obsess over the outcome and ignore everything else it adds anxiety and uncertainty that leads to crashing on race day.

The process is personal and is yours and it starts with building a process that you can control.  Life is full of uncertainties and so is swimming.  First off you can't control what other swimmers are doing so stop worrying about them.  STAY IN YOUR LANE.  You can't predict a slow start, slipping off a turn or even stubbing a finger on the lane line.  All uncertainties and out of your control.  Your process should only include things like effort, techniques, sleep, sleep habits nutrition, positive mindset and positive self talk.  

The more often that you practice it, and do it correctly, the more you can rely on it an d use it when you need it and the less stress and frustration you are going to deal with on RACE DAY.

RECONNECTING PART 1

 

Now that our short course season has ended and we have had our first day of Long Course practice along with our first meet this might be a good time to reconnect with your swimming mental

Even kids and swimmers can get dragged down by life and everyday occurrences ranging from school, swimming or other sports, friends, family issues and yes all the technology that is throw at you, especially from social media.

The question you need to ask yourself is this, When I get dragged down a little am I going to stay down or will I pick myself up breathe and move forward.  Wow hope the answer is YES.

I find it fascinating that the majority of swimmers, if not ALL what to have a GREAT RACE overtime off the block but yet they won't take the extra few minutes to do something that will help them achieve it.  For sure they show up for practice, hop in and start swimming, but is it with a purpose.

We have talked here in the past about the process, but what is the process?  

Part of the process involves the outcome, you know what I'm talking about here the time.  The outcome also involves what you want to accomplish during practice and it has a lot more to do besides going up and down that black line.  It involves things such as stroke counts, breathing pattern, the catch, the kick, the turn, the underwater kicks.

This and so much more is part of the process to help you get to your dreams; your training regimen, your daily practice habits.  The process is how you execute from day-to-day, practice-to-practice, lap-to-lap.

Go back, read the highlighted part again.  The take away here is that you can't do the things correctly during practice only when it is convenient for you, or only when you feel like it.  An example of this took place yesterday during both the morning and evening practices.  We were doing some backstroke drill/swim work and this is what I observed from a few swimmers, pushing off on their stomachs and rolling over before finishing.  Why would you practice things the wrong way or in ways that cause DQ's?  If this next statement offends you, GOOD it should.  The only reason a swimmer does these things are; one, they are lazy, two they have no discipline, or three they just don't care.  Saying you care are only words. ACTIONS speak louder than words.  Mastering the techniques involved with this sport will get you nearer to your goals.

Mastering the process is more than a catch phase.  It's an outlook. An attitude.  A mindset that ensures you train smarter, better, and ultimately and more importantly, faster.

NEXT UP TRUSTING THE PROCESS