Saturday AM Practices

Saturday Morning: edited with results and comments below:

Nice Job on the 10x200s today everyone.  I kept detailed track a few people who lead the lanes and/or started the set particularly well.

Jack: 215s to 210, 209, 209
Paolo: 217s to 214, 214, 212
Matt: 219-215, 211 on the end
Emma: 223-220, 219, 219, 218, 220
Karen: 223-222, 219, 219, 218, 218, 216

We had times from the low 220s to the high 220s for many of the athletes not mentioned above.

Each of the 6 athletes detailed above were swimming at "plus 12-16" above their 200M PR (not by design, but that's where they all happened to be).  If you did the set and you spent a lot of time at "plus 20" or "plus 23" then you have to set your goals for next time to reflect this type of change and this type of improvement (to be able to train at the +12-16 200M PR level).  The more LCM we do and you do, the less conservatively and more effectively you will train.

We are going to be getting into some more consistent Saturday Am and Monday AM LCM training (compared to the last few weeks), so get ready for more LCM sets.

…And get ready to do some more dive-type stuff LCM over the next few weeks to go along with our conditioning swims!

The 50s at the end were pretty good too.  A few people who didn't swim particularly well on the main set turned it around for the 50s.   That's always good to see.

The 8am practice went well also.  Michelle, Erika, Kayla, Abby, and Davis were at this practice.  I was planning to go Dive 50s with you guys, but went with the dive 100s.  It was very good!  The FINS 50s at the end were well done and effective training….the kind set where you can throw the 100s away and your still got a lot done.

Abby did Free: 104-105-105-105 (last spring we did 3 -- Abby was 108-106-111)
Kayla did Fly: 113-111-111-110
Davis did Free: 103s-and a 102 in the middle

We will be doing some 50s from a dive over the next week or so, so get ready.  We may have a few people shift from 6am to 8am for these practices, and it's also possible that some normal 8am people may shift to 6.  I'll be in touch about that.

Erika and Michelle -- we've talked about going 8x25 (30) at a certain pace….after having done those 8x50s on (1) at the end today, you will breeze through the 25s!

Absent today: KR KH MF AB AB

Friday January 29, 2016

We had a quick Friday PM workout today.  The Kick set was the main thing!

The kick set:

1x800 Kick (12:00) or (13:20)
8x100 Kick (1:20) or (1:30)

I asked 6 National group athletes to do the 1:20 interval.  Rip, Cole, Jack, Alex, Karen, and Paolo averaged between 114-116 on 1:20.

I thought the effort was good, and results were ok.  Not our best kick set, but I don't expect our all-time best at every turn….solid training is what we were looking for and it's what we got.  Let's set the goal to have our top athletes kicking sub 1:10 on a set of 5x100 on 1:20 (today we did 8).

On the B interval, our National group athletes were kicking between 121 and 126 for the most part.  All that was said about the A interval can be said about the B interval.  Good, solid training.  I want to see our National group athletes who were on the B today start kicking 100s under 1:20 more often.  Most of our National group athletes have done this before, but now we want to get under 1:20 multiple times in a row -- on a 1:30 interval.

Today's absences: Shawn, Maura, Kaitlyn, Keiran.  We were missing plenty from Sr Performance too.  Attendance could have been better today, let's put it that way.

I am looking forward to a great workout tomorrow morning.  Let's get some sleep and be ready to shine!

200 Freestyle Predictors

Check out this "200 Freestyle Time Predictor" Sheet:

How many can you do?  If you can get 3 of 5 (a "C" for preparation), you've got a very good chance to do the time.  If you can only do 2 of 5 or 1 of 5, you've got to make up for it somewhere else.  I've seen it done, but I'll take my chances with athletes who can hit 3 of 5 or 4 of 5.  I've only coached two athletes, with times toward the top, who were 5 out of 5.

Given that I have the time, I will end up coming up with one of these for each stroke.  You can see the idea though -- athletes must improve in a number of areas to get better at racing.

Thursday January 28, 2016

Our main set from Thursday:

3 rounds of:

8x50 "Stroke" (45)  -- 1 round of Fly, Back, and Breast

2x200 IM (245, 315) -- Descend rounds

8x50 Free (40) -- Descend rounds

2x200 Free (230, 250) -- Descend rounds

Some athletes did a modified version of this set:

3 rounds of:

6x50 "Stroke" (1) -- 1 round of Fly, Back, Breast

2x200 IM (3) -- Descend rounds

6x50 Free (50) -- Descend rounds

2x200 Free (250) -- Descend rounds

We had a very good practice overall.  The rain was coming down, the wind was blowing, and we rocked a 4200 or a 4800 yard set!  

