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Swim Question of the Week - November 11, 2009

Posted by Glenn Mills on Nov 11, 2009 09:27AM (2,191 views)

I got a very interesting email yesterday from a coaching friend, and let's come together and offer some suggestions and ideas. I'd imagine nothing too radical is out of the question... this is a radical situation, so get creative for the kids:

"We recently lost our pool (it closed). It was the only indoor, regulation pool in a four county area. In order to finish the winter season, we have to swim in a residential pool. It is 13 yards long, two lanes wide, with stairs covering the middle half of one end. Do you have any suggestions to how or what I should do during practice. Obviously, turn work is going to be important. We have split the team into 4 practice groups and are going to swim three times a week. Do you know of any other coaches that have had a similar experience? Any help or suggestions you can give me would be greatly appreciated."

training, coaching

Responses

Glenn Mills	Responded Nov 11, 2009 02:35PM I'm not sure of the depth, but anything that involves short pushoffs, fast swimming, then climbing out and doing pushups, or walk backs. Something like the following drill, but only in one direction: http://sochov.czzation.goswim.tv/entries/5... Also, a drill like this week's Drill, but rather than swimming back and stopping, swim out, flip, swim back to the wall, flip and sprint to the other end... then climb out and walk back. As soon as swimmer 1 flips back at the wall, swimmer 2 steps in, follows swimmer 1 out and goes through the same process. Two quick flips, one at mid pool, one at the wall, sprint and climb out at the other end. http://www.goswim.tv/entries/2766/freestyl... Just a couple quick ideas. Good luck... and as I'm sure you're discovering, creativity is going to be KEY.
João	Responded Nov 11, 2009 03:16PM Please watch these videos. http://www.nadathlon.com/tienda/videos-nad...
Glenn Mills	Responded Nov 11, 2009 03:21PM Nice call João! Tie 'em up!
wiken6281	Responded Nov 11, 2009 04:54PM Joao, that is awesome. Not sure how I feel about the music though ;)
Jeff	Responded Nov 12, 2009 01:54AM Any way to get these in the United States? This would be one great solution! Any others?
Jeff	Responded Nov 12, 2009 01:55AM I cant seem to find anything in English about this product!
rednicolas	Responded Nov 12, 2009 11:59AM I would suggest to do anything like Aqua Fitness - running on the same spot with different heart rate levels, boxing moves, different kind of core exercises that can be done in a standing position, etc ... - I did this with the team in the Keys a lot although they did have a good enough pool at their disposal.
Glenn Mills	Responded Nov 12, 2009 01:45PM Here's some of the responses from Facebook: "back to the basics. drills, drills, drills and more drills. Perfect and work on everything you can excute properly with in 13 yards. Its not a terribly bad situation. 13 yards is better than 10. THINK OUTSIDE OF THE BOX for a good answer to this one. Obviousy your not going to work on nailing your 200 splits. Dont do any thing thats going to cause a regression in stroke technique. Thats one thing not to do." "We had a similar temporary problem when I was a junior in high school (in Arlington, TX, before I went back to Ohio and attended Firestone). The coach was a psych major at UT Arlintgon, and had us doing visualization exercises. To this day, I prepare for a meet by playing the Moody Blues' "Knights in White Satin" and imagining every moment and movement of my event (breaststroke, generally)."
black&blue	Responded Nov 17, 2009 06:03PM Last year we lost our main pool (10 lanes x 25 yds with a window of 4 hrs) and were forced to find new locations. what we wound up with was 3 lanes in one location (for 2 hrs) and 5 lanes at another for 2 hours and the location of the 2 new pools was inconvenient for most of our families. What happened though was that it forced me out of my comfort zone and I decided to try something I had wanted to try for a long time but was afraid to... heavy dryland OVER water time for our older kids. We wound up doing dryland ONLY 3 days per week for 2hrs each session and swimming 3 days for 1.5hrs where most of the water time allowed for stroke and balance work. The results were awesome. Just after the first 6 weeks of doing that the kids were going best times by a LOT. Had a 14 yr old boy go from 55.6 100 free to 50.1 in October! My suggestion to you is to add a lot of dryland around the water time you have and only use the water for stuff you can't do on land. I'm sorry you're having to go through this sort of thing but hopefully with some creativity and buy-in from your swimmers, you'll actually come out ahead in the end :) Good luck!
JoanneswimsCT	Responded Nov 28, 2009 04:55AM Jeff: I found the bungees that Joao showed us on the video; bought it at Leslie's Pool Supply for around $25. Set it up Fri and had the whole family try it. It is TOUGH! The harder you work the faster it draws you back to the ladder! My son tried a flip turn w/ it and nearly beaned his head on the bottom at 4' as he couldn't complete the turn in time; was still upside down when the cord snapped him back to the ladder! My kids are all competitive swimmers w/ 2 hour practices daily yet got winded quickly w/ this product. They did ask for their own cords from Santa, tho! joanneswimsct

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Swim Question of the Week - November 11, 2009

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