Browsing Tags swimming tips

That’s the Breaks, Kid!

Posted on August 13, 2010 by swimmerjoe

Well, I’ve been off for a while now (the Florida Keys, baby!) and so have the kids I coach. Breaks are so important for athletes, especially for the younger ones. When I was a young Blue Dolfin in Central Florida, all the swimmers took 2 weeks off…mandatory! I know it seems like a long break, but it really wasn’t, because we never missed during season, period! NEVER.

We never missed, even if we were sick…Coach Harry Meisel always used to say that chlorine was good for everything, even ear aches! (I don’t think anyone ever missed a practice for an ear ache. Now doctors are saying, stay out for a week or so… oh please!) Anyway breaks are important!

Why?

Kids need to be kids! They need to do as many things as they can and have fun while they are young…as you know, it doesn’t last forever! So take a couple days/weeks-but don’t make a habit of it. Once of the biggest mistakes swimmers make is thinking they can still swim fast after a day off here and there. Eventually that backlog which you took so long to develop will diminish, and then you are back to square one! And that stinks!

Young and old bodies alike need time to reset and rest! The body needs time, especially if you train hard at whatever you do! You need to pull back and take time to change things up or just relax a week or so. No worries, you’ll bounce back, probably quicker and better than ever! I can remember (especially if you have that great backlog I was talking about) when we would take our time off and then the strength we were able to build a few months later seemed to be so much more intense. The rest to the body was amazing and well-deserved.

Mental Mush! Breaks truly help the mental strength as well. You definitely need to take breaks for this! So many times have I seen kids wear out their swimming mental capacities! When you see a kid just lose it and fail with almost everything athletic…it’s way overtime for a good break! That’s why the younger ones need yearly rest periods! At the Dolfins, we rest almost 3 weeks out of the year, in some cases, even more. (But when it’s time to train, it’s time to train!)

And you know what? Even we coaches need a break! Nuff said. HA!

And lastly, Stroke work–Pete and Re-peat (a Coach Harry Meisel saying)! Oftentimes strokes are compromised for hard training and need to be looked at again at their most basic form. So when we return after a break we usually spend at least two weeks getting our strokes back together to their most efficient technique. That way when it is time train tough again, we do it the correct way!

So when you think breaks are bad, think again. You need it! Whether it’s resetting your kid-time (even us old guys), resting your fatigued muscles and body, mentally return to greatness or “pete” and repeating the proper stroke techniques—take the time! I mean it!

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Want to Swim Faster?

Posted on February 14, 2010 by swimmerjoe

As we move closer to some of our first half of the year big competitions, preparation becomes a major key to success! Great athletes set themselves apart from the average athletes through preparation….You absolutely have to work on it!

One thing I want to emphasize in this particular blog is stretching. Stretching is every bit as vital to a swimmer’s performance as strength and conditioning is. Just take a look at Dara Torres’s stretching regimen as featured in an earlier blog. Stretching has been her “secret weapon” for years, and has kept her on top of the world’s competition for decades now.

As I started researching “stretching for swimmers” I realized that views and opinions have changed slightly since I was a young guppy. Some of the stretches we have been doing for years are wrong, at least for the health of our glenohumeral joint. Uh, our what???

George Edleman, who wrote a great article for USA Swimming, talks about the good and bad with stretching shoulders and also points out some of the good stretching you can do. He emphasizes that being flexible increases the capacity to build more muscle, reduces injury and keeps you more efficient in the water! It is real easy to see, when you go to the meets, the most flexible swimmers are also normally the quickest.

His complete article is here:

Shoulder Stretching for Competitive Swimmers

Helpful or Harmful?

Legs

For some leg stretches, I found some easy ones on fogdog.com by World Class Triathlete Paula Newby-Fraser. We normally sit for hours on bleachers at swim meets (parents too), so you may want to look into these types of stretches.