I am not going to give grades for today's set.  A few weeks back we did a similar set on a Saturday AM.  It was 3 rounds of: 

3x100 (130) -- 1 round of Fly, Back, Breast

1x300 (430) -- Descend rounds IM

4x100 (120) -- Descend rounds Free to 500 Pac

1x400 (520) -- Descend rounds Free

I thought the strengths of the set, team-wide, were the 200 Freestyles and the 50s of Fly.  Our weakest portion of the set seemed to be the 50s Backstroke.  I thought the Breaststroke would have been better, but the intervals of either (45) or (1) were tougher for Breaststroke than for Back or Fly, and we just didn't adjust to going from 12-16 seconds rest per 50 to getting 7-12 seconds rest per 50.  I considered moving the interval from 45 to 50 on the last round, but I concluded that we would try to deal with it….which I think was a call decision -- we must be ready to deal with some pain at the end of the 400 IM and the tougher Breaststroke intervals will help us with dealing well and accelerating through the Breaststroke.  

For many, the last round of 200s IM were tougher to get into and many 200 IM times went up when they should have gone down on the first 200 IM of the final round.  

These are all things to work on. 

We have a lot of room to improve with our Backstroke right now, and that includes Back kicking, Back Pulling, and Back Swimming.  You guys can expect that set of 200s back we've discussed coming up soon!

Remember, even if backstroke isn't your top stroke, doing well with the backstroke kick and swims and trying to improve them during the practice improves your ability to access personal growth and individual improvement.  You are practicing "getting better at something".  You are making "going for"  improvement part of your normal daily action.  You are avoiding the trap of turning your 'on' switch 'off' during practice, and so you are working on focusing on a task for a certain period of time, which has its own merit regardless of "stroke" specificity. 

All of these things matter when it comes to being great at athletics or great at anything.  Wherever you are on the path to improving all aspects of your swimming, start now with raising your own personal expectations for yourself.

The final set, some times from the A interval:

Jack 208/207 IM and 154/149 Free

Shawn 21?/209 IM and 153/150 Free

Paolo 211/209 IM and 154/149 Free

A Tip Regarding "Easy" Swimming

Knowing the concept of Neuroplasticity will help you understand my thinking with easy swimming during practice: Neuroplasticity definition from MedicineNet

We must be careful to limit the amount of sloppy swimming we do, because each of our movements creates a certain pathway in the brain (and thus the pathway is created through the entire human organism).  I'll admit up front that there is a big difference between the stroke technique of a dell-done easy 100 between fast 200s in practice, and the stroke technique of an actual 200 IM!  But there are plenty of positive stroke items on which to work during easy/moderate swimming.  Here are a few:

1. Posture.  Carrying a long, stable neck during easy swimming promotes a higher percentage of great posture during practice -- and a lower percentage of poor posture.  Everything we practice, posture-wise, either helps us or hurts us.

2. Walls.  Steamlining past the flags is in many ways easier when athletes are going slower than "pace speed" in practice.  We should take advantage of these swims which are not "timed, fast swims" -- and make sure we are doing all we can to develop our wall.  If we can't accomplish awesome walls during moderate swims in practice, we will have a hard time accomplishing them on the faster swims in practice.  And we MUST be able to work our BEST walls during fast swims in practice to nail the final wall on the end of a 200 IM.

3. Breathing pattens.  Taking 1-2 strokes into the wall with a steady head & flat neck (with no breath) is a great way to practice a steady head going into turns.  A steady head implies not breathing by the way!

Same thing applies to coming off the wall.

Another reason I like to see athletes "keep it moving" during the easy swims has to do with the athlete's heart rate.  If an athlete is doing an "active rest" set (going fast/moderate), it behooves the athlete to keep the heart rate from fluctuating too much.  I expect to see an athlete go from 175 to 160, but I don't want to see an athlete go from 175 to 152.  Too much fluctuation in heart rate overtaxes the body -- and ultimately doesn't allow an athlete to swim fast throughout the entire bout of exercise.

Getting Better & Moving Forward

We had a good group discussion yesterday.  Lots of items were covered!  We tend to have these sorts of talks once of twice per year, and yesterday’s flashy weather gave us a great opportunity.

I believe athletes need to have the support of their parents, coaches, and other mentors (like teachers and school administrators).  Within this support system, athletes build confidence in not only their athletic ability but their ability to overcome perceived obstacles en route to not only achieving their dreams in life, but en route to actually figuring out what dreams are worth following over the next stage in life. 

A key point I hope athletes have taken away from the discussion:  T2 Aquatics athletes have my unwavering support, as their coach, while they are on our Team!  

