5 Things I Forgot That I Knew

Sometimes I look at old workout books that I have and I remember things.  Things that I knew, but that I forgot that I knew.  Some years I was better than others with notes, but I still remember things that worked well and other things that didn’t.  After looking at some old workouts for a few minutes here are 5 things that I forgot that I knew.  I still do these things, but looking at old workouts makes me think that maybe I should do them more often because they work well!

1.) Simple Is Always Better.  (Unless you are playing a focus game)

Young swimmers like simple.  They can understand it.  Sure they may complain that it is “boring”, but that is where the coach has to jump in and make it interesting, engaging, and exciting.  If it is simple it is easier for the coach to manage the group and easier for the swimmers to understand what is being asked of them.  Everyone wins.  The challenging part as a coach is making a simple set exciting - but that work is worth it.

2.) Diving 25’s Are Awesome For 9-10 Year Olds.

This isn’t just because of the diving work, but for everything involved.  The climbing out of the pool and climbing up on the block and jumping off of it is dryland in a way.  Streamlining at high speed, racing breakouts, racing finishes, talking and laughing with their friends between repeats.  It is something different and a full body workout.

3.) Grade Swimmers.

This can be a simple 1,2,3,4,5 scale.  For 8&Unders you can talk about what stroke you are performing (Breaststroke).  Ask what would give them a score of a 5?  Ready position.  Streamline.  Pullout.  Stretch on the stroke.  Nose down on the stretch.  Two hand touch.  The swimmers go across the pool and you can grade them.  Do multiple repeats and keep grading swimmers.  Be tough, but fair.   If they only do some of the skills needed then they should get a 2 or a 3.  You should be able to coax them into focusing on doing a good job.  For older kids you can ask them to grade themselves on an entire set or practice, then you can also grade them.  Compare scores.  Maybe just asking them to grade themselves honestly without telling anyone what they think their score is will be enough?

4.) Sometimes There Is No Substitution For A Good Chat.

When you have a group of developing swimmers sometimes you need to chat about how to do a set.  How to perform the set properly, what skills are you looking for, what paces should they be trying to hold.  Part of being a great 9-12 year old swimmer is learning not only what descending, building, and negative splitting are, but sharpening their skills while doing those things.  Pulling kids out of the pool and having a 10 minute talk every other practice could be the best thing for them!

5.) Writing Times On A White Board Can Be A Great Motivator.

If you write swimmers repeat times on the board it makes them more “real” in a way.  If you make the swimmers remember their own times so you can write them -even better.  It will help them not only remember what their times are, but care about their times.  It doesn’t always have to be fast swims.  Maybe they pick a speed and try to do that?  Maybe they are aiming to go within 5 seconds of their best time?  Another thing you can do is write motivational times on the board.  Or paces for them.  What is a AAAA time?  AAA time?  BB time?  What is a Sectional time?  What is the Championship Meet time?  All of these are reminders that time is important and it reminds them that they should be setting and pursuing goals.

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Simple Ways To Challenge An Age Grouper

Every practice there should be a challenge.  A set that is challenging?  A certain swim that is challenging?  You can call it a "challenge" if you want or just sneak it in there and act like its just a normal thing.  Generally I just sneak these into practices and act like it is more of a way of life.  Sometimes its good for the group to think that they did a tough "challenge" at practice.  I would use your judgement on how to administer these challenges.  They can change the outlook of your athletes in a single moment.  Make sure they are prepared.  Make sure they are motivated.  Make sure it is appropriate for the athlete.  Get ready, it's challenge time!

Shakedowns
We occasionally will do a "shakedown" set.  An example for 100's Free would be: 1 on 1:30, 1 on 1:29, 1 on 1:28, 1 on 1:27 (and so on...as far as you wish to go).  I usually will figure out how far the top swimmers will go with the set then work backwards from there.  I try to make the first third of the repeats do-able for all swimmers in the group.  The next third should be pretty tough for most of the group, but still do-able.  Then the remaining repeats should be so challenging that very few swimmers make it that far.  When we do this type of thing the swimmers usually start getting excited and "into it" after the first third.  When swimmers miss a repeat I will usually send them to another lane where they repeat 50 Kick, 50 Swim until the remaining swimmers have finished.  Or - they get out and cheer.  This type of set spices things up from the norm.  Maybe once a month we do a set like this.  Generally I like to have most of the group do the same interval and complete the set.

