When it comes to using equipment in practice, I have to believe that I probably use equipment more then most...and I often feel as if I toe the line between keeping my swimmers ages 10-16 interested and engaged while at the same time keeping the workouts on schedule and flowing. I found that by using equipment at key points of the re-construction of a stroke/turn helps to re-enforce the muscle memory of what you are trying to emphasize.
First, the equipment the kids in our group have. We use the following:
Kickboard
Long fins
TYR Catalyst paddles (size appropriate for each kid)
Snorkel
Here is some equipment I have that we use:
5" PVC pipe
Tempo trainers
Mini-buoys
"Swim bones"
I have a short list of my favorite drills where I incorporate equipment in order to get the concept introduced, understood, and the correct parts of the concept emphasized with the type of care and attention to detail I typically like.
Backstroke
Drill: Triple Scoop
Equipment Used: One TYR Catalyst Paddle
Description: The swimmer lays on his/her back grabbing the bottom of the paddle and allowing the rest of the paddle to press against the forearm. With the swimmer on their side, the only movements in this drill aside from a steady kick is that the hand grabbing the paddle will complete a 3-part stroke cycle while the other "free hand" stays glued to the side. They then pull three times.
1. Small movement anchoring the hand down, then with an underwater recovery and the palm of their hand facing upward, sliding the hand back behind the swimmer's head.
2. Downward movement, focusing on a high elbow catch throughout the pull stopping well before the hands get to the hips , then with an underwater recovery, sliding the hand back behind the swimmer's head.
3. A full backstroke "pull" that finishes with the hands snapping past the hips.
***Special Note: Because there is no above water recovery, this drill does a great job isolating the pull. Depending on how good your swimmers are at catching water, you may use buoys and ankle bands for those a bit more advanced.***
Flip Turns
Drill: PVC Kick Flips
Equipment Used: 5" PVC Pipe
Description: I know I am going to make this sound way more complicated then it really is but here goes. I typically will make the kids do something like a 400-500 single arm freestyle (R/L by 25) with the off arm holding the PVC pipe at their sides. When they get to the flags, both hands lock onto the PVC pipe with their hands at the waist. They kick in towards the wall with their eyes looking straight down. They have to "FEEL" the wall approaching and activate their turn while still keeping their eyes looking down and their hands still locked on the PVC pipe, which makes the turn a little bit harder because it is done using primarily the core. The PVC pipe re-enforces the streamline as well as helps with the posture needed to complete the turn as if they were sitting in a chair. This has been a HUGE help in tightening up what we are doing in and out of our walls.
Butterfly
Drill: Varying Kick Drills
Equipment Used: Snorkel
Description: I typically like to vary the placement of the hands throughout the kick. An example set would be something like:
24x25 :40
8x
1-dolphin kick, hands crossed on chest
2-dolphin kick, hands out in front of shoulders
3-dolphin kick, hands at sides
I personally love the head and body position that using a snorkel emphasizes within butterfly, promoting proper body alignment while simultaneously keeping the stroke a bit flatter, allowing undulation without allowing (without choking because they buried their snorkels underwater) over-undulation. Is that a word? No sure, but I'm rolling with it.
So, I have given you a few different things I like to do. What are your equipment-aided drills that you do? Inquiring minds like to know.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Friday, September 13, 2013
Mom Always Stressed Good Posture...
If your childhood was anything like mine, you probably had your mom or dad constantly telling you to set up straight, pull your shoulders back when you walk, stand up proud, etc. I used to begrudgingly respond to the commands temporarily...only to go back to my usual slouched self when my parents weren't looking.