Your Swimming Assignment:

Start incorporating your stretches right now. Tonight before you go to bed, take fifteen minutes to stretch both your upper body and lower body. Stretch a couple times daily for a couple weeks and see if you feel better in the water and on land!

So for a meet preparation for the first half of the year, get ready! Find yourself a ritual with stretching and develop a plan for success! Let us know how you feel in a couple weeks!

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Posted on February 10, 2010 by swimmerjoe

Wow, I haven’t been on for a while, I guess very tired when I finally sit down for the night. …I was just surfing twitter and found the secret for swimming faster and even breaking world records. It looks easier than first anticipated. Check out this quick video below. Maybe this will help us as we get close to our Junior Olympic dreams.

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The Art of Taper

Posted on November 18, 2009 by swimmerjoe

What the heck is taper anyway?! Well, to taper means to “dial back” or take a break or rest right before your big meet. It works best if you’ve been training hard, especially during a long season and now you are getting ready for your meet. Athletes at the highest levels may do it once or twice a year, like for a national championship or world cup, while also doing mini “drop” tapers of 2 or three days before smaller meets.

Most coaches develop strong ideas about tapering as well as devising their own special formulas to get the most from their athletes. And what about Swimmerjoe? Well, I, too, have my own ideas…In fact, I take it to the highest degree of rest.

First: Eat Properly

While tapering, you can’t eat the same way as you do when you are training hard. Why? Well, remember back to the infamous Michael Phelps’ diet as revealed during the Olympics…eating 10,000 calories a day! Most intense swimmers consume thousands of calories during the season and if they continue this during the restful stage, then the athlete runs the chance of gaining a few unneeded extra pounds for the main event.

Taper Tip: Eat a bit less than usual, but make sure it is healthy with roughly 20-25% protein, 61-66% carbohydrates and 14% fats. The better you eat, the faster you will go– you choose!

Second: Rest Your Body

Your coach will take care of you in practice, but you must take care of yourself out of the pool as the meet gets closer. Do not do extra things that may strain your body. I see kids dial back their swimming while tapering, but out of the pool they are so wound up they spend all the stored energy doing things they shouldn’t. They stay up late, play ball of some sort, walk to the malls or football games, etc. Remember Ryan Lochte hurting his foot while skateboarding?

Taper Tip: If you are on taper, then truly be on taper! Use the ladder to get out of the pool, no need for the wall, don’t want to strain yourself! Ask your parents do a few things for you around the house as the meet approaches. (Just don’t tell them I told you!) Swim meets are extremely taxing mentally and physically so you need every bit of stored energy—the more you save the longer you will last at the days-long meets, such as Junior Olympics, Junior Nationals, Senior Nationals and Olympic Trials. Rest! Rest! Rest!

Third: Get Flexible

Stretch as much as you can! It helps in numerous ways that allow you swim at your highest level. Stretching can reduce muscle tension, increase the range of movement in the joints (much needed in swimming), enhance muscular coordination, increase circulation of the blood to various parts of the body, and increase energy levels (resulting from increased circulation). Stretching also help you at the end of your race…you know when you bind up at the end? Stretching will help alleviate that tremendously!

Taper Tip: Stretch throughout the season but don’t let up during taper. This expends little energy, so stretch as much as you want without overstretching the muscles to the point of injury.

Fourth: Finish the Unfinished

During your last three weeks before your meet, clean up all loose ends on your stroke technique, turns, starts, body position, training, etc. Allow your coach to really focus on these to prepare you for the big event. Speaking of training, you have to swim every workout like it’s your last, going as hard as you can, including the last few days during taper. Easy speed will show up and you won’t fail during the end of your races in the 200 or above races. If you do this while doing the first three steps, you will be untouchable!

Taper Tip: Come to practice and concentrate on one set at a time, not the entire practice. When you work on one set, skill or strategy and conquer it, go to the next and do the same.

