This is my last journal post about my experience with Swim Neptune as I have eclipsed the 200 hour point. Throughout this experience, I learned how to really hone my skills and use them in an everyday training environment. Joe has helped me grow as a coach and showed me many new ways of how to educate my swimmers. As I spent time with him, I was able see why so many look up to him in the Phoenix swimming community. The biggest takeaways from the experience came from learning how and when to adjust my workouts based on the need of be swimmers. A plan is only as good as it's outcome and if we are not working on things that make us better in a proper manner, then we will not achieve our goals. Thinking back to when I first started working here I was nervous since I had moved across the country, started a new life, and face-to-face communication skills are something I still lacked. The other useful keys came from learning how to talk and demonstrate skills to swimmers of all ages which improved my communication skills and allowed me to change or adapt my workouts to work for those of all skills or ages. I can't thank Joe enough for all of his guidance and allowing me to be a part of his program. I hope my impact here will continue over the next couple months as I transition into a higher role amongst the team. Swim Neptune really is a great program and it has been a pleasure to work with everyone!
0 Comments
Today we spent most of the time working through details as we prepared for the meet this weekend. Most of the swimmers had been through a lot of hard work the last couple weeks and were hoping to put together some good swims. We really fine-tuned certain things and I think they are very prepared for the weekend. This weekend is an important meet for me as well as I will be he only coach available for feedback during races for both Moon Valley and DC Ranch swimmers as Joe and Ron will be working the computers. It will be important that I get splits for all the races and prepare the athletes for their events. When it comes to that, I am not too worried, but if we have many swimmers in each race it will be pretty hard to see it all. I have been working on a few of my skills as a coach since working here. I was spoiled back in Ohio where I had assistants who would get all the splits for me while I just watched the races. Now, unless multiple coaches can make the meets it gets rough and with other coaches covering their branches, it gets hectic. During practice I was also approached by parent who is very impressed with the direction of our branch and is excited to see how everyone performs. That was a little bit of inspiration that really motivated me for the weekend and I cannot wait to see how it goes.
Today was the last day to make decisions on who would swim what relays. Joe and I went over that early in the day so they could make the entry deadline. I only had a few swimmers entering for this meet which made this process a little harder than usual and left us without a couple relays. This meet was at Phoenix Country Day School one of the nicer pools we get to swim in. It also happens to be a pool and club Olympian Michael Phelps often volunteers his time to. The meet will be a great chance to hit some state cuts and we needed to make sure we are ready. Practice was filled with new surprises as we had another family try out that were considering leaving a club that recently hired a new coach that failed to meet their expectations. They had an older swimmer who was pretty fast, but lacking the necessary form to get better. He seemed like one of the better swimmers (based on pure talent) that I had met in awhile and I was excited to see how he would react to my workouts. The kids seemed to enjoy the workout and the mother liked how the practice seemed structured. I hope to see them again soon and if things go well I think they would make great additions to the program. Growing the team is a major goal that I think I have helped accomplish over my short time here and I hope to continue that. Another Tuesday meant another kick days for the swimmers and another long set focused on improving kicking. We would go back to the pace chart as well for the main set. Throughout he practice we hit key points and I provided as much feedback as possible before we met for goals. I wanted to get goal times to prepare future workouts for other pacing sets. Quite a few swimmers did not have many goals in mind, but we worked together to come up with times that we felt possible. This would go to help me out tremendously as I would have goal times for them to hit during practice that would be just a few seconds off what they needed to swim in their races or in some cases the times that they would need to come back in to hit goal times. According to Joe getting goals set early then checking on them is important and I could not agree more.