Broken Swims
I almost never use broken swims with age groupers in this fashion:  Dive 50, rest 20 seconds, push a 100, rest 10 seconds, push a 50 get your time and subtract 30 seconds (the rest) and try to beat your 200 time.  I do use the broken swim idea in a set that contains something like 2x100s where we try to add them up to faster than their 200 time.  Or 4x50's on short rest adding up to better than their 200 time.  I think that planting a seed in an age groupers mind about what the possibilities are can be important.  These reminders about "best times" help do that.

Distance Swim/Kick
You can do a straight 500 swim/kick, 1000 swim/kick, 10, 20 or 30 minute swim.  Once in a while just to prove that they CAN do it.  This works great with younger or developing swimmers.  If you do this once in a while no one will be terrified of the 500 at a swim meet.  Even if you swim 4,000 yards a day a lot of younger swimmers are still scared of swimming the 500.  Sometimes you have to let them actually do it to prove that they can do it.  They need to be shown the way.  I like to time 200 kicks for 8&Unders and 500 kicks for 9-10's and 1,000 kicks for 11&Olders.  I track them and can keep team/group records.

Timed Swims
Dive a 50 faster than half of their 100 time.  Push a 50 faster than half their 100 time.  Do a set of 100's that are 50 Breast, 50 Free and try to beat their last 100 of their 200 IMs.  Hold their 500 pace for these certain 100's swim.  Make up challenge sets that involve the swimmers own competition time - so each swimmer can challenge themselves against themselves.  Set it up so that they can succeed.  These types of swims you can and should sneak into nearly EVERY practice.

Relating Kicking To Swimming Speed
Time a 75 Freestyle kick and try to beat your 100 Freestyle swim time.  Time a 100 Breaststroke Kick and try to be within 10 seconds of your 100 Breaststroke swim time.   Do a 50 Breaststroke Kick and try to be within 5 seconds of your 50 Breaststroke swim time.  Do a 200 IM kick and try to be within 20 seconds of your 200 IM swim time.  You can design sets like this and adjust them for the current level of the group.  Tell them if you get within 10 seconds you get a AAAA, within 15 you get a AAA, within 20 you get a AA and so on.  You can make them "do-able", but still make them challenging.

Get Out Swims
You can really use your imagination on this one.  Pick 8 swimmers who haven't gone under a certain time in a meet and let them know that if 3 swimmers do it, the group can get out early.  Or do a skill set or relays (my all time favorite I am going to trick you into thinking that you are doing only fun but you will actually work really hard set!) instead of some other set at the end of practice.  Have everyone dive a 100 of something and if half of the group can at least go within 2 seconds of their lifetime best then they win the bet.  Make the entire team swim a relay by themselves.  If there are 20 swimmers then each swimmer must swim a 50 Free.  If the relay goes faster than 10 minutes then they win the bet.  You can get the splits of each swimmer in the race and give the group updates as the relay goes on.  They will start cheering for each other and throw in some really fast swims.

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We Love To Kick

At T2 we LOVE kicking, especially on the age group end.  We work on becoming better kickers each day.  First on a kickboard, then underwater.

I would say that our Introduction Group (8&Unders) does at least 400 yards of each practice kicking in one hour.  Sometimes more.  For underwater kicking sets we like to throw some orange hockey pucks on the bottom of the pool and streamline kick to those.  We often use these hockey pucks as markers for different things and the kids love them.  We have a lot of lines that we can use as markers (see in the picture) but there is something different about using a hockey puck!  Some teams use cones, but the hockey pucks are smaller and easier to store.  They only cost about a $2 each and will last forever.  They work for us!

In our Age Group Development Groups (9-12) we do at least 600 yards of kicking each practice - but can do some sets that will be 1,500 yards of kicking.  We have three Age Group Development Groups - so the ages and ability levels range here.

