Instructing Questions/Coaching

Stone, With the internet available you'll be able to get many opinions and potential answers to most questions you have. In the meantime I'd like to offer a few suggestions. • Meet with your swimmers as soon as possible and work with them to set their goals for the season. It’s tough to know if you’re doing a good job or not unless the swimmers can give you an idea what they want. It’s important to know where they ended last year and what they’d like to accomplish during a season with you. From this meeting you’ll be able to assess the abilities of your swimmers and put them into appropriate training groups (i.e. Sprinters, Middle Distance, Distance, BR/FLY/BK). At this first meeting you’ll also be able to set the rules and your expectations for your athletes. • You’ll need to meet with your assistants (if any) and hash-out responsibilities. If you and your assistants aren’t on the same page, your team could be split into two camps (not good for anyone). A great assistant is worth a million bucks. So if you can find good help, try to surround yourself with them (paid or volunteers). • Look at the number of times you’ll be meeting during the season and from that schedule you should write-down a training plan. If you look on line there are many training season templates you can modify and call your own. I don’t like to develop training plans that can't objectively evaluate improvement, so nearly all of my training sets are timed and have specific goals or objectives. I’d like to elaborate. I like to document every aspect of their training and I reward improvement every day (Jellybeans to sincere praise – whatever works for you and your team). A> When we use drills, I will harp on them to go as slow as they need to so they can accomplish what the drill was designed to do. If it’s improving their EVF, I want them to tell me (when I stop them) that they understand and then I’ll watch them for a 25 and tell them on a scale of 1-10 what I think. It’s not a sin when a swimmer can’t show you a skill, it just means they need to try different ways to get what you’re looking for. B> I want them to improve their pain tolerance, their endurance, their speed, and their efficiency so they know that each set I have them do was designed with a purpose in mind. Pain tolerance sets will give them a lot of rest (e.g. 6 x 200 @ 6 to 8 min) but their best and average time is expected to drop when we repeat the set as the season goes on. Sprint set are done from a push-off and they are either a 25, 50 or 100 done after they’re totally rested (a ritual rest set before these time trials help objectivity). I time sprint kicks and pulls for every stroke. We use DPS set where swimmers count their stroke and time themselves to see if they’re getting more efficient. We do God awful long sets with decreasing intervals as the season progresses to determine if we’re improving our endurance. We also do pace sets to improve our repeat efficiency (e.g. 20 x 25 on an interval that is repeatable and as the season progresses the intervals and times drop accordingly. I write down the set (s) we’re working on for that day and our training plan is set (not in stone). A season training plan sounds complicated but it’s really only as complicated as you want it to be or need it to be. It’s basically a road map to get you where you want to be ( i.e. time trial, dual meet, championship meet, etc.,) Your training plan will cater to the ability group (s) your coaching and will reflect those differences (i.e. more technical work, more intensity, less intensity, etc.,). You’ll want the swimmers to improve their athleticism and dry-land / weight training is designed to do that. It is important that you develop a safe and comprehensive dry-land program. Time constraints may force you to spend less time than you’d like on dry-lands but you’ll need to do something that improves your swimmers’ strength / core. Learn to write a workout that you and the swimmers understand. Most coaches post their workout and after a couple days a Standard Operating Procedure / training continuity is forming. I know this is a lot of information and it’s only my two-cents. As a coach I wish you and your swimmers all the luck and success in the world. Coach T.

Stone, With the internet available you'll be able to get many opinions and potential answers to most questions you have. In the meantime I'd like to offer a few suggestions. • Meet with your swimmers as soon as possible and work with them to set their goals for the season. It’s tough to know if you’re doing a good job or not unless the swimmers can give you an idea what they want. It’s important to know where they ended last year and what they’d like to accomplish during a season with you. From this meeting you’ll be able to assess the abilities of your swimmers and put them into appropriate training groups (i.e. Sprinters, Middle Distance, Distance, BR/FLY/BK). At this first meeting you’ll also be able to set the rules and your expectations for your athletes. • You’ll need to meet with your assistants (if any) and hash-out responsibilities. If you and your assistants aren’t on the same page, your team could be split into two camps (not good for anyone). A great assistant is worth a million bucks. So if you can find good help, try to surround yourself with them (paid or volunteers). • Look at the number of times you’ll be meeting during the season and from that schedule you should write-down a training plan. If you look on line there are many training season templates you can modify and call your own. I don’t like to develop training plans that can't objectively evaluate improvement, so nearly all of my training sets are timed and have specific goals or objectives. I’d like to elaborate. I like to document every aspect of their training and I reward improvement every day (Jellybeans to sincere praise – whatever works for you and your team). A> When we use drills, I will harp on them to go as slow as they need to so they can accomplish what the drill was designed to do. If it’s improving their EVF, I want them to tell me (when I stop them) that they understand and then I’ll watch them for a 25 and tell them on a scale of 1-10 what I think. It’s not a sin when a swimmer can’t show you a skill, it just means they need to try different ways to get what you’re looking for. B> I want them to improve their pain tolerance, their endurance, their speed, and their efficiency so they know that each set I have them do was designed with a purpose in mind. Pain tolerance sets will give them a lot of rest (e.g. 6 x 200 @ 6 to 8 min) but their best and average time is expected to drop when we repeat the set as the season goes on. Sprint set are done from a push-off and they are either a 25, 50 or 100 done after they’re totally rested (a ritual rest set before these time trials help objectivity). I time sprint kicks and pulls for every stroke. We use DPS set where swimmers count their stroke and time themselves to see if they’re getting more efficient. We do God awful long sets with decreasing intervals as the season progresses to determine if we’re improving our endurance. We also do pace sets to improve our repeat efficiency (e.g. 20 x 25 on an interval that is repeatable and as the season progresses the intervals and times drop accordingly. I write down the set (s) we’re working on for that day and our training plan is set (not in stone). A season training plan sounds complicated but it’s really only as complicated as you want it to be or need it to be. It’s basically a road map to get you where you want to be ( i.e. time trial, dual meet, championship meet, etc.,) Your training plan will cater to the ability group (s) your coaching and will reflect those differences (i.e. more technical work, more intensity, less intensity, etc.,). You’ll want the swimmers to improve their athleticism and dry-land / weight training is designed to do that. It is important that you develop a safe and comprehensive dry-land program. Time constraints may force you to spend less time than you’d like on dry-lands but you’ll need to do something that improves your swimmers’ strength / core. Learn to write a workout that you and the swimmers understand. Most coaches post their workout and after a couple days a Standard Operating Procedure / training continuity is forming. I know this is a lot of information and it’s only my two-cents. As a coach I wish you and your swimmers all the luck and success in the world. Coach T.