Warm-Up - 600 200 Back :20r 200 Free :20r 200 50Fr/50Bk :20r Pull Set - 5005 x 50 free on :40/:45/:50 5 x 50 Stroke on :45/:50/:55 Kick Set - none Pre-set - 200 4 rounds 4 x 12.5 drill Main Set - 1,800 3 Rounds 200 Kick at 90% :10r 100 Easy Kick :10r 200 Kick at 100% :10r 100 Easy Kick :30r Post Set - 400 4 x 100 IM RED Pace :15r Cool Down - 400 200 Free 200 Elementary Back T= 3,900 Today marks the last Monday of my Mentorship and while I will be staying on as a coach this has been a great experience. My swimmers are very happy that I will be staying and not leaving once my 200 hours are up. With that being said today was a typical Monday in which we swam a relatively difficult set which focused on our pacing. I had a pace chart up and read which made practice run smoothly. Any visual aid really helps in getting swimmers to understand the workout. I think it is important to give the swimmers something they can also keep track of on their own to allow for a sense of independence and control during their workouts. They seemed to really thrive during this workout. I have listed the workout below.
Warm-Up - 600 200 50FR / 50 BK on :25r 4 x 100 RIM on :20r Pull Set - 800 4 x 100 BP 3/5/7/9 on 1:30/1:40 4 x 100 50FR / 50ST on 1:30/1:40 Kick Set - 800 8 x 75 - 25 Under/25 Streamline/25 Monster Kick 4 x 50 Side Kicking *2 each side Pre-set - None Main Set - 1800 3 Rounds. “Heart Rate Pacing” 4 x 50 Pace Free *See Pace Chart PINK FR on :35/:40/:45 100 Easy *Start on next top or bottom BK on :40/:45/:50 4 x 50 Pace Stroke *See Pace Chart RED BF on :40/:45/:50 100 Easy *Start on next top or bottom BR on :40/:45/50 Post Set - 400 4 x 100 IM Descending by 100 on :20r Cool Down - 400 4 x 100 50FR / 50 BK :20r T= 4,800 Pink = HR 21-23 Red = HR 24-26 (In Beats per 10 seconds) I was finally able to return to my usual routine back at the Moon Valley branch working with the developmental group and helping Joe take inventory on meet awards. The holiday relay meet was coming up in two weeks followed by the dual meet championships. This was starting the big swing for all competition with meets every weekend starting the 30th of this month. There would be a two week break for Christmas and New Years then back to meets every weekend leading all the way into March. Moon Valley will host at least two meets a month for the next three months and we had to make sure that we were prepared if we wanted teams to come in the future as well. After completion of that work we got into practice working on breathing patterns, specifically. We had noticed many swimmers doing butterfly would breathe very spontaneously and hold their breath far too long. If a swimmer does this during a race it can result in very different splits and influxes in times. This also goes for breathing on freestyle and taking too long to breathe when this needs to be done quick to not ruin momentum. Drills with kick boards and timing were done in order to help with these issues. Most of the kids are visual learners so I would show the drill to the best of my ability on deck then have a swimmer who got it down demonstrate. This is a very useful tactic in teaching anything where a form is needing to be taught. I ended up having to return to Chandler today for running Coach Poppa’s practice yet again. Today I was essentially given a recovery practice since the day before was so intense for that group. We worked a lot on swimming the same as we do fast in our slower more controlled swim. It is important to always swim the same way and not change things up based on speed or other factors. Body control is essential to swimming properly and this comes from strong core work. Most of the practice was spent working on underwater swimming as well as flip turns which are often cut short when not swimming fast. Joe set me up with some drills to run which took about 30 minutes of the practice and feedback was provided. Practices vary significantly from branch to branch because Joe wants quality coaches at Swim Neptune and that means allowing coaches to coach in the style they want too. It is hard to keep quality coaches if they are forced to stick to a plan where they cannot implement their own ideas. That was a major reason I decided to take the Mentorship here instead of my original location as the freedom to actually Coach was available. The Chandler group swims for a former Olympic trial qualifier from Poland who has been swimming most of her life. The swimmers there really respect her accomplishments, but were also respectful for my background when it is not nearly as decorated. The selling of this swimming program just gets easier everyday.