In our Age Group Performance Group (11-13) we generally do at least 1,000 yards but these swimmers often do kicking sets that bring them up over 2,000 yards on a given day.  At least once a week we have a major kicking set that is 25-40 minutes long.  Sometimes we mix in a little swimming with the kick, but we really try to give the legs at least one longer extended set each week.

Kicking is important for speed, power, and fitness.  We like short kick repeats as well as longer kicking sets.  We like everything except lazy filler kicking.  We really try not to let swimmers fall into "slow kick" mode, especially while talking!  Keeping a good attitude and continuing to move the practice forward helps set the tone of the practice.  I will let everyone know about a kicking test set that we do occasionally with the age group swimmers in another blog post.  

We added in a 50 Freestyle kick at the end of an early season swim meet recently.  Touchpads and all.  Trying to find interesting ways to show that kicking is important and throwing something different and beneficial in at a swim meet.  It also gave our best kickers a chance to show their stuff.  Check it out:

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2013-2016 USA Swimming Motivational Time Standards

2013-2016 USA Swimming Motivational Time Standards

I had a few hours to kill so I typed in all of the new USA Time Standards and made a Hy-Tek file to download into Team Manager and Meet Manager.  Comment below if you would like me to send you the file - or email me at tom@t2aquatics.com - or direct message me on Twitter @t2aquatics.

USA Swimming now has single age time standards as well as the usual 10&U, 11-12, 13-14, 15-16, 17-18 version (just to confuse us even more!).  I did not type in the single age standards - just the usual age group standards.  I haven't given it too much thought as it was a surprise to see the single age standards at all but as of now I will not be using them.  Maybe I will change my tune though?   Sometimes I like swim meets that are single age competitions so maybe I will get into using the single age standards?  T2 even hosts an 11&Under Single Age Meet in March!

Personally I love the USA Time Standards.  I love using them to help motivate swimmers to climb up to the next step.  At T2 Aquatics we have even installed 8&Under Time Standards to help swimmers understand the system.  Feel free to take a look:  T2 8&Under Time Standards

An interesting comment thread over at SwimSwam.com about the standards if you want to check it out:  SwimSwam: Stepped Up Motivational Time Standards.

I enjoy the standards more than the power points.  Taking a look at powerpoints for age groupers is interesting but in my opinion it is much easier for a kid to understand "Get your 500 Free to a 5:37.29 and you get a AAA Time!".  It just sounds cooler than "Get your 500 Free to a 5:37.29 and you score 608 points!"  Age Group Coaches and Swimmers can also carry around little charts that easily tell them where they rank.

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Age Group 400 IM

The T2 Aquatics Age Group Team thinks most swimmers could have the 400 IM as one of their top events.  It is one of those events where having a good fitness and skill level in all strokes helps.  If you think about the 100 IM – power, quickness and underwater kicking is key.  The 200 IM is a great blend of speed/power that uses all of the strokes with underwater kicking again being key.  Many age group swimmers are simply not anywhere near their physical peak as far as power and speed goes and will have better success in the 400 IM than the shorter IM’s.  Of course the beginning/developing swimmer should be steered towards the 100/200 IM and these thoughts below are not for those swimmers.

Train For It Without Racing It - That's OK.

There are not many opportunities for the 400 IM in the 12&Under age group in Florida, which is disappointing.  At our Championship Meet 12&Under swimmers can not compete in the 200 Back, 200 Breast, 200 Fly, 400 IM (but for some reason can do the 1,000 Freestyle?) 

At T2 Aquatics this does not stop us as we continue to train for all kinds of different events as 11-12 swimmers – even if we can’t race them at the Championship Level.  200 Back, 200 Breast, 200 Fly, 400 IM (and of course we train for the 200/500 Free as well).  Using these events as a focus I have worked with 11-13 year old athletes that have been ranked Top 10 in the country in every event – 50 Free to the 1500 Free to the 400 IM.  I have seen the same swimmer be ranked in the Top 3 for the 50 Free and the 400 IM in the same season.  It is possible to swim a range of events well!  If we train more for the 200 Backstroke their 50 Backstroke will still be pretty darn good.  Who cares if your LSC says that you can not swim that event?

Train Individual Strokes.