As many of you know, proper posture is extremely important in swimming, but as a coach, I have the same sense of urgency to correct my swimmers' posture as my parents had with me. Because I work with younger kids primarily, mostly 8-12 years old, I tend to focus on 2-3 main concepts that swimmers should focus on for each stroke and then work on details after. I call this Macro to Micro swimming. For each stroke, one of the main concepts is always head/body position. It is always stressed before most any other concept. Here is how I re-enforce it with drills/equipment for both backstroke and breaststroke:
Backstroke: Goggles off, balanced on forehead. I used to use cups and water bottles but balancing them became a chore dependent on how much liquid was in the cup/bottle. We do quite a bit of drilling with goggles on our forehead and I will also try to have small parts of our main set with goggles balanced on their foreheads to re-emphasize their body position while they are tired. Here is an example main set incorporating goggle balance:
4x thru
2x50 @ 1:00 teacup 12 k switch w/ goggles up
2x75 @ 1:10 80/90/100% by 25
2x100 @ 1:20 1-75 free/25 back, 2-50 free/50 back
Breaststroke: I am a proponent of using snorkels often. I think that snorkels in general re-enforce better head position which is huge in making sure that posture in the water is where it needs to be. Breaststroke is no different. I use snorkels with breaststroke, telling my kids that they are still to come up as they normally would but trying to keep the pipe of the snorkel in the water. In changing their head position, I am attempting to flatten their hips out a bit to prevent what I call "sea horse swimming". I am also focusing on eyes looking down. I often will pair this with some dolphin breaststroke in order to still keep the hip snap I am looking for intact while attempting to avoid dropping of their hips that would make it more difficult to snap at the end of the stroke.
I will cover Free and Fly in my next post. Let me know what you guys do to promote good body/head position!
As many of you know, proper posture is extremely important in swimming, but as a coach, I have the same sense of urgency to correct my swimmers' posture as my parents had with me. Because I work with younger kids primarily, mostly 8-12 years old, I tend to focus on 2-3 main concepts that swimmers should focus on for each stroke and then work on details after. I call this Macro to Micro swimming. For each stroke, one of the main concepts is always head/body position. It is always stressed before most any other concept. Here is how I re-enforce it with drills/equipment for both backstroke and breaststroke:
Backstroke: Goggles off, balanced on forehead. I used to use cups and water bottles but balancing them became a chore dependent on how much liquid was in the cup/bottle. We do quite a bit of drilling with goggles on our forehead and I will also try to have small parts of our main set with goggles balanced on their foreheads to re-emphasize their body position while they are tired. Here is an example main set incorporating goggle balance:
4x thru
2x50 @ 1:00 teacup 12 k switch w/ goggles up
2x75 @ 1:10 80/90/100% by 25
2x100 @ 1:20 1-75 free/25 back, 2-50 free/50 back
Breaststroke: I am a proponent of using snorkels often. I think that snorkels in general re-enforce better head position which is huge in making sure that posture in the water is where it needs to be. Breaststroke is no different. I use snorkels with breaststroke, telling my kids that they are still to come up as they normally would but trying to keep the pipe of the snorkel in the water. In changing their head position, I am attempting to flatten their hips out a bit to prevent what I call "sea horse swimming". I am also focusing on eyes looking down. I often will pair this with some dolphin breaststroke in order to still keep the hip snap I am looking for intact while attempting to avoid dropping of their hips that would make it more difficult to snap at the end of the stroke.
I will cover Free and Fly in my next post. Let me know what you guys do to promote good body/head position!
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Creativity In Drilling/Training
When I first started coaching, I was initially told that in order to coach developmental groups, you must stick to the basics in terms of drills and stroke technique work. So there I was doing the same drill progression, deconstructing and reconstructing the stroke with the same few drills for each. What I found was that the kids, once they got the gist of the particular drill, tended to stop putting the same effort and focus in completing them as when they were first learning them. And it's not just with drills! I found that if you train the same way consistently, the kids get used to that as well.
To me, it seemed as if the P90x idea of muscle confusion applied to how kids viewed drills. In the P90x workout training, muscle confusion is the basic premise that an athlete's body will get used to certain training techniques and thus making it less effective. With my swimmers, once they got the basic premise of the biomechanics of the drill, they stopped putting the focus on what the drill emphasized.
So I started to focus on the drilling aspect first and how I reconstructed the strokes. I started to use drills in cycles and occasionally either re-introducing drills while cycling out other drills, combining drills, or simply making up new drills.
