I read a lot of threads on great sets. My contention is that a set is great when it can be used consistently throughout a season to document objective improvements. Coaches and swimmers should have specific sets to measure, speed, pain tolerance, pace, breakout and streamlining efficiency (Hillmen chart), etc.
The attached article is presented to help swimmers and coaches better understand the importance of baseline training. It's long but maybe it'll help someone. Coach T.
Baseline Training – The Ultimate Motivator
My definition of baseline training is data that is compiled by the swimming coach to be used as a reference with which to compare future observations or results in practices and competitions (lifetime best times). It is difficult for me to think coaches and swimmers can train without objectively evaluating the success or failure of that training. My contention is; if your practice times go down in the various training aspects of a stroke, your competition times will follow suit.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have your swimmers enter the season giving you some objective data that shows you what they’ve accomplished when they weren’t training with you? Objective training data is at the core of what Baseline Training is all about and if you do it, you’ll want to refine it and if you don’t do it, this article is written to convince you that you should make it a religious practice.
If you don’t force your swimmers to document their times in practice, you’re probably stunting their potential. I know it’s hard to imagine how any coach can train swimmers and not require them to document their training times, but it happens. It shouldn’t matter if they’re eight years old or eighty, swimmers who aren’t trained to record their kick, pull, swims, breakout times, etc., for any given distance and/or set, are wasting the most valuable training asset in swimming: the clock.
What do you think when you ask swimmers how their training went during the off-season and they tell you that they never worked harder in their lives but come back swimming slower than when they left. Or, what about a swimmer who comes back after training for a couple of months and shows little technical stroke improvement. Don’t you scratch your head and think, “What the heck were you working on when you were training?” Of course, swimmers train to get faster but doesn’t it make sense that some kind of concrete data should be accumulated that shows them whether their training was successful?
It’s a mistake novice coaches make way too often; and, that’s to associate successful practices with how much yardage and/or the pain you can get your swimmers to tolerate. It’s important for every coach to realize that making a workout difficult is a relatively simple task. In fact, almost any coach can make practices so hard that it makes their swimmers vomit. Some coaches pride themselves in making their swimmers enter levels of pain that separate the “strong from the weak.” And, it’s not inherently bad to dole out practices that are designed to increase a swimmer’s pain tolerance, when it can be objectively measured. When a swimmer says, “I threw-up during practice because it was so hard” but has data that shows their training times were slower, I say their vomit was all in vain. It’s almost impossible to evaluate the success of a training objective, goal or target unless you have something to compare it to. Swimming for swimming’s sake is an admirable goal for a recreational swimmer but most competitors want more.
As a coach, how would you like to show swimmers that the reason they aren’t accomplishing their goals is because they haven’t met training objectives? As a coach, how would you like to evaluate training sets, drills and dry-lands you make your swimmers perform and by the data determine if these things are worth doing, tweaking or scrapping altogether? Baseline training will help you build a season plan that greatly increases every swimmer’s opportunities for success. Use it correctly and it will help you move your program and your swimmers to the next level.
Rewarding a personal- best, training-effort, is a sure-fire way to motivate swimmers. You could buy a jumbo bag of jellybeans and give one bean, at the end of practice, for every training PR (save the green ones for very special accomplishments). If you’re not into extrinsic rewards, hearty and honest praise can work just as well or better. The important thing is to make time drops in practice an important event to be shared by everyone on the team. Training “PRs” are at the heart of successful Baseline Training.
It’s worth repeating, Baseline Training is used to measure the success of your swimmers and is the ultimate motivator when used correctly BT allows both coach and swimmer to objectively measure and evaluate what they do so they can keep progressing.
You now know that Baseline Training is data driven. At the beginning of the season the data you collect on every aspect of swimming (from each swimmer) will become the foundation of goals and objectives for the season. The data you collect will become the benchmarks that are responsible for future improvement in your swimmers and in the way they train.
A list of your swimmers’ names in an “Excel” type format is a simple way to document training times. Every swimmer should know what their best times are for almost everything they do in practice, and they (the swimmer) should be the ones documenting all those PR swims and PR sets. When swimmers must get out of the pool and document their own times, it can be looked at as a waste of valuable time but the “ownership” they can get from writing down those accomplishments can be priceless.
Before you do anything, you and your swimmers will begin by developing some specific goals/times for the season. Times can be garnered from preset standards (i.e., Olympic or National qualifying times, school records, varsity letter times, etc.). Goals will be tweaked as the season progresses and although they must be realistic, they’d better be goals that will make both you and the swimmer rejoice when accomplished. Tell your swimmers what motivational speaker Les Brown tells his audiences, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.”
Your collection and analysis of both quantitative and qualitative swimming data is critical for analyzing, setting, resetting, experimenting and even scrapping the ways your swimmers train. All the data you collect at the beginning of the season will identify the strengths and weaknesses of each swimmer. Once you identify those strengths and weaknesses, you and your swimmers will know what to work on and what types of training produce positive results. Baseline training is practicing everyday with measureable goals and objectives for nearly everything that is done (including dry-land exercises). Yelling takes on a new and exciting perspective when you know that you’re yelling because “Jimmy’s kick sets” aren’t being done effectively enough because his timed 100 free kick hasn’t improved in two weeks. Jimmy sees it, you see it, and the team sees it, “Start walking the walk, Jimmy, because, clearly you aren’t working hard enough in or out of the water.” Wow! Jimmy says, “Coach I don’t know what to do, I’m trying as hard as I can.” Now, you get to be a real coach and sit down with Jimmy to evaluate potential things he can do in and out of the water to get him to improve. If this doesn’t sound like a great environment, then create one that does, because the sky’s the limit for baseline training.
