This is another great live streaming site for triathlons. Great filming a great stuff (that’s a Livestreaming term…ha)
here is the link for these guys! http://triathlonLIVE.tv
This is another great live streaming site for triathlons. Great filming a great stuff (that’s a Livestreaming term…ha)
here is the link for these guys! http://triathlonLIVE.tv
It was all foggy, a haze, a steam cloud billowing from the 50 meter watery race track in Indy… I was barely there physically but my mind was there very intensely and focused on the other end of the lane.
The deadly silence was creating a eerie feeling in my mind, but I knew there was something going on that was more than epic, things that were unbelieveable and heart riveting. An event was playing in my mind over and over, something that I worked on for months, years in fact and this was the final time it would play. A last march, a point of ecstasy, a final destination.
I look up, see the end, water drips from my chisled chin. Then I heard a command that felt extremely soothing, yet scarey, “Take your mark.”
I heard a water droplet at the end of the pool hit the tile floor 80 meters away, as if I was by myself in a huge warehouse. Then we were off.
I hit the cool 78 degree water and felt like a slick missile from a nuclear submarine speeding through the ocean trying to get to the object first. “How simple is that? Just get there first, before anyone else.”
I felt great, pulling through with ease and creating a little distance between me and the other speedy missiles. I should; I grew up being taught by the best teachers in the world, the meanest, the smartest, the most strategic. Flip turns were absolutely perfect. I always wanted to be the world’s fastest on the walls with the largest plus sign in the universe.
On the way back to my launching pad, I took a quick peek and saw that I was in the lead at the point–just now I hear sounds, muffled noises, lower voices, louder cheers and yelling. They were looking at me, at the lucky person in the middle lane. The noise was almost deafening now, it was hard to think. I kept my head and nose down to drown out the distracting sound.
I touched, I looked both ways, no one was here yet, I must have won, I clearly won. Oh my gosh, the noise! My ballistic heart rate felt like it was beating from the outside. People were congratulating me, looking at me on the big screen. I half smiled and immediately thought about all my insane coaches and family sacrifices that got me to this unreal moment.
“Johnny, Johnny, get up! You are going to be late for practice,” my mom yelled. “What the heck was that?—Dayum!” I said. “What was what?”
Bummer, off I go.
Another day to turn this dream into a reality.
After this fast weekend at Junior Nationals our younger swimmmers realized several things: Yes it was a fast meet, yes they were older, yes the great coaches were there. But in addition to these, one very important event happened that needed to take place with all these younger athletes. They got to see how close they are to actually competing with these fast swimmers.
Young swimmers got to watch some of the nation’s best swimmers through the entire race process — what they do mentally and physically to get ready to race. They got to see what the A and B Final swimmers look like while swimming backstroke, head position and tempo, or the timing in breaststroke with the efficency and glide is absolutely invaluable! So let’s talk about the Pre, Race and Post race pieces that we observed.
Watching Race Prep
Watching the A and B Final swimmers conduct their race prep is probably what gives them an edge from all the other less experienced swimmers. Beginning with a good warm up and then getting by themselves, mentally going through the race in their head, visualizing (see old post), and swinging and stretching their limbs for maximum speed. What that also does is prepares their muscles from a physiological standpoint. For more information, check this article out. This one is from 2002 and for cycling, but it has all the same principles that apply to swimming. Physiology and your muscles
Most young athletes really don’t know what to do and oftentimes they talk and run around right before events. You know what? The more the young athletes practice their meet prep and spending the effort to do so, the more powerful the process and therefore the more focused, and obviously a better and more ready the athlete is! So get practicing with race prep. By the way, it works. I told one of my athletes just this month to start working on it and get your head in the game…What an absolute turn around! It works.
The Race
The Junior National swimmers showed it this weekend. Plain and simple, training takes over. If you have been training to your expertise or your best efforts, the race will take care of itself. So, listen to your coach, focus on technique, and develop your strength and stamina during practice.
Post Swim Care
We coaches state that warming up and warming down are key to great swimming and the longevity of the body as well as onging performance. But how do we really know this? USA Swimming put out a great article about the art of recovery, check it out! Who knew sprinters needed more swim down than distance swimmers? Watching the Junior National swimmers go directly to the warm down even before speaking with their coach was a good lesson for our young athletes.
Swimming multiple events at multi-day meets are very taxing on the body and young athletes need to realize that. The swimmer with most “in the tank” both physically and mentally on the last day will and should prevail everytime.
After this fast weekend at Junior Nationals our swimmers learned a great deal. Hopefully you can also spread this knowledge throughout your team and develop your own “team Pre, race and post strategy” for greatness.
Let me know how your team or your athletic pre, race and post race has changed and how you have worked on it. I’ll post it here on the blog!
Go to Florida Swim Network at http://FloridaSwimNetwork.com, we’ll see you over there!
We now have 3A up under the Results Tab and the High School Tab.
For future reference. This blog has moved to the Florida Swim Network site. Go see http://FloridaSwimNetwork.com
by SwimmerJoe
Thinking of you high schoolers. This is the night before the BIG ONE.
Night of fear
Night of excitement
Night of team
Night of sweat
Night of not sleeping
Night of shaving
Night of apprehension
Night of stress
Night of selective thinking
Night of visualization
Night of silence
Night of boredom
Night of waiting
Night of dreaming
Night of winning
Roll over, get the hotel wake up call
Morning of carbs
Morning of slickness
Morning of queasiness
Morning of worry
Morning of intense worrying
Morning of excitement
Morning of readiness
Morning of warming up over and over
Morning of heats
Morning of praying
Morning of giving it the fight of your life
Morning of dreaming
Morning of crying
Morning of the big one
Morning of the rest of your life
Smile and go rest in between
Night of epic proportions
Night of speed
Night of swimming out of your mind
Night of slow motion
Night of noise
Night of extreme stress
Night of fear
Night of bathroom breaks
Night of silence
Night of explosiveness and power
Night of elevated heart rate
Night of unbelievable performances
Night of records
Night of my life
Do it!