We do very little IM in practice.  In fact, we never do it. (More on that later.)  We focus more on individual strokes without mixing things up.  When it is Breaststroke, we focus on Breaststroke.  When it is Backstroke, we focus on Backstroke.  We rarely do sets like this:

          15x50’s

               1 Fly/Back

               1 Back/Breast

               1 Breast/Free

                    5x

It is just so much mixing up.  As a coach, my brain goes crazy.  When I want to help a swimmer with a Fly/Back turn they are doing a Ba/Br turn on the next repeat.  As a swimmer how can you get into a rhythm with it always switching?  Of course we often need to “mix it up” at practice but as a general rule we train individual strokes separately. 

Repeat Distances.

For Backstroke and Breaststroke our training repeat distances are mostly 50, 75, 100 for 9-10 year old swimmers and 100, 150, 200 for 11-14 year old swimmers.  With Butterfly we train more repeats of 25’s. For more thoughts about 25’s of Fly check out this old blog post:  Training 25’s of Fly.  We may swim the same distances for Butterfly as the other strokes but we would generally mix in Freestyle more often(Ex. 200’s going 25 Free/25 Fly).  We will also mix Freestyle into other strokes like the Fly.

Skill Development for Fly, Back, Breast.

When doing skill development or speed work we will swim repeats of 25’s and maybe 50's.  The opportunity for instruction is greater since they are stopping more often.  I would think of a skill set of 16x25’s 4 Drill, 4 Swim as 80% skill, 20% rhythm.  I use these sets to explain what I am looking for when we do the “real” sets.  They are expected to do the same skills when the repeats get faster and longer.

Training Development for Fly, Back, Breast.

When “training” the stroke we do the distances I described above but they are probably more like 30% skill, 70% rhythm.  Accessing that racing stroke rhythm steadily over the set being the key.  

Mixing Freestyle In:  I like to link some Freestyle up with those repeats.  Example:  8x200’s 50 Free, 150 Back.    10x200 50 Free, 25 KKP BR, 50 Free, 75 BR.  I try to keep the distances of the “stroke” longer than 50 yards unless it is at the end of a repeat so that they can get into a proper repeat rhythm instead of just blasting off a short burst of speed.  I think that if you put the stroke focus at the beginning they can blast through it and basically throw up all over the pool, then swim crappy Freestyle afterwards.  Not what I generally look for!  If the stroke is at the end of the repeat they can swim more of a 200 style stroke instead of a 50 style stroke. 

Training IM’s In Practice.

As I said earlier, we just don’t swim IM’s.  We leave the Fly training separate and train “IM” but we replace the Fly with Freestyle.  This allows our developing swimmers the chance to train repeats of the Back, Breast, and Free segments a lot more realistically.  I certainly wouldn’t enjoy watching many of the swimmers in my training groups swim a set of 8x400 IM’s.  The Fly would fall apart and the rest of the strokes would suffer as well.  I would however absolutely love to watch them swim 8x400’s (100 Free, 100 Back, 100 Breast, 100 Free).  In fact, it may be my favorite set to watch!  After doing a set like that we may do a short warm down, then a short skill Fly set followed by a set of 25’s Fly.  I think that if we can get their skill level up in the Fly, every decent 11-12 swimmer can get up on the blocks and do a 100 Fly at the start of an IM without an issue.  Swimmers also generally love to meet the challenge of beating their best 200 or 400 IM time in a set like this.  They can really work it because they are not getting crushed with the Fly.  Swimmers who are still developing their skill and confidence level with Butterfly can also give an awesome effort in these types of sets without stressing out about the Butterfly.

Training too much real IM or even our Freestyle IM also has the "switching it up" issue that I addressed earlier.  Too much of it and I think training gets mixed up.  Our best training happens with the individual strokes.  As a coach I have a STRONG IM focus but we keep "IM Training" to once a week generally.

What About Intervals?

When a swimmer/group is first starting training longer repeats of stroke I generally have swimmers get anywhere between :30 between 100 repeats and :60 between 200 repeats.  This leaves time for instruction and motivation - two key things for developing swimmers.  When a swimmer/group has practiced training sets like these properly for several months the intervals could come down.  Eventually setting it up so that they get somewhere around :15 between 100 repeats and :20-:30 between 200 repeats?  

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