Re-Introduced Drills: I was lucky enough to have swam for Debbie Real, one of the best stroke technicians in the country, for most of my swimming career. One of the ways that she was able to consistently get the most out of us while building our strokes was her creativity within her practices. We probably had close to 30 drills or drill variations per stroke...and I may actually be underselling her on this. So having that kind of drill base was HUGE for me to be able to re-introduce drills.
So if I have 30 drills in my repertoire, I would have maybe 5 base drills like 12 kick switch or straight arm for freestyle that stay permanently in the rotation while maybe adding something that they hadn't done in awhile. Maybe it's a drill that focuses on a particular group weakness that came about in watching the swim meet last weekend.
Combining Drills: This is where I take a couple drills and combine them. Using the drill examples I used above, maybe it would be 12 kick switch with a straight arm recovery. With the added drills, there are added things to focus on. Not only would the kids need to think about getting on their sides while holding their body alignment with 12 kick switch, but they will also need to focus on driving their hips and recovering up over their heads as well.
Making Up New Drills: This one is something that I think is not as difficult as it sounds. There is no need to necessarily re-invent the wheel, although you are more then welcome to try something brand spanking new. There is plenty of help out on the interwebs. Websites like www.goswim.tv is a GREAT resource to have as Glenn Mills is great at introducing drills, explaining how the drill is supposed to be done as well as explaining the finer points of the drill.
Also I have found that just talking to other coaches whose teams may do a particular aspect of their stroke well. For example, I have to luxury of having CLASS Aquatics in our section and have a great rapport with both Steve Reardon, their Head Coach, and Kathy Duncan, their Head Age Group Coach, both of whom have probably forgotten more about swimming then I know. Both are very open and helpful with everything from business administration to stroke technique and refinement. I recently asked Kathy how she was approaching teaching the out-sweep and in-sweep on breaststroke and she gave me a few new drills and key phrases that she uses. I have found that coaches are your best asset...you just have to have the courage to start conversations and ask questions. I have not really been turned down for help from any coaches and over the last 12 years, I have talked to quite a few coaches.
Lastly, I occasionally will notice that I have a group problem that I need to address. This stems from watching my kids at a swim meet and watching what is breaking down in their strokes. So that typically motivates me to get into the water myself and start to play with my own stroke in order to see if I can't figure out a drill that may isolate the problem and get the kids to be aware of the problem as well. This has been where I have mostly adapted drills we have already done and tweaked them to fully accentuate the part of the stroke I want the focus to fall on.
Training: Because I tend to coach primarily 12 and unders, I am constantly trying out new ways to train kids and get them to do things that they ordinarily might not want to do. For example, I posted a 200 race strategy workout (Main Set #1) on the Pro Swim Workouts website. This workout is an example of how I deconstruct a race and base the main set around the race strategy we use. For 200's, I will typically tell my kids to to build the first three 50's then race. So I constructed a main set that emulated that strategy. My kids could have done 10x200 or 20x100 but they would have been bored to tears and their focus and attention to detail is significantly less.
I guess, in conclusion, I try to write workouts and do drills that I would want to do myself if I were in my swimmers' fins. Don't be afraid to be creative. Some stuff will work just as you imagined, most will be a process, and occasionally some stuff will be terrible and sometimes not even be as practical as you may have wanted. Regardless of the outcome, if it's new, the kids will get a kick out of trying it.
To me, it seemed as if the P90x idea of muscle confusion applied to how kids viewed drills. In the P90x workout training, muscle confusion is the basic premise that an athlete's body will get used to certain training techniques and thus making it less effective. With my swimmers, once they got the basic premise of the biomechanics of the drill, they stopped putting the focus on what the drill emphasized.
So I started to focus on the drilling aspect first and how I reconstructed the strokes. I started to use drills in cycles and occasionally either re-introducing drills while cycling out other drills, combining drills, or simply making up new drills.
Re-Introduced Drills: I was lucky enough to have swam for Debbie Real, one of the best stroke technicians in the country, for most of my swimming career. One of the ways that she was able to consistently get the most out of us while building our strokes was her creativity within her practices. We probably had close to 30 drills or drill variations per stroke...and I may actually be underselling her on this. So having that kind of drill base was HUGE for me to be able to re-introduce drills.
