Training Hssc

Expectations Come to have fun. As coaches we will try our best this season to keep it light, and fun.

Expectations Come prepared for practice. Things that you will need: -proper clothes and footwear for dry land (if you have it). -Swim suit, goggles, cap, and equipment -Water bottle and snack (this is especially important for the age group and senior teams)

Expectations For every swimmer in HSSC. As a coaching staff we ask that every swimmer comes to practice willing to give 100% on that day. What this means is you never feel the exact same each day however come to swimming willing to do your best. No one can ask for perfection all the time but we can ask that you are always trying.

Team Environment By in large swimming is an individual sport, when you hit the water no one is there to help you but you. However I believe that swimming is a team sport. You train as a team, race relays as team, and hang out together for many hours a week as a team. And what one individual does, effects everyone else. In swimming there are 3 types of people 1)Positive 2)Negative 3)Equal

Positive Team Mates These people are excited to be practicing, they listen to their coach, encourage their teammates, respect their environment, peers and coaches. Work extremely hard. Positive teammate are the type of people we want at HSSC

Equal Teammates These swimmers are not bad teammates nor are they good teammates. They don’t contribute to a positive environment nor do they contribute to a negative environment. These swimmers stick to themselves, work just hard enough to keep the coaches content, never truly believing in themselves or their teammates.

Negative Teammates These swimmers we don’t want in HSSC. Disrespectful to everyone, doesn’t listen to coaches, complains about everything, is mean to other swimmers. Lets avoid these types of action.

Expectations As you grow older expectations of you grow in every faucet of life, school is more work, you may have to get a part time job, and you have more responsibilities at home. This is no different at the pool. The oldest swimmers in HSSC are our leaders. We expect them to carry themselves at all times in a high manner. That being said at practice this means to listen, try your best, and concentrate at all times.

In the Pool Most swimmers believe that if I am out breathe, exhausted, and cannot move my arms and legs that they must have done a great job. This year we are asking more. Swimming is a technique driven sport, thus you CONCENTRATE. During practice when your body gets tired, it gets harder and harder to concentrate and complete the set goals, but this is when we improve the most.

Yogi Berra Yogi Berra was one of the greatest baseball players ever. Some say the best ever catcher. He once said that, "Baseball is 90% mental -- the other half is physical." I think what he meant was it you are if you aren’t ready mentally and have trained your mind then you cannot perform. Both sides are needed to be trained in order to perform well. I believe this is true for all sports.

In the Pool In practices there are times to concentrate on yourself (most of the time), but there are times when you need to practice racing. As Coaches we will let you know when these times are by jumping up and jumping and yelling “Faster, catch’em”. But we want you to go when it is time are; no saving for the end of workout.

Lane Etiquette Leave at least 5 seconds after the person in front of you. Your coach will usually dictate how many seconds before a set. Follow the direction of Lane, Move in at the Flags so you don’t Push off in front of Another swimmer. Pass in the middle When it is safe. For the Person being passed don’t Speed up or slow down just Continue swimming

Other Smaller Rules -Equipment within arms reach of the edge of the pool -Always have a water bottle -Leave on time, better to be early than late -Know the lane direction -Pass safely -No swearing

Taper When you train hard all season. Your body breaks down and before our peak meet we will be reducing number of practices and distance that we swim during practices to allow our bodies to recover. This is the time when we get faster. This will be different for each swimmer depending what meets they are going to, type of swimmer they are and type of person they are. Taper is not an exact science so it might not be the exact same each time.

Core Strength Propose a question to you. If you push a wet noodle through the water how far does it go? Now with the same force how far does a two by four go? In swimming our core (low back, abs, oblique's) make up our core. Swimming is in the water, stating the obvious, and because of this there is no ground or place where we can stabilize ourselves to be able to use our power. Our core becomes our stabilizer in the water. Thus it is the foundation of fast swimming.

Training our Cores There are a number of ways to get a strong core just watch an infomercial channel for long enough and you will have seen several new ways to do this. In swimming we are concerned with stabilizing our cores. Not getting six pack abs. Some great ways to train our cores are fit balls, balance boards, traditional sit ups, plank positions, and yoga.

Yoga One benefit is flexibility. Another is focus. Another is core strength. Right off the hop you can tell yoga is very valuable to a swimmer. However if taking lightly and not focused during yoga can become tedious, boring and virtually useless. But if you come in practice with the right mind frame, your yoga and swimming training will greatly improve.

Stretching Valuable parts of training. Flexibility allows us to move a greater range of movement. What does this mean, as we start to get close to the edge of our flexibility range our muscles ability to generate power greatly diminishes. Thus it means that if we are more flexibility we will be able to exhort greater power over longer distances. This is extremely important in swimming.

Stretching One of the other benefits of stretching is injury prevention. If the muscles are able to move more freely the chance of injury is greatly reduced.

Weights Senior Performance swimmers will be doing weights twice a week. With a trainer in the gym. I expect best behavior no fooling around, and great listening skills. Weights is great to gain muscle strength and power and also balance a swimmer’s body out as we spend a lot of time working certain muscles and ignoring others. Thus in this way we reduce the strain on the one part of our bodies and reduce the chance of injury.

Running/Aerobic Endurance Definitions Aerobic- causing the body to utilize oxygen in order to create energy Anaerobic- the body creates the energy without oxygen In swimming we train both but we are not limited in training the body in the water. Running, skipping are great aerobic training tools to keep our swimming muscles fresh while improving Weights, and med balls are tools for training or body anaerobically

Views of Training High quality swimming. Practice how you want to race and race like you practice. I believe in doing a lot of work outside of the pool ie. Running weights, dry land exercises, flexibility training. This means that you must take the work outside of the pool as seriously as you would the workouts in the pool.

Views of training I am in physics so I like to think of swimming as science. For example why do we streamline off walls. -Viscosity of the water and the drag we feel because of the viscosity is giving by f = -bv with b= to some constant and v being the speed. This means that the faster we go the larger drag we will feel. Within b is dependant generally on surface area.