I know that to some of the swimmers think I harp on about things like good habits, good technique, thinking about what you are doing, and I have to admit it; it is true. The goal in competitive swimming is to race. My job as a coach is to build a swimmer who can race. Swimmers who race well and achieve good PBs do not do this by practising poor technique at training. Sloppy turns, poor stream lines, and stroke work cost you valuable time which ultimately leads to disappointment, which in large can be avoided.
It has been IM week. This has shown us that some individual strokes work well for some swimmers, but when putting all the stokes together, it gets a bit tricky. Remembering which turns go with what, and how many kicks for that push-off or remembering those good habits we have been working on. NOT EASY I know. One swimmer in junior greens got it pretty good; remembering his turns and doing them well: Henry Wang. On a 100 IM he was the only one in his squad who did every turn correctly. Congratulations Henry great job.
Senior Greens are also doing well. One of the characters in that group is Astrid. She has had a big change in attitude when she swims. Listening and thinking about what old Coach Peter is telling everyone is part of it, but for Astrid it has come from her and the need to do better that is turning her swimming on. Keep it up Astrid.
Next week it is free style, our main work stroke. We all need lots of work on this!
See you at the pool - Coach Peter
Junior Blue has been training very hard during this week, on monday and tuesday they had a bit more mileage than usually, with some short sprints at the end of every session. The second part of the week was more intensive, because some of them had to race on Saturday and Sunday. I tried to challenge them, so they had a short test set, where the main goal was to swim faster than their PB time. I also tried to work on their starts, proper entry and glide. Next week we are going to do a bit more drills, sprints and another test set. Swimmers of the week are Ria and Marni, congratulation girls. Over this weekend Marni has been racing at santa claus swim meet and she clocked a really good personal best times. The results you can see on meet mobile.
Senior Blue squad trained pretty well, but personally I feel like we still have to work on their training attitude and general rules of the competitive swimming, to achieve a better results in and out of the pool. I tried to cover between 3500-4000m/per session, but sometimes we had to stop due to the rainy weather. Some mornings they had a very tough sets with me and coach Aaron, so overall they did a great job. Next week we will have a club night, where they can race and enjoy the good food. Swimmers of the week are Olivia and Teddy. This weekend Teddy has improved a lot and also had 4PBs out of 4 individual events. Hard work pays off! Well done guys and Go Phoenix.
coach Alex.Senior Gold
After two weeks of solid competition, some of the team have seen the need to train a little more often, and even a little harder, even though they have swum their best. This improvement in attitude will pay off later in the season where racing will be tough and the back end of races need . As I've said more times that I can remember, "swimmers your age normally swim 8-10 times per week, so, if you want to swim that fast, you need to train more".
We have had four good land sessions, one particularly tough one on Wednesday with Tony, where the swimmers were pushed to breaking point.
With only a couple of weeks left before yet another holiday break, we will do some intensive training with full one hour weights sessions in the afternoon. Nutrition and sleep are very important! I'm hoping to see some leadership on Tuesday from the Senior Gold swimmers with our younger kids at Club Night.
The swimmer that I have been impressed with this week is Kathryn Chan - she has had two weeks with lots of PBs and has been a quiet achiever, doing her best in every session.
Though we are identifying individuals each week, this doesn't mean that we are not noticing others who continue to work hard.