We all want to be treated with love and respect.  Sometimes, as a coach, I feel that I have to raise my voice to be heardJ …and sometimes this is warranted and sometimes it’s not.  But it doesn’t mean anything but love and respect! 

Most of the time, the "way in which we get it done" is nothing but beautiful collaboration, for the benefit of all T2 Aquatics athletes.  We should remember this as well:)  We have all come a long way and are going to continue walking this path with pride in ourselves and our Team.

My goal moving forward is that WE ALL GET BETTER AT WHAT WE ARE DOING.  All of us, every day moving forward, as individuals and as a Team. 

We had a crazy lightning day yesterday!

Tuesday 1.26.16 National group EDIT -with results

NICE WORKOUT TODAY EVERYONE!

Group grade 4.25.  This is an above average grade.  I want to hear more from athletes in terms of being vocal in practice to get to a 4.5 group grade.  I think 4.5 is about as high as we will get for a "group" grade (5.0 is going to take amazingness from a large amount of people, with some real vocal leaders as well).

Absences: Alex, Maura, plus Davis, Madi, and Kaitlyn got out early.

The set is a TOUGH set if you get after the beginning of the set.  And we did.

Breaststrokers (100s with a flip turn….it's faster, but also more of a challenge to hold it together as the set gets tougher and lack of oxygen becomes more of a factor):

Name (best time), average through the first 9x100/ average for the last 3 100s

Jack (2:06) 105-103/ 102

Wyatt (2:03)104-104/ 111-109

Rip (2:04) 107-106/ 106

Matt (2:05) 102-101/ 103

Jacob (2:13) 112-109 /108

Cole (2:12) 111-109/ 108

Karen (2:28) 115-111/ 110

Bean (2:29) 117-112/ 112

Backstrokers:

Paolo (156) 59/ 58

Shawn (2:02) 104-101/ 100

Aaron (2:05) 104-101/ /102

Keiran (2:15)  106-104/ 102

Emma (2:16) 106-103/ 103

Kayla (207) 107-104/ 104

Kaitlyn (203) 112-111/ 110

Freestyle 75s (4.50/5.00 grade from everyone on the 75s, nice job guys):

Erika  41.5-40.3/ 40.0

Abby 44-43/ 42

Michelle 45-44/ 43

Individual grades at the end of the post.  The times above are to the best of my recollection!  Comment if you dispute your times!  :) 

The Post-Grads did some 75s….balancing their week of training, which is a bit different at times due to their morning practices (we've got plenty of 100s already this week and last week).  Abby joined them and kicked butt….got 900 yards of :44-43-42 second 75s, which is a large volume of fast swimming for Abby.   There is a difference between swimming one or two 43s during a practice….it's a whole different thing to stack 900 yards of it together.

The same thing can be said for the 100s we did.   There's a big difference between doing….say 25x100 with every 5th one fast (500 total yards of fast swimming), and doing the set we did today (30x100 with varying fast swims) -- a total of 1200 yards of fast swimming.

Some individual grades:

Jack 4.75 -- very close to a 5.0.  Lane leader on the set, started very well with paces and finished even better, at or under 200 pace (race pace) for many 100s, also great posture on the "easy" swims.  Missed out on a few touch outs that I thought could have been better during the first 30 minutes of the set.

Matt 4.75 -- outstanding set for Matt.  Fastest swims of the group, aggressive at the beginning of the set to set the tone….right from the first 100.  I took zero percentage points off for going up slightly at the end because the set is designed so one doesn't actually get faster at the end….there is no shame in holding 101-102s and ending with 103s….the only thing left is better posture and better stroke on the moderate swims.  Pretty darn good, very close to a 5.0

Karen 4.50 -- swimming well under half her PR, and good practice swimming compared to normal

Bean 4.50 -- same as with Karen

Emma 4.50 -- same as with Karen and Bean

Paolo 4.50 -- led the backstrokers and was strong the whole way….no wasted 100s at all on the set.  Would have liked to have seen some 57s and 56s at the beginning of the set when the ratio of fast/easy was 3/1 and 2/1.  I would have been ok with "only" holding 58-59 at the end in this case….would have been 4.75 in that case.

Monday January 25, 2016

Nice workout for many today.  We had a few athletes who were not quite able to "make the workout" (i.e. the intervals were too hard), mainly from the Senior Performance group -- but there were a few from the National group who had trouble.

Practice Goal: increase aerobic capacity for all athletes, specifically for freestyle training (for today).  Read more about what "increasing aerobic capacity" is all about here: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/healthy-living/fitness/Pages/Aerobic-Capacity-and-Training-Ability.aspx

Notable absences from National group: None (good job guys).

