Twitter Coach

I came across this piece from Verne Gambetta's blog on how John Wooden was using the twitter concept before twitter was even possible.

In a well run swim practice, you don't get to talk to every athlete at the same time very often.  You are communicating in 10-45 second intervals and repeating yourself often.  Think about the Que words you are using to get the message across.

I also like the statistics on what Coach Wooden was communicating, only 6% was praise, another 6% was discipline, while 75% was information.  How much information is going into your workouts and to your athletes?

                                                      

Thursday morning Practice 11-21

This morning we had another great set I thought I'd share.  The team performed very well on multiple levels.  The goal was an aerobic endurance level workout, but broken up so that the team could still feel like they were swimming well and at a good rate.  I was very pleased and even though we were not completely focused on how fast we were swimming, the team was performing at a very high level.

All the freestylers swam together today, from 50-1650's, which we do on occasion.  The sendoff's weren't as important as was controlling their speed and the quality of their swims.  A good number of the team chose to use a combinations of fins & paddles on the 100's and we saw some very good swims.  Our top men were holding 50-51's, while our top women were around 55-56's

The IM and stroke set used a broken 200 to get their heart rates up, keep their strokes together, and keep their speed on the higher end.  We were not adding up time, but almost everyone was close to in-season best times.  The middle set worked on keeping the heart rate up with some 100's and an IM, followed by an opportunity to descend some 75's stroke. 

The main sets took between 50-55 minutes.  I did not include the warmup, but we stretched on deck plus 1000 yards of warmup.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Morning

All FR

1 X 300 @ 4:00/15 (last 100, :05 seconds faster than 1^st 2)

1 X 200 @ 2:30/45 (steady effort, continued from last 100)

1 X 100 @ 1:10

1 X 300 @ 4:00/15 (last 100, :05 seconds faster than 1^st 2)

1 X 200 @ 2:30/45 (steady effort)

3 X 100 @ 1:15

1 X 300 @ 4:00/15 (last 100, :05 seconds faster than 1^st 2)

1 X 200 @ 2:30/45 (steady effort)

5 X 100 @ 1:20

1 X 300 @ 4:00/15 (last 100, :05 seconds faster than 1^st 2)

1 X 200 @ 2:30/45 (steady effort)

7 X 100 @ 1:30

*100’s are best effort, may use fins & paddles.

All IM

X + Y + X + Y + X + Y + 2X

X  = fast 200 IM broken as follows:

1 X 75 @ 1:00  (50FL/25BK)

1 X 50 @ 45 (25BK/25BR)

3 X 25 @ 30 (1BR, 2 FR)

Y =

3 X 100 FR @ 1:10/15

1 X 200 IM @ 2:30/45

4 X 75 stroke @ 1:15 descend 1-4

*limit the rest between sets to less than :30 or none

Stroke

X + Y + X + Y + X + Y + 2X

X =fast broken 200 stroke as follows

1 X 75 @ 1:00

1 X 50 @ 45

3 X 25 @ 30

Y =

3 X 100 FR @ 1:10/15

1 X 200 @ 2:30/45 (steady pace)

4 X 75 Kick @ 1:20 descend 1-4

Monday 10-29 workout

We had another very strong swim workout yesterday afternoon that I wanted to share.  It was meant to push the length that we were swimming at very high speeds.  We have been building the amount of threshold or what we call "cruise" speeds all season, and this pushed the total volume along with the length of time they were holding fast repeats.  They were swimming very fast for 9 minutes at a time (with rest) and 4 minutes of EZ swimming:

Warmup was about 1500 yards, ending with some 25's where we got the heart rate up to be ready to go.

I called these Indy 500's. the pattern I got from an old Mark Spitz set I saw, but I made it work to what we wanted to adapt to.

5 Rounds with a 200 @ 4:00 between each set:

1 X 25 from dive @ 30 (asked them to jump off the cliff, and go fast, get the heart rate up right away)
3 X 50 Kick @ 50 holding best effort they can, most of our team was under 40
3 X 75 Swim @ 1:30 holding our threshold paces or better (my top men's group was all under 40's, and top women were under 45
1 X 100 w/ fins & paddles @ 2:00 trying to go under best times.  We want them to use a bigger engine with the fins and paddles and finish feeling fast, and still working really hard.  We had a few men going under 50 and a few women under 55.  In the future, I may be more selective with the paddles as some of our team at our level, cant keep a high enough tempo.  We shall see.

The entire set takes an hour, very productive for our team.  Where it fits into our training schedule, we did an aerobic endurance set Monday morning, this set in the afternoon, and then no morning practice today, with short (05-10 sec) high velocity swims tonight.

STAY STRONG! Your test will be your test-imony, your Mess will be your Mess-age.