I was contacted by the coach of the Chandler group of swimmers and had to head down there to help cover the competitive group and left Coach Rebecca to do our group alone. Chandler is about an hour drive from my usual working location and I was lucky enough to get paid extra for my travels down. I was sent a workout to run for them from Joe and it was a workout that I remembered doing when I was a freshman in college which was a huge shock. This was a crazy fun experience to run on the other side of the practice. Each swimmer would run one mile around the pool then they would have to hop in the pool and swim a 1000 years freestyle swim. They had to repeat this three times through and we’re competing for time. Each of the swimmers really had to push themselves as this was a great conditioning workout which covered their dryland work all in one. During this period there is not much coaching other than encouraging the swimmers to push as they were going for completion not working any stroke specifics. During this time I was sent information on upcoming meets and was asked to go over potential lineups for relays. I put together some mock relays and sent them over while practice was going on. At completion of the practice everyone was pretty tired and they seemed to handle it about like I remember it being for the Tiffin University swim team.
With the numbers still struggling today I decided to run one of my favorite sets that really works the best events as well a few others. Working the second and third stroke for the IM swimmers is important as we get closer to big meet season. All of these swimmers need to work multiple events so that they can utilize the sport as whole and they can contribute to their team in other races as well as relays. My sets are designed to get the most work done we can in the time we have while still paying attention to detail. Myself and other coaching staff make sure to provide feedback where we need it and push our athletes everyday which is a major reason I love working with Neptune as we all strive for the best.
Warm- Up (500) 200 50fr/50bk :10r 4x50 choice drill :45 100 IM :15r Pull Set (400) 4x 100 build pull 1:20/1:30 Kick set (500) 2 [2x 100 kick 1:45 50 monster kick :45] Pre set (400) 100 free :15r 100 IM :15r 100 Back :15r 100 IM :15r Main set (1800) 4 [4x 50 Free ( 2 @ 80%, 1 @ 85%, 1 @ 90%) :40 100 free 90 % :10r] 2 [4x 50 (#2 stroke 2 @ 80%, 1 @ 85%, 1 @ 90%) :45 100 stroke 90% :10r] 1 [4x 50 ( #3 stroke 2 @ 80%, 1 @ 85%, 1 @ 90%) 100 #3 stroke 90% :10r] Warm down (400) 200 free 200 choice T= 4000 Working this week has been a rough one as the weather has not been super cooperative. Even though we are in Arizona, the weather this week has been cold and wet. All pools are outside here and I would expect most swimmers to be used to the weather getting cooler, but after getting to practice to swim my self, I realized it does feel way colder in that heated pool that I originally thought. Numbers tend to decrease in these months allowing for more work to be done with those who show up everyday which is great for them, but those who don’t make it to practice do suffer. I had about half the normal swimmers the last two days so we cut down on the pure kick work in order to work more on the important key factors while still maintaining the goal yardage. Some time was spent going over relay starts as here was a lack of confidence in relay changeovers. These are always fun for the swimmers and important to learn because we want to be fast and safe off the block to get those strong places.
Warm-Up - 500 4 x 75 - 50FR/25BK :15r 2 x 100 RIM :15r Pull Set - 600 3 x 200 Ladder Breathing :20r Kick Set - 500 2x 50 Choice Kick 100 Build Kick 100 Sprint Kick :20r Pre-set - 400 8 x 25 12.5 under water/12.5 hard finish 8 x 25 12.5 with fast breakout/12.5 No breath into finish Main Set - 2,000 2 Rounds 2X200 @2.30/2.40/3.00 FREE 4X100 @1.20/1.30/1.40/1.50 50 STROKE/50 FREE 4X50 @1.00 STROKE Post Set - none Cool Down - 400 400 Choice T= 4,400 |
AuthorCoach Campbell has over 5 years of coaching experience over three different governing bodies of swimming. Archives
November 2019
Categories |