For future reference – This blog has moved over to the Florida Swim Network site. Take a look - http://FloridaSwimNetwork.com
After focus, the world’s greatest athletes list visualization as the next most important aspect of their mental training. The importance of this is definitely a must! You have to see yourself being great. I can only speak from my experience, but visualization was huge for me in swimming and other sports that I participated in. (Yes, I was Middle School Champ in wrestling, too!)
In swimming, I would visualize over and over, and over and over again, just to do it absolutely perfect in my mind. I would know how I was going to start, how the stroke felt, how fast the turns were going be, when to breath, on and on until I touched the wall and saw the clock with my best time! Bedtime is the perfect time to practice this…What you can do is relax your body and start from the beginning of your race with how your body feels, the air, the sounds, what you hear and have the special event in your empty relaxed mind. You go through your pre-swim ritual in your head, the stretches, the breathing and the preparation of your event. You see yourself starting swimming and pulling through the water with 100% effort and efficiency….then you glance up at the wall and are extremely overjoyed by the numbers you see on the scoreboard. If you believe you can be the best you can be, if you can actually visualize yourself excelling at your sport and feel the power through your visualization techniques, your will be one mean, powerful and unstoppable athlete!
If you are just training hard that’s great, you will get benefit from that, but if we also add the focus component and visualization technique you will start becoming an even greater well-rounded and more complete athlete. The focus and the visualization probably are worth 50 – 60% of the entire picture, so don’t go on much longer without it. I don’t like giving people a 60% advantage over me doing something and I assume you don’t either! Practice this every night and you will start noticing a difference by mid November…..Let me know how it goes.
For future reference – This blog has moved over to the Florida Swim Network site. Take a look – http://FloridaSwimNetwork.com
Need a workout? Why don’t you try this one on for size? This was a workout done by the Blue Dolfins Age Group athletes on Saturday, November 5, 2011.
Enjoy and let me know how you did.
12 x 50 :40 every 4th backstroke
300 3:45 Free
3 x 100 2:30 IM
3 x 100 2:50 KICK
3 x 50 1:00 Descend, stroke
(3 x)
Fins
6 x 50 1:15 37 ½ under, 12 ½ sprint
6 x 25 :25 underwater shooter
4 x 25 :40 All out choice
9 x 50 1:00 boys under :25, girls under :27
4 x 400 5:15 Paddles and Buoy, long, breathing every 3 strokes down, every 5 strokes back
Let me know how you did. Tell me your sets or workouts and we will post them! Bye for now, train hard!
After training for a Half Ironman and loving the Tour de France like I do, I thought I would pass this along. If you are in town (Orlando), you should go see him (tell them swimmerjoe sent ya), or watch online LIVE. All the information is below.
Robbie was a professional cyclist for 12 years with his last 4 years as a member of the U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team alongside Lance Armstrong and his U.S. Postal teammates. A competitive racer on the dirt, road and track since the age of 7, Ventura amassed over 70 victories during his professional career, was a member of the U.S. World Team and rode the Track World Championships in Hamar, Norway, placing 5th in the elimination.
Robbie is also the founder and owner of Vision Quest Coaching. With a talented staff of world-class coaches, VQ provides expert training programs for over 300 endurance athletes of all levels, kids and beginners to elite-level, Tour de France champions. Robbie made his TV debut with Versus Television (then OLN), joining Al Trautwig and Bob Roll as acommentator at the 2006 Tour de France, returning each year since.
Join Robbie Ventura for an evening of Training with Power. Wednesday May 25th from 5:30 – 7:00 pm, at the College Park location, 2517 Edgewater Dr, Orlando 32804, 407-422-2458. Seating is limited to 75 people. Please RSVP to yvette@davidsworld.com or watch online LIVE at http://FloridaSwimNetwork.com.
Learn the importance of establishing a performance baseline and tracking your progress. At David’s World Cycle and Vision Quest, we are dedicated to providing the highest quality of endurance training so every person can achieve true health and fitness and reach his or her athletic goals.
See you there—or get on the chat at http://FloridaSwimNetwork.com while you are watching the LIVE telecast.
So every now and then we do a few distance sets for the age-groupers! Here is one we did today that really got to a few of them!
5 x 100 warmup, fast interval
2 x 800 IM
20 x 25 Fly from a dive
2 x 400 IM
5 x 100 Backstroke
2 x 200 IM
8 x 50 Breaststroke
2 x 100 IM
5 x 100 Freestyle fast interval
Put them IM’s on a fairly decent interval and push the single stroke sets even more. Should be a good one for them. Also, if you want to make it even more difficult, throw in active rest. This is where when the swimmers touch the wall, they can’t hang on, they need to tread water. They will love that one. haha! What type of cool sets do you have? What are your favorites sets? Let us know in the comments! See you next time!
Hello, guys – I am back. I had a computer screen crash and I kept thinking, “Oh, I’ll get it fixed.” Well, I never did, and so I am on a “stand by” unit right now…
This weekend is the last weekend of this crazy-busy month. The Florida Swimming vs Florida Gold Coast Age Group Duel Meet is in Ft Pierce at Indian River State College. This meet is always fun for the athletes and a great way to meet other swimmers in the state and create life-long friendships. And, by the way, you can watch it LIVE on Florida Swim Network. (Be sure to check it out!)
If you check back here, I will be listing the results on this site and maybe showing a couple videos from the Annual 11/12 Boys Bellyflop Competition we have after warmups.
So stay tuned and check back often for the All Star Weekend events.