Monday Afternoon Workout

Monday afternoon, we had a Threshold type set that we swam very well.  We use the pace chart below from T2 aquatics for our goal times for the set.  This set and pattern is nothing ground breaking, but it matched what we were looking to do yesterday and we executed it very well which is what a good practice is supposed to do.


To set this up, we had a morning workout Monday morning that was very aerobic, endurance based with short rest intervals and a consistent steady effort throughout.  Just good hard work.

Monday, October 07, 2013

Afternoon

Warmup

400Choice-300pull-200kick-100IM

Short FR/Stroke (long FR did a version of this set which took them up to a 300 instead of 3 X 100, we had 2 men go 2:55 and 2:56 which is pretty quick for us)

18 X 100 @ 1:45

*stroke on last 3

1 EZ – 1 Cruise

1 EZ – 2 Cruise

1 EZ – 3 Cruise

3 EZ – 1 Cruise

2 EZ – 1 Cruise

1 EZ – 1 Cruise

18 X 75 w/ fins + paddles @ 1:10

Odd – Head up Kick, FL on BK, 6 beat kick

Even – stroke specific, coach will explain

18 X 50 Kick @ 1:00

*same pattern as 100’s

200-500 Warmdown

All IM

2 rounds

1 X 150 IM No FR Cruise @ 2:10

1 X 150 EZ @ 2:20

4 X 75 stroke @ 1:30

Odd – Cruise, Even EZ

1 X 150 FR Cruise @ 2:10

1 X 150 EZ @ 2:20

18 X 75 w/ fins + paddles @ 1:10

Odd – Head up Kick, FL on BK, 6 beat kick

Even – stroke specific, coach will explain

18 X 50 Kick @ 1:00

*same pattern as 100’s

200-500 Warmdown

Calvin College_________________________2013-14_______________________Cruise Speed

200 PR       100 Pace              125 Pace              150 Pace              200 Pace              300 Pace

1:35-1:39     51.5-53.5              1:06.0-1:08.0      1:21.0-123.5        1:48.5-1:151.5    2:49.0-2:53.0

1:40-1:44     54.0-56.0              1:09.0-1:11.0      1:24.0-1:26.5      1:53.5-1:56.5      2:55.0-2:59.0

1:45-1:49     56.5-58.5              1:12.0-1:14.0      127.0-1:29.5        1:58.5-2:01.5      3:01.5-3:05.5

1:50-1:54     59.0-1:01.0          1:15.0-1:17.0      1:31.5-1:34.0      2:03.5-2:06.5      3:10.0-3:14.0

1:55-1:59     1:01.5-1:03.5      1:18.5-1:20.5      1:35.5-1:38.0      2:08.5-2:11.5      3:19.5-3:23.5

2:00-2:04     1:04.0-1:06.0      1:21.5-1:23.5      1:39.0-1:41.5      2:13.5-2:16.5      3:25.0-3:29.0

2:05-2:09     1:06.5-1:08.5      1:24.5-1:26.5      1:42.5-1:45.0      2:18.5-2:21.5      3:32.5-3:36.5

2:10-2:14     1:09.0-1:11.0      1:27.5-1:29.5      1:46.0-1:48.5      2:23.5-2:26.5      3:38.0-3:43.0

2:15-2:19           1:11.5-1:13.5      1:30.5-1:32.5      1:49.5-1:52.0      2:28.5-2:31.5      3:45.5-3:52.5

Time to play Offense

With football season in full swing and second half of the fall semester upon on, I thought I'd use a little football terminology.  In order to get to Thanksgiving break, we are going to have to have a good offensive game plan.


1. Don't play defense.  When you are on defense, you end up staying up all night, you are always behind and trying to catch up, you overlook important things in your life that need attention, and eventually you will get scored on in the form of a bad test, illness, injury, or make a bad decision that leads to something worse.

2. Have a game plan.  Get your calendar out, put down all your deadlines for papers, exams, swim meets, other things in your life and create a strategy for getting things done on time.

3. Slow steady Drive. The best way to control the game is to run the ball and keep it simple.  Be consistent every day in your studying, sleep, health and faith.  It is more fun to run a flashy offense, but you are also more likely to turn the ball over and start to go on defense.

4. Good clock management. You have to manage the clock. Look at how you are spending your time.  Be efficient.

5. You can't use the whole playbook all the time.  Every coach has their favorite play or a play the crowd may like better.  You have to learn to stay disciplined and call the right play for the right situation.  Sometimes you have to say no.  The right play may be getting to the library, or getting to bed, or getting to Church on Sunday morning.

6. You can't win by yourself.  Use your teammates, you can do more together than you can by yourself.

7. Stick to the game plan.  When things start to go against you, we often want to over react and make bad decisions.  Trust your game plan and go back to executing what you know will work.

Enjoy being busy! You can always do more than you think!