Collecting data is time-consuming and if it’s not done properly it can be looked at as a waste of time. You can help prevent this “waste- of- time” attitude by preparing the swimmers well before the season starts as to the importance of developing a comprehensive baseline of swimming data.
You’ll want to collect information that swimmers can use to measure progress - “target data” in every important aspect related to swimming success. This target data can include but is not limited to:
• Breakout times – Streamlining / Starts and turns (every stroke) Use the Hillmen Chart
• Timed turns (From backtstroke flags on start then stop the watch when head crosses flags
• DPS / Tempo (Everyone should know 25 yard stroke count for each stroke)
• Heart rate / Recovery speed (How high can you get it per test set and after 1 minute rest how low does it return. If you get in better shape the HR should recover quicker.
• Kicking – Speed and DPS (25’s) Specific speed (100/200) – Know your times
• Pulling (isolated) Speed and DPS (25’s) Specific speed (100/200) – Know your times
• Specific Swim sets that measure endurance/aerobic capacity, pain tolerance / lactate tolerance, efficiency, pace, technical proficiency (video). When you pick training categories, you can use categories taken from the USA Swimming Training Categories and Training Design Guidelines booklet. You’ll have your favorite sets and as long as you have a reason to do them, you can add them to your specific swim data.
• There is a lot of target data showing Olympic swimmers and the times they had doing various sets as they were growing-up. This information can be used to compare your swimmers’ progress to National caliber swimmers.
After your baseline data is collected, you help your swimmers set targets that coincide with their goals. If, for instance, a swimmer wants to break 22 seconds in the 50 yard freestyle, he’ll want to see his 25yds push-off time under 10 seconds. Swimmers will begin comparing themselves by practice times and it often supports how work ethic calculates into speed.
Baseline training will forever change your practices. You and your swimmers will be constantly looking at the clock. You and your swimmers will search for drills that are effective. Swimmers will discover boundaries set by their pain tolerance, dedication, aptitude and attitude. Coaches will also discover their strengths and shortcomings.
You’ll want to post the collection of your data so it can be analyzed and tracked. You should develop a routine so that certain sets/skills can be performed on a scheduled basis. Although it’s important to have a regular routine of reporting and analyzing data, you’ll need to maintain some flexibility in case there’s a need to refocus on different or more important skills; then you can do it without creating too much anxiety for your swimmers (you know “but you told us”).
Baseline training is a lot easier if you have competent assistants, so if you don’t have any, try your hardest to get some good ones. They can help you collect data, collate data, and even help you present it in a more visually effective manner (nice looking charts).
Be prepared to address the problems that are bound to surface. When swimmers talk the talk but aren’t walking the walk, a rearrangement of goals may be in order. It’s not easy for some swimmers to realize that athleticism and genetics provide barriers to success. Whatever stumbling blocks appear to face your swimmers, they need to know they might find ways around them, but at a price.
Be sure you use measuring methods that are relevant and practical. When determining breakouts for instance, I use the Hillmen Chart (given below). I took a rope and put a piece of colored tape to mark off each foot (one at zero and then starting at ten feet and every foot thereafter. I’ve found it very accurate but if you come up with a different and accurate method, use it. You want to use accurate measurement tools (distances) that can be easily duplicated by other coaches and swimmers.
Your charts or data sheets will serve many purposes. Of course they will be the first thing swimmers look at before they start their set but swimmers should also copy that data into their training journals. It the swimmer is old enough to read a clock, they’re old enough to have a journal. I’ve always enjoyed asking a seven year old what their time was for a particular set and they give me some convoluted time. When I examine with them why they didn’t just swim a three minute and fifty-five second 500 yard swim, they know that they’re responsible for getting the correct time.
I will be starting a summer training camp with swimmers from a myriad of different teams but each one of them will leave with data that should be shared with their other coaches. I can imagine two coaches; one who’s looking at the data, nodding his head and when the day is done, throws the information sheets in the circular file; the other one looks at the data, nodding his head, actually files the information sheets and finds a way to use the data to turn-out a faster swimmer.
Swimmers are empowered by baseline training to such a degree that they begin to coach themselves and that is the most wonderful thing about this kind of training. When swimmers begin to celebrate improvements and begin to ask you thoughtful and technical questions, you’ll see that baseline training is the only way to go.
Your dry-land exercises must be data driven also. All your exercises will have a baseline with the goal to increase the stress required for positive training responses. Any exercise that improves athleticism is worth doing but specificity of training should be your ethos (EVF training, core training, streamline training (lunges), supine kicks, etc.). Swimmers need to know that their body adapts to stress and simply maintaining strength isn’t good enough.
Coaches who have always documented training times probably can’t imagine how and why coaches choose not to do it. If your team isn’t documenting training times, across the board, from the 8 & unders to your master’s swimmers, start doing it today and you’ll see positive changes - guaranteed!
A set that is fondly remembered by swimmers as that really “tough set” may be a fond memory but unless it contributed objectively to a positive and measureable step forward, it was simply a tough set. Any coach can make a set tough, but to make a set that accomplishes an objective toward a measureable goal, that helps the swimmer know that they’re improving, is becomes priceless. Swimmers and coaches, keep your eyes on the clock, it’s more important that you can ever imagine. Good luck, Coach T.
