Since over 70% of our overall speed is generated from our upper body, it makes sense why our dryland program needs to address and build all of these muscles. First thing we need to do is make a list of all of the upper body muscles we use in swimming. Back muscles Lat Muscles Shoulders…
Scheduling has to be the hardest thing to do. The key to anything that seems difficult is to break it down into pieces so the task is not as daunting. I revamp our team’s dryland program every 6 months (at the end of each season) with each of my groups to keep things interesting for…
Every 4-6 months in my team, our coaches are tasked with the goal of revamping our programs by 15-20%. Our goal is to remove the least effective 20% of each part of our program (in-water and dryland) and phase in 20% new methods to ensure our programs do not get stale or boring. This forces…
How do you maximize the use of EZ/Pace Swimming? I want to explore how we, as coaches, can use an active recovery swim as a way to advance the swimmers technique or race strategy. This type of swim is typically used as an ‘active recovery’ to slow down the heart rate and working out the…
Dives can make or break the race. The dive gives you the initial speed to your race. OFF OF THE DIVE IS THE FASTEST YOU WILL BE IN THAT RACE! To have a good dive, you need to have the right start position, the correct muscle chain engagement, the right height, the right angle and…
Unlike the regular dive, the BK start is more difficult to generate the power and speed. While the BK Start seems easy, it is very complex to do in a way that benefits the race. Take Your Mark Let’s start with the set up for the start first. If you do not start in the…
Parachutes have been one of the most used pieces of equipment for resistance training. The current problem with chutes in the swim industry is there are only 2-3 sizes. There are multiple layers to why that is incorrect and just wrong, but for this blog i want to talk about what ONE swim has done…
Championships are coming up. It is time to talk about Pre-Race Warm-ups. Warming up before the race is crucial to the body and mind. There is a lot of information out there about the body and the mind before the race… some swimmers stare off into the distance, some act out their race behind the…
So, i got this promo for an electrolyte add-in drink today, and I realized that i didn’t actually know what the purpose of it was even though i have always heard of people replacing electrolytes and stuff with athletes. SO, i did some research for you guys in case you also did not know.. The…
How to train for ALL events in short practices Answer these questions based on your program: How do you train your swimmers for the 400 IM? 200 FR? What about the 1650 FR? If you train your swimmers to swim the event by practicing that whole event, ask yourself why and how much time…
Why use more than one set of paddles? Currently, what kind of paddles do you use in practice? Why? What are the benefits? If you do use paddles, they are probably a flat paddle of some sort. There is a time and place for these as well as others. Can you think…
Breaststroke Kick is one of the hardest things to teach and the easiest thing for the swimmers to get wrong. After YEARS of teaching new swimmers how to BR kick, we figured there had to be an easier and quicker way to teach this while minimizing the problems like scissor kicking. Here is what we…