Grades: Overall I'd give a 4.25 to National group athletes.  We only had a few athletes who were not able to fit into the window of paces.  Many National group athletes led lanes or went second in lanes.  I saw a few National athletes make some "passes" during the practice (getting ahead of athletes who were not ready to train as fast).  Shout out to Emma, who led the way on the B interval the entire way and was as consistent as she could be.  Shawn, Jack, and Rip lead the way on the A interval.

Individual grades were not given today -- this was the type of set were you either passed or failed.  I've mentioned those above due to their leadership on the set!

Paces were determined by looking at our athlete's 3000 for time (from last week, which not everyone did).  I figured out that for most athletes, their "RED PACE" for 200 yards of freestyle was close to or equal to 15 seconds over their best time.  Athletes whose best time was over 2:00 (as opposed to between 1:40 and 1:59) were slightly off from that, so I adjusted.  I felt pretty comfortable going into the practice that we were on the right track with what the staff was asking the athletes to do….and I was proven correct.

Simply put, most athletes who have been consistently getting to practice and making practice count were great on this set.

Eleven athletes got after the toughest intervals (220-215 and 210).  Ten made each interval comfortably.  The eleventh athlete was not far behind, but notably that athlete did not attend the Monday Am practice or the Saturday Am practice.  So, there is that!  I am designing practices for athletes who have a high attendance percentage!

We had 23 athletes take a shot at the "B" interval (230-225-220), and only 12 made the set (accomplished all of the intervals and basically didn't have to stop to let their teammates pass).  This is NOT a good percentage.  Most of the misses came from Senior Performance, as I stated, but some came from the National group!

I could have made the intervals easier, but I would have made it easier for the higher-performing athletes in the group.  "Easier" is not always a bad thing (a huge coaching mistake is to make things "hard" for the sake of being "hard" and "tough"), but in today's case, I am trying to push the athletes to their threshold of what they can handle, and keep them there for 40 minutes.  Easy intervals do not allow an athlete to accomplish this!

In the event that Senior Performance members are reading this blog (and I hope they are because it should be a goal to eventually swim in the National group), let's KEEP PRESSING and REDUCE the AMOUNT of practices missed.  I hear plenty from athletes and parents about wanting to get faster -- but then I see spaces in the lanes that are empty where the athletes should be.  Let's walk the walk, not just talk the talk.  If you are new to the group and the intervals are a huge eye opener, remember the discussions we have had: the practices are going to continue to get faster and YOU HAVE TO BE READY.  It won't be easy but it will be worth it!

Monday AM 1/25/16

Monday AM practice goals: A) start metabolism early in the day for optimum digestion and processing of nutrients, B) crush a decent-sized kick set, and C) work on some backstroke and breaststroke skills.

Absent: CG, KH, MB, AB, AB, DO

Good workout for those who were in attendance.  For those who slept in, you need to make up for it this week.  I'll be here Friday AM (5:30) for Masters practice.  Feel free to come in and get the work in.

We did Kick-Swim with varying strokes simply to warmup the body, fully, for the week.  Public school athletes only get to swim for 40 minutes, so we keep our focus pinpointed: get a good kick set it, and then get to school.  The Team overall did a nice job!

The Backstroke strap work looked the best it's looked today.  We had 9 people in the pool when we did this.  Kayla and Jack, in particular, looked like they have made some real progress with the drill.  Most people still are getting used to it, which is perfectly ok.  Let's stay with it.

The Breast dolphin pull drill is also getting better.  Rip (who was out by the time we worked on it today) has a nice feel for it, and today Jack and Bean made some progress in the right direction.  Jack's last round was 28-28-27….solid FINS breaststroke….and Bean went 32 a bunch of times.  Once guys can go 26-26-26 and girls can go 28-28-28….with Zoomers…..we are starting to get somewhere.  It won't be long if our athletes are focused on these training markers.

Overall group grade was 4.0….but that's skewed because we were missing 6 athletes from the National group (and we only had 8 athletes from a 25+ person Senior Performance group…which doesn't affect the group "Grade" but it does dampen the mood).

There's nothing better than seeing 45-50 people at morning practice on a regular basis.  We have done a MUCH better job with AM attendance this season than last season -- let's get back to 40+ next week!

From the archives

This clip was shot on November 28, 2015.  12x100 Kick-Swim {4 on 1:40, 4 on 1:35, rest 30, 4 on 1:30).  Cole was 1:00 three times, then a 58.7 on the end.  This clip is the final 100:  100s Kick-Swim on Nov 28, 2015

This is the training of a few future Junior National Finalists, in my view of what can happen, given their continued training progress over the next 18 months.

