So I'm signed up for my first Masters stroke clinic scheduled next month. I've swam with a coached Master's group for about 2 years now but was never previously on a swim team. (I learned to swim through a 197Os style Red Cross program.) I've competed in one very small swim meet and 8 open water events. In my two years with masters I've learned how to do flip turns, butterfly, streamlines, relearned *** the modern way, and improved my form with free and back. I've had four different coaches giving me sometimes contradictory advice on form. 2 of the coaches focus on form a decent amount the but the other two are conditioning oriented. I've signed up for the stroke clinic in hopes of getting more useful help on form since I'm not getting enough at my home pool.
So my question is what should I expect and is there anything I should do to prepare? I'm a little nervous about whether I am fit enough to last all morning. My typical workouts are 75 minutes rather than half day and 2200-2500 yards - occasionally up to 3000.
Any advice would be much appreciated
I just did a USMS stroke clinic in November. 4 hours sounds like a long day, but it's not a physically demanding course at all. If you can do a 75 minute, +/-2500y workout, you have more than enough stamina for the clinic. Other than the initial warmup, you will only be swimming 25's, with plenty of rest, and mostly with fins. The format goes more or less like this:
-Drill demonstration
-Swim a 25 doing the drill
-Plenty of rest while the on-deck instructors (1 per lane) dole out individual feedback
-Swim another 25 doing the drill
-More individual feedback
-If the primary instructor thinks the majority of the people understand the drill, he/she will move on to demonstrating the next drill in the progression. If not, he/she will have the group do another pair of 25's to cement the current drill.
The majority of the clinic will be focused on freestyle, although all 4 strokes will be addressed.
I would consider myself an advanced swimmer. I competed seriously as teen in the 80's, and came back to competitive swimming through USMS about 3 1/2 years ago. I saw great improvements in the first year, culminating in an 11th place AG finish in the 400M free at the 2015 Summer Nats. After that, though, my performance plateaued, and I went 2 years without any breakthroughs in my core events. I recognized that the only remaining opportunity to get faster was through technique improvements, as I'd hit the limit of time I could devote to conditioning. My Masters Team coach is a great leader, team builder, encourager, and is good at helping beginner swimmers improve. She's been unable, however, to give me the feedback I've needed to fine-tune my stroke. I was seeing minimal gains trying to self-diagnose and self-coach technique, so I signed up for the clinic.
I enjoyed a near immediate ~2 second/100y improvement in my long distance freestyle pace. The clinic only just touched on butterfly, but the "butterfly specialist" coach accommodated my request for some quick one-on-one feedback at the end of the clinic. My butterfly sprint speed hasn't really improved, but, using the feedback I received, and the drills presented, I have retooled my fly stroke to enable much greater endurance. I continue to use parts of the freestyle or butterfly drill progressions in my warm up ahead of any race-pace training sets.
I would HIGHLY recommend the clinic to just about anyone of any skill level above outright "beginner."
I just did a USMS stroke clinic in November. 4 hours sounds like a long day, but it's not a physically demanding course at all. If you can do a 75 minute, +/-2500y workout, you have more than enough stamina for the clinic. Other than the initial warmup, you will only be swimming 25's, with plenty of rest, and mostly with fins. The format goes more or less like this:
-Drill demonstration
-Swim a 25 doing the drill
-Plenty of rest while the on-deck instructors (1 per lane) dole out individual feedback
-Swim another 25 doing the drill
-More individual feedback
-If the primary instructor thinks the majority of the people understand the drill, he/she will move on to demonstrating the next drill in the progression. If not, he/she will have the group do another pair of 25's to cement the current drill.
The majority of the clinic will be focused on freestyle, although all 4 strokes will be addressed.
I would consider myself an advanced swimmer. I competed seriously as teen in the 80's, and came back to competitive swimming through USMS about 3 1/2 years ago. I saw great improvements in the first year, culminating in an 11th place AG finish in the 400M free at the 2015 Summer Nats. After that, though, my performance plateaued, and I went 2 years without any breakthroughs in my core events. I recognized that the only remaining opportunity to get faster was through technique improvements, as I'd hit the limit of time I could devote to conditioning. My Masters Team coach is a great leader, team builder, encourager, and is good at helping beginner swimmers improve. She's been unable, however, to give me the feedback I've needed to fine-tune my stroke. I was seeing minimal gains trying to self-diagnose and self-coach technique, so I signed up for the clinic.
I enjoyed a near immediate ~2 second/100y improvement in my long distance freestyle pace. The clinic only just touched on butterfly, but the "butterfly specialist" coach accommodated my request for some quick one-on-one feedback at the end of the clinic. My butterfly sprint speed hasn't really improved, but, using the feedback I received, and the drills presented, I have retooled my fly stroke to enable much greater endurance. I continue to use parts of the freestyle or butterfly drill progressions in my warm up ahead of any race-pace training sets.
I would HIGHLY recommend the clinic to just about anyone of any skill level above outright "beginner."