So if I have 30 drills in my repertoire, I would have maybe 5 base drills like 12 kick switch or straight arm for freestyle that stay permanently in the rotation while maybe adding something that they hadn't done in awhile. Maybe it's a drill that focuses on a particular group weakness that came about in watching the swim meet last weekend.
Combining Drills: This is where I take a couple drills and combine them. Using the drill examples I used above, maybe it would be 12 kick switch with a straight arm recovery. With the added drills, there are added things to focus on. Not only would the kids need to think about getting on their sides while holding their body alignment with 12 kick switch, but they will also need to focus on driving their hips and recovering up over their heads as well.
Making Up New Drills: This one is something that I think is not as difficult as it sounds. There is no need to necessarily re-invent the wheel, although you are more then welcome to try something brand spanking new. There is plenty of help out on the interwebs. Websites like www.goswim.tv is a GREAT resource to have as Glenn Mills is great at introducing drills, explaining how the drill is supposed to be done as well as explaining the finer points of the drill.
Also I have found that just talking to other coaches whose teams may do a particular aspect of their stroke well. For example, I have to luxury of having CLASS Aquatics in our section and have a great rapport with both Steve Reardon, their Head Coach, and Kathy Duncan, their Head Age Group Coach, both of whom have probably forgotten more about swimming then I know. Both are very open and helpful with everything from business administration to stroke technique and refinement. I recently asked Kathy how she was approaching teaching the out-sweep and in-sweep on breaststroke and she gave me a few new drills and key phrases that she uses. I have found that coaches are your best asset...you just have to have the courage to start conversations and ask questions. I have not really been turned down for help from any coaches and over the last 12 years, I have talked to quite a few coaches.
Lastly, I occasionally will notice that I have a group problem that I need to address. This stems from watching my kids at a swim meet and watching what is breaking down in their strokes. So that typically motivates me to get into the water myself and start to play with my own stroke in order to see if I can't figure out a drill that may isolate the problem and get the kids to be aware of the problem as well. This has been where I have mostly adapted drills we have already done and tweaked them to fully accentuate the part of the stroke I want the focus to fall on.
Training: Because I tend to coach primarily 12 and unders, I am constantly trying out new ways to train kids and get them to do things that they ordinarily might not want to do. For example, I posted a 200 race strategy workout (Main Set #1) on the Pro Swim Workouts website. This workout is an example of how I deconstruct a race and base the main set around the race strategy we use. For 200's, I will typically tell my kids to to build the first three 50's then race. So I constructed a main set that emulated that strategy. My kids could have done 10x200 or 20x100 but they would have been bored to tears and their focus and attention to detail is significantly less.
I guess, in conclusion, I try to write workouts and do drills that I would want to do myself if I were in my swimmers' fins. Don't be afraid to be creative. Some stuff will work just as you imagined, most will be a process, and occasionally some stuff will be terrible and sometimes not even be as practical as you may have wanted. Regardless of the outcome, if it's new, the kids will get a kick out of trying it.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Kick Work....with Tempo Trainers?!?
We do our share of stroke rate tempo work, both with and without a Tempo Trainer. However, I was looking to increase their kick rate and so into the pool I went. What I stumbled on was a great way to force a fast, snappy kick out of kids who may not understand just how fast and snappy their kick needs to be. So I started to play with different kick rate speeds for my underwater dolphin kicks and came up with a few that translated well with my group. I started my group on a set of 8x25 with fins on the :40, where I had each swimmer set their Tempo Trainer at :30. The set was to go halfway underwater, when they came up, it would be streamline dolphin kick on their backs still holding the same kick rate. What I saw was an almost full group transformation in the speed and explosiveness in their kick. The next set I had them go 8x25 @ :45 with a kick rate at :27, which put their kicks WELL beyond their respective comfort zones. With the slight increase in rest, they were expected to hold that pace and they all tried valiantly. The last set was 8x25 @ :50, but I increased the kick rate to back to :30 in an attempt to refocus them on a slightly slower yet more powerful movements and it worked like a charm. Time will tell as to whether or not my swimmers will translate this rate of kick into their normal everyday swim application, but the initial response has been crazy promising!
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