The next 18 months, for many of the athletes on T2 Aquatics, will determine the athlete's trajectory for the rest of the their career.  That's not to say that an athlete can't flip a switch and change during their first two years in college, because certainly that happens, but if you want to take the percentages, get after the biggest time drops you can over the 9th-10th-11th-and12th grade years.

The big fat high-level times we see in competition come from big fat training sets that you remember weeks, months, and years later. If you can remember a set 12 months after doing it, it was probably either really good or really bad.  The more great sets your can get to stick in your mind, the more capable you will be physically and the more confident you will be mentally.

Let's have a great week of training!

Saturday January 23 Practice

Saturday January 23, 2016

"It was a cold and windy morning…"

The wind was whipping around on Saturday.  Equipment was flying everywhere and the electricity went out a few times. 

We planned to do backstroke, but because I felt like the Flags were going to be off by quite a bit, we switched to freestyle.  When you look at the print-out of the set, simply replace the backstroke 150s and 75s with freestyle.  This pic is a pic from the weekend and the flags were pretty "off" (and about as good as we can get with a 25 meter rope -- which tends to sag).  The flags on Saturday were even worse.  I would have taken a pic, but I didn't want my phone to blow into the pool!

Great workout everyone!  We got a lot done and we had many fast practice swims.  Some people were pretty tired, but in many cases the tired people had some great practices throughout the week.  There is much to be gained through consistency in training, and having a (only) decent practice at the end of the week looks a lot better if you’ve had 2-3 really good practices throughout the week. 

Practice goals for today: Swim at 200 meter pace or very close, during and at the end of a 50+ minute training set, for 150 and 75 yard increments.   So, a 1:20 plus a 38 is a 1:58.  A 1:26 plus a 41 is a 2:07.   A 1:30 plus a 43 is a 2:13.  

Obviously, we are doing this coming off of 1800 yards of fast kicking yesterday.  It’s part of the mindset of our Staff that we not only do things well as single efforts (one day at a time), but also that we link one thing to another and look at the total sum (stack great practices on one another, and then stack great weeks on one another, and then stack great months on one another….and YES stack great years on one another as well).

National group absences for today: Bean, Maura, Alex, Aaron. 

Athletes who were not at the 6am got to the 8am, which for Saturdays can be acceptable if recommended or at least ok’ed by a coach.  The ACT test was today…hope all who took it did well!

Our top 3 performers, in terms of raw data, were: Jack, Cole, and Shawn.

Last three rounds for Shawn: 122.5 + 38.3 / 121.0 + 38.4 / 1:18.8 + 36.6

Last three rounds for Jack: 122.0 + 39.8 / 121.2 + 39.0 /  120.3 + 38.7

Last three rounds for Cole: 122.9 + 39.1 / 123.9 + 39.2 /  121.7 + 38.3

If you add-up Shawn’s 150 and 75, you get 1:55.4, which is close to his 1:54.6 200M best time.  We do this set often to practice this pacing.  225 yards and 200 meters are the same distance, but of course you get more turns in the SCY pool, which are faster and allow a break for the athlete, so they make things easier as well.   So Shawn did a very good job.

Grades:

Shawn (4.75) – the best he has done on this set by far, and the best anyone from T2 has done on this set.  Kicking full body past the flags on the 75s is the only thing missing from a 5.0 set.  Keep going, ShawnJ

Jack (4.25) – above average for Jack

Cole (4.75) – the best he has done, by far, and also an extra bonus for swimming well on all of the moderate swims as well.  Cole’s last meet saw him out in 1:22 at the 150.  I’m thinking this performance in practice will help him race an even better 200 Free.  We have much room to improve and we are doing it!

Jacob (4.50) – probably would have been a 4.75, but Jacob’s 1:20 + 38 were done going :10 back, so there is a slight shade there.  Jacob, you are BACK – time to lead the lanes more often!  You can do it and do it well.

Karen (4.25) – above average for Karen based off this year’s times.  Getting back to the 2014-2015 Karen with training times.  Karen went 1:25 and 40 on the end of the set for a 2:04 LCM add up).

Overall group grade was 3.50.  Too many people had to miss laps from the National group and from the Senior Performance group, which is for all of us to own.  We can be more vocal towards our teammates, and our top performers today could have found a way to pick up the athletes who were not performing well.  This is a fine line, because we certainly need to be concerned about ourselves first and foremost during a training set.  But if we went back and did the set again, perhaps our more veteran members could have gotten our least-experienced athletes into the practice more at its onset.   There is always a step to take as a Team even when the individual practices are strong overall.