Coaches’ Dilemma: The Fine Line

Coaches and swimmers always watch that fine line, whether they know it or not. This means they watch the line that has you and your coach hanging on to the yardage (so you can finish your races) as well as the highest level of rest. This is a tricky formula of how much to do of each to create your best and quickest speed at the meet. That is the constant guessing game we all play….although some coaches are very good at it!

Another thing that plays into perspective is the amount of muscle an athlete has versus another—this means not everyone’s rest will be the same. More muscle = more rest, less muscle = less rest. (Another game we play and figure out!)

And you thought tapering just meant easier practices….oh please!

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Swim in the Mirror? What?

Posted on November 4, 2009 by swimmerjoe

Next time you are standing in the bathroom, try this: swimming in the mirror. No, I am not talking about saying “Bloody Mary” three times, but rather analyzing your stroke where you can actually see what your arms are doing.

So, go to your bathroom mirror….Do a slow freestyle stroke…..I’ll wait here.

Ok, what did you see? Some of my best technical adjustments were made in my own bathroom mirror. What? With no water? How? I would take what the coach told me in practice, do it correctly, and then perfect it in my mirror. Over and over again, I would practice it until my arms got sore. I would also mimic the studs of my era.

What an awesome way to practice without even getting wet! (Sometimes that’s nice, especially in winter months!)

Try every stroke and “see” what it feels like to do the stroke properly and perfectly, and then try it in the pool the next time you are at practice. Most times you have to slow down in the pool to get the stroke just like you did it in the mirror.

You can also work on some turn techniques that you really wouldn’t spend time on in practice. Try transition turns between fly to backstroke and see how it goes. Remember to couple this with your visualization practice…imagine yourself in the pool and pretend you are actually doing it. Remember, practice makes permanent!

You need every advantage to race the clock and your competitors….Remember to stop at nothing to gain the little edge that will make you the best you can be!

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Visualize Yourself Being Great!

Posted on October 29, 2009 by swimmerjoe

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.

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“Form Follows Function”… in Swimming?

Posted on October 7, 2009 by swimmerjoe

In 1896 when the famous American architect Louis Sullivan famously said, ‘form ever follows function’ the critics thought his philosophy was “problematic” and “open to interpretation.” What exactly did he mean? That things can only be designed to perform as intended? That design can be improved by tailoring it to the function? If so, does function create the best design? This is still debated today.

So can this philosophy apply to other things, such as swimming?

You see, when form follows function in design, the idea is to decrease the superfluous “extra” items and actually follow the form to design the actual item you are creating. Take a chair…simply a place to sit your bottom. Therefore, the design should focus on this and this only. Some of the most beautiful and classic chair designs have been based on this form follows function principle.

So, what about swimming? The function is to propel your body through the water as quickly as possible. Therefore, fundamentals are the key item to always work on. Period. If you can work on the fundamentals only, and do them over and over—as legendary Blue Dolfin coach Harry Meisel would say “Pete and re-pete”—you will get faster everyday.

If you swim sloppy or work less than your best effort everyday, your form will suffer, and therefore your function will as well (speed will slow or you will plateau). You must concentrate everyday on the fundamentals and work towards the actual true “function” of swimming. That is, what you are trying to do…swim out of your mind, right?

If your “function” is to swim fast and do it properly all the time, your “form” or max speed will get you there. The philosophy of form follows function will make you swim like an efficient oiled machine.

This is why we do so many drills over and over in practice. This is why we practice head and arm position, flip turns, and breathing. Why do you think Dara Torres, Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, and yes, Matt Curby look like they are cruising? Because they have mastered the drills, understood the function, and tried to look, “perfect” when they swim. Now they are basking in their perfect “form” created by the function of swimming perfectly.

The actual quote form the famous architect, Louis Sullivan is:

It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,
Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head,
Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognizable in its expression,
That form ever follows function. This is the law.
So think about the actual “function” of what you are trying to do and become one with the water. Soon you will be basking in your “form” and be the great one we are talking about!

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